Upcoming MIAness

you are currently reading the summer season finale of "days of our sauj." today is my last summer intern day, and sadly or fortunately (if you are tina), i have to take a little vacay from the bloggin' for a week or two.

so, now you're wondering, "where's she going?" you see, in normal circumstances, i would have raved about my upcoming trip...oh, the things i'm so excited to see. but after my recent fraud events, i've become a bit paranoid. i'm paying cash for stuff. i'm ripping up my trash one or two more times (i think i'll go get a shredder later today). i mean, i haven't even greeted anyone with the sauj-signature "what's up man" hug in the last few days! stay away from me, people! just kidding.

well, i will tell you one thing about my trip. a portion of it includes an organized tour with a korean tour company, and i think it's going to be hilarious...hanging with middle-aged couples, random grannies, and kids. so, to prepare, i've acquired yet another fobby visor and a fanny pack / toolbelt. my goal is to blend in...

so, as i venture off and leave you with your own petarded selves, perhaps i can suggest you read some old entries and reminisce about our blog friendship. as they say for must-see tv, "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you!"

have a great weekend, buddies.

Fraud

i am an identity theft victim. some a-hole got my ss# and started a radio shack citi card with my almost-address, almost-name, almost-bday. of course, i knew nothing of this said card (started in march) until a collection agency rep tracked me down yesterday night to tell me that i owe over $1k on this phantom card.

and to take care of this problem, i've thus far had to speak to:
- scott, the collection agency dude
- caroline, the radio shack card customer service rep
- tony, the citi cards customer service rep
- janet, the radio shack fraud specialist
- shannon, my assigned citi identity theft agent
- lori from Transunion credit agency
- front desk lady of the gtown police department
- ftc voicemail system

seriously, this took all morning, and i am quite aggrevated at this above mentioned a-hole. i have no idea who you are, but i swear to my favorite dwarf planet pluto that i, saNjin, is coming after you.

Fobby Etymology

in my senior year in high school, i had dr. detlaff for my english teacher. she was this ridiculously proper old lady who spoke in the most perfect english...and kept her class completely silent and attentive. for a nice old granny, she had us totally controlled -- none of us dared to crack jokes or josh around in her class.

anyhoo, during that year, we read hamlet. one day, we were supposed to have read some passage for homework...blah blah. well, obviously, i hadn't. so to make sure i don't get called out, i was furiously reading ahead during class when i came to this passage:

...hoist with his own petard...

and oh man, i just could not hold it together. PEE-tard! how funny was that? i poked che-che, who sat next to me, and whispered, "look! PEEE-tard. hahahahahaha. you are a PEEE-tard." (i was very mature.) i proceeded to turn to everyone around me to call them a petard...and slowly the word was spreading through rest of the classroom.

then, dr. d arrived at the passage. she read (in her very serious tone), "hoist with his own peh-TARRRRD"...and the class just busted up. a peh-tard!!?! not peee-tard!!?!?! i don't buy it, dr. d.

thus, my revised dictionary entry, fob edition:

petard. n. 1) medival small bomb to blow up gates and walls. 2) trap. 3) one class above retard.

also can be petarded. adj. e.g. "sauj's blog is petarded." petardedly. adv. e.g. "sauj often acts petardedly."

Amigas

while going through pictures on my camera (to get the car wash one), i came across one from hazzy's bday last month. i felt like sharing a normal picture of my friends for once. has and kat will shoot me cause they hate their pictures on the net, but unfortunately for them, they can't pull a brett* on me and ask me to delete pictures from my blog. it's cause I rule this little universe. (have you HEARD of the yi dynasty???)

sorry for lack of humor / pizazz / mojo today. i lost it at the car wash.



*sorry for the inside joke. i hate when people do that too.

Get Yo Cah Washed

if you happen to drive by jefferson & overland, may i suggest a five-minute detour to get your car washed? for only six buckaroos on tuesdays, you can go through one of those automatic drive-through washes where two dudes to soap down your vehicle and then you sit through a two-minute conveyor belt ride in your car. it's like a little amusement park ride! or not.

but it did sorta spook me that i couldn't see out the window...and had to look down and google talk my friends on the crackberry.

Oh

everything comes full circle. this is my last internship week, and today, i ran into my elevator song / humming guy from early summer. on an awkward elevator ride up, i asked him, "so why do they cover up the elevator at times like this?" he said, "so people can have a little mosh pit without getting hurt." random answer, but i thought it was cute. i told him it was my last week here and he said, "oh." all i get is an "oh"??? how about "good luck"? or "cool"?

disappointed in the random dude, i decided to look up some pga hotties on the 'net. yes, i said p-g-a. check 'em out. mike weir and adam scott are pretty h-o-t.



oh, ringtone decision = pink panther. dum. do dum. duhdumduhdumduhdumduhdum duhhhhhhhh dummmmm. dododododum. (c'mon, you can hear it, i know you can.)

Perfect Sunday Night Task

i just logged onto t-mobile to download a new ringtone. i figured a new phone warrants a new tone, even though i kinda miss my super marios theme song.

and don't worry, steph, i learned my lesson with my old "zippideedoodah" ring when you openly expressed your wishes to destroy my phone. and me. so no more songs that would belong in the same category as "it's a small world"...

but as i look through my options (everything from "my humps" to "chariots of fire"), is it weird that i want to download "god bless america"?

Nerds R Us

to close out this lovely workweek, i wanted to remind you that your friend sauj is a big nerd.

at lunch today, i went over to the t-mobile store, thinking about upgrading my current phone. i debated with the saleslady...another samsung (to support my korean peeps)? a razr? ugh, but EVERYBODY has one now...f that. how about the sidekick 3 like snoop and paris hilton?

and as the conversation dragged on, i found myself with the blackberry 8700g in hand. NO! i don't know came over me. i've been so good w/o a bb for a whole year! but then, i really hadn't bought a new electronic gadget since last year...so i was due.

as i told sara - "sauj: electronics :: lindy : makeup"

i came back and showed the new bb to the assistant lady. told her that i gave in to my inner dork. she said, "just think, it's so dorky, that it's cool." kinda why coyote ugly is a good movie.

but of course, i couldn't just be a dork by myself. i had to email aisha, fellow ex-banker friend turned mba student who also couldn't live without her bb.

her words: "i totally approve of the banker nerd bb."

i feel better. misery loves company and so does uber geekiness. happy weekend all.

Scwabble

back in our hs days, steph, kat, and i used to play a lot of scrabble (along with pictionary and boggle). and we'd always get in an argument with kathy because she'd bust out words that weren't really words and argue forever about how they were in fact words (that really sucked as a sentence, but you know what i meant).

her methodology was to put short words on top of other words already on the board. for example, LIMECART. and WAYVOGUE.

and to make her point, she would use them in sentences for us, "that shirt is wayVOOOOOGuE" or "put that lime in the liiiiimecart." i mean, really. because of her, we had to switch to "ebonics scrabble" where you can spell and make up words as you please. for example, BEEMAH. and get killed on triple word points like FAXIZ.

anyhoo, the other day, i remembered something and emailed kat and steph: "you know how i kept saying there was a word that started it all? you know what it was? DUALPOWER!!!"

...and after 10 years, this is what kat writes back:

"GO DUALPOWER! i still think it's a word. Dualpower used in a sentence: the DUALPOWER of the chili and the cheese made the fries exceptionally tasty."

sigh.

Xmas in August

last night, i was at the local korean grocery store, hankook market, and gathered evidence for my upcoming phd thesis, "koreans aren't lazy. they are efficient." why take down your xmas decorations when you have to put it all up again the year after?


(if you can't tell, this is a camera phone pix of the produce aisle)

but then again, mama yi would disagree with me. exchange with her when i was little:

me: "why do i have to clean my room when it will get dirty again?"
mama yi: "why do you eat when you will get hungry again? should i not make you dinner?"

obviously, i got the point. a way to saujin's heart is through her stomach. and the way to her brain.

on a side note, i just yelped because a window washer glided down spidey-style outside my office window. he had a stupid grin on his face. he obviously enjoys this part of his job.

Upgrade

why do strangers feel the necessity to talk to me? i'm not even talking about the awkward elevator chitchat or the convos with security guards, etc. not even counting the verbose santa monica homeless people, four, and i really mean FOUR, people talked to me on my recent three block walk to the mall and back.

1. random foreign guy in the mongolian beef line: "they tell you not to squish the meat into the bowl, but i do it anyway."
2. blond lady coming out of mall: "that's a great jacket, where did you get it?" (i couldn't remember.)
3. indian lady on the promenade: "do you know which way wilshire is?" (mind you, there were like 10 people around me...she zoomed in on me. reminded me of the spain incident last year: http://saujpauj.blogspot.com/2005/08/sign-language.html)
4. some punk dude in front of rei asking me if i had a light. and no, i wasn't smoking...i was just walking by.

per these incidents, i feel i can put "friendly" and "approachable" on my pros list a la www.settleforbrian.com (thanks yuj and kevin & bean). quite a funny guy, this brian.

i am inspired. thinking about starting a website called www.upgradeforfob.com.

Like Free Throws

one of my old work buddies, debbie, recently wrote a mass email to announce the end of her peace corps stint in paraguay. in receiving this email, my other friend (who wanted to remain anonymous...her name ends with "-ora" and starts with an "n") and i were discussing how fast time has swooooped by since deb left. anonymous friend and i reminisced about our banking days, how we missed her, etc. etc. and immediately jumped into stupid girl talk: "do you think she's changed a lot?" and "i wonder how she looks now"...

then, we both catch ourselves being uber stupid. to quote her: "ohmigosh. she's angelina jolie and we're the hilton sisters. she's saving the world and we're designing purses. we suck."

so we stopped talking. and thus, i had to resort to web boggle again for entertainment. but somehow, i seem to have misplaced my skillz. maybe my brain only processes 1-point words in the summer. sit. bit. lit. mit. 1, 1, 1, 1. darn. 1.

happy hump day.

Classes. And Not for School

the lil sis made an observation on her blog that "stupid people marry stupid people," which triggered some thoughts for me.

i had this theory back in college that there were three types of people in the world - class A, B, and C.

class A = people were the hotties, who had it all (think celebrities)
class B = included most people (think mean of normal curve)
class C = the weirdos (e.g. the "stupid people" or better yet, for you mit peeps, think east campus)

the class A and C people seemed to find their mates within their own class, but B people...they were struggling. my theory was that the B people were delusional, thinking that they were class A, and reaching beyond their own class....and failing. these B people looked at other B's and thought, "oh, they're SO below me." and by being too busy looking up one class, they had a hard time finding their actual suitable "classmate"...oh so sad.

along these lines, i was another thought. when i bought my durango 1.5 years ago, i suddenly started to notice all the other durangos on the road. people in the same car would often pass by me and give me "hey durango twin buddy!" wave-slash-head nod. i mean, i would still notice all the badass convertibles or vintage vehicles on the road, but it wasn't the same when another durango passed me. so...what does that all mean? stupid people marry stupid people because they only really notice other stupid people and feel the need to say what's up. and vice versa for non-stupid people.

deep, eh? well, maybe not.

anyhoo, i hope i find my car buddy someday, but as i wait, i want to congratulate a few of my friends who recently got engaged. i definitely think it was a porsche meets porsche story. :)

Garfield Knows

jon = me and my blog.

Sign Spinners

what's up with the increasing number of sign spinners lately? these "spinners" are these dudes (haven't seen any girls...hmm) advertising new condos or restaurants or whatnot...holding and spinnning these arrow-shaped signs on street corners. and geez, some of these kids are quite talented. i mean, if you gave these guys tight, sequined unitards and flaming batons, they would definitely kick cheryl frasier's (miss rhode island / majorette) ass on miss congenality. they are that good!

on another note, i did something totally ocd last night. i was washing my dishes and realized that i only really use the top few plates (i don't like to have my dishes pile up and try to wash right away). i felt like i was neglecting all the plates below the top few...i mean, i was denying them serving their purpose to the world. so i rotated the pile, stared at my work, and felt totally retarded...then went to do the same thing with my socks in my sock drawer.