(or, What I Did The Last Weekend of the Year of the Rat)

This weekend, I

> attacked a stack of magazines. In my renewed attempt to combat clutter at home, I went through one of many giant piles of magazines that occupy various shelves and boxes around the house. I managed to get through several years of Via and Sierra. Next up will be tackling old issues of Outside. The whole process is taking ages since I'm sifting through everything page by page, pulling articles I want to keep, and recycling the rest. Ultimately, I will scan the articles I saved so there won't be any loose paper hanging around.

> watched the first season of Two Guys and a Girl on YouTube. I was catching up on old episodes of How I Met Your Mother when I had a sudden craving for Two Guys and Girl, a sitcom from the late nineties and a show that will likely never reach DVD. It introduced me to two of my favorite comedic actors: Ryan Reynolds and Nathan Fillion. By the way, both are Canadian, which is a piece of trivia that may be worth something someday (or not). Anyway, to me, the strength of the show was the physical humor and banter between Pete and Berg, which echoed another comedy I watched when I was younger: Perfect Strangers.

> celebrated Chinese New Year. We had dinner with my mom's half of the family (a.k.a. the Chinese half) in Santa Cruz on Saturday. In addition to the usual suspects, my great-uncle and his two sons joined us, which was a happy surprise since we rarely see them. All told, there were ten us - a small gathering by most people's standards, but a massive one by ours. We monopolized a corner of the restaurant, a place so small it only had one corner. As usual, my grandfather ordered more food than anybody could possibly eat in one sitting, which means my folks have enough leftovers to last through Wednesday. All in all, it was a fine way to welcome the Year of the Ox.

To everybody who celebrates it, Happy Chinese New Year!