16 years ago
3 Hours Late
I was 3 hours late to work today.
I saw the 405 on-ramp. I saw that it was backed up. Who knows why I decided to get on anyway.
I was stuck on the on-ramp (and it's a tall one too) for 45 minutes just looking down to the side fighting visions in my head of my car sliding off. So, it turns out that my 3-hour commute was due to a fatal accident on the 405 near LAX. I really should start watching the news in the morning, maybe set our bedroom TV to automatically turn on at 7 as an alarm.
A big rig crane crashed on the 405 freeway early this morning killing the driver and blocking most lanes north and snarling traffic near the airport.
I saw the 405 on-ramp. I saw that it was backed up. Who knows why I decided to get on anyway.
I was stuck on the on-ramp (and it's a tall one too) for 45 minutes just looking down to the side fighting visions in my head of my car sliding off. So, it turns out that my 3-hour commute was due to a fatal accident on the 405 near LAX. I really should start watching the news in the morning, maybe set our bedroom TV to automatically turn on at 7 as an alarm.
A big rig crane crashed on the 405 freeway early this morning killing the driver and blocking most lanes north and snarling traffic near the airport.
So sad.
This year I am going to miss out on one of my favorite things... gaining an hour from Daylight Savings Time. It's happening on November 4... while I wander around jet-lagged in Japan.
Boo.
Boo.
Vina on the San Diego Wildfires
"It's weird how the fires didn't hit LA tho. Didn't it start in Malibu?"
The best fake food.
Japanese people make the best fake food ever.
My sister (I don't remember which one did it first so I'm just going to say "my sister") brought back some O'Zack Gyoza chips from Japan once, wow. The taste and texture of these taste like Gyoza... it's amazing. They're light, crispy and tastes like Gyoza dipped in just the right amount of soy sauce, vinegar and chili.
Just picked up these grilled corn cookies from Nijiya... they taste just like slightly charred grilled corn, yum! I mean, not just the sweet corn taste but just the right amount of charring from leaving on the grill that extra minute. Amazing.
My sister (I don't remember which one did it first so I'm just going to say "my sister") brought back some O'Zack Gyoza chips from Japan once, wow. The taste and texture of these taste like Gyoza... it's amazing. They're light, crispy and tastes like Gyoza dipped in just the right amount of soy sauce, vinegar and chili.
Just picked up these grilled corn cookies from Nijiya... they taste just like slightly charred grilled corn, yum! I mean, not just the sweet corn taste but just the right amount of charring from leaving on the grill that extra minute. Amazing.
Nanny Cam
I wish I had a Mac at work so I can iChat with Lulu and watch her during the day :(
Steve got a new iMac at work a few weeks ago so I set him up to iChat with Lulu this morning before I left.
She was MIA all day today and just popped on-screen 20 minutes ago to sleep on the couch. She must have been sitting by the window the whole day.
Steve got a new iMac at work a few weeks ago so I set him up to iChat with Lulu this morning before I left.
She was MIA all day today and just popped on-screen 20 minutes ago to sleep on the couch. She must have been sitting by the window the whole day.
Pumpking Carving Party
Went to my first Pumpking Carving Party/Contest/Event ever. Well, for some reason I remember carving a pumpkin before but I can't recall the exact situation... maybe I helped carve one in elementary school as a class activity or something... but anyway, it was not as fun as I thought it would be... it's actually a lot of work. (And pumpkins smell)
Steve did most of the hard work... he cut out the top, cleaned out the insides, scraped the insides, did most of the stenciling, cut out the shapes... well actually he did almost everything. I just helped with the stenciling and cleaned up the picture afterwards, making the lines sharper and polished the shapes and edges. So in other words, he carved the pumpkin and I made it pretty. :)
And here is our finished pumpkin! We picked one of the hardest stencils in the book but I think it came out pretty good. Except Steve accidentally cut off one of the spider legs so we had to make it 6-legged instead of 8-legged. :(
The other pumpkins came out really good too! The winning pumpkin was the cat sitting on the moon... she was the first one done... it literally took her like 15 minutes to carve while it took about 2 hours for the rest of us!
Steve did most of the hard work... he cut out the top, cleaned out the insides, scraped the insides, did most of the stenciling, cut out the shapes... well actually he did almost everything. I just helped with the stenciling and cleaned up the picture afterwards, making the lines sharper and polished the shapes and edges. So in other words, he carved the pumpkin and I made it pretty. :)
And here is our finished pumpkin! We picked one of the hardest stencils in the book but I think it came out pretty good. Except Steve accidentally cut off one of the spider legs so we had to make it 6-legged instead of 8-legged. :(
The other pumpkins came out really good too! The winning pumpkin was the cat sitting on the moon... she was the first one done... it literally took her like 15 minutes to carve while it took about 2 hours for the rest of us!
The new Dog Sitter
Every time I leave the house in the morning I feel a pang of guilt about leaving Lulu home alone for the whole day. I do what I can to make sure she has at least an hour or two of entertainment during the day -- I'll leave some classical music on (hey, it made Moley smarter when he was a puppy), I'll hide little treats in her beehive toy for her to paw out or I'll leave the TV on for an hour (sleep!). However, there was never anything good on the TV -- I don't have Animal Planet anymore and she's uninterested in anything else.
Then I remembered about a cat DVD I saw on an infomercial once... it was a DVD full of chirping and flying birds to keep cats busy. What a great idea! So I went to Petsmart to hunt one down. Unfortunately they didn't have the exact one I was looking for, the Kitty Show which takes extra care to film birds from afar so they are life-sized, and to always show the bird from land-flight-back to land so cats don't get confused when they fly off screen. So instead I got her a Dog Sitter DVD... full of birds, ducks, squirrels and other small animals dogs are interested in.
Well, I was a little disappointed but I guess I couldn't really expect her to sit here for hours on end watching this DVD. The actual scenes are not that great... they add animal sounds that don't match (i.e. rooster crow on a scene of a monkey riding a dog)... wait I need to elaborate on this. This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. I guess they have these rodeo monkeys that they strap down to dogs while they herd goat and stuff. I mean, this is retarded.
Back to my story. The scenes weren't that great -- they fast forward through a lot of stuff so the birds look unnatural, they do close-ups of parrots that take up the whole screen, I mean it doesn't even look like a bird anymore. So anyhow, in the whole DVD, there is maybe only a 5-minute segment that Lulu is mesmerized by.
It's a bunch of scenes of little birds fluttering around. Ooooooh she watches so intently as they bounce around eating their seeds.
Cute.
Then I remembered about a cat DVD I saw on an infomercial once... it was a DVD full of chirping and flying birds to keep cats busy. What a great idea! So I went to Petsmart to hunt one down. Unfortunately they didn't have the exact one I was looking for, the Kitty Show which takes extra care to film birds from afar so they are life-sized, and to always show the bird from land-flight-back to land so cats don't get confused when they fly off screen. So instead I got her a Dog Sitter DVD... full of birds, ducks, squirrels and other small animals dogs are interested in.
Well, I was a little disappointed but I guess I couldn't really expect her to sit here for hours on end watching this DVD. The actual scenes are not that great... they add animal sounds that don't match (i.e. rooster crow on a scene of a monkey riding a dog)... wait I need to elaborate on this. This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. I guess they have these rodeo monkeys that they strap down to dogs while they herd goat and stuff. I mean, this is retarded.
Back to my story. The scenes weren't that great -- they fast forward through a lot of stuff so the birds look unnatural, they do close-ups of parrots that take up the whole screen, I mean it doesn't even look like a bird anymore. So anyhow, in the whole DVD, there is maybe only a 5-minute segment that Lulu is mesmerized by.
It's a bunch of scenes of little birds fluttering around. Ooooooh she watches so intently as they bounce around eating their seeds.
Cute.
What do you do when...
... another person in the room farts audibly? Do you laugh and point? Do you ignore them completely and stop breathing? Do you say "excuse you"? I guess this largely depends on the situation you're in. In the comfort of my home I always call it out and yell "Vina!!!" in a playfully-annoying tone... although I can't do that anymore. :(
I was just in a brainstorm meeting with a few colleagues when one let 'er rip as he stood up to make a phone call. I politely ignored it (I was mid-sentence) but it got me thinking about what others in the room were thinking, and what the appropriate response was.
I was just in a brainstorm meeting with a few colleagues when one let 'er rip as he stood up to make a phone call. I politely ignored it (I was mid-sentence) but it got me thinking about what others in the room were thinking, and what the appropriate response was.
Rediscovering Sudoku
Apple just launched their WebApps this week... third-party developer games and apps that are made especially for the iPhone. My favorite is the Sudoku game by Big Bang... haven't played Sudoku in forever! I've refined some of my techniques and am super addicted. This makes the perfect game to play at a restaurant while you're waiting for food.
Random Things on my Mind
Knorr instant corn soup makes the perfect work snack.
Neosporin is awesome... I get a lot of papercuts and never thought to put neosporin on but it makes it heal like 5 days faster than usual. (I get them deep)
Can't wait for Christmas... I want to put up my Christmas tree now. This weekend. Would that be weird to have that up before Halloween? Well maybe we can watch the Nightmare before Christmas to get in the mood for both.
Speaking of Halloween - can't remember the last time I dressed up for Halloween. Can't remember the last time I saw a trick-or-treater. I remember being so embarrassed when we were little that we had to use pillow cases for trick or treating. Finally one year got a fancy pumpkin-looking basket to collect candy and realized they were smaller and fit less candy than the pillowcase. They were heavier too. Sometimes simpler is best.
Time has been flying by. Weekends are too short. Weekdays go too fast. Is this just part of aging? The more I facebook, the more I miss high school. I miss having those 5 minute breaks in the halls in between classes. It's kind of a good reset. Maybe at the end of every hour I should walk around the halls of my office. Too bad our carpet isn't orange.
Parents are difficult. I think adults hit a certain age where they start to reverse and act like a child again. When this happens, is it our responsibility to step in and be the voice of reason? I would like to think so, and am happy to do so, but Asian parents in particular still hold on to the tradition of "parents always above children" so they will never listen anyway.
Lulu reminds me more and more of Moley every day. I think it might be because she's breaking out of her shell and now has "only child" syndrome. She is constantly demanding attention and food. She knows how to get what she wants.
I had the biggest craving for Coldstone's the other day so Steve and I went, about 15 minutes to closing time. I normally get a Like It - Banana Ice Cream - Almonds - Chocolate Chips. Well, first they were out of Banana. After trying 4 flavors, settled on Vanilla... then they ran out of almonds. Ended up with Vanilla - Choco Chips - Brownie. Not as good as my usual.
I am in inbox hoarder. I don't organize my e-mail well. My personal e-mail, Closet Therapy e-mail, work e-mail. All of my inboxes have over 1000 e-mails. I'm pretty good about deleting spam, but nothing else. The ironic part is that even though I rarely delete, I seem to always delete e-mails that I need to refer back to later. Once my mom e-mailed me a recipe for BBQ chicken and I couldn't find it. Guess I deleted it.
Steve and I finished Halo 3. He let me play co-op with him and I think I did pretty good! I practiced a little on Halo 2 -- took me a few hours to learn how to walk. But now that's a total of 3 games I've finished, ever. Xenogears, Kingdom Hearts and now Halo 3.
Japan, here I come! (Finally)
Finally making the trek to Japan... will probably stay the week in Tokyo as Yona is not allowing me into her village. =) I can't wait!
I will be there 11/3 - 11/11... I haven't been on "vacation" with Yona since our trip to Honolulu/Maui. No shenanigans/piercings on this trip okay!!!