OK, Saturday we went and did another Rallye. Different from the previous one, but still enjoyable. We didn't prepare as much as last time and I think made some assumptions that cost us. So here are the mistakes we made:

1: I saw the 36 Cadenza, but thought it would come into effect when we saw a 36 CM, even though I read that Cadenzas come into effect when received. So we missed 10 points here.

2: I forgot that unless explicitly stated, RIs don't come into effect automatically. So we followed RI1 when we shouldn't have. Missed 30 points from 2 CMs.

3: We didn't read the instructions carefully enough where it said that you are not allowed to do 2 RIs at the same intersection. So even though we mistakenly did RI1 at Main and Reed, we should have not done RI5 at Main and Reed. So missed a partial 10 points here. (The correct route is to not see this CM).

4: Again, we did RI6 at Main and Fremont but didn't realize we couldn't do RI5 again at the same intersection later on. Missed 20 points.

5: We got confused. Coming back towards the checkpoint, we encountered Fremont and Madison. Then we got distracted by the fact that we couldn't turn right at Madison, and totally forgot about following the third part of the Cadenza. Missed 10 points.

6: The instructions said that when you find a CM, you should delete all uncompleted SUPPs. Well, we didn't delete the uncompleted SUPP, so it was still there for later. So we missed 30 points here.

7: Again, we did RI11 at Lafayette and Benton, but shouldn't have done RI5 at the same intersection. Missed 10 points.

8: Even after callying the RallyeMaster, and having her tell us that coming up the T at Lexington and Main was a forced turn, we forgot that after making a U, coming up the T of Main and Lexington was also a forced turn. Grrr.. Missed 10 points.

9: The GIs said that SUPPs have numbered parts. But SUPP 16 only had one part, so it's not a valid SUPP. Missed 10 points.

Our final score was 860, worse than we did last time, but still good for 1st place in the Beginner division. Hopefully we won't make so many oversights next time around. Fun!

Another boring update on TV shows so far, since I've been doing a little better at catching up this past week.

Vanished: Too insulting to watch. One if the agents is Ming-Na, from ER!
Celebrity Duets: Ewww, reality.
Happy Hour: Nothing to hook my attention. I don't want to watch this obnoxious party guy (who happens to be Lex Medlin, from Friends (the one Joey "pees" on at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' something-something party)).
Justice: Great beginning, but then no novelty. The head guy is Victor Garber, from Alias! The nice guy is Kerr Smith, from Charmed (Kyle, the detective)!
Men In Trees: Yeah, a woman trying to figure out men. I'm not in that place right now. The bartender is Abraham Benrubi, from ER (Jerry the receptionist)!
Til Death: Married couples. Sorry, I'm not there yet. The old guy is Brad Garrett, from Everybody Loves Raymond! The young guy is Eddie Kaye Thomas, from American Pie!
Shark: Like Justice, another House wannabe. A tad more interesting, due to the relationship with his daughter. But still not good enough. The head guy is James Woods! The boss is Jeri Ryan, from Star Trek: Voyager!
Help Me Help You: A bunch of dysfunctional psychiatric patients and their problems. The angry guy is Jere Burns, from Good Morning, Miami and Las Vegas (the guy who bets everything he owns)! The psychiatrist is Ted Danson, from Cheers!
Ugly Betty: Based on a telenova. Sorry, can't relate. The mean lady is Vanessa Williams!
The Game: A spinoff of Girlfriends. Wheee.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: This is going to be big just because of the hype. Oh well, I'll keep watching for now...The head writer is Matthew Perry, from Friends! The president is Amanda Peet, from The Whole Nine Yards! The fat guy is Nate Torrence, from How I Met Your Mother, Ghost Whisperer, and Las Vegas!
Runaway: Still waiting to see how the situation with the kids turns out in the second episode. The mom is Leslie Hope, from 24! The daughter is Sarah Ramos, from American Dreams (Patty)!
Kidnapped: Waiting to see how the situation turns out. The FBI lead guy is Delroy Lindo!
Six Degrees: Giving it another chance to draw me in. I don't know anybody in this show!
Brothers & Sisters: OK, the family's in financial trouble. Now what? The young kid is Dave Annable, from Reunion (Aaron)! The main girl is Calista Flockhart, from Ally McBeal! The mom is Sally Field! The uncle is Ron Rifkin, from Alias! The dad's "girlfriend" is Patricia Wettig, from Alias and Prison Break!

Heroes: I'm hooked. The premise is good, and they're doing this right. The time guy is Masi Oka, from Scrubs (Franklyn)! The mirror girl is Ali Larter, from Legally Blonde! The policeman is Greg Grunberg, from Alias and Lost!
Smith: I'm hooked. I think the writing on Heist was better, but the plotting on this is better. The head guy is Ray Liotta! The girl is Amy Smart, from Scrubs!
Jericho: I'm hooked. I wanna see how the town copes. Disaster movies unite! The main girl is Ashley Scott, from Birds of Prey! The teacher is Sprague Grayden, from John Doe!
The Class: I'm hooked. Funny start, I think I like! The cool girl is Lizzy Caplan, from Related! The married girl is Andrea Anders, from Joey!
Standoff: I'm hooked. The situations are nice and new. The lead guy is Ron Livingston, from Office Space! The boss is Gina Torres, from Angel and Alias!

Seinfeld: Trying to go through the series. Currently on season 2.
ER: Trying to go through the series. Currently trying to get season 12, working my way backwards.
Alias: Trying to go through the series. Need to get season 4.
Grey's Anatomy: Trying to start the series.
Las Vegas: Trying to catch up. Currently at the end of season 2. Hmm...not sure why I'm still watching this. Although there is a wide variety between the episodes.
Desperate Housewives: Trying to catch up. Currently at the beginning of season 2. Hmm...not sure how much I want to keep up.
Bones: Good in the first season, haven't seen much in the second season. I don't like their new boss.
Battlestar Galactica: Season starts any day now.
How I Met Your Mother: Ted is comedy. Marshall and Lily, not so much.
The New Adventures of Old Christine: Good situations. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss does it well.
Veronica Mars: Hope the new season is good!
Lost: Yeah, yeah, suck us in.
Supernatural: Give us some more one shots...too serialized with the big bad demon.
Prison Break: So far so good...
House: Throw us some more quirky episodes.
Simpsons: Comfort food.
24: Trying to catch up. Currently at the middle of season 1.
Medium: I dunno....I guess they do a good job with Joe's writing.
Scrubs: Craziness.

Update on TV shows:

Vanished: Too many stupid, obvious hooks.
Til Death: Comedy about marriage.
Men In Trees: About a girl looking for a relationship.
Happy Hour: Guy breaks up and gets back into single life.

Justice: I originally liked this series. But the first 4 episodes have been the same thing over and over again. C'mon...you've gotta do something different after a while to keep my interest.

Standoff: Each situation is good, and the romantic angle is handled well too.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: The pedigree is good, but the payoff has been yet to come. So far it's been just a bunch of random stuff. Give me a hook. Give me a reason to want to watch, guys.

Runaway: On CW, which is not a good sign. The conspiracy thing doesn't appeal to me. I'd only be interested in seeing what happens to the two kids in school. I'll watch the next few episodes solely for that.

Shark: The character is too grating. House works because the writers make him likable by giving him funny stuff to say. But the leads in Shark and Justice are just too mean. I'll watch a couple more episodes to see if this goes anywhere. Stark is being made out to have humanistic qualities.

Heroes: The subject matter is appealing.

So, no to Happy Hour, Justice, Men In Trees, Til Death, Vanished.
Yes to Heroes
Tentatives to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Runaway, Shark
Need to watch Brothers & Sisters, Jericho, Kidnapped, Six Degrees, Smith
Upcoming: The Class, Help Me Help You, Ugly Betty, The Game, Friday Night Lights, Twenty Good Years, The Nine, 30 Rock, The Knights of Prosperity, Big Day, Notes from the Underbelly, Day Break

That's it for the new shows. As for the old shows...

Alias: Two more episodes to go for the end of Season 3.
Desperate Housewives: This is falling farther and farther down the priority list.
Las Vegas: Working my way through the end of Season 2.
Grey's Anatomy: I'll start this once I've caught up with everything else.
The New Adventures of Old Christine: Just funny to watch Christine go through all these situations. Haven't been able to find the premiere yet, though.
Bones: I originally liked this because the writing was good and the characters had good deliniation and funny stuff to say. The quality's been dropping off, though. Not a good sign...
Ghost Whisperer: I'm not sure why I'm still watching this.
How I Met Your Mother: It was more funny exploring Ted's problems. Marshall's problems is not working as well.
Prison Break: They're out. I think it's still moving along nicely.
House: Still good.
Simpsons: Just 'cause.

Haven't started watching yet: Supernatural, Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, Lost, 24, American Idol, Medium, Scrubs, Seinfeld, ER, Robotech

OK, I thought my life was getting to busy to continue to talk about what's been going on, but then I figured out that if I didn't write about that stuff, I'd hardly have anything to write. So here's what's been going on.

Thursday (9/21) I successfully picked up Yujing from SFO. I hadn't been in a long time, so I'm amazed I didn't make any wrong turns or get horribly lost. I was planning to get there a lot earlier, but I ended up late because --- as I was heading out the door, I forgot I wanted to bring Four Swords over to Kittoe later in the day. So I figure I just stop by my parents' place to pick everything up. I get everything, but can't find the games. And then I realize that the games are at my place. And I left Yujing's body pillow on my bed =p. So I drive back to my place. Hook everything up, but realize it would be better if I bring along the AC adapter for the GBA, which is at my parents' place. Pick that up, did a quick check to make sure everything hooked up OK, and then by that time was really late (and I also had to pick up lunch at McD). Matt was busy with his family all night, so I just went over to Kittoe to play X-Men Legends II after spending the day with Yujing and sharing with her the joys of LocoRoco.

Friday I went to the graduate students' Activities Fair to help out. Which was OK. Now I regret going around and asking questions about some of the clubs. I thought I would get another chance at the general activities fair, but of course I forgot I would be at work (among other things). I ended up skipping practice (which was probably good, I don't think very many other people showed up). BBQ and poker at Andrew's new place. I went down big early (first to buy back in), but ended up winning the most at the end, I think. I think I was up like $19 while Jeffery was up like $17. I don't even remember the big hands I won anymore. Except that Jeffery folded to my Aces when he was holding Jacks. So that was a good call by him.

Saturday I went up to SF to visit the drawgroup. Got to see Leah and the whole gang, which was really nice. It would have been even nicer to walk around the park, but it got cold and windy (as always), so we just sat around Kristin's place and talked. I had some time to kill, so I drove down to the Metreon to walk around. Bought some stuff at the Sony store and stopped by the Titanic exhibit (finally!). Apparently, they are staying til like January or something (they were originally scheduled to move on early September). So I still have time to go look at the exhibit. $22 for adults. There wasn't enough time for me to go through the exhibit (I'd like to listen to the audio tour), because I had to meet Sandy and everybody at Coco's. I was a little early, so I took a walk around the block to think about things. Dinner was good (excuse my manners!)...I need to do that more often.

Sunday I wanted to go to service with Sandy, but it was time for the Time Spiral prerelease. So I went down to the SJ convention center with my brother. I won't go through all the details this time, but I did get a foil timeshifted card (shiny...). I wasn't too happy with my deck, but I guess maybe it wasn't really that bad. The mana curve was really not too great. I had two each of the Kavus and the double-strike Slivers, but they each come in at 5R and I think it hurt my deck a little. I dunno. I thought my brother had a bunch of cool cards, especially slivers and creatures with come into play effects, but I guess he didn't have much luck. I lost the first 2 matches and drew the 3rd match (although they were all 2-1 and close games), and then played against a guy playing 5 colors and way too many cards. I'm almost wondering if he was playing with his entire card pool. Oh well.

Monday I went to practice. One word. Disastrous. 'Nuff said. Although I got a good mile in afterwards.

Tuesday I went to small group. I originally wasn't planning to go since I didn't make it to service on Sunday. But Hanlin specifically invited me, so that gave me the extra push to go. Did a little bit of sharing, which it seemed like the other people appreciated. I'd really like to talk more about the issue I'm going through in depth, probably when we split up into guys and girls.

Wednesday I went running with Hanlin. It was a good pace. I felt good.

Thursday everybody decided to just get together and finish up X-Men. Accomplishment (although obviously I only contributed at the very end). And we ended the night just standing around at the infinite spawn point gaining a few levels. Hahah.

Friday I went to practice after having thought about the mistakes I made on Monday. From how it went on Friday, I think it's a doable path to go down. But for really bad luck, I fell down and sprained my ankle while doing my warm-ups. It could really not have come at a much worse time.

Saturday I went to the car wash with the rest of the Canaan people. That was fun, and meeting new people was nice. Several times, I found myself relating more easily with the kids in the youth group than with people my own age. I guess this has always been the case with me. It's harder for me to stand around and talk to people about work, and how life is going, where I went to school, etc, etc... I'd rather just have fun and talk to people about random, inconsequential stuff. Make silly jokes. That's how I relate to people. Afterwards, headed off to Stanford to talk a little bit to Yujing. She told me that maybe the path that I've chosen down is not as great as I originally thought. But I can't think of a better way. Is it even ideal that I should work to bring things back to how they were originally? Or is change a natural progression of things? I know the argument is that if something makes me unhappy, I shouldn't do it, but we can't always do what we want. Sometimes you have to grit your teeth and put in the effort. And I don't want to give up Stanford Wushu. I made a commitment to really try hard to get back into Wushu and hopefully even compete this year. I'm not at the point to run away yet. But, Yujing brings up a good point that I need to be aware that I don't uncomfortablize other people. I hope she was talking more about the Monday fiasco, but hopefuly I'll be able to check in with her and Lawrence over the next few practices. Then I went over and argued with Matt about the finer points of the Character Contest V. He's doomed. Picked Roll over Yuna and Ryu over Mega Man. Doomed. And then finally back to Kittoe, where I was surprisingly not late. We basically played a game of Bang! which is an interesting game. Maybe there are few enough cards that you can learn what they all do really quickly, but it would have been nice if there were a few words (like reminder text) on some of the special cards.

Whew. On to the future.

Sunday I'm finally going over to service with Sandy to see what it's like. Don't know yet if we'll go to the Raiders game afterwards or not. And then meeting up with Patricia to talk. About you know what, of course. I originally signed up to flyer-up, but I think I have to give my ankle a rest. Stupid ankle!

Monday is practice. We'll see how the ankle is. Stupid ankle! Byron's community group was moved to Monday this week to accomodate the adopted family.

Tuesday is the demo. I would like to participate....stupid ankle! Sandy's community group is having fun night, so I'll probably join them.

Wednesday everybody usually goes running at Gunn. Stupid ankle!

Friday is the first class demo...urgh. Stupid ankle! And it's the Moonlight Run. Double stupid ankle! Argh!

Saturday morning will be the Time Spiral release (won't be stupid like last time), and then at night it looks like Timmy's free to do our second rallye. And hopefully we can get our parents to come too.

And life goes on. The good thing is that even though this is incredibly busy compared to how my life was before, I'm really happy about it. Now this is what I've always wanted life to be like. So I'm glad. I think I will always remember this point in my life. Hopefully it's a turning point.

Oh and one more thing. LYDIA IS GRACE'S SISTER!!! o.O***