Jason has tagged me with this, and I can never resist a good tagging, so I thought I’d play. Some of you probably know some of these, but I don’t know if most of you know all of them. Not that they are especially secretive, as this ended up more of “8 facts that define me” than “8 things you didn’t know”. The result of rambling while so tired, I guess. And away we go:

1. I have a tattoo on my right upper arm that says “Winter Pays For Summer” in a Celtic font (picture here In addition to being the title of the Glen Phillips album containing the song, the phrase comes from the song “Duck and Cover”. The line is “One way or another / Winter pays for the summer / Won’t get what you wanted / What you got’ll be good” (full lyrics here). It very much reflected what I had learned in 2005 about the unexpected nature of change, but that good can come of just about anything.
2. Related to my tattoo, I do my best to not regret in life. I will make mistakes and/or be the victim of unfortunate circumstances, but I can’t find a single decision in my life where the weight of the negative repercussions can even begin to approach the positives. This sounds very strange when I type it, but it has served me well.
3. When I was in high school, I formed a rogue organization to revolt against the dictatorship of the computer club. We were called P.R.O.Z.A.C., which was the People’s Resistance to Over-Zealous Andy Chow. We were quite an eclectic cast of characters and had our ultimate victory when I was elected president of the computer club when Andy graduated. I ran on a platform of “I don’t like Andy Chow.” I was removed as president by the adviser a few days later (who though my platform was a cause for concern).
4. I have had two knee surgeries, and have the ACL from a cadaver in my left knee. I like to think this makes me “undead”, even if only in a small percentage.
5. I want to spend at least one year of my life living somewhere that has 4 distinct seasons. I have yet to work out the logistics given that the bay area is where all the jobs are, as well as most of my people, but some day I’ll figure out a way to make it work.
6. I am what Butch Walker called "slow-convert pescatarian" (vegetarian + fish). Originally, the decision was for health reasons after reading The China Study and Eat to Live. I’m starting to come around on the moral aspects of it as time has gone on. I just wasn’t ready to process that at the time, but now it’s starting to sink in. I remember when I couldn’t imagine a day without meat, and now I don’t miss it. Even fish is something I eat less and less.
7. I plan to name my first son Raisin so that his nickname can be “The Roof” (Raisin “The Roof” Kujala) and my first daughter will be named after Meadowlark Lemon, my favorite Harlem Globetrotter. (Okay, so this one isn’t true, but who actually thought I could go this long without making one up?).
8. I’m leaving Yahoo! on Friday. (Look how sneaky I am, combining two blog entries into one!) I’ve accepted a job with Shipwire and start next Monday. It’s a very small company, which is something I’m excited about after being at a big company for the past two years. I’ll be working on the frontend of the site and will be reporting into Evan, my manager for my first year at Yahoo! I am sad to leave the Autos team behind, but I am excited about my next adventure.

Those who I wish to tag next: Rachel, Steph, and Katie

Wait, baby, stop yelling. I haven’t been seeing another blog, I swear! No, I’m not using my LiveJournal or MySpace. I haven’t even posted that much on MoreCooler! You know you’re the only one for me. Hey hey, put down that frying pan. Let’s talk about this. I promise I’ll come see you more. Once a week? Okay, I can do that. No, really, I can. Give me a chance. Okay, let me explain where I’ve been for the last couple of months.

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Butch Walker’s new album was just on the front page of MySpace when I logged in. Every so often, I find out that things I like are considered cool, so it’s like I’m accidentally hip. Then I go back to being uncool again, as things should be.

I know, I suck at updating. I have a half-written post about my fantastic visit with Rachel, a couple of memes that I’ve saved and started…. yet, all I have for you today is the new Butch Walker album, The Rise & Fall of Butch Walker & The Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites. It’s awesome. Go buy it now.

Video for “Bethamphetamine (Pretty Pretty)”

So I’m sitting on my couch surrounded by piles of boxes and packing material, but my stuff and I are officially moved into my new place. It’s still a bit surreal, since the time between starting to look, finding the place, signing the lease, and moving was so quick after so many weeks of prepping to look at apartments. But still, I’m very happy with the place.

I’ve been sick this week, which has not helped anything. I came home from work on Wednesday because I was feeling awful, and spent the afternoon curled up in bed. Allison brought me frozen yogurt to try to make me feel better. On Thursday morning, I was feeling better, but not well enough to go in, so I worked from home all day. I think being sick and not resting turned out to be a stupid plan, because by the end of the day I had a fever of 101 and was lying in bed shivering. Again, Allison saved the day by going to the store and getting me juice and sorbet, and then bringing me things as I needed them. I see now why she is so valuable to the Stanford psych department. She must bring them juice too. On Friday, I spent the day resting. I made it through the movie, but I still feel a little under the weather.

The move itself went quickly. Budget ended up moving my truck rental to Foster City, which was a bit of a drag since it added an extra few minutes of driving on each side. My uncle volunteered to drive the truck, so he, Blake and I went down there around 8, except that none of the employees that had the power to rent vehicles were there, despite the place opening at 7. When they finally arrived and it was my turn, they told me they didn’t have a 10′ truck for me, and instead rented us a 24′ truck at the 10′ price. One on hand, it was really nice to have the extra room. On the other hand, it would have been nice to not take out so many tree branches in the process. Since we had a ridiculous amount of room in the truck compared to the amount of stuff I had, we didn’t have to stack any boxes, which eliminated the need to keep things from tipping during the move. One unfortunate casualty was my desk, which probably got weakened from sitting in the garage. (Because of that, I avoided unpacking my office stuff, not knowing if I’m going to use a table that I have as a desk, or if I’m going to go buy a new one. But I’ve unpacking my most important things, so I can watch TiVo and get online. Oh yeah, and my sheets were moderately important too, I suppose.) All in all, the main move went pretty quickly. We got everything from the moving truck into my apartment without issue, and then got the truck back before our 2pm deadline. Because I’d hassled the guy about being late, he knocked $10 off the truck rental price, which was pretty awesome. In the afternoon, I loaded my more fragile items (computers, TV, etc) into my mom’s van and brought another load down. I managed to keep everything moderately organized, so there hasn’t been too much stacking and restacking of boxes.

And it must be said that Rachel R. O. C. K. S. Because of her labeling when we packed up my things in September, everything was super organized and labeled. When I remembered I needed my alarm clock at 12:30 this morning, I was able to go right to the box that contained it.

And speaking of rocking, Butch Walker is playing in San Francisco in September in support of his upcoming album “The Rise and Fall of… Butch Walker and The Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites” which is now available for pre-order. I’m so very excited.

Sean was in town today, so I spent the day with he, Chris, and Jua (plus a smattering of Jeff, Kevin, and Andrea throughout) doing various wandering throughout the mall, playing video games, seeing a movie (Thank You For Smoking, which I found to be quite hilarious), and eating. While at the mall, we ended up at Suncoast, which was having a going out of business sale where the sign said “Everything Must Go!”, and all the items were at least 50% off the marked price. Based on normal prices, this meant things were about the same price at Best Buy. (For example, the John Mayer Trio album was marked as being $20. Do people really pay $20 for a CD? No wonder they’re going out of business!) I picked up two concert DVDs (Big Head Todd & the Monsters - Live at the Fillmore and Elvis Costello and the Imposters - Club Date - Live in Memphis) for twelve and ten bucks, respectively. To put in perspective how good this “sale” is, I saved about $3 (total!) off what I would have paid at Amazon. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. When they said everything, they meant everything. They were selling the vacuum, file cabinets, the security gates, the DVD racks, the minifridge from the back office. I’ve never seen “everything” taken so literally.

In an unrelated note, I have become a huge Butch Walker fan in the past month or so. Right now, I have a YME playlist of Butch Walker and Marvelous 3 songs on endless repeat. I know I’m a bit late jumping on the bandwagon, but better late than never, right? I find some of his lyrics to be just amazingly perfect. My favorite of the moment is “Take Tomorrow (One Day At A Time)” which is very much in line with my outlook of late.

So give me all your fear, throw it all away.
Think about the good things, no matter what they say.
We’ll take tomorrow baby, yeah,
One day at a time.

His cover of “Since U Been Gone” is also quite fabulous.