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!!

We just got a new printer. Whenever I am setting up things like this, I install software, plug it in, hook up the USB cable, just like the instructions say. I'm a good girl. I do things step by step, in order, instruction manual in hand, never veering off the path, for fear of screwing something up.

And then there's my dad. He'd just received the printer and asked me if I could come over and install it. Over the phone, I told him he should be able to install the thing himself no problem, as long as he "followed the instructions". I forgot that my dad is a male of the type that is allergic to printed instructions. He attempted something, but aborted his mission along the way. Who knows what he did. Now I have this hulking machine angrily whirring at me, loud as hell, and not printing anything.

The thing that is frustrating me the most is really how tiny the instructions are for what to do with the toner cartridge. "Break off this tab and pull out the tape", "if it's not printing, make sure you've broken off the tab and pulled out the tape". There is a teeny tiny diagram, that looks nothing like my cartridge, trying to illustrate this. I see that parts have already been broken off. I am praying my dad didn't just go to town and break off the wrong parts!

I'm looking in the trash for evidence of his activities. Nothing. Darn it all, today was trash day!

[ sulk sulk sulk ]

Well, at least the power has come back on. I was like, "Oh, let me help set up the printer! Oh, I can't turn it on." "Oh, let me heat up something to eat! Oh wait, I can't." "Oh, let me get the address and directions to that place! Oh, I have no internet." "Oh, the landline phone's ringing! But I have to run downstairs to pick up because that's the only one in the house that isn't a cordless." "Oh, let me blog my frustrations to the world! Oh, I can't ... "

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.

s: What did you use here to protect your camera's LCD screen?
me: Oh, it's just a WriteRight for PDAs that I sliced up and put on there. I'm pretty rough with my cameras.
s: I can see that. (pointing) I mean, you've even got food on your camera!
me: (!!!) I do?!?! OMG hahah I'm so embarrassed! (runs off to wipe noodles off camera)

As s said, rule #1: try not to use your camera as a plate.

From: P. Chen
Subject: order some stuffs
To: Chen Caroline
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 24 Oct 2006 17:40:13.0078 (UTC) FILETIME=[7588A360:01C6F793]

==============

OK. So I proceed to whoop out all my money-saving smarts and online search-savvy and get to work.

Compactflash card, check. Toner, easy enough. "Small disk" - by this my dad means one of those USB flash disk thingies - and sure, there are tons of choices. Fast ones, slow ones, slim ones, fat ones. And then I come across ... CUTE ONES!!! AIEEEEEE!!!


Not sure how I feel about the cuteness level when you actually need to use those critters:


And of course, like anything else I want really badly, you can't seem to get these cute ones in the US (well, I haven't found them yet)!!! POUT!!!

Yeah, if possible, I like to get cute-ified gadgets for my dad. He doesn't complain, rather I think he likes it. It's always funny to hear the word "cute" come out of a guy's mouth, let alone a guy who's almost 60. :)

I only ventured out to a coin-operated car wash the other day for the first time in my whole entire life, as Thi wanted to wash her car and we ended up doing my car in the process too.

Dude, I haven't laughed that hard in a while! And I probably shouldn't have massaged in the blue conditioner by hand - that stuff is hard to wash off! While seeing patients later, I was hoping no one wouldn't notice the bluish tinge to my hands ...

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

Today I was messing with a friend's Olympus Stylus 300 whose lens would not retract when it was supposed to, and thus could not properly close / shut down and also would not turn on at all (despite having a full battery pack and a memory card that had no known problems) - I must have been mindlessly fiddling with it for at least 30 minutes while we were chatting.

I was actually just suggesting he get a spiffy new digicam for around $100, when I started frustratedly mashing on the "Quick View / Playback" button a whole buncha times.

And all of a sudden, in astonishment: "WHOA ... it's retracting!! WHOA!!!! Holy !@#$ ..."

Apparently that was the "reset" button??!?!?! (I'm flipping through the instruction manual, and I can't find this in there ... might I have discovered something undocumented?! Can anyone out there confirm if this is across the board for Olympus cams?)

Also by pure fluke I discovered that this Olympus camera uses double-clicking of this very same button for quick playback of images while in shooting mode (this IS documented, but seems uncommon). Hahaha. Weird. I'd never used a digicam that needed double-clicking. Any other cameras out there that do that? Does Olympus still do that?

My friend has dubbed me as having "CPR skillz" meaning "ComPuteR skillz", but perhaps in this case it means me breathing life into his left-for-dead camera.

Yeah. Mashing angrily on buttons. Mad skillz have I. :P

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)