shipped!

I just called CafePress, just to make sure that nothing was wrong with the PDF file that I sent in this time, and they said my order was shipped out this morning!!! I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

before i forget

Last Friday, my work had a reorg.

Today, I met a very famous national figure.

words

I recently picked up a new “word” the other day.

fanwank: To fill in plot holes or explain away lapses in continuity in fictional works by coming up with (often convoluted) explanations of how it could have happened.

“But David used Sarah’s real name even though he never knew her before she changed her identity.”

“He could have read her file. He had access to it in episode seventeen and there were a few minutes when he could have flicked through it.”

There is a whole lot of fanwanking on the Lost forums on Television Without Pity lately.

my letter to my senator

Dear Senator Boxer,

I am writing with no other purpose but to thank you as profusely as I can for showing the courage and conviction that all statespeople should — but often find themselves unable to — in standing up for all of our votes, especially those of our fellow Americans in Ohio.

A great many details went wrong in our last election, and many things have gone wrong in the interim elections for years. Largely, as a nation, we had been able to ignore them because the system as a whole at least appeared to be working to ensure everyone’s votes. It seems that the nation has had an awakening in the course of the last few elections, and the myth that we wanted to believe about every vote counting and the sanctity of our right to vote were shattered forever for many of us. The documented stories that came out of this election were appalling. While I, too, did not hold out hope for a change in the final results, I feel that it was of the utmost importance that we as a nation address the issue of voter intimidation and various means of disenfranchisement, whether executed by purposeful individuals or merely a result of unfortunate circumstance. Each and every one of us should know for certain that our vote can and will be accurately counted in determining our leaders, and I applaud you for helping to bring this to light.

I am proud to have you as my senator in my home state of California, and want you to know that your works do not go unacknowledged. This act of courage will not be forgotten.

—

You can send your own email here:

http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

mishap

There was some problem with the PDF files I submitted to CafePress, so they cancelled my order. 🙁 Everyday, for the last week, I checked the order status page every 5-10 minutes that I was in front of my computer, heart beating rapidly with anticipation with the hopes that this time, this click, this refresh will be when my order goes from “Production” to “Shipped”. I felt so deflated. My voice broke embarrassingly when I spoke to the customer service people.

Seppo has kindly offered me his help to get it straightened out. He is very good to me.

I got two set of double-spaced, fixed-width, single-sided printouts for editing purposes from Fedex-Kinko’s today though, so at least I have that to work with.

bonkers

I am unable to keep from looking at my CafePress.com order history page. I peek every ten minutes or so, checking on the status of my last order. It has been listed as being in production for the last three or four days now.

The book I picked up in my last Amazon order, called something like Math-A-Day, is not very good. By that, I mean that it is too simplistic. I wanted to get challenging problems that could be done in fifteen minutes to an hour, but what I have are somewhat trivial problems that can be done in less than fifteen minutes. Perhaps I could use it as for warm-up exercises so that I can get in the right frame to tackle IMO-level* problems. I have a couple of books for that, but I need to train because they are totally unintelligible to me right now. I remember when they weren’t. Like anything else, you have to constantly hone your skills or you lose them. They seem vaguely familiar, but it’s like seeing someone you haven’t seem in twenty years.

* IMO refers to International Mathematics Olympiad. Geeked!

food + friends

It’s like all we’ve been doing is eating in the New Year.

• New Year’s Eve: A delicious home-cooked dinner courtesy of Alan and Becky, who totally rock. Pineapple and carrot to snack on, followed by beef, chicken, and fish skewers that were perfectly done, a fantastic cheese with bread, finished off with profiteroles (questionable spelling). There might have been more.
• New Year’s Day dimsum: Legendary Palace, avec A & B.
• New Year’s early dinner: traditional Japanese New Year’s fare, courtesy of Seppo’s mom, who graciously cooked us a most delicious meal which apparently took three days to prepare. Wow. Meal included a plate of five things (black beans, fish eggs, burdock maybe, anchovies, and konbu wrapped around what I think was chicken) to start, then a full meal with seared rare [some sort of red fish], shrimp tempura, two kinds of fishcakes, lotus root, taro, burdock again, beef rolled up with some stem-y julienned vegetable (maybe aparagus), [some sort of white fish], carrots, salad, and something else that I can’t quite remember right now [eta: it was shiitake!]. I know there was more. Heh. After that, we took a break and finished off with [japanese word for mochi and fishcake in bonito and konbu broth], which was really, really tasty. If I weren’t so full, I would have asked for another bowl. Heh.
• Day-after breakfast: Invited folks we could not see over Christmas and/or New Year’s, namely, Klay & Nana, Lindsi & Dara, Uyen & Charles, and Colin. There were french toast, scrambled eggs with vegetables, sour cream biscuit rolls, chocolate chocolate chip scones, sausage links, and pumpkin muffins, all homemade by various parties. Yum.
• Day-after dinner: broiled salmon fillets and grilled aparagus accompanied by yet more good cheese and bread.

I would say that the “eating in moderation” starts tomorrow, but I think I have to wait until after my sister comes to visit, because she has a lot of things she wants to go devour in her pacman-like manner. Wacka wacka wacka.

tivo, misunderstandings, and our four-legged ruler

Ever since TiVo’s December 17th giveaway of free TiVo sets, I have been obsessing about getting one. I didn’t go when they were giving it away, sure that it was going to be a mob and unsure if the fact that Seppo’s name was on the cable bill was going to be a problem. I never really thought about getting one before that, but I’ve been checking their web specials every day with hopes that the $49.99 refurb models are going to be on sale again. Heh. Ridiculous.

—

Even since my high school graduating class got a mailing list together to organize the ten year reunion, which took place last Thanksgiving weekend, I have been getting back in touch with many people. And it’s really nice. I had a conversation just today with a very nice person from school, and it was fantastic to catch up with her. The downer was that she had run into someone that she felt like was talking trash about me, and she felt like she would want to know if someone were spreading rumors about her, so she told me about it. After a series of inner debates about whether it was important for me to get in touch with the person in question, I decided, what the heck, I should find out what happened from the supposed maligner, to make sure that I’m not thinking ill of someone for something that was misinterpreted. It does seem like something was lost in the interaction, and the story-teller did not intend any harm, but was telling a story pertaining to himself, as to his own action in the matter, so I am glad I decided to get in touch with him. He is indeed as nice and decent a human being as I recall.

—

Mobi rules this household with an iron fist. Seppo and I shamelessly fawn over his every cute action. If I were a detached observer, I’d gag at our disgusting reactions. Hee.

year of the rooster

Well, not really until the lunar new year, but I’m not too picky.

We spent a lovely New Year’s Eve with Alan & Becky (and a little bit of it with Joe T. as well), full of food and fun and plain old good company. We watched the fireworks from their rooftop. It was a great way to end the old year and begin the new one.

Last year was a big year. Seppo and I got engaged. We both got new jobs. I refinanced my house. We moved downstairs. We got a dog. My dad got released and was deported. My sister had her second and last baby. My brother brought home his girlfriend for the first time. I wrote a first draft of a novel. Seppo released his second commercial video game through his job, and completed his first independent game with a small group of friends. There were some very horrible things too: Bush, continued ground war in Iraq, tsunami disaster. I hope this year brings progress on all fronts.

Seppo and I decided that we should set a date by the end of January. Then we can start to plan the wedding in earnest. Seppo and I both want to lose weight/get fit this year. Due in part to the new jobs, we’ve each gained a noticeable amount of weight and have become increasingly sedentary in our day-to-day lives, despite the addition of the dog. I would like to cook more at home. I get to work from home one day a week, so I want to plan to get groceries delivered on a day when I’m home during the week, so that we can avoid using up time on a weekend to shop. I can also cook dinner that day of the week while Seppo is in transit.

I would like to come up with some sort of a permanently workable financial solution for my family. If we can figure out something, I feel like we’d be able to save money better for getting married, having children, and even retiring at some point in our lives. As it is, I rather feel like we are bleeding money.

Here’s to 2005.

draft stats

4.18″ x 6.88″

10 pt Palatino Linotype font

2 pages of one-side only front matter

259 pages

21 chapters

1 extremely giddy woman