Real Time Weather Map

(click on the image to get a more detailed view)

With all of the rain that we've been getting it'd be nice to know what the weather forecast is, by the minute. I recently found out about Weather Underground and it shows you the weather maps in real time. Well, its got a slight delay but it is good enough for me. ^_^ It shows you when inclement weather is nearby. Yesterday I used it to determine when to go home. I left when there was a break in the weather and I wouldn't be completely pelted when I left the office.

This is a pretty nifty and useful tool. Whenever I need to BBQ again next I can use this tool to determine when we should put the burgers on the grill (and skip/miss the rain showers)

Ming the Phone

Motorola is introducing a new phone called the MotoMing. Yes, it's Ming's namesake phone.



I must admit that it is a pretty sexy and cool phone. It isn't completely sleek but it is packed full of new features. It has a stylus (yes, this is a phone and not a palm-like device) which has handwriting recognition. You can write chinese on the screen and it will recognize it. It's really cool and I can't wait to find it in stores to try out. Needless to say since this is Ming's namesake phone he'll be trying to obtain one in the near future

Happy New Year

It's officially the year of the piggy this year. Happy new year everyone!

We spent the weekend cleaning house and making Chinese New Year foods. Ming bought a 6 lb chicken for dinner. I have never seen a chicken that big and trying to cook one that big is really hard. We put it in an 8qt pot and it barely fit -- next time I cook a massive chicken I'll have to put it in the 12qt pot. O.o

This marks the first year that I will have to give out red envelopes. I am armed with crisp bills and plenty of envelopes. I hope everyone doesn't decide to descend on us and make us dole out more red envelopes than I'm prepared for ^_~

Disabling Your SSID

Lots of people have now learned that they should password protect their wireless network. Many others believe you should prevent your wireless network from broadcasting, thinking that it makes it less susceptible to attackers. Here's a comment about disabling the broadcast that is humorous and enlightening:


Disabling SSID broadcast makes your AP about as hidden as a duck sitting very quietly in broad daylight, in the open on a pond.

It thinks that not going Quack Quack, makes it invisible. If there is any kind of traffic on your AP it and it's SSID is as visible as any other AP.

Valentine's Recap

After my oopsies I must say that dinner went very well. We had Jap chae (Korean noodles normally eaten as panchan) and double choc cake with choco frosting.


Jap chae with a Chinese twist. I added fresh bamboo shoots to it.


Chocolate cake!


mmm... cake

My V-day Oopsie

Last night I wanted to get a head start on my choco cake in preparation for Valentine's day. I wanted to have the cake made the day before so that I could add the frosting the next day, when the cake was cooled. In case you weren't aware, my previous post mentioned that I wanted to make choco cake for Valentine's day.

I got home at 9pm last night and made myself a quick dinner. By 10pm I was ready to make the chocolate cake. I was in a groove and I was doing really well (considering that I had forgotten to take the butter out ahead of time to make sure it was room temp) and it was in the oven by 10:30pm. No sooner had I placed it in the oven then I realized, "oh crap, I forgot to add the chocolate!" I made chocolate cake and didn't add chocolate -- sigh. O.o I think it must have been too long of a day for me for me to have forgotten something so crucial.

I didn't want to eat what could be terrible cake so what was I supposed to do? I cleaned up everything and started again. I ended up making another batch, with chocolate, of the cake. I was baking until nearly midnight last night! When I went to bed the whole house smelled like chocolate. O.o

The lesson that I learned is always double check that I've completely read the recipe prior to sticking the item into the oven. I hope this choco cake is good since I invested so much time into it!!

Baked Donuts

Donuts are so tasty but oh-so-bad for your health. Imagine my surprise when I came across this article for baked donuts. O.o Baked donuts!? I can't believe that .. well just in time for Valentine's day I suppose. It's a way to enjoy a favorite snack w/o putting your arteries in danger.

If they can make a Homer Simpson donut maker, I guess baked donuts aren't that far of a stretch.

Love Is In the Air

Valentine's day is almost upon us and we see nothing but advertisements for roses and chocolate. What are you goign to do to celebrate? Sit at home and treat it as thought it is another day or will you go all out and spend the (approx.) $110 dollars on a gift that retail forecasters are hoping for and eat out at some fancy restaurant?

You may ask what I am going to do for v-day and my answer is this: eat cake (a la Marie Antoinette's famouse "let them eat cake" statment.) I'm planning on eating some choco cake with a custard frosting. That is my v-day. Flowers and restaurant atmosphere are completely optional. All I really want is cake. ^_^

Too Much Anna Nicole Smith

As we've all heard by now, Anna Nicole Smith has died. You can't go to a single news source (be it paper, internet, or TV) without hearing about her death. Her passing has generated a ton of media traffic and every single reporter is talking about it. I see her picture wherever I click to while on CNN, Yahoo, etc.

I'm frankly tired of hearing about her. The media is treating her as if she was some terrific person who died in the prime of her life. In reality, many of them (myself included) sneered when her name was mentioned and thought of her as a major annoyance. She hadn't done anything to deserve praise or "oohs and ahhs." If anything, she was the epitome of what happens when you (pardon the phrase) take a girl out of a trailer park and swathe her in millions. I hardly think anyone would consider anything she'd done as admirable.

She's received more media blitz than when a president passes away. Now, c'mon, isn't that saying something is completely wrong with our value system? If a diplomat or president (or someone else who's done something to better society) dies, he doesn't recieve nearly as much attention as this. We keep hearing all these statements from PETA (and I will sneer at this particular name since I think that they are just a bunch of radicals who bully their way into everything), celebrities, etc who claim they knew her well and loved her. If they knew her so well and were such good acquaintances, why hadn't they spoken up before now? We hadn't heard a single statement from one of them during all of Anna's tumultuous times (death of J. Howard Marshall, who-is-the-daddy-scandal, death of her son, etc.) Why now? The reason they speak up now is because it gives these clingers a chance for some media attention (again, our media is giving way too much airtime to this story.)

Bottom line: move on. This story was noteworthy for all of about 5 minutes. There are plenty of other things happening in the world which are more important.

Princess to Wed Commoner

One of my vices is to read gossip about the stars. While I love to read about Hollywood stars I equally (if not more) enjoy reading about royalty. My magazine of choice is Hello Magazine. It is based in Britain and always has lots of juicy gossip about the royal families of the world.

The latest bit of gossip is about Princess Alexandra. She was married to the heir of Denmark but they divorced a few years ago. The princess is 42 years old and born in Hong Kong. She has a bit of Asian blood in her, which might account for her youthful appearance. She looks fabulous for 42!



She is set to marry a 28 year old photographer later this year or sometime next year. Someone as gorgeous as her is going to marry someone who is 14 years her junior. Whoa. There are plenty of women who marry men who are younger than them (think Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher) but ... it's hard to fathom it happening to royalty. With her marriage to the 28 year old commoner (Martin Jorgensen) she loses her Princess title. She's giving up a lot to marry him so he'd better be worth it!

If you were to marry someone who is younger than you (by a huge amount), what qualities would he have to possess in order for you to lose your currently cushy status? For us mere commoners, I suppose it'd be the equivalent of some high powered attorney marrying a farmer in the midwest. I suppose a farmer is a bad equivalent since farmers will make a decent living whereas a photographer is more of a fly-by-night occupation (sometimes its lucrative, other times it is dismal.) You'd really need to marry for love and be ready to sacrifice your current lifestyle for a more humble one.

The Dreaded Scale

I have finally come to terms with myself and realize that I've gained way too much weight in the past few months. I've only been married for 7 months but I've also put on a ton of weight during that time period. This acceptance prompted a prompt trip to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy a scale.



I bought a scale to help me figure out how much I weigh and to hopefully chart my weightloss. I've been going to the gym again and trying to be smarter about what I eat. This scale is my motivation to do well...

Dark Chocolate M&Ms

I bought some dark chocolate M&Ms over the holidays. I love dark chocolate so I thought that I'd give the M&Ms a shot. I love to snack on M&Ms and I love dark chocolate -- sounded like a perfect combination. Upon trying the M&Ms, however, I was sadly disappointed. It doesn't taste like dark chocolate and is like the normal M&M. There is too much of the candy coating and too little chocolate to discern (at least for me) any difference between plain M&Ms and dark chocolate ones. :p Next time I will just buy the plain M&Ms and not waste my time scouring for the dark ones.

New Dessert Fave

I ate at Juni the other night with a friend. The food wasn't spectacular nor memorable -- and certainly not for their prices. The best part of the meal was dessert. I had mango sorbet and completely enjoyed it. I found out that it wasn't house made, nor even made by some Asian brand; it was made by Haagen-Dazs. O.o It was probably the best mango sorbet I've ever had. It tasted just like the little manila mango and it wasn't too sweet.



It only has 120 calories per serving (there are 4 servings in the container) and all of the ingredients are ones that I recognize. There isn't any corn syrup or other weird (aka bad) perservatives or sweeteners. I am definitely going to stock up on a pint or two of this the next time I go to the grocery store.

Orchid SOS

My orchids aren't doing very well. They look sad and droopy and dark green. I want them to be healthy and flower so I did a bit of research on the 'net. I found out that you should use sphagnum moss to fertilize the plants and help them get healthy again. I bought some of what I thought was sphagnum moss but it turns out that I bought the wrong kind. :( I bought sphagnum peat moss. The difference is that the peat moss is the decomposed version of sphagnum moss and isn't as effective. *sigh* Well, nevertheless, I put the sphagnum peat moss on the orchids and hope they do better. I'll check on them again in about a month and compare how they are now.

Pasta for Ladies .. of the Night

So I've got some anchovies that I'm trying to figure out how to cook up for dinner. Ming doesn't really care for them so I've got to figure out how to incorporate them into dinner where you really can't tell they're there. During my search I came across pasta puttanesca. I've heard of it before and it incorporates the anchovies in the pasta sauce ... sounds good to me. I read about its history and found out that it was served by ladies of the night in order to tempt men to come to them:

"This sauce is named for ladies of the night. They would place pots of it in their windows to tempt men into the bordellos. "

Whoa ... I'm going to be making an illicit sauce? I would never have guessed that something as simple as pasta sauce would have such a colorful history

Sudoku Mania

I got sucked into doing sudoku. I've been going up to the city to do work for a customer every now and then and it's a long train ride. I normally read the paper but eventually I finish the paper and it's still awhile to go before I get to my destination. I started doing a sudoku puzzle and I finished my first one yesterday. I understand why people are so addicted to this now; it's seemingly easy but it does take a bit of work at it. I've ended up going electronic and now I'm doing the puzzles on the computer (much easier than pen and paper since its ultimately easier to read on the computer than in a tiny little box on the paper.)

Call me crazy but I just joined the masses in loving this game. Well maybe not love but definitely hooked and once you start a puzzle, it's hard to stop until you finish

Scratch and Sniff Stamps

China has released some stamps where, if you scratch it, it smells like Sweet and Sour Pork. These stamps are to commemorate Chinese New Year, this year being the year of the pig. I wonder if scratching it will make people hungry for dinner ^_~

Article

Celebrating Tet

I'm not Vietnamese but I'm going to celebrate Tet at Tamarine Restaurant. I've been wanting to try Tamarine for a long time, especially since people have been giving it really good reviews. I've eaten at its sister restaurant, Bong Su, in SF and really enjoyed it. I can only imagine that Tamarine will be just as good as Bong Su.

I normally celebrate Chinese New Year so Tet will be a different experience. I'm looking forward to it since the restaurant will have different decorations and entrees out for Tet. They're even going to have a lion dance -- in downtown Palo Alto! O.o

Review: Kite Runner

I stayed up late last night (gasp, on a school/worknight) and read The Kite Runner. It is an excellent book and I recommend that everyone read it. It is about a boy who grows up as the son of the richest man in town (or among the richest). It takes place in Afghanistan prior to any of the upheavel. During the boy's childhood he grows up when the monarchy is still in power and it gives great insight as to what Afghanistan used to be like. Gradually there is a coup and social upheavel, causing the boy and his father to flee to America. As an adult, the boy is summoned back to Afghanistan and he sees how it has changed and how life has become unbearable when under the rule of the Taliban.

More than anything else, this book helped open my eyes to what life was like in the middle east. All we've ever heard is that its a war zone (since that is what its been like for the past 25 years) but it wasn't always that way. It used to be beautiful and "normal." Towns were prosperous and while not as "advanced" as the states, the towns had their own charm.

I also learned a bit about Afghan culture and how different it is compared to Asian culture. It was refreshing to hear the intricacies of their culture and how they also value the concept of family.

I stayed up very late to finish this book but it was a total page turner. If you haven't read it yet, it is a must read.

Happy New Year

Happy new year and welcome to 2007! What did I do to celebrate the new year? I played wiiiii!!! Since getting married earlier this year Ming and I decided to be ultra social and lay low. We spent the evening at home and played wii all night. Yup, we're a ton of fun. O.o

I love the wii. It's a lot of fun to play and since Ming has cleaned the house, we've got ample space to play it. I'm most addicted to Tennis (wii sports) and Zelda. I haven't really played other games yet since I'm trying to become a pro on Tennis and get further than just a wooden sword.

Hope that everyone had a good new years and didn't get too drunk. ^_~