Was yesterday. Which I totally lost track of, even though I’ve been meaning to pick a class for the whole summer now. I’m always in the running for the Best Procrastinator title. Anyhows, I didn’t figure out that the semester started yesterday until today, whereupon I signed up for 3 classes. Unfortunately, I missed the first class of one of them already, but that’s ok, it’s mostly about picking up the syllabus and whatnot anyhows. Today’s class was Intro to Philosophy, which omg has 3 critical analysis type writing assignments 3-4 pages long each and 1 group presentation with another small paper basically self-analyzing the presentation and group work. Which is 4 papers. Which is scaring me. So, unless this is the bare minimum, I am probably going to drop this class. Because I fear writing. I am a complete wuss, I know, but what the heck, at least I account for it before it’s too late to drop the class. Which deserves some credit, right? Yes yes, thank you thank you. <curtsey> (It’s all about having low expectations.)
Yesterday I watched the season finale of So You Think You Can Dance? (don’t click on the link if you don’t want a spoiler). It was a great show, I’m sad it’s over. This season, I would’ve been pretty much okay with any of the final four winning it all, so I didn’t have to vote. :D (What? I like voting! :p ) But I made the mistake of watching it and reading Yahoo! Answers on the side. They must broadcast it at different times for different timezones cos partway through I started noticing these questions with headings like, “I can’t believe ___ didn’t win! S/he was the best! Who did you think was the best?” which kind of gave away who won. Not that it matters much, there was lots of cool dancing and stuff, still an entertaining show, but I know not to do that again!
I don’t know why, but the last few days, I’ve been obsessed with Yahoo! Answers. It started out innocuously enough, I went now and then to read the questions, especially that one day that Bono asked about world hunger, and in general cos some of the questions tend to be funny. Like the other day, some dude asked why he didn’t have a girlfriend, only he posted it in the Computers & Internet category! BAHAHAHAHA!!! But a few days ago, I started answering some of the questions, just to try it out, and also cos I’m an awful know-it-all, it’s a personality defect, I can’t help myself. But then I found out there’s points! And if you get 250 points, you make level 2, and then you can rate individual answers! Or something. Anyhows, now I spend a lot of time reading random questions and answering some. I have only 1 best answer rank though, and it was a question about a video game, and really Yut answered it for me. The question was: “A long time ago, I have played a game on a very old nintendo system. Probably super nintendo or so. I remember this one game where the character ( you) can dig a hole in the ground and trap an enemy in there and if you fall in, the hole would eventually seal up and you would die. Brown and red was used the most I believe with a black (?) background. Can anyone help me name the game? Thanx in advance.” Can anyone guess? Well, I knew it wasn’t Dig Dug, which was a bunch of other people’s guesses, but I didn’t know the actual game. Yeah it’s pretty sad that I only managed one best answer and it wasn’t really even mine. :p
So I’m late again this month. Well, what can I say. But in my defense, I sorta thought I had nothing much to say this month cos I didn’t see much or read much in July. But I think that was really more the end of July, or something. I really don’t know what I was thinking.
Movies-wise, I saw A History of Violence, which wow I thought was really good. I mean I know it got pretty good reviews, but I have to say, for some reason I never thought I’d much care for it. But it was good and fun, one of those movies that made you think and was fun all together. If you haven’t seen it, I’d totally recommend it. Plus I think Viggo Mortensen is dishy — I always liked Aragorn better than Legolas. Although it was a close thing, cos Orlando Bloom was pretty fine as a blonde elf. Which is funny because when he’s not a blonde elf, Orlando Bloom does NOTHING for me. It’s weird. And I’m waaaaaay off topic. Errr, yeah so History of Violence was good. :)
Also saw Superman Returns which was okay. (Have I blogged about this already? I hope not.) I mean it was definitely fun and not bad, but you know it’s a set up story. And both yut and me thought that sections of it dragged. Which you know, it’s an adventure movie! With a superhero! And therefore a supervillain (Kevin Spacey was pretty great as Lex Luthor)! You’re not supposed to be thinking partway through, “Wow this movie is long.” Another problem was that Superman and Lois Lane were supposed to be like 30 or something at least and I didn’t believe it, at all. This probably shows my age, but even though I thought Brandon Routh was a good Superman, and really a very pretty boy, he looked soooo young. Soo soo young. And I wish Lois liked Clark more. I always thought Lois thought Clark was an alright guy, who was at the least a good colleague, but I didn’t get that from this movie. Anyhows, small things really. I mean, it’s a summer blockbuster superhero movie, and it was fun, and really what more is there?
Lords of Dogtown was a movie about the start of the skateboarding scene back in the day (I think 1970s actually) and the way it evolved with the addition of some new sorts of wheels and surfing moves (I don’t really know the first thing about any of that, but they got awfully excited about some polyurethane wheels in the movie and they went surfing sometimes). It’s also about the friendship of the boys in Venice, CA who were instrumental I suppose to the development of skateboarding. I don’t know if I was a big skateboarding fan if I would see this movie as a lot more or what, but it was just an okay movie for me. It was like all innocent fun, then they started doing cool tricks, then sponsorship got involved and money and etc and the friendships seemed to be degenerating, but it seemed that in the end they pulled themselves together. Still, it was interesting, about a subject I obviously knew nothing about.
We tried to watch The House of Mirth, but failed miserably when we both fell asleep. Sad, but true. So moving on! :p
Team America: World Police was sooooo funny. I loved the Montage song (something like when you need time to move fast, then you need a montage! which is so true, CSI obviously swears by this), and the I need you, like Ben Affleck needs acting school song, and lots of other stuff. Despite this, as a whole, the movie didn’t work for me. It was like a bunch of funny scenes held together by a flimsy movie with no focus, or maybe a satire that couldn’t decide what to satirize and so decided to satirize everything and only partially succeeded. Something like that. Still, good for laughs. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut by the same people was better, if that serves as any sort of frame of reference.
The last movie we saw in July was Lady in the Water. We went to see it because it was really really hot and the theater was nice and chill. I know the movie got a lot of really bad reviews, but you know what, we both enjoyed it very much. It was very much a fantasy, and I could see it as a children’s bedtime story, I think. Anyhows, there was the hero! And the heroine! Who are just regular people, not trying to do anything special, but when circumstances require it, become bigger and better and fulfill their destiny. And there was a Quest of course. And various other people trying to help them on their quest. Good triumphs over bad and justice prevails in the end. I liked it quite a lot actually, and it’s not cos I’m some sort of unrepentant M. Night Shyamalan fan — I liked Sixth Sense, but not Signs (which was laughable), and haven’t managed to watch The Village or Unbreakable yet.
See that was actually a lot more than I thought I had. I think I will have less to say about the books though, we’ll see. :)
This summer I’ve been reading a lot of Dick Francis. I won’t go into them all, there’s a lot! He wrote like 40 books and I had a week or two when I read like 4 or 5 a week, so it’s too much to get into. I think in July my two favorites were Hot Money and Knockdown. I realized that I’d read Hot Money years ago after I already got started but even though I remembered whodunnit, I still enjoyed it a lot.
I also read Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and Tears of the Giraffe (2nd book featuring the same characters, but it’s not like each book wouldn’t stand on its own), which I highly recommend. I think the local public library calls these books mysteries, and in a way they are — Precious Ramotswe (the main character) is a private investigator with cases to solve, after all. But you know, a lot of mysteries, the whole book and a great deal of what happens in the book is all towards one aim, that is to solve the mystery. But somehow, these books are more than that. It’s about Botswana, and Mma Ramotswe and her life, and yes, she does also solve mysteries. Really good stuff.
Also, I’ve been reading a lot of chick lit. This month I read Something Borrowed and its sequel Something Blue by Emily Giffin. Good, but I keep comparing things to Shopaholic and not liking it quite as much. Maybe cos I read Shopaholic first, so it was all fresh and good. But this was pretty good. I read something else too with a yellow cover, but I can’t remember the title or author now. It was okay, but the Something Borrowed and Something Blue books were better.
Last was Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of nine short stories. I picked it up because it said that it’d won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, which seemed as good a reason to pick a book as any. Sometimes award winning short stories, or maybe acclaimed stories in general, are too esoteric for me, I end up not getting why it was good or sometimes even having a hard time getting through it. But this one was very very readable, and I’m not saying I didn’t have favorites, but in general every story was readable and touching. Anyhows, I’m out of things to say, at this point, so if you read anything from this month, try this. Or Alexander McCall Smith or whatever. I don’t know, it’s a different sort of pleasure, but pleasure all the same.
I guess this was much shorter. Somehow, I always feel inadequate doing this stuff, but in a way more inadequate talking about the books. Maybe cos I sort of care more. But also partly I think it’s hard to feel discriminating enough, or maybe intellectual enough, to talk about books. I mean, I enjoy a lot of junk (like I actually also read a romance, and I got through it quickly cos it was light fun, but I barely remember the plot now and I can’t remember the title or the author but the book was blue), so it feels weird to be reviewing Pulitzer winners. Anyhows, the point is, I enjoyed most of this, sometimes deeply, sometimes in small ways, but they were good in their own ways. Something like that.
- If you have a salad for lunch with no dressing, but with meat and cheese and bacon, is that still healthy? :p
- Dear lady who was peeing when I got into the restroom:
I didn’t hear you wash your hands.
Ew.
Sincerely,
mim - The judges on Project Runway are craaaaazy. I mean, they thought Vincent’s dress was better than Robert’s??? Really?!
I realize that it’s been a while since I wrote a post wherein I pretend like I’m some kind of gourmand and food reviewer, when really, it’s more just that I’m a glutton. I don’t know, it’s a mood thing. But anyway! I’m rectifying that now.
On Saturday we went to Citizen Thai & The Monkey in San Francisco, which in case you haven’t guessed is a Thai restaurant. A very yummilicious Thai restaurant, maybe one of the best Thai places I’ve been to. Well, anyhows, it was good.
When we first walked in, it was pretty busy, but the first thing I noticed was the fountain. With a big cute frog prince! And some fish, looking at the frog prince! And a turtle, also looking at the frog prince! And some cutie pie little frogs, conspicuously not looking at the frog prince! Clearly, the giant frog with the crown was the focal point.
Well actually, there’s a Buddha overlooking the fountain, but obviously I was distracted.
Then they seated us, quick and easy, even though we were a few minutes late to our 7:30pm reservations cos parking was horrific. We circled around for like… a long time, maybe 20 minutes? until we saw this great parking spot like steps from the door. Was completely amazing. Evidently there are parking garages on Vallejo, I had thought Stockton, but honestly no one should listen to me about directions. Doesn’t matter, we got primo parking spots despite the aggravation.
We were seated upstairs, although I suppose that doesn’t matter except to say that it is a 2 floor restaurant. Then we all ordered cocktails, which didn’t come super fast, but still reasonable. Then we waited and waited and waited for food. Maybe cos we were hungry or I dunno what, but it seemed to take forever!!!
Luckily when the appetizers came, they were good eats. I guess they look unprepossessing, but oh man the little fried sweet corn balls were yummilicious!
It’s a random candle photo! But look at misa and neb in the background. (awww) Complete non sequitur, I know, but no worries, the entrees haven’t shown up yet anyhows.
Also luckily, the entrees were delicious. We got green curry with prawns and scallops in a coconut, crushed sesame scallops with baby bok choy in yellow curry (the tall plate in the back), and fried catfish in mango curry. Anyhows, everything was yums. I’m trying to pick something as my favorite, but I liked them all. Maybe the green curry in the coconut? Hrmm… but the mango curry was good too. And them scallops with the sesame breading… well anyhows, it was good.
I guess overall I would say the food was really good, but the service was slow. It’s not like I thought the waitress and other staff weren’t good — we were seated promptly, water glasses refilled, plates cleared, checked up on, etcetc all in a timely manner — food just came out slow. Maybe it was busy, I mean Saturday night, y’know?
Now and then I go to Oakland Chinatown and buy my parents some phone cards cos they give good rates for Taiwan. Also, I think the dude semi-recognizes me cos when I go in I say, “phone card please,” and he says “the fish ones right?” So it all works out.
The last one I bought didn’t list numbers for the DC metro area, but I didn’t realize until I got home, so I was a little worried about it — much less useful without local numbers. So I thought, “They probably just didn’t print the numbers for DC, I’ll just call customer service and find out, easy peasy.” Wrong!
How it went more or less (italics is approximate translation from Mandarin, < > indicates stuff I didn’t understand) :
Customer Service: Hello <blahblah company>, how may I help you?
Me: Hi, do you have any local access numbers for the Washington, DC metro area?
CS: Yes, we have numbers all over the United States.
CS: Please tell me your <something>
Me: Uh, excuse me?
CS: Your front <something> number.
Me, looking at the front of the card, don’t see any numbers except $15: I don’t think there are any numbers in the front.
CS: I need your front <something> number.
Me: I don’t think I know what you’re saying. (I’m sort of hoping she’ll say it in English, just the key words that I’m missing.)
CS, getting impatient: You know, your front <something> number!
Me: I don’t know.
CS: Well put down the phone and go ask someone around you what the number is.
Me, thinking, “errr I’m at work, no one can read the front of the card any better than me”: I don’t have anyone to ask. I don’t think they know either.
This actually continues for a little while, she’s getting frustrated with me and I swear she’s talking faster! Then,
CS: I can’t help you then because without the number, I don’t know what phone numbers to give you. A location can have a lot of those numbers.
Me, FINALLY getting a clue: Location? Are you saying Area Code? Like 202?
Ooooooops! Also, duh! I imagine (painfully) that she got off the phone and said to her co-workers, “OMG, some idiot didn’t know what area code was! That took forever! Gaaaaaaah.” :D
See? Fish! No numbers on the front! :p
Today is Sys Admin Appreciation Day. Am not kidding! There’s a website about it ∴ it’s a real “day”! I think everyone should get the day off, really, especially since it falls on a Friday.
Lately I’ve been getting like a lot of spam everyday on my work email account, like I’ll have 5 real messages and 20 spam. It’s crazy madness! Everyday I get stuff like “sissy frivolously” or “Softwares Deploy.” Today I got spammed by Jack (unfortunately not Bauer) with the subject line “un-American Heart Attack.” I think he’s telling me that it’s un-American to have a heart attack in a crisis, no matter how bad a day you’ve been having. It’s like the spammers aren’t even trying anymore. Rarely is it “Grow 3 Inches” or “Cheap Home Loan,” so what are they trying to sell me? What’s the point anymore with the spam? Geeez
Today was another really hot day here. Another as in it’s not the first hot day this year. Hot as in >90°F (or ~32°C) and humid. Which I know, I know, isn’t as bad as it could be, but like I’m always saying, this area just isn’t prepared for hot weather. Anyways, our apartment was completely unliveable that’s how hot it was. If you judge “hot” based on if you can stay home comfortably or not, then I think you can imagine better what I mean. :p
From like a little before noon through 9pm, we stayed out because it was like an oven — headache inducingly, enervatingly hot. We went to dim sum (what’re the good places in the East Bay nowadays? We went to Legendary Palace and it was good, but seemed way less busy than it used to be) and Oakland Chinatown for a bit, then went home to check our apartment (way too hot), then went back out to Borders which had a “Buy 3 get 1 Free” summer reading promotion (yut asked, “Can you find 4 books you want to read?” Erm…YES!!! As if he had to ask!) and hung out for like 3 hours, then came home to check (still too hot), then went to Beverages and More for some wine and beer shopping, then came home to decide what to do next. It was like 6pm by then, but still impossibly hot, so we walked back out to Starbucks and sat around for another 2+ hours, then finally got home around 9pm, by which time the apartment was okay.
Hopefully tomorrow (well really now it’s today) will be better, enough so we can stay home if we want to anyways. Days like this are way too tiring — I mean, it was basically as long as a work day! :D
The challenge this week was to design the evening gown dress for Miss USA to wear at the Miss Universe pageant (hence “Fit for a Queen” ). Miss USA came on to tell them what she was looking for, and she was v. specific. Then they sketched out ideas and she picked the top seven who then picked amongst the rest for partners. Of course, one of the contestants is a pageant gown designer (Kayne), and annoyingly, one of the other contestants (Angela) spent the whole 30 minutes she was supposed to be sketching ideas pestering him and talking to him and trying to help or something stupid trying to get him to pick her as his partner when it hadn’t even been decided yet that he was going to be one of the team leads and gawd it was soooo annoying!!! Which I think the other people picked up on cos she was picked last. And her partner Vincent called her Allison. Bahahahahaha! Then Vincent decided to be a control freak and refused to allow her to do anything, but she was completely annoying to him, doing things like telling him how much time he had left to pick material every few minutes and then continually pointing out that she didn’t want any responsibility for the design. They were the worst team by far!!! Maybe not the worst dress, but the worst team. I think Tim Gunn didn’t see the parts where she was pestering Kayne and the parts where she was nagging Vincent, so he thought Vincent was the one in the wrong. But in his podcast he admitted he was wrong about it. And yes, I listen to the podcast. Really this show is like a 2+ hour event for me. Cos first there’s the show, then there’s Tim’s Take blog, then I look through the dresses again, then I listen to Tim’s podcast, and today I watched the exit interview. Bravo has basically covered every base, and it keeps me busy.
Spoilers coming, stop reading if that bothers you.
Continue reading “It’s ‘Make it Work’, and this isn’t working.” →
