Just in case there were going to be network problems at work today, I uploaded this update around 5:45 AM this morning, right before I left for work but after Amber played "Punch A Rat" with my face to get me up for breakfast (hers). See? They should have put me in charge of Katrina clean-up. A Boy Scout is always prepared. Incidentally, my Eagle Scout card expired in 2003, ten years after I earned the badge. This probably means that I'm a big poser until I pay the fifty bucks to renew the card, but I still keep the expired one on top of my license in my wallet. The purpose of this placement is to give state police officers an eyeful when they pull me over, so they see that I'm a trustworthy (loyal, and helpful) individual and do not deserve a ticket. This particular plan has backfired all three times I've been pulled over (84 in a 65, 79 in a 65, and disregarding a stop sign) but the fourth time is a charm, right? All it's done so far is make it a pain to retrieve my license for alcohol buying and bleed card ink on the plastic lining of my wallet. And the last time I bought alcohol (Saturday) the Korean check-out lady made me her new best friend.

I posted in my 222 Things About Me list that Korean people always ask me about Korean stuff and my Korean heritage. Apparently the new thing to say to me is "Funny, you don't look Korean." Though my face isn't on www.alllooksame.com , I've always noticed that I don't look purely Korean (though I think the crescent-bearing of my profile resembles the Mac the Knife moon guy from the McDonald's commercials in the 1980s). The checkout lady at Shopper's Food Warehouse said that I don't look Korean at all, but that some big Chinese festival was occuring on my birthday this year (artistically highlighted in yellow on the calendar to your left). I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, but maybe it will mean that she'll remember I'm over 21 next time I'm there. I don't have high hopes though, because she's carded me for over a year and a half now. I guess it's better to look too young than too old.

I think I segued one too many times in the above section, as I was originally planning to use this update to talk about really bad vanity plates. This is a hazard of my dangerous profession (software engineer / blog writer / man of mystery). All I really wanted to say about vanity plates is that they suck when it's obvious that they're not what the driver originally wanted. This is most often the case when you get people who want to write a monologue in their plate (IAMTHEGODOFLOVIN) but have to cut out letters until it's unintelligible (IMDGDLVN), people who don't understand the concept of numeric-replacement (GR8TNWZ instead of GR8NEWS), or people who just have no concept of the formation of words (IL8CUCUM instead of UGOGIRL). I just don't understand why someone would want to pay the extra $25 to make a license plate that's not exactly what he or she wanted. I don't think I'd ever get a vanity plate myself, because I don't necessarily want my car to stand out from other cars. I always said that the only plate I'd ever consider would be a mixture of I's and Ones, such as I11I1I1, which would make me more difficult to catch when I robbed those banks in the Midwest. Imagine my surprise when I saw that exact license plate outside Fox Mill in Reston.

On an unrelated note, I've heard that I wasn't excited enough in my post about the Hokies' victory. I did watch the game with a bunch of heavy cheerers, but reporting on that would not have made as interesting a news post, since dry sarcasm is essential to everything I write. Suffice to say, the Hokie Pokie was done, and we even resolved the question of whether it was "Left Right Left Right Right Left Right Left" or "Right Left Right Left Left Right Left Right". That is all.

I really overuse parentheses, don't I?