new york

i guess since all my friends are lazy-butts i'll have to do a quick recap of our 3 day weekend in NY. =)

in ny we stayed with sharon who is interning during the summer in manhattan. she has a lovely studio apt on the upper east side. shal and i flew out from CA fri night (on different airlines) but we both arrived in ny at 7:30am. we had a lovely time on the subway trying to figure out how to get to her apt. the line we were on converted to another line so it wouldn't stop at the station where we were planning on switching trains! so several people gave us different routes we could take and finally we just picked one. we finally ended up at her apartment at 9:30!

sharon and shal showered and we had breakfast/lunch at ess-a-bagel. they were huge and pretty good. sharon and shal got poppy seed bagels so they had a lovely time trying to pick them out of their teeth hehe. at 12pm we had an appointment in bloomingdales with chanel to get makeovers just for fun. the 3 of us looked very pretty, i forgot to take before and after pictures! ah well. nancy and alice met up with us in bloomingdale's. after our makeovers we walked back to sharon's apt so nancy and alice could drop off their bags. we ended up chatting for a long while and couldn't really think of anything to do. eventually around 4 or 5pm, we decided we needed to get off our lazy butts. the only thing that got us motivated was FOOD! haha so we went to shake shack in madison square park. the 5 of us shared 2 burgers (1 with just portabella mushroom, 1 with portabella and meat patty) and a large strawberry shake. they were yummy. then we decided we needed to try another snack, so we walked really far to washington square park area to mamoun's where we shared one shwarma (i think that's what it was, i have no idea, i just ate it haha) it was ok, a little lamb-y. after our little snack jaunt, we went back to sharon's apt to get ready for dinner haha. yes we are pigs, all we did was eat(which seems to be the norm for all my vacations!) we had dinner at les sans culottes, we had a very interesting appetizer. it was a rack of SEVERAL sausages and a basket of fruit. here's a pic.

it was ok. the entrees were big but weren't that great. and for dessert we had flan or chocolate mousse. after dinner we tried to get into bed (a lounge), but they would only let us in if we bought 2 bottles (which 5 girls would NEVER be able to finish) so we opted out and decided to go to hotel gansevoort's rooftop lounge in the meatpacking district. the lounge is beautiful and had lots of pretty people (including us of course!). we were lucky enough to score some seats so we sat there for a few hours just chatting and enjoying each other's company. around 1am, we headed back to sharon's apt. she was able to borrow an air mattress so 2 girls on her bed, 2 on the air mattress, 1 on the sofa!

sunday we met up with sharon's friend dave and had brunch at norma's in le parker meridien. they told us it was a 2 hour wait, but we only ended up waiting an hour. the food was ok. afterwards we went shopping. spend a loong time in strawberry and then went to bergdorf goodman, where alice and i got really cute clutches and i got a pair of jeans. by the time we were done with bergdorf, we had to walk back and rest/get ready for dinner. nancy wasn't going to join us so we said goodbye to her and off we went to dinner. we had a lovely dinner at babbo and ate some really good italian food. after dinner alice went back to philadelphia and sharon,shal, and i went back to her apt. for dessert we wanted to go to serendipity, but they told us the wait was 2 hours! we went at 8pm and they told us to check back in an hour. we stopped by dylan's candy bar and bought lots of candy and then decided to just go back to the apt (only 3 blocks away). we were too lazy to go back at 9, so we just went back around 10pm (sharon fell asleep by then, so it was just me and shal). we asked how long the wait was and they said 45 minutes, but we told them we came at 8 so they gave us the next available table! whew. we both got the frozen hot chocolates and they were yummy, very refreshing. and i loove chocolate! that night shal and i planned out what we were going to do the next day and marked everything on a map.

on monday sharon had to work, so it was just me and shal. we walked to central park took a picture at bethesda fountain next to the lake. she wanted to see the turtle pond but we got very lost, and ended up walking through like a jungle/forest type area. there were no signs or maps anywhere and all we could see were trees and we had no idea where we were. eventually we found our way to the main road and finally found the silly turtle pond!! we spent over 2 hours in central park wandering around aimlessly!! at first we thought there weren't any turtles, but when we looked closely we were able to see them. so next on our agenda was to go to soho and lunch at dos caminos. we took the subway but apparently silly me left our map that contained ALL the locations we were going to visit the rest of the day on the subway. so when we got off, we had no idea where dos caminos was!! we ended up asking someone in kenneth cole and he told us where it was. dos caminos had yummy guacamole and mojitos, but the cactus pear margarita was so so strong!! i actually ordered the margarita and shal the mojito, but i couldn't drink mine because it tasted so nasty, so shal ended up switching drinks with me. since it was so strong she became very happy and we ended up giggling a lot haha. since we didn't have a map, we stopped by duane reade to see if they had any. we found zagat and looked up all the places we were going to go to! whew. we then shopped a bit in soho. my feet were so so so tired, we walked around so much! after shopping we went to joe's pizza to try some new york pizza, supposedly it was in spiderman. the pizza was pretty good. next door was beard papa's and shal didn't want a vanilla cream puff like i recommended and instead got a chocolate eclair. afterwards we walked to magnolia bakery to buy some cupcakes. since we're super pigs we cabbed to buttercup bakery to buy some more cupcakes! we ended up buying 10 each to bring home. we went to both so we can compare who had the better cupcakes, i think magnolia's were a little better but buttercup had better flavors. for dinner we met up with sharon at sushisamba and of course sharon arrived drunk haha. she was very wired during dinner it was funny. the food was ok. when we got back to the apt sharon crashed and fell asleep.

tues morning we flew home! our flight was at 7am so we got a cab at 5:30am. our taxi driver drove super fast because we arrived at jfk around 5:50!! he dropped off shally first, and then somehow got lost trying to get to my terminal. i was in the taxi an extra 15 minutes, i was afraid i might miss my flight!! but luckily the lines weren't long so i was able to make my flight =) it was a fun trip, the weather was great (no thunderstorms at least). i'm already wanting to go back!!! it was nice to have free lodging (thanks sharon!), and i used my frequent flier miles so my only expenses were the shopping and food, not bad!

4th of july week

since we got both mon and tues off for 4th of july, we decided to use 3 of our vacation days to take the whole week off!

we went down to LA last friday afternoon, not really that much traffic. we had dinner at houston's. saturday we went shopping at south coast plaza (my favorite place to shop in LA!) all the stores were having some good sales, so i bought some stuff. had dinner at gina lee's bistro with some of julian's friends and watched superman afterwards. i thought it was ok. sunday we had brunch with some of julian's friends and went to visit the korean friendship bell. (yes we couldn't think of anything better to do haha) we drove by palos verde and every time we drive by i think about how nice it would be live there (they have nice houses next to the beach). ahhh maybe one day. monday we had lunch in alhambra, and went to the santa anita mall. at 4pm was the wedding for my coworker joe at the san gabriel hilton. the bride looked beautiful and she's so so skinny but she's only 22! it was incredibly hot outside, i was so glad the ceremony was short. sucks for the guys who had to wear pants and long sleeves! hehe. the reception was indoors thank goodness but the chinese food wasn't that good. the centerpieces were very nice though. it was more of a chinese wedding vs american wedding because the MC spoke in chinese mainly and translated into english occasionally. they played A LOT of games and the bride and groom didn't get to eat much at all!

tues morning we left for vegas!! woohoo! it took us about 4 hours. when we arrived it was overcast and wasn't as hot as i expected. we met up with jody and heeyup for lunch and ate at mgm at wichcraft - a sandwich place. it was ok. we gambled a bit and i lost $50 playing blackjack. jody and heeyup went back home and julian and i walked through cesear's palace and looked through some of the shops. it's changed so much since i last went there, there are so many more stores there! it's kind of crazy. then we walked over to bellagio and looked at some of the stores there. had some gelato at a new store with a huuuuge chocolate fountain in the front, don't remember the name.

we met up with jody and heeyup for dinner at mesa grill. essentially the 2 couples ordered the same dishes, except we chose 2 different appetizers. we both got the pork and a coffee encrusted filet for entrees. the filet was not very good but the pork was. julian was disappointed. afterwards we went to shadowbar where girls dance behind screens to create a shadow. there was one girl who was topless and had very large boobs. yikes! afterwards, julian and heeyup played bj for a little bit until julian lost $100 and heeyup won $100.

on wed we went to the las vegas outlet center at the end of the strip and it sucked. i definitely would not go back there again. we had lunch at a bar & grill in Rio which wasn't that great. went back to the venetian and wanted to go to the pool but it was closed due to lightning! bummer. i ended up taking a nap and then we went over to mgm. we went to the m&m store and looked around and then played bj a bit before dinner. i broke even but julian ended up losing another $100. for dinner we went to craftsteak (tom colicchio's restaurant from top chef - he also owns Craft in NY which i want to try one day) i got a roasted corn soup as an appetizer which was really creamy and yummy. for entrees i got a petite filet and julian got a kobe beef flat iron steak and we got 2 sides, white corn and potatoes au gratin. everything was good but the kobe beef was the best. for dessert julian got a cinnamon pull apart bread that you dip in caramel which was very tasty and i got some pineapple sorbet. we were quite full afterwards. we were going to check out tao afterwards since it was in the venetian and we could get in for free since we were guests, but we were too tired so we just went back to our room.

on thurs we had lunch at the bellagio buffet, it was ok. i like their sunday brunch buffet much better. we then walked over to the fashion show mall (took 30 minutes, but it wasn't TOO bad) we walked around a lot because we needed to work off all the food we were eating!! most of the time it was overcast, so it was warm, but at least the sun wasn't pounding down on you. fashion show mall is huge! i'm so jealous of jody, she'll have some great shopping and food on the strip! anyways, we didn't walk through the whole mall just the major dept stores - neimans, saks, macys, nordstorms. i want to buy some rock & republic jeans but none of them had a good selection i loved look at the shoes and bags they had though! afterwards we went over to the wynn hotel across the street. the hotel was ok, i loved looking at the shoes at manolo blahnik. for the ferrari display you have to pay $10 each so we just browsed the store. we walked back to venetian and were finally able to go to the pool! they have 3-4 different pools and one of them is just filled with lounge chairs. it was cool, i should have taken a picture. but the lounge chairs are in the water and the pool is maybe like a foot deep? so you can sunbathe but cool yourself down with the water. the water is pretty warm though.

that night we went back to bellagio and had dinner at olives. jody told us not to go because she said the boston one was much better, but we decided to try it anyways. the food was OK, we probably wouldn't go back. we got a tuna tartare appetizer and for entrees julian got halibut and i got the pea & mint ravioli. the service was incredibly slow so we didn't have time for the vanilla bean souffle that jody recommended!!! i was so sad. after dinner we went to see O, i didn't like it as much as other cirque du soleil shows, but julian's parents went to see Ka and really enjoyed it.

fri we had dinner at burger bar in mandalay bay which has pretty good kobe beef burgers. for dessert we stopped by chocolate swan and got a chocolate eclair and ice cream. the chocolate eclair was really good! then we drove home from vegas back to SJ!! took about 8 hours. we hit a little traffic about an hour into our drive because it was pouring and we saw an overturned truck and a section of the highway was flooded. other than that it was relatively traffic free. we went to pick up tofu from my parent's house and she was so so dirty haha. they let her roam around in the backyard so gets really dirty i guess. we gave her a bath immediately when we got home.

hooray!!

it's official, i'm done with school! my last grade has finally been posted and whew i passed. so I have a master's degree now, yippee. now i can REALLY celebrate in las vegas and new york! hooray hooray!

argh

my stupid bee sting is still very very itchy!! there's a large rectangular swollen red patch that is driving me crazy! i really hope it goes away soon.

i finished the 2nd season of 24! onto season 3!

i watched cars and capote over the weekend. both movies were pretty good. i now want to read in cold blood

san diego

we went to san diego last weekend. on friday we went to the zoo! it was really hot and my cheeks and nose got sunburnt. grr. and my feet were so tired from walking so much, the zoo is pretty big and not organized very well, so you have to backtrack a lot. here are some pics of my favorite animals

cute baby gorilla on top of it's mama


talllll giraffes


zebra - its stripes are so cool


swimming polar bear


polar bear after it's cool down session in the water


panda - this is the only one we could really see, but he was sleeping


on saturday was julian's brother's graduation. we had lunch in la jolla near his bro's apartment. and then we went over to ucsd for the graduation. it was hot! they had refreshments though, and we got this really tasty strawberry & mango icy drink. it was about 2 hours so it wasn't too bad. here's a pic with the graduate (although he actually didn't REALLY graduate, he just walked. he still has one more year to go! he wanted to walk with his friends so he did it this year instead of next)


after graduation we went to the UTC mall, it wasn't that great. but just walked around to kill some time. later we went to his bro's apartment to relax a bit before dinner. we ended up playing scattergories which was kinda fun playing with his family. for the letter "F" and terms of endearment, his mom put Fräulein ?? haha too funny for dinner we went to roy's, it was pretty good, better than our experience in hawaii.

sunday we went to brunch for father's day at this place called azul in la jolla. the view was gorgeous but the service and food sucked! oh well, i guess we were paying for the view, i would not recommend going there though. we ended up leaving at 2pm, and arrived back in SJ at 9:15pm. picked up tofu and went home! we were exhausted! we'll be driving back down to LA in another week or so, ugh!!!

just my luck!

you know how i don't like bees? now i REALLY don't like them! yesterday on our walk with tofu, i got stung by a bee!! on the bottom of my foot!!! waaah. on our walks we usually take her to a park which has a really large grassy area so we were walking across it and i felt this stinging pain on the bottom of my foot. I screamed and julian was like what? what? and i showed him the bottom of my foot and the bee was still stuck in there!! oy. so he flicked it off and took the stinger out. now my wound is reallllly itchy. there's a large patch of redness around it, i wonder if it might be a slight allergic reaction. but it's so hard to not scratch it, ugh!! so i guess i now know what it feels like to be stung by a bee. lucky me!

who's the shopaholic now?

not me!! check this out!! geez, look at all that hermes stuff! whoa!!

weekend happenings

i got a pedicure friday evening and i think i've decided i should either get a sheer pinkish color or a dark red from now on. i chose a shimmery pink color but i think it blends too much with my skin. and i think a fuschia pink color would be too bright.

julian's parents came up to visit this weekend because they were attending a wedding reception on saturday. and somehow we got roped into going as well. it was julian's dad's cousin's sister in law's wedding! it was in sunnyvale at the lion & compass restaurant. the food was ok, but the reception was kind of boring especially in the end because all they did was talk. so boring. oh well, i can't believe julian's family is so huge! so hard to keep track of.

this is my last week of class!!!! i just have a final to finish, a presentation to give tomorrow morning, and then i'll be done!!! on thurs we're off to san diego for julian's brother's graduation. so if you have any recommendations of places to see or do or eat at let me know!!

new panera location

there's one pretty close to our house now, near the airport, just opened yesterday. yay! and the strawberry salad is back.

i'm seriously addicted to 24 now. i finished the first season and just finished disc 2 of season 2 last night. i have to take a break for a week though because i'm busy with school, but i want to see what happens next! argh!!

summer time

i love summer, it's my favorite season. love the warm weather, wearing sandals, and most importantly, has the best fruits! it's cherry season! haha. i even went to costco to see if they had those 4lb tub thingies, but they didn't. we went to the farmer's market and it was $7.50/lb!!!!! i just got a little and it was already $5. sigh. but they were realllllly good. i'll have to get them at the supermarket and hope my local costco gets theirs soon! it's also peach/nectarine season!!! we got some white nectarines from the farmer's market, yumyum. and julian's favorite is watermelon. so we've had a looot of fruit lately. it's kind of weird, during the winter we don't really eat much fruit because there isn't much selection other than apples and oranges. but summer time rolls around, we have fruits galore! i also think it's cold in the winter and i don't really like eating cold stuff. all the fruit i buy i always put in the fridge so it's too cooold to eat.

busy busy beeee

looking at the calendar i'm going to be so busy from now until mid-july. sigh. i just have two more weeks of class! then i'll be doneeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. you don't know how much i'm looking forward to it, but i have a lot of work to do though so my next two weekends will be busy doing HW!
in 2 weeks we're going to San Diego for julian's brother's graduation
2 weeks later we're going down to LA for a wedding and then las vegas (sooo much driving!)
and then a week later i'm off to new york!

i'm looking forward to all my trips, but dreading these last two weeks of school!

oh yeah, i saw X3 also. did anyone that saw it stay through the credits? they had a little teaser scene afterwards. anyways, it was quite intriguing =P i didn't really like X3 that much, the plot was very weak. but i guess it was for the action, so it was still entertaining!

french laundry

so i guess i've been neglecting my blog, but i'm too lazy to write anything (it'll take waaay too long)

so here's another photo entry:

French Laundry


salmon tartare coronet (very very good!)


oysters & caviar (very very good, one of my favs)


lobster mitts (very very good, another of my favs)



mango sorbet


very very veeeeery stuffed

all the courses at french laundry were very good except the 2 meat dishes (rabbit & lamb) which was kind of odd because most other places we've been to the meat dishes are the best. the desserts were also very good, we were soo soo stuffed, they also had a lot of extra little things before & after the meal. another interesting thing is that they only bring out bread on certain courses, and each time it's different breads to choose from. i only posted some of the dishes, because there are so many. some of them are half-eaten because i forgot to take them at the beginning like the one below of the lamb. oh, and the waiter commented on the funny way i ate my lamb because i like to cut everything before i start eating heh

mission impossible 3

we watched mi3 this weekend, it was better than i expected. i didn't want to watch it because i seriously can not stand tom cruise anymore after that whole katie holmes (i mean, kate cruise!!) episode. ugh. grosses me out. anyways.

there's one scene in shanghai where tom cruise is running and he's shouting "zou kai! zou kai!" (move in chinese) and after that, simon used the phrase the whooole weekend. we watched it fri night, and he used it all of sat when we were sf. plus he says it really funny too, his sounded like joe thai..haha.

simon's gf was visiting for the weekend and so were two of julian's friends. on sat we went to golden gate park (a veery nice day) and we walked around the de Young museum in the park, it was a fine arts museum i think. we were only in there for an hour or so. ate at a good japanese restaurant called maki in japan town.

sun we went to eat dim sum and waited an hour cause everyone was going for mother's day i guess. parking was annoying too. and for dinner we went with my mom to layang layang (malaysian) pretty good, julian liked it!

this weekend was soo busy and sooo much eating!

show recommendations in vegas

avenue q has been cancelled in las vegas! apparently the wynn signed an exclusive deal with avenue q to only be in vegas and not go on tour, but i guess it wasn't making enough money or something, so it's been cancelled! so now we don't have a show to watch when we go in july. but now that it won't be at the wynn, they will be going on tour to a city near you soon!

so now we need some recommendations on some good shows. the shows we are considering: all the cirque shows except zumanity because we've seen it already (ka, o, or mystere), lance burton (i dunno about this but julian suggested a magic show heh) i think those are our only choices, so most likely we'll try to catch a cirque show. but which one??

we have a ghost!

last night our vcr mysteriously started recording at 2am. it was very very weird. our vcr is old so it makes a lot of noise when it starts recording so it woke us up. the only thing that i have set for recording is a weekly wed 8-9pm recording which i set 3 weeks ago! i checked the vcr date & time this morning and it is set correctly. hrmm. i have no other explanation and neither does julian, so i've decided that it was a ghost! freaky! and the remote was next to the tv on top of our drawers, so we didn't sleep on it and it's too tall for tofu to reach!

picture entry

this was when we first got tofu, she's so small!


so cute!


this is her fat stage when we didn't give her a haircut for a looong time. she looks sooo big! i didn't think she looked that bad in real life haha


tofu likes to sunbathe, she always goes to find the patch of sun on the ground or on the sofa


another sunbathing photo and chewing her toy!


this is what she does a majority of the time, sleep!!


her tear stains are a lot better now. we have some pics where it looks sooo bad. and we now keep her hair a lot shorter! much cuter that way. she's almost 9 months and hasn't had a potty accident in the house for a while now! and she goes peepee outside now, but poopoo is still inside but always on her pad. she has done some naughty things while we're gone though, like eating a huge slice of carrot cake that we left on the coffee table! and knocking over (and breaking!) a glass we had on the table. i guess it's our own fault for leaving stuff on the table, ugh. at least she doesn't like our shoes! she's our little sweetie pie but i'm soooo glad the puppy years are almost over. she is so much better now that is older!!

halfway there

5 weeks down, 5 more to go. i'm chugging along, i'm mildly stressed with the schoolwork, i'm really hating writing a 2-3 paper each week. even though it doesn't seem like much, i hate using my free time to do such things. in addition i have to work on my 8 page midterm as well. yuck.

we're going to our first wedding of the year this saturday. since we have so many weddings to go to, i've bought several new dresses hehe. oh yeah, and the coworker that i said that was going to propose soon? well he did. and the wedding is going to be in dec! not next year as i thought! so there's another to our long list of weddings. supposedly 2006 is a lucky year to get married. and 2005 was a very bad year to get married. good thing i'm not superstitious!

claim jumper

for all those that miss claim jumper, they're building one in fremont!

24

we're finally at the point where we've finished watching most of the movies on our netflix queue, and now we can go back to watching tv series dvds. so i am getting the first dvd of the first season of 24!! it seems like everyone seems to think this show is very good, so we'll see if i get hooked! then i'll have 4 more season to catch up on ! yikes!!

i still have yet to watch the first season of lost (but i saw the first half in reruns last summer, but i want to watch the 2nd half!)

good night, good luck (i think it was nominated for an oscar) was sooooo boring. i stopped watching after the first 15 minutes. plus it was all in black and white. i thought walk the line was pretty good though, i never knew johnny cash was that famous, weird!

mall closed on easter

we tried to go to the mall easter sunday, and it was closed! i thought the malls only closed on christmas and thanksgiving?? it was a bummer!

another easy week

well, my team lead is vacationing in hawaii this week, so i'll be spending another week working from home! i haven't gone to the office very much at all this month. i think i'll be able to survive the entire month only getting one tank of gas! crazy. i only drive to/from class. if i didn't have class i think the only times i would leave the house is when i take tofu on walks! the weather is FINALLY starting to clear up. i can't believe we had 20+ straight days of rain. it felt like we were in seattle or something!

anyhoo, we're going to visit la this weekend. i'm a little nervous. the last time i saw the in-laws was when they came to visit for chinese new year parade in feb, and i guess afterwards they told julian that they were hurt that i didn't call them mom and dad. oops. i didn't know i was supposed to do that! is that normal?? i thought they were supposed to ask you to call them that? well in any case, they told him they felt i wasn't accepting of them or something and they felt snubbed. now i feel very weird because of course that was not my intention at all, i'm just clueless i guess?? but should i say something?? i mean, i'll call them mom and dad (it feels very weird to though!), but should i explain why i didn't before?? sigh. maybe i'm just being worried over nothing but i really have no idea what they're thinking or what they think of me. oh well, i guess that's the fun in having in-laws eh?

mark your calendars!

ben & jerry's free cone day on tues april 25th!

week one down, nine more to go

i survived my first week of class! i can already tell that it's going to be a tough quarter. i have class every day mon-thurs. i LIVE for fridays! the class work isn't actually so bad though (hopefully), but it's just a pain to go to class every day after (or before) work. i seriously can not wait until i graduate.

i'm thinking about taking some jewelry making classes in the summer. i'm trying to create more options for the future when/if i decide to quit my day job after having kids. but that's still 2-3 years away =P

one of my friends at work is going to be engaged soon! he has the ring and is going to propose soon. he is already working on the wedding website! it's kind of weird, they even went to a bridal show two months ago. i think his gf is very eager to get married heh, already started the wedding planning before being engaged! anyways, looks like i'll have at least one wedding to go to next year already!

odds and ends

it's been raining like crazy here, urgh, and doesn't look like it'll stop in the near future. SF set a new record, 25/31 days in march were rainy!!

my team lead is now in israel (i didn't end up going despite him asking me two more times if i was SURE i didn't want to go heh) but i have to prepare some material and give a presentation at 7am wed.

class begins this week..i obviously dread it because i had a dream that for one of my classes the assignment was to write a paper by hand using carbon paper! it was the oddest dream in the world.

julian is going to go to alabama again! either the end of this week or early next week. boo.

some more reality shows i'm watching

top chef: from the creators of project runaway. a bunch of aspiring chefs have 2 challenges each week. it's set in san francisco, and each week a guest chef from a well-known san francisco restaurant is brought in. their challenges are kind of ridiculous though, and some of the contestants are very snobby and hate the challenges. for example, one challenge was to cook monk fish for children. another was to use ingredients from a gas station to make a dish. another was to prepare a dish the night before that can will be reheated with a microwave the next day. so the snobby contestants are like...children?? those are not my target audience, i want to be a chef in a fancy restaurant, i'll never have to deal with kids yada yada. and for the microwave challenge, they TOTALLY look down on the microwave, saying how they're top chefs, they don't USE microwaves blah blah. some of them are so stuck up! heh. anyways, it's fun to watch, i like to watch cooking shows but it never seems to inspire me to actually cook. i wish i could learn through osmosis!

nanny 911: hmm...all i gotta say is i really really hope i can control my kids. i'm starting to think i should push back kids even further hehe. one memorable episode had one little girl that refused to wear a diaper, so she would poop everywhere in the house...and if she DID wear a diaper, she would take the poop out of her diaper and show it to her parents. one time, she woke up her mom by wiping her poo on her face! lovely eh??

i've added supernanny to my tivo season pass (i guess i'm trying to scare myself out of having kids haha) and also real housewives of orange county. i haven't seen an episode of either yet, but hopefully they'll be entertaining.

check it out

the modern swan lake is in sf now... March 21 - April 16

would it be too much to watch it again even though i just watched the regular one 2 months ago? julian doesn't really want to see it hehe. he thinks ballets are boring and will make him fall asleep. but do you know what he is basing it on??? a mexican ballet he saw on video in spanish class in 8th grade! sheesh. i should just make him go watch one live!

sf opera is actually having a surprising number of operas this season, the subscription i'm interested in is the Beginner's Guide to Opera with Rigoletto, The Barber of Seville, Carmen, and Don Giovanni.

has anyone seen any good musicals lately?? i think in vegas we're going to try to catch avenue q but i've been so out of it i don't know what's good on broadway now. and the shows coming to sf are not good boo. well, hopefully i can catch a musical in ny! i'll be visiting sharon in july hooray! i can't wait to sweat buckets =P

over the weekend

ok, i guess it's back to posting about things i did over the weekend, not much else to talk about...so! we've been taking advantage of my spring break (no class, no hw) and knocking off the movies on our netflix list! we watched brothers grimm (sucked don't watch it, i fell asleep), longest yard, and kingdom of heaven. yes, they have all been out on dvd for a looong time but we're that behind! longest yard and kingdom of heaven were both ok. the bad thing about netflix is that if you don't send in your movies to be received mon, you won't receive new releases for a loooong time. i've been waiting for walk the line but it's been on "Long Wait" for a few weeks now. sigh. i think it'll be another few weeks before we actually get it, bleh. but smart me caught on that for new releases they send them out on mon even though the dvd comes out on tues! so for movies that i really want to see, i have to mail them out fri or sat. so we'll be getting memoirs of a geisha tomorrow (the day it comes out on dvd). yippee

we also watched inside man, it's a pretty good movie. and jodie foster carries 2 birkins in the movie! oh, sat we went to great america for julian's company picnic again. we only rode top gun and invertigo (my first time). both are so short! great america sucks. they have a new survivor thingie, but it wasn't open yet. and the food was as bad as always. =P

sun we took tofu to a doggie park...we're trying to socialize her more with other dogs. man, she barks sooo much. it's embarassing to take her anywhere because she's so loud! i think we made a little tiny bit of progress. she actually sniffed a dog from behind without barking. but she still barks like mad when a dog is approaching her head on. and she scared this one dog so much that it started to whine..i felt so bad for him! other dogs kind of get mad and chase her around so they run around with tofu barking heh... just have to be careful that other dogs don't get so mad that they bite tofu! or that tofu doesn't bite them! it's kind of scary! at least the park we went to had a separate area for small dogs and big dogs, but we're going to try to take her there every week so she can get used to it. oy! it's so draining!

oh yes, and today was my lucky day! i was able to get through on the french laundry reservation line after only 3 minutes so i could make a reservation for dinner may 27th (memorial day weekend!) i've tried 2 times before last year, and i couldn't get through for 30-45 minutes both times! and by the time i did get through, of course there were no more reservations left. so anyhoo, julian and i had our phones armed and ready at 10am and lucky me was able to get through! hooray! now i hope the food is as good as everyone says!

for all those speeders out there

while driving to work today, i saw a car stopped by a "cop". Now this was no ordinary cop...the car he was trying looked like an ordinary car. It was a Ford Taurus, I saw it from the back first and I saw that it's tail lights were flashing (like a cop car). and as I drove by, saw that he had his police lights in the front. There were no lights on the top of the car. It totally looked like a normal car! And this "cop" was wearing a plaid short sleeved shirt and jeans! But he was wearing his badge around his neck. I could see it from 2 lanes over. Anyhoo, cops are getting sneakier! If you were just driving around I don't think you would notice that it was a cop car until it's too late. So the moral of the story is, don't speed (too much) =P I speed, but try not to speed too much over the limit! hehe

i'm officially on spring break! woohoo! i get a 1.5 week break from school =P doesn't seem like much but it'll be a relief. 3 more months and then i'll be freeeee

let's see, i don't really have that much to blog about. yesterday i moved to my new office, we're in a new building now, the one that the gym is in. i now don't really have any excuse as to why i shouldn't go. before it would be, it's across the street, tooooo far. now it's right downstairs, i walk by going to and from my office but i'll only be going 2 or 3 times a week to the office so we'll see. anyways, we've been trying to walk tofu every morning and every evening, so that's my new exercise. it's better than what i used to do (nothing) so it's a start.

oh. over the weekend the weather was sooooo beautiful. we went hiking at mt tam near sausalito. the view is gooooorgeous. and i wouldn't really call it hiking, it was more like walking up little hills to see the view. it's really pretty. and the weather was so nice on sat. and since we were hanging out with julian's friends, the talk with the gf always ends up being about birkins haha. so hmmhmm, i guess that's what i'm saving up for! even though i didn't really like them to begin with i've seen sooo many pictures of people carrying them now and they're growing on me. it's still a very classic bag, but if you get it in a nice bright color it makes it less boring i think. i've recently joined a purse forum and it's adding fuel to the fire! i see countless pictures of pretty bags and get soooo tempted. and man, there are some craaaazy purse people, if you guys think i'm addicted, you should see these people! i need to win the lotto i think =P

vacation

i think the only thing that keeps me sane is having something to look forward to vacation-wise. julian went to alabama (again!) last night. he went last month too, but both times it's a short trip, only 1-2 days. with all this travel over there, he's now a silver medallion member on delta. and this trip he got to go first class! (but according to him, delta airplanes really suck and first class is not that great) he now has a lot of delta miles, so we're thinking of what to do with them! we can get two tickets to mexico/carribbean, or one ticket to europe. we're trying to keep the vacations this year low budget since we want to go to greece next summer.

so far the only thing we have confirmed is LA july 4th weekend for a wedding, and then drive to vegas for 3-4 days. so if any of you guys want to join us, we'll be there july 4-7th. and most likely staying at mandalay bay (because julian wants to try the cool pool...or something)

julian's parents are going to china for a week in august and they **REALLY** want us to go. but neither of us are too keen on going. i feel that we (or at least julian) should go, but i dunno, he doesn't want to heh. but can't really say that to his parents right? so yeah, i dunno what's going to happen with that, julian doesn't want to spend money on a vacation he doesn't want to go on =P

next possibility is going to switzerland in nov, i think airfare is pretty cheap then, and we'll have free lodging, so that would be cool. we want to use the delta miles before delta goes kaput, since they've filed for bankruptcy. But does that mean anything though?? didn't united file for bankruptcy too? anyways, the problem with using frequent flier miles is that they're so restrictive and limited, it kind of sucks. if we don't end up using the delta miles to go to switzerland, i would want to use them to go to mexico/carribbean in dec maybe. we were thinking of cancun, but after the hurricane last year, i think it's still kind of a mess there. so maybe the carribbean. oh, i also have a free united flight! which i think i want to use to visit sharon in ny. gotta use all the free flights before they go kaput!

all these possible trips, who knows if any will come to fruition, but having them to think about gives me something to take my mind off work and school!! =P at least we'll be going to vegas for sure...haven't been in so long! very excited to go! yippeee

crunchtime

it's the end of the quarter and i'm feeling the squeeeeze on my time. i have lots of things to work on, and i'm really looking forward to my "spring break". it'll be so nice to not have to go to class after work or wake up hecka early, but that will only last a week. i really hope i can survive one more quarter. just need to survive to june. hope.i.can.make.it. ugh. this week is the last week of class and next week is finals week. and this weekend julian's friends are coming to visit, so the pressure is on to finish a lot of my stuff during the week, so i'll be working on my paper about valuing inventory. wheeeeeeeeeeeeee at least lorentz and i finished our project in 4 hours yesterday! hehe. we created a de-crypter for yahoo messenger archive chats. sounds fun hunh? anyhoo, tofu still has some issues that need to be worked on so we've enlisted the services of a trainer for private lessons. our first one is tomorrow and we'll see how the assessment goes =P

tofu actually came home last night...when i called, the lady was like, oh tofu is doing fine, she is ready to come now. i was like, oh really? she doesn't have to stay overnight? and then she replied in a really confused, why would she ask that question tone, no you can come pick her up before 6. i was like...hmm...ok. so i drive over, and the receptionist was like, i thought she was going to stay overnight! i was like, yeah i thought that too but when i called someone told me i could pick her up. and then she gave me this whole spiel about how they usually stay overnight and yada yada like it was *I* who asked if i could pick her up earlier, like i'm some crazy overprotective dog owner! sheesh! anyhow, so she let me take her home and tofu was sooo out of it. still heavily drugged heh. i was kind of glad she could come home cause at the vet's, no one is watching the dogs, they just leave them in the cages. so i felt better that tofu could rest someplace she was familiar with. anyways, this morning, she seems back to her normal self. so that's good. the stitches on her tummy are sooo small. so interesting!

oh yeah, i talked with my manager's manager (she's actually here for a week from tucson), and she's ok with me working from my home, but my manager kind of wants to retain the office space, so she would prefer if i worked from home a few days out of the week and not the whole time, for the short term. and see about the long term. so that's ok with me. so i think most likely i'll work from home MWF. yippee. the only downside is that i won't be reimbursed for stuff like those that are working full time from home, like their DSL, phone, printer, etc etc. but it's ok, we'll be paying for that anyways, and i'm saving on gas =P

tofu's getting spayed today! we dropped her off at 8:30 this morning and she has to stay the night with the vet =( i have to call after 4:30pm today to see how it went. i really hope it goes ok! it'll be so weird to not have her at home tonight. eek, so anxious. 4+ hours to go! i can't imagine how i'll be with my kids. =P

working from home

now that i've started considering it, i can't stop thinking about how nice it would be! i talked with my teammate last week, but he said that someone who is planning on retiring this year already talked with him, and so they are going to switch places. so on mon i told my manager that i would like be a work at home employee, she was like...ok, i'll have to talk with my manager and i'll get back to you. so now it's thursday and she hasn't said anything yet. hmm. she was like, "why do you want to work from home?" and i gave this realllly lame answer of because i want to have kids soon. well, i thought it was lame because we actually have someone that is pregnant right now and i don't think she's requested working from home. and i don't really plan on having kids any time soon, but i thought it was a better excuse than saying i wanted to stay home with the dog. =P so i guess we'll see. all the coworkers that i eat lunch with are leaving the company, so i don't really have that much of an incentive of going to work, but i think i'll probably go in at least once every 1-2 weeks. i think if i end up working from home, i'm going to be sooo lazy. i'll never have to change out of my PJs, do my hair, change into my contacts, whoa! that means i wouldn't need to buy new clothes or shoes if i never go out right?? i'm sure julian thinks so haha

death to my career?

sooo, our move to the building across the street was supposed to be in may, but now it's been pushed up to march 21st. and i don't know if you guys remember, but 7 people were asked to work from home permanently, not really asked, forced. so one guy on my team has to work from home and he seems very unhappy about it. i'm seriously considering switching with him. should i?? i think one of the reasons i wasn't chosen to work from home is because i'm already kind of quiet, i don't really socialize with anyone and not really outspoken, so they want to maximize my exposure to everyone else. i think if i started working from home, it'll be even worse. and i guess in my yearly goals i always say i want to take some leadership roles yada yada (even though i don't necessarily want to, but i really have no idea what else to write?!) so of course if i want to go on that path, it's much better to stay visible.
so i dunno, i've been thinking a lot about what i want do in the future when we're starting to have kids. being at home will be very nice. i personally am not that career-driven, i just want to take home the money! so i think i'm going to talk with my teammate this afternoon and see how it goes. and if i work from home, we won't need a 2nd dog! =P everyone seemed to think it was a crazy idea, so we kind of nixed it hehe. but i found this PERFECT craigslist ad where someone wanted to sell their 1yr male maltese who was already neutered, had shots, mostly potty trained, that would have been perfect! oh well, i think one dog is plenty =P

crazy??

would it be crazy to get another dog??? julian and i are seriously considering getting a companion for tofu, but i dunno, it'll be even more work and more money. dogs are expensive! so i dunno, we're still thinking about it, but check out this cuuuuuute yorkie! sooooo cute. i'm not sure if we would get another maltese or a different breed. hmm. if tofu has someone to play with i won't feel as bad leaving her alone as much. she still gets really anxious when we leave her alone, still not used to it after 3 months or so!

chinese new year parade

so the last weekend julian's parents came up and we went to the chinese new year parade in sf. it was not that great, i wouldn't recommend going to see it. i had to stand on the window of neiman marcus (there's a small ledge) to watch, my feet hurt after a while! it was also kinda weird, cause it seemed like they invited the whole world to participate in the parade, lots of bands, albertson's, ktvu, waste management....?? i guess they were sponsors, but anyways, guess they needed lots of people to make the parade 3 hours long! julian and i actually took a coffee break (there's now a coffee bean near union square, it's sooo cool! their ice blended is sooo much better than starbucks frappucino!) and when we came back it was just in time to see miss chinatown. we were too far away to see if she was actually pretty though. but that was the only float i really wanted to see =P

i think i'm getting "senioritis". it seems like my heaviest workload is going to be in the last 2 quarters!! ugh! i could spread it out and take a class in summer, but i kinda just want to get it over with so i can be done with it! i REALLY wanted to go to greece after i graduated in june, but i did some research and it's pretty expensive =/ so i think it's going to have to be postponed until next year, cause this year is recuperating from last year where we spent tons of money on house, wedding, and honeymoon. sigh. we *might* go to switzerland in nov if it's cheap to visit one of julian's friend who is working there.

oooh, and my team lead asked if i wanted to go to israel at the end of march/april timeframe, but i dunno, it seems kind of dangerous. we're working on a new project with a team in haifa, so a bunch of team leads actually went in jan, and they said that there an explosion that was kind of close by! and my team lead was like "but it wasn't a big deal or anything.." heh so i dunno, we'll see. julian doesn't think i should go =P my team lead would probably go, but i don't really need to go, he just thinks that it would be good experience.

doggie flowers

more cuteness!! =)

new job for tofu?

she can become a purse model!! and then maybe they'll let me keep all the bags that she modelled with?? a girl can dream right? hehe =P the ads are sooo cute though!

weekend in sf

this past weekend, i went to SF on sat and sun! on sat simon took us out to a very nice dinner at la folie to thank us for letting him stay at our house. it was very nice of him to do that. the food was not that good though, still like gary danko better. after dinner, we went to watch match point. it was a pretty good movie. julian and simon kept on saying they wanted to watch it and said it would be good, so finally the day before we went to go watch it, i went to check out the synopsis. i found out it was a woody allen movie! eww!! from then, i had very low expectations because 1) he's a weirdo 2) he makes weird movies. anyways, the movie was kind of slow, but the ending was good. anyways, i think it's a good rental movie.

on sunday i went to sf with shal and some of her other friends to watch swan lake! it was soooo good. i really enjoyed it. i would definitely watch another one, any good recommendations??

preview for this weekend: julian's parents are coming to visit cause they want to go to the chinese new year parade in sf. so looks like another weekend in sf! stay tuned next week to see how it goes. it'll probably be something like "it was sooo crowded, couldn't see anything...never want to go again..." something similiar to that effect =P

nice weather

check out the weather in california this week!



not trying to make you east-coasters jealous, just trying to convince you all to come back! hehe
it's been beaaautiful this week, and the cherry blossoms on our site are blooming, lovely shades of white & pink everywhere! can't wait for the weather to start warming up!! although... it's been a pretty warm winter, i don't think i wore most of my winter jackets this winter! weird!

new haircut

ok, here are some pics...the first one is with my scruffy dog hehe she definitely needs a haircut soon! i was looking at earlier pictures of her and she was so cute! and i guess she WAS smaller! but i think it's because she has all that hair right now.
i guess my hair looks ok, but when i first got it she styled it after it got cut, it was sooo puffy and fluffy, i didn't like it at all. but look at my scrawny pony tail! it's so sad, no more hair. it's starting to grow on me..i guess. i'm thinking i can't have side swept bangs cause my forehead is too short..it's not exactly what i had in mind...oh wells!

happy chinese new year!

( a couple of days late...) =P

hmm, let's see, the only thing i write about is things i do, do you guys find that interesting? i don't know what else i would write about though..oh well, this one will just have to be one of those boring entries.

sat afternoon i went to lab for my scu class, went to get my hair cut afterwards (i'm still undecided about whether or not i like it). i cut it shorter and she layered the heck out of it. the top parts of my hair are sooooo short. i don't think i like all that layering. the cut and blowdry lasted an hour, and then she spent the last 30 minutes layering everything even more!! i think the last 30 minutes of layering and cutting all the top layers shorter was un-necessary. in addition, i wanted side swept bangs...but they turned out REALLY short. so it looks kinda funky. i kinda have to gel it to the side so i don't look like i'm in 5th grade =/ the interesting thing is that EVERYONE notices my haircut though. usually when it gets cut it just looks pretty much the same, but everyone that sees me comments on it. i guess it is different...not sure if i like it =P

anyways, sat night we went up to sf to visit a friend, we went to eat at Brothers. Guess what kind of cuisine they serve. Korean! Isn't that an odd name for a korean restaurant? anyways. so most of the topic of the night was me and the friend (a female) vs simon and julian debating about why girls need to spend lots of money on clothes, shoes, handbags. and why they need to have a large (expensive) engagement ring (this was mainly simon's question..haha) oh yeah...the friend told me that 30th birthday is when you're supposed to get a birkin haha so i have something to look forward to i guess =P by then they'll be even more expensive because their prices go up around 10% a year !!! anyways, it was an entertaining evening hehe.

on sun we went to puppy class and tofu was her usual rowdy self, barking all the time. ugh. it's kind of embarrassing haha. i think she needs to go out in public more. but i taught her to shake hands (more like high five though) and julian's teaching her to roll over. it seems she'll do ANYTHING for treats! haha..so easy to train! after class we went to look at sofas. and ended up buying one! it was a really good deal that we couldn't pass up, so it'll be delivered at the end of feb! can't wait!!! only a certain color was on sale, so it's this brown color, i'm not sure i like it, but i'll take pictures so you guys can see it.

random tidbits

i actually don't really have much to write about, so i'll just put some random things. i'm supposed to be doing my hw actually for my class at 7pm, but i'm procrastinating! which is quite bad of me.

- tri-city (the huge sporting goods store) in fremont is going out of business!! they have a 50% sale now, but the store is EMPTY. and they don't really have any good stuff, so don't make the trip out there. my coworker told me about it on friday and i thought we would find some good deals but it really sucked. i think the sale must have been going on for a while...at least it was an excuse to eat at panera, hehe. it's kind of sad, do you all remember the commercials they used to have when we were young?? i do! well, it's going to be gone now.

- kobe scored 81 points yesterday in a single game!! isn't that insane ?? i usually don't like kobe because i think he's too arrogant, but i must give him props for being the 2nd highest scorer of all time. (i guess maybe he has something to be arrogant about eh?) the highest is 100 points by wilt chamberlain in 1962 or 1963. the 3rd highest is like 60 something points in 1962 or 1963. so it hasn't been done in 40 years! (i'm beefing up my sports trivia knowledge haha)

- watched brokeback mountain over the weekend, it was ok. i dunno, i didn't think it was best picture of the year good, but alas, my tastes and critic's tastes are vastly different.

ok, back to hw! =P

another busy weekend

i'm hoping this weekend coming up i'll have some time to decompress! it's been really hard to get back into "work" mode with such busy weekends. one of julian's friends came from LA to stay with us on friday (they came just to see the pre-broadway musical lestat! ) we had brunch with them on saturday at hobee's... simon starting moving out his stuff and julian helped..i just stayed home cause it was so wet outside! at night we went to the warriors vs lakers game. the lakers won! about 1/3rd of the crowd were lakers fans (julian & simon included) so i guess they were all happy hehe. i'm impartial, i didn't care who won =P

sun i had my all-day scu class. during lunch i went to tofu's puppy class, and just as i thought, tofu wouldn't stop barking! haha. the first 10 minutes was puppy play, and she basically barked the entire time, and was scared of all the dogs. all the dogs were a lot bigger than her, but sooo much calmer! eventually they had to put up a little screen so that tofu couldn't see the other dogs so she would stop barking hehe. hopefully next time will be better! she seemed pretty stressed out from the experience cause after class she basically slept most of the day!

i'm already really tired of class too...i have class mw nights and tues mornings at 7am. this is the 2nd week and i already dread the first half of the week. =( i just have one more quarter after this, and then i'll be freeeeeeee....no more having to pay expensive tuition!

seriously???

(i'm channeling grey's anatomy here...hopefully you all get it!)

anyways, can you believe how outrageous ticketmaster's fees are nowadays??? if you want to buy tickets to a show, the convenience fee for EACH ticket is $6-8, on top of that they charge you a fee for your tickets!! e-ticket is $7 and mailing your tickets is $5. why is an e-ticket $7??? and unfortunately for the show i want to see, they don't have a will call option. argh. i'm seriously balking at the fact of having to pay an extra $20 to ticketmaster! seriously!!! i'm wondering if i could buy them at the box office (this is for the new cirque du soleil show btw) it's worth a shot i guess, they'll be in town starting next week so maybe i'll go check it out and save $20!

date night

since simon has been staying in our house since nov, julian and i haven't really any time alone, so on saturday we went on a date! (simon's moving out this weekend, so it'll be back to two of us in the house again soon) anyways...we went to dinner at myth. i've been dying to try it! i wanted to go for julian's bday, but i must have called too late cause all they had available was 10pm! and this time they only had 5:30 or 9:30, so we had an early dinner. sheesh, each time i called a month in advance, so i guess you have to make them super early!! it was really good though. i had the ahi tuna and risotto, both were really good. julian had the cauliflower soup and pork tenderloin. the price is not that bad, comparable to boulevard another one of our favorite restaurants. for dessert i had a chocolate fondant cake, it was yummy, with chocolate oozing out the middle yuuum. and julian had a pear strudel. we were very very full afterwards, but it was good. i would recommend those two restaurants if you haven't been there!

afterwards we went to union square and walked around a little cause julian had to return something at french connection. most stores were closed, so we went to borders and h&m. afterwards we drove over the war memorial opera house to watch seinfeld. he was in town for the weekend and luckily i scored some tickets, even though i bought them pretty last minute. they only had balcony left, and those seats are faaaar. i couldn't even tell it was seinfeld, only when he talked. anyways, the show was funny, his opening act was good too, so it was a good night!

oh...we watched king kong on friday. i didn't really like it..and it was wayyy too long. i thought it would be good since everyone else seemed to like it, but it's just not my type of movie. i didn't like the plot and didn't like the action sequences. simon reallly liked king kong, but he didn't like memoirs or narnia (both of which i haven't seen yet) but now i'm thinking, i'll probably like them!

coffee table survey

which coffee table do you like better?
Option 1:

Option 2:


i'm still trying to convince julian that spending more money on a nicer looking table will be better in the long run...he's still not convinced. but i'm starting to really get annoyed with our current coffee table and want to change it soon, it'll be soo nice to have those little drawers and baskets to throw all our crap in so that the table doesn't look so cluttered. and i really want to get a new sofa too! why oh why is funiture so expensive???

this is the table that is 1/5th of the price, but does it look as nice??? i don't think so! it definitely looks inferior..and i think if we're going to buy something, we might as well spend it on something that we'll keep for a while!


ok please vote! and i guess you can make the cheapo one option 3, and you can vote for it if you want... =P

weddings weddings weddings

one of my coworkers (joe) got engaged during the christmas holidays! and his wedding is on july 3rd! i guess to make up for not attending any weddings last year (except for my own) i'll have many to go to this year. so if you any of you plan to have a wedding this year, don't do it on: 7/3, 9/3, 10/21, 11/25. =P it seems like the trend is to do weddings on holiday weekends! of the 4 weddings, 3 are during holiday weekends! (and 1 is my wedding anniversary!! julian is a groomsman so we can't miss that wedding) we know of 3 other people that are engaged, but don't know their wedding dates. i'm not really sure how many weddings we'll actually attend since a lot of them are not in the bay area, but at least i have something to look forward to! yay!

happy 2006!

hope everyone had a happy and safe new year's! mine was pretty dull, but my excuse was that my flight back from australia was on new year's eve =P i arrived around 2:15pm at LAX, drove back to julian's house to get tofu and say goodbye to julian's parents, and finally left for the bay area around 4pm. there was zero traffic so we got back around 10pm, with a peepee stop for tofu and a dinner break for us at innout. all we did was play board games =P i bought trivial pursuit pop culture 2! it's pretty fun, just like regular trivial pursuit, some questions are just so weird.

anyways, i am grumpy that i have to work today, ugh. work sucks. it's going to be hard to get back in the swing of things. but here are my resolutions for 2006:
save money and work out more. i don't know how well save money will go since i already want to buy new bags for myself, new furniture for our house, and scheming about travel plans! saving money is very hard for me hehe, but i'll try i guess. and i need to start thinking of a new work out routine, hmmm. does walking the dog count?? =P

oh boy

my manager wants to appoint me as the "morale rep" for her department. oh great! she thinks that our department still has a morale issue and she wants me to ask around at work and come up with ideas to boost morale. so umm, any ideas what a bunch of engineers would think is fun?? it might be cool to do some team building exercises or something, but i don't really have any clue where to look into that sort of thing. does having free breakfast every week boost morale?? i guess i would always look forward to it. like bagel wednesdays or something. but i like free food, i don't think everyone is as motivated by free food are they??

see, the problem is i can think of a BUNCH of ideas that would boost morale, but it would require the company spending money. it's not coming out of my pocket, that's for sure! but the company is trying to cut expenses...so there's the rub... i mean heck, if the company supplied free drinks, free snacks/candy, bagel wednesdays, free lunch every month, we would all be happy campers! unfortunately, all we get is free coffee from a machine and 25 cent soda, yippee. i can't really think of something that doesn't cost anything that would boost morale as quickly as free stuff!!

last work week of the year

this week will be my last one for the year! we're leaving for LA on friday. it seems so fast that vacation is almost here and it's almost christmas time. we still need to get a gift for julian's parents. my family is not really big on gifts and we don't really exchange anything, usually we just go out to eat to celebrate occasions. so it's such a foreign notion to have to buy bday and christmas gifts for family every year...it's soooo hard to think of stuff to buy! it kinda really sucks. but i guess it's similiar to when julian and i buy gifts for each other, since we exchange presents for valentine's, anniversary, bday, christmas, a lot of the times we end up picking our own gifts which kind of defeats the purpose of giving a gift! heh. this christimas, i got a great christmas present that julian didn't ask for, so hopefully he likes it =P

last week it was announced that our 2nd line (manager of my manager) is going to a new position, and her replacement will be tucson. it'll be interesting to have a new 2nd line, especially in tucson. we've all been so used to having our 2nd line here, so it'll be an interesting adjustment. it's pretty obvious where they want the team to end up in the future after everyone has left!

the end of the debate

ok, i guess that debate didn't last too long. we got a tivo! =P it was a housewarming/christmas gift from our friends simon and alex. yay! how nice of them. so we (julian) is setting it up as we speak. and i didn't even bring it up...they asked if we wanted it and my ears perked up and said "SURE!!" hehe. their other idea was a painting. tivo is waaaayyy better hehe. can't wait to use it!

DVR debate

soooo i'm trying to decide if i should get a dvr and which one to get! i think i would like one, but i dunno, i think that i'll end up becoming like sharon and having soooo much backed up tv! heh. but i'm already starting to get a lot of backed up tv on my vcr already, so maybe it's a lost cause hehe. i want to be able to watch my recorded tv downstairs on the nicer tv instead of in the bedroom with the bad tv, and tv upstairs will only work with the vcr connected to it, so moving the vcr downstairs is not an option.

ok so here are the options:
Tivo box:
Pros:
very easy to use
fixed cost ($350)

Cons:
can only record one show
can not record HD

Cable DVR:
Pros:
able to record HD programming
able to record 2 shows

Cons:
user interface really sucks, hard to record stuff
monthly cost ($10/month) might even be $20/month to add digital cable

the new wave of the future is HD, so if i got Tivo, it would kind of be obselete, but i don't really need to record HD in my opinion. the value of tivo is still pretty high, on ebay Tivo boxes with lifetime subscriptions are selling for $300+ but who knows if it'll still be that high when HD gets big. but some people *still* don't have cable, and i don't think HD is *that* big yet so might not be an issue. Supposedly Comcast is teaming up with Tivo and the cable DVR should have Tivo software mid 2006. So next is the cost, *if* the Tivo box doesn't fail within 3 years, it's a better "value" to get the Tivo because it's just a one time cost, and not a monthly cost. I've heard some bad things about Tivo boxes not being able to last over 2 years though, so I'm kind of scared about that. anyone have any problems ??

i *think* i'm leaning towards the tivo and I'll just have to live with only being able to record 1 show on Tivo and then maybe using the VCR if necessary, any opinions anyone?? is the 40 hour one big enough ??

do dogs get cold at night ???

tofu has been getting up between 5:40-6am every morning...she used to wake up at 7, but i've noticed that starting last week, she's been waking an hour earlier. we don't leave the heater on at night, so it gets reaaaaally cold at night. i'm wondering if that's why ?? she definitely wouldn't use a blanket, so i'm thinking if she should get some pjs ?? hehe. i'm really tempted to have her sleep on the bed with us, but i don't know if that's a good idea. she starts making noises when she wakes up so i get up and take her to potty. and after that i make her sleep on the sofa with me hehe. so i've able to get some sleep, but it's really starting to tire me out. i don't like getting up when it's still dark!!

i think for the most part she's potty trained, we haven't had any accidents that i can remember. when she needs to go potty she'll go sit by the fence and wait for one of us to notice haha. we got a steam vacuum cleaner, so this past weekend we cleaned our carpet! the next challenge is to alleviate her separation anxiety. we've been leaving her in the mornings and coming back during lunch time, but she still starts shaking when we put her in her kitchen area because she knows that we're leaving. and then she has her scared pee. ugh. we have to find a way to alleviate it, but i'm not really sure how. sigh sigh. i just hope she outgrows it because it's sooo hard to leave her when she's like that!

H&M

on saturday i went shopping with shal and pearl in SF! it was fun. the h&m is pretty big so we spent 2.5 hours in there! it wasn't TOO crowded, the wait to try on stuff and to check out was about 10-20 minutes, so it wasn't too bad. it was fun to shop at h&m again hehe. and luckily we all came away with some stuff! at first when we walked into the first section, i didn't really see anything i liked and i thought, aww that sucks, nothing that i really like, but i ended up buying lots of stuff! and by the time we left, there was a line to get into the store! good thing we went early! after that we checked out dsw and gap. we had a very very late lunch around 2:30 at boudin and got some yummy clam chowder and tomato garlic soup in a bread bowl. it was soooo yum to have warm soup on such a brisk day! i'm still kind of in denial that winter is upon us, still wearing my sandals/flip flops, unwilling to break out my winter jackets, refusing to turn on the heater, but i don't think i can deny it any longer. winter is finally upon us, and it's sooooo cold! sucks. gotta find my socks, gotta break out my winter jackets, gotta start paying through the nose in heater bills. boo.

today is my last final and i can't wait until this day is over!!

thanksgiving weekend

it was so nice to have 5 days off...only 3 weeks until my 2 week christmas vacation!! can't wait!!

wed night we went to whole foods to pick up our turkey and the supermarket to get the rest of our ingredients. the menu was: turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, potatoes au gratin, brazilian cheese bread, green beans, and stuffing. and some dishes that my mom was making. the only thing we actually made ourselves was the brazilian cheese bread, the potatoes, and the green beans. hehe. everything else we bought... =P

thanksgiving day we started preparing everything at 10am, julian's family arrived at 1, my family came at 3. right when everyone was here, we started eating! haha. most of us didn't really eat lunch, so it was our lunner. everything was ok, nothing exceptionally good or anything, but at least it wasn't bad =P oh, everyone liked the potatoes au gratin! julian actually made it last year for my birthday and i loooooved it. but i like anything potato-y, remember it's my favorite vegetable?? ;) we don't make it too often though, cause it's quite fatty with all the cheese and cream! yikes. after dinner we were all very stuffed, we just sat arond and looked at black friday ads. a couple hours later, we ate some pie. julian's mom brought 4!! 2 pumpkin, 1 apple, and 1 pecan. the pecan one was the best, probably because it was REALLY sweet hehe. and we had soooo many leftovers. i've eaten leftovers 5 meals in a row and we still have a bunch!! crazy.

fri morning, julian's parents knock on our door at 6am and ask if we want to go to gilroy....it was too early for us so we went back to sleep! we woke up at 7 because of tofu, and julian and his bro went to Fry's and Best Buy. I stayed home and worked on my paper. They got back around 11 and said there were crazy lines, they only ended up buying stuff at Fry's (where they waited 2 hours in line!). julian's parents came back around 12 and they got some really good deals on kitchen stuff. one of the stores was going out of business in jan, so their friday morning sale was fill a bag with any items for $20. the items had to have a special sticker or whatever, but they got some pretty good stuff. we now have some new knives and silverware heh. for lunch we went to banana leaf and then for dinner we went to dynasty (his dad wanted to eat the sea bass again!)

sat morning julian's family leaves at 7am. i worked on my paper some more, and then in the afternoon we went to gilroy to do some shopping. it was pretty busy there, we couldn't find a parking space, so in the back area there's a yellow curb where a lot of cars were parked, so we just ended up parking there too. i went to max studio, and it was kinda crowded, i just browsed around a little but didn't really see anything i liked. then we went to the store that julian's parents got all kitchen stuff from, but we didn't really see anything we liked. then we went to coach (there was a line to get in!) but we only waited 5 minutes. i got a new wallet for only $30! i think everything in the store was 20% off and i think the wallet i got had the wrong tag inside. cause the price tag in my wallet was $50, but the sign where the wallet was placed said it was $89 and i didn't really bother to check the other wallets to see what price tag they had inside. so my wallet ended up only being $30!! then we went over to check out banana republic where everything in the store was 40% off. it was crazy in there! a lot of the stuff only had L and XL left, but still had some sweaters in S. i really needed to buy more sweaters because i would say half my sweaters that i own now have been eaten by moths! it's so sad! i still wear them though because i like them, but i think once i get some new ones, i should probably stop doing that hehe. even though everything was 40% off, the original price was still like $50/$60 so ended up still being $30+. i did end up buy 5 sweaters, but wasn't as good a deal as i would have liked..oh well! i didn't even both trying anything on cause the line was so long and we waited about 30 minutes to check out. after that, we were too tired to go to any other stores and we just went home. =P but all in all, an ok shopping day i guess. my new wallet was cheap!

sun i spent the whole day working on my paper and presentation =( no fun. mon was my 30-45 min presentation, wed i turned in my 20 page paper (SINGLE-SPACED!!!), sat i have to turn in another 5 page paper for my 2nd class and take a final, mon is my last final. can't wait until this quarter is over!!

wedding video

Here is our wedding highlights video from our videographer. It's about 4 minutes long, might take a while for it to load. He's sending out the full length DVDs on Monday, I can't wait to see it! Watching the highlights video made me tear up a little, ah such a joyous day. The actual day went by so fast and it's nice to see it again, all the happy moments =P I think it'll be a nice thing to watch every year on our anniversary hehe.

ETA: You have to use QuickTime to view the video! =)

soooooo sloooooowwwww

today is going soooo slow, probably because i want to get out of here!! ugh. i was hoping that we would get to leave around 2 or 3, but it doesn't look like it. i guess it's too much to ask for since we get tomorrow off hunh? =P all the managers are gone though, and most everyone took the week off, so it's sooo dead. i'm very very tempted to leave very soon.

this extended weekend will be pretty kick back, since i need to write my paper and presentation that is due monday after thanksgiving. the paper is 20 pages single spaced! and i have to prepare a 30-45 minute presentation. sheesh. i'm dreading it...i don't want to do it waah. tomorrow tofu is going to the vet again and getting more shots, and probably getting her anal sacs cleaned again, ick. and i'm getting my car tires changed. i can't wait until we can take tofu outside for walks and stuff. we've taken her outside in the backyard and she gets soooo dirty, her feet and mouth, so that'll be a big pain, especially since she's white. i still haven't decided whether or not to do any after christmas shopping, i don't really enjoy shopping amidst crowds, so we'll see. anyways....counting down the minutes...seconds...until i can leave.......aahhhhhhh

thanksgiving

all right! i get the wednesday before thanksgiving off!! =) i guess i should spend it planning/cooking for thursday, cause both parents will be coming for dinner! heh. and we have no idea what's on the menu!!! any ideas???

birthday madness

it's the middle of our birthday celebration week! this week is filled with eating way too much and no exercising! it started off with having dinner with my family last saturday (we went to palace bbq, we were soooooo stuffed) we were going to go to a friend's white trash themed party afterwards, but we fell asleep cause we were too full to move haha. i missed the deep fried twinkies =( anyways, yesterday we went to nola's for my bday, thurs we're watching a special pre-screening of harry potter, yeah! sat is julian's bday and then sun we're celebrating with our friends! yikes! and then next week is thanksgiving! oy. thank goodness it's winter, it's ok to eat too much cause it's cooooold =P

our cute little baby

she's so cute! i hope she stays cute when she's grown up and doesn't get too big! =P when we went to petsmart we saw another maltese and he was not very cute and so big!! it's kinda hard to capture pictures of her because she's constantly on the move and most of the pictures turn out blurry. and whenever the flash goes off she has those scary eyes hehe.

anyways, potty training is going well, she hasn't really peed much on the carpet anymore. i think she knows to go in the kitchen, but her aim is sometimes a little off cause her front paws are on the pad, but she ends up peeing on the floor, but at least she knows where to go! she's still a big baby though, she gets really scared when we go in the car and is not used to being in her doggie purse! and she doesn't really enjoy her toys, she likes to chew on our shoe rack and on the carpet!! those seems to be her favorite activites rather than playing with her countless toys.

having this new dog really makes me worried about having kids one day....it's so so tiring to have to watch over her so much! you have to keep an eagle eye on her just to make sure she isn't doing anything naughty. and since she's sleeping in our room, she usually gets up around 6:30am and rustles around on her puppy pad. since we're both such light sleepers, we're usually wakened by her, but we try to stay in bed until about 7ish. if we make any movements like we're awake, she'll start whining hehe. but she'll keep herself quiet until we "wake up". and when you have a baby, you'll have to wake up countless times during the night, i'm already so tired just waking up around 6:30 everyday! and with a dog, at least you can leave her home alone to go out to eat or whatever, but if you have a baby, it'll be a big production just to go out anywhere. ugh. so not looking forward to it....i'm glad we won't be having babies for another couple of years =P

wedding photos

if you ever have a lot of time on your hands, you can check out our wedding photos taken by our photographer! enjoy!!

busy busy busy

it's been a busy busy week at work this week. we have a new code release coming up, which has this very important new function, BUT the program didn't start any of the testing of this new function until TWO weeks before the release is supposed to come out!!! the timing of the testing has been so so poor, and as a result everyone is scrambling, throwing in last minute fixes without even having adequate time to test the fixes and it's a mess!! i really wonder how we have customers half the time!! and this is supposed to be a major quality release in which the quality of our code is supposed to increase dramatically. ha! anyways, the week passed by very fast and i'm so glad the weekend is here!

yesterday i took tofu to the vet to get some vaccinations, and i picked one that is kind of close to our house. it was in this kinda ghetto part (but i guess everything around there is kinda ghetto), and it turned out to be run by 2 indian guys. anyways, it's kinda weird hearing an old indian guy trying to calm down your puppy. she had anal sac disease, here's an excerpt from a website i found: "Anal sac disease is very common in dogs. The anal sacs are on either side of a dog's rectum and each one is filled with a 'sticky' fluid that smells rather unpleasant! The duct from this gland empties into the anus so that the feces are covered with some of the secretion, acting as a scent marker. Sometimes the duct gets blocked, the secretions build up and the duct becomes infected." it's very easy to treat though, the vet just has to squeeze the sacs and get rid of the build up, but at the time i had no idea what he was doing, all i know is that he was doing something near her anus and there was this really really foul smell. it was sooooo gross. i was disgusted. when we got back from the vet i gave her a bath immediately! in some dogs it can be a frequent problem (like needs to be cleaned once a month) .. i hope it's not the case for tofu! yikes! at least it's easy to treat, but unfortunately can't be prevented. supposedly you can learn to do it yourself, but julian and i are too grossed out to do it, so we'll happily pay someone to do it =P he didn't have to witness the smell!!! everything else went ok, she took the shots ok and she's healthy! one more month until her next shots. we still aren't supposed to take her outside for another two months (only to the backyard).

oh...i'm going to australia and new zealand with my mom and sister in december! yay! we're going on a chinese tour (of course) but i think it'll be fun. at least it'll be warm! =P julian will have to stay home with tofu hehe. i hope she remembers me when i come back! i'll be going to LA 12/15 - 12/20. i'll leave from LA to australia/new zealand 12/20-12/31. (i'll have to fly by myself =( which kinda sucks) and i'll be back in LA to celebrate new year's!

happy halloween!

our 2nd line manager brought in a huge bag of candy, and it's sitting RIGHT outside my office door, it's so bad. i've had AT LEAST five pieces of candy already, and it's all those fatty chocolate ones. no starburst or skittles which are semi healthier with those fruit juices and stuff =P i was all excited about giving candy to trick or treaters and seeing all the cute kiddies, but then i remembered i have class tonight. boo. i won't get home until 9 and by then there probably won't be any more!

it's definitely been interesting adjusting to adding a puppy into our lives. it definitely takes a lot of patience! she pees everywhere! she's getting a little better, but still misses a few times. she's very good about pooping though, it's always on her pad, thank goodness! she likes to sniff and eat EVERYTHING! she seems to have a very good nose and likes to sniff around our floors all the time. i really have no idea what she's eating off there! we've been leaving her alone for a couple of hours each day, but she still whines a lot. i just hope it gets better because when she's alone, she totally freaks out. she's so cute! although she gets these hyper moments where she's totally crazy and bites everything (mainly your fingers!), and she has this crazed dog look...she looks kinda evil heh, i got a new camera so i can post lots of pictures soon hopefully!

new cell

i got a new cell over the weekend and i got to keep my old number so you can all contact me now! =P i wonder if anyone even tried to reach me during the one week period i was cell-less? i did notice that on sat when i was called for work, they called my home number when they used to call my cell number, and at the time my cell was working. i guess it's random which number they use, heh.

now on to replacing my camera! =P

cutie tofu

here are some pics of tofu! pearl came to visit on wednesday and took some pics for me hehe. so far it's been a lot of fun, she has her hyper moments and then she'll just plop down and sleep. she's very good at pooping on her wee wee pads, but not so good about peeing. it's about 60% on the pad. she sleeps in our room so we can get some sleep at night! the first night we left her in a playpen downstairs and she whined and cried alllll night, it was not good. the next night we moved her to our room, and it was so much better.

the latest

i checked my vm at work, and i got a message from kaiser saying that someone had found my kaiser card and some other cards. so i contacted that person, and all she had found was my kaiser card, southwest card, and my macy's card that is invalid. so nothing too useful so i just told her to throw those away because i got a new kaiser card with my new name. but it was very nice of those people to try to contact me. she said she found them on the sidewalk while she was taking a walk near her house on this street that i'm not too familiar with. i wonder what's happened to all my other stuff???
i called our insurance company and our deductible is $1000, but i think at least i'll be able to get some money back. with all my stuff gone, i am researching about which cellphone and camera to get. and a new wallet! i've had my wallet for over 4 years, so i got good use out of it. it was a really pretty color though, oh wells. it was really heavy and it only had 3 slots for credit cards, plus i got some pink nail polish on it, heh. i hope i get my ATM and credit card replacement soon, so i can start buying stuff! =P

bad karma =(

both my sister and i have had some bad karma lately...she filled out one of those fake paypal emails and entered in all her personal information and has had lots and lots of fraudulent charges.

this morning around 6am my NEW red bag was stolen from julian's car! they broke his passenger side window. i was soooo pissed. it was my own fault for leaving it in the car, but i forgot about it cause i was so excited about getting our new puppy the night before! ARGH. it's no fun losing your wallet, cellphone, digital camera, sunglasses AND a bag that i've only used for a month. all of those things together are worth $2500!! we're going to file a claim with the car insurance company so hopefully i can recoup my loss. i also had to cancel ALL my credit cards, including my ATM card. and i had to suspend my cell .... so uh yeah, if you need to contact me, you'll have to email me. anyways. it sucks. i have to go to the DMV AGAIN to get a new license. SIGH!! it feels so strange not having anything. i'm just thankful that i didn't have any of my house or car keys in there. while julian was cleaning up the glass outside, our across the street neighbor came up to him and said that he's had his car broken in twice!! i was like...great. what a great neighborhood we're living in. boo. well, at least we know never ever ever leave anything in the car (which i knew and NEVER do) but i guess just gotta be even more careful. i just can't believe the first time i did it, it got stolen! GRRR.

ok, gotta stop thinking about it. but at least we have a cute new puppy, we named her tofu. but i don't have a camera to take pictures! you guys will just have to come visit! she spent the whole night whining/crying, i didn't get much sleep. i actually heard the car window being smashed in the morning but didn't know what it was. it was a really loud noise, like a really loud crashing noise, and i said to julian, did you hear that?? was that the dog?? he was like...yeah. i was thinking...really?? how could he have made such a loud noise in his little playpen?? so i went down to go check, but nothing looked out of order. i was kind of groggy so i didn't really think to investigate the noise, i didn't think it was someone breaking the car window!! so we didn't realize it until i was looking for the camera in the morning and realized that my bag was still in the car. i went outside and there was glass EVERYWHERE. i was like... SH*T!!! WAAHHHHHH =*( and julian was like, F*CK!!!!!! heh.

i hope all this bad karma goes away for a long long time. my parents must think we're sooo irresponsible, but it's not our faults!

new obsessions

now that i don't have any wedding related stuff to obsess about, i've been frequenting forums about handbags and diamonds =P it just sucks though, because seeing all the pictures of diamond rings and handbags makes me want to get them! sigh. i think it would nice to eventually have a 3 ct 3 stone ring and also an asscher. asschers are really really pretty.

and reading about how obsessed people are about handbags is insano! like...people will buy 2-3 $1000+ bags every month?!! and actually most of the high end bags are $1500-$2000. now i'm thinking a $1000 bag is actually a pretty good price!!! but it's fun to look at the pictures, mostly people carry lv or gucci in the bay area, so it's kinda boring. it's fun to see what other bags are out there. there's this one chick who's 15 (from ohio!) who's brother gives her a monthly allowance, so she spends it all on bags! so her allowance must be $2000-$3000/month because she buys a bag/month. what kind of brother would do that??!! anyways, most of the people on that forum are handbag crazy, but i guess only people that like handbags would frequent a forum about handbags eh?? =P

puppy!!

this sat (oct 15) we're going to check out this puppy, and if we like her and everything looks ok, i think we're going to get her!!! she'll be 8 weeks old. julian put out an ad on craigslist for maltese and westie puppies, and surprisingly he got several responses!! it's going to be hard to have a puppy though, you aren't supposed to leave them alone when they're so young, so hopefully i'll be able to work from home 3 days out of the week and julian the other 2 days until the end of the year. i *think* it should be ok, i'm sure my team and manager wouldn't really like it, but i don't think they would say no if i asked. so we need help thinking of names!! julian wants a funny but cute name. like meow or roar. he thinks all the names i've thought up are too "boring". sigh. he thinks pixie is too gay. any other ideas??

yay

we're having a nice luncheon at La Foret today and then we get to take the afternoon off! yippee! all of us have been looking forward to it, and everyone keeps on saying how it's a very good French restaurant, so hopefully it doesn't disappoint! Wed-Fri I'm taking a class for work, and then Saturday I'm going to try out a new salon that Shal recommended since it's close to my house. I'm going to get it cut and highlighted again. Finally! I can't wait to get rid of my long long hair, ugh. My hair gets really really tangled when it's long and sheds so much, so I'm going to chop off 4-5 inches I think.

Ever since I started coloring my hair in college, it seems like I can never go back! I've told myself countless times that I should stop and just let it grow out, but I think it really looks ugly when your hair is half black and half dyed, so I just end up coloring it again! The only reason I wanted to stop is because I think I'm damaging my hair, but so far I haven't really noticed that much change. My grandma, however, thinks dyeing your hair is very bad because of all the chemicals and thinks it's not good that my sister and I started dyeing our hair so young since we don't have any white hairs!! She says it's not good for the brain. Hmm. I guess I do feel like my memory is going hehe Oh well. For my haircut, I'm going to try for long sideswept bangs, so we'll see how that turns out!

honeymoon

i'm sure you've all been anxiously waiting for this, so here it is! =P
Enjoy!

Click me!