Pocky Central

Sleep is one of the few things that human beings cannot live without (with a few exceptions).

Most doctors recommend at least six hours of sleep, preferably eight. I would guess that most people follow this guideline fairly closely.

I get, on average, about six hours of sleep a night during the week. I wake up sleepy and sluggish, but a hot shower and I’m usually okay.

But on the weekends, sleep gets its revenge, and I often end up sleeping ten to twelve hours, unless I have an alarm set for something important.

I hate the fact that I need sleep. I hate that I lose six to eight hours a day that I could use to work, learn, read, or something.

And I hate that when I’m actually in bed, and comfortable, that I don’t want to get up because it feels so good. It makes me feel like a hippocrite.

If I was given the chance to magically change my physiology so that I didn’t need to either sleep, eat, or breathe, I would choose sleep. I rather like eating (as my previous post shows), and breathing has never really been a bother.

But sleep. If I could ditch that, I would. Not that I would never sleep again - I would. Just not as much, and only when I had good reason to.

Besides, I usually don’t feel rested when I wake up from ‘a good night’s sleep’. Just annoyed.

Another post-dated post. I think I’ll do two posts in a row, just to make sure I don’t forget again.

I love to eat. This is not hard to figure out if you’ve ever met me in person - I’m hardly a skinny guy. But it isn’t (just) that I eat tons and tons of food all the time; it’s that I enjoy the flavors and textures of various dishes.

I’d like to think of myself as a gourmand.

Granted, I’m not a food snob. I will and do eat (and enjoy) fast food, just like everyone else. But when I can, I like to enjoy an expensive, high class meal. Admittedly, this doesn’t happen too often.

I like getting dressed up then heading to a nice restaurant in Baltimore or Washington, D.C. to enjoy a fine meal. While I’ll skip the pre- and post- meal wines and liqueurs, I will take my time and enjoy each course to its fullest.

Wait, I hear some of you say. “Don’t you usually eat your meal in 0.4 seconds, Richard?”

Yes, normally I do. Well, it’s more like 0.3 seconds, but who’s counting? But ‘normal’ meals are just to give me the things I need to maintain my ‘alive and breathing’ status.

When I go out to eat like this, this is the sole reason for going out. To spend a couple of hours enjoying a fine meal, chitchatting with the waiter/waitress, and thinking about food. If I’m actually with someone, I’ll chat with them, of course.

I haven’t done this in a long time. I should probably look into what new restaurants have moved into the area.

One of the things I’ve always hated about traveling has been flying. The long lines at security (even before 9/11 it was pretty bad), the cramped conditions in coach, the time spent trapped in a big metal box.

Don’t get me wrong - I like the idea of traveling. I like going places to see new things and ti spend time with friends, old and new.

But I hate flying.

Thankfully, I have the ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat when I’m on a plane. Even if I’m woken up, I can usually drift back to sleep pretty quickly.

If it weren’t for that, I think I might go crazy when I fly.

Some people say, ‘It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.’

I know what they mean, but when it comes to flying, I’d rather just skip to the destination.

This post is post-dated because:

a) my memory is about as good as… what was I talking about?

b) I wrote most of it last night, then forgot to post it

c) I did mean to finish writing last night, and for some reason, thought I had already posted

d) there is no answer d

e) All of the above

And now, onto the actual post… which is ironically about my bad memory.

–

I have a bad memory. It’s not completely faulty, but I do tend to forget things if I don’t constantly remind myself, or have some other way of keeping track of them. This is the main reason I have a PDA - to keep track of appointments, birthdays, etc.

It’s not just my short term memory, either. I sometimes forget things that I’ve known for a long time, just to remember them at the last second or when it’s too late. This, admittedly, really annoys me. But I’ve gotten used to it, and with the help of my PDA and my friends and family, it’s not crippling or anything.

Onto the more interesting bit of story (which has nothing to do with Saitama, unfortunately):

Once in a great while, I will get in my car, for the express purpose of driving for the fun of it. It’s been a few months since I last did so, but the last time is kind of why I haven’t in a while.

It’s a bright, sunny September afternoon. I’m done with work, and instead of going straight home, I decided to go driving for a bit. No destination, just a purpose - enjoy being in my car.

After an hour or so, I was in Greenbelt, Maryland. Greenbelt is where my old high school is, and where I spent a lot of time hanging out with friends during and after my four years at Eleanor Roosevelt.

The thing is, I don’t remember heading that way from Laurel. If anything, I was heading kind of north-ish when I started my drive. I stopped to get gas when I realized, “Holy crap, I’m in Greenbelt.”

My fun little trip was a complete blank in my mind. Which is annoying, because it was a great day to drive… from what I remember.

My father is one of my heroes.

He moved to the United States over thirty years ago, by himself, to start a new life. Not just for himself, but for his family back in South Korea, too.

He met my mother here in Maryland. That’s all I know. My father is a fairly private man. Thirty years, and I still don’t know much about him.

I know that he likes golf a lot. I know that he cares about his family more than anything else in the world, and that he would willingly destroy anything and everything that might threaten it. I know that he rather enjoys Korean television drama, and historical movies in general (like Tora Tora Tora).

I recently found out that he indeed was in the South Korean army. Up until last year, whenever I asked about it, he would deny it. It took one of my uncles mentioning that he was in the army for him to finally admit it.

Until a few years ago, my father really didn’t smile much. You can ask anyone who has known me for a while that has also met my father. He didn’t really start until I graduated college.

That day, he was smiling constantly. It was actually a little unnerving at first. Then my friend Jason took a picture of me, my mom, and my father together. For that one instant, he wasn’t smiling. We don’t know how he managed it. He just did.

My father has a quiet strength about him. He doesn’t brag, except in joking. He has a definite confidence to him that everyone who meets him can feel.

He is my hero, and I hope to be more like him some day.

–

As a humorous exercise, try replacing ‘Chuck Norris’ with ‘Richard’s dad’ and see how it sounds.

Last night, after the CES was done for the night, my old friend Megazone and I decided to get together for dinner and to catch up with each other. I idly suggested that we go to see the Penn & Teller show after dinner, and Zoner agreed.

After a mildly hectic dinner (the CES pretty much wrecks local travel at 5pm), we managed to get to the P & N theater. We sat and waited for the show to start, listening to the jazzy tunes being played by the Mike Jones Duo.

9 PM rolled around, and the show started. I was excited, because I’m a huge fan of P & T.

Penn starts the show by talking about trust. As an example, he chooses… me.

I get dragged up on stage, and Penn talks about my vision and perceptions. At one point, he takes my glasses, puts them in his front coat pocket, and continues his dialogue. He hands me a 3-ball from a standard billiards set, and asks me to confirm that it’s real. I do, and then he pulls out a cheap-ass ‘magic wand’, which he admits is a wooden dowel that’s been fixed up.

After a quick trick involving a disappearing wand (he slipped it behind his ear, which I didn’t notice because I was looking closely at the ball and couldn’t see anything else, really), he thanks me and says I can go back to my seat. I ask for my glasses back, and he goes to pull them out of his pocket. But they’re gone. I check, and they are indeed gone.

At this point, Penn gets a hammer from backstage and begins to break open a cement box that Teller has been wearing the whole time. After the box has been smashed, the audience can see (I can’t, since I’m blind without my glasses) that Teller is wearing a faceshield… and my glasses underneath them.

I went back to my seat, glasses on my face and a lens wipe (which you can see me holding in the video) that Penn gave me in hand. I was giddy for the rest of the night.
I am very glad that Zoner and I went to go see Penn & Teller.

The proof: two pics and a small (32mb) video available here.

It has been a while since I was last in Vegas. It’s kind of nice to see that other than growing in size and scope, it’s still the same Las Vegas I ‘ve always known.

Ah, Las Vegas, how I missed you.

Note: unless you really like walking or waiting, don’t vacation in Vegas during a big convention. And try to make your reservations well ahead of time, no matter the case.

I’m headed to Las Vegas for work, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to make regular posts until I get back. I will try to update from my phone, but I have no idea how well that would work.

So apologies to my four readers out there.

Many of the people that know me know that I love video games of all kinds. Puzzle games, role-playing games, adventure games, whatever.

These same people know that I don’t currently play first-person shooters (from here on referred to as FPS), because they give me massive headaches.

This started around the time the original Quake came out. I’m not entirely sure if it was the game that caused the initial reaction, or if it was something about me that caused it, but the first time I tried to play Quake, I had a massive, near-migraine headache within a few minutes.

I took some heacache medicine, and after lying down for an hour, I tried playing it again. Same reaction.

Not knowing exactly what was causing me the pain, I thought that I might have better luck with a different game. A while later, another FPS came out with a similar control scheme. I bought it, installed it, and tried to play it.

Once again, I was down with a headache within minutes.

So I pretty much came to the conclusion that I would never be able to play and FPS games again.

Then Halo came out.

I loved the look, the story, and the style of the game. Thinking, “Hey, it’s been a few years. Maybe I can play it,” I bought a copy for my XBox and gave it a try.

Two minutes later, I was on the couch, medicine in hand.

At this point, it looks like I will not be able to play a good chunk of the newer games coming out, and an even larger chunk of the games that are already out (Half Life 2, FarCry, etc.). I’ve actually found that some third person games, like Gears of War, give me a problem, too.

I hope that the current trend of ‘FPS games and nothing but’ eventually ebbs, so I can look forward to some games that I will actually be able to play. (In particular, I’m hoping for more good turn based strategy and role-playing games)

When I moved back to the U.S. from Japan in 2002, I had absolutely no job prospects. None. I looked, but there wasn’t really anyone hiring, at least, not that I could find.

So on a lark, I applied to the F.B.I. Yes, that F.B.I. (I also applied to the C.I.A., but that went absolutely nowhere)

I was hoping they might want someone to translate Japanese documents or something. I really wasnt’ expecting to hear back, though. The Yakuza really aren’t a huge problem in the U.S. these days (at least, not that I know of), so I figured my applying to the F.B.I. was just a shot in the dark.

To my surprise, I got a response from them later in 2003. To be a special agent. (I must have clicked on that, too, when I did my online application)

So, I got my invitation to take the first of several tests to see if I was good enough to get to the second stage of application. Letters in hand, I went to this center (somewhere in Maryland - I honestly don’t remember where), where many other people waited, all in suits, to take the written exam.

The test started, and the hours flew by. The questions ranged from ‘what would you do in this situation’ to practical knowledge questions to questions about my personality and such. After the test ended, I went home, figuring that I wouldn’t get a call back.

But I did. I got a letter stating that I was chosen for the second stage of application - physical fitness. (Those of you who know me know that while I am not a super-fat guy, I am hardly Captain America… hell, I’m not even Corporal U.S. Guy) They wanted me to lose around fifty (50) pounds in a month or so, if I remember right. And to be able to do a 15 minute mile. (I can do, at this point, a 20-22 minute run… maybe)

In addition, my mother, who I get a lot of my worrying from, flat out told me that she didn’t want me to be a ‘cop’. I told her that I would likely not need to use my gun (I wasn’t sure, honestly; I have no idea how often an F.B.I. agent has to pull their firearm out), but she was adamant. And that, coupled with the sudden need for weight loss (fifty pounds in a month and some is not healthy) led me to decide to not go through with it.

But sometimes I wonder, what would have happened if I had gone through with it, and managed to pass the test. Where would I live? What would I be doing, exactly? How would the last few years have gone?

F.B.I. Agent Richard Kim. Kind of has a nice ring to it, I guess.