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