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. 😀
flickr
I’ve signed up for flickr. Hopefully, I’ll be better about posting photos now. If this goes well, maybe around my birthday, I’ll get myself a pro account for a year so I can dump all my photos here. 😀 Enjoy my three whole photos!! Fear the three!!!one!!eleven!!!!
midweek update
I’ve been working pretty hard these past weeks. I really love my job. I know I’ve gushed about it before. But there is not a day when I go into work when I think to myself, “Gee, I wish I worked somewhere else.” Well, except for a day a few weeks ago when I saw a series of photos that someone took of their tour to Pixar. Heh. I really enjoy working with the people we have. I think we have a fantastic group. I really enjoy using our product. I enjoy the constant learning and introduction of new hardware.
Speaking of fantastic groups and enjoyable workplaces, I have spoken to several people from my Supernews/remarQ days recently. I really miss working with them. They were the first people I met out in California, and they were like family. We saw each other day in, day out. We stayed at the office long after all our work was done. Almost everyone was single, and had no one to go home to in the evening, so we ate dinner together, watched movies together, and generally bonded together. The family atmosphere really helped when we were working together. I think back on those times, and half-wish we could go back to those days. But now, we have people to go home to, for the most part, and have different groups of friends, and things are good in a different way. I think I should become more proactive about seeking them out though. I had lunch with Linda last week, and it was really, really great. Next week, I am going to have dinner with Lim, Alan, and Gene. Woo! I can’t wait. I told Lim to remember to ask Ashlee. OH! I will see if Edy is free. I will have to remember to ask him. I hope I don’t forget. My mind has been on the fritz lately.
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Lots of birthdays are coming up. My mom’s is next week, and my niece’s is 10 days after that. Then two weeks after that is my little bro’s b-day. Then mother’s day! Eek!
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I am so late on this boat, but I have been reading Wil Wheaton’s blog lately. Stand By Me was my favorite movie to come out of the 80s, and is probably in my top three movies of all time (though I’d be hard pressed to tell you what the other two are, if you were to ask), so it has been fascinating to look into his personal blog and discover that he’s like a lot of people I know. Weird.
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I bought these shoes in black: 
They are called “Macroscopic” and I don’t know why. It’s weird that shoes are named in this fashion. I saw another pair of shoes called “Microphone”, which I thought was funny, since they totally look like shoes your hold to your mouth as you sing into the mirror. It weirds me out when bras are named. I don’t want to wear a “Melissa” or anything, frankly.
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I love Seppo very, very, very much.
firefox is so cool
I didn’t notice until today how to use the “Live Bookmarks” feature of Firefox. It’s really another rss/atom reader, but it’s so cool how it integrates into the browsing experience. Read the how-to here. It’s very easy. I strongly recommend putting your favorite rss/atom subscriptions into your “Bookmarks Toolbar Folder”. This lets you have one-click access to the most recent entries. Nice.
perspective
It’s strange how things can seem really big when they aren’t. I was stressed out this week because I was having a lot of laptop network issues, and ended up losing a week’s worth of prevously completed work due to a backup mishap, in addition to the actual days lost on trying to get this issue resolved. But you know, it’s really not a big deal. So I have to work this weekend to make up the work, but I can live with that. I’ve had worse deadlines. I was feeling so sorry for myself when I heard from my friend Holly that someone broke into her apartment and made off with a bunch of things. That is such a terrible thing to happen. There is the loss of things, but more importantly, there is the loss of keepsakes that your memories are tied to, as well as the loss of the sense of security and safety in your own home. The feeling that someone can interrupt and manipulate your life at their will at any time doesn’t leave for a long time after things like this.
I lost merely some data that has no personal value to me, and I got so upset. But that doesn’t compare at all to having things that have personal meaning get taken. I hope against hope that my friend will be able to recover some of her stuff somehow.
Tonight I spent time with some good friends and some good food. It was how life should be.
tv roundup
The best/most fun shows on tv right now (for me) are the following:
- MI-5
- The Dog Whisperer
- What Not To Wear (both UK and US versions)
- America’s Test Kitchen
I note that none of these shows are on the network stations. Oh crap, I’m wrong, because I forgot to include Lost. I feel like I traded in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for What Not To Wear, and Good Eats for America’s Test Kitchen. While I enjoyed the other two, I feel like I definitely traded up in some sense. I guess in a way, Lost is my stand-in for Survivor.
Seriously, if you have a dog or are considering getting one, check out The Dog Whisperer on the National Geographic channel. You’ll either learn a lot or laugh a lot, or possibly both.
blogs amok
Lately, I’ve been keeping my eye on the following non-friend, non-political blogs, which range anywhere from totally frivolous to somewhat productive (ok, not really):
* Uncapitalized because the website writes it that way.
I have a couple more that I’m trying out in my daily rotation, but some are just waaaay too involved (like the weird spy-esque blogs) and fall off my radar. I find that the ones above are pretty good to provide a good 5-minute entertainment break during the day. I’ve been glimpsing at 43 Folders and Lifehacker, which I lifted from another blog. 😀
food.helava.com
I figured I should stop littering my blog with food-only entries and pretend to have a life outside of that, so I created a separate blog for Seppo and me to post to for food related stuff. http://food.helava.com, feed at http://food.helava.com/atom.xml.