It's been a while, faithful readers. Okay, i'll drop that annoying columnist tone right now. According to my records, the last time i posted was the day after Veronica's family arrived from Iowa. The week leading up to Christmas was pretty hectic, including:

• A trip to Fremont to drop off presents and attempt to get my new Jetta mirror casing installed, which was thwarted because i was told i didn't need a service appointment, didn't make one, then was asked by the service rep why i didn't have an appointment. Grrr. On the plus side, on the drive home, shuttling sister Hilary over to pick up her Toyota Matrix from its servicing in Palo Alto, i got a call from the Mini dealer asking me if we could buy our reserved Cooper S on the day after Christmas. They wanted to boost their sales numbers by the end of the year and were willing to cut us a deal. Eager to reclaim my Jetta and finally bid farewell to the decrepit Tercel, i agreed and wondered what kind of negotiating lay in store for us.
• The unexpected arrival of Bob, filling our house to capacity. I had spent one night in the spare room in the garage, now Bob claimed that space and V and i slept on a mattress on our living room floor. Bob brought with him a belated birthday gift for Veronica, a dual iPod mixer that will allow her to explore her DJ alter-ego.
• Loads of last minute shopping, for new arrivals Arlene, Alan, Ramona, and especially little spitfire Ana, as well as George, Lynda, Jessi, Naomi, and Geoff. Despite my plans to bestow Veronica with a new car on the day after Christmas, i came up with a genius actual Christmas day present for her. A 1920's art deco shelf clock from a local antique store, one that won Alan and Arlene's approval and fit perfectly on our fireplace mantle.
• Late late late Christmas tree shopping with Alan and Ana. On the evening of Thursday the 22nd the tree lots were being dismantled, but we found that Home Depot had marked their trees down from $60 to $10. We bought one along with a stand, tied it to the Tercel roof, hopped in the car Dukes of Hazzard style, and brought it home. Arlene and Ana handled the decorations with some similarly discounted lights and ornaments from Target.
• A Friday the 23rd two car caravan to Sacto to have an early holiday get-together with George, Lynda, Jessi, Naomi, and Geoff. Lynda made chicken mole and enchiladas, and Naomi served as bartender. I gave Geoff his wrapped presents, which a few days later he found were my extra Xbox, a new controller, a new copy of Halo 2, and the copy of Sniper Elite he'd bought a while back and i had appropriated. We stayed until about 11:30pm, when we started the two hour trek back to Redwood City. In our car, consisting of myself, Veronica, Alan, and Ana, we played the "be quiet" game and i was the big winner. Bwa ha ha. Upon arriving home, we found Tara had sniffed out a one pound box of chocolate my parents had given to Alan, Arlene, and Ana, and had surgically removed it from the present bag, opened it, and consumed its contents. Despite the toxicity of chocolate to dogs, white she devil luckily showed no ill effects from her binge.

By Christmas eve our chores had mostly been completed. Bob headed back down south, taking Veronica's grandmother Ramona with him to shuttle her down to stay with Veronica's aunt and uncle. We settled in to relax and await Santa, but unfortunately our house had other ideas. I mentioned before the implications of your toilet bubbling, and the problems resurfaced the afternoon of Christmas eve. I was doubtful we could do anything about it given the impending holiday, but i called Rescue Rooter nonetheless and was amazed to have them tell me a technician would be at my house in an hour. Well, that hour turned into three, and further calls got me promises of another hour and a 10% discount. But lo, a dedicated plumber amazingly arrived at 7:30pm and set to snaking our drain for the second time. Again, he was unable to clear an unknown blockage at about 70 feet into the drain line, and recommended a camera inspection, but thankfully our drain was functioning again. We resumed our pre-holiday festivities with an Alan-prepared leg of lamb dinner, a bottle of A. Rafanelli zinfandel, and partaking of two or three showings during TNT's 24 hours of A Christmas Story. We convinced Ana to turn in around midnight, and the rest of us shortly thereafter climbed into bed.

Tara woke me for her breakfast at about 8am on Christmas morning, but i then returned to bed and got to sleep until Ana discovered the fruits of Santa's labor around 10am. When i was a kid i never got any sleep on Christmas eve, i was so excited. Every year my sisters and i had a negotiation with my parents as to when present opening would begin, usually settling somewhere around 8:30am. Anyhoo, Ana set to raiding her gifts, and was very pleased with her haul. I was with mine as well, getting a portable Sirius satellite radio from Veronica, a bunch of DVD's including the Brian Jonestown Massacre/Dandy Warhols documentary Dig! from Hilary and a couple of Family Guy box sets from my parents, the Xbox western shooter Gun from Geoff and Naomi, and a new Italian leather wallet (from Italy, no less) from mom and dad. Veronica loved her new shelf clock. Alan was also pleased with the books we gave him as well as the N.W.A. (nuns with attitude) t-shirt we found for him at Macy's, and Arlene liked her swanky new boots. Alan then set to making Christmas dinner, a scrumptious spread including a currant-basted turkey, cornbread stuffing, and mashed potatoes.

I awoke relatively early on the day after Christmas to head to Circuit City to get my new satellite radio installed in the Jetta. Thanks to my early arrival, it was completed by 11am and i got to begin experimenting with Sirius. V bought me the unit with replay capability, and it is surprisingly versatile. You can also use it as a stand-alone media player to listen to saved broadcasts, which i will probably take advantage of once Howard Stern begins his new show on January 9. Part of Alan and Arlene's Christmas gift to Veronica and i was the rods and endpieces for our curtains in the living room and newly completed dining room, so we headed to Palo Alto that afternoon to pick them up at Restoration Hardware. Expectedly, we weren't the only ones shopping that day, but we managed well enough. Despite Ana's pleas to go home and get more time with her apparent favorite gift, the mind-numbing Super Mario Sunshine for GameCube, we had a 4:30pm appointment to buy Veronica's new car at Mini of Mountain View.

As i mentioned above, the salesman had agreed to get us a deal on the demo model we were buying. Usually, they knock off half the markup ($1250) when a demo reaches 250 miles, and all of the markup ($2500) when it reaches 500 miles. The one we were looking at now had 93 miles, so we really had no idea what kind of offer the guy was going to float us. Or in other words, how eager they were to boost their end-of-the-year sales numbers. We arrived on time and set to filling out a credit check form with our salesman, former race car driver and our apparent new best friend Elvis. Despite the form being only one page long, it took nearly 30 minutes to fill it out because Elvis was intent on telling us a new five minute story with each completed blank. He then left us to go talk to management to find out what deal they could offer us. V was intent on getting at least half the markup knocked off. Again, we were forced to wait for about a half hour. And i thought this would be quick. While waiting, i learned i had made a booboo ... i had brought the expired convenience check for our auto loan from our credit union, instead of the reissued one i'd picked up earlier that week. Uh oh. Veronica and i quietly agreed to play dumb. Anyhow, the salesman returned with good news: management had agreed to knock off the entire $2500 markup. We happily accepted that offer, and then got 45 minutes of tutelage on the car: how the windshield wipers work, how you turn on the headlights, etc etc. Apparently this is a required part of the car-buying process, but it was incredibly boring just the same. We then were shuttled to the neighboring BMW dealer that housed the BMW and Mini finance department, and waited another 45 minutes for the only finance person on duty that evening. She quickly noticed our expired check, but luckily came up with a solution that allowed us to finalize the sale and have me bring the valid check the next morning. After yet another 30 minutes of paperwork, the deal was done, and V, after a three year wait, was the proud owner of an astro black metallic Mini Cooper S with a camel leather interior. We caravaned off to dinner, with Alan and i in the Jetta and Arlene, Ana, and Veronica in the Mini. V got lost suspiciously quickly, with me surmising she had done so to avoid having to follow me, allowing her to play with her new toy. We finally rendezvous-ed at Kan Zeman in Palo Alto for a yummy middle eastern dinner.

V returned to work on the 27th, while i had resolved to spend a day with my family in their rented holiday cabin just over Donner Pass from Tahoe. I dropped Alan off at the airport as he was due to return to Iowa, then had a quick coffee with Veronica in the city, before zooming up the 80 towards Sacramento and the Sierras. I stopped briefly in Vallejo to buy chains for the Jetta, in case the pass was snowed in. For better or worse, snow wasn't the problem ... rain was. It poured rain from Sacramento on, with traffic slow through Auburn. I finally arrived at Kingvale and the cabin around 4pm. Hilary and her boyfriend Jeff had left the day before, so i spent the evening with my parents and Emily and Jared, in from Texas. We played the "Mexican train" dominoes game Veronica and i had bought for my parents, then had a nice dinner of mushroom rice meatballs made by Emily, before watching Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on DVD. This was done under protest from my mother, who insists that there are no redeeming qualities in Anakin, Padme, or George Lucas's horrid dialog. I quite enjoyed Anakin's brutal come-uppance the second time round. All except for Darth Vader's ridiculous "Nooooooooooo!". We played a dice stacking game briefly before turning in.

I had a little breakfast and helped my dad shovel the driveway before heading home around 11:15am on the 28th. Only a little snow had accumulated, but the rain had persisted. My drive down the mountains was done in a torrential downpour, which ended up being only marginally faster than if i had had to put on my chains. The trek allowed me to reacquaint myself with my reclaimed Jetta, as well as to explore the iPod interface and the new satellite radio, on which i'd read up at the cabin. I'm getting into it ... i've been focusing on the 80's alternative ("First Wave") and indie rock ("Left of Center") stations. I arrived back in Redwood City around 3pm, and took Arlene and Ana out to Red Robin for a late lunch/early dinner. Our friend Kevin arrived shortly thereafter, to take part in the bay area New Year's festivities. Tara, overstimulated by Alan's cooking efforts in the kitchen the week before, found new mischief to get into the next day. Kevin noticed her chewing on a bone before he went out shopping, and called Veronica to ask if it was okay. It turns out our white she devil had gone through one of the trash bags Alan had put outside, locating the turkey carcass and having herself a right old feast. Luckily she didn't hurt herself on any of the splintered bones, but she gorged herself enough to turn her nose up at dinner later that evening. Scheming pooch.

V, Kevin, and i had planned on going to Popscene on Thursday night to see Jeremy Goldstein/Jeremy Popscene/DJ JPEG before he returned to NYC, but our house again thwarted our plans. The drain again clogged, this time during the washing machine cycle, and for the first time pushed water back up the drain. It would've overflowed the toilet if i hadn't quickly emptied the bathroom garbage can and thrown the excess into the bathtub. This happened literally when the three of us were about to head off to the city. Because it appeared our clean out line had leaked, i decided i needed to go under the house to inspect, and advised V and Kevin to leave without me. After they took off, i found that there was no significant problem with the clean out, it had just overflowed when the drain water had been forced up. I scheduled a camera inspection for this morning, and spent the rest of the evening finalizing our new two hard drive/three partition PC setup and copying Veronica's and my mp3's to this new storage arrangement.

The Rescue Rooter technician (easily the most knowledgeable and helpful of the three we'd met) arrived at 8:45am this morning and set to inspect our drain with a camera snake to determine what the heck this recurring problem was. After fighting with the piping to get the camera in (ultimately having to cut the pipe), the technician found that the problem at 70 feet was that the pipe was broken. Uh oh ... that means big money to dig up and replace the broken section, buried under a few feet of concrete and asphalt. However, the tech informed me that Redwood City is responsible for the piping past our property line (ie, under the sidewalk and street, where our break lay). That probably saved us $3000. The bad part is that we have to get ahold of the city and have them send someone out. And naturally, trying to do that during the holiday season is not so productive. I have to wait until Tuesday, when the office opens, to schedule that. According to the tech, the work can be done in a day, but who knows when the city's schedule will allow them to come out. Until then, the washing machine is off limits and we have to moderate our usage of the shower, dishwasher, and toilet.

And that brings me to typing this diatribe. I hope everyone had a good holiday, hopefully devoid of the stresses that i've been subjected to. At least we've gotten some resolution this morning. Take care, and bring on 2006!

Last weekend V was preparing for her company's Sunday holiday party and we were running various errands. V had picked up a hacking cough after recovering from a small cold earlier in the week. She went to the doctor on Sunday morning and was told it was part of the yearly flu, and got some cough syrup with codeine as well as various other prescriptions. However over the course of the day (despite the morale boost of test-driving a Mini Cooper S in Mountain View that afternoon) her condition worsened. She made it through the entire evening's party at the lovely Jack Falstaff in San Francisco, but came home and collapsed, not to be woken for work the next day.

I had a full day at work that Monday, but cut parts of it short to come home and take care of the ailing Veronica. The next day i again returned home in the afternoon to see how she was doing, but this time noticed my sinuses were progressively losing function. I intended to revisit work later in the afternoon but my energy strangely disappeared as soon as i sat on our armchair. By 8pm that night i was screwed ... the flu had found me.

Despite assorted emergencies at work, i was f@$#ed for the week. I spent Wednesday in a semi-haze, nursing a useless nose, the worst sinus headache i've ever had (making me delirious, nauseous, and giving me a migraine-like sensitivity to light), and an inability to sleep. No medications helped, decongestants nor painkillers. Thursday brought a nearly imperceptible improvement, and i resolved to go to the doctor. However apparently Kaiser isn't keen on having every seasonal flu sufferer come in, so i got a return call from a doctor instead, who electronically prescribed me a different type of codeine-laced cough syrup as well as some prescription strength decongestant, which the recovering Veronica kindly picked up for me. Those helped immensely, and i finally slept Thursday night. I ate my first partial meal in three days on Friday evening.

While having the flu undoubtedly blows, you can gather some odd perspectives from it. The first is that i saw many movies, most of them more than once, and several of them things i can't believe i would watch. Such as Sinbad's turn as a secret service agent in First Kid. Egad. I watched Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story no less than three times. Twice for Flight of the Phoenix (not a bad movie, but bearing a truly bizarre mood for a survival epic). On Friday night i relaxed under a blanket with a cup of tea and watched David Mamet's excellent Spartan.

You also manage to watch The Price is Right seemingly every day. And it never fails to make you feel if only a bit better. Maybe that's why housewives always seem to dodge illness. They're always watching TPIR.

While a restful weekend spent relaxing and shedding the few remaining viruses in my body was right up my alley, the impending arrival of Veronica's family for the holidays necessitated a thorough house cleaning. Saturday included six or seven loads of laundry, finally truly finishing the dining room, and various tidying. On Sunday V and i had to run out to do some shopping, but we managed to finish the dining room in actuality, even bringing the table and chairs into their final resting places. I wanted to rake the leaves in our front and back yards, but the weekend's storm continued unabated and prevented me from going outside. Chelsea's league dominance continued with an in-form 2-nil win over Arsenal at Highbury, that kept my immune system fighting. However we drew the to be quite honest best team in Europe, Barcelona, again in the Champions League, so more European challenges await.

Despite piles of work waiting for me at Stanford, i was again prevented from heading over on Monday morning. The cause this time was a clogged drain line in our home plumbing. You see, if your toilet bubbles every time that the washing machine empties, it means you've got a clog somewhere in your main drain line. That means you get to have a plumber come out, remove your toilet, and run a drain snake all the way out to the sewer to clear any blockage. And if your plumber tells you that he can't get a snake past 70 feet in your drain, it means you've got to have him come back with a camera to figure out what the heck is gumming up the works. Well, after you figure out if the snaking that was accomplished had a noticeable effect.

I did make it to work for a few hours, enough to grade final exams and give my last resident lecture that afternoon. I then absconded to pick up a few Christmas presents for my family (they're off to Tahoe on Thursday for a week), before meeting V at SFO to greet Alan, Arlene, Ana, and Ramona.

One of the crappy things about V and i getting sick was that it prevented us on following through with our plans to buy the Mini that V had test driven the Sunday before. However, today we resumed that front and hit the dealer shortly before closing. We learned about their markup policy, but also found we could get a decent deal on the one V had test driven. We reserved it, and hopefully they will sell that demo model to us before the end of the year. I got no end of amusement from the dealer's comments after V's test drive. "This is just for my own information, so i can better figure out your needs ... but ... do you always drive that way?". He was inquiring because V's slow performance on the test drive suggested she wouldn't make full use of the more expensive Cooper S. V laughed it off and said she had been nervous. Sure, Mario Andretti.

I cannot stop listening to this Abandoned Pools song "Armed to the Teeth". Tommy Walter ... he's a one man band and songwriter, he writes brilliant alternative rock hooks, and he's from Stockton. What more could you ask for? The title track of his second album boasts an enthralling chorus ("armed to the teeth, i'm ready, go out and spend your money, giants of industry, come on come on and try and eat me") ... alright, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but Walter has a perfect sense of melody and integrates his lyrics seamlessly with his guitar charge.

The World Cup draw was today ... and anyone who is happy that the U.S. got grouped with Italy, the Czech Republic, and Ghana is insane. Any one of those teams has the talent to throttle us. Italy, no question. The Czechs haven't played to their potential lately but their roster is still head and shoulders above ours ... do we have anyone with the sublime skills of Pavel Nedved? Even a Nedved at 75%, as he's been in recent memory? Ghana is a wild card, but they topped their qualifying group in Africa and with the likes of Chelsea midfield kingpin Michael Essien in their squad can easily give us yanks a tough match. In fact, our group is as daunting as the widely acknowledged "group of death" featuring Argentina, the Ivory Coast, Serbia and Montenegro, and the Netherlands. The Americans are going to need some strong performances and perhaps some underperforming by their rivals to get into the knockout stages. Last time it took a completely underwhelming performance by Portugal to get us through, and i don't think we can count on charity again.

Playing songs randomly from a library with 40,000 entries can be a dicey proposition ... to be honest, there's a great deal of stuff in there of which i have little to no knowledge. If i start your random play at an old favorite, chances are the next song will be something i don't know or don't care for. I'm not saying my library is stocked with songs i don't like, it's just that with my "whole album" policy comes a lot of filler. And with my rapid musical expansion of recent years, there's a fair bit of stuff that i never really checked out. But while this situation leads to hearing a ho-hum David Bowie album track (don't get me started) every now and then, it also causes some freaking fantastic and heretofore unknown to me songs to unexpectedly insert themselves in my playlist. Case in point: i've been in a comedy mood today, listening to Mitch Hedberg and Jim Gaffigan albums. Once those completed, i popped iTunes into random mode and focused on work while the background music played. But after a half hour or so a great indie rock song grabbed my attention ... what is this, i ask? Abandoned Pools ... ah yes, i got that a while back. Didn't i listen to it? Apparently not ... because this is awesome. An indie rock gem with a great vocal melody ... this guy could teach Muse a thing or two about keeping the plot.

It's like getting a Christmas present in ... December. Not a great analogy. Finding a twenty dollar bill in the street? Winning the lottery with a ticket you can't remember buying? Wait, one more ... oh, never mind.

Sir Simon Milligan: Hecubus, hypnotize the victim with the sleep of ages. Hecubus: Yes master. Tony Henderson, repeat after me: owa ....... tana ....... siam. Tony Henderson: Owa ....... tana ....... siam. Hecubus: Quicker. Tony: Owa, tana, siam. Hecubus: Quicker! Tony: Oh what an ass I am. Hecubus and Simon: Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Simon: Good one Hec! He got ya! He got ya! Tony Henderson, you've been made a fool of! By the forces of darkness.

While waiting for V to get home from work last night, so we could go have another good "stick to your ribs" dinner at Harry's Hof Brau, i got some more time on Guitar Hero. Geoff had beaten all but two of the songs on medium difficulty, so i tried to finish that level. Ozzy's "Bark at the Moon" kicked my ass in less than fifteen seconds, so i tried Cream's "Crossroads" and managed to beat that one. Not wanting to humble myself with Ozzy again, i moved on to the early songs on the hard setting. It's amazing ... once the game gets reasonably difficult, the button sequences asked of you force your hands to perform typical guitar chord shapes, and to move up and down the fret board. Bad Religion's "Infected" is particularly great with its chorus of overdriven chords. I beat five or six songs before Ozzy once again humbled me, this time during the guitar solo of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man". My audience meter went from wonderful to get off the freakin' stage in no time flat as the notes of the solo overwhelmed me. Damn Osbourne.

The score.

The shame.

The reward.

Come Friday afternoon, after giving a two hour morning lecture on applications of molecular imaging in radiation oncology to a class of seven moderately disinterested grad students (one asked me a question then basically fell asleep five seconds into my answer), i hurried home to meet Geoff and Naomi to hitch a ride down to LA. V had taken ill earlier in the week and had decided to forgo the weekend's activities, so the three of us hopped in the Scion and headed down the 101/152/5. They dropped me off at Matthew and Dionne's around 10pm, after we'd had a pleasant ride chit-chatting, getting drive-through Starbucks, and eating at Red Robin. Matthew, Dionne, and i caught up for a few hours before we headed to bed. Despite Matthew's reassurances their his lick-happy dog Cinnamon would only lie on me on the couch for a few minutes before finding another sleeping spot, she ended up there for a good hour before moving on. I must inspire that action in dogs, as Tara is always looking to sleep with us.

We arose at 7:30am Saturday morning to try out paintballing. Matthew, Mark, and Martin had organized the event, which had attracted ten participants. Somehow, the teams ended up falling along the lines of sexuality: gays versus straights. The breeders were comprised of myself, Matthew, Kevin, Danny, and Sean, while the gay team included Kevin, Carlos, Mark, and Martin. Because of the differential, Dionne's cousin Cisco agreed to balance the sides. I didn't feel completely qualified to represent my sexuality, but went with it anyway. I had fears the day would end with a hate crime being committed. We got to the Simi Valley paintball place around 9am, and went through the half hour briefing on paintballing basics and safety. Because of Matthew's warnings, i had on three t-shirts (two long sleeve), a windbreaker, gloves with the fingertips cut off, and a knit cap. Geoff had instilled in me some of his wealth of pro paintballing experience on the drive the previous day, including rapid fire tricks (apparently the middle finger is the one to use on the trigger) and strategy. I was expecting a large wooded arena, but it turned out this place featured four or five smaller outdoor arenas with obstacles like metal barricades and large inflated balloons for cover.

We started out on the main arena playing elimination ("speedball" or "hyperball" as it's known). Freaked out as i was about the potential pain of a hit, i took cover behind a barricade and peaked over to find possible targets. In the first match, i was taken out by a shot to the head. As bad as it sounds, it's actually the best place to be hit as the protective mask absorbs the blow and you don't feel anything except the sudden shock of paint being all over your visor. In the second match, i got a bit more adventurous and tried to flank our opponents around the right. I took out Carlos, followed by Kevin who was manning their main base. I thought Kevin was the last one, so i started talking to him to see if he was okay. I asked him if that was it, completely innocent, to which he replied no, Mark's over there. He pointed, and i see Mark crouched down ten yards away looking the other direction. So i nonchalantly blasted him and ended the game. Ha ha. We tried capture the flag in a larger arena, but as none of us were of the mind to make a run to grab our enemies' flag, it ended up being another elimination round. I didn't actually take a body paintball hit until the fourth match, when one struck me in my ringfinger knuckle and another in my leg. The pain wasn't so bad, easy to get over and leaving only minimal bruises later. We ended up playing for about 3 hours, before we called it a day and went to a nearby Costco for some snack bar grub. A good time all-in-all, certainly something to try again in the future, although i don't think any of us bore Geoff's former paintballing killer instincts.

The SMFA Day's activities then turned to soccer when Matthew and i returned home to watch the day's earlier Chelsea/Middlefield battle. I had predicted a 2-nil Blues win on the way home from paintball, while Matthew foresaw a 2-1 Boro victory. Sean made it even with a 2-2 draw prediction. The first half was an entertaining show of attack on both sides, with former Chelsea man Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink being denied the opener only by the post. Chelsea had several opportunities on set pieces as well as on penetrating Arjen Robben runs down the left, but were emptyhanded at the half. The second half wasn't as engaging as the first, but Chelsea managed to take the lead in the 61st minute when John Terry, a monster on set pieces, headed down a corner that rebounded off a Boro defender just over the line. After that the action slowed, as Chelsea gradually closed down their attack and were content to soak up what pressure Boro could muster. A much better time for me than last year's humiliating 1-nil defeat to Manchester City, narrated to my distress by Gary and Matthew.

While waiting for the arrival of final SMFA contestant Gary, we had some excellent tacos for dinner and then watched a DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11, which i'd managed to miss. A great movie, exposing some very disturbing facts about Bush's ties to Saudi Arabia and the bin Laden family, as well as highlighting some ridiculous aspects of the Patriot Act and the harrowing experiences of families with members fighting Bush's pointless war in Iraq. Michael Moore of course has his bias, and the film can hardly claim to be objective, but he does a good job of backing his agenda with facts that Bush and company have tried hard to obscure.

With Gary present at 9:45pm and Dionne and Michelle escaping to a late-night showing of Rent, the SMFA Cup began. Matthew had retrieved a "ceremonial screwdriver", which he declared he would have no need for since he wasn't going to have to relinquish his "SMFA Champ" license plate holders. At 1:45am the regular season ended, with everyone suffering from a bit of exhaustion.

		OVERALL							HOME						AWAY
		P	W	L	D	F	A		W	L	D	F	A		W	L	D	F	A		Pts		GD
Chelsea		6	4	0	2	19	6		2	0	1	10	2		2	0	1	9	4		14		13
Manchester United		6	3	1	2	13	4		2	0	1	9	3		1	1	1	4	1		11		9
Middlesbrough		6	3	3	0	14	7		2	1	0	9	4		1	2	0	5	3		9		7
Manchester City		6	0	6	0	2	31		0	3	0	0	11		0	3	0	2	20		0		-29

Gary had struggled to adapt to the new Winning Eleven format of the SMFA, netting two goals while conceding 31. In the second half of the season, he leaned on the slide tackle button heavily, resulting in his team leading the red card table. Hernan Crespo of Chelsea led the scoring table on 9 goals, followed by Manchester United's Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Scoring table   Player (Team)   H A   T 1 Crespo (Chelsea)   5 4   9 2 Van Nistelrooy (Manchester United)   5 2   7 3 Lampard (Chelsea)   3 2   5 4 Hasselbaink (Middlesbrough)   2 2   4 5 Maccarone (Middlesbrough)   3 0   3 Rooney (Manchester United)   2 1   3 Viduka (Middlesbrough)   1 2   3 Essien (Chelsea)   1 2   3 9 Mendieta (Middlesbrough)   1 1   2 Ronaldo (Manchester United)   1 1   2 Cole (Manchester City)   0 2   2 12 Wright-Phillips (Chelsea)   1 0   1 Downing (Middlesbrough)   1 0   1 Doriva (Middlesbrough)   1 0   1 Smith (Manchester United)   1 0   1 Robben (Chelsea)   0 1   1

Red card table   Player (Team)   H A   T 1 Distin (Manchester City)   1 1   2 2 Viduka (Middlesbrough)   1 0   1 Quedrue (Middlesbrough)   1 0   1 Barton (Manchester City)   1 0   1 Reyna (Manchester City)   1 0   1 De Vlieger (Manchester City)   0 1   1 Bosvelt (Manchester City)   0 1   1 Mills (Manchester City)   0 1   1 Dunne (Manchester City)   0 1   1

With the late night stage set for the final tournament, we began the knockout stages. I defeated Gary in the first semifinal, which was actually Gary's best match of the tourney. However the second semifinal was the real attraction, in which Sean surged to a 3-1 lead over reigning champ Matthew, with Boro losing defender Gareth Southgate to a red card. However with only a half hour left in the match, Matthew mounted a furious comeback on the strength of a Hasselbaink hat trick to win 4-3. The final was therefore a rematch of last year, with Chelsea hosting Boro. As had happened in our two regular season meetings, Matthew took the early lead, this time on another strike by Jimmy Floyd. And as had also happened twice before, Chelsea stormed back, here taking a 3-1 lead on goals by Damien Duff, Crespo, and Arjen Robben. With twenty minutes left Sean warned me not to lose focus, but Matthew managed to pull one back through Malcolm Christie. However, my defense held the rest of the way and i reclaimed the coveted SMFA title. Matthew was forced to shamefully remove the license plate holders in the 2am cold. We held the second annual "NorCal versus SoCal" two-on-two match thereafter, with both teams using the US national side, and Gary and i getting housed. No matter ... no one remembers the outcome of the NFL pro bowl either.

Chelsea (1)	2						3	Manchester United (2)
Robben Duff		Chelsea (1)	3		2	Middlesbrough (3)	Scholes Rooney Van Nistelrooy
Manchester City (4)	0	Duff Crespo Robben			Hasselbaink Christie		4	Middlesbrough (3)
Red cards: Mills, Bosvelt							Mendieta Hasselbaink (3) Red card: Southgate

Sunday morning Gary and i awoke and put on some NFL to see how our weekly picks were turning out, while Matthew and Dionne made a lovely Sunday breakfast for everyone. We watched the last half hour of Fahrenheit 9/11, then Matthew and i had a few last games of WE that we split. Naomi and Geoff arrived around 4pm to begin the long drive north, on which we again hit the Harris Ranch Red Robin as well as the drive-through Starbucks just north of the Grapevine. They were kind enough to drop me off in Redwood City, allowing me to return to them their Guitar Hero setup. Veronica and Tara welcomed me home, and we fell asleep watching the tivoed Saturday Night Live from the previous evening. I can't seem to find my camera USB cable this morning, so pics of the weekend are on hold for now. Look for them soon.

*contented sigh*

Thanksgiving week was busy. Or not so busy, depending on your definition of busy. I'd go with the former. On Monday morning i headed off in the Jetta with my postdoc Ivana and another postdoc Zhen from the molecular imaging group at Stanford, on our way to Rohnert Park for the radiobiology retreat. The imaging session i had organized was first up, 1pm on Monday. We got an early start and made such good time that we stopped in Sausalito for breakfast at the Lighthouse Cafe. The retreat was pretty good ... we resolved to create a protocol for initiating hypoxia PET imaging in the clinic, but i also found myself a bit dismayed at the splintering of the department into factions who have increasingly little in common. I hope to do something to change that, but it's no quick fix. For Monday night, radiobiology director (and close collaborator and advisor) Amato had organized a "casino night" (sans real money to pacify the faint of heart, like me). I sat down to play some Texas hold 'em with a group of the biology students and Martin Brown, one of the senior faculty in the department. Within 15 minutes my $500 was down to $150 ... ack. Then Martin decided to move on to another game, and i won a few hands and was almost even. I decided to check out the lively craps table, which did not make the other players at the table happy considering i'd won about $250 in the last five hands. I promised to return, and made my way around the room. When i returned to the poker table a half hour later, my gambling mojo must've kicked in (or i finally had the confidence and money to gamble aggressively), because over the last hour and a half i cleaned up. It got to the point where people would throw their cards down if i started betting. Bwa ha ha. At 11pm our winnings were converted into raffle tickets for a giveaway of a bunch of door prizes. I ended up empty-handed, but the swelling of my gambling ego was reward enough.

I returned home Tuesday night to find that Geoff and Veronica had been mastering Guitar Hero, leaving my paltry skills in the dust. They'd mastered the poses necessary to activate the game's "star power" and could now kick my butt. What a great game though ... a wonderful outlet for wannabe rock stars. On Wednesday morning i again had to rise early, this time to drive the Jetta to Fremont for its 40k mile servicing, a few recall repairs, and replacement of the right mirror casing that i had broken while carelessly backing the car down our narrow driveway. Unfortunately the 40k mile service is the big one, so i had to shell out serious dough for that. While waiting for the end of what turned out to be an all day job, my parents picked me up and took me out to breakfast, then let me relax at the house. The kitties didn't bother me so much, and i whiled away the afternoon working on my laptop and watching old Law and Order episodes.

V and i made it to my parents' house at 2:30pm on Turkey Day, where my sister Hilary and her boyfriend Jeff as well as my aunt Cathy had convened. Thanksgiving has been steadily moving up my holiday rankings ... who doesn't love a holiday that revolves around football, overeating, and napping? Unfortunately, my allergy resistance from the previous day didn't continue and after a few hours my sinuses were hopelessly overwhelmed. I made it through one evening game of dominoes before heading back to Redwood City and Tara. Our NoCal-turned-SoCal friend Kevin arrived later in the evening for a Thanksgiving weekend by the bay. We introduced him to Guitar Hero before hitting the hay.

Kevin headed up to the city Friday morning, and that evening we drove north as well to meet up with him, Hakim, and Doug at Nihon, a Japanese whiskey bar in Soma. Excellent food and booze (Kirin Ichiban for me, i'm no hard liquor enthusiast). Afterwards we reconnoitered to Club ID at the Rickshaw, a place i'd previously described as a "ball of pretension". It was marginally better this time, possibly because of the presence of Popscene friends Jeremy (in from NYC) and Aaron.

Something from Friday didn't sit well with me on Saturday however, be it the Japanese food or the six or seven beers. I tried to continue finishing the dining room paint job (it seems i've said that i'm "finishing" it way too many times now), but after painting one cabinet face i quit with a massive headache. Within an hour it was joined by nausea, and i spent the rest of the day trying to avoid vomiting. Veronica went back to the city that evening to stop by Pop Roxx, a place that i may have scorned even if i'd been well. As it was, i was happy to climb into bed and cuddle with Tara while watching Saturday Night Live. Chelsea did their best to keep up my health, winning 2-nil at Portsmouth to follow up on their midweek 2-nil triumph over Anderlecht that clinched a spot in the Champions League knockout stages. I'm still not sold on our infallibility, not the same way i was during the second half of last season when we were really firing on all cylinders. Arjen Robben hasn't recaptured his brilliant form of last year, and as such our attack has a sense of frailty despite our impressive scoring record. Our defense also seems to have slipped a notch since shutting down anyone and everyone last season. We're not in crisis mode, actually far from it, but unlike last year i have tinges of doubt when watching the squad.

I was well enough Sunday morning to have breakfast with my parents and Hilary and Jeff at Stacks in Redwood City. While there, we got to see my dad's latest purchase, a shiny new red Honda Pilot SUV. Not a bad ride. Not at all. After discussing car philosophies with him that morning and also earlier in the week, i had begun to rethink my hybrid leanings. As Veronica put it, why am i spending more to buy a car that i'll only be using to commute a relatively short distance? The extra gas mileage isn't so useful in that situation. I was therefore revisiting my old wishes to get an Accord. However, upon further negotiations with Veronica over the next few days, we decided that it made more sense to buy her the Mini Cooper she has been longing for for years, and put me back in the Jetta i bought for myself way back when. I'm cool with this plan of attack ... hopefully over Christmas i'll add a Sirius satellite radio to the Jetta (got to hear uncensored Howard Stern in the new year!). Then in a couple of years i'll trade in the Jetta for an Accord. Meanwhile V gets her long-awaited Mini.

Maybe it's a product of age, or experience, or ... whatever, but i seem to keep encountering bands that i can't help judging in terms of their similarity to bands of my youth. Case in point: the People's Revolutionary Choir, a UK buzz band attracting praise from the likes of Kasabian and Kate Moss (?!). I picked up their debut ep Elevate today and was astounded to find a near-shameless ripoff of Spacemen 3 coming across my headphones. The title track is a jumble of the first half of Perfect Prescription, plain and simple. If i thought B.R.M.C. wore their influences on their sleeve, these guys have them tattooed on their foreheads.

Tomorrow i head down to LA for this year's SMFA Cup, hosted for the second consecutive year by reigning champion Matthew. Last year Matthew and i went fishing for the day, and i then compete in the Cup bearing a brutal sunburn, ultimately failing. This year replace "fishing" with "paintball", "sunburn" with "multiple bruises", and "failing" with ... "failing" ... and you're probably pretty close. After the male aggression show in the paintball arena, Matthew and i will watch the day's Chelsea versus Middlesbrough match, recorded earlier in the afternoon. Last year my defeat in the Cup was preceded by being forced to watch Chelsea lose their only game of the season to Gary's Manchester City, with Matthew and his noisemaker creating my own private hell. I'm hoping for salvation (at least in this part of the weekend's competitions) this year. Veronica's already resolved to be nowhere near so she can avoid my inevitable meltdown. The actual Cup will be held on Winning Eleven 8 International, which Matthew and i agree is clearly superior to any of the FIFA incarnations. Hopefully this won't give the two of us an unfair advantage over Sean and Gary. I'm not sure of their experience with WE, and the game has a pretty steep learning curve. Oh well. Game on!

On the topic of games, i've become completely addicted to this simple little Shockwave Flash game called N. Very simple but incredibly seductive play dynamics in the style of Lode Runner, plus some sleek and alluring visuals ... i dunno, this game just has me hooked.