Do you...

keep your cereal atop your refrigerator?



I didn't realize this was common practice until I noticed David's family kept their cereal on top of their fridge too. When I lived at home in Cerritos, we always had a bunch of cereal on top of the fridge. Always my favorites... Cookie Crisp, Cocoa Puffs, Crispix, Frosted Flakes, etc. In my old condo, we had one of those built-in refrigerators so we weren't able to put cereal above it. Instead, cereal was hidden in one of the cabinets. Maybe that's why the cereal would sit in there for months at a time uneaten... out of sight, out of mind. Also it could be because I started buying healthier cereal (like honey bunches of oats) which were still good but not as enticing as a bowl of cocoa pebbles.

Some advice.

Never trust anyone who is too insistent on your trusting them.

Is it hot or cold in hell?

credit to gerry for the laugh... which BTW was much needed after today's disappointing laker's game.

Is Hell Hot.. or Cold?
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.

The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell,then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."


THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

Yesss...

I finally got my garage remote signal thingie saved on to my remote opener buttons thingamabob on my car. Yessssss...

I've been trying since September 1! Since the day I got the remote... Benzes are notorious for having super retarded remote buttons that take forever to program. If you call their roadside assistance, one of the first teleprompt choices is if you are having trouble with your remote button opener pusher thing. So anyways, I have 3 buttons on my rearview mirror. My old apartment has two separate garage door buttons to go in and out so I saved those to #2 & #3 because I was having problems with #1. Even after repeatedly resetting all the buttons, nothing would save to #1. It was really retarded because it totally threw me off- on the Denali the garage signals were saved to #1 & #2 so it was hard to keep track which one was which because I switched cars so often. So when I moved I was thinking it would be super awesome if I could save my new garage signal to #1 but I'd kind of try half-heartedly because I knew #1 was having problems. So yesterday just for fun I tried it (with feeling too- I closed my eyes and concentrated) and it WORKED!

I was so happy I squealed out loud.

I realize that most of you probably don't care about the mechanics of my garage remote but if you know me at all, then you'd know what a big deal this was for me. I've been trying for 3 months. Seriously.

I get pretty giddy when I get home and I press #1 and it works.

New Pinkberry Mix

I was a daredevil yesterday. I tried out cocoa pebbles on my Pinkberry. So I had a medium green with cocoa pebbles and granola. Wow.

You know what I realized with Pinkberry? It's one of the rare foods that I thoroughly enjoy eating until the very last bite. Since the Pinkberry on Sawtelle opened up last week, I've gotten in the habit of stopping by on my way home from the gym everyday. I eat it in the car on the way home (since I'm usually stuck in Olympic traffic anyway) and I have to say I have gotten quite good at driving with my knees.

Well, yesterday I was eating my new concoction in the car on the way to Centinela Pet Feed on Pico. I arrived in the parking lot with more than half of my Pinkberry left. I didn't want to bring it with me while I bought dog food but I didn't want to leave it melting in the car either. (Which it probably wouldn't since it was like 54 degrees outside) So I decided to sit in the car and finish it real quick before heading in. As I was enjoying each bite, I subconsciously reached out my hand and turned down the volume knob. Then I realized... why did I turn the music down? Was I enjoying my Pinkberry THAT much that I needed to turn down the music to concentrate on tasting?

Yes, I take my Pinkberry very seriously.

Hahaha...

Saw this on Yeeker's blog...



Hahaha... somebody needs to buy this for me for Christmas. I'd love to try it out on Moley. Hahahahaha. I wonder if he'd still pee?

P.S. Kev so there is (1) phone (2) SMS (3) AIM (4) mobile MSN (5) friendster testimonials and now we're communicating via blog comments? Stop being such a nerd.

Can you imagine?

The reaction you'd get from me if I had to use one of these toilets??? (Yes, it's an actual product for sale, here)


Don't get any ideas people...

I was blog-hopping and I found this on someone's Christmas Wishlist. This is just WRONG. I mean just the thought of sitting with my back so close to that tank where the fish can start swimming aggressively and jump out at you at any moment and even maybe jump into the back of your shirt flapping against your back. Ugh. Sure, my fear of live fish in tanks is a bit irrational, but when you get the nightmares that I do, you'd understand why.

I've gotten much better lately though: I can sit @ Guppy's teahouse pretty comfortably, as long as I'm in the center of the room and at least 8 feet away from the nearest tank. Sitting in a room full of fish is worth that brick toast. ~.~

High Maintenance

I live in a high-maintenance city. I'm not even going to deny it.

We all get money mailers. And yes, I definitely look through my direct mail. At my old house (zipcode: 90025) I used to get offers for cutesy checks, air duct cleaning, carpet cleaning, house cleaning, dry cleaning, you name it. People in West LA must have been obsessed with keeping clean.

Now that I've moved to Beverly Hills?



Almost every other offer was for some type of cosmetic service. Teeth whitening, botox, sunless tanning, plastic surgery, breast augmentation, seriously. Are the people in this town that superficial? The answer is yes, folks. I have to admit when people ask me where I live I am still hesitant to say BH... I kind of leave it at "by Century City"... I mean I love where I live: across the street from a quiet park, tennis courts, a good high school, and a block from Century City, Rodeo Dr. and Beverly Dr. But sometimes people get the wrong idea when you tell them you live in Beverly Hills. Once I was on the phone with Yahoo! DSL customer service and they actually started singing the chorus to the Weezer song. Seriously speaking guys, it's just paying a little more rent to live in a metropolitan Cerritos. ~.~ Sure the people here can't drive and everybody thinks they have the right of way, but the quiet streets, clean sidewalks and neatly manicured homes remind me of home sweet home. At least it gives me a sense of peace when I run.

But back to high maintenance, the parking rules here are ridiculous. First of all, most streets get street-cleaned twice or 3 times a week which means even more parking restrictions. These are the parking rules signs right in front of my house:



Vina and I have both donated hundreds of dollars to the City of Beverly Hills through our weekly parking tickets.

Women according to mathmeticians.

We're not that bad, are we? ;)

My kind of cheerleader...

I love how every other cheerleader is staring her down. Haha...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

Took me a while to get in the Christmas mood this year. Usually my sisters and I do our secret santa drawings in the middle of November after playing NSync's "Merry Christmas Happy Holidays" song on repeat in the car. But this year, even after the city put up its Christmas decorations, even after KOST 103.5 started playing their month-long of Christmas songs, even after we put up the xmas tree.. it still didn't feel like the holidays.

But now that gifts are slowly finding their way under the tree, I think the holiday spirit is finally kicking in.



With half the family gone, we definitely won't have as many gifts under the tree as last year though. Sniff. That was one crazy Christmas...

Poop on you!

Poop on people who only comment on posts with pictures! But whatever, I'll play the game your way. Here are some random pictures taken by my crackberry from this weekend...


The Path of Least Resistance
My favorite 3-mile jog: the dirt path around the Brentwood Country Club. Every Tuesday & Thursday at 9:30 I pound it out on the dirt, running in tune to the Marie Antoinette OS. Running on the dirt is much easier on my knees than running on the pavement.


I balance each workout with an equally rewarding dessert. Here is Joanna adding a squirt of extra condensed milk to each bite of shaved ice at Guppy's.


Lulu is not very good at hide and seek.


But she makes a great lunch date. Here we are having lunch at Quizno's in Costa Mesa after stopping by the TWS OC sale.


Did a little decorating at home... put up a wall of fame.

Where to draw the line?

I was having lunch with a friend a couple of weeks ago when he shared his newfound wisdom about life. His father had told him, "In life, everybody is given 2 or 3 life-changing chances that you just have to go for." Well, something like that. So for me, that begs the question, how do you discern which of these chances will take you down the right path, or moreover, how do you know which path is right?

I guess this is the antithesis to "the future is what you make out of it" which has always been my mentality. I've always been one to live life day-by-day, one obstacle at a time. Sure I have hopes and dreams for the future but I'd say I'm more of a pessimist than an optimist- I focus on the now and the immediate. I live life large, on the impulse, and I thrive off of instant gratification. I'm a spender, not a saver. Sure it makes me hasty at times, but I've always felt that I've always gotten the most out of life this way. But I digress.

The point is, when an opportunity comes up for me, I always think about it in the "now". How does this career change affect my life now? What will my daily responsibilities be like? How much will I make? I guess I feel that there are so many career or business opportunities out there that I feel as long as I give it my all, I can turn any one of those to that big "life-changing" opportunity. So I don't believe that in life you will be given only a handful of chances to "make it"... I still think life is what you make of it.

However, when it comes to relationships, I think this statement is very true. Given all of the compatibility issues that make up a relationship, the amount of work and effort you put into a relationship is nothing compared to the other million factors that will determine whether or not your relationship will last.

There is chemistry- which by the way, why is it that only girls feel that chemistry is important? Is it because we invest emotionally into a relationship vs. boys view relationships more physically? I think guys have a total misconception about chemistry. I think they feel that if it's not there in the beginning, they can just work on it and build it up to a comfortable level. They think that chemistry is purely sexual... well here's news to you, it's not! Chemistry is what determines whether you will be compatible in day-to-day life. In conversations, in those quiet moments you sit and don't talk, when you're busy working on something together or when you are enjoying a vacation together. And girls can tell all this within the first 5 minutes of meeting you. Really.

There is family- all of a sudden every little detail about how you grew up and how you were raised becomes half of the story. There is a new side to things and you have to determine which way to compromise. The way you view family, traditions, values, respect for elders, church and culture will always be challenged because that is the whole point of a relationship, you are weeding out all of the bad experiences you had as a child and fusing it with somebody else's experience to create a new philosophy on life and love.

There are hopes for the future, there are resentments about the past. There is work, there is play. There are friends, there are hobbies. There are habits. Habits can be further broken down to eating habits, sleeping habits. Living habits, cleaning habits. I mean I can go on and on... there are hundreds of issues that need to be in line for a relationship to work. Effort is nothing if everything else is not in sync.

So yes, I believe there is a select few for everyone out there where all of these little issues will just fit like pieces of a puzzle. I think in life we will run into a handful of chances to meet these people and it's up to us to take the chance to get to know them to see if they are the right fit or not. Unfortunately, we will never get a warning sign to let us know if we're going down the wrong path. Everything can seem alright and even perfect until that last final moment you discover something that just crashes down your house of cards.

So I guess my question now is... when do you know? When do you know to give up and when do you know to keep trying? Where do you draw the line between fate and human persistence?

I'm a nerd.

I'll admit it. One of my favorite things to do: update the firmware on my cell phone.

It's serious fun.

I've been disappointed with my Blackberry Pearl... this one is my second Pearl since I "lost" my first one during my Naturalization Ceremony (I say "lost" in parenthesis because I am convinced that the person who found my phone ignored my persistent calls and texts on purpose, hence actually "stole" my phone) and I have to say the software on this one is a lot buggier than my first.

I get this retarded call lag... so every time I get an incoming call I have to say Hello 3 or 4 times. That is probably why when you call me I pick up going "-llo, hello, hello!"

I can't play ringtones off of my memory card.

Applications are s-l-o-w.

I lose e-mails. As in, they aren't being "pushed" to my phone on time or sometimes not at all.

Anyhow I've been sitting here in front of my extremely slow 4-year-old Vaio waiting for this firmware upgrade to go through, since I can only do the upgrade through a PC.

4.2.0.79 promises a lot of fixes... I can't wait!

It's so cold.

It's so cold in my apartment. Soooo cold. And it's even colder in my bedroom.

I don't know how I'm going to survive this winter.

Moreover, I don't know how Yona is going to survive HER winter. Here I am complaining with 61-degree weather when she has 30-degree weather to look forward to along with rain, sleet and snow.

K's Bday Pictionary

Here are some pictures from K's 21 (+10) birthday party at the J Restaurant and Lounge in downtown.


Michelle, me and the birthday boy. Gosh K, already red after half a glass of wine??


Jerry and I with our Grey Goose concoctions... yes, that is my real-life impression of my favorite emoticon: ~.~


Stop taking pictures.. it's giving me a headache! Well... either that or the vodka collins or 2 glasses of wine I'd already downed.

Correction: K reminded me that at this point I'd only had part of my vodka collins. Guess it doesn't take much to get me to start tongue-sticking-outing.


Reunited! Ed and I were roommates back in '99, living in the ghetto between Sawtelle & the 405 freeway. :P Ed & Eugene were gents though.. they let me have the biggest room and never left the toilet seat up. (Yeah right)


Immersed in doctor-talk... or should I say doctors in general. Seemed like everyone around me was in the medical profession... which was fine by me. I got to ask away all of my Rx questions and now (hopefully) have a lot of hookups... ;)


Why am I giggling with glee again? I think this is probably the point in the night where I stopped remembering everybody's names...


This is the last lucid memory I have of the night. Actually, not really. I don't remember whose hand that is giving me that shot.


I think this is Michelle, Theo and Greg picking straws to see who gets the lucky task of driving me home...

I belong in Indiana...

with my mom and Joanna.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
North Central
Boston
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

The day we parted...

Here is a recap of what went down the night before Yona left us to rediscover her inner soul in Japan.


Yona's last meal... hot dogs! She chickened out and stuck with a turkeydog though...




These two still have some curious animosity towards the two perfect Warmins.


Jamie seriously ate this large Pinkberry by herself in like, 2 minutes.


We drove out to San Gabriel to take purikura pics...


...and waited 40 minutes while Vina and Joanna bedazzled our pictures with pink sparklies.


Then stopped by the big boss's house to pick up Yona's yen and last paycheck.

And finally, the day we thought would never come... I mean even at the airport we didn't think she'd actually leave... we've been waiting all year for this!






...and that leaves us with our last look at Yona. The last glance. The last image of her we saw that has been burned into our minds forever. Well, in real life her laptop bag wasn't covering up that big booty.

MySpace Spam

You know, I'm pretty tolerant of MySpace spam... I mean once in a while I'll check out a muscian's profile... I wouldn't add them as a friend or listen to their music but my natural curiosity gets me clicking sometimes. Once in a while I'll get a message with an interesting title, I'll read it.

So today, I got this:

Hi there,
I noticed your page as I was browsing around and thought you were darling! I know this is random, and please don't be offended, but I think that you'd be perfect for our egg donor program at The Genesis Group in Beverly Hills. We're doing some really exciting "feel good" work for cancer survivors and infertile women in need of caring egg donor's. At the same time our donor's earn $5,000 - $15,000 with minimal time commitment. If you're interested in helping out, feel free to check out our website and fill out an application. Or you may email us at **removed**@yahoo.com. Thanks and I hope to hear from you soon!

www.**removed**.com

Sincerely,
June Bailey

So what I'd like to know is, how am I perfect for the egg donor program? Is it my myspace song? [Which coincidentally is about a semi-unwanted pregnancy, go JC!] Is it my snazzy black and white template that Aai made for me? Is it my list of favorite movies? Is it my quote?

Lame.

I knew it.

My blog has turned into a food diary yet again.

So here is my obligatory Pinkberry post.

So let's talk about the evolution of my Pinkberry selection.


The very first time I had yogurt of this kind was at Red MangO in Korea. Amazing, loved it, wished there was something like it in Los Angeles. Especially those yogurt filled puffs...

Then one sweet day, Marcela, Roberto & I were outside of Shabu Shabu House in Little Tokyo waiting for a table. Those of you who eat at SSH know that the wait is at least 30 minutes for a table so we decided to try Fiore, a new natural frozen yogurt store that popped up right across from SSH. I had it with strawberries, kiwis and mangos. It was so good we bought an extra helping of toppings.

So on to the evolution of my Pinkberry:
The first time I had Pinkberry [Yona's last night out in Los Angeles... right after eating @ Pink's], I had it with strawberries, kiwis and mangos. But their kiwi was so sour... so the second time I had it, I had strawberries and mangos. I went with Andrew, Peter and Gene... and Andrew had his with strawberries, chocolate and granola. Phew that granola was good. So... the NEXT time I went with David I copied Andrew's concoction... it was really good until David smushed everything around to a gross pink mush. Those strawberries made everything so sour. So the next time we went back, I had to avoid David's frivolous need to play with his food... and he said "If you order green tea, then we're getting separate pinkberries. I am NOT touching the green tea, and you can't touch mine." FINE WITH ME! I was getting my own medium! :D I had the green tea with chocolate and granola.

So... that is my pinkberry. What's yours?

Recovery

Vina did a bad, bad thing last night. She made *two* plates of our little banana dessert... and added extra Nutella too. This picture is so fitting... the glee on her face from the thought of sugar and her "Junk Food" t-shirt.

So anyways I woke up this morning with no agenda. Free day. I mean, seriously speaking I've had a ton of free days... since August 12 to be exact but this free day was different. I was finally going to treat it like a free day. No stressing over finding work. No stressing over errands to be ran. No stressing over cleaning Moley's pee spots. (Of course it helps that our housekeeper happens to be here cleaning) So what to do?



I've been meaning to take advantage of the tennis wall at the park across the street since I've moved in but never got the chance. The park is pretty empty from 11am - 1pm so it was the perfect time to go and try to hit balls. The last time I played tennis regularly was probably first year at UCLA... since then I picked up the racket maybe once or twice. Now I'm not really a serious tennis player.. I took lessons as a kid and in high school, was on the JV team at Whitney but as everyone knows, the JV Tennis team was basically girls that didn't want to take PE but didn't want to suffer in dance class with Mrs. Flowers.

So I never considered myself a tennis player but when I started to hit the ball against the wall, it's like a wave of familiarity came over me. The grip felt right. The familar *plock* of the tennis ball when it hits the sweet spot... the smooth feedback you get in your arm when you hit the ball right as it's at the top of its curve. I remembered back to when I used to practice against the wall at CPE. Even though practicing against the wall doesn't really help your game, it's a great workout and a good way to practice following through on your stroke, footwork and timing. I want to start playing again but I don't know ANYONE who plays tennis. :( I guess I'm going to have find myself some hot tennis trainer.. like Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Match Point. :D

Anyhoo, I brought the doggies. I had to tie them to the bench but they were so itching to chase the ball.



I was pretty proud of myself. I burned a LOT of calories today. Did the tennis thing, ran a little over 2 miles... but then Vina comes home and ruins it all again. I swear I'm getting fat all because of Vina. Two nights ago she came home with 2 bags full of snacks from Nijiya Market. There was the whole banana dessert issue. This morning she made me toast drenched in condensed milk. Today, she comes home with Chabuya's infamous Pork over Rice. Yummy.

This Makes My Heart Flutter...

...and my body tingly all over.

Seriously, sensations only an Aston Martin can invoke. Don't get me wrong, I love Juju (the name my sisters so lovingly call my CLK Cabriolet... I, too, name my valuables... there is Tuba the Scooba and Tyson my Dyson :P), but as Kevin so aptly put it, "A benz is tame, an aston martin growls." I want a car that growls :(

What is it about Aston Martins that makes me swoon? Is it the thrill of the power under the hood or the sheer beauty of its aerodynamic lines? Is it the iconic Aston Martin name or James Bond... both part of my British heritage :P? Something just stands out for me, I don't know what it is. RR Phantom: impressive, lightens your step, tilts your chin up as you step into the roomy back seat. When a flashy Gallardo zooms by, you roll your eyes as you hear it rev off. An SLR MacLaren... rare sight on the street but you kinda scoff at the driver, who'd pay that much for a glorified SL? Carrera GT... heart skips a beat, you turn your head, but no feeling in your gut.

But when a shiny tungsten silver Vanquish gives out a low grumble as it stops at a red light... you feel it in your feet... the feeling rises and warmth takes over... just as you feel like you're about to insensibly let go, your heart rate speeds up as you hang on to the fleeting thrill of falling in love.



Looks like the V8 Vantage Roadster won't be available til Q2 2007... which gives me plenty of time to hustle up some money, right? Right. Anyways one can always dream. Or catch Casino Royale over the weekend just to drool over the DBS...



By the way Kev, you youtube too much.

Run, run as fast as you can.

You can't catch me,
I'm the gingerbread man.

A series of very fortunate events.

One thing I like about living with my sisters, we click. Especially when it comes to edibles. Sweet edibles. But I guess sometimes it can be dangerous... for instance:

A little after midnight (about 10 minutes ago) as I grabbed my cell phone from the kitchen (I only get cell phone signal in the kitchen) to bring to my room to go to bed, I noticed Vina standing in the kitchen opening up a can of condensed milk.

So I ask... Vina, what are you doing?

And she answers... I'm gonna eat a banana with some condensed milk.


Of which I reply... mMmMm.. why not sautee it in butter first?


This is where Vina got really excited and said... oOooh and we can add some NUTELLA!


And my natural reaction was... How about put it on some toasted bread and we'll add some cheese on top!


And that, folks, is the classic definition of the perfect midnight snack. Sauteed bananas on a bed of hazelnut cream on brick toast topped with cheese and drizzled with condensed milk.

This was by far the yummiest thing to come out of our kitchen to date. Well, I mean it didn't have much competition. (Ai~ your fried rice was a great effort but kinda tasted bad. Vina~ your curry looked delish but seriously, it wasn't supposed to have that funky, gritty aftertaste.)