By mim on January 27th, 2005
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… On the way home from work today, I felt like a Chantico, which is like drinking steamed chocolate syrup. I love hot chocolate and chocolate in general, so it’s hard for me to resist:p So I called Yut and we agreed that I would go get a Chantico and then call him and we’d meet up between Starbucks and his office and go home from there. Well, I got the Chantico, but I got all the way to his office and called him again, and he said he was outside of Starbucks. So we were like… how’d we miss each other?! Well so we both started walking, him back to his office building, and me back to the Starbucks. When he reached his office and didn’t see me, he called, and said, “How’d that happen again?! Wait, what street are you on?” Turns out we were talking about different Starbucks — there are two close to his office. He went to the one that was more on the way home and closer to his office, and I went to the one that was between where I was when I first called and his office. But the Chantico was delish!
Speaking of Starbucks, I bought myself a $50 Starbucks gift card this past weekend. Already used up 10 bucks! Gah!
If you’re wondering why I go around buying myself gift cards, it’s like this:
We have one of those cash back credit cards, where they give you a certain percentage back for your purchases, but double that amount back for your purchases at gas stations, grocery stores, and drug stores. So when we went to Safeway on Sunday, I figured, well this is a grocery store! And Safeway has all these available gift cards. So I figure, if I buy from Safeway, I’ll get double rewards, whereas if I buy from Starbucks, I’ll just get regular rewards! So our grocery bill was like $120, $50 of which was my Starbucks card. The checkout lady commented, “Wow, you sure like coffee, huh?” Teeheehee. I am a savings genius! Penny wise, pound smart! Never mind the $2.65 for a 6 oz. chocolate drink:p
By mim on January 27th, 2005
Today is the 60th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.
Two weeks ago, pictures of Prince Harry in a Nazi uniform surfaced.
This month, President Bush declared a goal of “ending tyranny in our world.”
Last year, the United States declared the crisis in Sudan a “genocide,” but in February, the crisis will have been a crisis for two years.
By mim on January 25th, 2005
It’s Tuesday, so time for more comments about American Idol. I don’t know why Idol is so endlessly commentable:p Actually, I meant to write about my disappointment with the lack of the cobra on the Apprentice last week, but I never got around to it. Oh but speaking of the Apprentice, the contestants were divided into 2 groups — book-smarts and street-smarts, which is lame anyways because the Donald has made it was clear that he likes college educated types, and also having street-smarts doesn’t have to mean no book-smarts or vice versa. Except the casting people for the Apprentice managed it, evidently:p But anyhows, the street-smart team is Net Worth (they make more than the other team) and the book-smart team is Magna (like magna cum laude). The first task was to sell as many Angus Steak Burgers at Burger King in one day or something. But of course, Net Worth blew Magna away:p One of the so-called book-smart types had extreme difficulties with the register. I’m not saying it’s not a complicated register, but puh-lease! Hehe, it led one of her team members to wonder if she’d ever been in a fast food place. This is unrelated, but I think on the Apprentice, it sucks to be a woman. Because seriously, no matter how much you rock, how are you going to out-r0×0r Carolyn?!
Okay, back to American Idol:) Today, in the middle of Idol, my cousin needed help on her math homework. Gah! I love math homework (as long as it’s not mine:p), but why in the middle of Idol, hrmm?! And my sister was completely unsympathetic! She told me to turn it down cos she could hear it on the phone. And my cousin just laughed at me. <sigh>
This time out, they were in New Orleans and Gene Simmons was the guest judge. I have no idea if New Orleans was better or worse than the other cities or if Gene Simmons was an effective judge:p The one dude who stood out for me was a movie projector dude who practiced in the projector room… well, but not in a good way. But the worst part was when he stopped a bit early and said something like, “uh…you guys look like you wanted me to stop.” But then Paula said, “What gave you that idea?” Um… duh, he was right wasn’t he?! No need to be fake nice:p Just say, I’m sorry, dude. Poor guy though, in the projector room, by himself, he probably sounds ok. That’s why those karaoke places, where you and your friends get a room for x amount of time, are good for fun:D But not good as a judge of whether you should try out for Idol:p
By mim on January 25th, 2005
Yesterday we cooked up a big easy pot of chili for dinner. I was trying to show how capable and unlame I was, so when we went to add in the half jar of salsa, instead of having him open it, I said, “Oh no, I don’t need help, I can get this! Check out my forearm muscles!” Hahaha
Well, the good news is, I got the jar open. The bad news is, I wasn’t terribly controlled about it — as it opened, the jar spewed salsa all over. Actually, about half:p So we dumped the remaining salsa into the chili, and then took off our pants and his shirt to soak in the tub and clean up the floor. Somehow, quite luckily, I assure you, I managed to not get any on my shirt. Teeheehee:)
But for once I’m not the only accident prone person in the place! Earlier this week, we were having a little bit of wine with dinner. (A 2001 Argentinian Malbec, forget the brand, not good at first, but it grew on me, but am a wine noob, so what do I know.) After dinner, I took a glass with me to my computer, leaving it on the desk. He turned around in just the right way and knocked the whole glass all over me. Of course, my first instinct was to lick off as much off my face as I could:D This is going to have to be another laundry weekend coming up:p
By mim on January 24th, 2005
For all of the Civ players out there, I want to let y’all in on my Secrets of Civ Success:
- Don’t play too many tough civilizations. Like we are playing vs. 3 monarchs.
- Don’t be shy about working together versus the rest of the civilizations, no matter how few and easy.
- Don’t be afraid to reload. I like playing with Yut because he encourages me when I wanna reload the game when an enemy civilization takes over any of my cities:D
- For any reason! In fact, I also reload when my elite (ELITE!) units die. I mean, after they turn elite, if they die, I don’t like that at all!
You can see how this would make smashing the Romans quite feasible indeed, even if I do like infrastructure and trees and peace and culture more than war:D
So the Warlord part? Prolly not so much. But the Zombie part? Totally.
By mim on January 24th, 2005
It’s Monday morning at 2:30am, I have work in the morning, but here I am, still up. I wouldn’t even be posting this except that Yut’s Indian War Elephants are smashing the Aztecs, but I am done with my turn:p
Caesar is paying for attacking me! He kept on finding excuses to declare war on me, and I kept trying for peace, cos you know, I like peace, and I like infrastructure, and I like culture, but noooooo, the bastard kept attacking me! So now I am trying to teach him a lesson:p My Mayan knights are stomping his Roman longbowmen:D
But tomorrow I will be paying for this and last night. Just one more turn, then bed:)
By mim on January 23rd, 2005
I am tired! And it’s not cos I had a long day at work, it’s cos we went to open houses today. Well okay, if I’m going to be completely truthful, it’s also because I stayed up til 6am this morning starting a new Civ game. So now we have a hotseat game going on my laptop, and a LAN game going on our regular computers:) But never mind that!
Anyways, we’ve been sorta house hunting for like a year and a half now, but we’re v. stop and go about the whole thing. Home prices in the Bay Area (or maybe just the parts we’re interested in) are just wiggedy wack (not just wack, wiggedy wack! :D) and also, we have NO idea what we’re doing, and we’re picky and indecisive to boot:p So we’ll be really resolute and good about going out to look at houses and stuff for like 3 months or so, then we’ll get all depressed about it, and so we’ll find an excuse to take a break from it. Our last excuse was all of the autumn traveling and holidays — good enough for a three month break:D What I would really like is for a nice-ish house that’s affordable-ish that’s really close to either work or a BART station:D Haha, as if:p
I think I’m going to go manage my workers and cities now. And watch Arrested Development. And eat Cheetos:p
By mim on January 22nd, 2005
I am a total freakazoid. But more on that later.
I got back from work late today (I blame Dell:p). On a Friday! Grrrr
We went to Mario’s La Fiesta to pick up dinner, which as usual was flautas. There’s lots of good Mexican restaurants around here, so we have a thing we usually get at each one. At El Sombrero Taqueria, we get their fat burrito especial, at Mario’s, we get their flautas, &c&c. We watched Jeopardy while we ate. Today’s Final Jeopardy category was something like “Children in Literature.” The answer was something like “In a 1902 book, this boy first flew away from his parents when he was 7 weeks old.” The questions was “Who is Peter Pan?” To me, that seemed a little too easy. One dude got it wrong, but I think it was cos he second-guessed himself — he guessed the little prince.
Well anyhows, after dinner and tv, I was really tired. I thought I’d read a little bit in bed before playing some games or something, but instead I fell asleep. Right after dinner! Gah!
I woke up waaaay later (it’s why I’m up posting at this hour of the morning:p) cos my dream started to get too weird, even for my sleep mind:p First I dreamed I was like 9 months pregnant and I was ginormous and I had to pee ALL the time, then I had this horrific labor. Not that I actually remember the labor but just that it was horrible. I think I’ve been reading too many blogs that wrote about impending motherhood:p Or maybe it was the giant baby:p Then I had a baby, and he was cute (and clean and not wrinkly and he had hair, don’t know how that happened) and he smiled a lot and gurgled, but he didn’t cry. Aren’t babies supposed to cry first thing? So I was all worried about that. And I still had to pee! And I was holding him and looking out the window and it was snowing! It never snows around here! I was completely bewildered, AND STRESSED. But then I woke up. I think it was too much weirdness all at once for my mind to handle:p
By mim on January 21st, 2005
So it used to be a mess, but I cleaned up my desktop:D
V. productive, that’s what I am.
By mim on January 21st, 2005
See how close my cubicle is to the exit? :D And my purple chair!
This is probably as neat as my cubicle will ever be, so I thought I’d memorialize it before things turn to shit. But my desktop on my computer was a mess!
Evidently, it’s photo day around here:)
