Happy New Year!!

Here's the fireworks show at the Taipei 101 building in Taiwan. Happy New Year guys!

Christmas Eve Dinner

This morning I went to work, and as expected, I ended up doing other people's work since they wer away. It's good though because everything was pretty quiet and nobody bothered me. On my way home, I decided to get an Asian dish as my Christmas eve feast:







Uh... sorry, wrong picture. Here it is...

This is Pad Thai Chicken from a very good Thai restaurant near me. It is sweet/sour flat rice noodles with tofu, egg, bean spouts, and peanuts. I absolutely love it.

I will also be studying for GMAT tonight. This is a freaking ridiculous test (and expensive... it costs $250 to take the test). One type of questions on this test is to determine whether an underlined part of a sentence can be better written. Can you tell if something is wrong with this sentence?

I took several lessons to learn how to play tennis without getting the ball over the net even once.

Yes, there's something wrong with it, and the explanation is: It seems that the author wants to learn how to not hit the ball over the net. It needs to be revised to something like this: "I took many tennis lessons without getting the ball over the net even once."

There, that's my WTF!!! event of the day. Here are some more Asian dishes in case you didn't eat enough food tonight. :-)

Lonely Christmas & I Love Troy

My family is in Taiwan this Christmas. The Boyfriend is gone on a vacation with his family to an exotic country. Everyone at work took the whole week of so I am the only one at the office "possibly" stuck with their projects. Yay!!!!! I AM FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Do not fret. I have plenty of things to do. I got some Wii games as X'mas presents, and I have plenty of DVDs to watch. I just watched High School Musical 2 and drooled all over Troy (Zac Efron). If you like Zac, you have to watch the movie, because there are two nude scenes of him in this movie. Overall it's a great movie, just as entertaining as the first one. I generally like these musical movies (Moulin Rouge, etc.). Zac is also in Hairspray which is a fabulous movie as well.

Merry Christmas (or the politically correct version: Happy Holidays) to you all.

Another Christmas Party

Sunday night I went to another Christmas party in downtown L.A. I am NOT a party goer but it just so happened that two Christmas parties were scheduled on the same weekend. This party was thrown by a gay couple that The Boyfriend and I both know. They are going away for Christmas and decided to invite their good friends (yup! I am a good friend) over and have dinner. The Boyfriend and I were the first ones there, and we witnessed some drama. Our friend had already set up plates and some food in the lounge area of their apartment complex. It's not necessary to reserve the lounge. Needless to say, nothing goes as planned. As we just arrived, we saw three girls in the lounge with our friend. They were sitting in the sofa telling him that they were going to use the lounge for the night, even though my friend got there first and set up most of the stuff already. My friend said we could all share, but they insisted that they needed the whole place to themselves. Bitches! No wonder we don't like girls.

So, as resourceful gays, we improvised. We walked to another building at their complex. It's more of a study area/Internet cafe place, but there's still a kitchen and a bar area. We settled for it. Gradually more and more people showed up. There were 10 of us in total including the host. Our friend cooked the entire feast, and it was soooo good. I've known him for a few years and I knew that he knows how to make pizzas and bake cakes, etc. I had NO idea that he could cook so well. I am talking about catering quality. He made appetizers like boiled eggs with shrimp and caviar, fish dipped in honey mustard sauce. The main dishes include baked ham, homemade Swedish meat balls, salmon, etc. I was very impressed and so was my tummy!

I also got to meet their other "good friends." They were all very nice. There were four couples there, 2 gay (The Boyfriend and I, and the host couple), and two straight. The other two guys are single and HOT. I was the anti-social one. It just takes gallons of alcohol a little time for me to open up. What's funny was that I realized on the way home that all the couples were white and Asian. What's up with that?!?! I guess some white people DO have good tastes (and mind controlling drugs)!

Ho Ho Ho

Last night I went to our company Christmas dinner. They had some very good appetizers, fried calamari, crab stuffed mushrooms, etc. For my entree, I ordered the filet mignon and lobster, and it was hmm hmm good. It's amazing how in this country people spend so much money. The cost of that entree alone is enough to sponsor my child in Thailand for two months!! It made me feel very fortunate that I don't live in the poorer part of the world. Other than the entree, the drinks, appetizer, and desserts were all very good at this place. The view was amazing because the restaurant is sitting on top of a hill. I got to meet some of our clients and coworkers' spouses. It was a very nice night overall. Most importantly, I slept so good last night (probably because of the alcohol). It's been a while that I got to see any sunlight when I woke up since I've been waking up around 5 AM lately. For some reason I just can't sleep well enough.

Lesson learned: get full on alcohol before going to bed.

This week will also our gift exchange week at work. I can't wait to open the presents that I am about to get. It would really make me wet put a smile on my face to get something like:


The presents I got for other people in the office are great and I am sure they will love them. I spent a lot of time finding them in the past few weeks. My boss even hung our bonus checks on our Christmas tree. I guess in America, money DOES grow on trees. Land of opportunities, hallelujah! I hope these start to grow on trees, too:

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Sorry

Sorry I've been distant from this blog lately. I've just been so busy. This is our busiest time at work. Everyone wants something done by the end of the year, and with a lot of people from our office going away for the holidays, I am just overloaded with work. When I am not at work, I am busy with Christmas shopping. Eliot, stop asking me what I bought you, and Paul, stop telling me you like shining things. I PROMISE I will be back with more frequent posts when this busy time is over.

Here are some pictures of a hot guy I saw today. Even though I am "so busy," there's always time to check out hot boys on the Internet. :-) I hope you don't think this post is quickly put together without some TLC.





Lastly, if you are looking for some nice Christmas music, this is a great CD:

Wii Fit

I am sooooo buying this when it comes out. No more excuse for not exercising!

Christmas Shopping

I got up at 5:30 AM this morning. Sigh. I just can't get some quality sleep lately. I am going to add sleeping pills on my Christmas wishing list. I had this dream about waiting in line at a movie theater and two stupid women cut in front me and I got into a fight with them. Weird dream, huh? I got so worked up in my dream, too.

Over the weekend I did more shopping. This year I started early, but I am still not done. It's not like I have hundreds of gifts to buy (thank god!), but it just takes me a long time to think of an idea and shop around. It's hard to buy gifts for many people I know. They have very peculiar tastes, and they either like it or they don't. You may also say that they are just anal. I don't mind that you insult my friends. Seeing them opening my gifts is a torture.

Game On

I was fortunate enough to get a Wii recently. That little baby has been out for a year but the price has not come down, and the demand for it is still much greater than the supply. I took it out of the box and set it up last night, and I could understand why people want it so bad. It is so much fun to play. My arms are sore this morning though. Uhh...

Lately it's been getting a little colder. Right now it's about 40 degrees out. If you are accustomed to snow or "real cold" weather, I know what you are thinking. 40 degrees? Cold? But this is REALLY cold for me as I grew up in tropical weather in Taiwan. Finally it feels more like winter / Christmas, and I can dig out my cute jackets and sweaters from my closet.

This morning I was watching a porn video, and it made me wonder... why do we have hair on our armpits? What's the purpose? I get it that in Hollywood movies, you see pretty women driving (badly) in convertibles with their hair flowing and dancing in the air. But you can't really drive with your hand behind your head and do the same with your armpit hair. Maybe some of you do. I don't know. If I meet God one day, I have to ask him. But maybe his answer will be... "Heck if I know. You evolved from monkeys."

Hunky Santa

I hope whoever is reading this had a great Thanksgiving. For those that are not reading this post, I hope you choked on turkey. :-)

In Taiwan, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, because we didn't have any Indians to kill. I had an excellent Thanksgiving nonetheless. I got to spend time with family and friends, and MORE IMPORTANTLY I got A LOT (and when I say a lot, I do mean A LOT) of shopping done. Yesterday I had to call Citi to relocate part of my credit line on another card that I hardly use to the primary card. Now you know how much I spent and still plan to spend.

So, Beverly Center in Los Angeles introduced the Hunky Santa, one of Santa's sons, to greet customers now through the holiday. Oh boy I think I am going to go take a bite look of the Hunky Santa:
Hunky Santa

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for this year?

I am thankful for having a steady job and income.

I am thankful for having a wonderful family and friends, and a boyfriend.

I am thankful for being able to turn on the faucet and clean, drinkable water would flow out.

I am thankful for the numerous TV shows that I enjoy watching, although they are put on hold now because of the strike.

I am thankful that I am alive.

I am thankful for all the good deals that I am going to find on Black Friday. Fingers crossed!

Sunday

Today, unlike the usual weekends, I got dressed and went to Walmart to get some more Xmas decoration, and it made me think of this news article I once read. I swear I did NOT grow up in a trailer.

And this is the funniest video I saw today:

Hey Ya

Hey ya, this is the spirit of Christian speaking I am still alive. Recently I've been kind of busy with catching up some TV shows and researching on stocks. Those are called priorities. The stock market has been crazy lately and I just want to make sure that I am doing the right thing.

So for the past few weeks, I've been finishing up several projects at work while only using up only half the time estimated. One of the people at the office (management-level) said to me that I was lucky, implying that I was able to finish up projects and take on more for the company, because the projects I worked on were easy. I shrugged it off and smiled while thinking in my head "yeah sure, ask your other employees why they weren't as lucky as me." It hurt my feelings that my dedications and efforts put into my work can't be appreciated. I could have just finished up the projects while just sitting around and doing nothing at work, and I would still be able to finish them up on time. Instead, I finished them early and took on more projects (more money for the company), and that's the encouraging words and compliments I got from a manager. Don't get me wrong. I still like my job and I like what I am doing. It's just frustrating sometimes when my hard work is not recognized.

Then there is this other project I've been working on since the beginning of this year. The customer took their sweet time to answer my questions and to fix some data issues on their end. Now all of a sudden, because they need to put my work into production in 2008, they are rushing me to do everything. Yesterday (Friday) I had to stay at work late because they asked for something in the morning that normally takes 2 days to complete, but they wanted it right away. They even asked me to come to work on the weekend. Oh please! It's not fair that they took forever to get me the answers I needed throughout the year, and now they are expecting me to rush everything for them. So my life evolves around them and I am just supposed to drop whatever else I am doing and go work on their project?

Sorry that you have to listen to me complaining. So yesterday after the ordeal, I decided to stop by the grocery store and bought a bottle of Merlot and drank 3/4 of it last night. I am going to finish it tonight. Seriously, whoever thinks that electricity or light bulbs are the greatest discovery in human history should consider changing it to alcohol. Oh I sure sound like an AA member for someone who's never been drunk.

Lately I've been watching Dexter. It's a great show. The main character, Dexter, works for the Miami PD as a blood spatter analyst during the day, and at night, he goes out and kills some bad guys that eludes the authorities. He's like a super hero with a hidden identity, except that he likes to cut the bad guys open and behead them. Quite a freaky and compelling show, I tell ya. I also bought Celine Dion's new album yesterday: Taking Chances. It's a great CD. I really want to go see her in Vegas before she packs up all the cash in her hundreds of Louis Vuitton suitcases and leaves for good.

Life

I came to America with a dream, but now it's turning into a nightmare. LOL. The stock market was horrible this week. I had three of my biggest single-day losses this week. 10% of my investment is gone! That's quite a few months worth of car payments. Many Wiis and games, and LCD monitors, DVDs, steak and lobster meals, etc. All the Christmas presents I could have bought for myself for working so hard this year. GONE with the wind!

I know. I know. A lot of people say that this is a correction and it will turn around. I guess this is what I am going to believe. I don't really have a choice, do I? In the mean time, I am just going to have to get rid of a bunch of crap on eBay, try to find a part time job, and start charging The Boyfriend for sex.

Other than the movement in the wrong direction in the stock market, we have all these stupid writers on strike. Nice. Just stopping showing up for work is really a good way to ask for more pay. I understand where they are coming from, but have they thought about how many people are being affected by their decision to go on strike? A lot of the cast and crews of these shows are now not able to bring money home. What's going to happen to their houses and lives? My favorite TV show, 24, has stopped production of the new season, and they said the premiere of the new season is postponed indefinitely. Now I AM really sad.

I hope you all have a great weekend. I know I will enjoy eating instant noodles mixed with tears. Ha ha.

Mystery Solved

A few days ago I posted the picture above and asked if people knew what's in the picture. I was surprised that a lot of people knew. Except for you, Paul. I am disappointed. Okay, drinks shown above are originally called Boba (Chinese name). They originated in Taiwan. The black "balls" are actually like tapioca. People in Taiwan generally put them in milk green/black tea. They are chewy and taste a little sweet. As time went by, more and more flavors were invented. People began putting them in smoothies or adding different flavors into the milk tea, such as mango, almond, etc. Some people also put other "chewy" items in the drink, such as coconut extracts or lychee. The black balls are sometimes called tapioca, which is a name that you all white people are familiar with, or pearls, which sounds fancy and gave the vendors a reason to jack up the price. I've also heard people calling them bubble tea, which is completely ridiculous because the drink is really not bubbly. I personally like calling it its original name, boba. My personal favorite is the "semi-sweet iced almond black milk tea with boba" at Cha for Tea. There's one in Long Beach, CA for those of you that plan to visit soon. :-)

Now, you might wonder where the name came from. For those of you who think us Californians calling it boba is weird and strange, here is a history lesson for you. Boba in Chinese literally means "gigantic waves." The phrase boba is almost always used to refer to women with big breasts. When the drinks first came out, the black balls reminded people of the "tips" (sorry, I won't use the other T word to keep this lesson G rated) of those big breasts, and since they are immersed in milk (tea), people decided to call them boba milk tea. That's where the name came from. We Taiwanese and Californians are not weird or strange. We are just PERVERTED!!

So if you haven't tried any boba drink before, I highly recommend you to try it out. The chewy sensation of those balls might weird you out at first, but you will get over it soon enough.

$$$$$$$$$$$

Gas prices, rent, groceries and other necessities keep going up, and the stock market keeps falling. US Dollar is getting weak. The only thing that's staying the same is that number on my pay check. American Dream? More like American Nightmare. I hope this economy turns around soon. The only thing that brought a smile to my face is this. How sad!

In case anyone's interested, you can buy them here: http://www.wickedcoolstuff.com/bushcondoms.html

Just out of curiosity...

Just out of curiosity... does any of you know what this is?

If you do know what it is, just say so but don't say what it is.

If you don't, take a wild guess. :-)

Tired, but Alive

I am still alive. Not that anyone cares. I've been busy at work. The nature of my work involves dealing with our customers. Most of the time, I get to talk to some really nice people and get to know them. They know exactly what they want and are very clever and helpful. Some of the customers want everything their way, whether doable or not. They rush and rush to get me to finish their stuff, talk to managers and jump through hoops to get to the front of the line, and then it takes them forever to test or review my work. A few weeks would go by and they would come back and question why something they never told me about doesn't work, and they want it changed right away.

Quite a few of these customers are really big companies and are probably on the Fortune 500 list. By the way they talk to other people though, you have a sense of how their business is run. Obviously I am not going to start naming them here because I don't want to get in trouble. Some customers are nice, although I still can't stand them. I remember one time, I asked this guy to send me a file but zip it up to keep the file small. He replied and said that he didn't have a "zipper." Boy, what can you say? In college, I took this class that assigned teams of students to work on different projects requested by people already working in the industry. It's supposed to allow us to experience the whole working environment. In that class, we learned that customers will always be stupid and how patient, detail-oriented and specific we need to be. That had to be the most useful class I ever took. I mean... how much of the material you learned from the college classes can you still remember? If you can remember something you learned from a particular class, that has to be one useful class.

Nevertheless, I like my job because I like what I do at work. Everyone at work is very nice. There's no office drama or romance, so that keeps things simple. Best of all, we make fun of the bad customers together.

Now listening to: Apologize, Bubbly

YouTube

Finally it's Friday!! I can't wait for the weekend to come. I thought for this post on a Friday night, I should just take it easy and make it a short post. Here are two of my favorite videos on YouTube. Sorry if you've seen them. They are worth watching over and over again though:

Here's a video of someone from Taiwan painting a car in MS Paint. I don't know how anyone can do this on paper, not to mention MS Paint, which I am sure all of you would agree that it's not the best drawing software made. Simply incredible!



The second video is a Saturday Night Live Skit. I am not a SNL fan but this is so funny (featuring Janet Jackson):


Alright~ to all 4 readers of this blog, I hope you all have a great weekend!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! I am hiding in my room and my lights are off. :-)

Nah... I am just kidding. I actually have 20 candies to give away to the first 20 very lucky annoying brats cute trick-or-treaters from my apartment complex. I wish one of the guys below would show up tonight instead and they can play all kinds of tricks on me. If you have one candy left, who would you give it to?

Poka-hunk-tas

Army Man

Chicken Head (Chicken Testicles anyone?)

Medieval Sword Master

Cameltoe Spiderman

Ninja Turtle

OR....

Slutty, Dirty Mistress?

Thoughts on Recent Events

The fires are still burning in many places in Southern California. Many people donated money and offered shelter for the evacuees. At the same time, some other people are pretending to work for charity organizations and soliciting money, and some even broke into other people's houses. Not to mention the bastard(s) who started the fire in Orange County. Events like Hurricane Katrina and the SoCal fires bring the best and the worst out of people. This got me thinking... are people born as good or evil?

Are people born as good, caring, and kind? It's the adults, society, media then corrupt our minds and put the thoughts of doing bad deeds in our brain? Or are people born as evil, and then our parents and education correct and help us go down on the "right path?" Did the people that looted the stores after Katrina do it just to take advantage of the situation, or did they do it merely to survive? Well, I guess that depends on what they actually stole, huh? If they stole jewelry and electronics, then they probably took advantage of the situation, but if they stole food to feed their families, then I am not so sure I wouldn't do the same thing.

Recently I fell in love with a new TV show - Extreme Makeover - Home Edition. The show has been around for a while but I never paid much attention to it. It's about this group of home builders and designers going around the U.S., helping people going through difficult times in their lives and can't afford to live in a decent home rebuild. The stories of these peoples' lives are always very touching, and it just warms up my heart when I see them getting a real home built for them and how happy the builders and designers made them. It makes me cry every time I watch the show. I am such a wuss, I know. But it makes me feel good to know that there are people willing to help other people out there.

15 Minutes of Fame

As you recall, I posted something about the California fires. It turned out that this blog was listed by the program that CNN.com uses to find blogs talking about current events. I took a screen shot. :-)

The number of visitors on that single day is about the same number I get in a month. The next day, everything was back to normal. Boy, that 15 minutes of fame came and went just like that, before I could even practice my autograph.

Today The Boyfriend and I went for a drive. We stopped and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. He couldn't stop flirting with our cute waiter. What a slut. They talked about video games. Two big dorks, I know, but since he bought my food, I guess I shouldn't complain too much. We were gonna go somewhere else after lunch, but we both had food coma and got really tired, so we decided to just come home. When he drives, he likes to reach over and say hi to Little Christian. I don't really like it because it makes me uncomfortable. The way I sit in the car and my jeans don't really leave much space for an extra hand. Also what if a pick up truck pulls up next to us and sees and the driver wants to say hi to Little Christian, too? I took his hand off and reminded him again that he's not driving a stick shift, and he needed to keep both hands on the wheel. I don't want to die at a young age and without making millions of dollars first. I wonder why certain people like having sex in their cars. The space is so tiny! Have you done it? If so, why?

Lonely Man

Last night, I walked into the living room, finding The Boyfriend sitting on the sofa. The light in the room was dimmed. The TV was off. He wasn't playing video games, listening to music or even reading. He's just sitting there, eating a piece of See's candy. It almost brought tears into my eyes. I began imagining if this is what would happen when I am dead. He will be all lonely, sitting quietly by himself in a dark room, and eating a piece of chocolate. He doesn't have any siblings or close cousins, and we can't have kids, so who's going to take care of him when I am gone? I felt so sad.

I told him what I was thinking and he said... gee thanks. I was just sitting here enjoying some quiet time and my chocolate. Sorry, I just think too much sometimes, and my mood changes like a woman. Once in a while, sadness just hits me for no reason, making me think of bad things happening to me and people around me. So, here it is, I've found my theme song.

Big Mouth

Yup I have a big mouth. I talk before I think. This has gotten me in trouble and brought me embarrassment soooooooooo many times before. My humor gets out of control sometimes. Most of my friends know this whenever they hear me crack a joke about them. Sometimes my jokes can be mean and hurtful, but I am too stupid to think about it before I say it. My friends gradually learn to just shrug it off whenever they hear my "mean" jokes because they know that's how I am. Cristina Yang from Grey's Anatomy reminds me of myself. Yes, Asians are cold and mean. You can say it.

Last night I was chatting with a fellow blogger and I said something mean to him thinking it was funny. It's incredible how powerful your words can be. They can be sometimes encouraging and cheerful and yet sometimes condescending and hurtful. It just depends on the occasion, the time, and the person. I had a chance (again!) to reflect to myself and think about what I did last night before going to bed. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well.

My supposed joke hurt his feelings and he stopped talking to me. I apologized over AIM and sent an email, and then an e-card, but he's still not talking to me. I can only hope that he is reading this now and knows that I am truly sorry.

Batman v.s. Superman

Batman v.s. Superman. Who shall win? Who will bring justice and peace to this world? Who will arrest your heart?

Batman (Christian Bale)



Superman (Brandon Routh)

On Fire - Updates

Click HERE to read the latest news on the Southern California fires.

The fire that broke out yesterday near work is still burning, but it's going away from us. Today a coworker showed up late because the hill next to his house was caught on fire in the middle of the night. They could see the fire from one of their bedrooms. They packed up their cars and were ready to leave. The fire was put out in a few hours thanks to the brave firefighters. They didn't get any sleep, of course.

This afternoon I could hear several of helicopters flying above us. Apparently something else is burning on the other side of our sky. In a few hours, the sky's filled with smoke again and the sun turned orange.

All the schools around here are still closed today and might still be closed tomorrow. Originally they said the winds would die down today, but now it looks like we will have another windy day tomorrow. Gosh I really hope these winds would go away.

Yesterday there were a quarter of million evacuees and today the number doubled. It jumped to over half a million people. I talked to a few friends from San Diego (which is worst hit by the fires) and they said that the school is canceled the whole week for them. They also heard that they could lose electricity and water soon, so they headed to the grocery store nearby only to find out that all the water was sold out. This is like a war zone around here.

I also heard on the news today that there's a suspicious white pick-up truck full of guys that stopped by houses left behind and stole people's possessions. What kind of human are they to take advantage of other peoples' miseries? If they have extra time and energy, they should help fight the fires.

On Fire

Everything in Southern California is on fire. The winds are very strong and they spread the fires, smoke and ashes quickly. The air smelled so bad yesterday and today. All schools in our area were closed today and will likely remain closed tomorrow. So far, a quarter million of people have been evacuated in California. Early in the afternoon, a new fire started about a few miles from work, and I could see it right in front of me from where I was sitting. The amount of smoke was incredible and horrifying. I also heard that there's a fire near my apartment and there's also a lot of smoke there. I decided to come home early to pack up some important stuff, passport, documents, some cash, clothes, etc. Now the sky over here looks fine, but who knows what's going to happen as the winds can pick up or shift directions any minute. The winds should start dying down tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully we can get through then and the firefighters will be able to control all the fires.

The authorities said that the fire that began at around 6 PM on Sunday in Orange County, now burning 15,000 acres of land, was an arson fire. Now who in their right mind would do such a thing? I hope whoever did it also got their house burnt down.

Click here to read updates on 10/23.

Sunday Brunch - Justin Hartley

Justin Hartley was born on January 29, 1977 in Knoxville, IL. His screen debut was portraying the character Fox Crane on the daytime drama Passions, from 2002 to 2006. He then became the billionaire Oliver Queen a.k.a the Green Arrow on the CW series Smallville. In 2003, he began dating and then wedded his Passions co-star Lindsay Korman (she's one lucky woman!). They had their first child in 2004.

At Comic Con 2007. Did you see him there, Paul?

Shoot me with your arrow. Shoot me!

Here's Justin in action in Smallville (I just want to show you what a good actor he is. It's a pure coincidence that he's naked in the clips below.):



and Justin in CSI: NY (Again, I can't stress enough it's a pure coincidence that he's also naked in this clip):