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?