Tea Latte
Had my first Starbucks tea latte finally, soy vanilla rooibos. Not bad! Not as good as the tea lattes at Coffee Bean, but pretty good. It’s nice to have more options than just the chai tea latte that they had before. (At the Coffee Bean, I’m partial to their English breakfast tea latte — haven’t tried Starbucks version yet.)
I guess they are trying to have more tea options because last weekend I had an apple chai tea infusion, which tasted an awful lot like mulled cider. Quite delicious, but I did think that if I was in the mood for tea, it wouldn’t do it. On the other hand, if I kinda felt like a spiced (mulled) cider, then yah, darned good! :)
Wall Street Journal: Escape Your Car
The Wall Street Journal has an article about the possible money savings from not having a car.
In 2007, the most recent year that numbers are available, the American Automobile Association figured its members paid about $7,800 a year on average to own and maintain their cars. That figure dropped to about $6,200 for small-car owners.
Y’know, with $6200-$7800 extra dollars a year, you could pay about $500 more than you currently pay per month for rent or mortgage and still come out ahead, making living near public transportation and shops and theaters and grocery stores and work and car-sharing (basically, a place with a good walk score) maybe seem a little more possible, no? :D [Commute by Bike]
Anxiety Dreams
Have you ever had a dream where you’re being chased? Or maybe you’re naked somewhere where you should be clothed? Or how about you’re about to take a test and you have no idea for what class? Or maybe you have a presentation but you don’t know what for? Or your teeth are falling out? Or maybe you’re lost and you don’t know how to get home? Or how about embarrassing bathroom problems? (Personally: yes, no, no, no no, yes, yes! :p)
The dreams aren’t supposed to mean much except as an indicator of general anxiety, I think; most people have had one version or another of the common ones. Well, this morning, I woke up from a completely new version: my favorite bookstore was having to close down and I was there on the last day, trying to decide what books to buy, but I knew it was too late to save the store. Then later in the day, I read that Stacey’s Bookstore in San Francisco (which I hadn’t even heard of) is closing — I feel like so many bookstores have closed this year. So I dunno if it was general or specific anxiety or what (prescience? :p), but I hope that the Other Change of Hobbit does ok!
(In other news, I re-read this, and I am probably a little crazy. :p)
December Happenings
Happy New Year! I think we celebrate New Year’s (and birthdays, incidentally) by drunk dialing/texting people. Lovely, no? :)
I meant to post more than I did in December, I really did, but work got so busy and then I went to visit the family in MD, and dude we stayed up late all the time (Leaf likens it to Guantanamo, yet if I don’t keep up, Kay calls me a pansy!) and somehow I didn’t get on the computer to blog.
But I’m gonna be random and talk about December stuffs anyways, since I took photos for this, even though I didn’t post them. Whatevs!
So… I spilled wine all over my keyboard — dude you never saw me shut down my computer so fast before. I didn’t dawdle! Yut had to take it apart and I took a photo with the keys off, but I forgot to take one from before he cleaned it off. Duuuuuuude, the keyboard was dusty and dirty inside! It didn’t look too bad from the outside, but after the keys were off there was dust like a blanket of snow. Yeah gross! My keyboard wasn’t too hard to take apart and put back together, and once it dried, everything was hunky dory.
The other random thing that I took a photo of is my broken thumbnail. Dude, broken nails are yucks. I always have visions of my whole nail falling off and I’m almost to scared to look. Not that it was that bad, but it was bad enough. And my thumb tip was kinda sensitive for a week after cos it’s used to being covered by a little more nail. Typing kinda sucked… and all sorts of other things. Opposable thumbs, so important!
Guess what? It happened when I went bowling. Dude, I haven’t been bowling in like 8 years, and 2 days after Leaf and K mention that they break their thumbnails bowling, I go bowling and I break my thumbnail! Wacky! I suck at bowling btw. We played two games and I managed a 60-something the first game and I think a 40 my second game. I don’t know why they even make gutters on the lanes! WHY BOTHER?! :p
Various and Sundry from SF
We went to the city today for dinner with Lingo at The Richmond, which is a rather nice and cozy and delicious place. Also, Lingo is a regular so the chef always comes out to say hello. Crazy eh?
Anyways, this is just to explain why we were on the BART playing Professor Layton (a fun puzzle game) on the DS, getting engrossed, and missing our station (which I twittered). The ride felt so long going to San Francisco, cos it was crowded enough that we couldn’t find seats, but it felt so short on the way home; gawd I don’t know how anyone goes anywhere without a DS. (Nintendo doesn’t pay me any money but they really oughta, doncha think? :p) Until we looked up and we were past our station. OOOOOPS.
Random other fact: we saw sooooo many people in SF wearing Santa costumes. Some of them were caroling! I don’t know, is this the weekend for Christmas/holiday parties??? I would’ve taken some photos but it was hella cold (40s) and I didn’t get a camera out in time. :p
And thanks for all the good wishes etc, I’m feeling better now. Luckily not a flu, cos I never quite got around to deciding about getting a flu shot, which means that I didn’t get one cos it’s no effort to not get one so it’s the default choice, if that makes any sort of sense. Still months of flu season though, so plenty of time to rue my decision or lack thereof. :p
Chugging Chicken Noodle
Soooo… I’m not sure if this is true, but I feel like every time I hang out with the nephew (5) and the niece (2) I catch something. Even if they’re not sick! Cos kids are disease vectors! Yut says it’s just me, cos he never gets sick, the punk.
Anyways, so yeah, I’m sick. It’s just a cold, thank goodness (I guess). Mostly snot and cough with some sore throat — so basically all the most disgusting icky symptoms only. And I know I’m extra icky cos on Tuesday, after helping someone clean up a virus (the irony!) off of their computer, the guy said thanks and shook my colleague’s hand but refrained from shaking mine! Well I had my arms crossed cos I didn’t want to shake his hand cos I was grossing myself out, but now you know how groady I was. I stayed home yesterday and had chicken noodle soup for lunch.
Today I felt a little better, so I went to work. But I still had chicken noodle soup for lunch — in fact, a whole quart of it. Cos it’s supposed to help, right? Cos I’m tired of being sick. I got a headache today from coughing so much. :p
Happy Thanksgiving
Just wanted to say Happy (early) Thanksgiving! We’re doing the turkey this year, Trader Joe’s All Natural something or other, hopefully delicious. :)
Speaking of Thanksgiving, PETA’s come out with an unofficial Cooking Mama game.
Play the full size version on PETA.org.
Not quite as good as Cooking Mama, but waaaaay crazier. It’s v. PETA and therefore over the top, but kind of funny. And it’s just amusing that they did it. It’s like what would happen if Mama wasn’t super positive and was super murderous instead. :)
And speaking of Cooking Mama, the newest version of Cooking Mama is out for the Wii, and it’s fun, but I have to admit, it’s a bit overshadowed by Animal Crossing right now. We are suffering from a little bit of Animal Crossing withdrawal. :p
Indignation Quashed
Two guys were sitting next to me at lunch, and I couldn’t help but overhear some of what they were saying, cos the tables were super close together.
Dude 1: I’m turning 21 soon!
Dude 2: Oh cool are you gonna go to Vegas?
[What's up with that?! 21 year olds! Vegas! Sheesh, lucky d--]
Dude 1: Hell no! I’m gonna be studying for my finals!
Okay never mind.
Back Where It Oughta Be
It got a bit cold this week, so Yut went and found his plain red sweatshirt and put it on. He was about to leave our place when he stopped and said, “Wait isn’t the Big Game this Saturday?” He actually went on the computer, found out that it was, and CHANGED. :) (He claims he just didn’t want to get killed.)
And we’re not even big college football fans. For one thing, the Bowls thing is completely nonsensical. Actually, I dunno, I just don’t pay any attention, and the rankings and stuff make no sense to me and usually Maryland and Cal are neither of them any good. Or even if they’re good, what’s the pay off? A Bowl Game? They need playoffs; it’s why I love March Madness. I say this as a total noob, btw.
ANYWAYS, the important thing is, Cal won! :) And so we got the Axe BACK.
Aaaannnnd, always fun: The Play. This is like the most entertaining (fun and funny) play in football ever, as far as I’m concerned.
City Folk
The first version of Animal Crossing for the Wii came out today! I loved it on the DS too, but it’s beautiful on the Wii and there’s some extra functionality (most of which I haven’t tried yet). I haven’t tried the online extra functionality because Nintendo is crazy protective when it comes to online play, so people can’t connect without a “friend code.” It’s ridiculous, especially since I got the Wii Speak version, in case someone else gets Animal Crossing or if there’s more games in the future that will use it. So I’m mim from Rain and my friend code is 5456-2890-2568 if anyone decides to BUY THE GAME. hint. :) If you do, come visit my town, I have apples.
A small sampling of life in Animal Crossing, so far:
This is me standing in my town, about to go fishing. :) I imported my character from my DS saved game — pretty cool stuff. It doesn’t transfer over everything, just the catalog and the face/hair, as far as I can tell.
I riled up the bees!
They’re not nice or forgiving. I shook trees and got ravaged more than once, but after the first time, figured, “Already look like Quasimodo, so may as well shake more trees.” Also, shaking trees can give you bells (money). :)
Screenshots taken from within the game — it allows you to take “photos” and save them to an SD card.
