meh

I've been extremely absent-minded lately. Why? I'm not entirely sure. But today, I stopped at a green light, stared off into space, and then suddenly realized... I was stopped at a green light. duh.
I've been missing my freeway exit, missing my own driveway, overlooking a few things at work... but it's ok :) Ok that my mind is starting to slip... haha

I almost wrote to someone I hadn't talked to in ages today. I was going to apologize, in part for my stupidity a few years past. But then I stumbled across some old emails and good ol' common sense stirred right back up. What's the point? Let old dogs lie, they say.

For a brief moment though, the similarities were astounding.

I bet I'm going to forget what the hell this all meant when I check back again. Writing at nearly 5 in the morning is never good for me. Especially if I've been up for nearly 24 hours...

damn these responsibilities

No on Prop 8

Today, Oct 12th, 2008, marks the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death.

I didn't even remember who he was until I saw an article on the front page of yahoo. I wiki'd him and... I think it's extremely sad that 10 years later, I feel like we as HUMANS (particularly as Americans-and I mean the ones of the U.S) haven't come very far. Not only was this a heinous crime, what made it even WORSE was this:

The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, led by Fred Phelps, picketed Shepard's funeral as well as the trial of his assailants,^[32][33] displaying signs with slogans such as "Matt Shepard rots in Hell", "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" and "God Hates Fags".^[34] When the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled that it was legal to display any sort of religious message on city property if it was legal for Casper's Ten Commandments display to remain, Phelps attempted and failed to gain city permits in Cheyenne and Casper to build a monument "of marble or granite 5 or 6 feet (1.8 m) in height on which will be a bronze plaque bearing Shepard's picture and the words: "MATTHEW SHEPARD, Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22."

WHAT THE FUCK?!! (In my defense, 10 years ago I was just starting high school and basically.. did not know shit. I vaguely remember hearing about this but it didn't affect my little bubble of a world.) I understand there are a lot of zealous Christians out there who are just as appalled and aghast at things like this, so by no means am I directing any sort of animosity towards them. Like the anti-war protestors of our day--what makes these people think it's okay to intrude on ANY sort of memorial service with their so-called religious messages?! I am not religious, and I don't believe there is a "hell" so it's not particularly impactful to me when someone tells me to go to "hell" (I may already be there ha!) other than me perceiving it as one of this persons's worse imaginable insults he/she can hurl at me. I do not support the current war, but I also don't believe soldiers should be insulted or spit on, not to mention the amount of disrespect one may receive, alive or dead. It's just so incredible that such close-minded people still exist in this world... and it makes me ashamed to call myself, well, human.

So in this tune, I hope everyone votes NO on Prop. 8. When will people learn that "separate but equal" does not work?! And really, if two people love each other, who are we to limit their possibilities? I may not think marriage is a big deal, but then again I'm probably just taking it for granted. If same-sex couples wish to marry, I absolutely believe they should be able to. This bullshit about "protecting marriage" is exactly that - pure bullshit. So it's okay to Britney Spears to run off to vegas and have a marriage for 18 hours? THAT'S how sacred a marriage is? And it's okay that maybe most people don't think marriage completely through and so we end up with a high divorce rate?

Ugh.

Mail Goggles

Google is freaking awesome... I love labs! Check out their new Mail Goggles

Funny post about it -
http://rachelblog.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/dear-google-ily/

Pretty hilarious, although I don't know of too many people who drunk email. Drunk IM or phone calls, but email? That would take a lot of concentration...

Nevertheless, a pretty spiffy idea. Love the Firefox "drunk lock" hahaha!

Green Day got it right...

There are SO many things wrong with this.
1. Going off on vacation to Hawaii makes no sense whatsoever? It's not enough that he grew up there, and his grandmother, sister, and other family live there?
2. Really, you know Hawaii is a state? Because it sure doesn't sound like you do. It's been a state for the majority of your life!
3. Hawaii is foreign and exotic? Oh gosh darn, is it because there are a good number of "brown people" there?
4. Where the hell is Myrtle beach? I guess it makes a lot more sense to fly your own private jet and condo in Myrtle beach to go vacationing instead of visiting your GRANDMOTHER in the state that you grew up in (which is also a state that many of us lowly middle classers vacation in)!
5. There are four other people sitting at that table, and they all agree with her comments.

Senator Akaka's response
Opinion from SFGate

Sigh.

daydreaming

I was driving home today from work on auto-pilot, daydreaming away, when I looked up and realized I had missed my exit.

These times fly by so quickly.

an update

The next morning after my last post, I was presented with an opportunity at work that allowed me to switch teams and begin an entirely new role. How funny is that? I accepted, of course (even though I made mgmt wait an entire day for my response). I had been increasingly despondent at work, even to the point where I was actively searching despite everyone's warnings about our uncertain economy, unemployment rates, and lack of security at a new job. Anyway, so the good news is that I start tomorrow! I've been pretty happy for the past week, basically handing over my current duties to someone else... woohoo! But we'll see if this is just delaying the inevitable or if :::gasp::: I can actually enjoy my job. I am predicting the former - sorry, more of a skeptic here than an optimist!

So the BROWN SHOES have not been out in a while, but the brown sandal has...


You can't really tell, but this was taken in Portland, Oregon (haha). I was there last week visiting some family - and I have a LOT of family up there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to explore the city like I'd wanted to, but I did eat dim sum quite a bit. And trust me, MPK is 100x better - not that you would have ever thought Portland could be!

Yummy yum yum

Kinda funny and sad, depending on how you look at it - when you're landing at PDX the first thing you notice are the buildings interspersed among trees, but when you land at LAX, you notice trees interspersed among buildings...

What else have I been up to? Several baby showers... all for girls (where did the boys go??), and babies (pics not to be posted w/o permission of the doting parents!).

Amongst other things I am now too tired to write about... but I leave you with a clip from strange fruit performing in downtown LA:

Ok forget it... for some reason, blogger won't let me upload videos. booo

Look further

When we were younger, we were afforded the ability to imagine great possibilities - there was so much beyond our world we didn't know about. We could study and regard every new thing with impatience and impracticality. Look beyond our means, we were asked.

Now that we're older, we must watch what we say, imagine only what is within our means, and asked not to be impractical.

Sometimes, the very same people who challenged us to look further are now the ones asking us to be more realistic and take the safe, time-tested route.

Do we impose this upon ourselves? On each other? Is it awareness of societal expectations?

Do you see the obvious or do you look beyond?

<3

Sometimes you can find love in the most unexpected places...

Like in your food.

Thanks to everyone who remembered and/or came out to celebrate my quarter-century mark with me! =)
It's always nice to spend what would otherwise be a depressing time with the most awesome people I know.

Speaking of love, happy anniversary to the best boyfriend in the world!

Inspiration

I am my own brick wall.

I have to repeat that and remember it everyday.

=-=-=-=-=

On another note, I really need to clean my nasty keyboard
...that's dust, I swear

excited for this weekend! =)

burn burn burn

That's me. Burnt.

I feel like everything that happened this past week has me completely burnt out. Maybe it was the 6 hour car ride on Saturday, lack of sleep, seeing an overturned van on the 101 with toys scattered across the lanes of the freeway, going to a funeral on Sunday (unrelated to van incident), various "dramas" I should not be involved in, an overbearing manger at work, demanding specialists that I work with, realizing how much my family depends on me, that I will be turning 25 in a few short weeks, and that if I don't leave my job by the end of the year I just may crack...

At the end of the day, after spending 10 straight hours at work, I walked straight to my car, sat, and just cried for the first time in a long time.

I don't know why. I guess it just all came out - all the frustration and I guess, the weariness of being THAT person.

I gave myself 5 minutes, shook off my frustration from work, and then pulled out of the parking lot... off to be the dutiful shoulder for another.

thrice the pain

So...
I fell off a tricycle yesterday.

...

How the hell does ANYONE fall off a friggin' tricycle?? Only me, apparently! And well, ok... I didn't really fall - it was more of a flying motion where I saw the front of my handlebars go under me and the asphalt quickly approaching my face. My legs now look like I got beat up by Tonya Harding's bodyguard. I have huge bruises ON my knees, bruises on the SIDE of my knees, and a hole in my pinky toe (because landing on the asphalt wasn't bad enough, I went and stubbed my toe on a clothing rack at PacSun - damn me for being so klutzy!)

There is, of course, a story behind this all that includes a bunch of bad decisions (including one to trust someone with the last name of BE). Five of us decided to head to Santa Monica to hang out, and we rented some kickass "go-cart" tricycles to ride around the beach.


Being the only doofus in the group who can't ride a bike, this was perfect for me! That is, until this BE fella pulled up next to me...

be: "take my hand!"
Not thinking twice and placing my utmost trust in him, I let go of one of my handlebars and reach out my hand to his. Meanwhile almost in slow motion behind us, I hear SL yell, "Don't do it!" But it's too late, I've grabbed onto his hand, and think hey, this isn't so bad because I can stop peddling and just let BE pull me along. Next thing I know, JP has pulled up on the other side of me... "take my other hand!"

For a split second, I hesitate. How can I control my handlebars if I'm grabbing on to both of them? And in a flash of stupid brilliance, I think oh, I'll just control it with my elbows!

So I retract my elbows, reach out to JP, and at the same time, BE pulls on my other hand, completely killing my "steering with the elbows" plan. My elbow straightens out on the left side, my handlebars turn, and in less than 5 seconds, the front wheel hits BE's bike, goes underneath his seat, sticks, and I fly over my handlebars and land palms out and knees scrapin' on the asphalt. =(

My first thought? Damn, should have listened to SL.



My basket flew off my bike too. On the bright side, it was a beautiful day to go outside and go bike riding around the beach =) Some of these little treasures helped with the pain:


Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica... YUM!

Boots with the fur... (with the fur)

I have to admit, I've fallen.

FOR THE BOOTS! So I bought myself some Khombu boots back in December when I was heading up to Mammoth for a few days, and these are the MOST comfy/warm boots I've ever owned. They're not the most stylish, but in this case I choose function over form:

Unlike Uggs, they are actually weatherproof and designed for the cold. I took these babies ski-dooing with me and they kept my feet nice and dry! I've been wearing them to work and hoping that no one will notice I'm not wearing heels or dress boots and so far so good ;) I feel like I have to maximize my wear on them whenever it rains or else I'll never get a chance to wear them.

Anyway, so did you hear? Edison Chen is quitting showbiz! Not surprisingly, there has been a buttload of backlash after his sex scandal pics were revealed online, but that's only because he's a HK star. Can you imagine this happening in the US? What would happen??!!

Oh wait, we already know. Release some scandalous pictures and your fame skyrockets (ie Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Vanessa Hudgens). Instead, the female HK celebrities are victims in this scandal - their careers will probably now slide downhill and they'll be shunned from the entertainment industry as well as by their families and fans. I guess we'll see in the months to come, but damn... Edison is cute, but to get all these cute female celebs is kinda crazy. Gotta respect the guy's major mojo!

Ugh, I have the writing skills of a jr high schooler.

Looks like my hopes of getting laid off from work have been dashed - my company's doing better than I thought. I need a severance check to get my ass in gear and get the ball rolling on looking for a job I might actually enjoy. I barely have enough motivation to write in this blog. Mmm... speaking of motivation, I think I'll go make myself some of my latest addiction: MUNG BEAN NOODLES! YUMMO! =)

Oh, but before I go, you should know that CHILI CHEESE FRIES ARE BACK at Carl's Jr.......... I'm SO THERE. =D

blur

It's insane how some people can inspire or evoke such emotion through words, especially when paired with music. I fail to have this ability, and am in awe of those who possess it.

I wish I could inspire others. Instead I'm just another speck in this great big world. Probably the only emotion I can invoke through words is anger. hahahaha

The sad thing is that I'm not kidding. I don't think I'm destined for greatness.

I feel like


I don't know what I'm talking about. I shouldn't even be awake.

A Look Back

Despite all my complaining, I have to say that 2007 was a pretty damn good year. It's been over for 9 days and I miss it already! So what did I accomplish in 2007? Not a whole lot career-wise (IMO, anyway), but elsewhere I think I did ok!

Firsts:


Visited NYC

Very unclear picture of a cupcake from Magnolia's

Chicago!

It's beautiful in the fall

Hong Kong in the summer

The edge of Lan Kwai Fong

Beijing one year before the olympics

Walking part of the Great Wall

Working in London

I have a love-hate relationship with this trip

Visiting Paris for the day

So disappointed by the Eiffel Tower...

And trip number 2 to Japan... I loooOOooOove Japan!

Food is so yummy in Japan that it deserves 2 pictures

You could also consider this as traveling... skydiving!! Rated best experience of 2007

Before the jump


Weeee!


Landing... =) but =( at the same time

Other cool things about 2007:
Flew business class for the first time
Had the best birthday celebration ever
Mammoth and SKI-DOOING
Living on my own for 5 weeks out of the country
Vegas a billion times
Clubbing with my girls a billion times

Hm... but how come I took 224 hours of vacation from work (28 days) and I'm still so disgruntled?

On to 2008! What will it bring me?