Entries from August 2003 ↓

The Washington Post today printed a story all about the phrase “This one time at band camp…” Really funny, check it out.

Part of a conversation with a friend from college, about my wisdom teeth surgery tomorrow:

David (10:31:19 PM): Wisdom teeth pulled?
David (10:31:59 PM): Put onions on your cheeks. It maks the swelling go down quicker.
Ryan (10:32:26 PM): That’s one I’ve never heard. are you sure it doesn’t just make you look like an idiot for having onions on your cheeks?
David (10:32:50 PM): My mom put onions on my cheeks, and my swelling was good. I don’t know. I’m just here to look pretty.

I saw Ben Folds and Tori Amos last night at the Merriweather Post Pavilion. Pretty good concert overall, better than the two previous times I had seen Tori. (So if I didn’t like those, why’d I decide to go see her again?!) The audience was approximately half lesbian and half gay men… go figure. (Well, plus a coworker of mine. Sam was probably the only straight guy there who wasn’t dragged along by a girlfriend!)

The Merriweather Post Pavilion is an outdoor amphitheater, and I got underneath the amphitheater 5 seconds before it started pouring. It was some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen, or at least the heaviest rain I’ve been outdoors in. I was dry because I got there just in time… but when I found my seat, I learned that my seat was not under the main roof of the amphitheater, but was rather way way off to the side, underneath a tarp! When the rain got real heavy, the tarp started leaking a few rows in front of me, and then it started sagging due to the pressure of the water on top of it. It made me very concerned that the thing was gonna collapse! There was a lot of lightning too right nearby, not very fun. Fortunately everything was OK and when Ben Folds came out, he opened with “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”. Not really my favorite song, but it was impressive that he was able to spontaneously perform it, and do so flawlessly.

Tori was good, not really a ton I feel like saying about that concert. She played most of the new album plus a decent amount of songs from the older ones. She also did a new song about last week’s blackout, and Aerosmith and Kiss having to cancel their Detroit concert because of it, and all the lucky fans that didn’t have to see Gene Simmons’ tongue!! In fact, I think she might have said that she and Kiss were staying in the same hotel that night, but it was kinda difficult to follow, as she sorta mumbles the lyrics in her songs. It was really bizarre, but quite funny.

A very bizarre IM conversation with my friend Paul:

Paul (11:15:59 PM): ok, I can put a copyright symbol into my document, but is there a circle within a circle symbol anywhere?
Ryan (11:18:20 PM): you could create something in Illustrator/Photoshop/CorelDRAW/MS Paint.
Paul (11:18:30 PM): too complicated
Ryan (11:18:43 PM): check Wingdings.
Paul (11:20:48 PM): ok, the Wingdings people are assholes
Ryan (11:21:04 PM): what do you mean?!?!
Paul (11:21:24 PM): they have a circle with a dot in the middle, then they have a circle with a smaller circle inside like what I want, except that they have a dot in the fucking middle!!!
Paul (11:21:50 PM): and they have a diamond with a smaller diamond inside
Paul (11:22:54 PM): i think i’ll just use the Circle with a big fucking Dot in the middle

Went to the beach this weekend, it was lots of fun. Here are some photos.

I’ve got a few more house photos, plus party photos, available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryangwu82/. I’m going to try and keep this updated, now that I have a digital camera, so I’ll place a link to it from the home page here too.

Well, I went to the Meetup for Howard Dean this evening. If you didn’t go, don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. It was basically just a short pep rally, after which they asked us each to write letters to two New Hampshire residents. I’m really busy this week, so I got names to take home… I’ll do it this weekend

I kinda expected more than this, but at the same time I understand why it was organized this way. They had 60,000+ people at thousands of these events across the country… so it would have to be pretty generic. There were about 100-150 at the event I was at, which was conveniently right around the corner from my office. Pretty impressive that they pulled this many people though, 15 months before the election!

I’ve taken some photos of my newly-painted house. Take a look. More photos will be uploaded in a few days, once I finish cleaning up

The Dean for America campaign has made some incredible progress in the last two months. They led the Democratic candidates in Q2 fundraising. They’ve had a very significant number of contributors and volunteers at their Meetup events. All indicators show they’ve made a real impact on the Democratic primary race. Now they’re looking for another 200,000 Americans to sign up as a Howard Dean supporter. It’s not a big committment, just a willingness to show your support for Dean and receive email from his campaign. So please take a look and add your name to the growing list of Dean supporters!