I have a vision of the future

My ultra-comfortable astigmatism-correcting contact lenses and stylish new glasses will arrive in the next few days. I am so excited! I put away a decent chunk of cashola (into my MSA account) so that I could actually get stylish glasses and the thinnest possible lenses for the first time in my life.

I can’t wait. Thanks to Uyen for being so patient in picking them out.

Movie (non-)Review: Brokeback Mountain

Highly recommended. Please go watch.

I never knew

I had no idea that San Francisco had its own Korean American Film Festival! The 4th one is in fact running from February 7th (Tuesday) to February 12th (Sunday). Neat! I really hope I can manage to go to one or two things, even though I am severely overbooked and kind of tired all around.

If anyone who reads this has any interest in attending any of the movies, let me know. I will post which ones I would be interested in later. Of course, what I’m interested in and what I can actually get away from work early enough to attend are two different matters.

taxed

Just finished filing taxes. Need to check back in 24-48 hours. Woo!

Merritt Bakery

Crap. Merritt Bakery had a fire Thursday morning and will be closed indefinitely. I hope “indefinitely” translates to “only for a really short time”, but fire insurance claims can take a very long time to get approved.

We love you Merritt Bakery! 🙁 I love their crisp, fluffy waffles with whipped butter.

free money

No, no one else deposited money in my account. 😀 Oh wait, actually, they did. Amazon’s Associate Program earned me $15.55 last quarter. I noticed the deposit into my checking account just yesterday. Those earning are just on my Christmas purchases, really, using my general referral link and not even the direct product links, which bring a bigger return.

Also, since switching Seppo & my mutual spendings (gas, food, etc) to our Citibank Mastercard in October, we’ve already gotten back something like $115 on money we needed to spend anyway.

Lovely!

enjoy the funny

Who doesn’t love when O’Reilly gets called out on his idiocy? onegoodmove: Olbermann Skewers O’Reilly, Again

Not I.

random observations

For all you potential and current homeowners with some sort of a lawn, I have a tip for you. Never use any of the following as ground cover, or you will regret it to your dying day:

• juniper
• ivy
• mint

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I went to a very large high school that was probably 30% black, 34% white, 20% asian, 15% hispanic, and 1% other. This is a completely random guess-pulled-out-of-my-butt, based on what I can remember. As a result, there are so many people I had interacted with of any particular one of those races that I don’t hold any individual in my mind as an archetype of a racial background. Not at all because I’m a better person than anyone — because, as much as I would like to think I am, I’m simply not — but because I am just used to lots of different people, I never think to myself, “This is how white people are,” or “This is how black people are.” I can see how easy it would be if you’ve only been friends with one person of a specific race to think to yourself, “Hmm, my Asian friend says this about Asians, so I guess it’s probably true.” I hold people I meet accountable as individuals, not representatives of their race or socio-economic background. I would eventually like to send my future kids to a school with a good racial mix so that they can experience the same kind of diversity I did growing up.

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Listening to the State of the Union address made me want to scream. Actually, in the car last night as I was driving to Seppo’s work from my work, I screamed as loudly as I can, “F&*% YOU!!” at Bush on the radio. I think his presidency is ruining, among many many many many other more important things, my equanimity and my blood pressure.

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Hearing my sister upset really tears me up inside and makes me want to go on a violent rampage. There goes my equanimity again.

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I finally bumped a really painful bug off my queue and am so happy.

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I don’t think I mentioned it earlier, but I have been promoted (on paper) to Software Engineer 5, T17. I have no idea what T17 means, but my guess is it’s some weird internal code that refers to the pay scale. How weird. Anyway, the odd thing is that I’ve been considered a level 5 Software Engineer (basically, a senior software engineer) since about… 2000? 2001? Maybe not level 5, quite, but I’ve had the senior title since about then. I lost it when I came to my new job, because I was inexperienced in the things I am working in right now, but they gave me back the title because they saw that I was performing to their expectations. Yay! But it was still weird to be “promoted” to what I had been thinking of myself for years.

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I can’t even speak about Alito without wanting grab my head and shake myself for hours. So I won’t. There is a discussion at Angry Chad though.

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Seppo and I constantly talk about the differences in our mental lives. My guess is that I could go on months of “down-time” if no one was making me feel guilty about it. Seppo gets antsy and needs to work/create/clean/something with even just a day off. I think that I often feel so mentally and emotionally drained that I have not yet in my life hit a satiation point for feeling mentally rested. I look forward to when I do. 🙂

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I hate asshole drivers.

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Holly sent me a link to MagKnits which has this on the front page:

Hee!

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Arrested Development ROCKS!!!!!!!! I ::heart:: Jason Bateman.

days go by

Saturday was another trip to Vik’s Chaat. We went w/ Alan and Becky, and damn but the mango lassis we had were great! Yum. I can taste it now.

Sunday, we met with a wonderful woman who will be our officiant for our wedding. We spoke to her for something like 1.5 hrs and had a great impression of her and her style. Mainly, she seemed interested in getting to know “our story” so that she can convey correctly what we want to. Fingers crossed for great final results! 😀 Seppo had a pork burger and I had some fries at a Hawaiian burger place while we talked. It was delicious.

Sunday, Monday, and today are the three days of New Year’s! Lunar new year, that is. I think Monday is the “actual” day, but maybe it was Sunday. I don’t know. As tradition dictates, I made a rice cake soup (full ingredient list: sliced rice cake, sliced brisket, a can of low sodium beef broth, one egg, three scallions, some water, some salt and pepper) for “breakfast” (ok, lunch) on Sunday.

We’ll be finished with the invitations this week. For real. And we’ll send them out at the end of the week or early next week. There, now I’ve said it and we’ll have to stand by it now. 😀

Coretta Scott King died early this morning. It’s a sad day indeed. She will live in history as a passionate activist who worked tirelessly and serves as such an example to those who carry on. Rest in peace, Mrs. King.

Another food-tastic day

We got back not too long ago from a tasting at the hotel where we are having the reception. Man, the chef is awesome! Just about everything we had was fantastic: perfectly seasoned and cooked, interesting combinations of flavors, and great visual presentation. The vegetarian option, in particular, was really freaking great, partly because a lot of places sort of don’t put their best into a vegetarian meal, so this was extra impressive.

Seppo’s mom had a chance to look around the venue and get ideas for decoration options. She came up with a great idea for the table decorations, which I really liked, and is tossing around lots of ideas for what to do with the rest.

By sheer coincidence, the cake matches our invitations, which sort of (not reeeeeallly) match the bridesmaids’ dress colors. We didn’t plan it that way, but I guess we are naturally drawn to certain colors.

Tonight, we are hitting Angelfish again for Seppo’s mom’s monthly “thanks for dogsitting” dinner. 🙂