cindy's world

TurboTiger had recently acquired the new Nintendo Wii video game console after standing hours in line in the cold, cold night. In his recent post, he gave the console pretty rave reviews altho noting that the graphics aren’t much superior to the competition.

The unique thing about the Wii is that instead of pushing buttons and directional joysticks and triggers on a control pad, you actually hold a handle-looking controller and make large swinging motions to get your video game character to take the same action. I was actually getting impressed reading TurboTiger’s gaming experience, until I got to the part of the post where he says his arm’s actually sore from all the gaming action. And then a new thought dawned on me.

Do you find anything ironic in the fact that the success of today’s games is to make an action so advanced that you’re simulating actually DOING the activity in real life (like using “Guitar Hero” guitars and “Donkey Konga” bongos as controllers), and people are shelving out big bucks for this imitation, when THEY CAN DO THE ACTUAL ACTIVITY FOR FREE?! Somewhere, the video game industry is laughing at us. Probably in Japan.

P.S. This reminds me of when GigaPets backfired on me. I was in high school and these little keychain simulated “pets” were all the rage. Remember Tomaguchi or something like that? Anyway, you have these little digital creatures on a tiny console that have living-creature needs. For example, my cat would get hungry, so then you push the button to feed it. Then it’d eat and poop. When you see piles of poop, you gotta push the button to clean it or the cat will get sick from being around its own pixelated feces too long. You also have to train it by throwing a ball of yarn around so it can get some exercise, otherwise its spirits go down and it gets sad and sick. I’d wanted a housecat all my life, but when I lived with my parents, my mom’s allergies made cat ownership impossible. So I got the GigaCat. This cat would wake me up at 3 or 4 in the morning with its little electronic cries because it was hungry or there was too much poop gathering on the screen, or sometimes it’s just lonely and cats are nocturnal and it wants to play. Don’t tell me it didn’t know what time it was, cuz that keychain sucker had a freaking CLOCK function. If I don’t wake up and take care of business, the cat gets really sad and ill in the morning, laying there all skeletal and weak, unresponsive to the yarn and sometimes even to the food. It freaking broke my heart. So I did the good pet owner thing. I fed it, cleaned it, kept it happy, until I couldn’t stand it anymore and, after deciding my mom was right about how much it’d suck to own pets, I let my digital cat die. I think I may have cried. Now that I have Dodo, REAL CATS ARE SO MUCH FREAKING EASIER TO LIVE WITH THAN STUPID DIGITAL CATS! I was sure then, too, that the inventors of these digital pets were papercutting themselves to death rolling around naked in our hard-earned cash laughing at us.

I’m still bustling at work typing out the trial minute order, but I thought I’d stop by and post a little something to say hello. Since I didn’t post all day. (You guys should be flattered I feel a stronger obligation to you than to legal or occupational responsibility.)

We’ve been busy in a civil trial last week. The plaintiff is an 18 year old who’s suing for damages acquired as a passenger in an auto accident. The driver, whom he’s suing, was a friend of his. It was a late-hour accident when the two had been out partying all night.

The photo of the car was pretty scary. The plaintiff really did sustain quite a bunch of injuries, which are verifiable on the medical bills and doctors’ testimony in evidence. The plaintiff wanted $80,000; the defendant’s last offer was $50,000. Today, we got the jury verdict. The jury awarded some monies for past and future economic damages, past and future physical pain and suffering. Their total? $65,000. They did not know about past offers and settlement negotiations, but their figure hit it right in the middle of the difference. I think that’s evidence that our justice system (sometimes) works so well, it hits the nail right on the head. My judge believes that the judge who’d tried to settle the case before we got it for trial must have tried to get the parties to meet in the middle with $65,000, but apparently one or both parties had refused. Now, the jury verdict is forcing an exact middle-of-the-line compromise.

Both sides are of course disappointed, but one judge in our building always says to parties who have just reached settlement in his courtroom, “I know that both of you are a little bit unhappy, but that is the sign of a good compromise, when both sides walk away just a bit disappointed.”

Is it too predictable for me to post something about how AWESOME the UCLA-USC game was on Saturday, and how by winning our cross-town arch rival ‘SC, we not only kicked them out of the #2 spot and trampled on their chances of being champions in the BCUs, but we also cut short their 7-year winning streak against us (right before their 7-year streak was our 8-year winning streak against them, and they were hoping to tie our record with this game)? Yes? Well, then, I won’t talk about it.

Go Bruins!

Okay, I’ll stop now.

Oh, one more thing. My childhood friend Vicky, who attended USC for pharmacy school, said in the final moments of the game as she sat on the phone with me, after I told her about UCLA’s interception when USC was on the 13-yard line, “AUGH! Matt Leinart may as well just stand there and have all the Bruins line up and slap him across the face!” HAHAHA!!

Okay, NOW I’m done. Right after you click here.

I bet you guys didn’t know that Jordan and I are so close that we do tons of stuff together. See this photographic proof. Rest mouse pointer over photos for captions! (You HAVE to do this, at least on this post.) Jordan’s been working hard at the gym to get into shape, and it really shows! Don’t quote me on this, but I *think* she may be taking steroids to get into such good shape so quickly. See if you can spot the photos in which she may have accidentally overdosed on her steroid treatment.

Cindy, hula dancer woman, and Jordan at a banquet in Oahu, November 2006:

Jordan, Cindy, Flat Coke & Flies, and Bat in Vegas this past weekend:

Jordan, Diana and Cindy in a San Jose night club, June 2006:

Jordan with Cindy’s coworkers and friends at Oktoberfest in October, 2005. This is actually 4 months before I officially meet her on the cruise.

Jordan, after I convinced her to stop her steroid treatment, decided to work on her tan instead on our flight out to Hawaii:

Jordan with my jujitsu dojo in Oahu at a clinic in October, 2006:

Jordan hanging out with me in my living room:

To Jordan — The good Lord sayeth: “Ask, and ye shall receive.” (I’d cite the Bible reference, but I haven’t finished reading the Bible, yet.)
Oh, and special thanks to James.

(Jordan started it! See here and here.)

…I’m still alive. I did not accidentally cryogenically freeze into next century, because last nite, I pulled out the big guns. The heavy artillery. Uh-huh. I changed out the sateen sheet set and replaced it with a dense flannel sheet set, I removed the current pretty comforter and put on The Chinese Comforter. I’m talking the thick cotton comforter that is packed solid with enough cotton to scare the Old South, and feels as heavy on you as one of those lead blankets the dentist drapes over you to trap you into his chair when he hides in another room to take x-rays of your teeth. The raw cotton in these blankets are usually sewn into Chinese duvet covers that have one color on the bottom, and a large square of flower print fabric on top. The cotton pad inside is so dense that it can’t be washed in water; they used to be hung outdoors on clotheslines and beaten with a big stick. In fact, this may still be the method today. Despite the fact that the news said last nite was even colder than the night before, I was warm, and slept clear through till morning.

The bad news is, my bed is completely fob-ized now. I have the purple and gray floral bedskirt and sham pillows from the last bed set, but the flannel sheets and regular pillows are a dark hunter green, and the Chinese comforter has a pink base with pink and yellow and green flowers on the top, my hugging pillow is navy blue, and my space-age body-conforming foam pillow is cream. At least I don’t have mismatched floral print face towels covering each pillow.