So BlindDateBlog is lagging a little behind schedule, but we're all waiting patiently. So have you look at who's in it? I'm not talking about the ones I know, like Ank, Jesse and John. Char and Cheryll are just pure cuteness, James looks a little bit like Michael Stipe. And then we have Todd, the website executive. For 3 days I've been trying to figure out who he looks like, and it finally hits me.Kinda brings me back to the good ol' SurvivorBlog2 days. Oh, to be somewhat but not really popular again. sniffle.
2:56 PM |
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Regarding a post from Esther, why are there so many Koreans named after elite universities? She posted these three ...Harvard Kim
Yale Kim
Princeton Kim
I knew a Korean guy in college named Cornell, and of course, last but not least, there is Duke Kim, who apparently has REAL ULTIMATE POWER. Wooooo. After reading this site, you too won't be able to stop thinking about korean guys. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.
1:30 PM |
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So the great Min Jung threw a huge shindig to celebrate her 28th birthday. The theme for the night was Cocktails and Fuzzy Slippers, so people were required to bring their favorite libations and fuzzy slippers.
Saturday morning, Em and I walked over to Ross at South Shore Center and bought fuzzy slipper for $5 apiece. Man, there are NO fuzzy slippers for guys. I was forced to buy women's slippers, and they were XL for size 10 and up. I don't ever want to piss off the woman who can wear these slippers. Anyhow, I actually wanted the green slippers with the frogs, but they only made them up to size M, which was sizes 7-8. So Em and I got the same slippers. She thought it would be way too corny, but we figured what the heck, people won't notice. Yeah right. Everyone was looking at everyone's slippers and laughing or squealing. "Omigosh, so CUTE! Matching pairs!" Yes indeedy, they were cute, even we couldn't help grinning about it.
Bel, Ritchie, Ern, Jesse, Ted, Ank, Paris, Jenn, Que, Charlin, Chrissy and some other friends all showed up. Ritchie drove down from Vancouver just for the weekend! God damn crajee Canucks. Gil and Arvin even stopped by! Gil met Min Jung a few weeks ago because they are working on some project together for two seperate companies. Talk about a small world. As for Arvin, he just knows everyone, the partying foo that he is. The Great Emotion Eric recognized me at the party! w00t!
This relationship has changed Em a lot, or at least the way she views relationships and guys in general. After being in several ... damaging relationships, I feel good about this one. Maybe Lucy was right, maybe I was so willing to get into a relationship as long as it wasn't in my face, every day, right next to me. I don't know, but I'm not like that right now. When we got the slippers, Em said her friends at home would never believe she was at the point in a relationship that she's getting matching slippers, party or not. I'm so not used to being taken care of; I've always been independent and pretty much self-sufficient. I am always willing to give massages, but I rarely am willing to receive one, and I'll want them to stop after 5 minutes. Maybe I'm too scared of getting too close or becoming dependent on someone. But Em. Em fights back. She has allowed me to slowly trust her and enjoy the reciprocity of a healthy relationship. At the party last night, as the night was winding down, Em and I were just standing there hugging amidst a large crowd of people.
"Until now, I've never allowed anyone to take care of me."
"Until now, I've never wanted anyone to take care of me."
12:13 AM |
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Hopefully some of you who lurk out there will speak up and help me out. After an 8-month "tryout" period, I have decided I want to continue with this independent contractor bit for awhile longer, and now I want to have a real company name and a real company website. Nothing fancy, just a place to show things I've done. I've thought about this off and on for the last year, but I can't decide on a name/URL for the company. I want it to be memorable and interesting, and preferably not have the word "design", "web", "internet" or "digital"; just a tad clichéd. I've asked some friends and some of the ideas I've got are:www.spicy-cabbage.com
www.metadave.com
www.toothdk.com
www.digitalkimchee.com (I know I said no "digital", but I'm getting desperate)
My little company does web design and small application development. So far, I've done projects with MySQL, Access, JSP, PHP, CSS, Flash and D/HTML. I do most of the work myself and contract out the rest, from landing gigs to writing contracts, design and dev, QA testing and financials.
As you can see, we are terrible at coming up with ideas, so I REALLY need your help! Add votes and suggestions in the comments, please!
11:25 PM |
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An intern of sorts has come from Japan to learn better English and how to teach English at Em's school. T arrived 2 weeks ago and is staying for a year. Emily has become quick friends with her for many reasons, one because they are both Japanese and two because she can relate to T's experience. From far away she came, knowing pretty much no one but hoping for a invaluable learning experience. T is only staying for a year, true, but she's 6,000 miles away from anyone she can call familiar. I can help but smile when Em comes home and tells me how she's excited to have make a friend like T. Tonight we invited T over for dinner.T is 28 and wants to eventually teach English to Japanese children in Japan. The best way for her to learn English is to immerse herself in it, which she is doing. The more amazing thing is that 4 days before she left Japan, she started going out with a guy back in Japan. As if 6,000 miles wasn't enough, he is working in Germany for the year. That's literally halfway around the world, piquing the interest of all the hopeless romantics out there. We both wonder and hope that they can survive the entire year, an interesting turn of events for sure.
I made a dinner of tri-tip steak with grilled portobello mushroom, creamy garlic mashed potatoes and corn. The beef was trimmed and soaked in onions and lime juice for 2 hours. The acidic lime juice breaks down the muscle fibers, making it extremely tender. Then garlic, salt and crushed pepper were added along with Worchestershire sauce and soaked for another hour. The sides were seared and then cooked for 15 minutes while red and green bell peppers were added julienne later on. The portobello mushrooms were cleaned and brushed with olive oil twice, then sprinkled with salt and pepper, then grilled for 3 minutes on each side. Em and I had a small debate about how to pronounce "Worchestershire sauce". Once again, she was right, but I only grudgingly admitted that. I've always thought it was pronounced pretty much phonetically, she said it was pronounced "War-sta-sheer", like the way that one town in New York is pronounced "Glau-ster" but you spell it Gloucester. Like I have a New England town to base my etymology.
Anyhow while talking and listening to me and Em, T came across a lot of words she was unfamiliar with. We were both very patient and extremely glad to help finding ways to explain them to her without using Japanese. It was like playing Taboo! Now, I was giving her helpful and useful words, like "argument" and "stubborn". To explain "stubborn", Em basically said "what Dave is being about how to pronounce that sauce." Ouch. That was probably the best explanation we gave her all night. While I was giving her useful words, T learned the words "yummy", "yay", "boo" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" from Em.
Oh my god. We're so going to have this girl messed up by the time she goes back to Japan.
4:34 AM |
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Are you ready for BlindDateBlog? It starts Sunday! w00t!I got a really funny forward today:
romance mathematics
Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy
office arithmetic
Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime
shopping math
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need.
general equations and statistics
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
happiness
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
longevity
Married men live longer than single men, but married men are a lot more willing to die.
propensity to change
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.
discussion technique
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
how to stop people from bugging you about getting married
Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next."
They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.
SEND THIS TO A SMART WOMAN WHO NEEDS A LAUGH AND TO THE GUYS YOU THINK CAN HANDLE IT.
2:52 AM |
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I've been jamming on getting this JSP thing and stayed up until 5am last night cranking out JSP pages. I finally am getting the hang of this, w00t! Em helped me out last night reading out employee names while I typed out other information. Maybe I just don't know MS Access well enough, but I couldn't figure out the best way to transfer one column of a table into another table in a seperate database. Feh. We had to go through over 200 names, but Em stuck through it all for over 2 hrs. We didn't stop, and near the end of the 2 hrs, we were starting to get delusional, laughing at the most random things. Soon, she couldn't even say the correct words. I busted up laughing because suddenly she said "Santa jello". Santa jello? I went over to her computer to look at the screen. "You mean 'Santangelo'?"
"Oh, yeah, I guess that would be the right pronunciation."
We bursted out laughing and couldn't stop for about 5 minutes.
<!-- Photo and photo comments courtesy of Scott -->
I've finally discovered the KPop group S#arp. I've had a bunch of their songs for months, but I never really listened until Monday. I've been totally hooked on the song Jal Dwet Ssuh which is a kinda of hip hop song. But the song I've been playing non-stop is Kiss Me. It's a pop song with a sort of disco-y feel. It's really catchy and even though every single S#arp song has a bit of rap, it's not too bad in this one. S#arp consists of two girls and two guys. The two girls are really cute. They actually look a bit older so I could even venture to say they look gorgeous. One of them has that kinda of Asian snaggletooth look, but it kind of endears her to me as a little girl. Nevertheless, I'm totally intrigued by Ji Hye.
You can download either the mp3 (6.3 MB) and/or the music video (7.5 MB) for Kiss Me. If you like easy listening KPop, I highly recommend this song. Not the high energy style of FinKL or BabyVOX, but addictive nonetheless.
10:09 AM |
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Hangaroo is basically hangman but you only have 4 guesses per round to save a wise-cracking kangaroo from being hung. Pretty fun.<!-- Link from #!/usr/bin/girl -->
A rather interesting project here. The Film Exchange Project The idea is to shoot a roll of film and trade it with another person without seeing what you have shot. This project attempts to take it one step further. Once you have recieved your film, you must process the roll and curate a 12 image gallery from the roll of film and post it on your blog on a specific date.
Unfortunately, the deadline for submission has passed, but I'm going to keep track of this to see how it turned out.
3:16 AM |
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I wonder who actually filters out errors and such in the news these days. You know how Jay Leno has that segment called Headlines where he finds errors in all sorts of media? I wonder if I can submit this. I mean seriously, what were the news people at Yahoo! thinking when they posted this picture?
10:43 PM | Add a Comment [4]
BET is the Black Entertainment Television channel, and every Friday, they have a segment called Friday Freestyle where they pit two rappers against each other. They get to hear a 30-second soundbyte and must freestyle, usually talking about or dissing on the other rapper without swearing. It's kinda like Star Search, with a challenger going first and a reigning champion retorting. Anyhow Jin is a Chinese rapper who was the current champ. A challenger came in and tried to diss on him but stumbled a bit. He even said in his freestyle that he doesn't mess up, which just made him look all the more stupid. Jin came back and totally rocked the challenger, dissing him so bad the crowd was cheering for him like crazy and I nearly soiled myself laughing. Get this straight, this is a CHINESE RAPPER on BET who is the champ of the freestyle rap. It's totally worth the 8MB download.
Download the video here.
The rumor is that Jin just signed a record deal, so we might be seeing the first US Asian rapper in the near future.
<!-- Link from Bronx's Junkyard -->
Here is his personal webpage/fanpage.
<!-- Link from Rice Bowl Journals -->
9:21 AM |
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I've finally put up a new scribble. Hopefully I can write one of these each week, or every other week. I don't have previous posts up yet; they'll come soon. I also haven't set up the comments on them. If you have a comment on the scribble, leave it on this post. Thanks.
1:45 AM | Add a Comment [1]
Blade II was intensely gory but really entertaining. I liked how they described the biological changes in the mutant reapers. Em and Andrea had a great time at the spa. They had Indian food in Berkeley and then went to Tucker's Ice Cream in Alameda. We then watched An American Rhapsody on video. Pretty good movie, I recommend it.I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this JSP mumbo jumbo.
12:34 AM |
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On Thursday night, I finally had dinner with Jinah. After about 5 months of phone and email tag and trying almost losing touch, we went to Le Cheval. We ended up talking for over 2 hours, catching up on current events and reminiscing about old ones. Jinah was one of my best friends in college, and certainly the closest friend I had that wasn't in APO. We were shocked at the realization that we have known each other for 7 years. We had our misunderstandings, but I know that those are in the past and we can both look towards a stronger friendship in the years to come. It was really good to see her again and I pray that we don't lose touch again.Em's friend Andrea came over for dinner tonight. I cooked salmon with lemon zest olive oil, dill and capers, creamed spinach, corn and rice. It was a really good meal and afterwards, we hung out for a little before they fell asleep. I tell you, it must be something about teaching that totally enervates you at the end of the day. A few months ago, I bought Em two appointments for massage therapy at The Claremont Resort for her and a friend of her choice, which was Andrea. That place must be popular because they couldn't get an appointment until over 4 weeks after Em tried to set it up. They've both never been to get a professional massage before so they're both really excited. Em wanted me to go, but for some reason, I have a problem being "pampered". I'll gladly give massages and take care of someone, but if someone does that to me, I get uncomfortable. I don't know where I got it from, but that's the way I've always been. It's a strange feeling to be taken care of and pampered, and I guess I just don't like it, like I'm desperately trying to cling to some semblance of independence and ensconcing.
Joel and I are finally going to watch Blade II today. w00t!
5:30 AM |
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This Friday Five thing has started to get popular, so it's time to jump on the bandwagon. Heh heh.1. What's your favorite TV show and why?
It's really close between Cheers and CSI. I grew up on Cheers and the main reason I got a TiVo at first was to watch every episode of it. I can't explain my addiciton to CSI.
2. Who is your favorite television star?
For one, William Peterson because he's such a flingin' flangin' genius on CSI. But I would say my current favorite is Kristin Kreuk. She is the sole reason I watch Smallville religiously every week.
3. What was your favorite TV show as a child?
Transformers and G.I. Joe, no question.
4. What show do you think should have been cancelled by now?
Survivor and The Weakest Link
5. What new show do you hope escapes the axe this season?
Alias. On a side not, I'm still very upset with ABC for axing The Mole 2. Bring that back damnit!
1:21 PM |
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What's that you say? You didn't know my birthday was in 3 weeks? Well you're in luck because I am here to remind you! Cheer me up because I'm sad to be turning the big 2-8. Jesus where does the time go??Amazon Wishlist
Buy.com Wishlist
11:21 AM | Add a Comment [4]
During the weekend, I was rummaging through some old stuff and I came across my very first laptop. In fact, it was my very first computer! Back in the early 90s, my dad was a HUGE Apple fan. He only bought Apple computers and I swear he was one of the first in line to shell out the $2500 for it. 
I found the original techical specs online and nearly soiled myself. It's crazy to think about how fast things have developed. To think that just Microsoft Word and Excel 2000 by themsevles are too large to fit on the old PowerBook. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this thing. It barely works and it isn't worth a lot out there on the market. I should keep it until it's worth a fortune.
Side by side, my current laptop and the Powerbook 100 specs.
| ThinkPad T21 | Powerbook 100 | |
| Processor | Pentium III | 68HC000 |
| CPU Speed | 850 MHz | 16 MHz |
| RAM | 256 MB | 4 MB |
| Hard Drive | 20 GB | 40 MB |
| CD-ROM | 24x | N/A |
| Modem | 56 K | N/A |
| Display | 14.1" color | 9.0" monochrome |
| Weight | 5.4 lbs | 5.1 lbs |
| Mouse | ThinkPad nubbly | trackball |
| L2 Cache | 256 K | N/A |
| Bus Speed | 100 MHz | 16 MHz |
4:35 PM | Add a Comment [2]
Well it looks like Ritchie has graced us with his presence again, flying in last night. Em and I went to a beach bonfire last night with Evance, Angela and Ellen. I haven't seen Ellen in over a year; we used to be really close back in college, then drifted apart for a few years, then crossed paths again and then lost touch. Ellen was always one of the more intriguing people I knew. She always had this crazy busy life with so many things going on. A lot has happened to her since I met her. She was only 16 when she came to Berkeley and then she went to UCSF Med School at 19. Now she's only 22 and is finishing up and is on her way to becoming an anesthesiologist. The thing I loved most about her was her pure love for singing. I was never a good singer and I rarely sang out loud even though I loved music. But being around her was like carrying around a boom box of slow jams. We'd be walking through campus or on Telegraph and she'd be belting out Mariah Carey or whatnot. She has a great voice too so she got a lot of looks. She was the person who taught me how to sing out loud. To not care what people thought. No matter how good or bad you were, singing with all your emotion and heart made you feel free. I never walked around humming or even went to karaoke until I met Ellen. Those who know me know how much I now love karaoke.The beach was great, surprisingly. There was hardly any wind and it was a comfortable 60F at the beach. Em and I walked along the entire beach; she had been dying to go to this since she heard about it two weeks ago. I was really happy because Em got to meet a few of my friends on a more personal level. She has met Ev and Ang before, but it was hard to really just chat the other two times. This time, she was making fun of me just as much as Ang and Ellen were. I knew she'd get along with Evance when she got to know him, and by the end of the night, they were hitting and screaming at each other. Ahh, harmony.
At the end of the night, we were reminiscing about bonfires past and how we used to sing at them. Ev, Ellen and I broke into a medley of songs that we used to sing together, including the popular In The Still Of The Night, More Than Words, It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday and Sukiyaki. We even harmonized The Star Spangled Banner. Ev was so excited to be singing, because as soon as one song ended, he'd ask, "Let's see, what else did we sing??" So at the end of the night, with the fire blazing in front of us, the five of us huddled in a little circle and sang songs that brought back memories. Songs that brought us all together. Songs that reminded us of where we came from and where we were heading, together.
6:56 PM |
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I love Alameda. I ran some errands today and decided to walk to all of them, the weather being so nice.... and I only walked 1.5 miles.
11:01 AM | Add a Comment [3]
Why do we strive to make ourselves more like machines but make our machines more human?
10:58 AM | Add a Comment [2]
Well it looks like everyone and their mom has taken this test already, so I'm posting my results. I remember taking this as a verbal psychological profiling test like 7 years back while in college, although I don't remember the results. There is another one and maybe I'll post it if I can remember it. Ah, it's probably out there on the web somewhere already. BTW, poo who cares if these tests are geared towards women!Your view on yourself
Other people find you very interesting, but you are really hiding your true self. Your friends love you because you are a good listener; they'll probably still love you if you learn to be yourself with them.
The type of girl/boyfriend you are looking for.
You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes.
Your readiness to commit to a relationship.
You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.
The seriousness of your love.
Your have very sensible tactics when approaching the opposite sex. In many ways people find your straightforwardness attractive, so you will find yourself with plenty of dates.
Your views on education
Education is less important than the real world out there, away from the classroom. Deep inside you want to start working, earning money and living on your own.
The right job for you.
You're a practical person and will choose a secure job with a steady income. Knowing what you like to do is important; find a regular job doing just that and you'll be set for life.
How do you view success?
You are confident that you will be successful in your chosen career and nothing will stop you from trying.
What are you most afraid of?
You are afraid of having no one to rely on in times of trouble. You don't ever want to be unable to take care of yourself. Independence is important to you.
Who is your true self?
You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart, rather than your head, needs to solve.
9:15 PM |
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Hmm, I think I fell victim to an AIM prank. About 2:30pm, I get an IM from someone not on my list ...michellec40b: hi
SuperKimchee: hi
michellec40b: you have a digital camera right?
SuperKimchee: yes
SuperKimchee: who is this?
michellec40b: i'll give you some money if you snap me
some nude photos of yourself
SuperKimchee: er, that's ok
michellec40b: j/k
SuperKimchee: about the pix or everything
michellec40b: i was just kidding, man
SuperKimchee: alright, bye
michellec40b: lol
SuperKimchee: please get a better hobby, you're
terrible at this one
michellec40b: at which one?
michellec40b: aichi wa wa
SuperKimchee: how did you get my AIM
michellec40b: so you are going to give me a nude
photo?
SuperKimchee: tempting
SuperKimchee: but
SuperKimchee: no
michellec40b: i'll give you some money
SuperKimchee: that's really ok
michellec40b: so which hobby am i bad at?
SuperKimchee: good lord I hope you're a girl asking for
these
michellec40b: what?
SuperKimchee: nm, not very bright either
michellec40b: i'm not getting your questions
SuperKimchee: the prosecution rests
michellec40b: so what is the good lord about?
michellec40b: what do you mean?
michellec40b: 50 dollars?
michellec40b: i'll send it with paypal
michellec40b: (o) (o)
SuperKimchee: um
SuperKimchee: thanks
SuperKimchee: listen, it's been fun and all
michellec40b: okay
SuperKimchee: what's 40b?
michellec40b: my underwear size
SuperKimchee: oh that's hot
michellec40b: do you have a big ============)
SuperKimchee: haha
This person then proceeded to warn me up to 45%, I could only warn "her" back 25% before she got offline. She then attempted to IM me as maureenyu and funky21house1. This person(s) have way too much free time on their hands. /sob/ I feel so cheap!
3:04 PM |
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Omigosh, I want the new Sony Clié. Built in digital camera, mp3 player and keyboard with a 320x480 pivoting color screen! It has a really nice thin brushed magnesium body and like some upper-end digital cameras, the screen orientation changes depending on use! I love this thing! Ooh, and my birthday is coming up in a month. Hmmmm.
12:24 PM | Add a Comment [2]
Any cartoon artists or good drawers out there? I would like to develop an icon for my webpage (and possibly for my one-man company and business cards). I already pretty much know what I want it to be, so if you can make it look good, I'll gladly shell out a little moola. If you have your own ideas on an icon, that's fine as well, I'd be glad to hear them.
2:32 AM | Add a Comment [4]
Who would have ever thought that what I did for a job was interesting? I was invited to go be a mingler at the Cal Berkeley Alumni Networking Seminar. They had some very interesting speakers such as Kim Hunter, the Fox 2 Fitness Editor who had recently won an Emmy for a piece she did about fitness and the women's triathlon. Surprisingly, I was only one of two people who were working as programmers or developers of any sort, and I guess they wanted me there because I was the only one who had started my own company or something to that effect. Man, what pressure, this company is a 1-man thing and it's not wildly successful or anything. Anyhow, quite a few people came up to me to ask about how I started on this. It's amazing, 2 years ago, I never would have imagined that I'd own my own company in any way, shape or form. The most important ideas taken away from the seminar was to never burn bridges and to always expect change.I've basically made 3 or 4 career changes since my first internship at Applied Materials back in 1996. I went from semiconductors to thin-film media, from biotechnical consulting to biotechnical software developing, IT system administration to unemployment to owning my own little company. If I had burned bridges leaving one of my old companies, I never would have landed my first contract so easily as an independent contractor. If I hadn't kept in touch with some ex-coworkers, I wouldn't have gotten my second contract easily either. You really never know who you'll run into throughout your life. It's a smaller world than you think and the little things you do now can have major rippling effects down the line. Here's hoping I never belly flop.
6:26 AM |
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Had a relaxing part of the day for once. Drove up to V. Sattui and some other nearby wineries for a little wine tasting. Em's parents also left tonight. According to Em, they really like me. Maybe she's just saying that, but there's really no reason to lie or even sugar-coat it at this point, so I'll just believe her. No more details, it's 3am and I'm beat. Have a good night.
1:57 AM | Add a Comment [2]
Em's parents, Em and I went bowling in Alameda tonight. Em's dad wanted to go since yesterday but we decided to hold off until today. Back in college, some of the guys got together quite a bit to bowl. At first, it was totally for fun, but as we went regularly, people started buying bowling balls, shoes, bags and even wrist braces. We even joined bowling leagues during the summer and then during the school year. For two years we did this and we even won some money along the way, but definitely had our share of memories. I still have my shoes and bowling ball from those days and dug them out of storage.
We played two games each and I got a 153 and 162. About my average during my league time. Em's dad had really good form and her mom had a steady, patient hand. Em, however, was impatient and refused help and advice from either me or her dad. She almost got 100 though. On the drive back home, I looked back on those days and it really hit me how they really are in the past and all we can do now is look back on them with fond or sad memories. I've been spending too much time immersed in work, and when I look back on my life, I don't want to remember things I've done as much as people I've known. A few people have let me know I'm starting to slip into comatose states of stressed out work-mode fervor and I really hate myself when I'm like this. Sorry all, I'm trying the best I can right now.
1:15 AM |
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Hmmm, I got a hit off of a google search of the string "Did Campbell's soup company has any partner in global market". Um.
7:45 PM | Add a Comment [1]
Some people just don't know when to quit when they're not too far behind. Ernie has come up with a new web game, BlindDateBlog. Let us all moan in unison, haha. Not to be anal man, but it's an even NUMBER, not an even AMOUNT of guys and girls ... I guess even the A-list bloggers will occasionally have an abysmal pratfall into the most common of grammatical errors.
7:13 PM | Add a Comment [1]
Em loves dulce de leche ("sweet of milk", which is a Latin confection which I believe is caramelized condensed milk and/or chocolate. She craves the dulce de leche cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, which I must admit is very very good. Clara informed me that in an effort to gain popularity among Latino households, M&Ms candies has unveiled a new flavor, dulce de leche! Unfortunately, they are only having a limited release of it in Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, San Antonio and McAllen-Brownsville, Texas. McAllen-Brownsville, Texas??? Well according to this webpage, that city has the highest concentration of Latinos in the nation. Hmm, did not know that. But look, SF is the 6th biggest US Hispanic Market behind LA, NY, Miami, Chicago and Houston. Oh look, San Antonio is 8th. Cmon! Send us some sweet of milk! Poo.
8:33 AM | Add a Comment [2]
Ah, thanks to George L. for reminding me about the wonders of Diskeeper. This program looks very similar to the Disk Defragmenter program that comes with Windows, but it's far far better. Diskeeper won't keep restarting because of stupid background system tasks, which is what I experienced last time. In addition, if you have a partitioned drive (or multiple drives), Diskeeper can analyze and defragment them all simultaneously. Oh, and you can actually schedule defragmenting sessions with Diskeeper.Wow, you know how bad her hard drive was? Last time I defragged (I do it once a month) I had about 105 fragments. Em's had about 4000 and was 'heavily fragmented'. And what's funny, her file system is FAT32! LOL! I haven't seen FAT32 in about 3 years, ever since I switched to lovely NT machines with NTFS.
He also keyed me on a sweet little AIM add-on called AIM+. Like DeadAIM before, it removes ads. However, it has some other fantastic features such as translucent windows, cloning and the thing I've been waiting for IM/Chat Logging! ICQ has had this from its inception and AIM never got around to this, which bugged me to death. I just love how right below the "Big-O Software" logo is this the word "l33t" in small letters. How ghetto. AIM+ is great, I highly recommend it!
5:46 AM |
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So meeting the parents went better than expected. For some odd reason, I was overcome by a sudden anxiety as soon as I hear them walk in the door. But after about 3 minutes, I calmed down and everything went fine. Em took them to where she worked and then to the hotel to drop off their things. I took a nap (hadn't slept for 27 hrs) and woke up around 4pm. We started cooking around 6. I made an appetizer that ended up tasting really good with very little prepwork!
10 oz smoked salmon
3 pinches of dry dill
3 tblspn shallots, minced
1/4 cup olive oil with lemon zest
1/4 cup capers, whole
2 tblspn balsamic vinegar
3 pinches of fresh ground black pepper
20-24 Monet Water Crackers
Alouette baby brie
** serves 4-6
Preferably the brie is chilled because it's both easier to slice and cold brie tastes better with this dish. Mince salmon and add shallots, then pour olive oil over to absorb the fish and shallot aromas. Let sit for 15 min. Add vinegar, pepper, dill and mix well. Chill for 15-20 min. Meanwhile, slice 1.0 - 1.5mm thick squares of brie and place one on each cracker. Take a spoonful of the salmon "tartare" and scoop onto the cracker.
Serve immediately, preferably with wine.
Sorry for the bad picture. I'm realizing more and more how pedestrian the Canon Powershot is. It's a nice starter camera, for sure, but I'm realizing some of its limitations and in a few months may look for a new one.
Anyhow, I think Em's parents were impressed. Admittedly, Em and I decided to make shish-kabobs (yet again) for them, but with chicken this time. Very manly, messy food. And it didn't really go well with this somehwat delicate appetizer, but we waited an hour between the appetizer and kabobs and washed it down with some very good red wine. For some reason, I felt like an Iron Chef, altho it took me 35 minutes to make this one dish and they make 4 or 5 in an hour. I really have no idea how they do it, assistants or otherwise. I know Em's parents love Iron Chef, so I was tempted to try and be funny and pretend like I was serving the appetizer on Iron Chef. I think it would have gone something like this:
4:15 AM | Add a Comment [2]
Em's parents are flying in from NJ today. They're staying until Saturday and Em is going to show them around. Kinda strange that I'm going to be meeting them so early in the "relationship". I already met her mom when she first moved here in September, but now it's in an entirely different situation. I'm usually good with parents of friends and GFs. They usually like me because I'm so polite and I look so ... wholesome. Ugh. Any other tips on how to win parents over? I have a feeling they're wondering if "we" happened merely because we live together. I'll admit that that was what we were concerned about for the first month or so, but we're both sure that it's much more than that. Bryan and Ang brought me back smoked salmon from Seattle. I think I'm going to make salmon bruschetta or some other appetizer with it.Anyhow, I've got a busy weekend ahead, going to SF with some friends on Friday night and Napa on Saturday. I sitll have to finish my taxes and I'm still far far behind on my project. But right now, I've got to not look like the regular ass I am to the parents. Oh why oh why are images from Meet The Parents spinning through my head?
Wish me luck.
6:12 AM |
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So familiar and overwhelmingly warmThis one, this form I hold now.
Embracing you, this reality here,
This one, this form I hold now, so
Wide eyed and hopeful.
Wide eyed and hopefully wild.
We barely remember what came before this precious moment,
Choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside...
This body holding me, reminding me that I am not alone in
This body makes me feel eternal. All this pain is an illusion ...
[ Tool, Parabol / Parabola ]
5:13 AM |
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Update on the defragmenting. It keeps restarting every few minutes because it says disk contents are changing. There are no applications open and I can't really tell what is on in the background since Windows 98 doesn't have a Task Manager (well, not the kind like Windows 2K does). I give up. I also tried to install the adapter driver for an extra Xircom Realport PCMCIA card I have, but for whatever reason the "Plug and Play" features of Windows 98 won't detect it. Damnit. I'm frustrated.
11:49 PM | Add a Comment [1]
I'm trying to resurrect Em's poor little Toshiba laptop that she's had for the last 3 years at school. The thing takes about 5 minutes to startup or shutdown, and half of the time it just freezes on her in the middle of the process. After searching around on the computer and asking her a few questions, I find out that she has: 1) 64 MB RAM; 2) used 5.89 of 6.00 GB of hard drive space and; 3) never defragmented the hard drive since she's had the computer. Oh gawd. I would be tempted to try and overclock it but it's a Celeron and well ... it might blow up.
2:05 PM | Add a Comment [1]
Em and I took Keirsey Temperament tests online just for fun. I took one two years ago and was an eNFp (Champion). Now I've changed to an eNTj (Fieldmarshal). Hmmm.
5:40 AM | Add a Comment [1]
Alright, I think I got rid of the javascript error. I'm usually unaware of those errors if the page loads fine because I limit error messages to the status bar. It was actually from the Blogger template which had a script function for BlogThis. Since I don't use it, I first tried to comment it out, but it was still picking it up. So I removed the whole damn thing and now it works fine. w00t!
1:24 AM | Add a Comment [3]
