Category Archives: Uncategorized
time to renew!
My birthday is still months away, but the DMV sent me a renewal form as my license is set to expire this year. Using this handy thing I’ve heard of called The Internets, I was able to renew my license in about 1 minute + $25. I think it is only for people who don’t have to retake their pics yet. You need the renewal PIN that they send you in the mail.
Awesome!
I spoke to my little cousin yesterday on IM. She is about 17 years old and doesn’t remember me at all. What a bummer, but I haven’t seen her since she was like 4 or 5 years old, so I didn’t really expect her to. It turns out that I’m waaaaay more family-oriented than I ever thought I would be when I was much younger, and have this urge to get in touch with all sort of cousins now. Heh. It’s strange talking to a 17 year old, because I know that it wasn’t all that long ago and that I remember vividly what it was like to be that age, but I also know that from the standpoint of a teenager, someone pushing 30 seems ridiculously old and out of it. Oh well.
my food pyramid
So I’m sure that you know that the food pyramid recommendations have changed quite a bit, but you know about this convenient food tracker that the government supplies for free? It’s not that great, and it’s not too fast, but it’s pretty convenient. I’ve been trying to see how I fare, by just sort of tracking how I eat for a week without making any conscious changes from the norm, and see if I’m drastically far from what they recommend or not.
note to self:
Don’t start reading flickr comments and notes when you should be doing some catch-up work.
chilling out
This weekend, Seppo and I purposely decided not to have a big dinner, and just to chill out. Friday night, we had dinner at Zao’s then hung out at the book store for a while. I caved and bought
Saturday was a day of running errands, none of which actually got done in any sort of satisfacory manner. We went to LensCrafters, but I found out that they aren’t covered directly by VSP, so I decided against getting glasses there. Then we went to lunch at the Emeryville Public Market, then to Dansk in Berkeley to find some dishes. We didn’t find what we wanted there, so we just walked around a bit in the Fourth Street shopping district, popping into some more house/kitchenware stores, all to no avail. But it was a beautiful day and we had a good time walking around. We stopped by at the local Farmer’s Market and bought… nothing. Heh. We couldn’t break our trend.
We had dinner with Alan, Becky, and Joe at Samwon Barbeque House, then grabbed some ice cream at a place down the street from our house, then played Apples to Apples. They played a well-matched game, totally shutting me out for a good half the game. Heh. I suck at that game. You should see me play mini-golf. Getting back to Korean bbq, I think if I remember, I will write up a guide to getting good Korean food in the food blog.
I spent a bunch of time after the guests left picking through some old pics and uploading them to flickr, since the month changed, and flickr resets your upload limit on the first of every month. I’m still holding out on getting a pro account until it’s my birthday, so I can have a legit reason to spend money, since we are, after all, trying to be more frugal, and I’ve already bought a book and some clothes this month.
Today was a lazy day. We went to Merritt Bakery & Restaurant with Klay and had the usual waffle et al brunches. I highly recommend this place for waffles. Hmm, if I remember, I should blog a review of this place in the food blog too. Yeah, sure I will.
house shuffle
It looks like around the middle of May, there is going to be a house shuffle. One of our housemates is moving out (to what sounds like a really cool place near one of our favorite food joints, Geta), the other housemate is going to move downstairs to our current room, and we are going to move into two of the smaller bedrooms upstairs. Joe is going to move into the big bedroom upstairs as well.
It looks like Mobi enjoys the upstairs. We’ve always kept the door closed between the upstairs and the downstairs so that the dog wouldn’t bother the upstairs housemates, but after the shuffle, it looks like it’s going to be ok with everyone to let him go where he wants (except bedrooms). He seems to like the upstairs a lot because there is more sunlight, and the windows are lower so he can look outside without “standing”. I’ve been mindful of the fact that this means that more of the house will be susceptible to the dreaded dog-hair-over-everything syndrome, so I have been trying to make a conscious effort to sweep up little areas more often, so that I get into a habit of it.
It was kind of a bummer because I thought Seppo and I had been making quite a bit more of conscious effort into keeping the kitchen tidy when we use it nowadays, but it was made clear to us — albeit in a completely not unkind way — that the fruits of our labor were not noticeable. It’s always a bummer when you think you are making a difference for the better and really trying to change your habits to be more accomodating, only to find that all the effort really isn’t paying off. I hope it will be better when we move upstairs. It’s kind of weird because right now, I feel sort of like I’m not “in my space” when I go upstairs, so I try to get in, cook some food, and get out, so I often forget to go back to clean up right away, but I think once we are upstairs, and the upstairs/downstairs door remains open, this feeling will go away and we’ll be able to care for the spaces more naturally. This also extends to the rodent situation.
In the next few weeks, we’ll be compressing some of our stuff and really trying to make an effort to throw some things away and sell some stuff. I really like living upstairs. I love the view from the back windows and how lovely the backyard looks in the springtime. It’s just breathtaking at times. Also, I used to pay more attention to what was going on in the backyard when we lived upstairs. I put in a fair amount of time to container gardening, which I had discontinued in the time I have been living downstairs.
I think, overall, this will be a good move for everyone. Our housemate who is moving out was clearly unhappy with the situation, so I think it is good that she is going somewhere where she’ll be happy. Our other roommate will be happy to live in the finished downstairs, after a long while of living in a half-done room. I’ll be happy to be upstairs with the sunshine and easier access to public areas. I think Seppo will be happy for the same reasons too. I think our new housemate will be happy to get out from his house. Mobi will enjoy having the run of the house.
font
I’m trying out a smaller font size — it’s only supposed to be one pixel smaller, but because of font scaling, I think it appears to be much smaller than I had hoped. Please let me know if it is annoyingly small or pleasantly tidy-looking (which is what I was going for), and I’ll adjust accordingly. It could be that changing the font face to something that appears slightly bigger that this pixel size (I know that sounds paradoxical, and indeed it is, but web browsers and fonts are fickle that way) will make things better.
Anyway, let me know if this is teh suX0rs. *cough*
a smattering of scattered thoughts
My dad got a job. Yay! My sister is having trouble selling her house. Boo.
I’ve just cancelled my netflix membership, because we haven’t been watching enough movies to warrant keeping it.
Dangerous Hacker! I giggled uncontrollably in my cube, reading about this “hacker” who keeps crashing his own computer, then eventually wipes all his own drives. I hadn’t realized that having a firewall is considered “girly” by “hackers”. Hahaha!
The Firefly trailer is out, and I’m trying to avoid it but am severly tempted. It looks like people are excited about it, which is a good sign.
I had dinner at an ox tail place on Telegraph Ave (northwest corner) last night with Seppo and Sang. Man, that place was fantastic! It’s very small and homey, and the menu is quite limited, but what they had was great. The kimchee was spectacular. It really tasted home-made.
I bought a pair of everyday jeans and a pretty little skirt this past weekend. Old Navy is like Starbucks — I don’t want to go there, but because it’s so convenient, I end up there anyway instead of small local stores. It’s not like their selection is that great, but they have a lot of fairly cheap stuff and a few nice things mixed in. Most importantly, they have sizes that fit me correctly. There are many many places where I’m just in between their stock sizes, so either something is way too small or way too big, but Old Navy and Gap have sizes that work for me. I feel like I’m so over on the darkside. Bleh. Hrm, I just tried to find a pic of the skirt, but I can’t find it. I will be wearing it to two summer weddings in June, along with my new shoes. Now I just need a top that is appropriate.
I am so getting new glasses this weekend! My current ones are getting on my nerves.
Seppo and I have been working on tearing out the grass from our front lawn(s). We put some dark plastic sheeting over one patch that we are done with. We’ll likely take upwards of one month to get everything pulled out and covered up, but hopefully, we’ll be able to plant some good, low-maintenance perennials a few weeks after that.
A few weeks ago, Lindsi pointed me to this wesbite for temporary apartment rentals in Paris. I think this will help us save $$ on our honeymoon.
Speaking of Lindsi, I saw her two times this past weekend! It was really cool. She & Dara came over for dinner on Saturday, along with Osamu & Mariko, and Klay, joining Colin, Seppo, and me. It was like some sort of weird Sega reunion. I think we had salmon and tritip with lots of veggies. Uyen & Charles dropped by for a little bit too. Afterwards, the bunch of us (minus L & D who had to go) and Joe watched “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring Again” which was about some monks, the cycles of life, passions & violence, redemption, and some other stuff. It was a disqueting film thematically, and a quietly stunning one visually. Sunday, we went into the city to have dinner at Lindsi’s (an excellent and moist pot roast) then go to MJ’s, but we were so tired from the lawn activities earlier in the day that we opted to turn in and go back home to rest up. We are so lame, but it was a good idea.
obsess/repossess
Seppo said some time ago that I have an obsessive personality. Which, I have to admit, was pretty shocking for me to hear, because I had no inkling of this. I mean, I am so disorganzed, so I assumed I couldn’t be this way. But I thought about it, and he’s right. When I like something, I find out everything I can about it. I spend hours scouring the web about it. I poke and prod at it incessantly for weeks or months at a time. If it’s a new author, I will devour all the books written by her/him. If it’s a new tv show, I will TiVo and watch every episode I can and read about it on www.televisionwithoutpity.com. If it’s a dog breed, I will read every training tip I can get my hands on. If it’s a trip to Paris, I will read about every arrondissement until I find the perfect location to plan around. If it’s a blog, I will play with several templates before I find the one I like. If it’s a new project, I will tweak every little part of it that I know in order to understand it in its entirety. If it’s a sandwich, I will rearrange it until every bite is uniform in thickness and layers.
And if it’s an egg sandwich, I will make it perfectly square.
Er… Anyway.
So the newest thing is www.picasa.com + www.flickr.com. I mean, it’s magical. I’m finding photos that I don’t even remember taking. I’m posting them far more often that I do with my crappy php photo program (which sucks — don’t use phpGraphy!), so I can actually share them with the people I want to. There are privacy settings, so I don’t have to worry about some creep on the internet collecting pics of my awesome adorable nieces. Picasa and Flickr are really inspiring me to learn more about how I can take better pics. I can see my friends’ pics, and they are so much brighter and sharper and just plain old more pleasant to view than mine, and I want to learn how to make mine like theirs. I am interested in documenting little daily tidbits that I will look back on many years from now, just like I do with my blogger entries every so often. These little photos and entries trigger some great memories that were hidden somewhere that I had forgotten about.
eta: I corrected the spelling of “repossess”. Heh.
he’s looking at you
But he doesn’t see you. Creepy. Really, I’m just testing blogging from flickr. i am experimenting with the layout to see what I like the best, but I’m not sure yet.
Note: Email me if you are family or friend, and I’ll add you as such so that you can see my non-public photos. 😀