Wine? Vinegar? Are food product labels also going along with the trend of tabloid headlines combining Hollywood couple’s names?

So instead of grabbing the chips while settling down for a night in front of the tube, you could just snack on the bag of crispy mini crabs:

Her exclamation seems cheerful enough; don’t know why she’s so down if it’s “GOOD GOOD EAT”:

It’s a party all right. That octopus looks like it’s gettin’ DOWN:

Oh no, Oh Yes!

And lastly, just a comparison of our bachelor guy friend’s shopping habits compared to us bachelorette girls’. Well, wasabi peas count as vegetables, right? :)

H-Mart is always a fun adventure. :)

Apparently my buddy over at Liquid Egg Product returned from the Chinese supermarket with some finds of his own. :)

The first time we had this event, it was such a huge hit, we went ahead and did it again.

I got to meet the chef who is the mastermind behind the [in]famous Kollab-ROLL-ation:

He even showed me how to throw up a “K” sign with my hands (for KOLLABORATION):

I bought one of our limited-edition shirts for him - really, he deserved it for all his hard work; didn't expect him to thank me with this all-original creation, totally off the menu, and VERY pretty:

 

 

But I’m a vegetarian, so I saved it for my roommate who lets me drag her out to my Kollaboration functions:

This here picture is of 3 Dulles High School AND University of Texas at Austin alumni, coincidentally posed in order of height … can you put us in order of oldest to youngest? :)

‘Twas a fun night. Thanks to all those who came out to support Kollaboration Houston tonight at Fish Sushi!

I just sometimes make food that tastes like I can. :)

Trying the “Extra Hot” S&B Curry for the first time. It definitely isn’t “extra” hot, it’s barely even just hot; there’s just slight kick to it. :)

Notes on approximate quantities used: ~ 2.5 lbs potatoes + 1.5 onions + 3 large carrots + 6 stalks celery + 4 squares of the Extra Hot S&B Curry (1/2 the pkg).

I also like the Engrish on the top right of the package: “No Meat Contained”. Hooray. Thanks. :) [ other curry-related Engrish entries ]

My Ah-Gong’s (Grandpa’s) funeral is today in Taiwan. Just wanted to look back on some memories of him over the past decade.

July 2002: The North American part of the Chen family gathered in Taiwan for Grandpa’s 85th birthday. We went for a walk with Ah-Gong. At 85, he was in good health, and it was pretty hard for me to keep up with him.

Along the way there was one of those pebble paths that you take your shoes off and torture / massage your feet on. It was very painful for me to walk upon, but Grandpa had different ideas:

I always liked our Chen family photos. It was basically an exercise in, “How many people can we fit into this picture?”

We got to surprise him with a little acapella birthday present:

July 2005: Grandpa’s 88th birthday was also a big deal since 8 is a lucky number in Chinese. He coined the term “rice” birthday year (if you know Chinese, write out “eighty-eight” vertically, then fit the 8’s to the 10 and flip the top one vertically – it will be the “rice” character).

Here, he’s with a few of his many grandkids the day after his birthday. I think we were paying respect to our ancestors by burning incense among other stuff (and yes, contributing to the already really polluted air in Taiwan).

November 2006: We had the opportunity to go back to Taiwan again because of my maternal grandmother’s 80th birthday, so we got to spend some more time with Ah-Gong. His kids had bought him a golf cart-type vehicle to get around in to replace the moped he was accustomed to riding; here, he describes in great detail how to use it.

He seems a bit worried about if we’re gonna break his cart, hehe.

I like photographing my dad with my grandpa. Each of his sons resembled him in some way, and my dad is no exception. I think it’s interesting how similar they are, both outwardly and inwardly.

July 2007: We came back for the 3rd year in a row for Grandpa’s 90th birthday, yet another milestone. This is a photo I found of my dad and my grandpa at the table, eating together.

There was a short period of time when my grandpa and I were closer – we talked on the phone once a week until his hearing started to go and he refused to wear a hearing aid. My earliest memories of him are in Canada, when he came to visit and would ride the public transportation to get from garage sale to garage sale using the little English he had; this impressed upon me his sense of adventure, fearlessness, and fun despite geographical and language barriers. My dad says Ah-Gong had a photographic memory, was a great calligrapher, and never took advantage of anyone.

I’m glad my dad got to visit Ah-Gong shortly before he passed away. I know Grandpa has always been surrounded by his children and grandchildren (and great-grandchildren!) who tried their best to show him respect. And here, in my little space online, from across the world, I hope to pay him my respects also.

Gotta love baby Jonathan’s beautiful, twinkling eyes as he climbs all over his daddy. :)

So today I helped my mom rake leaves in the yard. I was glad to get in some sun and exercise, but I was definitely reminded why I am grateful for higher education and that I don’t need to depend on something like this to make a living. Man, my arms have turned to jelly …

My mom rewarded me with a handsome dinner of hotpot (this pic was posted mainly to make my brother jealous, muahahaha). :) I don’t know where she got these ginormous shiitake mushrooms, but I put my hand there to give you an idea of the scale:

I know I’ll be sleepin’ well tonight. :)

Oh, and I guess Dean hasn't moved my website yet. Well, if you're having trouble commenting, that'll probably be why. Thanks again, Dean! :)

Doing a low-budget photobooth (read: didn’t feel like spending any money at all) turned out better than I expected. :) My favorite of all the ones today:

Keep it classy, ladies. Just the way I like it. ;)

The move has consisted of several parts:

1. Packing – man, so not fun (thanks Lous for helping)

2. Moving Phase 1 – 1st group of friends (thanks Eddy and the Cheng clan – both the Texan and Brazilian branches!!)

3. Moving Phase 2 – 2nd group of friends armed with big truck for the heavy stuff (thank you to all my muscle-y friends!!)

4. Cleaning the Old Apt – man, SO not fun (thanks Eddy for bringing the cleaning gear and getting down and dirty in there with me!!)

5. Unpacking – still cleaning the old apt, so haven’t gotten around to this part yet. The new apartment looks like a hurricane hit it … which I guess it did … the Caroline Move-In Hurricane …

How the heck did I accumulate so much STUFF?!

Here are some of my muscle-y friends in action. Will and Donnie are carrying the heaviest item of furniture that I own (and that thing is EMPTY, btw!), while Chris provides a buffer should Donnie fall back, and Vicki um, provides a buffer for if Chris falls back? :)

My friends even brought refreshments, helped me re-assemble my bed, and change out my incandescent bulbs to fluorescents. Plus my new roommate has started organizing the kitchen. I have a lot to go, but the move has been going way more smoothly than I imagined. Thanks friends!!!!!

I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT MOVING INTO MY NEW PLACE!! :)

Meet Tony.

I’ve just met him too, but I just HAD to get a pic with his arms.

Hahahah. Yay for me not being the only funny face in the picture!

Friend is moving away from Houston [pout!]. Just helping get the word out about stuff she’s selling. All furniture is less than a year old and practically new.

Couch = $200 (bought it for $400; it is a futon that bends two ways) [ update: SOLD ]

Sharp flatscreen 32" TV = $400 OBO [ update: CLAIMED ]
TV Stand/coffee table = $15 [ update: CLAIMED ... by moi :P ]

Table and chairs (4) set = $60 OBO [ update: SOLD ]

1994 Honda Civic EX, sporty red 2-door coupe, 150k miles, in good condition! = $1500 OBO [ update: SOLD ]

Bissell Powerforce bagless Vacuum Cleaner = $20 [ update: SOLD ]

Most comfortable Queen size mattress set EVAR (mattress + boxspring): $100 [ update: SOLD ]

Friend is also giving away lots of household items...plates, silverware, pans, mugs, etc. E-mail / call for details. [ update: CLAIMED ]

Thanks guys! – C :) [ update: YAY! :) ]

Some people have bad hair days (I’ve been having a lot of those too, I hate this not-short-not-long length I’m at), but today was a bad car day.

First thing in the morning: I go to work. Park. I’m one of the few cars there in the lot. Later on I go out to run errands and I see this car KISSING my car. I’ve seen this car before, and it is always parked badly, but today when I saw this … I mean, seriously, what the … !?!?!?!

Mine is the Toyota, on the right.

View from the top. @#$% ...

Well, I start to pull away, when the car’s owner opens the door to his car. Most of you know I hate confrontation, but I jumped out and pipsqueak lil’ me was like, “Excuse me, is that your car? Because um, you were parked all the way up to my car so it was touching my license plate [ bang on license plate for effect ] … do you mind not parking so close next time?!” He nodded, not saying a word … I was like, “Great he’s gonna come beat me up now …” but instead he looked more confused than anything. Just great. He didn’t understand English. >_<

OK, so I went running my errands, and it started pouring. I switched on my trusty wipers. This AWFUL SCREEE-SCREEECH sound emitted from the wipers with each swipe. What the … I pulled over and took a look. The rubber blade of my passenger’s side wiper had come clean off, and the metal from the arm was scraping against my windshield!! OMG. I tried to prop my wiper up off the glass (lookin’ mega-ridiculous) so I could at least still use the good driver-side wiper and not hear that awful SCREEEEEECHING noise, but when the wiper came smashing back down into its resting position, I saw an O’Reilly’s Auto Parts right there in front of me. Edgar very kindly came out in the rain, took a look, unclipped my damaged wiper, and pointed me to some really good wipers that were on sale, and helped me install it too. :) Hopefully the scratches from that stupid wiper won’t be permanent …

And I’d just like to say I am grateful it was just a bad car day, not a horrible car day. :)

My evening opened up unexpectedly last night, and so I headed over to the willyouBhere Hepatitis B awareness event and concert at the University of Houston. I was hoping to meet David Choi so I could thank him personally for giving me permission to use his cover of "Over The Rainbow" in my skydiving video; however, I would have had to body surf over / push and shove through the throng of screaming girls that mobbed him after the event. Yeah, didn’t happen. I DID however get to briefly shake hands with Paul Dateh and snapped a quick pic with him before security kicked us out (props to Nancy for the quick trigger finger):

Um, I look way too happy in this photo, and all I can say is ... that boy's silky smooth voice made me melt in my seat and utter obscenities that hopefully were not recorded by digital camera video recorders surrounding us.

All in all, a great night of entertainment. Also enjoyed watching singers Jessica Sanchez (her voice sounds way older than a 14-yr-old!), Michelle Martinez, along with Youtube comedians / personalities KevJumba, HappySlip, and dance crew Kaba Modern.

Just wanted to end this post with my skydiving video, if you haven't seen it already. One of the greatest [short] experiences of my life. Thanks again David Choi!

I am SO PSYCHED! I present to you a picture of my first ever original artwork, and of a pink orange at that, by the talented and generous J to the M-a.

That evening, JMa called me and said she had "something" she wanted to drop off. I was feeling less than awesome so I asked if she could possibly pick up some orange juice for me. She sounded a little taken aback, and I thought that perhaps I'd asked for one favor too many ... but her surprise was instead due to my being seemingly in sync with the surprise she had in store for me.

I like it I like it I like it!!! And thank you David for the hanging supplies, and for LEP for helping me hang it up!! I like, feel so grown up now. :)

It just so happened that our table at Cafe 101 consisted of 2 girls, and 2 guys - BOTH sporting unique hats. How rare is that?!

 
Sheng listens as Kirk tells us how he feels about health care

The last time I'd spoken to Sheng was over five years ago, and I remember asking him what he was doing, and he replied, "I'm a [ insert job name ], but I'm going to be a comedian." And that he did. "Hats off" to him! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

He's coming to do a charity comedy show in Houston Tuesday, September 22nd at 7:30p. Pre-sale tix are $20, with 2-item minimum purchase at Laff Stop. Proceeds help survivors of Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan that wiped out entire villages with mudslides. If you've not heard of Tzu-Chi, they're a very active group and famous for being on the frontlines in time of disaster; they don't just collect money and sit on the sides. They are in there getting down and dirty and getting stuff done.

Hope to see you folks there!

BEST: getting a phone call from Japan and hearing Moe-chan speak English to me. Thank you, Moe-chan. You TOTALLY made my day!

This was especially nice after waking up at 7:00am in a cold sweat from having my first nightmare in a very long time and not being able to go back to sleep.

Little Moe (pronounced "Mo-eh") had been practicing hard all week so she could say a few sentences to me in English.

Apparently the stress from reciting those lines in English got her body really tense:

Here she just looks a little nauseous having to tolerate my awful attempts at Japanese conversation:

Finally, when saying goodbye and an oh-so-sweet "I love you!" she finally relaxes a tiny bit - but still has a death grip on the phone with both hands:

Thanks to Hiroko for the action shots. :)

==========

WORST: Having to deal with apartment's new management ... again and again.

Me: Hi, I don't know why I got a notice for not having paid my rent. I have it automatically set to deduct from my checking account every month.

Apartment's New Management (ANM): With the new management, we don't have that anymore, and don't know if we will ever have that. If you bring in a money order in today, we'll waive the late fees.

Me: OK, can I have the exact total of rent plus utilities?

ANM: No, we don't know the exact amount. They're still figuring it out. [ cue my rolling of eyes ] Your best bet would be to pay what you paid last month. If you end up paying a little more, that amount will be credited towards your next statement.

Me: And what if I end up short a few bucks? Would that just be tacked onto the next statement?

ANM: Well ... then we would bill you for that amount and you'd have to come in and pay that, again via money order. So, we advise you to maybe pay a couple bucks more so that doesn't happen.

To say that they are concerned only for their bottom line seems something like an understatement. Is that the norm? Or only because I live in this particular apartment complex?

Also, I can't get straightforward answers to inquiries, like: "Have you added freon to my A/C yet?" and, "There are big gaping holes in my weather stripping, you do realize that all my A/C is just going out through those holes?" So far, I've "only" had to call them 4 times and talk to them in person about it once, only to get answers like, "Well, you should test it by turning the dial to 70F so we know if they did it or not," and "Don't you have a foundation problem? The weather stripping will NEVER be perfect."

Well, I'll keep thinking about the BEST wake up call ever and Moe's adorable voice and it'll be all good. :)

Had me speechless.

So you can't really tell what the rims look like from afar ...

 
So here they are in all their up-close-and-personal glory.

Aiyaaa.

I know what you're thinking. I've probably just jumped the gun, jumped to conclusions, didn't really give them a chance. Well, this is my story of what happened on the evening of Saturday, August 8th, and you can derive your own conclusions.

After having a major blast at Alice's wedding, a bunch of us still were not sated and headed out for post-wedding clubbing. Friends brought friends, and we ended up with a group of 12 people, 11 Asian (9 dudettes, 2 dudes), and 1 Caucasian (yay for Tree Frog for being the token white guy!). An initial group of 4 ladies had gotten there first, and were turned away from the door after a brief dialogue:

Bouncer: Are you with the private party?
4 Ladies: No ...
Bouncer: Sorry, if you're not with the private party, we can't let you in, there are too many people.

While waiting for us, they observed that non-Asian people were being let in just by showing their IDs and without the same questioning.

We arrived, and we were turned away with the same dialogue. Still in disbelief, we decided to test the system. We asked token white guy Tree Frog to try getting in. And sure enough, they let him in without even asking him if he was with the "private party".

So, we butted heads with them some. While doing so, people came and went, and after some time, Tree Frog asked, "Look, if it really is a numbers issue, I've seen about 10 people leave, and we have about 10 people in our party. What's up with that?" No answer. Management was talked to, and they kept mute as we spoke of their unfairness. Another group of partygoers, a mix of whites, Hispanics, and Asians, was also turned away while we were giving the manager of piece of our minds. One of the ladies in the initial group was surprised because she'd just been to Blue Label the night before at an all-Asian party. After a while though, we just weren't that direly in need of giving them our money anyway, so off we went.

And while my remaining clubbing days are numbered, I won't be tapping Blue Label Lounge for business if I have a choice.

Aside from that, I was glad we were able to have a post-wedding hurrah for Alice and Chun. I was definitely buzzing very well. :) [ to the pictures! ]

* I suppose one remaining possibility is that if there actually WAS a private party going on there, that it was hosted by someone who had a thing against Asians.

Congratulations, Violeta and Karthik!

So, instead of the regular ol' rehearsal dinner, we were instead asked to come out for a dance rehearsal. For what? A surprise short dance routine that interrupted their first dance:

(link)

My date to the wedding was pretty cool. He accompanied me the whole day (I'm talkin' 15 hrs here) and he even slow danced with me in the middle of the room while there was a mass exodus going on behind us.

Wedding by Violeta + Karthik
Makeup by Jen Ma
Hair by Andrea Schutter
Dress by David's Bridal
Pleasant Companionship by Tree Frog
Attitude by me. :)

I've gotten back into table tennis recently, and on top of that I've just met someone who went to college with Whitney Ping, and so I thought I'd bring back this poll from 2001 since I was reminded how I was once mistaken for her. If you do a quick search for her online, you'll learn she's an Olympic table tennis player (I enjoyed this article). For anyone who ever thought I was decently good, let me put this in perspective: I know without a doubt she could whump my rump left-handed and possibly blindfolded. She says she practiced 5 hours a day while training full-time in Sweden; I can barely get through 2 hours playing recreationally without feeling like I'm 70 and have knocked my back out.

[ vote ] [ see results ]

Personally, I don't think I look like her, even after scanning through more recent pictures.

(Today's blog post title was brought to you by AllLookSame.com. I was forwarded this site a long time ago and never took the test, but the name of the site just stuck in my head.)

... a total stranger takes a picture of you without your knowledge almost 10 years ago and then posts it on a website with other weird photos that are made fun of.

I'd never heard of AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com until Henry pointed it out to me (um, thanks?!). HAHahhahah oh man. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this on the website. Not exactly work safe (depends on your industry, I guess), so beware when you click through the photo to the site.

So I guess I should explain what is going on here. :) Old Calgary buds Reema and Winnie were showing me around San Francisco - had to be between 1999 and 2002, while I was an acupuncture student in Cali - and took me to the Palace of Fine Arts. So we were walking around taking pictures and there, on the green, was this dude posing for a professional photographer. Before my friends could stop me, I ran over and asked if I could have a pic with this guy, thinking that this was too hilarious! I still have the original pic where me and this dude are facing the camera; it's a bit strange to know that someone secretly took a pic of us from the side, and has hoarded it until now!

I remember asking him why he was taking pics there; I can't for the life of me remember his answer. I believe he said his name was "Blaire"; I never remembered to look for him on the internet after that.

Not that this REALLY explains anything except for my penchant for wanting to take pictures of everything I encounter. Be sure to read the caption and the comments underneath; so funny! Man. Yep. The Internet "big-time". Thanks(?!?!) AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com!

There was massive raining last night. This morning, friends' status updates indicated that many were staying home from work / school due to flooding. I opened my door, looked outside, and everything looked fine to me. I saw some people in the parking lot with car trouble, and some shaking out their car mats. I thought to myself, "Wow. They must've left their windows open last night. That sucks!" Then I got to my car and saw this behind the driver's seat:

D'oh! And my windows were not accidentally left open last night!!

Driving to work, all the water sloshed forward. Yippee. At least my car still works.

Eddy has offered to go with me to find a carwash with a wetvac. My first time using a wetvac, hooray!

Hooray! Thanks T for the bday present! Here is the requisite emo shot with random prop (coincidentally also from T, hehe):

Got 'em online. In the process did a bunch of research about purchasing glasses online - if you're in the market, read this and this.

I am so lovin' my updated look!! :D

The other night at HEB and passing through the international food aisle, I saw this and just had to snap a photo of it with my cell phone:

I just now realize that it costs 69 cents. [ more immature snickering ]

Finally got to see Iris perform live for the first time. I'd been wanting to, had only heard about her wonderful voice, but my schedule never permitted 'til now.

One of the songs off her new album:

Iris likes to jam with her shoes off:

Iris hamming it up with an interviewer afterwards:

[ more pics ] [ more sounds of Iris ]

Was glad to catch up with Iris briefly, and saw a buncha people I hadn't seen in a long while!

The conclusion to my little four-part series.

And so, the storm hit us almost exactly one month ago today. And today, there are 4 men on my roof banging loudly away, making me fear that at any moment the ceiling might cave in and a construction worker complete with hammer, hardhat, and neon vest might fall into my bedroom. Hahaha and no, that would not be a turn on.

Apologies to those who can't get my abysmal singing voice out of their heads. Muahahahaha. Soon all will be ihatepink.com zombies! World domination is imminent!! :)

Ike Mockumentary, Day 4 (FINAL): Waiting from Caroline Chen on Vimeo.

I looped back around to get a picture with this HOT PINK JAGUAR. Can you believe it?!?! Many thanks for the owner of the car, Mr. Reginald, who allowed me to take pictures, and even came out to get me in the pic too! "I guess I'll be seeing this on MySpace," he said. While the thought of owning a MySpace page makes me somewhat nauseous, I do want to share the pics.

Ze car! I had to loop around to come back to it, I just *had* to get a pic of it, hehe.
 

Dorky pose 1.

Dorky pose 2. Ooooh I got to touch the car!!! OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH!!!

He apparently gets requests to take pics with the car all the time, hahaha.

By the way, like the cuuute new shirt? :)

Molly came for a visit today. This is how she felt about being out in the sub-100°F weather:

Summer is just gettin' started here in Houston. Yippee.

So every once in awhile I'll get on my bike and ride around and enjoy the sunshine while I run some errands at nearby locations.

I am thankful for the presence of REAL bike racks at Target! And of course for the fact that they sell toilet paper ...

I borrowed the handicapped parking marker at Unnamed Location 1:

I used the shopping cart corral thingy at Unnamed Location 2:

I think this was some sort of "no parking" sign at Unnamed Location 3:

Funny graffiti along the way:

And I'm so proud of myself! I didn't use a single plastic bag yesterday! I just put my goods straight into my backpack. This of course still gives the illusion of shoplifting, so I am thinking how to overcome this.

Eda, Yusuke, Violeta and I (and little Sophie too!) went to check out Fotofest 2008 for one day, hoping to catch photography during the Cultural Revolution in China. Instead, it was a lecture on the history of Chinese photography in general, so we started meandering about the museum, and revisited the light tunnel, where I was almost exactly one year ago with Chi-Wei:

"Gimme!"

It was my first time meeting Sophie. Very cool. :)

I was unable to view the lunar eclipse due to hard rain and a class I was attending. This was the night before last, where the view of the moon surrounded by gnarly clouds inspired me to grab a tripod and snag a few shots. Untouched except for slight cropping.

The Anti-Valentine's gathering was a hit for the most part.

You know, I think I've only had ONE Valentine's Day date ever. As in, an actual outing ON February 14th. Here's how it went down:

It was a fine day back in the stone ages, er, I mean, college. A handsome younger lad that had started hanging out with our group of friends, I'll call him "J", had asked me out for Valentine's Day dinner. At 8:00am (!!!) he showed up at my dorm room door, with a stack of envelopes, and a single rose. Each envelope was labelled "9:00am", "10:00am", "11:00am", and so forth, for the whole day up until midnight. I was instructed to open them on the hour, each hour. Not wanting to ruin any surprises for myself, I did exactly as told. Romantic idea, no?

Well, 'twas not to be. The notes contained in the envelopes started off cute, slightly sweet, as would be fitting for our level of acquaintance. But then they started to become extremely random in nature: the one that still sticks in my head to this day is the note that read:

"Don't pick your nose too much,
it will cause nosebleeds."

This is a re-enactment of the accompanying illustration. I exaggerate not.

Dinner was lovely, with normal conversation. Only upon finishing did I realize that ALL OF OUR MUTUAL GUY FRIENDS, the losers (yeah PH, AL, JW, I'm talkin' to you guys), had been sitting there, a few tables over, spying on us the entire evening. Uh, I guess it was a good thing I hadn't felt the strong urge to jump J's bones in public? Any semblance of a date ended there as the whole gang headed to Einstein's and played video games. Which WAS pretty fun.

Anyway, fast forward to last night:

Thanks go out to Jon for picking a place with NO vegetarian choices except for bread, coleslaw, and french fries. :) Light flirting with the waiter had him asking me to come back Sunday where he would toast the bread in a special way, just for me ...

More light flirting again at Starbucks; I asked for the opposite of the fat free "skinny latte", and the cashier came up with the fattiest combination possible, labelling it as "Special Drank". Hee hee!

A happy group of Anti-Valentine-ians, camping outside Starbucks singing various Christmas carols and cartoon theme songs together. We definitely could have been mistaken for a bunch of drunks. :)

• Locations I was at: 4
• Distance Driven: 102 mi / 164 km / ~2.5 hrs
• Shoes destroyed: 1
• Pairs of shoes that happened to be in car so I could continue to get my dance on: 1
• Pictures taken: 254
• Drinks imbibed: 0
• Warm light 2650K-temp CFLs (compact fluorescent lightbulbs) purchased: 4

Seriously - finding warm light CFLs (apparently anything below 2700K is considered "warm") has rocked my world. Environmentally friendly, economical, AND feels like warm incandescent lighting. AND ON SALE TOO ($3 ea, rather than $6+ elsewhere). [Insert exhale of contentedness] ... my living room finally feels warm at night. Suh-weeeet.

(I don't get why warm CFLs are anything BELOW 2700K to be considered warm ... shouldn't it be, the higher the temp, the warmer the feel?)

I need to stop scheduling so much in one day. I'm gettin' too old for this. ;)

Here's a pic of us girls surrounding Jon to make him feel special. I think the special treatment is putting him on the verge of passing out there. I promise it isn't because I passed gas. :)

Lovely red lanterns hanging all around the temple last night for New Year's Eve festivities:

Reverend Rongtong, a grandfatherly figure to me, at the entrance to the Main Hall:

Tonight will consist of pigging out on hotpot with the parents. Whoohoo!

Wishing peace, health, and happiness to all for the Year of the Rat. Prosperity will come naturally when all these are satisfied. :)

I spoke at ICC, a local Chinese school, about acupuncture this past weekend to mostly middle- to high-school students. Got some newspaper coverage too! Yay!

Action shot:

My goofy Powerpoint at least made them laugh. :)

We covered some basic Chinese medicine theory, introduced some modalities of Chinese medicine, and went over the fundamentals of health. I was pleasantly surprised that the students were so attentive and inquisitive! I even got to do a cupping demo on a brave student on stage. I had a great time. Many thanks to ICC for the opportunity to speak, and to Ms. He for making it even possible in the first place.

And so went my thus far biggest ever acupuncture speaking engagement. 'Twas a good day. :)

The themes of the party were "Things Caroline Has Never Done Before", "What's Age Got to Do With It", and "Are You Comfortable Being Around Hordes of Hot Men For Extended Periods of Time?!". A very tame dinner and movie were thrown in there for good measure. :)

And for those who missed watching the movie Juno with me, you also missed this surprise birthday message that came on right after the movie ON THE BIG SCREEN:

This birthday weekend has been full of laughter, tears, and more laughter. There were tears of joy, tears of gratitude, and tears of WAIT A MINUTE WHAT THE HECK IS *THAT* DOING ON THE SCREEN OMGOMGOMG!!!! Hahahahah.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou for all the birthday wishes, my dear friends. It means a lot that so many of you guys came out for lil' ol' me. I got a great start into the supposedly dreaded three-ohs. I am such a lucky girl. I ♥ you guys! *snif!*

That first post of 2008 was pretty drab. Thought I'd toss in the first pics of 2008. Here we are on a rooftop in downtown Austin:

A friend told me about high-dynamic range imaging (I haven't done any reading on it yet), but here are my preliminary experiments:

Ringin' in 2008 with both new and old (circa 1989!) friends in an amazing way.

[ me on the phone with my DSL provider, regarding repeated dropped signals for long periods of time ]

Me: Yeah, so my internet's actually working NOW, but for example, last night I couldn't connect yet AGAIN, even after the technician came by and supposedly fixed the problem.
Nasal-voiced DSL Guy: Well, I'm looking at our connectivity reports last night ma'am, and there was a shortage last night.
Me (tired of them giving me the runaround): Shortage? What kind of shortage? Like, a power shortage? Shortage to what?
NVDG: Well, it could be a power shortage, or a variety of other calamities.
Me: Did you just say "calamities"? What sort of "calamities"?
NVDG: Well, you know, like ice storms.
Me (thinking to self - what a tard!): Ice storms?! You DO realize I live in Houston, Texas, right?!
NVDG: Well, not necessarily, I didn't mean ice storms, um ... [ starts laughing nervously ]

[ chatting online with friend who'd had a terrible day ]

Me (4:20:05 PM): but now i know
Me (4:20:10 PM): and knowing is half the battle
Me (4:20:19 PM): "GI JOEEEEE AMERICAN HEROOOO"
Friend Who'd Had Terrible Day (4:20:22 PM): GI HAHHHHHHH
Me (4:20:27 PM): hahahahahah
Me (4:20:33 PM): were we on the same wavelength there? 
FWHTD (4:20:36 PM): omg.. maniacal laughter caro
FWHTD (4:20:49 PM): i have just had a day, that felt good
Me (4:20:57 PM): kekekekekekkee

[ Online chat with friend who had an um, interesting link to share. Click thru at your own risk! ]

Friend With Interesting Link to Share (3:32:15 PM): if you need to blow four minutes for something really stupid (or just read the title): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-asA8s0c4A
Me (3:49:56 PM): i'm at work, and i've clicked thru
Me (3:50:03 PM): and i'm glad that i had the volume turned WAY DOWN LOW
FWILtS (3:50:11 PM): oooh
FWILtS (3:50:13 PM): sorry
Me (3:50:18 PM): i can't hear wha't s going on and i'm not sure that i want to hahaha
Me (3:50:26 PM): hahaha no
Me (3:50:30 PM): tis ok
FWILtS (3:50:30 PM): don't bother
Me (3:50:50 PM): i'm going to close the window now, as the queens or kings are engaged in a 69 position
Me (3:51:00 PM): and in slow mo
FWILtS (3:51:04 PM): right
FWILtS (3:51:33 PM): well, i gotta make sure to do nsfw next time, so that's completely my bad

Comic relief has been much appreciated during this high-stress week. Thanks to Chef Hugh and the gang for some super-appreciated social as well as culinary pleasantries:

That's right, Korean BBQ at home, foo! (I am SO going to buy that attachment for the gas burner)

With Chef Hugh's homemade soft tofu dessert with real ginger syrup.

Today I learned that ...

- my people were NUTS between 1966 and 1976. We were f@#%ing inhuman. WTF?!!?! [ courtesy of International Education Week speaker and professor of English composition at North Harris College, Dr. Wei Li ]

- Qatar is a country that shares a border with Saudi Arabia. The American diplomat to Qatar, Chase Untermeyer, joked that working as the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, an unpaid position, helped prepare him for working as an ambassador in the middle east, since the fussing and feuding is about the same in intensity. :P

- you can pay for a specialty Texas license plate that says "God Bless America", "God Bless Texas", "The Lone Star State", and "FIGHT TERRORISM" (complete with a graphic representation of the twin towers doubling as the 11 in "9-11-01" enclosed in a pentagon shape) (I can't believe that last one is classified as a "Souvenir" plate ...)

- if a Toyota Corolla hits a wooden pallet on the highway even after slowing to 65 mph, it will FLY over it and have such an impact that any and all unsecured change in the car will scatter all over the floor

- the Sam Houston Tollway Emergency line (713.222.7328) is pretty responsive and will also handle reporting of road hazards

- I can have fun doing karaoke sober too. :)

Dude, I totally forgot to get my trusty tambourine in the picture.

Saw D again after at LEAST eight years. He looks the same!! Here he is in his natural work setting:

Did he wear pink just to spite me?

Sorry D, my pong form was not as heroic as it once was. I have become weak!!

It was so good to see him. I am pleasantly surprised by the intro and re-intro of Dulles Vikings into my life as of late.

Number one at the Hallowe'en costume contest as "Lobster Dinner". That's how my nephew rocks the show, yo. :)

Let's see.

I can do everything except for ...

surfing the web
checking / sending e-mail
online chatting
uploading pictures
updating my website
checking in on my finances.

My home DSL is spazzing out. So, I've been sleeping earlier. And talking more on the phone. Hmm. Imagine that.

Just felt like posting these pics of doggies that I am honored to be aunties to. Surprisingly nice pics taken with cell phones!

Mollybee (pic by A, with her Motorola Razr):

Happy (with my Nokia 6103):

Well, I loved trick or treating as a kid. I just recently saw Hallowe'en, the old movie, at Master Pancake Theater in Austin, which had me twitching with fear between laughing my head off. Yeah, if *that* freaks me out, then there's no way I'm will be able to stomach other more recent stuff. My most recent fond memory of watching a scary movie is with Fri, in the middle of the afternoon, sun pouring in, huddled together in Ed's bed, watching a Korean or Japanese version of The Ring ... and both of us still shivering with fear. Hahaha, we are so weak. :)

A dog dressed up as a mummy.

The people at the Scion Fright Fest were really getting into it.

Close-up of the hand and feet on the grill. I'm glad I'm a vegetarian ...

Hahahahahah. Nice.

My Corolla dressed up as a Matrix.

Me at my best.

I saw these little orange wheely things at Walmart. There was only Spanish labelling indicating what it was. I thought it was candy. I was hungry. I picked one up and put it in my mouth ...

Yuck. I think it was pasta! :(

Just got around to uploading pics of J's bite-sized chihuahua, Oreo.

She always looks kinda freaked out. Here's Oreo hangin' out in her homemade bed.

When her owner isn't around, she sometimes starts to get testy.

She has a love-hate relationship with Andy. Here, it's love, I think. :)

Hey friends! I have a friend (who makes cool clothing and other stuff all by hand) participating in this fair up in Austin, so I thought I'd spread the word.

[ Maker Faire Website ]

[ Hoang's online shop "hodgepodge design" with photos of her work ]

[ her handmade baby booties are super popular, get 'em while they're hot ]

Some real live shots of her work ... at play (thanks to our lovely model c):

 

Dang Wendy, your fingers be scary, yo. :)

Don't be a playa-hata, now ...

 

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA. Karen rocks so hard.

So, I was like all ready to be all productive and stuff tonight. Instead, I allowed myself to get distracted by this lil' lady.

Click through for more pics and some semi smart-aleck comments.

I can now tell time and by a cool pink display too:

I have reason to believe this gift card (feelin' da love!) is an intentional mockery of iHaTePiNk, knowing the bestower of the gift's humorous personality:

And ... blatant iHaTePiNk love, even from a hospital bed:

Two feet shorter than Yao Ming, but two days older. :)

Go Howie, iss yer berfday, we gon' party lak iss yer berfday! And it is! Have a good one, bro.

Taken in Zanesville, OH, May 2007.

Related: Mr. Fantasy video shorts (trust me, I have mixed feelings about this nickname that he's acquired), my bro's blog (warning: for fantasy sports geeks only)

Congratulations to Bill & Cindy for tying the knot and plunging forward into their futures together.

Grand party, it was. Though I think near the end of it I was too busy testing the capabilities of my liver to remember much. 'Twas a good time. Thanks to Masa Sushi for serving up a special plate for the vegetarians, and for serving up the drinks, and for uh, tolerating me.

And of course, our live performance, raw and unedited. My fellow comrades in rap rocked da houz for sure.

Note to self for "next time": no drinking prior to live performances that require mad Chinese tongue-twisting skillzZz.

One on purpose, and one by accident.

Father and son strike a pose. This lil' guy is gettin' un-little by the minute! :)

BFFs since high school breakfasting @ Classic Bakery.

Bumped into Crystal and Albert at Spicy China, a new joint that just opened up. My mom is getting really good at taking pictures with no flash, even with a slow shutter speed ... and her composition is pretty good too! :) 

... and other meetups. :)

A visits from Chicago with THE CUTEST KIDS EVARRRRRRRRR!!!

We couldn't help but crack up after the kids made a huge mess making an ice cream / pepper / salt concoction and then diluted it with water - when the bowl was already full. I think we couldn't stop laughing when A said, "Um, I think it's time for us to leave and pretend it wasn't us?" :)

Checkin' out June's arsenal of makeup.

Eyelash power.

After makeup fun with Carrie.

Tofu Village, yes, again. :)

Our sweet sweet hosts cutting up some sweet sweet mango for us.

I was (am!) determined to see everyone I wanna see. And I ended up picking up a bonus!!

Wei and Oscar at Tofu Village. They give you the Asian yogurt drink with your cheque rather than fortune cookies. WAY better! Especially after a very spicy tofu soup. :P

While hanging with mah boiz, bumped into TOTAL blast from the past: Scott Ryan, USATT referee!! He couldn't remember me at first, and who could blame him, after over 13 years. His first question to me: "Was I a nice person?" My answer was an immediate "yes!" And then I thought about it: that really is what matters, when people go their separate ways, isn't it? That's all you take with you, the impression of if they were nice or not. I always remember Scott as being like a very kind uncle that I want to bear hug whenever I see him, he's such a sweet man.

Me 'n mah boiz, Eddie and Sam, shooting the breeze back at their hotel after dinner.

Much gratitude to the 2 strangers who pulled over and helped me put on my spare tire. I clearly did not possess the muscle (nor sheer body weight) to even make the screws budge.

Grr. Theoretically knowing how to change a flat isn't enough sometimes ...

Apologies to Cindy for the violation of the cuteness of her stuffed bears when we went over to her place the other night.

Hahah okay fine, I'm not THAT sorry. :) Click through for the more "risqué" pics. Disclaimer: by clicking through, you certify that you are over 18. May not be work safe ...

Oh, and I just had to pose with Crystal's cool new camera. It's PINK!

Day ZERO of travelling was already challenging. Flight from Houston to Los Angeles was delayed for 3 hours, causing us to miss our flight to Taiwan and wait at LAX for 7.5 hours.

And what a great 7.5 hours it turned out to be. Min and Peter brought Connor up to see us, and Lily Jr. came out bringing REAL MCDEAL Chinese food. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

I'm currently hanging out with Grandpa and relatives here. The dynamics are interesting, as we have my very young cousins all the way up to my grandpa who is 90 this year.

There are computers for every member of my uncle's family right down to the youngest:

We went shopping because although I brought my DSLR, I managed to forget ALL my memory cards (me = moron). We also browsed the 10 Yuan store ($10 NT = $0.33 USD).

Oh, and I was singing karaoke as soon as we got back to my grandpa's. My 2nd uncle and aunt are serious about their karaoke - it's an external HD enclosure built for just this purpose that they carry around with them everywhere. OMG OMG OMG, hahahah!

Have you had a moment in your life where every single time you think back to it, you just can't help but bust out laughing? Here's one of mine:

Instead of explaining what's going on here, I thought I'd open up the comments for possible captions. Keep it clean, please! (I didn't have to mention that, did I?)

@ Abercrombie & Fitch Nov 2006.

Carrie's back, and so I went over to say hey. Hugh ended up cooking *me* dinner ... not sure how THAT works, but hey, *I* ain't complainin'!

Chef Hugh's AWESOMELY refreshing veggie pasta, including veggies from my parents' garden, tofu, and fresh parsley and black pepper ...

The bro has left the mom and myself back at the studio while he's taken the dad out posing as his "intern" for a half hour or so, and wasn't able to take all of us. Thought I'd take the opportunity to post a few pics from the past few days:

I broke Crystal's camera and left Howard and Crystal to fix it. :P

Oh, they're back... I think we're about to head out... check the gallery for more pics!

Running across a bridge @ Toledo's Botanical Gardens: Mom's shoe got stuck, but what was hilarious was how she stopped and said, "Caroline, I know you want to take a picture of this!"

North of Detroit, Michigan, at the tip of Lake Huron.

Crossing over into Windsor, Ontario: Imitating Rose's imitation of inanimate objects.

On a hill @ Lake Erie: That's meeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh (with random kid with afro)

Crunch-time at the studio before the newscast.

Howard demonstrates proper mic-holding technique to Dad before taking him out as his "intern" to some pre-game interviews. Yes, that is a stuffed beaver he's using as a mock microphone.

For Mother's Day, the bro and I came up with the idea to get her a personalized photo frame with a photo of her favorite children inside. This evolved eventually into a plate engraved with Chinese characters stuck onto a digital photo frame. In searching for pictures to load into it, I ran into some real gems. I found some pics of me actually looking cute as a young 'un:

Then, in light of all the misunderstandings I've been having with the bro lately, this photo struck me as bitterly and bitingly funny:

When the time comes for the bro to be married, I'll know where to find plenty of great material for his wedding slideshow. :)

Medusa in midair in front of giant armadillo with horns:

Got to finally meet Charmian! :) Messing around at the waterwall:

Nothing like coming home and everyone pitching in for a nice home-cooked dinner (including my infamous hot 'n sour soup):

It's good to see extended family (we didn't get to see all of them, but I am grateful for the ones we could see). Four generations present here:

Proud grandparents:

First ever in-car diaper change (and fastest too!):

Wii sillyness!

*yawn* Off to the bride's house to get my makeup and hair done:

Video of me giving the groom a hard time (a Chinese custom):

My fave catch of the day:

Wedding paparazzi. The ringbearer (above) and the flower girl were excessively cute:

The newlyweds and me (like the color of my dress? hehe):

Beware the fake eyelashes that almost touch my eyebrows:

More little peoples!

This is after John and Jenna's little Dereck drooled all over my jeans trying to ... uh, fit my leg in his mouth, I guess? HAhaha.

Spontaneous detour to check out Manhattan Beach right off the plane:

Video of me being silly at the beach:

Online Videos by Veoh.com
(@ youtube, if you can't see the veoh player)

Seeing my former landlords, who are like a second set of parents to me:

Meeting my nephew (son of my cousin, what do you call them?), who is affixing himself to dad's arm here:

Exhausted, but in a good way. Lights out for me!

The other night I saw this vehicle while driving home.

I mean, I KNOW "everything is bigger in Texas", but the mpg on that monster is probably tiny. Compare the height of this thing to the car beside it, which I think is an SUV ...

Also, the other day at my friendly neighborhood King Dollar store, I saw this:

They even had one for kids to thug out in. For just a buck!

Ah, 2 things I could've used in my rap video. :) Voting ends 11:59:59pm PT April 8th, 1.5 days left!

I generally don't accept gifts from patients. But I'll make an exception here. Besides, he IS only three years old. :)

Some of you may remember the tragic death of my beloved Canon Ixy Digital 50 (aka Powershot SD300). Well, it technically was not a complete and utter "death" since it still takes pictures - the only thing that's really "dead" is the LCD screen. For most digital camera users though, this is a huge cripple, in relative inconvenience and also because nearly all the settings are set via LCD.

It did seem a pity that it was just sitting around, and I remembered that younger bro had been wanting a digicam. So today I called him up: "Yo bro, want a free digital camera with a broken screen?" "YEAH! SURE!!"  Although younger bro is a whiz with everything TV-station-related, this is his first-ever digicam, and on top of that, it has no screen. Time to make sure it's as easy to operate as possible!

I learned a few things today. I learned how to reset the camera to its factory defaults (after powering on, hold down Menu for at least 5 seconds, go Right one, hit Set to select OK). I learned how to study menu diagrams to set the video settings by trial and error. I learned that I can at least change the time and date and format the SD card via the easy-to-use CameraWindow software (thank goodness), which can also be set to download pics automatically upon connection (major points for ease-of-use here!).

How many of you are like me, and take for granted that all the included software is downloadable online? I usually trash the CD after installation thinking that a simple online search would suffice for a future re-install. As it turns out, the easy-to-use CameraWindow software is ONLY ON THE DISK and NOT available for download. Of course I'd tossed that long ago; heck, I tossed the disk for my new Canon Powershot SD600 pretty much right out of the box. (To see the sad collection of downloadable software on the Canon site, go here and click on "Drivers / Software".)

There ARE 3rd-party solutions - one attractive solution is GetCanon!, a nice small program which seems to do everything except let you change the time/date or load up automatically after connecting your camera. Another option is hitting up a fellow Canon point 'n shoot camera owner (I can count 7 off the top of my head). Someone's gotta have the Solutions Disk!

I didn't know that our local HEB grocery store was so ... ahead of the times.

1) Set dial to the 6-minute mark, because you want crunchy toast, and according to the picture, that is the crunchiest toast setting.

2) Forget to set dial to "Toast", leaving it on the settings from that cheese stick late-night snack the other night.

3) Stupidity © me.

An approximation of my thought process while the toast was on fire:

omg it's on fire but the lack of oxygen should probably make it stop by itself hmm should take a pic before it goes out ok unplug the thing dousing with water in there would probably be bad oh crap the fire alarm is going off damn it's hella loud shut up how do i get it to stop i can't pull the cover off yargh ahh hey it's still burning my theory was not correct i should try to take it out of there but i only have wooden chopsticks won't those get set on fire too if i go in there with them oh well i'll be really fast ok here goes omg omg shut up fire alarm boosh ok now i'm safe. whew.

My neighbors have gotten into the spirit of things:
Some random Engrish to fatten you up:
I like the tapioca at Tapioca House and Star Snow Ice better.

As seen on Alex King: if you have a blog, you can get a free "pro" Zooomr account, which gives you 25GB of space. You have to host at least one pic on their site, so I picked a nice juicy Engrish pic from Taiwan (taken with my camera whose LCD was already broken, btw):

I wonder if the tiny chairs and tiny tables lend to the enjoyment of street food somehow? Maybe just brings you closer to the action?

Anyway, we're leaving in a couple hours. I will miss my relatives, my friends, the plentiful engrish, the ridiculous media, and most of all, the stinky tofu. (Above: me and my dad chowing down on the yummiest stinky tofu EVER in Kaohsiung. It was so nice and stinky, the sauce was pungent and spicy, and they piled on the marinated veggies. All for less than a buck apiece for each heaping serving. DUDE!!)

Having too much random fun with the camera. Abercrombie borrowed from Alex. Inspired by Frances. Cap from the bro (new pic, btw).



My captions would be:
"Darn it, when is that person gonna get off the toilet?! I gotta go!!"
"Plotting world domination is always better with a teddy bear."
Hmm, can't think of any others at the moment.

Make me laugh.

Afterthought: I just realized that the hoodie says "92", which was a year in which my life changed course in many ways. I moved to a new city, a new country. I abruptly went from junior high to senior high. I also went from having friends to having none, from being generally liked to being the target of jeering, from being happy-go-lucky to having daily peer pressure flung at me like dung from all directions.

It is so true, that what doesn't kill you, only serves to make you stronger. And I know many had it worse than me. And they are some of the strongest people I know.

[ / moody afterthought ]

Now make me laugh!!

While reading up on Ted Haggard today, I couldn't help but notice that he looked like SOMEBODY ...

Finally I put my finger on it. "Stiffler" from American Pie. Duh!!

This weekend I became intimately acquainted with a Wahl's grooming device, along with attachments #1 and #2.

Before.


After.


You can't really tell the quality of the haircut here, but I'm told that Chef Hugh has not yet felt it necessary to wear a paper bag over his head nor hide away from society entirely.

Funky cloud patterns, presumably left over by the nonstop raining this past weekend.

For anyone who might be going to Houston Hobby Airport before the rain evaporates - enter and exit the airport via Broadway. Other routes are FLOODED!

Video I took tonight, with chatter by Chef Hugh and cackling by me, plus footage of my car posing as a boat:

Who knew that a flooded street would look so pretty? (Note: Do not attempt taking pics / vids under such conditions unless you have a friend present to steer you back on track, hehe)

... because I like to mess with him when his mommy's not around. :)

My mom has a cell phone just for emergencies. She doesn't use it much, so she has trouble remembering how to do stuff with it. Today, she asked me yet again how to check her voicemail. Later in the day, I thought I'd check up on her:

Me: Mom, I just wanna make sure that you remember how to check your voicemail.
Mom: Oh okay, when you see the little glasses sign on the screen, you push and hold down the one key, where there's another little glasses sign.
Me [brief pause where I'm figuring out what she's talking about]: ... Oh ... uh ... right! OK, very good!

Some of you may know that I am currently temporarily "the boss of" a cute little ball of fur named Happy (again, also starring in my Really Important News parts one and two). Well, I've been trying to play the good dogsitter and taking Happy out to do stuff other than just taking him on his pee and poo walks. These extra outings get him really excited and extra happy, which makes for cute pictures. :) So last weekend, I crashed Hugh's place with Happy to watch the UT vs. OSU football game there (man, the Longhorns were disappointing!). Then, I called Hugh and Carrie up to go for a walk at Arthur Storey Park, and tired little Happy out there.

Well, today's adventure was to get the kid a bath. (I call him a kid, but he's really kind of an old man - he's 8 years old, which is 56 in human years.) That boy done stank up my car, gettin' all sweaty and excited and droolin' all over the place. So I headed over the nearest PetsMart to git'im a bath.

I'd never done this before so I called ahead of time to inquire. Turns out you need an appointment, AND it takes THREE HOURS! Wow. Well, I was in for a little surprise when I went to pick him up about 6 hours later (other than him smelling so lovely from his raspberry oatmeal shampoo ... I kid you not) - I guess he'd held his little bladder the whole time in his kennel there, so when we exited the grooming area, the old man couldn't hold it any longer, lifted his leg on a select bin, and promptly proceeded to TAKE A LEAK RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STORE. Passersby commiserated: "My dog did the exact same thing," and "Dogs will be dogs". Luckily, Happy is a little dog with a little bladder, which means cleanup was not too terribly bad. Notice the guilty look on his face. Hahaha. Pets sure have it better than humans sometimes ... I mean dang, if *I'd* peed in the middle of a store, I'd have gotten my arse whooped to next Tuesday by one or both of my parental units! And a few employees would probably jump in too!

[ on to pictures of cuteness, food, and pee! ]

note: The pics link won't work as of 2:10a - smugmug has decided to do some maintenance. They won't be up 'n runnin' until 4am. Yargh! Imma goin' to bed. Will put the link on in da mornin'. G'nite!

I didn't take as many photos as I usually do, but I did find my favorites of the night, featuring not the bride nor groom, but the groom's adorable nephew.Note: No children were harmed in the taking of these photos. No, we did not feed him beer!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised how crazy things got, since this weekend was all about the wedding of our favorite party-throwers, Carol and Alan.

QUIZ: Two of the following statements are false. Which are they?

1. One of the girls who came to the bachelorette party got so drunk she eventually had to go the hospital and get an IV drip.
2. A 4-month-old shihtzu puppy attended the bachelorette party and peed on my carpet.
3. The big red 15-passenger van we rented for the bachelorette party garnered 2 instances of sleazy guys rolling down their windows and indecently propositioning us at red lights.
4. I was a designated driver for the bachelorette party.
5. There were unclaimed articles of clothing left behind at my apartment from the bachelorette party.
6. What with the open bar at the wedding, Alan got totally wasted.
7. We got kicked out of 3 different places in the hotel after the wedding because we were being so loud.
8. I got carded at the open bar.
9. The bride couldn't find her undergarments after the wedding, so I lent her mine.
10. I got over 1000 pictures documenting the whole weekend's events.

Click through to see the answers and some pictures!

My favorite photo from the weekend (stolen from the sexy V). We had to flirt with the Crome bouncer more than I would've liked, but hey, he was kinda cute in a Russell Crowe-ish kinda way, so it wasn't SO bad. :P

I haven't been clubbing in forever. My hair and makeup and clothes and shoes (basically, my extreme makeover) was courtesy of V. That was fun! Thanks girl!

Boo! I'm alive! :)

Last post, I was gearing up for "IT". "IT" meant my friend Wanda's wedding up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I survived:
- photo duties
- wedding slideshow duties
- toast duty

I had fun, in a masochistic kind of way. :) By the end of the night, the camera was getting SO heavy, so I put it down (gasp!) and strutted my stuff on the dance floor, in my bare feet. I haven't strutted my stuff in AGES. It felt good. :)

Post-wedding, you could say I got digital burnout. I needed to process the pics, but didn't feel like it. Well, I have to, so I'll be getting around to it sooner or later. I'll post up something real later, but here are a few of my favorite shots that day:

having the maid of honour* and close friends pose with the groom

jumping for joy

groom getting a head start on some butt gropage while dancing

*Hey, the wedding was in Canada, eh?

I like eating at Sweet Tomatoes. I think Souper Salad is slightly less expensive, but the oodles of variety (lotsa vegetarian variety too!) at ST and the more upscale presentation of the food and the restaurant in general make ST a nicer experience overall.

And so, I was surprised to see this when getting my salad:

The sound of rain lulls me to sleep. The sound of a downpour makes me ultra lethargic.

The timing of the rain: when I have to get up (bad), and when I am supposed to go to sleep (good).

A "downpour" of another type:

Pics from hangin' with Turbo! (Oh, and his lovely owners of course, haha!)

The month of June 2006 in pics! Man, I was a little busybody last month. Musicals, baby showers, black belt tests, scams, Mom's birthday, and going to my first seafood and oyster bar. Cute doggies inside as well! Oh, AND includes pics from when a certain "spa" got busted! [ cough cough ]

And, the nutsness has just begun: As one of his proud non-Desi aunties, I would like to welcome little baby Nathan to planet Earth, weighing in at at a healthy 6lbs 13oz, 20in tall. How Annie and Jerry could have produced something that cute is beyond me. Hahah j/k guys. Congratulations.


Also, today I saw my mom and dad have a mini-spat in front of me for the first time in a while. I wondered if I fought like them, and have decided that my fighting style is the worst of both worlds. Yuck.

And now that I have inundated ye with this deluge of pictures and random info, I shall bid you goodnight. :)

First of all, happy belated Day of the Devil: 06/06/06. This is a good time to commemorate my Evil Twin Car. And almost forgot about this one.

Secondly, I've posted pics of my Memorial Day solo adventure. I went out to Caddo Lake in East Texas, which they claim is the only natural lake in Texas. I don't know what the definition of "natural" is, because there are tons of lakes in Texas!

Another draw to driving 4.5 hours out to this place is that on the shores of Caddo Lake is a city called Uncertain. Yup. Population 150. And I've got pics to prove it. Yes, I actually pulled over to take a picture with the sign! (Yep, I'm a dork like that.)

I've also got the bug bites to prove I was out in the wild. My feet are STILL covered with outrageously red, itchy bites. Argh! I have to muster all of my self-discipline to not scratch. Yargh.

As much as I was looking forward to solitude, I ended up meeting a photographer named Jessica (we started talking when I saw her toting her Nikon DSLR around) with whom I have probably physically crossed paths in both Austin and in Orange County (SoCal). The pic of me here taking a picture was taken by her. And THEN we met this crazy crew from Paris, TX. Alcohol was involved. That is all I'm going to say. What happens in Uncertain, stays in Uncertain! :) [ Jessica's Caddo Lake pics ]

In a previous post, I marvelled at what retouching could do for a photo. So I tried it out for myself.

I couldn't find a decent bikini pic of myself, so I ganked a recently-posted one of sillyvibe. Hope you don't mind, girl! So I went at it, trying to use the cloning tool and healing brush and color adjustments and all that. I was going for fuller lips, glossier hair and skin, an extra ounce or two in the boobs and butt, an ounce or two less in the abs ...

But then I gave up, and realized that the art of retouching is a very personal one, that each should seek their own style, and that I should stop emulating others.

And so, I ended up with a masterpiece that improves upon the pic subtly, yet dramatically. Yes, sillyvibe should be cringing in fear. :) Drum roll please! (Caution: not exactly work safe)

Today it was 3. On top of my camera stuff, and leftovers from dinner. Heavy!!

It's tough being the family's IT girl. Especially when my only "qualifications" consist of knowing how to do internet searches, being able to read through possibly technical jargon, and being capable of following instructions.

"It should be easy for you, right?" - famous last words uttered by bro

Yes, I am a fan of hands-free headsets. People who have been passengers in my car are undoubtedly fans of me using hands-free headsets as well.

Courtesy of the 99cent store (begrudgingly) and Logitech (yay for their Flexloop thingy!).

An excuse for posting pictures of myself, really. :)

Yes, I finally made the wedding slideshow into something about which I can proudly say, "Yep, I made that." It only took oh, over a month since acquiring images from the couple. And most of the good work was done 48 hours before the deadline, after input from a totally non-geek friend. I already had misgivings about the flow of the slideshow (after watching it billions of times I still didn't like it that much - bad sign), but the input really made me think hard about the makings of a good slideshow. So instead of using all of Adobe Premiere's awesome cool effects, I kept it simple. Simple zooms and pans. Nothing fancy. Nothing to detract from the subject matter. The important part was to highlight the stars of the show, the bride and groom, not my technical prowess at Premiere. I lost track of that while working on it. I'm really glad I got back to basics before it was too late! Now I can watch the slideshow a billion times and still like it. That's a good sign. :)

I was also a "photographer" at the wedding. I was too nervous and didn't do too well. Lotsa duds. :( Pics that I'm actually proud of:

Normal group pic

After prompting everyone to go "AHH" :)

This is how Saturday went:

8:00am: Wake up, go to hair salon to take pictures of bride getting hair done
10:00am: Go back to bride's home, take pics of her getting makeup done
12:00pm: Head out to church
12:20pm: Realize that traffic sucks ass, call bride to warn her not to go same route, try to turn around and get where I need to be ... all while working on the slideshow in the car because I'm going 10 mph (yes and this is from the girl who refuses to talk on a cell phone while driving unless I have a hands-free headset! BAD Caroline!)
1:15pm: Finally get to the church, start getting pics and vids of bride and groom getting ready (bride beat me there despite leaving 30 mins after I did)
2:00pm - 2:45pm: Ceremony. c takes short vids from an aisle seat while I shoot stills from the back.
3:00pm - 3:30pm: I go and take group pics after handing off memory card 1 to c so he can start scanning thru it for slideshow candidates.
3:30pm - 5:00pm: c feeds pics and video into laptop; work on slideshow at church
5:00pm - 6:30pm: With c driving my car to the reception, I work on the slideshow in the car. a follows us in her car and experiences a flat tire; a stranger almost immediately helps her get the tire replaced (way faster than AAA or Honda Total Care!); we get back on the road within 15 mins. All this time I keep working while a takes over behind my wheel. I get the slideshow finished in Premiere before I run out of battery life (which sucks on my laptop).
6:30pm - 7:15pm: Export last file out of Premiere, author with Sonic MyDVD, burn.
7:15pm: Showtime!
7:29pm: Last frames of the slideshow play, which includes a shot of the couple's kiss. Some kid loudly proclaims, "Ewwwwww!"
7:30pm: Appreciative applause. Many compliments. I don't know who else, but I saw the groom's father dab at his eyes. I am the woman and c is the man. And we definitely couldn't have done it without a. 3 people seems to be about right for the number of people helping out with putting same-day footage into a slideshow, at least 1 of which needs to be familiar with whatever program you are using. :)

After the slideshow played, despite a 2-second hiccup where frames were dropped (didn't have time to preview and check for it before burning), I was so friggin' happy about it I wanted to like chest-bump someone. But um ... I've never done that before and I'm sure I would've just fallen all over myself in an uncoordinated mess. Plus, I'm a girl, and it's not wise to chest-bump males, especially if they're taken. And no girl in their right mind would chest-bump another girl. That's just gotta be really uncomfortable. So no chest-bump, but there was a high-five. :)

Being the nerd that I am, I have gone back to fix the dropped frames and tweak a few other things that I would have done differently had I had more time to really think about what I was doing. Minor tweaks. Overall, I am still super-satisfied with the product that we were able to churn out on a time crunch!! :))))

I was remarking to a how that if I'd had a boyfriend during the last 2 months, they would have surely split with me by now, being sick of me needing to spend gobs of time on the slideshow and just be sick of the "S" word in general. I think my friends have already had enough as it is. Sorry, guys! You'll all just have to see our kick-azz slideshow and then I think I may finally be able to get it out of my system. :)

Vote now and sway the direction my life shall take after this very important life-and-death decision!


Red, or blonde (light brown, on my hair)?

Reality www, right here on iHaTePiNk.com.

I've moved into my new apartment! Nothing ultra-posh, but I love it! [ Hugh bringing me late-night tea and chocolate bars ]

I'm really a simple girl. I don't need much to be happy. All I need are my laptop, my camera, a high-speed internet connection, and all related cables to attach the above components to one another. :) (Does total value of components trump the number of components and thus make me high-maintenance? Hmmm ... )

So, in pursuit of a high-speed internet connection (I'm currently on dial-up right now - gasp!) I went to Best Buy to take advantage of the DSL promotion there. The sign-up system was getting hairy on me, so I had to call on one of the Best Buy monkeys to help me out. (I say this with frustration but with some degree of endearment, as I myself was once a Best Buy monkey.)

So, not expecting too much, I hailed one of them down.

He was kinda cute. He was efficient. He actually admitted when he didn't know stuff. He knew what he was talking about when he did open his mouth. He was super patient, waiting around to make sure that I completed my order smoothly for most of the process. He went back to check for the availability of a DSL modem for me - twice - not wanting me to go home empty-handed and thus wasting my time, and finally dug the elusive thing out from somewhere for me.

Did I mention he was cute?

He walked me and my DSL modem up to the front and he checked me out himself. He asked to see my driver's license to verify my credit card info (but was there more to that? hehe). Ensuing dialogue:

Me: Thank you so much for being so patient with this whole thing.
Cute Best Buy Boy: Sure, not a problem! Um, I don't mean to be nosy, but do you know David Chen?
Me: I have an uncle named David Chen ... there's probably a billion David Chens out there, eh?
CBBB: Oh OK, never mind, it's just that there's a David Chen at my school.
Me: (Thinking, "School? Does he mean university, or ... ??" while he patiently explains all the rebate forms to me.) Well, I don't mean to be nosy, but you look really young, yet you seem to know what you're doing around here.
CBBB: Oh, I just turned 18, but I've worked here for a while now.
Me: OK. Well thanks so much, [insert name of CBBB here according to name tag].

Damn. I was exchanging flirtatious banter with an 18-year-old. YARGH!

Damn he was cute though.

Amount of time to get my act together: < 12 hours
Amount of motivation: < nil

And so I will post a pic I took tonight that I thought was funny.

I can hear it now:
"Caroline, you're such a pansy."
"Yeah, but I'm a special pansy."

Lately I've been tuning in to the easy listening station when I'm driving, and during the evening they have the "love dedications" show. I used to be a big fan of that, in a previous life anyway, when I still like, believed in romance and stuff. Well, I was tuning in tonight and they were playing Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved" and it was a dedication from some guy to some girl! I mean, I dig the song and all, but ... the easy listening love songs station just isn't what it used to be. And as a dedication, the lyrics to "She Will Be Loved" are pretty bitter ...

I love Zoe Bonet, though. She's been around since at least I was in high school, I think. Her voice is super soothing, her laugh is sincere, and she really listens to and engages the people who call in to her show. The perfect love song program host, fo' sho'. The only person I imagine could be better would be Barry White.

Yes, I am a sucker for deep voices.

-----------

This little Longhorn nearly froze her lil' fingers off trying to get this shot. Good thing it was about 6:30am so no one saw this lil' lunatic running back and forth from the car 18 times to finally be perfectly centered in the pic (the only thing good about being up at 6:30am ... ). Yep, it's a mini UT tower in Houston. Sure, it's been over 2 weeks since we won the Rose Bowl, but hey, it's been 36 years since our last outright national title. We gotta gloat a little.

I finally got a shot of my mom that's NOT posed. It's so hard, cuz she's so camera-conscious. I love it - she's concentrating so hard.



Here are my parents when I'm trying to secretly take pics of them but then my mom sees me so I wave at her, exclaiming, "Just look natural!" Yeah, worked really well, haha ... my dad's laughing at my mom's "natural-ness" too ...




Hotpot at home has always been and will always be awesome.

Best e-mail of the day. This is the second time my "evil twin" has been spotted by bfm, but this is the first photo evidence of it. Had me amazed and laughing for at least 2 minutes.

-------------------
From: bfm
Subject: Evil Twin
To: Caroline

Well, I saw your evil twin today. Thank goodness some little birdie told me to keep my camera in my truck.

Attachments (1): Evil Twin.jpg

I lied. The Longhorn in me forced me to watch the game. And what a game it was.

Excuse me, do you have a minute, Vince?



The National Champion Texas Longhorns. I like the sound of that! Hook 'em Horns!!

PS - loved getting the cell phone msg / call after the game. All Longhorns be merry!

And speaking of beautiful things -



*tremble*

Yes, I get excited easily. C'mon stupid camera people, ship me my camera!!

[yawn] So it's like half past noon on X'mas day for me, and I am awoken from my beauty slumber with a call from the bro:

"Yo! Merry Christmas! It's really loud in here, so I just wanted to tell you to turn on Channel 13 cuz I'm at the ___ (couldn't hear who) vs Detroit basketball game, and if you look closely I'm the dude in the grey shirt and khaki pants under the net that Detroit is attacking, with a camera on my right shoulder! Check it out!"

But first, my holiday hangouts so far:

Went on a Friendster date with long-lost friend Anita who braved her headaches so we could hang out and hit on teenage boys in the astrology section of the bookstore

Got together with Esther and Jean so Esther could get her fill of real Chinese food and boba

Pigged out on awesome vegetarian hotpot with the fam

Drove around with the fam checkin' out other people's amazing X'mas light displays [ panorama 1 (above) ] [ panorama 2, ocean theme ] [ closeup of Santa waterskiing ] (Canon Photostitch is so cool!)

Leisurely took pics of our autumn scenery (winter for Texas) before heading to clinic and getting stood up by patient (aiyaa)

Went clubbing for the first time on X'mas Eve, with comrades Hugh, Eddy, Anita, and Anita's homies Vivek, Ashoke(sp?), and Raj: [ me 'n cute bouncer ] [ I look retarded when I dance ] [ leaving Club Mantra ] [ At House of Pies, with our Santa ]

And ... just got back checkin' the TV. I called the bro up: "Hey, uh, I can't see you." "I'm the only Asian dude on the floor!" I squinted more closely and still couldn't tell. Perhaps this is where the high definition would come in handy. Oh well. And so I missed my bro's fifteen minutes of fame.

More merrymaking to come!

Happy holidays to all.

This guy made me laugh on the way to work. I didn't know Krusty the Clown repaired windshields. And in just 10 minutes, too!

I have also seen a windshield-repairing Santa recently.

It rained HARD today, with scary thunder and lightning to boot. Eddy and I got thoroughly soaked after making a mad 4-second dash to the car after brunch, having to brave bad traffic and make my car swim through rivers made my commute to work 3 times longer than usual, 2 patients either cancelled or just didn't show up ...

Just kind of a gloomy, Eeyore-ish day.

OK. What's so fun about spending hours making great-tasting but ugly-looking cookies? Oh wait, I know - it's when after countless hours of trial and error, you finally figure out how to make great-tasting AND pretty cookies. (Sorry, no pics, cookies were too ugly for the web.)

I also managed to burn coconut today. It was simply supposed to be "toasted". Instead, I apparently set the toaster oven to "smokin'" and ruined the batch. Yargh!!!

This had better get fun like real soon. At least I get to groove along to Frank Sinatra while being a public menace to cookies and coconut flakes.

Hmm. Must be nice to be tall.

Random events of the day: after work (and after asking for a pic with the friendly neighborhood repair guy on stilts) , I decided to drag my mildly depressed butt out to do some holiday preparations. I wanted to bake some cookies, but couldn't find a mixer in the house anywhere. I knew exactly where to gank one though -

Chef Hugh's place.

I've been housesitting for my homeboy Hugh (Mr. Stirfry himself), and since he's a chef, I figured he ought to have one. I raided his kitchen, looking high and low. "Darn you Hugh, hundreds of kitchen gadgets but NO MIXER?!" I cursed under my breath.

After about half an hour though I struck gold and found the monster. I didn't even know how to turn the thing on at first - this ain't no regular household mixer. This is some industrial-strength shit, yo.

And today I busted up my 2nd dozen eggs. I'm such a klutz. The first dozen were dropped a few months ago while unloading from car to kitchen. Today I went from 50mph to 0mph in 1sec and the eggs sitting in the backseat didn't like that.

Anyhoo ... time to try mixin' up my first batch o' cookie dough. Here goes!

A few days ago, Violeta came over to shoot some footage for a short film on acupuncture she was doing as an extra credit assignment for a class. Viet and Eddy came along as needle fodder and as ghetto lighting assistants. I was offered a raincheck on more of Viet's specialty martinis as remuneration. Hey, will do acupuncture for free drinks! (Drinking and acupuncture not done simultaneously, of course!) [ taking close-up pics with special lighting ] [ goofing around ]

Oh yes, and I just got a new haircut. Most people think it's absolutely fab, but I think it's just so-so. Hmm. I'll get used to it in time, I'm sure.

Had the privilege of watching the St. Lawrence String Quartet with Todd Palmer perform at Rice University's Stude Concert Hall.

I snickered before the 3rd piece about something in the program:
"Huh huh, Carol, look, it says 'Todd Palmer, Clarinets'. That's gotta be a typo, right? I mean, what's he gonna do, play TWO clarinets?"

I was so wrong. It wasn't a typo. And he played FIVE clarinets! It was amazing. Wish I had a picture ...

We did get to go backstage and mingle briefly with the members of SLSQ and Todd Palmer. I knew I could count on Geoff to help me out with a good goofy pic. (L-R in both pics: Lesley Roberston, viola; me; Chris Costanza, cello; Geoff Nutall, violin; Todd Palmer, clarinetS [front]; Barry Shiffman, violin; Carol, violin )

Big shoutout to Eric for the classical music hookup - yet again!

Shaun of ChinatownConnection.com came in today and I got my first ever media interview about acupuncture. Well, hmm, make that my first ever media interview, period.

Ick. I need to seriously cut my hair. Or at least brush it in the mornings ...

Today I went to the rock gym and accomplished one particular route facing both forward and backward! Hee hee. The pic doesn't really show how cool the route was; it basically consists of 2 walls coming together at 90 degrees, and you can shimmy up it.

Food was had afterwards at Taqueria Cancun. I put a quarter into the jukebox and picked out a random song by the band who wore the funniest-looking outfits on the cover of their CD. The best part though, was sitting by the beach and gazing at the sunburnt couple walking along it, hand in hand.

Too bad we stopped to eat at Taqueria Cancun though, cuz just down the street was "The Real Mexican Food". Hahahahaha.

This is something I saw at Target one day. Posting it just cuz it makes me smile, even though the little doggie doesn't look too happy to be slung around like that.

Saw something weird on my driver's side mirror today as I was pulling away from work. Hahahaha. It made me get out of my car and inspect all around to see if there existed other evidence of Boy "tampering".

And so - I've been procrastinating on washing my car, but now I don't want to wash it because there is a Boy who is using the dirt on my car to show me affection. Hum.

Well, I HOPE it's Boy! Better not be some random stalky patient!

It has been a trying couple of days. I have reason to believe I left my brain at home before I went to Austin ...

missed IH-35 on the way up to Austin to Wei's place. How the hell did I do that?!

got a parking ticket downtown for being 8 minutes late to my parking meter. My walk-in appeals hearing did not help.

locked myself out of car. Did not know where keys were, if they were in the car, or what.

friend Sharon was telling me she was going to buy a bus ticket to come back to Houston this weekend. I went with her to purchase her round-trip bus ticket. Only 30 seconds after she purchased it did it occur to me that she could easily just ride home with me.

on my way back to Houston, when getting on SH-71, had a TOTAL brainfart and went WEST instead of EAST!!! Wasted 2 hours going the wrong way in bad traffic before realizing what I had done. What. The. Hell.

left my hoodie at Sharon's house after dropping her off and going in briefly to say hi to her parents.

The silver lining:

missed IH-35 on my way up, but turns out I did not stray too far and easily rectified the situation.

found free parking on University Avenue today.

Oscar came home from work just to help me out. Movers passing by spent time trying to help me out. Really felt the love. And while Oscar was helping me out, he got a call saying their offer on their new home was accepted!!

1 minute after checking with the apt leasing office lost 'n found, a couple of ladies found my keys laying around in the grass and turned them in!

the bus ticket purchase is good anytime in the next year.

because we went the wrong way, we got cool pics of bad traffic and weird things in the back of trucks. And had plenty of time to chat.

I'll be able to retrieve my hoodie tomorrow when I go check out my Sharon's dad's sunglasses shop for the first time. And hopefully pick up some cool shades for my tiny noggin.

just felt really loved because so many people took time out to chill with me. I even got "serenaded" by the wonderfully talented and candid Howard (Chi-Wei's bro) - I love it when people play stuff for me (Windows Media Video, 2min 44sec, 5.3Mb).

overall just loved the radiating energy of being around younger people on campus, bonding with kids who are now all grown up, and catching up with Wei.

Saturday night, Violeta and Viet had a housewarming BBQ at their new digs. Viet got the party started by getting the girls tipsy [ key lime pie margaritas ... mmmMMMM ] and grilling some scrumptious veggies. Then Violeta changed into her Thai shirt (Fri got me mine from Thailand too!) so that we could pose as twins [ back ] [ front ]. Then we busted out the Scrabble set (my first time playing on a Deluxe set!) and watched the Astros play. We learned that "merlon" is a real word. The Astros lost, but it's all good. Apparently they lost tonight too. Mark my words, they'll come back! (The official prediction from someone who doesn't follow sports, hahahaha.)

At the request of my bro (I give him credit for educating me on why I should care about the Astros), I headed out yesterday in search of official Houston Astros NLCS gear. Man, there was a line outside the store just to get in, which became a mob inside the store as soon as stuff was in sight, and by the time I got there they'd run out of adult size shirts. The shirts are ugly, in my opinion. The only thing that made the trip worth it was seeing this adorable little kid whose brother had already managed to score a cap for him. I'll go back next week when all the hoopla has died down.

Tonight Ivonne and I headed over to help Annie with painting their new Montessori school. I wanted to have some music while working, so I brought my CD boombox, which turned out to be welcome entertainment. I have a happy mix CD of early 90s stuff that everyone seemed to like. I think those songs probably elicited a memory or two of a simpler time ... [ me and Ivonne on tape prep ] [ Annie 'n Jerry goofing around ] [ Stella and Ivonne on a well-deserved pizza break ]

Today I learned ...

how to leash-train the doggies. Man, Happy's stubbornness rivals my own.

that Angie is a kick-ass doggie trainer. Oh wait, I already knew that. [ firm words ] [ whoa, she got him to heel! ]

that the Houston Astros were playing.

that the Houston Astros have never gone to the World Series before.

that they need one more game to go to the World Series. I finally began to understand why the 'Stros was such a big deal ... it's always good to have a bro who like, knows sports 'n stuff ...

that there is an Asian dude on the Cardinals team.

that despite cheering for the Astros (and being disappointed in their loss), I want to bear Albert Pujol's children. That guy is sexy. (Looked better on TV, anyway ...)

to play three-quarters of "More Than Words" on the guitar half-decently, with singing!

that standing up to my mom when it comes to touchy issues is exactly what I need to continue doing. I finally did that for the first time today, and ... it felt right.

Last night was the first time I hosted my colleagues. Another first was having kids over, three of them, aged 9 through 11 (cuties, all). Since I was entertaining my colleagues, I wasn't able to keep an eye on their kids at all times. I learned some valuable lessons:

1) Don't ever let kids into the elevator without prior instruction. (Yes, there is an elevator in this house.)
2) The password protection on my computer turned out to be a really good idea.
3) Don't ever leave hot peppers laying around.

At least I had Robots on DVD so they sat somewhat still for like an hour and a half.

I'm sure it didn't help that one of the little boys seems to have a crush on me. According to past experience (as a much older girl with little boys crushing on me), little boys like to show they like you by doing annoying things to get attention. (Perhaps akin to Flying Pear's sock-sniffing kid?)

I was afraid my BBQ'd veggie-kabobs wouldn't be enough, but we ended up having WAY more than enough. On the menu: layered chip dip (courtesy of Boy), stir-fried wide slippery noodles (cooked by colleague's hubby!), tofu in spicy sauce, and carrot cake for dessert. Almost everything was vegetarian (just a portion of slippery noodles was not), and every last bite was delicious. Mm mm good.

Aside from 5 hours of house cleaning and food prep, mingling with my colleagues in a casual environment was pretty enjoyable [group shot]. Of course, it helps that no one got hurt / got permanently stuck in the elevator / had spontaneous burning diarrhea / installed random stuff on my computer ...

I will be better prepared next time kids come over to the house.

Oh, and valuable lesson #4, unrelated to kids:
4) I don't need no can opener to open cans! (Well, I had one, but don't know how to use it.)

Still hung up, but refreshingly and delightfully not hung over.

Saturday was Carol's surprise birthday party. With Alan's fake eVite and everyone's fake no's and excuses as to why we couldn't be there, we got her good.

I did not emerge unscathed, however. How does one get carpet burns on their elbows at a party? Let's see here:

First you go to a restaurant and order some uh, special drinks, depending on your gender, or whatever you feel like imbibing:

(No evidence was collected of the incriminating x-rated Britney Spears karaoke lapdance I did on Carol, muahahahaha)

Go back to Alan's place, where more drinks are had, and people are starting to get so drunk they are passing out under pool tables:



And then, suddenly it makes a whole lot of sense to start having a competition to see whose head can fit under the coffee table!



Then people realize I'm laughing the loudest and demand that I give it a try - I decided to see how far I could fit starting legs first. My tailbone arch was my limiting factor. This would be my source of carpet burns ...



Random: Engrish of the night. These wedding invites were made in Taiwan. I think if you say it in the right tone, with the right breathlessness, it could be romantic.

Happy birthday to my favorite male cousin in North America, Andrew (not to be confused with Andrew, the Bachelor. Go Andy, iss yo berfday, go Andy, iss yo berfday ...

(from my blog post back on 5-19-03)

AND, miraculously, he's still single, ladies! How can you resist that stunning, sparkling smile? That sincere, warm gaze? Hahah OK, I'm shutting up now, before I really ruin his chances of meeting a nice, non-crazy girl ...

Andy's done some pretty cool things in his short time on this planet thus far. In previous lives, he's been a hardcore stunt inline skater dude, and an inline skating T-shirt designer. And now he's an orthodontist on the sunny shores of San Diego.

My fondest memories of hanging out with him have to be when we were bored as kids and would try to translate popular kids' cartoons' theme songs into Chinese literally and crack ourselves up doing it. If you know any Asian language, I highly suggest you try this. It is highly amusing ... haha, but then again, I am easily amused. It was probably Andy's idea - he's always been good at making up fun games to pass the time. Love ya, boy!

Is an overdose of cuteness bad for me?

Well, if it is, I don't care. I'm lovin' it.

(A) (B)

(C) (D)

(A) Happy and Nana passed out on the couch.
(B) Perking up at the slightest sound. And then promptly passing out again. Lazy butts.
(C) Happy hogs the remotes.
(D) Good thing I had this ferocious guard dog to keep me safe during the whole Hurricane Rita hullaballoo.

The 24-7 coverage of Hurricane Rita on TV/radio is getting irritating. I've been disillusioned in general with the media since the overhype that came with SARS. Well, since I've decided to stay put, I'll be able to see how much of this is hype and how much is for real. That is, if I am able to "be safe" (aka "not die").

The people who have gotten stranded on the side of the highways because they ran out of gas now need to be ushered to shelters. There are supposed to be tankers of gas coming to their rescue, but so far there has only been 1 tanker who was giving out 10 gallons of gas per vehicle. Highways have opened up converting southbound traffic into northbound, but that doesn't seem to be improving the flow by much.

So at this point, fleeing will not really reduce my chances of getting majorly screwed over.

In the meantime, I'm processing pics I've taken over the last couple of days. I hope my "borrowed" wireless Internet connection lasts me awhile.

It also strangely comforts me that I'm not the only one staying put, which I guess tells me that I am not out of my mind, unless we're all out of our minds. Today Eddy came over to hang out and we just watched some DVDs. I know a couple of people personally who actually turned around and came back (gas shortage and traffic frustration). Thanks to everyone who called / e-mailed to wish me luck and to offer comfort. I'm actually a little scared, but refuse to give in to unproductive hysteria.

Today I was extremely moved because of an act of random kindness that happened to me (again). I went to HEB to procure some food. No bread, so stocked up on tortillas to throw in the freezer. A couple jugs of drinking water to add to my stockpile at home. Cans of corn 'n beans. Bananas. They ran out of shopping carts so I picked up an empty box laying around and lugged all my stuff around in it. As I checked out, the bagger offered to carry my stuff to my car. I declined his kind offer, since they were busy as anything. While stumbling out with my box o' stuff, a man in the passenger's side of a passing car jumped out and spontaneously helped me with my box! I asked him if he was leaving town. Turns out he is part of our "First Response" unit. "Someone's gotta stay," he said with a grin. So here's a pic of Dan and I after getting to my car (parked in the farthest possible spot from the store; I couldn't find any parking anywhere closer). Thank you, Dan, and all of our First Responders, for all that you do for this city and all that you will do in the coming days. And for helping me with my groceries.

But most of all, for providing me a bit more emotional comfort for what is to come.

Conversation of the day:

Me: I'm dogsitting two dogs right now. They're just like kids. They're happy to see me when I get home, they love attention, they get jealous of each other. They understand lots of commands, too. Like, when I take them outside to pee and poo and it's time to go home, I just say, "Go home!" and they just run on home.
Friend: Um, Caroline ... kids don't like going home when you tell them to, and ... they don't pee and poo outside.
Me: Oh ... right.

Anyway! These are my temporary "kids"!

Shar sleeps while Jag contemplates freedom.

Jag and Shar hanging out. That's one of Jag's toys, and that white puff is part of its stuffing that Jag has managed to rip out.

Jag and Shar hanging out. Jag always looks happy, and Shar always looks sad.

It's hard to believe I've known Ashley for 16 years. It's even harder to believe she's remained my friend despite how I made fun of her when we first met.

Ashley: Do you remember when we were in middle school, how you critiqued my essays? You wrote 3 columns: 'The Good, The Bad, The Ugly'. 'The Ugly' would always be full, and there'd be like ONE thing under 'The Good', something like, "Spelled your name right."
Me: Hahaha, shoot, really? Dang, sorry girl. I know, I was a punk lil' kid.
Ashley: That's cool. 'Cuz you know what? It's because of your criticism that my English improved. Thanks!

Ashley, my sincerest congratulations. I love you so much. I'm so happy for you that you've found an awesome man to share your life with. Be good to John now, y'hear?

I love how this pic (courtesy of my dad) captures April's multi-talented-ness: she can smile AND kiss at the same time!



And they lived happily ever after.

------------

Here's another of my side-by-side comparisons (if you missed the others, here they are):



19 yrs later, and not much has changed. Our piano teacher (who led us to piano duet victory when we were but wee ones), now 79 years of age (but SO not looking or acting it!), is still the sweetest lady ever; April is still as skinny as a stick, 100% body mass = brain, and has landed herself a most excellent hubby; I, eh, well, I now have a full-looking set of teeth and know how to occasionally act girly. Both of us are definitely as dorky as ever. Dorks 'r us!

I had the extreme pleasure of being a bridesmaid at April's wedding after 19 [torturous! hehe] years of knowing the bride. I love you, girl! This also means though that there were NOT that many pictures taken because I can't possibly expect my dad to be as freakish as I am, although I'm sure I got this trait from SOMEWHERE ... gotta blame it on sumpin' ... gotta blame it on sumpin' ... blame it on da rain, yeah, yeah ...

Just finished watching the season finale of "The Bachelor". This is my first time tuning in to the reality show. And yay! He picked the classy, mature, confident one over the pretty bimbo.

I have to admit, I think the Bachelor dude is hot. Funny, his name is Andrew Firestone. One of my cousins' names is also Andrew, and although [ex-]Bachelor Andrew is beefier in build, I think they have similar facial features:

But isn't my cousin cuter?

The season finales of The Simpsons were awesome. One of them ended with the whole cast joining hands and singing the Canadian national anthem! Sweeeeeet.

I received one of those junk catalogues in the mail: "For Women Only". These things crack me up. For one, they always have the personal vibrator that is supposedly ONLY for massaging your back, but it's shaped like a you-know-what, and they always give this semi-erotic description about its uses. And the fashions ... oh I thought I was rid of funny fashion after leaving China, but I was wrong: "The Jacquard Caftan, just $16.95, makes you look THINNER!" This thing could make an elephant look thinner.

They conveniently do not have a picture of the abovementioned personal body massager, so here it is:

.

And this is Caroline, live, reporting from Quarantine Land.

Chinese vocab o' the day: [ge2 li2] : to isolate, segregate; to quarantine.

 

Me & Mimi & bat, 1999(?)

Mimi & bamboo & I, 2002

We were just lounging outside on the porch in the beautiful weather eating lunch. Hugh and Mimi's 95 lb. golden retriever Moemoe was laying under the table. He suddenly made a move to leave and knocked the neighboring shelf down onto our food! Mama Mimi grabbed the bamboo stick for some doggy-style discipline and ran around the table yelling, "Moemoe Chang!" She swung ... Moemoe ducked behind me ... SMACK! It took me a sec to figure out that the sting on my calf was because she'd whacked me there! HAHAHAHA. Mimi, I know I can always count on you for a spanking

6-02-02 weight: 96 lbs*
6-02-02 percent body fat: 13%*
*This looks pretty depressing - my body fat increased but my weight decreased! Factors that may have influenced the accuracy of these stats are 1) I weighed myself right after I ate, and 2) I was wearing less clothing than the original weighing. Trust me tho, I ate a LOT ... some mornings I woke up feeling FULL =)

Current weight: 96.5 lbs
Current percent body fat: 11.5%
Non stop eating!!!

I guess my Camry isn't good enough anymore for the stray cats at our school.

Yesterday I started hocking up a lovely juicy thick yellow bloody phlegm. Took some herbal decoction courtesy of Henry's pharmacy (he's gonna have a webpg soon! yay!), but today I've still got headache and an intermittent cough. Ugh. Luckily I've got access to the landlords' loquat trees, and so:
The 1st pic is steamed loquat with apricot seeds (the southern kind) with some rock sugar (tastes good!). The 2nd pic is of the loquat leaves soaked in boiling water (doesn't taste so good). According to the book, the leaf is good for my type of cough, and needs to be "scrubbed clean of any 'hair' to prevent irritation to the throat". According to my landlords, the steamed loquat is good for cough. I'm taking both.

It's good that I'm sick. It's making me crack open the books and read about this stuff I'm experimenting with. And for all you do-it-yourselfers out there: don't try this @ home without some guidance from your friendly neighborhood herbalist. (disclaimer: i am not responsible for anyone making themselves sicker by trying what i am trying here.)

Back from Howard's grad @ Syracuse U. I was inspired to write a mooshy poem because of a pic I took when Anabelle and Howard (friends since freshman yr) were saying goodbye.

More pics soon ... [yawn]

Hmm ... I think the cat missed me ... she is currently passed out on the floor right beside my chair ...



Guess what this is? For those of you who know, don't ruin it for the others. =) It's a little something I discovered over the wknd. Leave me comments with your guesses. If you get it, you will win ... a ... um ... well, you'll just win, OK? =)

Cleaned myself up with a haircut in preparation for Howard's grad this wknd up in Syracuse, NY. Congrats, lil bro! Look for an Asian dude coming to a TV near you soon! (hopefully!)

Here are photos I took of an actual Nissan Skyline spotted at Diamond Plaza in Rowland Heights: front | side | back. The sign in the front says that it's for sale ... sigh ... anyone want this 500-hp monster imported from Japan with a steering wheel on the right (well, the wrong) side of the car? =)

OK, now you all know I am not a big fan of the color pink. When I saw this car today, I just felt sorry for the poor Honda ... (I apologize for the ultra-choppy panoramic... I was too lazy to get out of the car to capture this) ... even has pink fuzzy dice ... sigh. If anyone spots a webpg called "I Love Pink", let me know ... hahahh =)
Oh, I finally procured a watch @ 99 Ranch Market (Anaheim) (where that hideous car above was spotted). The little independent watch shop in there has the best selection and price for anyone out there who is also allergic to some metals and doesn't want a metal band. I either have to have pure gold or plastic (totally opposite ends of the price spectrum). =) If anyone wants a cute Casio watch for under $20, lemme know. =)

Saw Blade II @ Downtown Disney. Lotsa sci-fi gore and vampires necking. My favorite line? When the heroine gets bitten by one of 'em weirdos and says, "I can feel it burning inside me ..." HAHAHAH. Sci-fi perverts! So ANYWAYS, afterwards we had to go to the bathrooms, and the women's restroom was SO swanky! Much nicer than the men's restroom. And NO I am NOT the proud owner of a PENIS. =)
Just in the mail: I PASSED BOTH THE HERBS AND THE ACUPUNCTURE PARTS OF MY NATIONAL LICENSING EXAMS!!! WAZZZZAAAAAP!!!!!! I was so worried about the herb part ... I still await the score on my point location but ... I'm not worried about that. Now I can exhale for a while. =) Moocho grassyass to H2L for pounding me the night before!!!

(First see my 03/16/02 entry.) I have managed to procure a Marvin Martian WITH K-9 off of eBay. Right after it got here, I shipped it off to Japan. But not without having a little fun first. =)

Yay! I'm over 1000 on my Chinese counter (see below)! Thanks to all my visitors! If you haven't yet, please sign my guestbook! =)

Here's a pic of an ill omen of things to come - one week before my licensing exams and THIS happens. Well, at least my car LOOKS clean in the pic ...

Lily and Henry vandalized my car today on my study break. It made me gasp but I love it! Thanks guys! =)
This and this is what Henry does in the library when no one is looking. I don't think I've ever gotten such a clear look at his nostrils before ...

Got a haircut (I like it, well, I like it almost as much as the cut Ah-Boga gave me back in the day =). In Chink med, hair is formed from excess blood. Theoretically, chopping it short again should concentrate the blood more @ my brain. Boy do I NEED IT ... my two licensing exams are less than 2 wks away, and I don't know jack ... @_@

Hiroko apparently gets even sillier when she's sick. =) Caution: you may laugh your pants off! =)

We're doing a secret santa at work with like 7 ppl. Mine HAS to be a female ... sorry guys, but i don't think that a guy would put so much thought, effort, and curly ribbon into this secret santa thing. =)

 A random result of Photoshop fiddling. Why? Because i was procrastinating from studying =) and of course because I love my hunnee! hehee. btw, "toque" rhymes with "Luke" except starting with a T, for all you non-Canadians! It's a TOQUE, not a BEANIE! Beanie sounds so stupid! There's a whole online forum on "Why Canadians Say 'Toque'" here - I can't believe it. My post is under the author name "Alotta Fagina". =)

Went up to San Francisco 2 wknds ago. My good friends took me to the Palace of Fine Arts ... and look at THIS piece of um, art! (NC-17, hehe) I got my pic taken with him on a dare (yeah Reema, it's all your fault!) We found him posing in front of a photographer wearing exactly what you see here. He introduced himself as "Blaise" and said he wasn't a model but was "doing a show right now". I dunno 'bout you, but next time I see a porn video, I'll be lookin' for his name =)

"You are the star for which all evenings wait." - from a Dove Promises chocolate foil wrapper. Wow. If someone said that to me in real life, I'd be instantly swept off my feet ... or totally grossed out, depending on who says it. =)
I've been getting a lot of compliments on my new haircut. Yay! Looks like I'll be going back to that $9 haircut place when I next need it. =) Back to studying I go ...