One of the disadvantages of sleeping in the living room (on a foldout bed) is that I get woken up when everybody else wakes up. My dad is not that quiet when he gets the newspaper and turns on the television. Then again, I wanted to get less sleep -- that way I'd be able to go to sleep early tonight and wake up by 06:00 tomorrow. I have to take Kooma to San Francisco Airport by 10:00, so we leave by 08:00; obscenely early by my standards. Too bad now that I want to go to sleep everybody is up and about making noise.

Today we went to Capital Tea Garden, in downtown Sacramento, for Dim Sum. I do love Dim Sum, though I only go when I come home and there is a guest. We got there really early though, before lunch, so we had to order what we wanted instead of picking it off of passing waitresses pushing trays of goodies. A fairly good meal -- not the greatest. I didn't eat that much, some kind of subconscious attempt to eat less in front of my parents. Just my dad since mom doesn't go out to eat Dim Sum.

Then we dropped Kooma off at Borders while we went to Costco. Kooma likes to go to book stores to look for bargains. She buys books, especially science and other educational books, that she can take to Peru to donate to schools, since Peru has a hard time buying good foreign books (and the local books aren't all that great for school children). Me, I took the opportunity to buy some books when I picked her up afterwards. Dirge, by Alan Dean Foster, is a Humanx book. Plus three technical books from O'Reilly. I looked for some Mac OS X books -- and there are some ok looking ones out now -- but none were by publishers I trust.

Anyway, back to Costco. A Costco store is a big warehouse (but well air- conditioned, quite a feat since I know how warehouses trap heat) with lots of bulk foods and items. You have to pay a yearly membership fee ($45 or more for "executive membership") but you do save it and more if you buy lots of foods (Costco also sells computers and small furniture and clothes and lots of things you'd find at a department store, just not a great variety). Personally, I don't like membership things like that, although I can see how it promotes people buying more things than they would otherwise.

One great thing about a hot summer day -- lots of people wearing shorts. Costco is just full of women, enough that even with an average spread there are a lot of pretty ones. I guess going to a grocery store is a great place to meet women, though you'd think that half of them would be married. My dad and I wandered around as he bought "California" foods to give as gifts on their Florida trip (they're leaving Tuesday midnight). There were also like a dozen floor people giving away free food samples, which my dad kept taking and giving me some (I was kind of full, but I still ate). I didn't end up buying anything though. There's only so much 6-pack carton of whatever that a single guy can take.

For dinner we had barbequeued steak. And of course my opportunity to tick off my parents. Even though I'd been hungry this whole weekend, I still tried to eat moderately. But I really like steaks. So after sitting there awhile and having eaten about 2/3rds of a steak and rice and stringbeans, I got up to get some more rice and finish the rest of my steak. Mom slides over into my seat (which is usually her seat), presumably because she assumed I was done. I got a big angry, so I piled on a bunch of rice and walked over and picked out a big steak.

Natural inclination for my mom is to yell at me and get angry. Strangely enough, that doesn't really work on me. I just get stubborn and refuse to give in, even if it's self-destructive. Getting nagged and yelled at is not going to make me do something that's good for me. If they were disappointed that would probably work, though I don't remember the last time they acted as if they were really disappointed in me -- it's usually just exasperated with me. It's just one of those family dynamics and I'll probably end up killing myself just to spite them (mom more than dad).

Chris has been playing this PlayStation 2 game he borrowed from a friend. It's one of those 2.5-D RPG games that are so popular for Nintendo. The thing is, it looks exactly the same on PS2 as if it were an old Nintendo game. The only thing the extra processing power and memory of the PS2 adds is voices and cool anime cut-scenes, neither of which enhance the actual game play. Proving once again that more technology does not help some game genres.