More Pictures!

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...

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!

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.

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

My new hobby: Reading lolcats.

Battlecry

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

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

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...

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

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.

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*

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...?

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

3D Viz Magic

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...

...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

Snatched from cuteoverload.com ...

Is The Image Still Overflowing?

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...

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.