ah, the gradiose power of the internets. the anti-american idol website, www.votefortheworst.com has been around for a few years, but only this season is really taking off. their philosphy is that:

During the initial auditions, the producers of Idol only let certain people through. Many good people are turned away and many bad singers are kept around to see Simon, Paula, and Randy so that America will be entertained.

Now why do the producers do this? It’s simple: American Idol is not about singing at all, it’s about making good reality TV and enjoying the cheesy, guilty pleasure of watching bad singing.

they’re currently promoting sanjaya malakar, since he’s by far the worst on the show this season. last night, he didn’t even make the bottom 3, so their power is finally being realized. anyway, i’d love to see sanjaya win the competition, if nothing more for the look on simon’s face.

on friday, taka and i met up with our disneyland pass-holder buddies for some evening disneyland action. unfortunately, taka got sick, so after only 1 ride we had to bounce. now that the weather is getting warmer though, and there’s less block-out days, i’m sure we’ll be hitting up the park more often.

i spent almost all of saturday working in the garage on the integra and the boat.

the integra is now completely rice-free. i rewired the turn signals so they don’t flash at seizure speed, i replaced the clear corners with the stock reflectors, swapped the phallic e-brake with the factory one, and mounted tires on matching wheels. (me and my neighbor actually mounted the tires by hand… those huge hydraulic machines at the tire shops make it look too easy.)

i installed two more pole holders in the bow of the boat to match the ones we had previously installed in the gunwales. they’re all almost completely flush so it’s an undercover fishing boat now. it’s insane how much stainless steel hardware costs though… it was like $2 for a bolt/nut/washer. i also polished out a few rust stains, and waxed portions of it. next saturday, i’m going to install an amp that i pulled out of the integra since it’s hard to hear anything over the engine when it’s wide open. anyway, we should be ready for some good fishing next sunday.

saturday night me, ben and taka had dinner at lonestar and saw ‘music and lyrics’. it was a late showing, i had a lot to drink at dinner, and i was just exhausted from spending the entire day in the garage so i was dosing. ironically taka was bright-eyed and bushytailed through the entire thing and loved it, so it must have been a good movie, or maybe her comprehension is just getting better, or likely both.

on sunday me, costin and al did a 25 mile bike ride from my place to hb and back. al kept us honest with his sprints and it was a really strong ride. i rode better than i thought i would, but not as fast as al… and this is how it starts. after a lunch with the guys, taka and i did some shopping then hit the gym. i’ve found a new favorite power ab workout: standing cable crunch. i used to do kneeling cable crunches, but i could never get any leverage at the higher weights. the standing cable crunch (you need to have a back support, and keep your lowerback/upper ass against it) lets me focus all the power on the abs, and none on balancing. this morning my lower abs feel like shit, but the good kind.

sunday night, me and taka had a nice fancy dinner with mike and lisa at cafe piccolo in long beach. again by this point of the day i was pretty exhausted, and the 2 bottles of wine didn’t help that, but the convo was great and lisa’s a sweetheart, so it was a good time… and get this, she has a phd in chemistry and works for a company designing epoxies for what? … carbon fiber! my favorite composite material.

ben’s had a harmony remote for a while, and eric got one with his huge 50″ plasma that he just picked up, and both of them have been raving about it. i was skeptical if it would work as well they claimed, but it turns out that it’s the perfect solution for my entertainment setup. for instance if i want to watch a dvd, i have to switch my tv to input 4, my tuner to the dvd input, and i have to turn on and control the dvd player. the harmony remote lets me press “watch dvd” and everything switches in harmony. it also seemlessly switches between my pvr, computer, vcr and video games.

the remote has a usb port and a huge online-database of devices, so setting up complex macros is simple, and as new devices come to market, the remote information is added to their database, so it’s a remote that won’t be outdated for a while.

i opened a can of diet coke on my desk, and a drop shot across the entire desk to a calendar on the wall and landed exactly on the number 29 of this month. as the liquid seeped into the paper, the colors of the number began to ominously run and dissipate outwards like a flower.

… there’s no way this isn’t a sign. you might want to stay home next thursday.

so in the spirit of being responsible, and fueled by the bolder/longer fishing trips eric and i have been taking on the boat, we signed up for boatus towing insurance. these are the same clowns that charged us $300 for fuel the one time we ran out. (the insurance covers $500/incident) it not only covers towing the boat in the ocean, but also rivers and lakes in CA/AZ/NV, and also covers the boat trailer and the tow vehicle.

gym is finally back on track. there were a couple of shaky moments in the last month, but consistency is king and i’m now wearing the crown. this week in particular was strong, but painful, because of scheduling we did shoulders on monday, then back on weds and chest on thurs… today i’m jelly. mike and i have also been changing up our exercises a bit, because we had got into a mode where we were doing the exact same 3 exercises per body group and in the exact same order.

different exercises hit slightly different muscles, and the order is important, because the first exercise or two use most of the energy you have. for example right now i really want to define my inner/upper chest, so incline cable flys and incline bench come before flat bench exercises. by the time we get to flat bench, i’m only doing 145lbs, whereas if i had started with it, i would’ve been doing sets of 195.

i’ve also been getting in at least a couple abs/cardio days with either my wife after work or during my lunch every week. after the rosarito ride at the end of april, i’ll start to aggressively work off some of the fat hiding my abs, and hopefully be ready for summer which is just right around the corner now.

i just realized wtf is ftw backwards!

ben’s joke is sounding more and more like the truth. the entire phone support staff of india must be calling in and voting for him.

for my car, i’ve always had farmer’s insurance, because that’s what my mom had, and since it was also connected with her home’s insurance, and technically under her, it was cheap enough. i knew that since i moved out of my mom’s place that i was supposed to update it, but was worried that being by myself would cost a fortune and i didn’t want to go through the hassle of finding a new insurance company.

well since i got married, i realized i needed to stop being so sketchy and get things figured out. my insurance guy is super friendly, knows me by name, mails me birthday cards, yadayada, and i imagined that that kinda service was gonna cost me, but figured i’d try dealing with him first. i gave him all my info on the changes, and over the next couple of days he called asking me the most random questions for discounts he was trying to get me. one of the biggest hurdles was the fact that taka has no driving experience in california, and on esurance.com, just having the legal minimum for her on the integra was going to be like $1k a year, so i was preparing for the worst.

today he called me to scold me for not being done with college already (apparently he could’ve saved me another $100 a year if i had), to tell me that me on the ‘03 accord with full coverage would be $1020/yr, taka with liability and uninsured motorist insurance on the integra would be $360 a year, and that with combining the discounts, i would actually save $4 a year to have $10k of renters insurance on my apartment which i had been meaning to buy. anyway, so in the end, that’s less than $1400/yr for insurance on both cars and $10k coverage on my apartment. thumbs up to farmers insurance, and my agent greg <3!