a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...

Yesterday I got a package from HyeShin (my gf) for the season's holidays or whatever the fuck it's called. The contents are unimportant, but the delivery is what's funny.
She sent it last week from Korea and as she wanted it to arrive promptly she paid a lot, and as she wanted it to arrive safely, she labeled the contents as 200$ value and paid for insurance.
The mailman came to the door with the package and I was ready to sign. Then he informed me that I owed 38.95$ in customs.
Huh?
That's right, since HyeShin labelled the package at such a high value I had to pay to receive it. The courier was apologetic but said that was the law. As the postal worker didn't have change for a hundred (i'm a baller), I wrote him a check. I handed it to him, then he handed me three (3) different pieces of paper for me to sign. I signed them all, got the package, and then bid the postman farewell.
An hour later, I was walking past the bannister (the proverbial message board of the Reinberg household) when I happened to notice the check was still there. Huzzah! The message carrier had forgotten it. I hope I won't have to pay for it later... after all, it's not like they know where I live.

A taste of what's to come...

Today I went to watch my dad do a pyeloplasty.
It was amazing. He was so fookin' fast, skilled, and aware of what to do next. I don't know what I was more: inspired or insecure.
It was really interesting and exciting and I didn't faint. At least that makes me feel like maybe I am stepping in the right direction... plus I look hot in scrubs.

Argh badargh... I'm a person

Two events occurred this week. They drudged their way into my life, leaving a witnessing public *no* option but to assume that I am a real person.
This is bad.
See, even though I'm 22, have lived sans parents in 3 countries, and shortly will be attending medical school, I still don't consider myself a real human.
If I see a touch screen, I touch it. I pick up pennies from the ground. I love pressing buttons. I find farts funny. I sleep in pajama pants. Does this not mean anything??

What happened

1) At dinner my mom had made steamed Brussels sprouts. I tried one, liked it, and took another. Roee (my little brother) sadly, slowly, and with determination shook his head. "That's it," he said. And I knew he was right.
2) I had high school friends over one night: Kyle, Joevak, and Zvi. Zvi had just come back in town and was merrily spreading the news of his engagement (congrats!) and Joevak was spending his last night before moving to Israel for an indeterminate amount of time. As I was parting with him, he said, "Alright... well, I'll see you at Zvi's wedding."
How old and real does it make me feel that not only is a friend leaving forever, but the next time I'll see him is at a wedding of another friend.
Fuck.

Faculti

what a name

Sonoma

Howdy all, it's been a while since I last rapped at ya. I just got back from a trip to Sonoma county in California with my dad. It started by landing in San Francisco airport and driving up. It was really pretty weather and all the little expensive houses looked very cute. We stopped at Los Hermanos for delicious quesadillas for lunch before getting to his house.
After settling in we went to some local winery shops to do some wine-tasting (me) and schmoozing and gossipping (him). We then went to a friend's house that was unbelievable. These people had a house on top of a mountain with gorgeous valley-views on either face of the house. In the back they had an expansive, wandering garden with sculptures and orange trees and benches and suspicious whiffs of cannabis indica. These people could seriously have been featured MTV Cribs. It was the first time in my life I really felt like I wanted to make money when I'm older, because it'd be awesome to live somewhere like that. Of course, I will not be loaded and I will feel to guilty to ever live somewhere like that when down the block there are undocumented Mexican labourers, sending there sub-minimum wages back home.
We went back to my dad's house and did some sauna + pool action. The pool was about 50°F and very cold. You are only able to jump in and then with some wily kicks and reaches skeedadle your way out of there. We went out to dinner with an Israeli guy and ate these delicious gourmet hamburgers. Then went to bed.
The next morning, we went to some bakery where I had half a baguette with whole an avocado and then we met up with the friends from the aforementioned house. They are Russian and their names are Boris and Natasha (no, I didn't even bother making the joke). We met up with them and another rich girl from LA and went to... get ready for this... the Salvation Army store. That's right; these millionaires love trolling for cheap shit, hoping they stumble upon something valuable that they can steal from the poor people!!!!one!! We also went a bit wine tasting and ran into a psuedo-friend of my dad from Minneapolis who is reminiscent of Gimli from the expansively bad Lord of the Ring series. This guy will come to play later. After some wine consumption, we went back home, did the whole sauna + pool event, watched a movie, and I took a nap.
That night we went back to Boris and Natasha's house for a caviar and vodka party. These people live tough lives, I tell you. There were about 6 other couples there, each richer and more conceited than the last. There was this one guy who was describi- no, he was complaining about his four-car garage. It has an elevator so you park your car, the thing lifts it up and then you can park underneath it. It's like a bunk-bed (or, for you southern visitors, a trundle-bed) for cars. This dickweed had an old Porsche, Mercedes, and 2 Lexi and was bitching about it: "It's so annoying... if you want the car from the top because it's a convertible and you need it for the summer... it's so annoying to reverse the bottom car out and bring this car out and re-park the other car; plus you got to keep the top cars charged in the winter so the battery dies... it's so complicated. It's a simple life that you want." I wanted to slap this guy right in the mouf.
The pleasure of the party was just walking around the house. The wifey is an artist so it's covered with paintings and little collectibles and shit. The highlight was a complete Encylopaedia Britannica from 1876. I was puttering around the enclyopaedia looking for quirky or funny things (like no entry for 'motor') when I stumbled upon an article entitled 'Negro'. It was one of the most amazing exhibitions of racism and eugenics I've encountered since Borat. It culminated in a climax worthy of a Vandehose film. I took a picture with my camera phone but for those with non-discerning eyes, here is the last text reproduced:'No full-blood Negro has ever been distinguished as a man of science, a poet, or an artist, and the fundamental equality claimed for him by ignorant philantrhopists is belied by the whole history of the race throughout the historic period.'
Pretty kewl, huh?
Sunday was another nice day. Breakfast and sauna + pool and then we had to clean up and ship out. We picked up some Mexican [food] to go and drove back down to San Francisco. We had lunch on the ocean and walked around a bit and then headed to the airport. My dad had a 3:30pm flight to Minneapolis, while I had a 12:30am flight. We tried to see if I could get a standby flight. We were waiting in a bar in the airport, having been told my chances for flight were slim. We then saw the girlfriend of the aformentioned Gimli. She began telling us how things were so crazy because several hours prior they had visited Gimli's relatives and he had left behind his coat with keys and wallet inside. They were worried he would not be able to board the airplane sans ID. My dad and I exchanged telepathic high-fives over the possiblity that this guy he doesn't really like misses the flight and I get to fly with him. All of a sudden he came hobbling towards us with a face that showed both pain and triumph: he was given unidentified access into the airport, at the cost of a full body search. Despite the humour of this guy being anally examined, it meant I was not getting on this plane. To add insult to injury, he asked my dad for a ride home as he didn't have his car keys.
So I had 8 hours to kill.
I took the BART to downtown and walked around for a while. Saw a cool bass/drums/dancing kid in a tux act on the street and sat at a square for an hour doing crossword puzzles while the local Chabad was playing chanuka music and lighting candles. After that I went to a huge mall and walked around. I sat in a massage chair in Brookstone for 30min, meandered around the Bose store, Broders, and Discovery Channel Store. I still had 4 hours to kill so I went to a movie theatre and did something I'd never done before: watched a movie in the theatre, alone. I first bought a ticket to Casino Royale. I went to the lobby and they had a kind of self-service pop station, so I just took a cup without paying (it was 4$ for a cup! Plus this helped offshoot the 8$ ticket) and then saw the movie. I won't bore you with details about why this boring movie was boring but at least it took the time okay, with a maximum P (predictability) factor. I then went and saw the first hour of Apocalypto. Lemme tell you, if you thought Casino Royale was bad... Seriously, Mel Gibson is a sick fuck and pretty much the only reason to watch this movie is for some native boobies. I left around 11 and hopped back on BART to the airport. The plane took forever to board as all the other passengers were functionally retarded. Seriously, I was standing at the front of the plane, in line, for about 30 minutes as people wrapped their minds around the best way to put their Samsonite roller bags and Ambercrombie & Fitch shopping bags into the overhead compartment.
I don't know if you have ever flown a red-eye but it is the least misnomeric entity I've met since Old Country Buffet. I kept drifting off and back on into a restless, fitful sleep, made possible by the worst arm rest I've ever seen. I've added an artist's recreation.
I got back home at 7am, local time and fell into a very deep sleep and only woke up at 11:30. I could not be bothered to go to work.

A person

I've had an interesting couple of days, these days.
Let's see, ee, ee, ee, eeeeeee (think Jack Black).
My Tuesday was pretty feculant. I decided to take a personal holiday from work and sleep til 10. I woke up and then went to the doctor's office, first to get a chest X-ray done. I had to wait in line, get a damn X-ray, and fill out these forms with the radiologist in order to get my visa. I then realized that I needed passport photos. I drove to my dad's house, printed out some passport photos and spilled nearly a whole glass of water on my lap. I went back to the doctor's, this time for a physical. First of all, this was a paediatrician (I have to practice that weird spelling...) I was seeing. I think I was the only patient in the office that had his own insurance policy/mittens that weren't clasped together.

Together, the doctor and I filled out the 11 page form (not exaggerating) that is required for my visa. One of the questions on the self-filled portion was "Have you ever been addicted to or taken drugs illegally?". Well, being the cunninglyhonest man that I is, I checked 'Yes' and wrote "I tried marijuana when I was in Amsterdam in 2000". The doctor is meanwhile meant to review my form and see if everything checks out. He sees that I put 'Yes' for that question and, in a humorously raged way, asks, "Why the hell did you write yes??" After some deliberation he admitted, "well, I guess you had to put something or else they wouldn't believe you." Oh those hip paediatricians! The rest of my physical was uneventful, expect for the testicular cancer/hernia inspection, as my pudenda was still wet from the aforementioned accident, and he probably thought I was gross as balls. I also had to get blood test for Syphilis done.

After the doctor I went straight (essentially) to Mad Science in Coon Rapids.
Fuck Mad Science.
The whole lesson was me building 20 model rockets for these little inept kids. I wanted to die/get out of there as soon as possible. Unfortunately my next task was also unpleasant. I had to go straight to the local Red Cross and take part I of my First Aid/CPR class that's mandatory for med school. Man... this seems like to much work for medical school. Luckily my night was capped well by going to a local dive bar and some Smash Bros.

Today was good in that it was my last day of Anatomy. Huzah for my last class... of 2006... in America. Right afterwards I had to meet with my research Professor and representatives from a company who are funding our research. Kyle came along, as I am pleased to announce that he is taking over my job. It's good because a job like this should not go to waste on someone with a committed work ethic or skills. The highlight was when the reps took us out to lunch! Holla at your boyty. This marks my first corporate luncheon that I actually semi deserved. After lunch I digested well by watching some episodes of The Office ('merican version). Who knows what the night holds? Maybe something. Probably not.

What I'm listening to right now:
Arcade Fire -"Neighborhood #1"
The Cloud Room -"Hey now now"

Ugh

"I will never play poker again."

These are the parting words of a vanquished loser, spoken after every no-gut-shot achieved, lower pocket pair, or a bullshit river. These are the words spoken by me now.

Last night the eve started amicably enough. I went to a bar in Uptown for the first time in my life, actually, with kyle and curtis. We went to a bar called Aura that seemed pretty damn trendy, so I fit in very well. It was in a mall thing and small and crowded and 2-4-1 drinks. We three crammed into a special and cuddly booth and chatted and drank some whiskey&cokes (kyle splurged for the Jack and Coke whereas curtis and I desplurged for the nasty Windsor and Some Cola) and for some reason desided to head down to Shakopee (it's as bad as it sounds) to go to Canterbury Card Club. I'd never been to a card place but it is essentially a casino with no free alcohol or food and only card games. It's open 24 hours and filled with interesting characters. Like Senor ATM who lost a lot of money at our table. Or the guy who got really offended by kyle asking him to show his cards after the showdown and turned into a passive-agressive little girl, peaking at telling kyle that he has a lisp. The dealers were also cream-of-the-crop type peoples. Then there was this sucker (arrow pointed at me). I was not doing well, dropped more money than I care to blog, and thus am never playing poker again.
Congrats again to my bastard friends who both ended up for the night.
We got home at 4:30am and I went to sleep, nursing a self-resentment and loathing usually reserved for after a first date. Good times.

귀엽다

I'd just like to share an email I got from a former student, as it is fairly cute.
Don't be fooled by her English and think that all Koreans are so fluent - they're not. She's like 15 and is (I think) valedictorian of her class.
"
Hi Michael
Hi Hi Hi~
How is it going?
I'm in a final exam.
I didm't study hard, because this exam doesn't affect my highschool
enterence.
So do All 3 grade students. kkk [this is like the Korean 'lol'. Ed.]
This December is very exting to me!
Next week, I'll go my relation's wedding. So, I'll be able to eat
many,delicious food.
I'm happy~~~~^^
And, My braces will get rid of completely. I'll be more beautiful...kkk
One more thing, the last of December, I'll travel to Japan!
It is my first travel abroad and first flight.
I'm looking forward to that day.
Lately, I go to English hagwon [Korean private after-school academies. Ed.]to prepare TEPS.
TEPS is English test that is held by Seoul National University.
I'm curious abput your story. I'll wait for your recieve.
Good Bye, Take care~

Fleeced like a sheep

I like biking. I'm stubborn. The combination of these two facts is why even though it's 12°F, I'm still biking to work and school everyday (that's why my goggles are frozen! lolllllll!). It's a little more than 6 miles and takes me about 25 minutes to do.




You can click to see my route more interlly-active.

People ask me how I dress for 25 minutes in the coldth...
Attire (in geographic order):
-Warm clogs (but no backs)
-Normal socks underneath and wool socks over- I dunno if that makes sense.
-Normal boxers
-Fleece pants
-Normal pants
-T-shirt
-Fleece sweatshirt thing
-Raincoat shell
-Fleece gloves
-Fleece mittens over the gloves
-Face mask (fleece on inside)
-Chemistry lab goggles
-Fleece headband
-Helmet

Jesus, I better get mega-google hits for the word 'fleece'.


People (my mom) ask why I do it. I can expound on several reasons why. I believe in efficient energy, like many people do, however I feel it's a bit hypocritical if you don't practice what you preach. Ergo I bike for environmental reasons mainly to prove that I care about environmental things. Humans are too cute!!! In addition, there are other factors (such as don't worry about parking, traffic, gas, bad drivers) that influence it, as well as the physical part. I get to eat a lot, not worry about other forms of exercise, and it does actually make you feel good to bike in the morning. Gives you energy and excuse to sit in front of a computer for the next 5 hours. I even meet some well-preserved companions along the way.

The Dark Place

I just got back from a 5 day trip to the Chicagoland area. Boy are my arms tired. Just kidding, because I flew AirTran airways! Tickets to Chicago are 19$ each way from Minneapolis and they even give you pretzels and pop for free. But enough advertising...

I went there to visit my good friend Chase. For those of you who were informed in my Korea adventures might remember that he was my best friend there. He's a great guy and so I went to stay at his dad's house in Elgin. We spent a lot of time just reminiscing and watching bad movies (Zardoz, Dragonworld 2, Blade III) and drinking and eating pizza and all that other MANLY!!!1!one!!!! stuff that is justly popular. Rather than chronologically going through what I did as that could be boring (although who am I kidding, this kind of writing (e.g. blogging) is self-serving indulgent tripe anyway) I'll try to do some highlights instead.


+Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. We went to bed at midnight, outside being as dry as most of my first dates, and woke up with literally a foot of snow! To put that in terms you can understand, imagine a bunch of 1-inch Tetris pieces, stacked up in 12 lines... no wait, they disappear when you make a line... imagine if they were stacked poorly - that's what it looks like. Crazy.

+We ate 5 frozen pizzas and 1 authentic© Chicago© style© deep dish that was actually as delicious as I've heard.

+I got to see my good friends from Madison: PJ and Alex. We all hung out and played pool and darts and did karaoke and ate and drank.

+A good Chase story. This is the namesake of the blog entry, as sometimes when Chase has been wetting his whistle, he goes somewhere he likes to call his "dark place". We all have this place inside us, whether it causes us to be aggressive, manipulative, emotional, crazy, or, as my dark place usually manifests, just plain awesome, where we go when we have been imbibing a little too much of the sauce. We were out in downtown Chicago, the Wicker Park area, I believes, at some bars. The night started with Michael's Reinberg's first (and hopefully last) martini. Pukatronic. After some heavy liver damage and bar-hopping, we make our way home. On the cab ride, one of Chase's friends is giving him a hard time and getting him riled up. He makes several attempts to grab the wheel and pull the cab over. He also pulls out the tube that supplies air to the back of the taxi. Somehow, we were not kicked out. We get to his friends' area and get some Mexican food (pretty cool actually, popular, delicious, and cheapish Mexican restaurant open at 3am) and head back the to apartment to call it a night. We get there and binge away and the guys head off to bed. I go to brush my teeth and I come back and Chase has vanished; the only proof he was ever there is a football propping the door open.
Fuck.
It's like 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside and his cellphone is on its way out. I go outside and call him and shout for him and there's no answer. I prop the main apartment door open with an empty cigarette pack and go back to the apartment. At this point, I'm pretty drunk, very tired, worried as hell that Chase is going to freeze to death, and don't know what to do. So I go to sleep. I wake up around 8 and call his cell and there's no answer. Return to sleep. During my sleep I have two different dreams: in one he is being dragged to the apartment by the cops and in the other he was found sleeping outside by some friendly neighbors. In both dreams he is wearing purple sweats and has shit himself. I wake up again at 10 and call him. I heard a groggy "hello?" and am elated that he's not dead.
"Hey, what the fuck? Where are you?"
"Uh, Kim? Where am I?"
*muffled girl's voice*
"Yeah, I'm a couple blocks away from you guys. I'll be over in 10 minutes"
*click*
He comes back and proceeds to tell the story:
He left the apartment in a drunken rage because everyone was making fun of him (we weren't). He ran down the street and happened to see two girls that he knew from Madison. He entered the bar, suffered some emotional breakdown, and hung out at the bar with them until 5 (wow, bars stay open that late!!!!) and went back home with them (nothing happened, I am assured). So the conclusion to the story was not that interesting, but we'll say my end of the story was good. The next morning he and I went to these chicks' apartment where they prepared an amazing Mexican brunch, but everyone was too hungover to fully enjoy it. Sad.

mikiHow: Getting that MP3 you want.

This is a bit of a sway from my usual blogging motif (myself) but thought I'd just throw this on. This is a way to get *most* songs you want for free with a bit of work. If you don't like spending money at iTunes and don't want to/can't download the whole album, then this should be good for you.

step 1: Find your song out
Let's say you're driving along, listening to the radio, when you hear a song and you think, "this is a pretty rad ditty!". You know you want this song. The most important thing is, obviously, to know what song it is. Some radio stations will list every song they play based on when you heard it. The other option is to write down a couple lines of the lyrics in your cellphone and google it later to find the song.

step 2: Find your song
Now what you need to do is find your song. Generally, the only way to listen to songs online without paying is to find streaming audio. You're choices are to google the song, including the search terms 'streaming' and 'mp3'. You could also check out some sites that have a lot of streaming audio; sites I like are Odeo and Last.fm. If you cannot find your song anywhere, another option is to go to Rhapsody. That site lets you listen to 25 streaming songs for free if you sign up.

step 3: Record your stream
There are many programs out there that let you record streaming audio. I like MP3MyMP3. This is a free program. Set it up (should be done very quickly). Make sure you set the MP3 export to a high bit rate (256kb should be good) and set the recording volume low (mine goes all the way to 11). This is so the quality of the mp3 is good. You must also set your audio source to something like "Stereo Mix" or "Wave Out" or something like that. These options are available based on what you have on your computer.
Now, all you need to do is hit play on the streaming audio source and hit record on the mp3 recording program. Once the song is over, hit "Stop Recording" and then press "Save to Mp3". Choose where you want to save it and you now have a good, free recording of a song you want.

Notes:
*If you have other programs that make noise (AIM, Gchat, etc.) then they will be recorded by the program. Make sure you turn off the sounds to those programs.
*This is obviously not as efficient as possible. There are streaming audio recorders available for purchase that are able to start and stop with the song playback, along with more sophisticated functions.
*Sometimes, streaming sites like Odeo will have an option to save the song. Do it! Duh.
*I do not endorse illegal recording of music. All information here is for educational purposes only.

What are you reading?

When somebody asks you, "what are you reading?" what do you say?
I usually do some sort of combination of showing them the cover, half-heartedly saying the name of the book, and/or a crappy description.
Do they really want to hear what it's about or are they just hoping that they will recognize the title and then they can share something about the book and its relation to them.
Incidentally, I am reading

It's alright.