Yelpper!

Are you Yelping? Because I'm tooootally Yelping. I've caughten the Yelping bug. By now you're probably wondering (1) Why is Asha using the word "yelping" in every sentence? (2) Why does "yelping" have a capitalized "y"? (3) Is Asha a little crazy?

Well I shall answer accordingly: Yelp is cool. Yelp is a name, thus capitalized. And yes, Asha is a little crazy and especially so right now because she's hopped up on cold medication.

Oh how I hate being sick, and I don't think I made it any better by spending the first day of being sick (yesterday) running around San Francisco. A meeting, then the SF Design Center (FOR THREE HOURS, classwork), and then dinner and dessert. Dinner was hilarious because there were four of us and three were sick with a cold. Anyway, this whole Yelping thing, at www.yelp.com you can read reviews on restaurants, stores, basically anything that's reviewable, and also post your own. Which is what I started doing this past week and haven't been able to stop. Went to a new restaurant? It will be on my Yelp the day of or the day after I went. I'm just like that. And I spend way too much time on the internet.

Now I'm off to bed to try and sleep this cold away.

Random Thoughts...

Okay! Enough with the Care Bears and the Caballeros, I'm done with childhoodness and soooo ready to bitch about the hear and now! And maybe the yesterday.

What is with (say it with a Seinfeld voice, say it) the MUNI? Yesterday I had the weirdest experience. I had just left school and was half a block away from the bus stop and like always I'm walking down there just KNOWING that the bus will pull out a minute before I get there, because that's what always happens and then I'm stuck waiting at a cold, blustery bus stop for half an hour. Well not this time! I ran down the street to the corner and practically jumped in front of the bus to stop it from moving (driver wasn't even looking at me), ran on the bus, paid my fee and slowly weaved from side to side to a seat. My weaving is courtesy of the bus driver making a left turn at record speed. I'm not at the weird part yet, that's about twenty five minutes away. So we're chuggin' along pretty fast, which is great, I love the fast drivers, because they go -duh- fast and so I get home faster, and I'm sitting there happy because I got off class early so that in combination with driver-fasty-pants, I was going to get home after a long, shitty day and chill for a long time before going to sleep. Sweet!

The weirdness happened when we pulled out from the Post St stop, our driver was going slow as a snail on pot! I didn't have a clue what the deal was. Before Post, he's barely even let people get through the door before he slammed them shut on people's asses, and now he's waiting at the bus stop for nonexistant people to board! And then he's going 10 miles an hour, with NOBODY in front of him, waiting for the traffic light to turn red so he can stop and wait some more. UGH, I was so confounded and frustrated, I didn't have words to describe. It must be the tailgater in me. Anyway, I figured it was one of two options, either: He was going to fast in the beginning, therefore was off schedule and was trying to make up for it by going slow OR he wanted to pick someone up at a certain stop and had to make sure he got there in time. The second I almost believed because as soon as we turned onto Mission, he was going normal speed again, next stop, he picks up three guys that smile at him "familiarly". Except those three guys got off three blocks later. wtf.

I don't know, and you know what else I don't know about? It's practically a full day later and I'm still wondering about this. I think I might be borderline OCD.

I'm now eating the rest of the fried rice I made for lunch as a "mid afternoon" snack and I'm noticing that my jaw is more fucked up than it usually is. Two years ago, I was in class and climbed up onto some cabinets to open a window because it was getting too warm in our classroom. Well clumsy me, slipped when I stepped up and full on fell and hit my jaw on the cabinets, and since then I've had jaw issues where my jaw will misalign and I have to move it back in place so I can chew on food. When I went to see the doctor about it, he said I would probably need physical therapy so I would know how to properly chew so my jaw wouldn't realign, but of course I never went and now I'm probably doing more harm than good when everytime I open my mouth.

Oh oh, and today, this is great, I was doing some aerobic exercises (in my sad attempt to lose weight) and I nearly blacked out. Yeah. I'm healthy like that. I was doing the "level II" workout, which is twice and long and quite a bit harder than level I and halfway through I really needed some water so I took a long sip, and then...I could feel my heart beat in my throat, which I've never felt unless I've done some extreme exercising, so I thought maybe I should calm down for a little bit, stopped moving, kept breathing, and the heart beat got stronger and faster, so I lay down. BAD IDEA. Dear GOD where did this headache come from? It felt like I had a blood clot in my brain that was just stuck somewhere in the middle and just pulsating. So imagine me, on the floor, rolling from side to side, trying to figure out whether I'm going to die from a brain aneurism on the floor in my sports bra and sweatpants, mean while Debbie the workout instructor is still playing on the TV, telling me that I've just gotta do eight more reps.

I seriously thought I was going to die.

Then the pain ebbed away, and I sat up, turned off the TV and contemplated what the hell just happened. Then I took a shower and ate some fried rice.

Avoiding Anything Constructive

The computer just restarted randomly, assumably because the graphics driver was a little too overloaded with my five windows looking at five different things at the same time and reworking the layout of my blog.

You're probably looking around the blog wondering what's changed, and if you haven't, jeez, what does it take to get a little attention and caring around here? Actually all I really did was add another category to the sidebar "Design Rad-ness", because after surfing around looking at different design firms around California, I found that a former professor of mine has a blog. After staring at the screen in shock for about five minutes, I read the blog and it was pretty informative (he is a pretty informative guy) and thought I'd share it with the rest of you. The other link goes to cubeme.com which is a site with too many awesome, cool and sure, maybe, unrealistic things to see. But who really cares about realism, I'm looking for inspiration and entertainment.

So I've been listening to Fresno State's radio station yet again, and I can't believe how nice it is just to have some nice instrumental music in the background. I'm completely avoiding any work I'm supposed to be doing, because right now, I'm in complete spring break mode and can't be bothered to even get up to stretch so my back doesn't crap out on me again. If you remotely enjoy jazz or eclectic music, click to http://www.csufresno.edu/kfsr/KFSRhome.html for some great sounds. They've definitely changed their vibe in the last year that I've been gone from that school, they used to have way less jazz programming and more variety, but it seems as though all of it has been smushed into Sunday programming. Oh well, I listen for the jazz anyway.

So since this whole "I'm going to delve into my childhood t.v. watching" phase has begun, I've looked for and found clips of Care Bears, Snoopy Come Home, and now I've found My Little Pony. I'm sure if you haven't contemplated abandoning this blog yet, you're probably thinking about it now. Bear with me.

Either that or ignore this post. Your choice.

I had this tape of My Little Pony & Friends that had a two part episode called "The Revolt of Paradise Estate". In the episodes, magical paint is used to quickly repair the home of MLP, which it does but also brings the furniture and house to life. These regularly inanimate objects then turn on the ponies, chasing them out of the house. But things of course get resolved in the end. These movies were such a big part of my childhood, rediscovering them is like rediscovering outlooks and emotions that I haven't had since then. It's a pretty darn weird experience.

I couldn't find a clip of MLP so here's a clip from the last of the four biggest movies of my childhood: The Three Caballeros.

Cookies

I cannot believe this recipe. It's the regular Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe from the package of chocolate chips, and it's says that it makes 5 dozen cookies. I have no idea how anyone, anywhere could possibly squeeze more than two dozen out of one batch, much less FIVE. I'm halfway through the dough now and I've made, oh, 16. I think it's pretty obvious to everyone that I have nothing too heavy to complain about today, just a bunch of little complaints that peck at me constantly, and so to relieve the mini-burden that is those peckers, I shall just unleash them upon you.

It took me 20, TWENTY, minutes to find Silom on a satellite view of Bangkok. I honestly suck at looking at maps of Bangkok, there's just so much shit going on, and obvious I hardly ever see Bangkok in an aerial view when I'm there, so all I really had to go by was the RBSC and Lumphini park. Well that didn't help at all, and when I finally went on google search and found a drawn map of greater Bangkok, I realised I was in the wrong bend of the Chao Phraya and way too fucking north to anywhere near Silom. So I corrected, found the street, zoomed in and found my house. All for the sake of geo-tagging my flickr photos of Millie and Trillie.

So I've been geo-tagging my photos, totally ignoring the cookies (I'm surprised I haven't burnt any yet), the oven's still going but the cookies are out. I just can't believe how sucked into things I get when I'm into them, nothing else matters, I'm so over cookie baking right now. It just surprises me when I realise I'm trying to do multiple things at once, because anyone who knows me well enough knows my "open mouth stare". The biggest and most contraversial case is when I'm talking to you on the phone, and there some other stimulus going on where I am. Be it the television, the cat, a shiny object, I will, without fail, completely ignore anything you are saying to me, whether you're speaking softly or yelling, I won't hear a word unti I snap out of it.

I just geo-tagged some of my photos on flickr, there's a map, you find locations, drag and drop your photos onto locations, and so when you view the photo and it says on the side "Take in San Francisco, CA" you can click on the "map" link and it'll show you exactly where in SF I took the photo. I don't think I have the energy or mental capabilities to tackle the Hawai'i set yet, especially not with this cookie baking going on.

I just finished the last batch, scraped the last of the dough from the bowl with a spatula and sent them into the oven, when done, I will have a total of 27 (plus 1 eated) cookies. That is not even 2.5 dozen. I don't know how these Tollhouse crazies make their cookies, but I'm pretty sure people eat four at a time because they're so damn tiny. Eugh, makes me want to quit making drop cookies because the dough is so stupidly sticky, at least with a shaped cookie I know how thick it's going to be, I can make them smaller or bigger. With a drop cookie recipe I can either make a big sticky lump or a small sticky lump.

Enough complaining, I'm going to watch Care Bears on YouTube again.

Favorite Childhood Movies

Okay I obviously have nothing else to do today, this is my third post, because I figured out what the other movie was that I loved so much as a child. I watched "Snoopy Come Home" so often that the tape in the VHS ripped and I haven't watched it since. One of the biggest references I've seen was in Family Guy when Brian gets kicked out of the New Yorker Office and the "NO DOGS ALLOWED" line is sung like in this movie. So going back on YouTube to look for clips, I watch a few and realise how incredibly depressing this movie is, from Lila's "Do You Remember Me" song to when Snoopy leaves and Charlie Brown's singing "It Changes". I don't know how I could stand watching this as the kid.

A not so depressing musical clip:

Care Bears!

This whole thing started with me buying a waterbottle.

Not just any waterbottle, but a Camelbak flip straw bottle with an "integrated handle". I can't believe how much water I've been drinking since I got it, at least a litre a day! Which I guess doesn't sound like much to you "regular" water drinkers, but unbeknownst to you, I don't regularly drink water during the day (or night) and if I ever do drink water in any volume larger than a sip, I usually feel sick. Well this bottle has revolutionized my life! Do I sound enough like an infomercial yet?

Oh yeah, back to the story.

I've been trying to find something to "accessorise" my bottle, my name, a sticker, anything really. So I went to one of those sticker cutting kiosk and after much perusing, I decided against it, since I didn't think the kiosk-keeper was too friendly, and I couldn't find anything I liked.

Fast-forward two days at Me'N'Ed's Pizza, I see the sticker vending machine has Care Bear stickers! So I pawn 50 cents off of W and buy one. I got "Wish Bear", although my bear is blue, it has the same symbol on his belly, so it must be the right one.

So now that little bugger's on my bottle, wrestling with a star who's trying to lick his face (I'll try and get an image later), but then W and I were talking, and we started discussing the Care Bears, and what exactly comes out of their symbols when they point them. Now let me enlighten you with this. I watched this one CB movie endlessly. ENDLESSLY. That movie, Three Caballeros and one other (can't remember) were my absolute favorite throughout my childhood.

So I got home and went on Youtube. And guess what I found? The movie "Care Bears II: The Next Generation" split up into 10 minute segments, all there. I've watched the first three parts, still getting through the rest, but I can't believe how I can still sing along to the songs, and how weird some of this movie is. Still fun, still cute, but definately weirder than I remember.
Probably my age-addled tainted brain.

Lost

I can't believe how much work I've lost over the years.

Well, maybe not actually lost, more thrown away. At Fresno State, I was the type of person that never kept old work. All my sketches, thrown out when the project was done. Even drawings, thrown out once they started clutter. It worked out on the one side of reducing cluttered space and cluttered brain, but it definately didn't work out on the side of I DON'T HAVE ANY OF MY PREVIOUS DRAWINGS. Except for the ones that I decided to scan, and let me tell you, that pile is pretty damn skimpy.

In Spring 2006 I took a beginning drawing class (which I found out was another class that didn't count towards my degree, at least I enjoyed it, unlike Chinese for Beginners), and I did some pretty decent drawings in that class of horses, and bottles and even wild birds like owls and hawks (we had a great guest with her menagerie), but none of it was saved because right after that class' final, I graduated. And right after I graduated, I left for Hawaii, and a week after I came back from a Hawaii, I moved to San Francisco. I remember the exact moment when I decided that I would throw away all my bird drawings because "When was I going to use them? Would they survive the move?" I had reasoned with myself that since I was moving 660 square foot, a one bedroom apartment's worth of crap into a 90 square foot space, I would have to do some serious purging. Which began with those drawings.

I didn't have time to scan, and couldn't have scanned, because they weren't spray fixed for the guest's medical reasons that we need not go into, and I had already seen some signs of falling apart, but I look back on it now and truely regret throwing those suckers away, because they were great pastel drawings that I could never recreate, especially not on my own.

In this new school, new mindset, new ideas, I'm saving absolutely everything because I'm so scared that when it comes time for my portfolio, or my mid point review, or even my final review, I won't have the image that I want and will have to go and rescan the flimsy. When I actually have time to sit down and ponder what I've lost over the years because I didn't think the drawing was good enough, or I didn't think the piece was worthy, I definitely think I threw away a piece of my life and creativity. From the clay hand that I smashed in Year 9 because of mold, to the concept board that I ripped apart last semester, those were all pieces that I created that I didn't document in some shape or form, which is unfortunate, because now it's just lost in the black hole that is my memory, and I'll never get it back.

As for now, I think I'll take clutter over regret.

My daily web routine...

So...I have:

1. Noticed that I start alot of my posts with "So" and,
2. Noticed that when I can't perform my normal web routine, I get a little irritable.

It goes a little something like this:

I open up I.E. v.7 (which I have so learned to love), open up favorites and have broken down my "Daily Views" folder into these catagories:

-Comics
-Gossip
-Miscellaneous

I was going to type out all the websites that I visit, but then I realised that I can't remember them, which is why I'm posting to begin with! I can't do the routine because there are quite a few websites and dailies that I read and unfortunately I only remember the main ones, not the other ones that really round out the experience. I can't believe I was going to document all the websites I go to for your viewing pleasure, not because any of them are dirty or disturbing (although, some of those gossip sites are questionable), but because it truely shows how incredibly anal I am about some things, especially since I was planning to categorize.

Speaking of IE and of course Microsoft, let's talk about Vista! I got a brochure on it while browsing around Target, and they do seem to have alot of versions of it, more than XP, four to be exact (although W scared me while we were perusing when he said they had 9, which I totally believed since everyone is making such a big hoo-ha of it, like Penny Arcade:

Clickity click to actually be able to read it.

So there's four, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate. I'm not sure I see the point in Home Basic. I'm looking at the handy-dandy grid they have in the brochure and it looks like basic sucks ass. It's got "Instant search" and IE7 (which I have, on my xp, wtf) I mean, yeah, yeah, it costs $60 less than Premium, but there's a reason! There's a reason why I spend $8.99 on a burger at Red Robin as opposed to $4.49 at Burger King, because RR tastes better, feels better and looks a hell of alot better than BK, and I probably won't be on the floor, clutching my gut, wondering why the world hates me (unless I ate too many of those RR steak fries..mmm steak fries, but that's more me than the food). I have XP Pro on my laptop because AutoCAD doesn't run on XP Home, and I found out the hard way. I bought home when I bought my desktop first semester at Fresno State, then second semester got CAD and wondered why it wouldn't fucking work.

So the price hikes go as follows for the different faces of Vista Upgrades are $100, $160, $200, $260. The regular Vista's are as follows: $200, $240, $300, $400. Ouch.

In case you're wondering what the difference between upgrade and regular is, upgrade is when you have a lesser system and what the to -huh- upgrade it, and regular is when you have no system at all and are starting from scratch. And upgrade is like sprinkles on your ice cream scoop, if there's no scoop there to upgrade on, you've just got sprinkles in a cup.

I just checked on bestbuy.com, XP is going for: Home Upgrade $100, Pro Upgrade $200, Home $200, Pro $300.

You can't see this, but I went back and edited that last part of the post because I thought I had a point when I said that Vistas were going from $100 - $260, when those were actually the UPGRADES. I should really read more when I research for blog posts. Anyway, when I had that point, XP was pretty comprable, now, XP is cheaper, and in about 6 months, defunct. And you would think that as long as people are using XP, Microsoft needs to have support teams that cater to it, and all this great stuff for XP instead of their new baby Vista, but I remember when I bought a cell phone and six months later when I went in with a problem, I was told that they don't handle models "that old", while looking at it as though it were shit on the sidewalk.

And I just had to add the word "farting" into my cell phone dictionary for quick texting, because it's an integral word in my vocabulary and texting about farting is pretty much how I roll.

Moo-burger

The Moo loves sleeping in a sea of flimsy, and I love hearing a soft crinkle every so often as she readjusts herself. Have a great weekend!

Random happenings...

So it's been a week since I last posted, and quite a bit of stuff has happened, so hang on folks, this is gonna be a long one. The end of the bus ride from my last post is where I will pick up.

Friday 3/9: I was on my way to go pick up keys from a classmate so I could go watch her dog, she was going skiing in Tahoe and needed someone to watch Nunu. So I picked up keys, went to school to work and then around 8 I went to the apartment to walk the dog. My school's across the street from Pier 39, Nunu lives in North Beach (little Italy) and I had only been to her apartment once. I of course got lost. I knew she lived on Grant and Green, yet I was standing on the corner of said streets and pretty much spun around in place looking for something, ANYTHING that would be a landmark to how I got here the past Wednesday to re-introduce myself to the dog. Finally, place found, dog leashed, way excited, down we go, into the heart of North Beach.

Whoops.

It's FRIDAY NIGHT. Everyone is out, and let me tell you, it's hard to walk a dog when weaving through throngs of people, some of which are already drunk (IT'S 9PM!) and Nunu is of course completely oblivious, walking with nose in ground looking for some trash she can eat.

Sat 3/10: Cut to next day, at 7am I'm on my way to see Nunu for her morning walk. Lucky for her, a beautiful sunrise and many photo oppurtunities silences my disgruntledness.

Sunrise over the Bay Bridge. Puuuurdy.

Looking down Montgomery Street (cross street Green)

Nunu, the Bichon Frise.

It's still Saturday, I'm at home after walking Nunu, and the roommates decide to go to the beach, I'm along for a ride, let's do this. The fog is rolling in on Ocean Beach, but it's pretty, and there's a sand surfer rolling back and forth, totally hamming it up for the camera (who could blame him).

Sand Surfer from far away and then up close.

The rest of the day is spent walking the dog, working at school, eating pizza and walking the dog.

Sun 3/11: It's fucking hot people! What happened? It's probably global warming, and I should probably be way concerned, but right now, roomates and I are thinking it's a beautiful day, let's make the most of it. We're going Clement St. to Ocean Beach to Lincoln Park to who can really remember (not me) and there some great picture taking in this, check the flickr for more, but here's a taste:

Golden Gate through a bunch of trees.

Mon 3/12: School

Tues 3/13: Crappy school AND BIRTHDAY! Woohoo it's my sister's birthday and since I haven't really told too many people (uh, maybe four) the story of the cake-schlepping, let's do it here (oh won't it be fun). Ordered a cake the day before from the apartment's favorite bakery Victoria's Pastry Co., way too cute a place, there's an old Italian lady called Victoria in there, never spent enough time to ask who she was, what she's doing there and what's her life story, but they make damn good pastries and very nice cakes. I had my morning class in SOMA, field trip to the PG&E Center to study lighting, and so I took the 15 that cuts through China Town, North Beach and invariably ends up right outside my school. Get off on Columbus and Broadway because I think that's near where the bakery is.

WRONG.

It's on Stockton, a block over and two blocks up. Yet I have already wasted about ten minutes going up one street then changing my mind and going down the other way, no, no, turn on this intersection, walk a little, oh no. WHERE THE FUCK AM I?? Get through to the bakery, get directions, get there, pay and grab cake and try, TRY to make it to my noon class. It's probably 11:55 and I'm nine blocks away from school. The professor was late so I somehow made it on time. Sometimes, I'm just one lucky pluck.

Happy Birthday Sai!

Insane in the membraaaane...

I can't believe I'm surprised by this, but today I was riding the 14 (Mission st. MUNI) and I came to the realisation that I was surrounded by crazy people. Not just "Oh that person's a little to weird to be normal", but actual talking-to-yourself, arguing-with-yourself, laughing-at-a-joke-that-voice-inside-your-head-made type crazy.

I counted three, THREE people that either walked by me on the bus or was sitting in front of me that were talking to themselves out loud.

The first was a hispanic lady who kept ringing the stop bus line even though she wasn't getting off, and when she finally decided to get off, she was standing at the door (on the inside) looking at the floor in front of me, shaking her head with furrowed brow as if annoyed by the floor. Then there was the asian guy with long hair, dirty fingernails (gross) and black (dirt) addled feet that started yelling at the window, harrumphing because the bus was going too slow.

The last, and my favorite (sarcasm!) one was the Phillipino lady who first started out by moving her jaw in a weird way, not chewing, it was a kind of side-to-side action here, with -of course- furrowed brow, she was heavily concentrating on something who knows what, and moving her nose in a weird way (the bus was actually going really slowly, there was construction on the road so I had alot of time to analyze this woman). That moved on to her moving her small bag from on her lap, to the seat next to her, to the floor, back to the seat, her lap then finally the seat again. Then when were actually in gridlock because we had one lane on a usually two lane super busy road, she turned around to face the driver (she was sitting in a seat facing the back of the bus) and started making loud comments (in Phillipino) to herself and laughing (really loudly) about -I'm presuming- how slow we were going. I mean, it's nice to have a chuckle about how the we're going at a snail's pace, but it was as if she was talking to someone, that someone being the back of the aforementioned crazy asian guy's head (who of course was too busy harumphing to himself to take notice).

Anyway, I was on the F-line going to school when I started contemplating how the 14 has a higher concentration of crazy than any other bus I've been on, except any Haight bus, that's pretty much 75% crazy people on there.

Ack!

It really doesn't get any better than this: Moo cat freaking out, I'm not too sure what's up with her, but she's kicking and licking and sometimes she'll even run away. This is just a taste of living the the Moo-raka...

Oh the absolute horrible dispiriting pain...

Today in Tuesday.

On Sunday I finally gave in and did a 24 minute work out from a DVD called "Start It Up!" I've always been heavier than my classmates, and after looking at a picture of myself in Y9, I realise how much weight I've gained since then, and I was not happy. I did okay, the arms in the air thing burned by the end, and the squats were killing me, but I survived, with just a spritz of sweat and quite a bit of energization.

Monday was a different story.

I woke up IN PAIN. Oh dear God, I really didn't need to be reminded of what it felt like the day after a strenuous P.E. session at B.P.S. This was not good, not good at all. My QUADS, the damn frontal-thigh muscles were absolutely killing me and I am sooooo not a happy camper when it comes to pain. Smartly enough, I didn't take any pain killers with me to school, so I had to endure sitting down on a low sofa and getting back up multiple times, trying to use my arms intead of my thighs (who knew I needed those to get out of a chair?), and I almost had a hernia trying to pull myself out of a bus seat on the way home. Still, Monday morning I totally did the work out again because I knew the pain was because my muscles were screaming "You asshole! You deserve every pang for your stupid, stupid body envy!"

Today is Tuesday. And I didn't work out today. I didn't have time. But I will definately do it tomorrow.

Definately.

Bangkok smog reducing!

An article in the NY Times today talks about how Thailand has reduced their bad air quality, which is so awesome because we all like to be able to breathe easier in the city of smiles or angels or whatever. And I'm always for posting positive things about Thailand. The first paragraph below, click the title for the link to the full article.

Breathing Easier as the Battle for Blue Skies Pays Off

"BANGKOK — Black smoke billowing from tailpipes into the humid, tropical air was once a Bangkok trademark. But a decade and a half after Thailand began a battle for better air quality, this erstwhile icon of smog has emerged as a role model for pollution-choked capitals in Asia, with considerably cleaner air than Beijing, Jakarta, New Delhi and Shanghai."

Crazy cool slinky chair

I totally didn't believe this chair was sittable until those two actually sat on it, but I wonder how strong it is when it's stretched out fully. It's looks like at least the end panels are made of particle board...I dunno, but...so pretty...

Dood....SO full....

So this is how my day went:

0930 - Roll out of bed, it's Saturday, I'll get up whenever I feel like getting up (nevermind that I haven't had to wake up earlier than 9 for the past three days and the day before I didn't even open my eyes until 10:30...shut up)
0945 - Pour myself a bowlful of Honey Bunches of Oats and devour
0950 - Give in and pour myself another bowl of cereal and repeat devouring
1000 - Eat some of my sister toasted tortilla/butter/honey breakfast (she offerred!!)
1145 - Jump into the shower, sis got a car from CCS, we've got a day ahead of us
1215 - Start walking to 9th & Dore to pick up the car
1245 - I'm letting a dog lick my fingers through a hole, she was the sweetest welsh corgie/cardigan mix named Sadie, I was so prepared to take her home, but she was too big a dog *sigh*
1315 - We're on the otherside of town looking for parking on Clement street (SF China Town: The Sequel)
1330 - We're wandering down Clement thinking of where to eat, roasted ducks in the windows, dim sum, dim sum, bakery (ooh, be back later!) and finally the bun store!
1345 - Our butts are parked in a line waiting for some buns and porridge
1415 - Full of BBQ pork buns, porridge, potstickers and this other steamed thing, we're now buying cakes at Shubert's, because that's how we roll, about to puke from fullness and we get more
1435 - Perusing this huge plastic store, they have so much amazing stuff, it completely reminded me of Thailand, with the tubs, and the tiny niknaks that you just don't see in any other store in the States, ever, I buy stackable baskets, a huge tupperware box for my art stuff and a little broom/dustpan combo for kitty litter
1500 - My sister is getting a haircut and I am watching the hairdresser, wondering if she's either cutting wrong or her shears are just really blunt
1600 - We're down Haight street and have been looking for parking for 10 minutes now
1610 - Still down Haight looking for parking
1615 - I've come to the conclusion that American Apparel is seriously overpriced, I'm headed towards Villain
1630 - Score! Sale, serious shopping being done here, in the sale racks only because I'm such a cheapie
1700 - Two shirts, a hat and $61 later, I'm running into another store to buy crepes, the lady in front of me was being a bitch, and then the lady behind the counter was a bitch to me, which sucks, but the crepes are so good
1735 - Walking back from Dore with all our booty, constantly knocking into each other because we have so much stuff
1800 - Start watching "Little Miss Sunshine"
1930-ish - Finish watching "Little Miss Sunday" and have another Napoleon Dynamite realisation that I don't like movies that everyone else raves about
2100 - In Safeway perusing, just for the heck of it
2200 - Eating a home-made burrito at home
2317 - Blogging and soon to sleep
~Fin~

Top Design

I know, I know, I said I wouldn't watch it, I said it was a horrible show, and that it completely misrepresents what I'm going to be doing with life. Well I watched it last night, a marathon actually, and I have to say: It is still a horrible show.

Oh the horror, the absolute horror. I was sitting in the living room, playing 9Dragons and my sister was flipping between American Idol and Top Design.

1. Dear American Idol, stop. Just, please, stop. Love, Asha.

2. I watched (parts of) the "kid" challenge, the "cabana" challenge and the "garage sale" challenge. The garage sale challenge was the latest one and I have to say, I have made my conclusions about all parties involved, especially the show as a whole. And I have to say...the show makes me angry. When the next show starts after Top Design, I am fully, fully frustrated with the decision that was made for the winner (judges, producers, whoever you suck for picking Carissa) aaand that certain people were allowed to stay.

Top Design has basically become the Carissa show because she's a bitch that everyone hates and gets frustrated with everyone, blah blah blah. Usually you love to hate the bitch (i.e. Janice Dickinson), but now, here, the bitch(es) are all hated by me, thoroughly for wasting space and time and taking the limelight away from the true stars, which I'm sure Bravo will kick off the show because they don't cause enough drama. It makes me want to swear off reality T.V. which (of course) I'm not going to do because if I stopped watching reality T.V. I would basically watch Scrubs and Family Guy exclusively.

Anyway, I won't recap the episode because you can go to another site for that and they'll do a much better, much more thorough job of it, but I will vent my conclusions upon you and discuss only the contenstants that made me particularly mad, because this is my blog, muaha!

Matt

Your room was beautiful, I cannot believe that you did not all out win this challenge. Sophisticated, not garage sale at all and everything your client wanted, the judges, producers, powers-that-be at Bravo are completely on crack for not picking you.

Ryan

Leave. Please just leave this competition. You do not deserve to be there, you are an installation artist, not an interior designer, go do art since you obviously have no respect for interior design you should go do something you won't look down upon and think that it's "easy" while your artwork is on a "deeper level". Despite the face that the title is "Top Design" there is an interiors slant here fucker, and you my man, are not an interiors person. You make me mad.

Carissa

You're horrible. Your room was not good. You had nice individual pieces but the room as a whole was barren. You ignored your clients request for lots of storage. You did not deserve to win.

We'll just have to wait and see if I'm stupid enough to watch another episode, after which I will blog, completely angry at the world for allowing this horror to continue.