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!