superfantastichappytime

2008-10-31T19:37:00.001-07:00

"Are we talking over the shirt? Frontsies? Backsies? Would I have to...give her my gift?"

One of the most hilarious lines from 30 Rock season premiere last night. Especially since it followed:

"She touched me Lemon...she touched me in my swimsuit area."

Classic.

Keeping My Eye On You...

2008-10-26T13:34:00.000-07:00

I guess a commentary is in order. For whatever reason, Moo the cat has decided that she absolutely loves my closet. Forget the fact that she's been living here for two years and never took a liking to the inside of my closet, suddenly, it's her favorite new place, which would be fine with me, if the thought of cat pee all over my work clothes didn't strike fear into my heart.

She is shifting her rump as I type this. Mocking me.

I'm sure she won't pee or poop or drool -or whatever cats do- in there, but it's been a huge irrational fear. Of which I have many. One being the state of my closet. Thank goodness I organized it the other day because it was a right state. Come to think of it, there wouldn't have been room in there for her earlier, as I had developed the habit of simply shoving my clean clothes into the shelves instead of folding and organizing my function like I did that particular day. Contrary to popular belief, I am a pretty organized person, doncha know.

So, thought this worth sharing, because even though this is totally just a cat being a cat, any behavior from Moo that anyone would consider "normal feline" is a big milestone.

I picked the weirdest of the bunch.

24 Going On 80

2008-09-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

Seriously, today I was telling my friend what I was doing tonight and as I was typing, I stopped dead in my tracks. I was telling her how I had my chamomile tea, my knitting, and was going to watch my shows. I fully embrace the fact that I have quirky activities, but sometimes, I go a little too far when I group them altogether.

Knitting, huge thermal cup of tea, vase full of yarn scraps,
and the telly

At least I'm getting alot of things done at once, and I'm getting closer to finishing this huge table runner project.

Projects...

2008-09-29T14:30:00.001-07:00

I've been working on multiple projects over the past few months since I started knitting. I've so far finished three scarves, and right now I'm working on a table runner, and when I've needed a break from that huge project, I started and finished two small bags.

The first bag project, the yarn is a super soft gift from a friend. The two textures were completely accidental, but turned out great. All that's left is to find some nice green buttons to cover the connections where the handle is sewn to the bag.

Second bag project, color changes and multi-colored handle. Still have alot of finishing to do.

And of course there's always cooking adventures. I had some left over brie that I had marinated in lemon rind and olive oil, and I had eaten some great brie pastries before, so I decided to try it for myself. Here we have the brie mixture, home made pastry dough, and strawberry jam. Delicious, but needs more sugar.

Bubbly delicious goodness.

Funniest.Clip.EVER!

2008-09-09T18:10:00.000-07:00

I have new respect for Richard Simmons (and of course the improv crew of WLIIA), especially after the new Yoplait ad, which of course I can't find right now...

Knit Knit Adventures

2008-09-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

So I finished knitting my first scarf a while ago, but hadn't gotten around to dampening and blocking it yet, so I finally buckled and did it today:

A dampened and blocked scarf

The most hilarious part is that I did the dark half first, which actually has LESS holes than the light part, which I did second. I'm blaming the yarn and am planning to fill the holes with metal beads. Thank goodness for "homemade flair". So the whole dampening thing is something I've slowly been researching, which requires dampening the piece and then "reshaping" with or without pins to make the piece be the shape you want it to be.

Attempt #2

Above is my second attempt at a scarf, it's going alot better, I haven't spotted any holes yet, and I've been sort-of paying attention to the stitch count, so it's not suddenly ballooning from 12 stitches per line to 40, like it did my first try at knitting. All in all, a pretty positive experience so far, and I have yet to throw in the needles, although I'm considering not knitting on the bus today after I was accosted by -what I suspect was- a paranoid schizophrenic who jabbed me in the back and told me that I had to put my knitting away since the metal of my needles was reflecting the light, causing some radio frequency dissapation (or something of the like) that would result in a riot.

Yeah.

I was upset at being so violently jabbed in the back, because for a second I thought she had actually punched me in the back, but tried to get over it as fast as possible. Ugh, sometimes I hate living in a big city.

Finally Off The Deep End...

2008-08-31T01:03:00.000-07:00

I've become a knitter. Or at least, I hope to become a knitter. I suppose that one week molesting yarn does not a knitter make. I've really come to enjoy knitting, even though it's repetitive, makes my right hand and arm and my back hurt, I still enjoy hearing the gentle clickity clack of the needles, I love gazing at all the gaping holes and tangles of my mistakes, and chuckling when I catch myself berating my ball of yarn for being such a tangled mess...

Mini yarn ball on top of the soon-to-be scarf

It's nice to be creating something that I'm not going to end up thoughtlessly ingesting. And the great thing is that knitting is a solid conversation starter, not only with strangers, but with people I already know. Everyone I know either knits or knows something that knits, and even though -yes I'll admit- I took my knitting to a dinner party the other night in an effort to speed along my scarf, and also because I needed some entertainment for the trip over, it really turned out to be a great thing, I learned alot of new things about friends, as well as became the object of some friendly ribbing, and have been deemed the "old lady" with my knitting, shawl and glasses at the end of my nose (temporarily pushed there, mind you).

Now that graduate school is over, and my only academic goal is to find a job, it's nice to have some creative outlet, something I've been yearning for the past few years. Cooking does it, but it always felt like such a waste when my labors turned out to be inedible.

At least with knitting, I can chalk up something ugly and misshapen to beginner's technique, label it and stow it away for future laughs...

Click on the picture to jump onto flickr for more snaps of what I've been working on...

It's Mostly Brain Power...

2008-08-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

The brain power I'm referring to is what is needed for me to do multiple posts within a short amount of time. Honestly the last few months have been pretty good -relatively speaking- nice friends, good teachers, it was just alot of work for one super-short semester. But I survived, with on the only casualties being this blog, which I completely neglected. As well as non-school friendships. Oh well, I've started back up and hopefully things will grow all over again.

There is another "brain power" thing I wanted to talk about, and that is this game I just started playing called "Shift", a puzzle and skill game, which I've found fascinating only because it requires speed as well as problem solving, and it's completely spatial, which appeals to my visual brain. I'll even go as far as to say I like this better than Portal. It's slightly less creepy too, another plus.

Start getting addicted with Shift, Shift 2 or Shift 3.

No screen shots, you can just go explore for yourself. Boo hahahaha.

When You're Feeling Sad And Lonely...

2008-08-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

No I'm not going to start singing Astrud Gilberto, but I was feeling a little down, and I found the perfect free and fast remedy.

Of course, it's Huey Lewis and the News.

Honestly, from the hilarious premise of six men singing to a sleeping (and I'm assuming naked) woman, to Huey's jerky movement singing into the camera, to fact that he's got a nice color of blush on his cheeks, you'll find something about this supreme 80's hit that will cheer you up.

So Good...

2008-08-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted something that I read on an online comic, but this one actually made me laugh so hard, a piece of chocolate I was eating went flying. That made a little sad as the chocolate was a really good one, part of a very thoughtful present.

I don't even play Gears of War, I've watched W play it once in a while, but it's still funny, as long as you have some war/shooting/angry video game as reference:

This Is Getting Ridiculous

2008-08-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

So, after much testing, I've come to realize that Pandora Radio slows my computer down too much for me to play it while I'm working at school. I usually have AutoCAD, Photoshop and 3DSMax open at the same time, so I'm sure you can understand why the computer practically keels over everytime I try to change windows.

So instead of Pandora, I've taken to listening to the only radio station that works without downloading some weird program, and plays songs that I either like or are entertained by. Granted, sometimes I actually have to take the earphones off because the song is simply too corny to listen to, i.e. "I just died in your arms tonight..."

But the "this" that I'm referring to in my blog title is how enamored I am with some of the songs I hear on this radio station. Of course if I bring up how much I like certain songs, I either get the cock-head "baroo?" expression of those who have as much knowledge about 60's, 70's and 80's hits as I did pre-semester. OR I get the totally bewildered "Why are you listening to that crap"-look. The main ones that I've been singing constantly are...

Hey Jude by The Beatles c. 1968
(which totally brings tears to my eyes when everyone chimes in)

If This Is It by Huey Lewis & The News c. 1984

Fooled Around And Fell In Love by Elvin Bishop c. 1976

Baby Come Back by Player c. 1977

Almost....Almost....

2008-07-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

When it comes to my thesis, I've been feeling very 'Sideshow Bob vs. Rakes' lately.

There's just so much to do, and so little time, and all I want right now is to curl into bed and sleep, if only I could fall asleep when I actually got into bed. I end up just laying there more frustrated than ever.

The final light at the end of the tunnel is next Monday. Eek.

2008-06-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Short. Sweet. To the point.

That's all I've got time for today.

This is the state of my affairs right now: I wake up every morning at 7, get ready and go to school. I then stay at school until 10 at night. It's been a productive week from a school standpoint, but fuck all if I've actually eaten a proper meal or had any time when I'm NOT thinking about school.

So I've decided to boost the failing U.S. economy in my own way, by continuing to make purchases. At the Gap. Because it's the only store in a three-block radius that DOESN'T sell touristy San Francisco-garb. And no, I don't overly think about whether I need the item or not. Never mind the fact that it's the only way I seem to be able to avoid the constant stress I'm under. Bigger picture here people, bigger picture. Economy!

Honestly I feel like I have no time. It's a Saturday and I got up at 7 a.m. to do some laundry because this is the first opportunity I've HAD to do laundry since I got back to the states two weeks ago. And it's the only reason why I'm still home. If I wasn't doing laundry, I'd be in front of a different computer right now at school, working on Max.

But time is ticking...and I've got a laundry list (no pun intended, really) of things to do.

Another Day, Another Pictureless Post

2008-06-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, I figure the best way to eat up time to type some nonsensicle crap on my blog, hope you read it and respond. Oh man, I'm so tired I can even think of how to properly spell nonsensicle, I don't think this is right spelling, but I'm too lazy to click-click and look it up, but it looks suspiciously too much like popsicle which I assume it's not supposed to.

So why am I so tired you ask (I hope)? I am in Taiwan waitin for my flight, which I think is supposed to start boarding soon, but I always over estimate and arrive there early and then just end up sitting around waiting, which I hate. It's 10:53 and apparently past my bedtime. Taiwan is only one hour ahead of Bangkok, so really it's 9:53 and I could honestly fall asleep at this table right now.

Right. Now.

Okay I really need to get on this plane so I can fall asleep already, that's all I want right now, not food, not water, just some serious sleep. Do not wake me up for your damn in flight meal, I just want some stupid sleep.

Another Day...

2008-06-01T02:32:00.001-07:00

Sorry folks, no pictures this time - and I use the term "folks" pretty darned loosely, I figure there's probably one, maybe even two regular readers at this point, possibly due to my lack of posting, or interesting subjects, but also possibly due to the fact that no one has time. Much like myself.

I honestly haven't taken many photos after the family excursion to Saraburi, I've been filling time with other things, mostly catching up on the sleep that I missed out on this past semester, watching episode after episode of 30 Rock (which I highly recommend everyone to do the same), and FINALLY, after almost 24 years on this earth, learning how to open a Mongkut fruit without completely mashing the whole thing to bits.

No shopping to be done, nothing that I really need to do except my school work which I have successfully perfected in procrastinating. But I'm slowly guilting myself into doing some work here and there, so it's getting done, just...slowly.

Will post pictures of my excursions, if I happen to go on any!

More Pictures!

2008-05-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

Tiny monkey at shrine in Lopburi

Tons of pictures of Thailand uploaded today!

Usual drill, human pictures on facebook, non-human on flickr.

Enjoy!

Ahhhh Taipei...

2008-05-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

I was almost cursing myself, because when I opened up the blogger page and saw everything was in Mandarin, I had flash backs to way back when EVERYTHING on blogger was coded in Mandering so I didn't know what button I was pressing. But thankfully, the buttons are in the English, so never fear! This shall be published today!

Still no photos to shut you visual people up about my essays, sorry, they will come once I hit Thailand.

I've been here in the Taipei airport for about half and hour and I've already scarfed down a bowl of chicken & corn congee topped with shredded dry pork, a bowl of stir fried noodles and a taro bun.

Apparently I was hungry.

I got on the plane a little after 1 a.m. put my bag into overhead (I cringed when I found out my awesome bag was too big to fit under the seat in front of me), sat down, and PASSED OUT. I didn't wake up fully until 8 hours later. I vaguely remember the take off, too noisey, so I went back to sleep. I missed dinner, and there weren't any movies to watch, so I did the whole, "excuse me while I squeeze past you to get my laptop out of the overhead bin, and then squeeze back past you, all the while trying not to drop my heavy laptop on the sleeping person in front of you" thing. I want my luxuries of technology, but I also cherish my window seat.

Anyway, worked on the computer, did the whole thing again while putting back the laptop, stayed up long enough to watch 'I'm Not There', something of a Bob Dylan biopic, but because it was split up into so many characters, and I didn't have any knowledge of Bob Dylan to help me along, I was thoroughly confused.

Onto more eating.

Traveling Once Again!

2008-05-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

You know I was SO CLOSE to packing my camera in my carry on. But my bag was bulging as it was with my laptop, charger, mouse, notes, book, toiletries, cookies, external hard drive (if I [perish the thought] lost that item with checked baggage, I would lose my brain] and travel items that right before I left my apartment I trimmed off the fat (i.e. my camera, iPod, etc.)

The kicker is that I got a new(er) laptop the other day, and it has an SD slot in the side. So I could have snapped a photo, taken the memory card out, stuck it the computer and had the picture uploaded to blogger for you to look at.

Now that I've typed that out, I realise that it's probably a good thing that I don't have my camera because my blogger and flickr would both have pictures of my empty noodle cup, my empty green tea cup, a tiny bottle of water and cellophane wrapper. I wouldn't want to invade the privacy of fellow lounge-goers by snapping their picture just for your entertainment.

Anyway, I'm off to Thailand for a month to hang out with the whole fam, work on my thesis and have fun in Thailand during the rainy season (my favorite season!)

I will post again once I hit down in Taipei.
'Til then!

Totally. Utterly. Random.

2008-05-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

It's 11:31 a.m. on a Tuesday, I have a final presentation tonight, but I really want to write a post about my choice of favorite movies. Call it procrastination. Call it laziness. I call it cathartic - come one, compare writing to moving around lines in CAD - or now, the upgrade to moving around polygons in Viz.

Onto the descriptions, in whatever order I put them in on my facebook page...

Meatballs
This movie was made in 1979 and I honestly can't tell you why I love it so much because 1. I never went to summer camp, so it's not like there the nostalgic factor; 2. I wasn't born, raised, anywhere near the 70's, so I really can't look back on that era and sigh with memories; 3. There's nothing particularly amazing about the movie itself.

I guess it's the combination of dreamy music, strange characters, and the fact that I ended watching this multiple times on HBO Asia during high school and now it's just a go-to movie that's relaxing and not "deep" or "though provoking", I can just watch it while I'm working or when I'm having a particularly stressful day (which happens alot nowadays) and it's just all good in the neighborhood.

The Love Letter
Oh this is another movie I watched many times over during high school, just because it was on. but also, I'm so in love with the stupid location of the movie. This deceptively small seaside town, with lots of nature, a summer rush and a community that knows each other is a sort-of dream I have for my future, and these people have it. The main character runs a bookstore, has a complicated life and a strange attitude. All the supporting characters pitch in, some famous, some not, and all of them do the movie good. This is another movie that I can just have playing the background because I've watched it enough to know what's happening without being in the same room. I liked the music so much I bought the soundtrack.

You've Got Mail
This is the third and last movie in the series of I-can-watch-it-forever-without-a-care series, I fell in love with this movie during high school and of course, the damn scenery and soundtrack play a large role in that. One of the main characters owns a bookstore (I didn't realize this theme until this very moment) and it's the whole tiny mom and pop vs. the big superstore deal, but there's love, misery, happiness, and cuteness, and I likey. So suck it.

Hot Fuzz
I have to laugh when I think of this movie, because it's funny, suspenseful and British. The dry humour speaks to me, makes me happy, but I can't watch this movie to many times, the suspense lingers and makes me feel uneasy. But you should watch it if you haven't.

Death at a Funeral
Another British dark comedy, I initially watched it because Alan Tudyk is in it, he was hilarious in '28 Days' so I had to watch him again. It turned out that everyone in the movie was hilarious is that horribly awkward dry humour way. It makes you cringe so much your face starts to ache but it's absolutely hilarious, so much that when I watched it on the plane, the person sitting next to me made a comment about how funny it must have been since I was awkwardly doubling over in my limited space. A must see for sarcasm lovers.

Waitress
Oh the bittersweetness of it all. I've watched this movie three times and I could watch it again, even though it's so incredibly heart breaking. And being the person I am, when I watched it for the first time I had to find out all the trivia behind it, and once I did, for the first time, I regretted it. The director was murdered in real life, and she's in the movie, as is her two year old daughter, so the movie has an air of sadness tied to it. But it's still a great movie to watch, well done and Nathan Fillion does such an amazing job in his whole awkwardness. Of course Keri Russell did a great job in developing a character that cheats, lies, hides but in such a way that you feel it's completely within her right to do it.

Iron Man
The newest addition to my list, this movie was so kick ass, funny, and I absolutely adore RDJr.'s interaction with his robots. You must see this movie, it's gotten great reviews for a reason.

Too Funny

2008-05-10T14:09:00.001-07:00

My new hobby: Reading lolcats.

Battlecry

2008-05-09T23:09:00.000-07:00

I have seriously been embroiled in some battling since January. And finally, last week, I won.

Let me (of course) start from the beginning.

This past January I started noticing that I wasn't receiving all of my calls. In fact, I wasn't receiving some of my calls, the voice mails those calls would have, or text messages people sent me. Not good for business. So I called to inquire.

This was basically the pattern:
-The problem would occur
-I would call the phone company
-They would assure me the would try to find a remedy
-I would believe them

And so the cycle kept going on and on until finally in the beginning of April I called and wanted some answers. They told me they were sending me a new phone. What they actually did was sign me up for a NEW two year contract. At that point I had been having problems for three months, who in their right mind would sign up for two more years of shit? One of the reasons I was being so co-operative was because I knew my contract as up in August, so I figured I would keep using their service until then, and then move on.

But nope, they signed me up, DIDN'T TELL ME, so that when I called next week, I found out, was totally shocked, started crying on the phone and was pretty darned near hysterical. Not good times.

I was at the end of my rope, I had no idea what to do, they were basically calling me a liar, I was trying to figure out who to talk to, how to talk to them, how to resolve the whole issue. I almost totally gave up, and was resigned to paying $200+ to get out of this ridiculous contract when I started Googling information about contracts.

The best information I got was to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission. Which I did. The BBB contacted the company, who in turn contacted me and gave me the option of continuing to troubleshoot the problem or send back the new phone they sent me and have the cancellation fee waived. Only an absolutely insane person would have picked anything but the latter.

So finally I am free, receiving all my calls and happily with another carrier.

Oh yeah, and a MONTH after they signed me up for that b.s. two year contract, I received a letter stating that the action had been done. Complete and utter fuck up. What a waste of almost three years of loyal patronage.

Cooking Adventures

2008-04-27T21:44:00.001-07:00

I am the queen of procrastination. But I guess I needed a day off, so me not working at all today is okay. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

So I made two things today. Veggie lasagna, and vegetable soup (pictured above).

The lasagna turned out good, though I now know to use the best quality mozzarella I can find for optimum melting and browning. I ended up using eggplant and zucchini and totally forgot the mushrooms I was going to put in. Oh well.

The soup was more of an adventure in that I totally had no idea what I was doing. It started with me having some extra eggplant and zucchini from the lasagna and so I chopped them up and was just going to make a stir fry when I remembered that I had carrots so I chopped up three of those too and threw them into the frying pan. Then I thought to myself, when I am going to eat a dish with chunks of carrot and actually enjoy it? (My aversion to plain carrot chunks is much like my aversion to plain tomato chunks, only in very particular situations.)

So then I got some boiling water, poured in the contents of the frying pan into the saucepan, threw in some salt and pepper and then let it boil for aaages. Then after they got all soft I started thinking about how I probably wouldn't eat soup with chunks THAT big, so I poured the whole kit n' caboodle into a blender and ran it through. Out came a nice tasting soup, but without enough body, so I remembered I had some potatoes. Which I chopped, boiled 'em until tender and threw them into the blender too.

I was left with a yummy, full bodied and textural treat. Which is what you see above, with the addition of home made croûtons, i.e. bread cut up, drizzled with olive oil and sent into the toaster oven for a few minutes.

Yum.

Time is Ticking

2008-04-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I honestly feel like I am wasting my time, and missing out on what has potential to be a truly wonderful and magical life.

All the pieces are there, it's just, the process of getting to where I want to be is paved with jagged stones that is my education, which pierce the linen slip-ons that I chose to wear on this journey. It's troubled times like this that I realize I am not as aware, prepared, resilient and flexible that I would like to believe I am.

The worst part is that even on a beautiful day, sunny with a calm breeze, even with delicious food cooking somewhere, even with the waters reflecting the bright sunlight and beckoning to me, I still have to sit in front of this fucking computer and do my shitty, brainless work.

There is simply no time for procrastination.

A Video That Only Cat People Can Appreciate...

2008-04-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

2008-04-08T14:03:00.001-07:00

Now that I'm spending so much time at school, I have found new ways for quick stress-relief. One of them is looking at the biggest lolcat website "I Can Has Cheeze Burger" and basically looking at some of them totally cracks me up and lets me forget for one second that I have 142 things on my to-do list.

A sampling:

Linkage: San Francisco in Three Days

2008-04-05T16:13:00.000-07:00

I'm starting what I'm calling a "Linkage" series for posts that is predominately links with some explanation on the side...enjoy the first one:

I guess in the last year and half I haven't had any visitors so I haven't had to give anyone a tour of San Francisco. How that I've typed that out I realize how sad it might sound, but honestly, I don't have a ton of friends that want or need to visit San Francisco, it simply doesn't happen no matter where I am. At least that's what I keep telling myself to ward off the psychotic depression that might result from the realization that I have no friends.

Anyway, Khamph came to visit and we did -sort of- a crash course in San Francisco. Wednesday she arrived, I picked her up via BART and took her home, dropped stuff off and carted her off to Union Square to check in for her conference. Stopped for a quick bite to eat at Bangkok Noodles for some fast and delicious Thai, which we both thoroughly enjoyed, then off to work for me (via school, which is a whole 'nother story I shant get into now.) After work, met her at Union Square and ran over to Katana-Ya for some delicious ramen and then made our way home. So end of the Thursday and Khamph has seen a tiny section of the Mission and Union Square. Keep count.

Next day, escorted her to the conference, and then off to work. Knocked off at six and made my way home, hung out then got CCS off to Eight Immortals to dine with my school friends, which was rip roaring fun, delicious spare ribs which I ate too much of. Move down the street to Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream for some gelato which was pretty damn good to cap off the night. Now Khamph has seen tiny part of the Mission, Union Square, part of Castro on the way to inner Sunset and Haight (since I got lost and drove down it to get home).

Next day I didn't have anything work/school planned, so we got CCS yet again and drove over to Clement street in the Richmond district to get our Wing Lee Bakery on. Yummy rice porridge and spring rolls in my belly. Walk down the street to Kamei to get some tupperware and (FINALLY) a French press. We still had some time left with the car so drove down to the Legion of Honor to get some pictures with the Golden Gate Bridge, the building and The Thinker by Rodin. Make our way home, chill out for a spell while she went with another friend to Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf. Once she gets back we make our way over to Yamo for some tea salad and curried delights, capped off with some halo halo and grasshopper pie at Mitchell's Ice Cream. So now she has seen tiny part of the Mission, Union Square, part of Castro, inner Sunset, Haight, Richmond district, Presidio, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and some more of the Mission.

Next morning, bussed it over to the Ferry Building for the farmer's market, walked around, had some Pancho Villa, bought a few flowers and bussed it back to the house, packed up dropped her off at the airport. And now she has seen tiny part of the Mission, Union Square, part of Castro, inner Sunset, Haight, Richmond district, Presidio, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and some more of the Mission, a little SOMA on the way to the Ferry Building, Embarcadero and the drive down to the airport.

And even though that was the end of her exploring, I still had more to do.

Went to donate unused clothing at the Community Thrift Store, followed by some cake-buying at Dianda's, followed by some pie-buying at Mission Pie. Rounded off the day by bringing it all home, eating the pie and now blogging, and soon to be working...

And THAT was San Francisco in three days people. It may not have been back to back insanity, but it was enough touring to keep me going for a while.

2008-03-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just stop and think about how nice it would be to open a bakery or coffee shop with a few friends and bake all day for a living.

Of course it's not as magical as I see it in my head, but it sure is nice to think about the wonderful aromas that would float in the air everyday, meeting new people, seeing some familiar faces, and have a relatively serene time in the kitchen mixing ingredients, rolling them out, kneading them and popping sheet pans of dough into the ovens.

Right now I'm obviously longing to bake something, but I neither have the time nor the resources at the moment, as I'm waiting for April to roll around so I can use my coupon and go to raid my neighborhood organic grocer's for flour, sugar and all the regular culprits in my baking adventures. Sometimes I think about other magical things, like living in some tiny beach town where everyone knows each other and they have tourism only once a year in the summer, and during the rest of the year everyone just hangs out until the next season. I guess what I'm imagining more than anything is a sense of peace and serenity in my life where I'm in control of it and capable of everything that comes my way. Which is obviously what I feel is my greatest flaw, and although I have hope of achieving that sense of balance, it doesn't feel like I'm within reach.

I suppose it doesn't help that my last cooking endeavors have turned out very unappealingly.

You can only have so many off days before it becomes worrying.

cough

2008-03-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

Oh the forlorn malady of being deathly ill with a head cold. How will I ever survive such trauma?

I don't care if that last sentence didn't make sense, I'm sick dammit!!

Honestly, I'm such a mess of a miserable cow when I'm sick, I complain constantly, never smile, and basically wallow in how achy, snotty, hurty (fuck you, I don't care if it's not a word) and junky I feel. And I randomly say how I'm going to die.

Yup, I feel pretty sorry for anyone that has to converse with me when I'm sick. Luckily, I usually only get this kind of cold twice a year *knock on wood* because of the changing of the seasons from hot to cold and cold to hot. Right now we're experiencing the latter and I'm not happy about it.

But at least I get to stay at home today because I would probably spread it to anyone I sat near for extended amounts of time, which will give me some time to relax and get better. I'm laying here in bed in a sea of kleenex and Moo is quietly napping next to me. It looks like it's going to be a good day *knock on wood*.

Eventful Much...?

2008-03-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was a pretty eventful day, a few friends and I had decided a while ago to drive down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to go take a look around, as it's less than three hours away and we're on Spring Break (supposedly).

And that is where I rediscovered my love of watching jellyfish.
Really, it's so relaxing, how you could not love watching jellyfish? I realize they sting and they're awful and they can kill you without really wanting too, but still, they're so beautiful, especially when they're lit right.

So I've got almost 60 photos from Monterey, and describing the experience would never do it justice, so click here to go take a look at the photos, which I've conveniently put in a separate set for you.

In other news, it was a little before two p.m. when we were in the gift shop, I was looking for a material item to remind me of this trip when there a huge crashing noise and the building shook. For whatever reason my first thought was "Fuck, an enclosure's broken and now we're going to get eaten by a runaway octopus." When in fact it was an empty tour bus that ran into the aquarium. Luckily it hit a column otherwise it would have gone straight through the wall and into a crowd of people including my friends and I.

To say I was freaked out for the remainder of the day is an understatement. Luckily no one got hurt. Since it only happened yesterday, not a lot of details have been released but here's an article from The Herald of Monterey County. We took that as our cue to leave the aquarium and go get lunch. We ate, snapped more photos (some of which are on facebook) and headed back to the bay area.

Enough eventfulness for me to last a while...

A Beautiful, Inspirational Lecture

2008-03-06T23:11:00.000-08:00

3D Viz Magic

2008-03-04T13:40:00.000-08:00

I'm just learning 3D Viz, kind of for the second time (I took a 3D Studio Max class a few years ago, but quite a bit of advancement has been made and I didn't learn the program very deeply) and I'm just playing around with it for different projects, thought I'd show you some quick mock ups, and the wonderfulness that is Global Illumination in V-Ray.

Have You Ever...

2008-02-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

...had a movie experience?

Today, I had me one.

I was walking the five blocks to work, strolling along very happily and humming a tune to myself when the world basically stopped in it's tracks, all music, happiness and sounds left me.

On the sidewalk were four dead pigeons.

One with it's head cracked open and a pool of bright red blood around it's head.

I knew because I had to walk through the massacre to get to where I was going, and my brain was literally repeating "does not compute" to itself as I forced myself to take steps.

Then I crossed the street, walked ten steps and came across two more dead pigeons.

This whole incident wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the fact that I saw a dead pigeon yesterday in the same vicinity.

Of course the first thing that popped into my mind was "bird flu", so I rushed to work, trying not to breathe (because for some reason I thought bird flu worked like anthrax and could be spread bird-to-human by air) and looked up the Center for Disease Control in San Francisco.

I left a message and starting contemplating when I realised that I had noticed the smell of burning rubber/tires in the air in that area in the past, and it was probably noxious fumes from that building that caused the high pigeon mortality rate. The most disturbing part was the one with it's head split open. I don't think I'll ever be able to get that image out of my head.

Today I walked a special route as to avoid the site of death, though I could see it from across the street and saw no small bodies, so I assume it was cleaned up. Hopefully I will not see remains of the puddle of blood, otherwise I might lose it on the way to work.

I still shudder when I think about it.

omigoditsjusttoocuteicanthandleit

2008-02-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

Snatched from cuteoverload.com ...

Is The Image Still Overflowing?

2008-02-10T11:27:00.000-08:00

Well?!

Is it? Is it? Is it?

I finally broke down and did it, can't believe how long I've been avoiding it...

Now I can move on...

2008-02-04T00:10:00.000-08:00

I have the worst luck with shoes.

Honestly, I think out of the last six pair of shoes I've bought, two I can't wear because they destroyed my feet, one I wear so regularly that they're falling apart, one I can't wear because they just slightly too long for my feet, and therefore give me blisters, and the last two I just bought today and yesterday, so the results remain to be seen.

I'm not sure if it's because I have weird feet or if it's because I just can't pick the right kind of shoe for my wide feet. The experience that I had last Wednesday was pretty horrendous with bad results on many different levels.

I had a job interview, and decided to wear my new "sensible work" shoes, which would have been find except for the fact that I decided to walk the eight blocks to the office I was going to. By the time I got to the interview, my feet were a little sore, but nothing to freak about. Unfortunately, by the time I got home, my pinky toes were unhappy, my heels were raw, and the last knuckle on my foot were bright red.

Unfortunately I had another interview the next day, and needed to wear the same shoes, since I have no alternative.

So my solution? Walk again, wear sneakers to the interview and somehow change my shoes before I get to the office. Which would have been just fine, had it not been for the fact that the bathrooms have locks on them, and there are no private spots to sit and change my shoes. So I ended up doing it in a stairwell, hiding and with lightning-fast speed.

It's been four days since the last foray with the shoes, and my feetsies are still tender, which might be a good thing, since it made my recent purchase smarter, because my "tender points" were especially sensitive and so any shoes that would mess with those points were thrown to the side.

Enough shoe/feet talk. I'm going to bed.

Flickr Update

2008-01-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

I've added quite a few photos to my flickr recently, oddly enough, not the one above, but one very similar to it...click here to go there and take a looksie...

Juno

2008-01-25T22:38:00.001-08:00

What a great, fabulous, cute movie that makes me want to curl up in a ball under my covers and contemplate life.

Honestly, I haven't given props to too many movies lately because none have struck me that much, especially not as much as Juno has. How can one movie make me fall in love with so many people, so many times over? Words do it no justice, just go watch the damn movie.

In other news, I got so incredibly soaked today that I had to buy a pair of socks halfway through my foray into the outdoors to replace the super soaked ones I was wearing. It just didn't stop, and I found out -too late- that my umbrella had holes in it. So even though I was carrying this stupid umbrella, I had minimal protection. So I spent some time looking for a new umbrella, which I found was not an easy task. I suppose I only looked in three different stores, but still, Nordstrom, Brookstone and Eddie Bauer did not have what I wanted and I was not happy.

The search continues....

Travel: Accomplished

2008-01-18T03:33:00.000-08:00

Enough planes for me already.

I've been on six planes in the last month, which is nothing to most people, but more than enough for me. And even though I told my parents I was going to go visit Canada to check out the design scene, who knows if that notion will actually take hold.

But I have a question to pose to you.

"Do the picture at the top of my blog fit the border, or does it overflow?"

Because on the computer when I first did that picture, it totally looked great in the border, fit just fine, and now I'm on my laptop and it's overflowing. I assume it's because the computer I first did it on was a widescreen one. But who knows.

And I just realised that I didn't copy a few files that I was supposed to onto my flash drive. Darn it. And I wanted to get all the fonts from my parents computer, since they have way more than my crappy defaults. Darn it! And I'm sure there's some other computer-related thing that I totally forgot about, that will surface in a few days and I will be kicking myself for forgetting. (Say it with me.)

Darn it!

En Route...

2008-01-17T06:08:00.001-08:00

I'm feeling quite lucky right now (knock on wood, oop, first must find some wood upon which to knock) because the buttons on this blogger are in English. Sad that something so small can have such a positive effect on my mood, but 'tis reality.

Just got off the flight from BKK to TPE and it was a good flight, slept for the first hour, then woke up, watched Travel Time in San Francisco (or something like that) where two people must accomplish eight cryptic tasks within 12 hours. Pretty crazy because I couldn't figure out most of what they had to do, since the clues were so damn cryptic and I obviously know nothing about the city I currently live in. What cracked me up the most was that the continuity of the their travels didn't really make sense...they'd be in the Castro, and then suddenly when they get their next clue, be standing in Union Square and luckily could take the cable car at Powell and Market (which somehow was incredibly empty, which I have never seen) up to Chinatown.

Anyway, after that, tried sitting through some of the Heartbreak Kid (for whatever sadistic reason) and really couldn't, so switched over to Zuma (I love the regional flights, it's pretty much the Singapore Airlines system, pause, play, games, all the lot), found I was pretty damn bad at Zuma with the weird handheld, and so decided to watch Across the Universe. Which is a movie I've been wanting to watch since first seeing the ad, but never got around to it. Was kind of conveluted (sp?) in the beginning, but then I got into the mood of a tiny bit of (if any) dialogue then singing, and then we started our descent, with probably minutes off the end, so they turned off the entertainment system.

Blast!

Here's Comes That Rainy Day...

2008-01-14T00:25:00.000-08:00

Whew, I guess I just got home in time, it's pouring outside, about 10 minutes after I trundled home.

Well this visit to Bangkok has been very nice, a roller coaster of excitement, happiness, stress and reunions. I've gotten to see alot of faces from my childhood, many people that I hadn't seen for over ten years came for my sister's reception. The most memorable was my godparents, who -as always- were warm and happy to see me. Other people I've met I hadn't seen for maybe six or seven years, that was pretty crazy too. It really makes me think how much people change over the years, and how much they don't. It seems like alot of personalities are pretty similar, but the looks change quite a bit, which concerns me mostly because I don't think my outside has changed so much, I still look like I did in high school.

Except with different glasses.

New Year, New Colours

2008-01-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

What a difference a little cream makes right?

I figured it was time for an overhaul, and I was getting tired of seeing the bulbs, so now we've got this flower...what the actual flower is, I haven't the foggiest. The overhaul itself is not yet complete, I've still got some tinkering to do with font colors, but this is the new look for now...

Enjoy, and a belated happy new year to you all.

Oh My Motherload...

2008-01-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

So...I had a little bout of insomnia today (probably due to the fact I had a huge ice coffee...followed shortly by a super sugary coconut juice, which was followed by an iced green tea...), and started looking through some old photo albums I found.

And boy was I glad I did.

In case you haven't been on facebook, or aren't on facebook, or I haven't added you, or some other circumstance has happened in the two weeks: I uploaded some photos from ancient Patana...Kindergarten & P4 to be exact. And now I've found some from high school. More specifically Y7-10. And some of graduation.

Unfortunately I no longer am in possession of a scanner. Which is probably a good thing becuase I would spend all night scanning, tagging and laughing at said photos. Which is what I will be doing when my parents' scanner decides to return. Until then I suppose I will simply have to peruse through them myself and have some serious giggles.

Acupuncture a.k.a. FRIK That Needle Hurts

2008-01-09T01:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, I have heard that "when done properly, acupuncture is NOT supposed to hurt." But like my doctor told me, acupuncture is much like trying to stick a pin through cloth and not touching a thread. Damn near impossible right? Either way, I was in pain. But mostly becuase I'm pretty scared of pain and the anticipation of it was really bothering me. And caused me to break out in sweats. Not really conducive to the application of iodine, since water tends to wash away the stuff really bad, which my doctor was using as markers for where he was to apply his sadistic torture pins. So I keep telling myself it's for the greater good.

Somehow I still don't find that comforting.

The pin

For your viewing pleasure

(You sadistic bastard)

Awesomeness!

2008-01-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

I've played Portal a total of three times and everytime I get freaked out because of the sheer awesomeness of the game...and the fact that the bots are really creepy. Actually the whole game is pretty creepy. But when I saw this comic, I knew I had to post it, enjoy.

2007-12-30T20:09:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Bangkok! I basically flew here, dropped my bags and went to work for my sister's wedding, then a few days after all the wedding stuff was done (a full week after I had arrived) we sped off to the south of Thailand to hang out at Phi Phi for two nights then to Krabi for four. We just got back last night, and this morning set to work figuring out who gave my sister what, writing a list and cataloging it in the computer. Dad's upstairs taking a nap, my mom and sister are off entertaining the brother-in-law's family and I'm here, finishing up the spreadsheet. Good times.

I uploaded some "Thailand" pictures onto facebook, and have yet to do so for flickr, as I'm a little skeptical at the ability of my computer to load the massive load of photos I've got that have been taken over the last two weeks, many of which are of flowers I saw in Phi Phi. Alas, I've got these two on blogger as a taste for you, although I think I see a little message from blogger saying they can't connect, which means my internet just punked out. 'Tis life with a shitty internet connection.

Krabi sunset at Aonang Beach

Taipei-Yo!

2007-12-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

So I figured I should do this post before I get to Thailand where YouTube is banned and I can't post this for those of you who aren't in Thailand. So I know the last time I was on my way to Thailand (mid-May) I was talking about Sean Kingston's 'Beautiful Girl' song that and a super catchy tune, and I really didn't think about him until I was hanging out at SFO watching videos on YouTube and stumbled across this Sean Kingston song which is just as enjoyable 'Me Love':

Anyway, the 13.5 hour flight was okay, I slept through most of it, waking up to the crying baby in front of me, which only pushes me further into NO BABY territory. The weirdest part is that whenever I bring up the fact that I don't plan to have children, people are so confused and say that I would make a great mother. I never remember to remind them of my low tolerance for loud noises, screaming and high-pitched voices, all of which children are prone to taking part in. The worst part is that until the child is in their 20's (and even then this might not be true) I probably can't communicate with them on a peer-to-peer level, and don't even get me started on parent-baby communication. I would probably be that weird parent that talks to their child in a super-grown up voice, trying to reason when them to stop crying. Somehow I don't think it would work.

Anyway, off to board the flight to Bangkok.
Here I come!!!

Finger Typing

2007-12-15T21:32:00.000-08:00

I have this weird random affliction that one fingertip on a hand will suddenly start hurting without reason and also without my knowledge. Until I decide to type. And then excruciating pain follows. I really love that they have wireless internet available, I don't know what I would do right now if I didn't have the internet to keep me company. Watch Larry King Live and be bored to tears I suppose.

I'm sitting in the EVA lounge at San Francisco International, waiting for my flight that won't start boarding for another two hours. Why come so early to sit around and do nothing? Because this way, I'm out of the house, I can't go back even if I forgot something, so everything is out of my hands. The serenity that comes with that realization is astounding. My pre-flight schedule is like clockwork:

Wake up freaking out because I have until 8PM to get my shit together and finally pack, which I usually leave to the last minute because I end up doing laundry the night before because I'm just that lazy.
Do all my last minute crap, which today was clean up, wash dishes, throw out all the decomposing food in the fridge, throw bottlecaps all over the apartment for Moo to play with, cut vellum, score, fold and insert into holiday greeting cards, write in greeting cards, seal and send out greeting cards, buy cat treats and cat litter, work on and print out some last minute school stuff, go to school to give to a classmate, return a shirt at Costco and make sure I have everything I need.
Make sure all the stuff is done, and redo in necessary and pack slowly throughout the day.
Start seriously freak out an hour before I have to leave the house.
Pace furiously until my ride gets to the house.
Get to the airport, wait to check in (I usually end up arriving before the counter's even open, talk about eager) and get to the lounge.
Begin relaxation.

The weirdest part is that I hardly ever remember the freakout, but lately I've been reminded or notice it myself. So why did I leave my greeting cards until the very last day before I left? Like I said before, I'm just that lazy. It was actually quite a process, between designing them, getting them printed, cutting them, scoring them, getting the vellum to go inside to hide the photo paper printing on the inside of the cards (I got them done at Costco at the photolab), stamping, labeling and writing in the cards. This is what I get for making my own cards, because I thought it would be cheaper (it kind of was....sort of not) and more "personal". I even did my own labels with a little Moo cat that I drew.

Card front and back, I think this is an old version, as I was told my a fellow flickr that the plant was actually not Myrtus communis and after some searching I found that it was actually Lagerstroemia fauriei. Oh well, can't get them all the first time around.

The address label I used, another old version, in the actual version you can't see the background around the kitty.

It sucks that I had to leave a week early, so I had to get all my work done a week early to turn in to my professors, but thank goodness for the internet, because it allows me to turn in a take-home quiz when it's actually due instead of a week early. I have a paper to write and the semester will be officially over. It's so strange because this semester has been absolutely insane, especially the last few weeks, I've been going into work overdrive trying to get everything done on time and somewhat to the quality that would satisfy me. Now I'm pretty much on vacation and damn ready for it. I think I was going to type some other stories, but I can't remember what I was going to type since I didn't write anything down, which I've found is a theme in my life-don't write something down, simply deem it forgotten.

So on this note I end with a quasi-battle cry:
"Bangkok, here I come!!!!"

2007-12-06T14:06:00.000-08:00

There is no limit to the amount of weird, crazy, funny, odd people and events I see in San Francisco. Yesterday I was on the bus when someone standing next to me suddenly said -to no one in particular- "Quit stalking me grandma or I'll throw you off the Golden Gate bridge." He then proceeded to laugh. Unfortunately I was sitting in a one seater and had no where to go since I needed to get to the end of the line and the bus was packed. He got off soon after, to my relief.

In other news, finals are kicking my butt. Hard. And then stabbing me with a rusty serrated knife. Oh I suppose I'm being overdramatic, but if not now, then when? In still other news, the household is now home to a Roomba, which is currently doing it's job vacuuming without my help. I've always got to keep an ear open to make sure it doesn't get stuck on ledge or something. I have to say, the first night with it in the house was eventful, I was in bed when at about 1am the Roomba was knocking on my door, well, more ramming against my door, trying to get in. Half-asleep and fearful of the coming rampage of robots, I thought the damn thing had turned itself on and was coming for my blood. Turns out my brother-in-law had turned it on to see how it would work after it finished charging.

I suppose these are life's little adventures that incidentally shave years off of my life.

Huh...

2007-11-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

So today I walked out of a 12 story building into the financial district of San Francisco, thinking I was the shit.

Let me rewind.

On (seriously) a whim, I decided to look on craigslist.org for available interior design internships. I found seven companies, researched them and wrote seven cover letters. Then I sent out seven e-mails with attached cover letters and resumes. At 11 o'clock at night. And one called the next day during class, so when I listened to a voicemail not knowing where it came from and heard "...do you think you could come in tomorrow for an interview?" I damn near fell on the floor in shock.

I was amazed that I got an interview so soon, and so caught off guard that I temporarily forgot that I didn't have a portfolio to show at the interview.

So I rushed home and worked for a few hours on a pretty basic portfolio, but before I begin, I must present to you, the map:
So the story begins on the bottom left play marker. I head north to Pier 39 to print out (top play maker), take the F street car to 2nd and Market and then go to Kinko's to bind my portfolio, then to school to talk to International Services about how and when I can work. Then off to the interview, back to school, get a bagel-wich and take the school shuttle -which somehow I take the long-windy one which takes me through Union Square before I get the bottom left play marker. and then back home.

But I have still not explained why I felt like I was the shit. Let's just say the interview went alot better than I thought it would. I comprehended the questions asked of me, which is a new development under pressure, and had good answers. My interviewer was really nice and let me know that she really liked my cover letter, resume and portfolio. So basically she was the best interviewer I could have had for my very first job interview. And it made me realise that I am a hot commodity and would definitely be an asset to any company I worked for. Let's see how long this confidence will last.

And then a few minutes ago I saw Yoni's flickrstream and his picture of his morning tea made me think about how much I want some stability and relaxation in my life, a regular time when I can just sit on a porch, look at nature and drink some stupid tea. That's so not happening anytime soon. Life is far too hectic right now. I wonder when I'll get to that point, or if I ever will.

Happiness capped with a little melancholy, just another regular day.

Ca-razy!

2007-10-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

Usually I'm not that into fashion design, but this is pretty damn amazing! Toot toot!

Today Is A Day For...

2007-10-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

...mundo celebration!

Rejoice, for my computer has finally gotten fixed! After two weeks without my own personal computer, I realise how much I rely on it, and how nice my sister and brother in law are to let me sneak onto theirs when it "looks like" they're not using it. And trekking to school just when I wanted to do some work wasn't too great either. Except now I just realised that I saved my CAD work at school without saving it as an earlier CAD file, so I can't open it on my computer. Oh well, that's life I guess (woohoo).

So in case you were wondering what in the world happened to my beloved computer, one day, the motherboard basically decided "I'm not going to work anymore. So. Ha." The BEST part was that my warranty had expired four days before my computer gave up, which I didn't find out until I called Dell to ask them to please figure out why my computer wasn't charging. I suspected it was the adapter, so I called, they shipped out a new one, courtesy of Dell (which, by the way, I love, their customer service has always been nice to me, ask long as I talk to the right person), and found out that it in fact wasn't the adapter, but the motherboard that konked out.

What were my choices? Pay $248 + $45 re-instatement fee since the end of my warranty had already come and gone, and I get my computer covered for two years. So I had to ask how much it would cost to just replace the motherboard. A whopping $500, which happened to include the labor for installation too. How nice. So for a grand total of $303, I got my warranty until 2009, and had a guy come to my house to replace my motherboard. Which was great. Except that he didn't show up the first day. But he did the second, and was very nice and friendly and showed me all the parts of my laptop that he basically had to strip to put the new motherboard in. Who knew there were so many screws in a laptop?

Anyway, my biggest fear was that all my work and pictures and music were going to get wiped off my laptop and I would have lost all my pictures of my dogs. Funny that those are the pictures I cherish most. I've been seriously considering getting an external harddrive to back all that stuff up. We'll see how that goes down.

My head is spinning so I guess it's time for bed.

Baked Cheesy Deliciousness

2007-10-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

So I bought a pound of rigatoni in the bulk bins at Rainbow Grocery because I haven't ever tried cooking creamy pasta with this type of pasta and apparently it's perfect because it's fluted and "picks up that cream so incredibly well". Right, so I needed to try and found a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis on Food Network and here's the delicious results with a few additions and changes:
Ingredients:

1 4 oz. stick of butter
1/2 c. plus 2 tbsp. flour
3/4 qt. whole milk
1 c. grated mozzarella
2 large carrots, cut into bite-size pieces
10 white button mushrooms, sliced
2 cooked chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 lb. uncooked rigatoni
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F
Melt butter in a large saucepan (enough to fit more than a quart of liquid), add the flour and whisk until smooth.
Whisk in the milk and keep stirring until smooth, keep cooking until the cream coats the back of a spoon and you can draw your finger along the back of the spoon and the cream stays separated. Remove from heat.
Stir in half the cheese and all the chicken, carrots and mushrooms, set aside.
Cook rigatoni in boiling water for 5 minutes, the rigatoni should be undercooked as it will continue cooking in the oven.
Drain pasta and mix in with the cream sauce.
Pour into a large and deep baking dish (13x9 inch is recommended, or smaller if you want to split them up), sprinkle remaining cheese and bake for 25 minutes.

Serve hot and steaming. Yum.

2007-10-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

So I haven't posted anything through-provoking and substantial in quite a while because 1. I'm hardly in the state to provoke my own thoughts, much less other peoples' and 2. My computer's motherboard has given up.

Not much has been happening, but I do wonder how a person who I don't know, and doesn't actually have any effect on me and petrify me to point of inconvenience.

There's this lady, that stands outside Rainbow Grocery, and she asks for signatures to help with the homeless or something like that. I really, really don't like solicitors, they make me very nervous and I really don't like being pressured to contribute to something that I haven't thought through thoroughly (say that fast four times...I did, saliva EVERYWHERE). I mean, send me a pamphlet that I can read, research and make a decision on instead of visually assaulting me in public when I'm pretty much zoned out and already uncomfortable because I'm out in the wild and probably sweaty from walking around. I mean, I've got a frown on my face, and even I have to admit that I have a pretty formidably pissed off looking face when I'm zoning and not thinking of anything. It's just my natural facial expression. You'd think people would leave me alone, but no. Anyway, this lady has perfected her tone of voice so when she asks if I will take the time to sign her petition, when I say no I feel like an absolutely awful person for saying no. I know, I know, it shouldn't affect me, and I've rationalized it to the point where I'm screaming "What are you THINKING?" to myself in my head, but still, that little guilt-ridden voice comes on back in full force.

Eugh, enough complaining, I'm going to eat some mini-corn dogs.

Best Thing Ever...

2007-10-01T23:28:00.000-07:00

Honestly the best thing I've seen on the internet in ages, there's a whole line of these videos that combine Eddie Izzard comedy with legos. Perfect combination. This clip is funny even if you don't know Eddie Izzard, and if you don't know the Izzard, you should get yourself a copy of any dvd comedy tour and watch it. He's genius, brilliant, fabulous. Enjoy the clip. I definitely did, I was laughing so hard I almost fell on the floor.

It's Friday...

2007-09-28T16:57:00.001-07:00

...and my living room is being overrun by ants.

They appear to be coming from the outside through the outlet we have on an exterior wall (which in and of itself is a little strange), and I woke up this morning to hear that the dining table was covered in ants this morning, which were dispatched before I stumbled from my room. The outlet has been taped up around the box a few times over, sealed as much as possible and we're hoping that the ants will stop their invasion.

In other news, a week ago I fell off my bike. I was going downhill down Bryant street on my way home from getting a backpack at Ross. Getting ready to make a left turn, I was riding down the middle between the two yellow lines separating the two directions of traffic and trying to avoid the little reflectors on the road. While doing my little cautious dance I completely underestimated how low below the road a manhole was, and when I hit it my bike jerked, I hit the front breaks, which made the front of the bike stop, but the back kept going, catapulting me over the handlebars. Luckily all I did was hyperextend my 2nd, 3rd and 4th metacarpophalangeal joints. I.E. I fucked my knuckles up good by landing on my fingers and bending them backwards too far. Other injuries? A scraped left knee and a bruise on my left thigh. It's taken me a week to post about this because I haven't been up to full typing speed up until yesterday.

And in more recent injury news, I pulled a muscle loading laundry into the car last night, which was a very strange feeling, I was lifting (without my legs, bad Asha, bad, bad, bad!) the bag into the back seat when I felt a weird sort of popping sensation in my back and immediate PAIN. Ugh, great stuff, and what i really needed right now.

Luckily I was already going to the chiropractor today, but not until the afternoon and I had a meeting in the morning, two hours sitting in the same position listening to other people talk was not my idea of a good time. At least I got free coffee, orange juice and pastries out of it.

Like I wrote on Maya's facebook today, 23 and my body's already falling apart. What the heck's happening to me?

Ack!

2007-09-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

Okay I almost just fell over sideways trying to reach the outlet to charge my ipod.

I guess I'm just that smart where I don't figure actually getting on the floor is a faster, less accident-prone way to get the job done.

I haven't posted in a while and there's a reason to it, I really don't have anything interesting to post. I have stuff I do at school, stuff I do at home and basically whatever happens to fall in between...which is usually me biking from home to school and back.

But I have been changing up my music selections as of late. I get these emails from Apple telling me all the "hot new music" they've got in the itunes store, and most of the email I tend to ignore, except for that little part that says "single of the week". That's when the cheapskate in me comes out, and runs, chitterchatting around the computer with glee. Because see, I've given in and decided I should (probably) pay for the music that I get, because if I like the artist enough to actually get their music, I should probably go ahead and pay them for it. Well, sometimes it's stuff I don't like, so I download the song and delete it after the first listen, but sometimes I strike gold. Like Sara Bareilles' "Love Song", just a good song to turn up and hop around the room to when you're feeling in the shitty mood. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there's Colbie Caillat's "Bubbly", who is supposedly the female version of Jack Johnson, and sorry Colbie, but that's a bit too much of a compliment to be compared to the genius of the Johnson, but that song is very good song to turn on in the car or on a bike ride on a sunny day when you're feeling particularly euphoric. And Ledisi's "Alright"? Just good grooviness.

And then there's the other stuff that I tend to play. Shamefully, I must admit that I buy those generic cheapy "Lifescape" CDs at Target that have titles like Easy Listening Guitar and Totally Maui or whatever it was called. But even I'll admit that some of them are good, like Relaxing Classical and Elegant Jazz are great because they don't have words and I can actually study to them. They provide enough background noise so that everyone else is drowned out, but no words so that I'm distracted and suddenly I'm singing to the song instead of reading about the root language of the world 'dwelling'. Stupid architectural philosophy and their massive amounts of writing and reading.

Either way, I hope all around all the time, the other thing playing on my itunes? Astrud Gilberto's "Beach Samba". Seriously classic and happy music.

Frickin' Frack A Rack!

2007-09-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

Everytime I think I have a handle on my spending, I take a look at my bank account and I'm floored. Honestly, where is all this money going? $3.50 for coffee at Starbucks? I need to master making my own coffee, but then I'll have to buy a thermos to keep the coffee in so I can transport it to school, and I need to get a dandy milk steamer so that my coffee tastes as good as the one at a coffee place, and I need to find the time in the morning while I'm stumbling around to make said coffee to take in said thermos to take with me to school. And it has to be a thermos not that coffee cup type thing with a lid that people can take in their cars (which we actually already have two of) because now I'm biking to school.

Sheesh. I haven't even spent a dime on the thermos OR milk steamer and I practically feel the money floating out of my bank account. I bought a small water bottle yesterday, but wait, I can hear you thinking "But she bought a water bottle a few months ago, a handy dandy camelbak that she was so proud of..." Yes, but it's huge, and heavy when full of water, so now I have a smaller one that I'll take with me to school. What's going to happen to the big one? It'll probably sit on my desk to I make sure I get my daily water needs. What else did I spend money on this weekend?

Oh yeah, the router. And then I spent $30 at Whole Foods today on shrimp, salmon and pork loin chops. As well as two small plants (one thyme and one oregano) and some orange juice. I've decided to minimize my beef eating and start sticking to the white meat and seafood, probably better for my digestion. And then I spent an additional $10 on mini corn dogs at Smart & Final. Not a word about cholesterol, no one likes a know-it-all.

Okay seriously? I probably will back track in a few days, but I'm putting limits. No more shoes, clothes or superfluous items for at least until the end of the month. So no purchasing random impulse shit except for food until the end of September. Unless it has to do with school. Or I really need it. Again, not a word, no one like a tattler.

Router Issues

2007-09-09T20:38:00.001-07:00

So I'm sure if you're either on facebook or have me on your msn messenger, you may or may not know that I've been having severe issues with wireless routers. First our Linksys pooped out, wired was fine, but the wireless was simply worthless. Come labor day and some sales, I walked over to Best Buy and picked up a cheapie Belkin G router for $30-something bucks, the lowest speed and price. Bad idea. Brought it home and hooked it up, was great to have wireless, unfortunately, the trade off with the price was that it was very dodgy wireless. And I don't mean dodgy like sleazy or weird, I mean like, it dodged like a ninja! My computer could barely pick it up. Finally, a whole week late I relented and packed the Belkin up, walked back over to Best Buy, picked up a Netgear model which apparently had 10X the speed of the Belkin G, paid an additional $40, and walked home with my $80 router, praying that it would work.

So I'm hooking it up, gotten through the whole setup process and my computer has yet to even locate this new router, meanwhile it's connected to some unsecured apple network, which was driving me nuts because I was unable to unconnect from it. Finally gave in and called Netgear's customer service number and after about half an hour of talking to a tech, got my wireless to work. Have yet to really test it by downloading something, but I've actually been able to watch a whole youtube video, which was a rare thing with the Belkin, so things are already looking up *knock on wood*.

The only way we will see is with time...

Not much other news to report, school starting soon and I actually managed to find four usable properties for the four different locations of my thesis, quite a feat when you think about the fact that I basically can't get plans unless I know someone who knows someone who owns the plans to a building. Security thing, totally understandable, but completely irritating.

New Comforter

2007-09-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

Should I be disturbed or saddened by the fact that getting a new comforter brings me so much joy I can't stop talking about it?

Formally had a white one that had texture on it, but being the stain-prone person that I am, there are now quite a few dubious spots on it, which really takes away from the pristine-ness that the color was supposed to project. Well, now a plethora of color has exploded in my room, reds, oranges, maroons and purples which for whatever reason just makes me feel happy when I look at it. Moo has taken a liking to it as well and is presently snoozing on it...

Not much else going on, school, thesis, the usual...took a nice long nap and woke up to find Moo next to me...good times...

It's 4AM And I'm Awake...

2007-09-04T04:05:00.001-07:00

...so you know there's already something going on. Unfortunately, I don't know what that is.

Yesterday I had a long, weird day, with some happy things and some not-so-happy things. So let me prattle of the happy things and summarize the not-so.

Yesterday I managed to do the wiggle, which is this route that goes from the Mission to the Haight (which is usually up a very steep hill if you actually take Haight from Market), of a series of slowly inclining roads, which requires alot of turning and hence looks like a "wiggle" (well, more of a squiggle) on a map.

I will be completely honest in my lack of fitness, and will say that at a few points during the ride, I was near the point of vomiting, but not quite there. The best would be when I'd be going up a road that didn't even look like it had an incline, the wind would be blowing, I would be pedaling with all my might and barely moving. Classic. But when I made it, it was glorious, Panhandle park is beautiful, quiet and quaint (that long park that I ride alongside in the upper lefthand corner of my route) and as my sister said, I really did forget how bad the ride was all the way up when I rode through the Panhandle.

So I mean, the good part was that I made it up to the Haight successfully, made it back down to the hardware store on Market and 14th, made it back home (down some very steep hills mind you), and when I finally did get home, I promptly fell off my bike right in front of my door. I was too busy concentrating on singing Edelweiss from The Sound of Music.

Also, I bought some really nice discounted shirts on the Haight. A much-needed purchase. And installed (after some time) a new rail for the kitchen drawer which has actually been broken since we moved in a year ago, I just never got around to doing anything about it. I mean, the best part of the day was that I survived a long bike ride, which was basically preparation for my endeavor to ride my bike to school on school days since now my classes are in a different building, way closer to home, and not across the street from a gaggle of tourists speed walking to see the passed-out "Seals of Pier 39" that probably don't even know they're alive.

And now onto the iffy stuff. Let's just say I had a lunch date with a few friends, none of whom showed up, and even though I think I've matured over the years, when this happened I totally catapulted back to high school and could not just let it roll off my back. Maybe I was too generous to think of some of them as friends, whatever the reason, I've learned from it, but it did put a damper on the day. Next on the shitlist is the damn fucking drawer rails.

I purchased then from the hardware store after finding them fast and easily (should have known), went home, opened the packaging, INSTALLED THE RAILS, went to the put the drawer in and realized that it doesn't fit!!! The stupid drawer was made for under mounted rails not side mounted rails. Now this would have been a no brainer for any normal DIY-er, but obviously not to me. So this is what happened: The old rail system had two rails with one roller missing, which meant the whole drawer weight would rest on the one roller on one side and with the imbalance of weight, the roller would pop off the rail causing the whole drawer to shift and jam. So over the last year we've gotten used to being very careful when pulling out that drawer. Go to the hardware store and see there's a two rail system, which are side mounted, and a single rail undermount system. So what do I go for? A match in quantity, not style. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

So I had to take all the screws out of the wrong system, pack it up, haul ass to the hardware store, on my bike, no less, with a small messenger bag which meant the rails were sticking out of the bag at an angle which would explain why I was standing there, on the street, supporting my bike with my legs while trying to reach the one rail that I dropped (I'm still thanking goodness that it didn't go through the spokes when it fell, otherwise I would be flat on the ground, crawling towards the dropped rail).

Back to the hardware store, purchase the single undermount rail, get home and install that one. The drawer makes a weird noise when pulling out and pushing in right when it's close to the cabinet, but I was so fed up with life at that point that I just left the damn thing be. It works.

Oh did I mention that some weird guy started talking to me while I was waiting at an intersection on the way back from the hardware store the second time? Yeah, it weirded me out.

Oh, oh and on top of that, I'm awake for no good reason except that when I got up to check on the weird scratching noises Moo was making, I discovered some kitty-diarrhea on my bedroom floor (damn carpet). Weirdly enough I wasn't mad, I mean, she can't help it right? I'm just glad she didn't poo on my bed. Plus, she seem apologetic enough.

So after that whole sordid story, I think it's time to give sleep a try, and hope that tomorrow (or really, today) is a better one.

Postscript:
Turns out that the "present" that Moo left for me in my room was probably a hairball, which makes me feel better. At least she's probably not sick.

Easy Meal

2007-08-29T13:49:00.001-07:00

There's not much that I really feel like doing when I'm on vacation and not traveling. Usually, I just end up cooking, or watching endless T.V. (thank goodness for reruns and marathons). So I usually experiment with whatever is in the house, coupled with the thought out meals, sometimes some happy coupling occur.

As was the case today with my meatloaf and salad:

So I had all the trappings for a super simple meatloaf, beef, crackers, a can of diced tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, pepper and garlic powder. I decided to throw in an extra ingredient with some mushrooms. Didn't really do anything to change the flavor, but it's just nice to know I got a veggie in there somehow. But it's a warm day and I didn't think the meatloaf was the "cooling" food that I needed. So in came the cucumber and carrot, the latter of which was going to be roasted, but like I said, I'm sweating, a plate of steaming roasted veggies would not help my temperature.

So look up carrots and cucumbers on foodnetwork.com and there's a nice cucumber and carrot salad recipe, which I couldn't make mostly because I didn't have the requisite lemon juice.

So rather than toss the whole idea together, I went for it, sans lemons:

I think it's rather pretty don't you?

Cucumber Carrot Salad
Ingredients
1 carrot - shaved with a veggie peeler
1 cucumber - shaved with a veggie peeler, toss the core once you reach it

Dressing
2 sliced shallots
1 tsp. chopped capers
2 tsp. Dijon or Stoneground mustard
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
Pepper to taste
3 Tbsp. Olive oil

Mix all dressing ingredients except for olive oil, whisk together and slowly pour in olive oil until well incorporated
Mix in cucumber and carrot until both are covered in dressing
Put in fridge until cool

Oddly enough, the salad tastes like coleslaw, except without the gross mayonnaise. I just haven't felt the same about mayo since I had that elote many months ago. *Shudder*

Fixation

2007-08-25T22:25:00.000-07:00

I guess it's time to admit it.

I'm obsessed with with Ina Garten, Food Network's Barefoot Contessa. Not in a "I can't stop thinking about her, I want to stalk her" sort of obsession, more the type of, I'm going to watch this episode even though I've already watched it five times, just so I can see her beautiful kitchen and garden one more time.

I mean, she's not really my type romantically, but it seems like her life is so perfect (I know, I know, grass greener blah blah blah), I mean, she married her high school sweetheart, who is dean at Yale, they live in EAST HAMPTON for fuck's sake, with this huge garden, a billion gas burners in her kitchen a huge pantry and she can make up her own recipes. Honestly, it wasn't until I saw her gorgeous garden that I realised that I want a patch of green that I can look out on and be happy, or walk through and pick flowers to arrange in the bouquet. I mean, she hardly buys flowers! She just walks out there and picks a vase-full of hydrangeas and then (being the wonderfully creative person she is) uses the leaves on her platter to add that "bit of color".

So my goal is to make enough money so W and I can have a cute house with a garden full of flowers and happiness and I can bake and have my house smell like yummy food and live happily ever after.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Cupcake

2007-08-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

I will admit, I have tried making icing from scratch, which only resulted in failure, but this time, it was different, this time, the only thing I was making from scratch was the icing, the cupcake was boxed french vanilla, three eggs, oil and water type deal. But the icing is an accomplishment because I do not own a mixer. Not even a hand mixer. Which makes the requisite creaming of butter a little bit hard.

So this time I found a boiling icing recipe, where the thickening agent is flour and milk, and although it still required some extended periods of whipping, it took considerably less effort than a butter cream recipe and also allowed me to use regular sugar instead of powdered sugar, which I did not have in the apartment and was not jazzed about the effort needed to get said ingredient. Although, even with this recipe, I still cheated a little. Let me explain with the recipe:

Ingredients
1 cup milk
4 tbsp. flour
3/4 (1 1/2 sticks) butter - cubed and at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Let me make note that after I typed above ingredients out, I realized that I forgot to add the vanilla, oh well, it tastes just fine without it.

1. Heat up milk and flour in saucepan, whisking continuously to avoid flour lumps. Turn off heat when mixture thickens just the little bit. (The residual heat will thicken the mixture further, you don't want a solid mass, it should be creamy.) Allow to cool.

2. Mix butter and sugar, use a whisk and try to incorporate sugar into butter as much as possible.

3. Slowly start adding the flour mixture.

-Pause-
This is where I cheated.

I did not leave the flour to cool for very long, I put it in a shallow ceramic bowl to take off some excess heat and to stop the cooking process. But what I found out was that by adding the mixture to the butter before cooling, I actually melted my (frozen) butter enough that it whisked very well, and it also melted the sugar down so I didn't have sugar granules. Great for when you're working with butter straight from the freezer and don't have any mechanical mixers. The only downside is that it takes a little longer to make the icing because you need to put it in the fridge to get the right consistency, otherwise all you have is white slush.

4. Whisk together until fully incorporated, add vanilla and apply to the cupcakes.

Result:

Tadaaaaa!

Of course now I can't eat of the cupcakes because I'm so sick of the taste of the icing, I was testing it every few minutes while I was making it to make sure the bland flour mixture didn't overpower the sugar. I actually only used 1/2 cup of sugar, since the cupcakes were already really sweet. Strange, this icing tastes exactly like the icing my mother used to make, I haven't tasted it on any cakes in years.

If You're Wondering About The New Pink Color....

2007-08-21T22:31:00.001-07:00

I'm feeling girly. I'm a girl. This is a blog about girly stuff that goes through my girly mind. And watching Sex and the City has girlified my brain. I was feeling very "pinky" and had a picture of some flower pods, so this scheme was created. Will be tinkering with it over the next few days, trying to move away from the pepto bismal look...

Blogger in the city...again...

2007-08-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here we are again...

I just finished watching the second disc of the last season of Sex and the City, and as usual, I'm in a melancholy state. Especially after all that 'wrapping up' emotional stuff in the last few scenes, honestly, it's heart-wrenching to see people so happy after so much turmoil, even if it isn't real. Like Miss Potter? Cried my eyes out. The whole movie, just cried and cried and cried. And even though I was so happy for her in the end I kept thinking OH NORMAN! WHYYYYY!

I guess the melancholy state comes from my lack of that "core" group of friends that I can see and hang out with regularly, everyone's just so spread out all over this big world, it's obviously so hard to keep in touch with everyone, much less tell them everything that's going on with your life, since they're probably bored to death with your tails of how emotional you get from watching a show.

Well, if that's how you feel about what I'm talking about, you probably stopped reading after the first couple of lines.

Well, this isn't real melancholy anyway, just a distant sense of longing, it's hard to find friends like the ones I had in high school, I've just known them for so long, and they know me and all my flaws and it's gotten to the point where my long list of flaws are past annoying and more funny. Like my tendency to ignore whoever I'm with if there's any alternative stimuli, like a television, radio or shiny object. With my mouth wide open of course.

I guess my headache isn't really helping matters, I've had a head cold for the past few days, and I'm just getting over it, but I've got this headache that feels like dehydration, but I can pretty much down so much water before I start feeling sick, but the headache remains, throbbing lightly, just enough to make me want to squash my head in.

In other news I have made the switch from IE to Firefox. I suggest you do the same because it's just so much faster, and even though it's a little different in the look of the toolbars, it's generally the same and it hasn't once frozen or slowed or crashed on me.

So the lessons of this post? I'm a headachey, slightly sad Carrie Bradshaw addict that is telling you, download Firefox. Now.

2007-08-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

You know, I was ready to come home, log on to blogger to bitch and moan about horrendous traffic and getting lost. But since I have calmed down and lost quite a bit of steam, I will simply post a picture from my new uploads on flickr and tell you to go check it out.
Love, Asha

2007-08-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

New pictures on the flickr from the new camera.

Camera and Other Things...

2007-08-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

Like I said in the last post, I have work to do, yet I'm not doing it. I have two finals due, one is two drawings from photos in charcoal, and the other is rendering (2D coloring) a perspective in photoshop. Yet instead of doing either one of these, I'm listening to Pandora and puttering around with blogger and flickr and occasionally taking my new camera out of its protective sleeve and looking at it.
And of course taking pictures of it with the old Nikon Coolpix 3100. I feel like I'm cheating on my dumpy old camera with the new sexy and sleek one. I mean, look at that sweet, clean case and the totally retro black circle? I know it's giving you chills just thinking about it. Give in and admit it. I mean, the Canon's newer, smaller, and definitely less bulky than it's predecessor. It also got 7.1 megapixels and 3x optical zoom, the 3100 has 3.2 MP and the same 3x optical, as well as numerous scratches and dings from yours truely. The main reason for buying a new snapper is that the Nikon doesn't use a rechargable lithium ion battery and so I'm spending alot of money on those batteries. Hell, I could have probably bought a new camera with all the money I've spent on batteries over the last few years. I should have invested sooner, and I almost did, in a Casio 7.2MP Exilim, but ended up not keeping it for a number of reasons, mainly that it was a very bad camera.

Oh and the decision was bumped up in priority when my sister exclaimed "Your camera is shit, get a new one." after borrowing it for a day. Of course she was comparing it to her Sony Cybershot whose battery hadn't finished charging that day.

The image above compares the Canon to a business card, the business card belonging to a friend of Bryant's, Dave Crossland. See how small it is? The Nikon is a little taller in comparison and WAY thicker. Eek. Now I can live in fear of the day I scratch this brand new sucker. I'll need to buy a hard case pronto. I still recall the day I caused the biggest scratch on the Nikon. At the zoo in the Seattle, it was of course not in its case because it would have been too big to fit in my purse and so when I dropped said purse, a couple of nice scratches on the screen and a nice paint-lifting ding on the body appeared.

I have hardly any discipline now that it's the last week of school, I need to eat, and then just sit down and draw. Let me turn on some classical music to inspire me. Oh yeah, I only have Bach and Tschaicovsky still. Ugh.

Drawinks

2007-08-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

As usual, school consumes my life, until I actually have homework to do, then I'm puttering around on the computer avoiding schoolwork as much as possible. Here are some nudies for you to look at:

Four hour study with special attention to composition and cropping. I hate drawing the face, the need for the detail puts so much importance up there when I'm most interested in the torso. Solution? Cut off half her face.

Two minute gestures with special attention to light and shadow and minimal use of line.

Two minute gestures.

One minute gesture.

These are actually some of the last pictures you'll see taken by the good ol' Nikon Coolpix 3100. I recently bought a Canon SD1000 that I just recieved by UPS today, the battery's charging and then I'll go crazy taking pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Because I REFUSE to do work...

2007-07-31T16:45:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you know, you'd think with the two classes I have this semester and the midpoint that I have to do and preparing for directed study I wouldn't have the time to diddle around on the internet, making maps and diagrams showing where I spent my money today, but I do, why? Because all the time that I spent worrying about midpoint and one class is gone, directed studies is somewhat taken care of, so with the little worrying I'm doing for that second class, I've got lots of free time to do what I do best: Making useless diagrams for your viewing pleasure.

Shall we begin?

Below is a map of my travels for today. I took the 47 from 11th and Harrison to Van Ness and Geary, I then took the 38L from there to Geary and 33rd, at which point I transferred (after buying a cup of coffee and cookie, and invariably spilling coffee on myself) to the 18 that took me up to in front of the Legion of Honor Museum, where I had my figure drawing class today. After spending five hours at the museum, I walked down to Clement 33rd I caught the 2 down Clement to 6th, got off and walked around. First stopped at Kamei, then Schubert's Bakery and then Wing Lee Bakery (to see the bounty, scroll down). Then I walked to Geary and 3rd, caught the 38 back to Van Ness and O'Farrell and then took the 47 back to 11th and Harrison. Each of the little markers in the map below are points of transfers... Just because...

And now for the bounty that was bought today! Each item is listed below, add a little tax from Kamei, the grand total for today was $23.30. So Let me list where things were bought from, and then you can take your time looking at all these things... The tupperware, sponge holders and slotted frying spoon were from Kamei, a restaurant supply store that also has lots of other kitchen and plastic things that makes me feel like I'm back in Bangkok. Next was Schubert's Bakery, where the cakes and mousse were purchased, a cute little place, I really like the richness and cuteness of the store. And the last (purchase) stop was Wing Lee Bakery for some requisite pot stickers and spring rolls. Usually we get porridge and BBQ pork buns there, but I really wasn't in the mood for any of that today.
Other than that, not much interesting stuff happening, some drawing of Rodin sculptures and the museum and a few pictures of the misty morning on the flickr.

Toddy!

2007-07-30T16:45:00.001-07:00

So today I was watering my Thai basil plant when I saw a cluster of purple leaves. Turns out, it's actually a flower! And when I was posting on flickr I decided to give my little plant a name. So everyone, meet Toddy, the Thai basil plant.

I got Toddy from Rainbow Grocery across the street as a little plantling, transferred him/her to a large beaker, and have been letting him/her grow ever since. He/she has survived one harvesting pretty well. I'm such a proud parent!

More Drawings...

2007-07-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

And of course, more naked people! Figured drawing just wouldn't be the same if it wasn't for the naked people. Anyway, just two more, that's all... Both of them are four hour studies. I really should be working on my final. But I'm not.

Projects!

2007-07-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

So I've been feeling very "cluttered" lately. Just alot going on and alot of stuff in my room that I always see since I have open shelves. I usually get it to a state where I'm comfortable and then I have to add something else and then suddenly my room's super messy again (or maybe it's because I don't ever put anything away).

Anyway, I finally got around to thinking up a project that was feasible and I already had the materials so I didn't need to go buy anything. We had two 9' long 1"x4" planks. So I started measuring the wall above my desk and figured out that a 4' long shallow shelf would work, so I cut one plank twice with my roomate's circular saw and got his drill and started to work.

First figured out where I wanted it, levelled it and marked it. Then hammered a nail into the center to keep it up while I screwed in the ends. Then put the actual shelf part on and had to wrestle with the damn thing because the wood bowed up a little in the middle, so there was alot of screwing in, then unscrewing and then quickly screwing back in to get a flush joint. Unfortunately the joint still isn't flush to I hammered a nail into a gap as a shimmy until I get a small bracket to level out the shelf since it kind of tilts down towards the front.

The best part about this shelf is that it gets alot of the crap off my desk, so now I just have a pile of papers and my laptop.

Moo investigates.

Avoiding singsong wooooork!

2007-07-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

Ooooh I just realized that I made pizza yesterday and neglected to take pictures of it. I'm sure you feel the pain of missing out. TJ's dough again, TJ's sauce, mushrooms, peppers and tomatoes with (TJ's) salami and shredded mozzerella (TJ). Looking at that sentence it's almost like I have Trader Joe's tourettes. I guess I just buy alot from them, I mean, there's one by school and one not far from my house, at some point I'm'a get me some TJ's (woot). Anyway, I was actually in the store, debating on what type of mozzerella to get (grated, non-grated, light, fatty) and the usual pick is non-grated light because it's usually the cheapest, but lo and behold, I look at a pack of grated at it's 16oz. for $3.69!

Let me put this into context.

Usually, a bag of grated is 12oz. for 3.69, and a block of non-grated is 16 oz. for 3.69. Now does my cheese euphoria make sense?

No? Fine, we'll move onto a map.

So I was talking to Sarah (shout out) and she said she particularly likes the fact that I put maps on my site, not because I actually took the time to painstakingly create these maps, washing lots of time that I could be spending on homework down the loo, but because I actually thought to do the maps. Or something like that. Anyway, today I feel like I've had a productive day because:

1. I left the house before 1pm
2. I actually used my bike, helmet and lock
3. I didn't contribute smog to global warming AND saved money on not getting citycarshare (I know how eco-brained that sounded, but if you knew how cheap I am, you'd understand)

This is the aforementioned map. I went in a counterclockwise motion, from home to the post office, walked my bike to blockbuster (hence, no line), rode down the street and across to Bed Bath and Beyond, walked through the mini-mall paking lot onto the street and wee-wee-wee'd all the way back home. It was fun, a little nervewracking (cars can go really fast), but all in all, good, good, good.

Now to go eat some leftover pizza.

Strawberry Ice Cream

2007-07-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Stheriousthly. Stho good.

Ha, numb tongue caused by the aforementioned deliciousness is so worth it. Actually I was eating chocolate ice cream out of the box, but it was one of those three-flavour ones, and it had some scraplings of the strawberry that I accidentally scooped with my spoon, and was hit by the dreamy wonder that is the pink creaminess. Okay, enough, I guess I've been watching Scrubs too much and have started blogging how J.D. talks, which some find obnoxious, some don't care about, and some are like me and find it deliriously hilarious.

But not as hilarious as Turk.

Quiche-y

2007-07-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

Usually the only reason I try a new recipe is to get rid of a mass quantity of an ingredient that I have that is verging on going bad, or I'm not going to eat that thing until it's already gone bad. That's usually how I end up making my awesome banana nut muffins (no need for modesty here).

So today's project was quiche, which came out great (pictured below....and on flickr....aaaand in my belly), got a nice basic quiche and added some ham and mushrooms, and switched swiss for goats cheese. I thought I was going to make just one quiche but the custard made for two and then some. Very tastey, recipe follows picture...

Ham and mushroom goat cheese

2 10" unbaked pie shells
1 tbsp. butter, softened
3/4 cup broken up goat cheese
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
6 eggs
1 pt. cream
1/2 cup chopped sliced ham
3 diced button mushrooms
Enough parmesan cheese to sprinkle on quiches
2 tbsp. butter, melted & browned

Spread butter on bottom of pie shells.
Sprinkle ham and mushroom in bottom of pie shells.
Sift dry ingredients.
Add eggs and cream to dry ingredients and beat until mixed but not frothy.
Stir in goat and parmesan cheese.
Pour custard in pie shells. There will be enough left to fill a ramekin, either cook with mushroom and ham or plain.
Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.
Reduce heat to 325 degrees and bake 25 minutes longer.
Remove from oven and sprinkle with parmesan cheese and butter.
Return to oven for 10 minutes or until a knife inserted in custard comes out clean.
Let set 10 minutes before cutting into wedges to serve.

Ew....

2007-07-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I don't drink to begin with, the last time I had a drink was a few weeks ago and it was a tiny one, before that, I can't even remember that far back. But yesterday I was faced with two people that reminded me so clearly of why I don't drink. Let me set the stage...

It's 11 PM, I'm standing in front of Golden Boy Pizza in North Beach waiting in line to get a slice since I'm dog-sitting around the corner. There's about seven people in front of me, we're spilling out the doorway of pizza place, waiting our turn, everyone giving each other their personal space when...dun-dun-dun!!!! The drunkard twins step up behind me. Now, if you want to drink to be drunk, that's fine by me, and if you want to make a complete fool of yourself, that's still fine by me, but when you invade my personal space, that is so not fine by me. Honestly, the whole time these two teetering drunkards were standing behind me, not five seconds went by that a breast, elbow, shoulder or some other appendage did not touch me.

I don't make it particularly known that I have personal space issues, and if I know you, or we've hung out, the issue dissapears, but if you're a complete stranger that I'm not even talking to, I have a 18 inch radius upon which I would rather you didn't encroach upon. But these girls were so wasted, I honestly don't think they knew what personal space was, intoxication is not an excuse in my book. On top of the space thing, they were also making complete fools of themselves. Maybe it's because I don't hang out with drinkers, and I'm usually not there when they get drunk, but I was just shaking my head in disbelief at the cartoon-drunkaness of these two. One of them was actually hiccuping, they were both teetering, with arms linked (of course) and kept talking about how "Steve, Steve is soooo in love with you....he...he's always TALKING about how he wants to sp-sp-spend the REST of his life with you..." Notice the caps? That's how they were talking, emphasising random words, stuttering. And on top of that, they were standing in line for pizza and eating sunflower seeds. Which would get stuck to their arms, and they wouldn't notice. Hmm.

Honestly, what's the point in drinking if you're going to get so drunk you're not going to remember what the hell you did? Seems like that would be bad since 1. You just spent money on alcohol that you don't remember consuming 2. You just wasted a night of your life because you don't remember what you did 3. You probably wasted that money you spend because you puked it all back up before you passed out. I still don't understand the puking thing. There was this girl in my freshman year of college that was my friend's roommate and she would "pre-party drink", which consisted of her going through a fourty of vodka before even leaving her house, wobbling to party and then not even going in because she felt sick. Then she would teeter home, vomit along the way, still be drunk so yell at the people with her, get practically naked in front of everyone in her aparment, and then pass out on the floor of her bedroom. And then she'd wake up angry the next day because she didn't know where her money and day went.

Good times.

Wackolah

2007-07-18T22:54:00.001-07:00

I was trying to think of a title, and that word popped in my head. I know it makes no sense, it's not meant to.

It's almost 11 and I'm tired, and about ready to go to sleep, but I figured I should write about what happened a week ago so that I don't completely forget to post about this milestone in my school career.

Plus I feel like I should do something productive with my day.

So Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 was my midpoint review. Big deal at AAU, it's when you stand in front a council to basically prove that you're worthy of starting your thesis and pitch your idea for your thesis and see if you get a yay, a sort-of yay or a nay. Right off the bat, I'll tell you that I got yay'ed, so I was (and still am) super jazzed about that. Basically when I went home for a month in May, I started researching for my thesis. I did the drawings of the site, and started writing what I could for my midpoint book (of which I had to submit six a week before my presentation). I got back to San Francisco, went to a meeting to sign up for my date and started powerhousing trying to finish, print and bind the books in time for my submission date. Luckily I went to school to print on a Saturday, thereby avoiding the whole "there's a shitload of people printing at the same time, how long is this going to take to get done???"

Fastforward to a day before my midpoint, I go to school to drop off boards from a class I did last summer, and wade through the boards that were in the Spring Show in May to find my projects from Spring. Then I go into my director's office to ask if she could request a computer projector for me, since my proposal was in powerpoint form. She lets me know that she has a concern about my project being to small, mainly, the initial site being too small.

Shitbuckets.

I already knew this might come up as a problem, and she's letting me know so that I can properly defend myself during the question and answer period, which as nice as it was, worried me like crazy. Onto the next day, go to my six hour drawing class hauling my laptop, dress, pantyhose, heels and makeup in a bag, haul that all again to a different building and start my set up. I have to pin all my boards to the wall, get dressed, get my make up on and set up my powerpoint. Got it all done with time to spare, and so spent half an hour wandering the hallways (in sneakers, I am not a fan of high heels and concrete), and then start my presentation. Which took longer than I thought. And then onto the question and answer section, which was haaaard. Then I left the room for the council to deliberate, which in my mind took forever since I had absolutely nothing to do out in the hallway, but in reality it was only fifteen minutes.

Then I was called back in, and told that even though they don't ever do this, I was going to be let into the discussion to hear all the new ideas that they have come up with for expansion of the project since the scope was too small, one small building working as a single business is simply not large enough for a true thesis. I agreed, they told me things, I explained some, and then FINALLY they told me that I passed (seriously though, did they have to drag that out until the end? I was dying.)

So now this is the project (taken from an e-mail I sent to some professors):
"The project was originally a small healing arts and meditation center in Bangkok, which would have been a conversion of a home into a commercial project to create a hub for the new age community in Bangkok that focused on the utilization of new age, Thai design as well as the use and promotion green and universal design. After much discussion with the midpoint review council, the project has been expanded to also include a satellite center somewhere else in Thailand, as well as prototypes for expansion into other countries such as Tokyo, Milan and San Francisco, with an emphasis on a smaller footprint, and the ability to insert the centers into skyscrapers to reuse space and reduce new construction. Another addition is also a prototype for a modular system, so franchisees can pick and choose what services and rooms they would like for their branch."

So I'll be having a fine and dandy time for the next year, and now you know what I started out with when I'm bitching and moaning every semester.

Nitey nite!

Biiiikram

2007-07-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

Do you know what Bikram yoga is? Did you know there's tons all over the world? Including one in Thailand on Silom road. So what is it? Imagine doing yoga in hell. That's close enough.

They have a huge heater which they turn on before class begins, and you through a ton of yoga positions and basically realise that you have more sweat pores than you ever though possible. Honestly, a classmate told me about it and I was excited because my mom had completely hyped it up while I was in Thailand, but being a person that hasn't exercised in ages and hasn't done yoga in maybe ten years, I was definitely the definition of a Bikram n00b.

I have this weird thing where I can't drink water when I'm exercising because it makes me want to puke, but I was actually dripping sweat, so I figured I had to replenish. Bad idea, the combination of heat and water made me want to puke, I had to leave the room. Didn't end up puking but after almost ten minutes I went back in, and went slowly. Stand up, position, lie down, position, stand up, hands up, head back...oh oh why can't I see? A few seconds later I'm okay again, but going even slower. I realise I probably pushed myself much farther than I was supposed to, but I'm so weird in that I must be the best at everything. Unfortunately I was surrounded by yoga pros so I was lucky to even be called the worst.

I will probably go back again today. I guess I'm a sucker for punishment.

More stories later.

Maaaaan.....

2007-07-16T21:14:00.001-07:00

So I'm basically backed up with stories to tell, so I guess I'll go through and tell them through a series of posts, instead of one huge long post. Unfortunately I'm in no mood to do long-haul typing. So this is just a warning, there are posts to come.

Peace.

Drawings...

2007-07-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

So I've been in a figure drawing class for two and half weeks now, and I've got a few drawings under my belt, so I thought I'd share them with you! Be advised, we're only drawing nudies.

Four hour study

Sixty minute study

Warm up exercises

Three hour portraiture study

Frick Frack

2007-07-06T08:05:00.001-07:00

Today I was riding the first of two buses to class at 7:30 in the morning when I realised how completely superficial and materialistic my last post was. Mostly because I saw someone with a Macy's bag and realised that there were a whole plethera of malls that I didn't hit yesterday, which is probably a good thing. It's so weird that sometimes I'm what I would classify as "normal" and other times I'm extremes of different personalities, e.g. yesterday when I thought that getting a big bag from a store because of a big purchase was tantamount to say, giving birth. Yeah. I'm good like that.

In other news, it was nice and sunny, a little less chilly than usual when I stepped out of my apartment this morning, so I decided not to take a coat with me, just me, my tank and an overshirt. Bad idea. If there's one thing I must pass on to the masses who read this blog (i.e. William), it's that it can be wonderfully sunny right outside my apartment, but it's fuck cold where my class is. I didn't notice until I was waiting for the 41 to go down Union, because especially on a day like today, I refuse to climb uphill for six blocks on Chestnut so I can be sweaty and stinky in time for class. I was most definitely freezing something off this morning, and when I finally got to the coffee shop across the street from school I ran in there, bounced from foot to foot waiting for my turn, ordered my coffee and welcomed it's warmth into my hands. I mean the coffee cup, not the coffee.

Another thing I noticed this morning (this is what happens when I wake up early, lots of noticings) is that the 41 is probably the preppiest and nicest smelling bus in the city (at least compared to the ones I've been on), I'm sure it's because it's filled with people going into the financial district, so they're all wearing suits, did their hair, showered this morning and probably put on some colonge/perfume. It's just weird when I'm used to seeing bum or tourist-filled MUNI buses and this is the one bus that's filled to the hilt with all the clean "business" people. The worst/best part was that the 41 goes up this big hill, and so the first few block eastbound are at a 45 degree angle, causing alot of shuffling because people can't quite keep their balance, so lots of clacking of the high heels and dress shoes, which I guess is a pain in the ass for them, but a little (just a teeny) bit funny for me, which I'm sure would not be the case had I been in the heels and not the super-traction sneakers I was in. Clickity clack!

Foodsie!

2007-07-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

So I have no pictures, just recollections of the past few days of food. Read if you wish, my camera has only just gotten back into commission after I have temporarily given up my search for a new 'un.

Yesterday began with toast, scrambled eggs and bacon. Picture this:
A slice of toasted sourdough, a layer of butter, a slathering of boysenberry jam, a layer of scrambled eggs, topped with bacon.

An orgasm in my mouth.

Luckily I only had one slice otherwise I would have completely O.D.'ed on my breakfast. I don't know what it is about the combination of sweet and salty that makes me go over the top. Like maple-roasted bacon. *Drool* And the popcorn in Thailand? Love it when they mix the sweet with the salty so I get a mouthful of each flavour.

Then Fog City Diner for dinner, an my verdict is: Eh.

Nothing special, honestly I would never go back there again, overpriced eatings, and being the cheapie I am, I'd rather eat some great Thai food rather than overpriced "decadent" food. Call me low-brow, I like being there.

Lunch today turned out to be spinach-ground beef spaghetti with a sprinkling of bacon. Lots of bacon grease makes for an extremely, but tastey lunch.

Between lunch and dinner, I pulled my strawberries (bought a day before yesterday) out of the back of the fridge and sliced a few up with yogurt, sat down to eat my afternoon snack and got an icicle between my molars. Oh wait, that was a frozen strawberry. I guess the back of the fridge is not the best place for liquid-based food. So the strawberries will be going bad soon, so I decide JAM! What better solution than a little bit of jam. Look online for a recipe and and find a super simple recipe that doesn't involve pectin and therefore does not involve me leaving the apartment. Strawberries, sugar and orange juice (what was supposed me lemon, but you know, citrus is citrus). Mix and boil, it is now sitting in a kern's jar in my fridge, with more of a preserve consistancy than jam, but I have tried it with my prized yogurt and am very much satisfied.

Dinner was a spread of ciabatta, crackers, salami, olive tapanade, avocado and goat cheese. Light, somewhat healthy and yum!

As for the retail therapy that happened yesterday...

I walked into Westfield with the thought that I would discover Bloomingdale's for the wonder of fashion that it is, and since I'm always seeing people with Bloomie's bags all over the place, I figure I must be able to find something I like there and can buy with good conscious (because I am still, that very, very frugal person). Well, the verdict was: NO. My goodness. I found one dress that I really liked there, and it was silk, beautiful and for $100 a good deal, but it was dry clean only, and I when I can catch myself, I don't buy clothes that I can't at least wash in a machine. Anyway, ditched Bloomies and started through the actual mall, I can't really even remember the stores I walked into. Anything that said SALE really. Ended up buying from Victoria Secret (had a $10 off coupon), Express and of course, MNG. Everytime someone that I knew saw the Express bag, they would exclaim "Man, I haven't been to Express in aaaages." Which I agree with, I hardly ever go in there because it's just too much of a hassle for nothing, but today I saw so many people with bags, I figure I should at least try it out. Got a cardigan for $10. And onto MNG's flagship in SF, walked though and found a black jacket that I loved, 50% off and just had to buy it, even though it was stifling outside, I just knew I had to.

Shopping was a success, I was happy with my big bags, got the retail therapy I needed, because there's few feelings better than having a big bag and showing your purchase off to others, so I am satisfied as far as purchasing goes, for at least a while.

Now that I have batteries for my camera, maybe I'll actually be able to post some pictures, I've been taking pictures of stuff I've seen on the street. Did I ever tell you about the time I saw a filleted salmon on the street? It must have either come from Chez Spencer or Nihon, but it was a full fish body-sans meat, in the gutter, on the street, across from my house. Well, let the adventuring begin.

2007-07-05T10:07:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a cat lie on your chest, you're petting her, and you get distracted by something and suddenly the cat is licking your face with the full on "things" on it's tongue up and it fucking hurts like someone dragging multiple needles on your face. That is me right now. Imagine "Oh Moo, you're such a cute little kitty...oh look, someone's talking about how P.Diddy broke up with Kim Por-OH FOR THE LOVE OF-WHAT is up with your tongue????"

Honestly, sometimes I wonder about our little SPCA kitteh.

Block Block Block Block....Block

2007-07-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

I'm definitely having blogger's writer's block. I think of great things to write about, even funny phrases that I should use while I'm riding on the bus, but put me in front of a computer, and my brain gets wiped clean. I've only got two things to type about today, neither particularly exciting, and mostly two things that I just feel like getting off my chest.

1. I spelled definitely wrong for at least four years. I spelled it definately. Why did no one correct me?

2. I fucking HATE iPhone ads. They're killing me, that music, the mac obnoxiousness, the boop-boop "Oh, I'm so wonderful, I have touch screen technology" is driving me up the wall, especially since everyone and their mother's new source was reporting that even though the damn thing has all these different functions, each function is reduced by being in one small machine. And no, I'm not jealous, I do not want one.

Ugh, this kind of frustration deserves some retail therapy, shopping tomorrow, let's see how far I get.

You Know...

2007-06-29T15:54:00.001-07:00

...I usually don't have a problem with people that are different than me, but I did have a problem with someone I saw today. A man, wearing a dress. Now it's not the dress I have a problem with, no no no. And it's not even the fact that he was a cross-dresser. The problem was that he almost wasn't even a deliberate cross-dresser. I'm all for men who feel more comfortable in women's clothing or as a woman temporarily or even permanently, but at least go all the way with it. I mean, if you're going to go through the trouble of finding yourself a dress that actually fits you in the right places, growing your hair out and wearing matching clothes, you may as well all over look the part, right? Or even shave? I guess I just haven't been exposed to bearded dress-wearing men enough. Which brings me to another point.

Is it weird for me to like watching documentaries about gay, bisexual, transexual, hermaphrodite or even cross-dressing people? It's not like it fascinates me and I'm always watching those programs. But if one comes on, I'll watch it, and I enjoy learning about different scientific research that people around the world are doing to find out if a person is who they are by how they're nurtured or by nature. For example, this whole Dr. Money and his nurture vs. nature deal when it comes to babies being born with both or disfigured genitals. His whole deal was that if you treat a biological boy as a girl (and he has girl parts), that person will grow up as a girl. But the whole documentary was contrary to that, and they interviewed families that were treated by Dr. Money and showed one end result that I remember in particular. The person always knew something was "wrong", he was born a boy, bad things happened in surgery and so he was "turned into" a girl. But he always wanted to do boy things, and hated his twin brother, and invariably, later in life, decided to become a man. And then there was this other program I watched that was investigating transexuals to see if they wanted to change sex because of their life or it was just who they were. In Germany they were slicing up a transexual's brain to compare that brain to a woman's and a man's. They found that a certain section of the brain more resembled a woman's than a man's, so it's nature right? Predestined? Well, they weren't sure because it could have been attributed to the hormones that the person was taking to go from male to female.

I don't know, psychology still fascinates me, which I guess is why I like watching real-life investigatory crime shows like FBI files that talk about serial killers and how they got caught. Brains are such a mystery and I love learning more.

Went back up that windy hill again. I figure, I'm getting exercise, because not only am I pushing myself diagonally (uphill), but also horizontally (against the wind), so I'm getting at least some of that daily excersise that I'm supposed to get...twice a week. Aren't I supposed to do it everyday for 20 minutes or something?

Don't answer that.

Finally! A Moo Post!

2007-06-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

I know Moo looks super-skinny in this pic, but she's not. Here she is vying for some attention in the A.M. More on Flickr.

She's been a little strange in that she's been super affectionate, and really wanting snuggles during the night and in the morning. And she's a persistant little bugger too, really pushing for attention and petting, and shoving her face into my neck so I choke. And then I wake up, pet her and she sits on my chest, put her paw to my throat and presses, choking me. Yeah. She's weird/cute like that.

Windy & Weird

2007-06-27T15:26:00.001-07:00

So...Yesterday was kind of a weird one. It started off with me waking up ahead of my alarm, with Moo no where in sight. It was cold in my room since I had turned on the fan and I'm sure she bolted once she realised the fan would not be stopping soon, since I was dead asleep. Unfortunately the clean, cool air has affected my throat and now I'm scratchy, slightly phlegmy and irritable. On top of that I had to wake up earlier than I naturally would, get ready, drag my drawing board and papers up to Chestnut and Columbus by taking two buses and walking four blocks down a steep fucking hill. I don't care if your commute takes you two hours and five transfers, I was not a happy camper yesterday morning.

Class was okay, I couldn't get in my groove, so I just kept trying and trying and started to realise that I really don't like the way that charcoal looks when it's dragged along the side. I finally had the brains to go across the street and get some harder charcoal pencils than my 4B and that helped things...just a little. I guess I have no moderation when it comes to how hard I press when I draw. Especially when it's vertical. After class, I thanked my stars that I got a locker and stuffed all my junk in there, and started walking the six blocks (four of which are uphill) towards Van Ness to take either the 47 or the 49 down to Blick. On Chestnut, between Larkin and Hyde I started realising that I was pushing against the wind, and then as I got to the top of the hill I nearly got blown off my fucking feet.

Pinpointing the wind-fuck spot.

In other news...when I got home yesterday I went and bought a camera, a cute little Olympus FE-230, and let me tell you, standing in line at customer service, waiting for my stupid refund of $20 that the sales person did NOT take off even after I asked him three times, I was like a friggin' statue waiting there for at least 20 minutes. Which doesn't make sense because Best Buy has a shit load of people working there yet there were only two people working returns and exchanges, which a line building up and one guy taken out by a very complicated return. Then I get home and it turns out it's a shitty camera and so I have to return it. Guess how long I waited for? Quite a while. And it was so fast to buy the damn thing! I'm sure they deliberately make the returns like super slow so people are less inclined to return items and just keep their shitty merchandise. Not me. I'll wait in line (and of course complain about it) if it means I don't have to keep something that I'm not even going to use and get my money back.

And what have I done since noon, when I went to Best Buy? I've actually been cleaning my room which apparently takes three hours, since I have so much shit and need to put them back in a place where I might actually be able to find them when I need them in a week or month, maybe even year. I just can't believe how much shit I have sometimes. I mean, I'm only person, why do I have all this stuff? Sometimes I wish I had a 360 degree camera just to show people the insanity that is my room.

Now I will watch Project Runway and avoid the homework that I have. Meh.

Yeeaaaah....

2007-06-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

You know, leaving home in San Francisco just wouldn't be the same if I didn't encounter a crazy at least once during that outing. Yeah.

But this story does start today, it actually started a few months ago. I was on the MUNI when a man gets on the bus with a backpack, fold-up stool and a wall-hung shelf system made of basketweave. The shelf and stool took up one seat and he took up the other. Another man got on and wanted to sit the seat the first man wasn't occupying, but the firstie couldn't move the stuff because, well, the stuff didn't have anywhere else to go. Secondy then starts yelling at firstie about how he's done so much for this country and we're all supposed to help each other out. Firstie yells back that he can't do anything about his stuff. More yelling ensues and secondy moves down, behind firstie and stands there muttering under his breath and gesturing angrily at firsty. A few blocks down secondy moves to the rear of the bus away from firstie. A few more blocks down, secondy moves back up before he gets off the bus and again starts irritatedly muttering to firstie, at which point firstie yells back. Secondy gestures and gets off.

The point is, today I sat down next to firstie. And he still had his stool. And he reeked of alcohol. He saw my drawing board and asked me if I was an artist. I said yes. He then went on a sporadic monologue, and by sporadic I mean he would say something, stop, wait five or ten minutes and then say something else as if I was continuing the conversation, which I wasn't. He also had a very high pitched voice that was slightly Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley, slightly serial killer. What did he talk about you ask? About how people get angry at him for video taping them. Which I understand, I mean, who knows what he plans to do with that video? And then he kept talking about how great it would have been if in the 1800's everyone had a camera and took video of the earthquake, or how life was back then. He also talked about how that's what he's doing now. Uh-huh.

In other news, I spend the day drawing nudies and going to a meeting to prepare for my midpoint review/thesis proposal presentation. To the say the least I'm nervous. Not about the naked people, but about the presenataion. I'm so scared that I won't get a pass, what if my project isn't big enough? What if they don't think it's good enough and I have to rework or get a new project? I've been looking, everyone's doing hotels, big things, but I know that if I do a huge deal like that, the quality of my work will suffer since I will have so much stuff to do. Oh well. Hopefully I'll get the earliest presentation date and get it over and done with. As for the naked people, that figure drawing class turned out great, two models, got to draw not only the man, but the woman too, and got some great drawings done. Some point I'll take pictures or scan them and share some breasteses with you.

Later.

eversoconstantlychanging...

2007-06-21T17:55:00.000-07:00

So I'm sure you're not checking my blog as much as I'm checking my blog, but I'll tell you this much, the layout and look as changed a considerable amount (by that I mean two) of times in the last week. I actually kind of/sort of have the time to mess around with the layout, which I've been meaning to for quite a while now. Just because I look at some gorgeous blogs and think, I could totally do that, and it'll be nicer than looking at the regular normal blog formats...I mean there should be an insane look to go with the weirdness that shows up in my mind and therefore this blog.

Anyway, the layout will probably change a few more times in the next few weeks, once I start drawing for my figure study class, I may have more things to add to the page. Woohoo naked people on the blog! I am feeling so weird right now, a little off balance to the point where I'm actually not feeling hermitous after spending a few hours outside. Hermitous!

Enough.

Digeridoo?

2007-06-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

I actually heard the didgeridoo today in the 16th/Mission BART Station today. Pretty surreal, I only saw a glimpse and didn't want to take a photo (for fear of getting charged, like the shoe shiners on Stockton and Market), so all I have as proof of the man, sitting on the floor, with a loooong bright yellow didgeridoo out in front of him. I need to get batteries for my camera, I haven't taken enough pictures lately...

Cat Butt

2007-06-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

So I finally arrived in San Francisco, after delays in Taipei, I was so ready to be back and done with traveling. Luckily I got through immigration, baggage claim and customs fast (first in line at customs and my bag was maybe the 10th that came out), so I was out of there and climbed into a door-to-door shuttle as soon as possible.

Got to my door after some waiting (they like to have four stops and wait at each terminal for (I guess) 10 minutes, and haul my bag up two flights of stairs, put it on the landing near the staircase, thinking maybe I should move it over because what if I knock it over? Turn around, turn back and of course, the laptop bag hits the suitcase and I knock the damn thing over. Open the door, put down my bags, get molested by Moo, walk down and get the bag and haul it up again. Once I start unpacking my sister and bro-in-law's stuff, I realise why my bag was so damn heavy. THEM! At least that's how I reasoned it to myself. Not because of all the clothes and junk I bought for myself, but because of their stuff.

The title of my post indicates what was in my face when I woke up this morning. At five. AM.

Well, it was more like, cat face, cat body, and as soon as I stopped petting, cat butt. Right now Moo is half lying on my body, half lying on the bed. I guess it's her sweet little way of showing me I belong to her, and I'm not going anywhere, especially not for a full month lke I just did. Oh wait, she just moved, and now she's full on my abdomen, kneading my belly. It's clawless right now, but I suspect the claws will come out soon...and there they are. Damn that hurts. But I let her do it because it's sweet, and I guess I like the attention.

Are you having these issues with your foster pets ST?

Right now her butt is on the base of my laptop near the finger-pad, so everytime I need to click something or move my cursor, I run the risk of sticking my thumb up Moo's butt.

As is my life, let's see if I can get back to sleep...

P.S.
Why didn't anybody tell me that stupid link snapshot thing was annoying as all hell? I was about read to throw my laptop through the window in Taipei when the damn things wouldn't stop. Got rid of them, and I think I'll keep it that way, I mean, you don't need to preview websites that bad right? Clicking the link will do the job...

Taoyuan Airport

2007-06-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Here I am, sitting in the lounge at the Taoyuan airport, typing in my blog because I don't have much else to do. I can't read the newspapers or magazines, I'm trying to cut down on my eating (gastro-intestinal issues i.e. I've been super full for days, but I can't stop eating) so I simply can't gorge myself to pass the time. So I'm on my computer, plugged into the internet, and I thought I'd say a hello. I don't know why it was such a big deal to me that the airport changed it's name since last year, I had to actually look it up, and luckily (as usual) Wikipedia had the answer for me. Apparently it happened on September 6th of last year and had something to do with political hoo-ha. I saw something about "majority in Legislative Yuan" and then I stopped reading and was simply looking at words.

Oh, and another thing on my cerebrum, I'm a little annoyed at the google/blogger deal of changing the language everywhere I go. It was in Thai when I was, guess where? Thailand, and now it's in (what I assume is) Mandarin. Screen shot!

My dashboard. The picture and the abbreviated sfht are the only indicators that I'm even on my blog dash. I keep hitting cancel becuase I can't tell which is OK, because I cant remember the color co-ordination. *grumble grumble grumble*

So insanely weird how time passed so fast, I was looking at my desk while packing to make sure I had everything when I saw the crackers I took from the Taiwanese lounge on my way there, and it seemed as though it was just yesterday that I grabbed them for no reason and stuffed them in my bag. *sigh* I got a look at this paper underneath the glass of the desk I'm working on, and it says "EVA VIP Lounge" and has a bunch of screen shots. Unfortunately, it's all in Chinese so I can't read a damn thing and don't know what they're talking about. Hopefully it's not that important. *eek*

Lots of emoting today, I'm feeling particularly hyper, and I'm not really sure what to do with that energy. I wonder if it's because I need to pee. Unfortunately I don't want to leave my stuff here to go pee because who knows what might happen. Someone might slip a bomb or drugs into my bag just like the customs people keep warning about, and then I'll have to say that "Yes, I did leave my bag alone for a little while, but I really had to goooo." Doubt they'll listen. Then they'll check my bags. And find nothing. Because when I travel I'm incredibily boring and don't like carrying more than whats neccessary. I still have another hour before my flight starts boarding, and I really don't want to buy anything. On my way to BKK I bought some Ferragamo perfume, my first on-plane, duty-free purchase ever, and the first time in eight years that I have actually bought perfume that wasn't body spray. It smells nice, kind of like a fruit salad, kind of like pomegranate...I think. Some sort of citrusy and tangy fruit. Now that I think about it, it's a little weird that I smell like fruit salad right? I mean. Will I make people hungry? Will bums on SF streets come up to me salivating and try to take a bite? Remember that perfume from Cyprus that made animal hump constantly because it was made from the reproductive glands of some animal? I think that was in a Sugar magazine some time in Y9.

Typing the word eight reminds me of another story (oh there's going to be ALOT of digressions in this post, I assure you), I was typing an invoice for my dad and type fourty instead of forty. My dad thought it was hilarious that I went from K-12 at an international school, college and half my masters and didn't know how to spell forty. I reasoned that I was taught to only spell out words below 10 and those higher should be numbers, so I hardly ever saw the word forty, but less needed to spell it. No go. He got this weird smile on his face that I assumed was part amusement and part "Oh my God my child is a moron."

That's it for now, let's see if I can mess/play around with the layout of the blog. Or do something interesting with photoshop...

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

2007-06-11T05:52:00.000-07:00

I couldn't help it. My mom and I were at the grocery store when we saw this. Someone must have placed the fruit that way, it's just too perfect. This is only shot I got before my mom swatted me away from it, for fear that I would get caught taking pictures of bum-lookalike fruit. Haven't done too much lately, so nothing interesting to report, but more pictures on flickr! Be back in San Francisco on Saturday...crazy how fast time passes!

Interim

2007-06-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."

-Joe Fox of "You've Got Mail"-

I was looking through some old stuff online, and I noticed this quite that I had put up years ago as a favorite. I still love it, and I still love the movie, and I always wondered whether I would ever have a relationship like that, cute, smart and movie-funny. Granted, I doubt these types of relationships exist in the 24/7-always-witty-and-wonderful sort of way. I love being at home, seeing all the sights that I saw and took for granted as a child, but coming back to Thailand always feels like I'm putting my real life on hold, which can be good and bad. When life's on hold, I can't deal with anything from that life until I'm back in it, so I'm finding things like plans for my thesis being put on the back burner because I can't find the strength or brain power to deal with it right now. I wish I had this movie here so I could watch it... I has never failed to put in a good mood, and be positive and happy. The Manhattan scenery is just too beautiful to be sad about.

Day Three (Continued)

2007-06-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Yoni's blog, I decided to take some candid photos while Maya and I were out looking around Bangkok. First stop: Central World for a peruse at the new mall.

The open area outside Central World that used to house a huge beer garden but now houses at least three different fountains that no one looks at.

Maya posing in the grand (and useless) hallway that overlooks the aforementioned mall.

Maya quells her craving for pad-see-ew, whilst my craving also sits in the photo, po-pia-tod.

Milk green tea and gateow-laad-naa.

Now I've got to take a break and explain the next few pictures with a reference picture. The first picture is one of Maya's brother Yonaton, looking much more demure than either one of us has ever seen him, sitting in his swing chair in China, sipping on a drink. I was so amazed by this picture that I not only commented on it (miss spelling at least two words), but also regaled Maya with the tale of how her brother looks so incredibly submissive while enjoying his drink. Hence the phrase "Doing a Yoni" was born and wildly used. Of course, by the time the tale reached Maya, I had pumped it up quite a bit, not only in speech form, but in my mind, so when I finally got around to showing her the picture (after we had taken our respective tribute pictures), we realised we had taken it that next step past the original Yonster.

Yoni getting his Yoni on.

Maya doing a Yoni.

Me doing a Yoni, I'm not sure why I look scared, I assume its because it was my attempt at looking cute, which is very hard for me to do and of course, hopeless backfired.

Me trying a hand at "being spastic" as Maya put it, in the middle of the Central World atrium. I look like a damn linebacker with those shoulders.

And the finishing touch, looking up at the elevator shafts in the atrium.

So the verdict is: Central World is quite the crapper. Mostly because it's boring, it's not even finished and no one wants to lease there because they've all gone else where by now. Central World simply shot its load a little too late. Oh well, more tomorrow.

Day Three(ish) of Maya...

2007-06-03T22:23:00.001-07:00

Okay, so when I come home, I usually do near nothing, moving a sloth's pace, maybe leaving the house around 2 in the afternoon for an stroll around a mall and then back home to get into bed at 9:30. Yes, for the first two weeks I was in Bangkok, I was going to sleep at 9:30. And loving it. I'm not a night person, and I have an odd fear of being too far away from home late at night. Mostly because I probably wouldn't be able to get into the house without waking my parents. Also, I don't go clubbing, don't drink, don't do anything that people my age find remotely fun, and I'm just a fuddy duddy.

That all changed when Maya got here on Saturday afternoon. We went to Patpong the first night to go shopping, then the next day, Chatuchak, MBK and then Patpong again. Suffice to say we were both pretty tired by the end of the day. And I just realised that I didn't take many photos at all, even though I had my camera with me all day. Well, we're supposed to go explore the new "Central World" and we'll see where the world takes us after that, I'll try to remember to take more photos...good luck.

Put some up on flickr, and 'people' ones on facebook.

Banjo and spoons players in Chatuchak.

Huh?

2007-05-31T22:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I haven't posted in foreeeeeever. Forever of course being a week. But alot has happened in that week, most notable: I finally got my visa, in hand, attached in my passport with my I-20 in an envelope (for what reason, I have no clue) stapled to said passport.

Today is a day that merits celebration.

Anyway, in other news, I have not progressed with my thesis proposal, which I was supposed to have done, printed and bound while here in Thailand. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen. Also, Maya will be here for a few days, so I will be hanging out with her, going shopping and probably melting in the heat. Then it is possible that I might get some work done. Notice I said possible, not will, or definite, or anything that indicates that I most certainly will get alot of work done. Just making sure I cover all the bases here so I'm not lying to anything, most importantly myself. Which I am very much inclined to do is such circumstances.

Have a great weekend!

The sun'll come ooooouuuut, tomorrow!

2007-05-24T02:07:00.000-07:00

Actually, it came out today as I was waking up at five in the morning. Partly from jetlag and partly because I was so nervous about my visa appointment today. Honestly, from six a.m. (when my brain actually began functioning) to let's say...11 a.m., I was the biggest ball of nerves I have ever been.

But before I regale you with details of my morning (which I'm sure you're curious about), let me say that my last post was, less than efficacious (woohoo thesaurus), but things are better now, and hopefully they will be for the remainder of my stay here. In my mind, I am free to be as bitchy as I want when I'm in San Francisco, but not when I'm home with my parents.

Hmm...onto the visa stuff, I had planned to do a detailed play-by-play, and while typing it realised that it was as boring as a textbook, and written like a Rosie O' Donnell blog, cryptic and just plain weird. So let's just say, my dad wasn't allowed in, I got more nervous with every step, waited in a room for an hour for my number to called (air conditioned, thank goodness), got to the desk and the only question I was asked was "Why in the WORLD did you go to Fresno?" Loved the interviewer, good humoured guy and nice to boot. So all those nerves weren't for nothing, but it was a huge relief off my shoulders, and even though I was out of there at 9, I didn't even start relaxing until hours later.

Yesterday went to the design library at Emporium TCDC, registered (which was an oddly laborious process) and hung out there with Michelle and Golf reading and learning how to use the library. Went for ramen afterwards, which was very tastey, got the Japanesse-style ramen, burned my mouth, but still loved it. Put some pictures of the Orchid Fair on my flickr. More in a few days!

P.S.

Before I forget, I discovered this great cartoon that (for whatever reason) have fallen in love with: PUCCA!

Pucca and her love interest, Garu.

I was (of course) UBC's (or TrueVision, whatever the hell that is) cartoon channel Spark! and saw this show that has minimal dialogue, and the dialogue they did have was in English (score!). The cartoon is just really cute, the graphics are super clean and simple, which I love, and it's pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, I only watched it that one time, and have been hunting for it ever since. Damn UBC.