How Unique Are You?

My full name (with my maiden name):

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 176 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

My new full name (married name):

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 49 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I guess I'm more unique (and less chance of being mistaken) now that I'm married :)

Modern Mediocore Chocolate at Inflated Prices

I recently was made aware of a chocolate maker called Noka They have a very minimalist, sleek, and modern appeal to them. Their packaging is exactly what would appeal to the urban, minimalist.



I came across an article which does an in-depth review of Noka chocolate. Noka is sold at premium stores such as Dean & Deluca and Neiman Marcus. This chocolate, on average, goes for $300/lb. Yes, there really are 3 digits to the left of the decimal point. In France you can expect to see chocolates for $100/lb but $300?! Damn, that had better be some really good chocolate to warrant that kind of price tag.

It turns out that Noka is a chocolate which has basically been re-branded (from a company called Bonnat). Noka is a company which repackages chocolate made by another company and they charge a 1300% markup. O.o While the chocolate is decent, it is no where worth that much money (particularly since you can buy the chocolate directly from Bonnat). Noka is the most expensive chocolate that you can buy but I'd rather save my money and buy chocolate from Vosges or Amedei instead. At least those companies are actual chocolatiers and make their own truffles, etc. instead of simply taking the chocolate and melting them down into another mold.

Noka is very cool to look at but I'll take a bar of some other chocolate (by a chocolatier who actually makes their confections) any day.

It's Christmas Charlie Brown

Urban Outfitters is selling a replica of the sad Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It's so sad .. but really cute. We aren't going to have a Christmas tree this year but, if we did get one, this is the one I'd get. ^_^

We Have a New Bond

I saw Casino Royale last night, finally, and I really enjoyed the movie. It was a really long movie but had a lot of good scenes and the script was well written. I'm not a Bond fan by any means but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It definitely surpassed my expectations.

I joined in with the masses when we all groaned upon hearing Daniel Craig would be the famous 007. He doesn't seem handsome enough to follow in Pierce Brosnan's footsteps. I should actually say that statement past tense. After seeing Daniel Craig's performance I was very impressed. He has a certain charm that grows on you and he portrayed Bond very well. He is in very good shape; his body was really buff! The stunts he did in Bond took my breath away and there were scenes where you could see just how hard his (ample) muscles were straining. O.o

All and all, it was a good evening and I'll rent/buy the movie when it comes out.

Start them Young

We've all had to worry about children who misbehave. Sometimes you just grin and bear it (and administer a bit of discipline.) How do you deal with children who lie? Better yet, how do you deal with parents who lie because their parents taught them to lie. O.o Yes, you heard right. I had the misfortune of finding that my cousin has been taught to lie by the parents. *ouch* Is it any wonder that children these days are much worse off then we were as a kid? When we grew up our parents had values and morales and always taught us to do the right thing. Somewhere along the lines todays parents forgot these lessons, and instead, do a 180 and teach their kids all the things that we were told never to do.

Well, now that I know kids these days are so terribly misbehaved, I'll just need to remember to never volunteer to babysit these kids.

Breakfast of Champions

This is what I had for breakfast today:

See's Candy and Milo (kind of like a malty hot chocolate)

Tis the Season

It's holiday time! I've been busy trying to figure out how to do x-mas shopping with the hectic workload ... how do busy people do it?

I've also gotten into the holiday decorating mode this year so I want to add some x-mas decorations around the house ... My mission: find a wreath to hang on the front door. I don't feel like going through all of the hassle of a tree this year but maybe next year :)

Happy Turkey Day

Happy turkey day everyone! Eat lots, be merry and give thanks to the oodles and oodles of turkey ^_^

The Devil Wears Prada

I finished reading The Devil Wears Prada and although I didn't have really high expectations for the book, I was still left feeling disappointed. Everyone in Europe seems to adore the movie so I thought I'd give the book a shot. Normally the book is always better than the movie so if the movie is good, the book is generally ten times better. Unfortunately, the book wasn't as good of a read as I had hoped. It definitely doesn't keep you hooked like the Da Vinci Code or any of John Grisham's books. Rather, it is through and through a chic lit book. I don't have any problem reading a chic lit book but I was expecting this particular one to have a bit more substance. The book is written from a first person point of view and .. the girl isn't very likeable. She catalogues her life working for as an assistant for some big magazine company and the book is all about how she slaves for a high and mighty fashion editor. The book didn't have any dull spots but, rather, just seemed boring. I love reading about fashion and the book was more focused on dropping descriptions about the fashion labels than it was about developing a complex and intersting story line.

I hope the movie turns out to be better than this book, that'd be a first, because all of Europe can't be wrong ... can it?

Love to Amazon

I love Amazon. I signed up for a trial of their Amazon Prime program. This basically let you get free 2nd day delivery of any items you ordered for 3 months. If you don't cancel within the 3 month trial period then you pay $79/year to continue the program. As with all trial offers, you will automatically get charged the $79 unless you cancel before the trial period expires.

I've been really caught up in work and before I knew it my 3 month period was over and I got charged the $79. *doh* I promptly cancelled the Amazon Prime membership since it was cool to have but not something that I really need. Today I received an e-mail that confirmed my Amazon Prime cancellation AND the CS rep also said they'd refund me the $79 since I hadn't taken advantage of it (meaning I hadn't ordered any items since they'd charged my credit card.) That is so cool! Amazon refunded my money even though it was my own error (I should have been more on top of things) and I didn't even ask for them to do this. Wow.

Amazon has made me a very happy customer and one who'll gladly keep ordering from again.

Jet setters

From dictionary.com:

jet set n. - An international social set made up of wealthy people who travel from one fashionable place to another.


Wealthy people huh? I don't think that I'm considered a wealthy person but I am a jet setter ... this weekend Ming and I are off to Boston. We're going to see all of his old college fraternity brothers and it'll be really cold there (high of 45). *brrr* I guess the only way to stay warm is to stay in Copley Place and go shopping. ^_^

Toys for All

Earlier I had posted that Ming got to buy the TV that he'd been itching to buy. The TV arrived and he's diligently been testing it out with 360 games. Since he got his TV it's only fair that I get something in return too ... so I bought a purse. It isn't just any purse, it's a purse I've been looking for for the past year. I finally found a purse that had all my requirements (roomy, leather, tote style) and I stumbled upon it here:



So now that each of us has some new toy to play with .. how do you find a suitable x-mas gift? O.o

New Toy

Ming got a new toy at the end of last week. In fact, I even went to buy him the new toy.



It hasn't arrived home yet but when it does, I have a feeling we're going to be glued to the couch for awhile. ^_^ The store will have to call us when it does arrive but I'm looking forward to it because it means that everything will be so much bigger and crisper.

Bringing Ramen on Vacation

If you had a limited budget for a vacation, do you think you'd
1. choose to go to an expensive and exotic location but *bring* most of your meals
2. go to a more modest location but go out to eat every meal to sample the local culture

Yes, there are people who have done the first option when going on vacation. Most people choose to live within their means and don't over extend themselves so much that they no longer have any money left for food. Nevertheless, I am sure there are a surprising number of people who choose to BYOB it on their vacation. O.o It's a crazy notion if you ask me but I guess there has never been a place where I've wanted to go where I can no longer afford to pay for my own food.

The people who BYOB it aren't the ones who are bringing food to a condo ... it's bringing ramen and any other instant food (e.g. granola, dry cereal) to some (for example) Caribbean island because they spent all their money on air and hotel and none is left over for food.

It doesn't seem like a real vacation to me unless I'm able to go mingle with people and eat out at restaurants with them ... figuring out how some of the locals eat or eat at some of the best restaurants the area has to offer.

What would you do? Would you spend all of your money on air and hotel or would you spread it out more evenly such that you have enough to eat at the local restaurants?

Back from Sin City

We went to Las Vegas over the weekend to celebate my sister's 21st birthday. My entire family went and we had good times. We took my sister to Tryst and got her liquored up (with the help from Mr. Effen Cherry and Mr. Belvedere) but the boys were disappointing. There wasn't anyone good looking and they were all old -- as in the same age as my dad! The music was good but the DJ jumped around genres too much for my taste.

We did a bit of gambling and we didn't do so well in that area. We ate a ton and overall had some good family time together and terrific memories.

The only bummer from the weeken dis that I ended up getting sick. =( Too much smoke in the casinos and a/c lead to me getting sick. *sigh* Well at least I can say that we had a good enough time this weekend to make up for me now feeling the ugliness of a cold.

Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dumb

I saw an episode on the Food Network featuring Paula Dean's sons and they truly are twiddle dee and twiddle dumb. The sons were raised in the south so they are supposed to have a bit of a southern charm to them and definitely have the southern drawl. Unfortunately, as I sat on the couch watching these two all I could think was "you guys cannot be for real." They go to various restaurants and show what the restaurant is well known for (cuisine-wise.) For having a mother who's become somewhat of a tv cook juggernaut they are really clueless. They act really dumb and as though they've never been in a kitchen before. They like to dip their grubby fingers into everything and always go "ooh ahh" over everything, especially bourbon or whiskey.

These guys act like completely simpletons. They are like southern frat boys who've been dropped on their heads a few too many times as a child. *sigh* This goes to show that nepotism is definitely not a good thing -- leads to us innocent TV viewers being subjected to 30 minutes of watching immature idiots on TV

The Cat's Away this Weekend

While the cat's away will the mice play?

I took Ming to the airport this morning. Traffic was horrendous; it took us an hour to get from Palo Alto to SFO. I am so glad that I don't have a long commute anymore. If I had to deal with bumper to bumper traffic (and stop and go) every day I'd go crazy. Right now I'm completely spoiled by my 3 mile commute. ^_^

Ming is away on business through the weekend so it means that I have from now to Sunday to do whatever I please. While he, lucky guy that he is, gets to go shopping at Riccardi, I am left in the Bay Area to find my amusements. What would you do if you had the entire weekend to yourself without worrying about repercussions?

Love Parade is happening this weekend but its become so commercialized that I'm not really incentivized to go. While I love the music that is played I don't look forward to seeing all of the commercial aspects of it that now exist.

I suppose I could take this time to clean house ... but I think it'd be better to wait on that so that Ming can join in "joys" of tidying up too. x_X

Oh the possibilities of what to do ...

What Celebrity Do I look Like?

I recently discovered this new site called My Heritage and it allows you to upload a photo of yourself and it then tells you how close you look compared to other celebrities. Its pretty cool. According to my results (I uploaded one of my wedding photos) I look most like Joey Yung followed by others (as seen below). The photo they have of Sammi is really out dated



Who do you most look like? ^_^

Fashion

Maybe I've been watching too much Project Runway but this dress from Fashion Week really caught my attention



I just had to share with it you because I love the dress but it's price is probably way out of my league and I'll have to be content with simply viewing it from afar.

Jusice on Fox

Last night I finally got around to watching the tv show Justice. It is a tv series about a group of lawyers who try to win a case for the defendent. The lawyers try to convince the jury that their client is innocent. At the end of the show you will see what actually happened and if the jury was right in their sentencing of the defedent.

I dont normally watch lawyer shows, e.g. Law and Order, CSI, but this one got me hooked. There was never a dull moment and I was completely at the edge of my seat (well, the couch) and trying to figure out if the defendent was really innocent. It's a really good show and I'll be hooked to it until 24 comes back on -- and even then I'll be watching both 24 and Justice religously

Weekend in Napa

We spent the weekend in Napa and it was gorgeous. It's been quite a few years since I've been wine tasting in Napa/Sonoma so it was really nice to go back. I'd forgotten how gorgeous the area is. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to upload the pictures yet so you will have to take my word for it. :)

We went to a ton of wineries:
- Cakebread Cellars
- Peju
- Niebaum Coppola
- Markham
- Close Pegase
- Chateau St. Jean
- Carneros Creek/Mahoney
- Rochioli

By the end of it all we didn't want to drink anymore wine or see any wine for at least 24 hours .. but we did end up joining 2 wine clubs


Carneros Creek


Chateau St. Jean

Yes, we joined 2 clubs and still brought back 2 cases of wine with us. Wow .. who wants to help us drink up :)

Fountain of Youth

Supposedly David Copperfield has found the fountain of life on some island that he just purchased near the Bahamas.
News Story

Hmm .. I think I'll believe it when I see it. With all of the uber smart people in the world, wouldn't they have found the fountain of youth first? Instead, an entertainer is the one who made this miraculous discovery? Sure ... yes, I'm a bit cynical but with everyone who's much smarter and research oriented then a magician would have been sure to have found this miracle water way before him.

Renewing Wedding Vows

Nope, I am not renewing my vows. For goodness sake, it's only been a little under 2 months. I am talking about Britney Spears and her renewing her vows to the slimeball, er, Kevin F.

story

After a whole 2 years of marriage they are renewing their wedding vows. I think the whole idea of renewing vows is a bit silly ... and it's even more incredulous when you haven't been married for very long. It's a sign that things are going downhill really fast and that the couple is fooling themselves (for a few months longer) that things will work out.

Good-Bye Name

I had my name legally changed today to my new married name. It's sad saying good-bye to my maiden name. :( It's always been a part of me and it's sad to see it go away. I couldn't keep it because, let's face it, Wong Wu sounds just way too much like a joke. On the plus side, I have a new signature that I've got to learn to perfect

It was good having you by my side these past 26 years name .. at least I still get to have you in my Chinese name. :)

Superman Returns

I saw Superman Returns last night. Ming made me see the previous Superman movies with Christopher Reeves and after seeing those, the new Superman cannot hold a candle to Christopher Reeves. Christopher Reeves has a sort of classy, gentlemanly aura about him while Brandon Routh just kind of fizzles in that department. Brandon Routh does a decent job at the role, I suppose, but everytime I see him, I think of him as liking the other white meat instead of Lois Lane.

All and all, the movie was good but I'm not sure I'd go see it again.

Ron's Farmhouse

If you've ever met me you'd know that I'm the type of person who'd never set foot in a dive bar. It isn't because I have something against them; it's because that isn't generally where I choose to go nor where my friends choose to go. So ... where am I going tonight, Friday night? I'm going to one of the oldest dive bars in the area: Ron's Farmhouse. It even has a MySpace page: MySpace page

I'm going to attend a comedy night. I don't have any expectations of it so maybe it'll end up being a really fun night. We'll see just how "divey" Mountain View can get. I'll report back later.

Wedding Bells -- They are a Clangin'

It seems like we've got a whole bunch of weddings to attend within the next year. We've got a bunch of wedding invitations from friends and more on the way. I thought that we were done with wedding stuff for awhile until I see the mailbox with invite after invite ... I guess that is to be expected since we're at the age where we're getting married and our friends are too. We've got:

1 wedding in August (Bay Area)
1 wedding in September (LA)
1 wedding in October (LA)
1 wedding in Spring 2007 (details TBD)
1 wedding in May 2007 (Italy)
1 wedding in June 2007 (Bay Area)
----------------
6 weddings!

We're going to be doing a ton of wedding gift shopping and travelling. I guess it is time for me to go out and buy more outfits to wear. ^_^

Married Life

I've been married for a month now and become an official Mrs. What's different? Um.. not a whole lot except that I need to make a conscious effort to refer to Ming as "my husband" and that I need to try to find time to unpack. I still have not fully unpacked into Ming's house yet because .. well, I don't really have a good excuse. My excuse is that I've been busy and lazy.

Over the weekend to commemorate our month of being married we decided to make a big purchase. It was our first big purchase together and it wasn't really to commemorate our month of being married -- it was more like because it was time for Ming to have a new car. We bought a 2007 Maxima and he is currently enjoying it everyday on his way to and fro work. It's his new toy -- got all the bells and whistles of keyless entry, bluetooth , navigation, etc.



I don't get to drive it very often since it is his car but it is a really comfy car to ride it. It gets decent gas mileage for a full sized car and I love the wood trim ^_^

Honeymoon Photos

Finally got a chance to upload the photos from the honeymoon
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=16iblc65.7fmpd1dt&x=0&y=vp97ox

Back and Married!

I’m back from Mexico and now I’m a Mrs.! It’s hard to believe that after all the planning and doubts that the wedding went off beautifully. If there were any snaffoos, people hid them from me. I couldn’t have asked for a better wedding and everything went off flawlessly. Everyone looked great and now the only thing I’ve got to do is twiddle my thumbs for 8 weeks until the photographer gets us our photos. Yes, it really does take them 8 weeks before they will be able to get our photos back to us.

We had a fabulous honeymoon. We boarded the plane bright and early on Sunday morning and landed in PVR (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico) without any issues. The smallest problem we hit was that we got nailed at the airport by someone trying to sell us a timeshare. Uh oh. Luckily we managed to eventually get away from him and take the shuttle (a taxi) to the hotel.

The hotel was the best! Upon arrival they served us some cooling fruit drinks. The checkout process was us sitting on the couch, sipping our drinks, and the guy coming to us to say “are you ready to go up to your suite?” The hotel itself is totally gorgeous. It caters to tourist (both from the states and Mexico) so it’s got top notch everything!

Our honeymoon package was for an all inclusive resort so all of our food and alcohol was covered. We took advantage of this and ate 4 meals (on average) a day! We had to get our moneys worth, so to speak, so we had to eat $360 worth of food and beverages. We drank so many drinks and ordered a ton of room service. With every room service order we ordered a bottle of liquor. We only found this out on Thursday but, after finding out that it was comp’ed to the room, we kept ordering bottles of alcohol. We didn’t mange to finish a bottle but sure had a good time trying!

The rooms had a Jacuzzi hot tub and that is the best thing to relax in right before you go to bed. Your muscles are totally put at ease when you sit in it for half an hour before bed. I highly recommend it ^_^

The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed 90 degree weather everyday. Both Ming and I ended up getting a really dark tan, not that we’re complaining! ^_^

There were 2 peacocks roaming on the grounds of the hotel. One was an albino and one was a gorgeous blue and green one. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any pictures of the blue and green one. We also saw a huge green lizard/iguana on the grounds of the resort also. Everything there was so vivid in color – except the albino peacock of course.

We went into the downtown area of Puerto Vallarta for all of 2 hours before heading back. It was too much of a city for us and we wanted something a bit more remote and less dirty and touristy. We went to downtown to buy some Tequipal (Tequila cream) and then bee-lined it back for the hotel.

The food was completely amazing at the resort. I found out what real chalupas and gorditas are – not a thing like the Taco Bell ones! They were so tasty that I believe I ordered one each day. ^_^ We ate fine dining almost every night and consumed a ton of seafood, lamb, chateau briand, etc. We had some really good food. I could go back again and eat more foie gras … ^_^

Pictures to come soon …

Plastic cups

I'm about to spend nearly $200 for plastic cups for the wedding. The plastic cups (actually champagne flutes) are going to be used for a grand total of 5 minutes before guests throw them away. *sigh* You've gotta love all the "little" costs of a wedding

12 days left and counting ...

I can't believe the wedding is almost here. I've got 12 days to finish all the preparations. Whoa ... Am I ready? Absolutely not. O.o

The one really great thing will be that I get a chance to see all the out of town friends and relatives .. it's just the sprint up to the wedding that is the scary part!

Officially Domestic

I have officially become domestic. I subscribed to the San Jose Mercury Newspaper.


Ming and I will now receive the paper 6 days a week and, like proper Palo Altonians, faithfully recycle the paper daily.

All I wanted to do was receive the Sunday Ads (him for the Best Buy and CompUsa and me for the Target ad) and I ended up getting the whole paper. O.o

RSS Feed reading

I've finally gotten my act together and stopped doing the "old school" way of manually navigating to a site to see if it's been updated. I have finally gotten an the habit of reading the RSS feeds instead. I am using Google's RSS reader. It's so much easier to read RSS feeds now! I can't say that I love Google's implementation but its better than navigating to each site manually.

If anyone has another suggestion for a better reader, let me know ^_^

Lemon Squares Part Deux

While Ming was out enjoying Sin City with his posse of guy friends I made lemon squares this weekend. Since not everyone knew what lemon squares were the last time I posted, I decided to take a picture this time around.

They were so tasty ... I wonder how long they'll be around before we finish them all.

Rainy Days

Rainy days bring me down. There isn't anything to like about rainy days. I suppose that one could see something special and likeable about them .. but after months and months of rain, I definitely can't feel that way. Had I ended up working full time in Seattle I think I'd end up suffering a big period of depression. :p

I'm a sun person. The rain gets my clothes messy, prevents me from wearing nice clothes, makes traffic terrible, and generally just brings bad news and circumstances. I used to laugh when I heard that doctors prescribed tanning salons to combat the winter time blues. I laugh no longer. I can see now how beneficial it'd be to get some sun in and pretend that all is status quo (well, status quo is sun for Cali). If I wasn't so against tanning (and losing my nice pale complexion) I'd actually consider going to a tanning salon.

Tomorrow is Easter. I hope that the weather is better and brings some sunshine for people who celebrate Easter as their one special day of the year. Hell, maybe going to an Easter celebration would cheer me up and be my "tanning" solution to the spring time blues -- yikes, that term shouldn't even be applicable but it is.

My Schedule for the next week

Wednesday - Friday	Get butt kicked at work during working hours. Work on assembling and sending wedding invitations until the wee hours of the morning.
Saturday - Sunday	Tahoe for Snowboarding
Monday - Friday	Get butt kicked by work. If invites are not finished yet, really, really scramble to get them out and sacrifice any and all sleep.

Boy, it sure sounds like fun >_<

Healthy Dinner for those on the Go

This is a really cool company idea: http://www.myprepcook.com. The company basically delivers all the food prepped and ready to go. It allows busy people to cook their own food when they get home and requires the person to have minimal equipment at home. The menus look actually decent. Price is a bit steep at $15/meal + $5 delivery but for those people who are too busy to prep their own food, this is an ideal solution.

Ride Around The Neighborhood

I bought a road bike and finally had a chance to ride it today because it was sunny outside. It's been a LONG time since I've actually ridden a bike so I was a bit wobbly at first but eventually remembered my bearings. My first trip out with the bike and it ended up 2.5 ride. I rode with Ming and we had a ton of fun. We rode around Los Altos and Palo Alto and even made a pitstop to pick up some veggies for dinner. I saw many, many beautiful homes in Palo Alto and Los Altos. There was even a point where I thought that we had to be in a neighborhood filled only with CEOs because the houses were so nice. Each house seemed to be a villa/castle. It was insane. I hope to one day live in one half that nice. =)

Back from the Dead: Drink Club

I received an e-mail from Drink Club today. O.o I thought that Drink Club was totally dead! I haven't been to a Drink Club event for a long time. I guess the promoters got their act together and started throwing parties again.

For more details, go here: http://www.sfdrinkclub.com/emails/060317.html

Taiwanese Food Explained

I can describe Cantonese food. I can describe "northener" food (Sichuan, Hunan, etc). I cannot describe Taiwanese food. I don't know what the exact differences are other than to say "everything I ate in Taiwan was yummy." Aside from eating delicious banquet style food while in Taiwan, I can't say what Taiwanese food is compared to Cantonese or any other type of Chinese cuisine.

Luckily I don't have to describe Taiwanese food because this site does it for me: http://www.eatingchina.com/articles/art-taiwanfood.html

Lemon Squares

I made lemon squares last night because my co-worker brought lemons to work. I brought a bunch of lemon squares into the office today and it was a total hit. I brought in about 3/4 of a pan and it vanished in about 45 minutes -- and it isn't even 10:30am yet. My co-workers loved it and couldn't stop thanking me for bringing in the goodies. It brings a smile to my face to make people that happy and appreciative. ^_^ I made them because it was therapeutic but it's a double gratification when I see how others appreciate them so much.

Paper is heavier than you think

I never would have imagined that invitations can weigh so much. The wedding invitations are being shipped and they weigh 20 lbs! How does paper weigh that much? Dear god.. what am I getting myself into with the postage. O.o

Mrs. Ming or Plain Ol' Cindy

There’s a lot of debate about whether or not the girl should change her name to her husband’s once they get married. It can be argued either way, change or not to change. In the Chinese culture, the girl never changes her given name (her Chinese name). If her name is Amy Chan before they are married and her husband’s surname is Lee, then she is still known as Amy Chan by friends. When she is referred to in context, then she is called the wife of Lee. This pretty much eliminates the whole messy ordeal of “does she change her name or doesn’t she?” Dear god, my ancestors thought of everything. ^_^

I found it particularly funny when I was researching wedding stuff to find a white girl who was marrying a Chinese guy trying to “asian-ify” her wedding. Because of the aforementioned statement, she’ll never use the guy’s last name, at least when writing in Chinese. They made a sign that contained his Chinese last name (written in Chinese calligraphy) with her English name and his English name. Now while this may look really pretty, it is quite the gaffe. It’d be the equivalent of getting a bad word tattooed on yourself when you really thought the word had an entirely different meaning.

Moral of the story: While giving things an Asian twist can be very “in” and it can look very pretty, you’d better double check before embarrassing yourself in front of friends and family.

What a million dollars can buy you

If you had a spare million dollars lying around you could buy this 3ct pink diamond ring:



Or this tiny house in Palo Alto:



Hm... ring or house .... ^_~

Shoes, shoes, and more shoes

I received my wedding shoes over the weekend. I ended up buying a pair of Vera Wang shoes O.o I couldn't help it... they were so nice and tall and had point tips. I'm a sucker for pointy shoes



I also bought a pair of shoes at BCBG that are pointy but they totally messed up there. They gave me a pair of mismatched shoes! I didn't think to check the sizes when I left nor did they check it when they rang me up. My left shoe is now bigger than the right. Grr.. I bought the shoes in Napa so going back isn't a possibility. I called them up the next day and they're going to send the shoes to the Great Mall store and I can go exchange for the correctly matched pair. Phew... The only bummer is that I now need to wait a week for them to transfer the shoes to the Great Mall.

Night of Gluttony

Tonight I'm going off my "diet" (not really a diet but promise to eat healthy) and I'm going back to the Lobster Shack. They got a fresh shipment in of seafood and that means I'm going to dine on fried Ipswich clams and oysters on the half shell. Mmm... I love lobster shack. The food is so incredibly fresh and I don't believe I've ever eaten sweeter scallops other than at that restaurant. All the seafood is flown in from the East Coast (Boston, Maine, etc) and everything is fresh, servings are amazing, and quality is outstanding.

I think I'll have died and gone to heaven after my gorging of clams and oysters tonight.

S&P Clucks

Over the weekend Ming and I went to Sur La Table and found the cutest salt and pepper shakers. They are ceramic chickens and I think they're adorable. They are now sitting on Ming's dinner table.

Shoes

I finally found a shoe that I like for my wedding but
1. It's Vera Wang -- I just had to go designer, didn't I?!
2. Store doesn't have my size



*sigh* I guess the quest must continue ... shoes, shoes, and more shoes.

Bacon

I have inexplicable craving for bacon. I wanted bacon when we went on our ski trip last weekend but, sadly, bacon cravings didn't get satisfied since we ended up eating Canadian Bacon, not true bacon. I'm contemplating going over to Mollie Stones and getting some of their thick cut bacon. Mmm .. Bacon is one of those things that I rarely crave and I eat once in a blue moon. A couple of nice, thick cut slices of bacon with buttermilk pancakes or in an egg biscuit sound so good right now.

It isn't even lunch and I'm already trying to figure out what I want for dinner tonight/breakfast tomorrow. >_<

Addicted

I have something to admit: I'm got an addiction. I am addicted to watching 24 and Desperate Housewives. Both shows have got me completely hooked. I just finished watching all of season 1 of DH and I'm religiously hooked on FOX on Mondays at 9pm. I spent the better part of my day reading the synopses for all episodes of season 2 of DH. There is no stopping this insanity. Gotta get my fix in >_<

My crack addiction will end when the season ends, thankfully.

Pet Peeves

Today I started reading over someone else's code and realized that one of my biggest pet peeves is misspellings. It really makes it hard to read someone else's work when there are many words that are wrong. I wish people were more diligent and made sure that their submitted work had gone through a spell checker. Grr. You'd think that professionals would have pride in their own work to be able to send the sucker through the spell checker. Honestly, how hard is it to spell? It's something that has been ingrained in us since grade school.

Sick ... again!

I don't know how I managed to do it but I got myself sick, again! I've now been sick 3x this winter season, all within about 1-2 weeks of one another. I would have thought that I'd have built up anti-bodies by now to defend myself but those germies are better than my body is at defending itself. *sigh* I hope this bout of sickness doesn't last long.

24

Last season of 24 was amazing. It was a really good season and so far this season promises to be just as good. The season premiere (4 hrs) left me on tenter hooks and as long as they get rid of the weanie president (totally spineless man) then I'll be happy. =)

Back From Taiwan

I'm back from the holidays and I had a blast. Taiwan was so pretty. I went to the non-industrialized part of the island and it was very pretty. Met many of Ming's relatives and they were all so nice. Here's a small sampling of my photos...


River in Kaoshiung




I can fly!








Fanta with a moo moo print and lots of yummy food for lunch.


The 'woot woot' bridge






This was my home for the past few days. The bus is festive -- red and green


Our very awesome hotel room.


They gave us a plasma tv in the hotel. That's nicer than my tv at home!