anjira's Xanga

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:00:59 GMT

What’s up, M.I.N.D.

Was reminded of our 60 minutes thing when someone linked me an article about some study pinpointing an “autism gene.” Hit up the website to check and apparently it aired yesterday. A little weird seeing these people I’ve worked with being interviewed, our research space all dramatized, and the projects chopped up into 13 minutes.

Happy year of the pig, fatties.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:20:42 GMT

Hellooo

I need to do something with this page. Revamp. Recode. Full CSS layout. Which requires learning . . . Which requires time . . . Which requires not feeling like I want to stab my eyes out an hour after getting home from work. Work is good though. Our living room is naked and I should start learning how to cook things. Going home for Chinese New Years this weekend! Ahhh food.

This job is going to make a wrist brace my own personal fashion statement.

Went to Sprinkles for the first time this morning. Previous drive-bys = “Oh hell no.” They’re good cupcakes and look incredibly cute, but an hour long wait during lunch hour on Valentines day? Are you serious? For cupcakes?! I’d heard about the store from Tiff awhile ago, yet only came across the press stuff yesterday and it’s pretty mind blowing. Who’da thunk baked goods could turn into such a freakish craze?

Excited that our DF charm bracelet thing is finally coming together :)

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 04:51:40 GMT

Update!

Moving to Southern California in January (living with Tiff!) :) Was planning to stay in Davis for a few more nights next week as I still have two days of work, but decided I’m just going to plant my arse at home, drive up for work and use those days to move more stuff back to San Jose.

Norcal: Goodbye forever.
Socal: Where’s the pie?

[Add]
AHEM! *cough* Does anyone (female) need a place to stay in Davis between January and August? My dilemma, moving to Socal mid-lease, is that I'll be paying for rent in two locations over the next 8 months. My parents, being the supportive mother and father that they are, agreed to cover my room in Davis so I'm not living off of animal crackers and imitation Cheerios this coming year, but good grief it is a huge waste of money.

The natural action to take then is to sublet the room. Thing is, I can't just post it up or craigslist it for strangers because the room is right next to two other rooms, one of which is occupied by someone who would not be comfortable living in such close proximity to an unknown,... and I simply do not have the ability to screen people with an acceptable degree of thoroughness from the opposite end of the state. My pool of possibilities is therefore limited to people either they or I am familiar with.

Spiel done. Please leave a comment if you're interested and need more details. GREATLY appreciated.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 18:39:27 GMT

Caught sight of this link off Aliotsy’s page, and wow, I’m speechless: Slimming photos with HP digital cameras. Cameras do stretch images out sometimes, but I can see this sort of feature encouraging distorted self-image as much as accurate representation. Is it any different from resizing an image? I’d assume that it is . . . Can’t tell from the demo.

Started a Vox blog, though God knows why when I barely update this one. I’ll figure out something to do with it.

Hit the cap on Beta (only took me a month and a half) and can’t be arsed to do anything else now but instance.

Hillsbrad instance in Caverns of Time doesn’t allow Night Elves because we’re still being ninja-like. Ugly Druid leather looks super-crap on humans.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 05:23:32 GMT

Laziness

The Euro photos.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:17:02 GMT

“Euroglay”

Woo. On the plane to London tomorrow evening :XX 4 days with only myself and Jenny in London, then August 5th join tour to go from London -> Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Munich, Venice, Rome, Florence, Lucerne, Paris + one extra night in Paris on our own at the end.

New tiny pretty camera get to play with on trip.

Don’t want to pack.

Hate hate hate airplane food.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 18:12:58 GMT

Good day to you, too, Gardener from Hell.

I love the sound of chain saws in the morning. It’s not a complete off-start though, since I pulled out this comic Pierre did of my FFXI character two years ago and it made me laff. I’d frame’em all but then I wouldn’t be able to read the essay on the back that you drew it on :B

Now, who has access to bootlegged sheet music? I’ve been playing the first page of Auf dem Wasser zu Singen for the past week, and while that’s lovely and keen, sometimes you have to step back and say to yourself, “Hey, it’s time to move on.” Granted, 2 dollars isn’t much; I’d rather have a nicely printed, hard copy if I’m going to spend money on it though.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 20:07:22 GMT

Starbucks’ green tea latte tastes better than Borders’. I’m back to daily spending of money on useless, froofy, high calorie drinks again. God, why?

Perks of being employed at a predominantly female workplace: (1) Victoria’s Secret “Love Spell” hand lotion in the restroom. (2) Emergency chocolate supply.

Month long Europe trip with Jenny in August finalized! Verily excited. Precursor for hardkore backpacking trip in the 1-2 year near future, hopefully?

Contract at the MIND extended to December. Must decide course of action within a week. Do I want to stay in Davis working only part-time that much longer? More importantly, maybe, would I have to live in a box? Oh, the joys of housing.

Cousins from Taiwan arriving beginning of June. I’m going to try to return home more often in the summer to provide English language practice as well as helping them get settled into a, uh, new country.

The end.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 10:44:04 GMT

Do you ever want to just eat yourself to death?

I heard the weirdest thing on a subject’s video while at work the other day. The kid is making faces at his mother when she busts out with, “Give me your Chinese smile!”

Woahhhh, lady, that is not allowed. There’s a notable difference between joking about racial discrimination and nonchalantly tossing out a comment like that. I haven’t thought this through completely so I may very well change my mind later on, but presently I do find the latter more unsettling because it suggests an inappropriate lack of concern or awareness on the commenter’s part. This isn’t so much about political correctness as it is me simply being blown away that anyone could say something like that to their kid with such glee.

On a slightly related note, in L.A. about three weeks ago I came face-to-face for the first time with a person struck by yellow fever! This is another thing I need to think through a little more as I can’t articulate what it is exactly that bothers me so much about the mentality behind yellow fever. It probably has to do with the burden of expectation and focus on superficial qualities (”An asian woman is exotic, loyal, sensitive, etc…”). I happen to have an abnormal fear of misguided expectations, so there may be a twisted relationship between that fear and my mildly indignant reaction to this guy’s rationale. Because he seemed like a genuinely nice person and I personally wanted to understand what the heck the deal was with yellow fever, I literally sat him down to try and sort out his reasoning. Before we left, one of the girls wished him luck with finding his asian woman and he said he might give up now.
Angela: 1
Boy: 0

I’ve only seen 10 minutes of this relatively new series, Commander in Chief, so feel free to kill me for railing against it. I turned on the TV to see a shoddy West Wing wannabe with a female president. Great! No, just go home. Having not even completed one full episode made me hesitant to say anything, but I recently hit upon an article in a magazine that expresses my split second initial impression so well that it must be quoted.

I’ve been diligently watching week after week, trying to ignore the heavy aroma of cheese wafting from every scene, and I’ve come to the conclusion that what’s being offered to me is not a sophisticated Camembert but rather a fluorescent orange blob of E-Z Cheese. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the top-notch acting, writing, story development, and nuanced political discussions of The West Wing. . . , but I can’t shake the feeling that we eager feminist viewers are being sold a bill of goods: Under the guise of groundbreaking entertainment, we’re getting a lightweight program with bad pacing, jumpy editing, and wooden, awkward dialogue — not to mention gender cliches run amok.

. . .

When, for the love of Gouda, will her annoying kids stop hogging episodes with their inane shenanigans?

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 04:23:00 GMT

Wedding Times!

I’ll try to lj-cut this ASAP.

Before I get into the actual wedding day though, a single photo (courtesy of Canaan) from our girls’ weekend trip to L.A. two weeks prior :)

Awesome Italian restaurant, Massimo, that Heidi picked out. L-R: me, Heidi, Christine, Joanna, Canaan, Grace. Two school imprisoned girls, Anna and Tiff, not here :(

Morning of the big day, Grace, Tiffany and I rolled out of bed for 8:00am hair appointments at Andrew James salon off Stevens Creek (another place I’d recommend and will probably go back to myself for a cut/dye soon). They serve you hot coffee or tea and biscottis while you’re sitting in the chair! About two hours later, preparation at Christine’s house began.

Tiffany with the super curling skills helping Anna

Heidi: Make-up artist for a day

Make-up artist #2, Grace

The ever beautiful bride to be :D

That was the photographer. Very nice lady, but the posing never lost its awkward quality. “Wait, could you put your lipgloss on again.”

Smart girl. With everything going on, and having not had breakfast, by dinner time we were all hungry as hell.

Thanks, chriding :]

Pictures at the park. I used to come here and feed ducks with my grandma. It would also be where the proposal took place. Left to right: Grace, Tiffany, Christine, Heidi, Anna, me

Think my dad was playing with some filters/settings. Some photos came out really bright.

Cupertino young people

Nice shot of the cake by Canaan.

Another from Canaan’s camera: table 1 (minus me, tiff, nana).

With Deb

Mr. and Mrs. Kuo saying goodbye to the exiters

Last shot with the bride wearing her freakin gorgeous qi-pao

The famry :]

The aftermath.

42 pins, buddy. My hair did not budge an inch on Saturday. I will also cite this as reason to never get my hair permed. There’s really just . . . too much of it.