[2004.01.19 2358h]

   [anime] azumanga daioh
   [books] someday angeline \\ louis sachar
   [movie] l.a. confidential
   [music] bluemchen \\ engel der nacht
   [tlvsn] scrubs

some years ago, during the internet boom, one of the more interesting ways
that new companies generated interest in their sites was by giving away
free shares of stock in their company to anyone who visited their site,
and additional free shares to anyone who successfully referred friends to
their site.  of course, many people thought that this form of advertising
was merely a gimmick, and that even if they really did receive free shares
of stock, the stock would probably be near worthless anyway.  regardless,
i signed myself up for the stock of some of the more promising sites, and
didn't think much of it afterward.

less than a month ago, one of those companies actually did go public.
surprisingly, they are currently trading at around $7.45 a share.  having
gotten six free shares of stock in that company years ago, i now have a
stake of about $45 in that company.  i'd say this was a pretty good deal.

i went with a few friends to emeryville a few weeks ago.  there is an ikea
home furnishing store there that happens to have a huge chair outdoors,
towering about 5 meters high.  as we passed by, two of us were enchanted
with this huge chair and decided to climb up and take a seat.  we ended up
cracking up with laughter once we got on the chair, while the others in
our group didn't even notice that we weren't following them anymore.

as we were sitting in the chair, a random passerby looked up at us with a
knowing smile, and i decided to wave at him.  a huge smile grew on his
face as he waved back.  that was awesome.

a few minutes later, our friends realized that we were no longer following
them anymore, and when they walked back and found us sitting in the giant
chair, they looked at us as if we were crazy little children, while the
two of us had been laughing for almost five minutes straight.

i got a free hello kitty rubik's cube from a sanrio store in san
francisco.  one of the sides is colored purple, which is somewhat unusual
for a rubik's cube.  happily for me, this is my favorite color, so i think
this is one of the most aesthetically pleasing rubik's cubes i own.

unfortunately, the cube is small and is meant to be used as a keychain, so
it's not the most functional of my rubik's cubes.  i don't want to play
with the cube much because i fear that the chain will fall off.  this has
happened before with one of my previous rubik's cube keychains.

i seem to be starting to no longer use the search function on imdb, the
internet movie database, preferring instead to type my query directly into
the url.  so if the previous paragraphs about rubik's cubes did not give
away the fact that i am a nerd, then this one should.