Was reminded of our 60 minutes thing when someone linked me an article about some study pinpointing an "autism gene." Hit up the website to check and apparently it aired yesterday. A little weird seeing these people I've worked with being interviewed, our research space all dramatized, and the projects chopped up into 13 minutes.

Happy year of the pig, fatties.

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I need to do something with this page. Revamp. Recode. Full CSS layout. Which requires learning . . . Which requires time . . . Which requires not feeling like I want to stab my eyes out an hour after getting home from work. Work is good though. Our living room is naked and I should start learning how to cook things. Going home for Chinese New Years this weekend! Ahhh food.

This job is going to make a wrist brace my own personal fashion statement.

Went to Sprinkles for the first time this morning. Previous drive-bys = "Oh hell no." They're good cupcakes and look incredibly cute, but an hour long wait during lunch hour on Valentines day? Are you serious? For cupcakes?! I'd heard about the store from Tiff awhile ago, yet only came across the press stuff yesterday and it's pretty mind blowing. Who'da thunk baked goods could turn into such a freakish craze?

Excited that our DF charm bracelet thing is finally coming together :)

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Moving to Southern California in January (living with Tiff!) :) Was planning to stay in Davis for a few more nights next week as I still have two days of work, but decided I'm just going to plant my arse at home, drive up for work and use those days to move more stuff back to San Jose.

Norcal: Goodbye forever.
Socal: Where's the pie?

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Cute memes stolen from Sheila

I know you want one for Christmas.

Caught sight of this link off Aliotsy's page, and wow, I'm speechless: Slimming photos with HP digital cameras. Cameras do stretch images out sometimes, but I can see this sort of feature encouraging distorted self-image as much as accurate representation. Is it any different from resizing an image? I'd assume that it is . . . Can't tell from the demo.

Started a Vox blog, though God knows why when I barely update this one. I'll figure out something to do with it.

Hit the cap on Beta (only took me a month and a half) and can't be arsed to do anything else now but instance.

Hillsbrad instance in Caverns of Time doesn't allow Night Elves because we're still being ninja-like. Ugly Druid leather looks super-crap on humans.

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The Euro photos.

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Woo. On the plane to London tomorrow evening :XX 4 days with only myself and Jenny in London, then August 5th join tour to go from London -> Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Munich, Venice, Rome, Florence, Lucerne, Paris + one extra night in Paris on our own at the end.

New tiny pretty camera get to play with on trip.

Don't want to pack.

Hate hate hate airplane food.

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I love the sound of chain saws in the morning. It's not a complete off-start though, since I pulled out this comic Pierre did of my FFXI character two years ago and it made me laff. I'd frame'em all but then I wouldn't be able to read the essay on the back that you drew it on :B

Now, who has access to bootlegged sheet music? I've been playing the first page of Auf dem Wasser zu Singen for the past week, and while that's lovely and keen, sometimes you have to step back and say to yourself, "Hey, it's time to move on." Granted, 2 dollars isn't much; I'd rather have a nicely printed, hard copy if I'm going to spend money on it though.

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Starbucks' green tea latte tastes better than Borders'. I'm back to daily spending of money on useless, froofy, high calorie drinks again. God, why?

Perks of being employed at a predominantly female workplace: (1) Victoria's Secret "Love Spell" hand lotion in the restroom. (2) Emergency chocolate supply.

Month long Europe trip with Jenny in August finalized! Verily excited. Precursor for hardkore backpacking trip in the 1-2 year near future, hopefully?

Contract at the MIND extended to December. Must decide course of action within a week. Do I want to stay in Davis working only part-time that much longer? More importantly, maybe, would I have to live in a box? Oh, the joys of housing.

Cousins from Taiwan arriving beginning of June. I'm going to try to return home more often in the summer to provide English language practice as well as helping them get settled into a, uh, new country.

The end.

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I heard the weirdest thing on a subject's video while at work the other day. The kid is making faces at his mother when she busts out with, "Give me your Chinese smile!"

Woahhhh, lady, that is not allowed. There's a notable difference between joking about racial discrimination and nonchalantly tossing out a comment like that. I haven't thought this through completely so I may very well change my mind later on, but presently I do find the latter more unsettling because it suggests an inappropriate lack of concern or awareness on the commenter's part. This isn't so much about political correctness as it is me simply being blown away that anyone could say something like that to their kid with such glee.

On a slightly related note, in L.A. about three weeks ago I came face-to-face for the first time with a person struck by yellow fever! This is another thing I need to think through a little more as I can't articulate what it is exactly that bothers me so much about the mentality behind yellow fever. It probably has to do with the burden of expectation and focus on superficial qualities ("An asian woman is exotic, loyal, sensitive, etc..."). I happen to have an abnormal fear of misguided expectations, so there may be a twisted relationship between that fear and my mildly indignant reaction to this guy's rationale. Because he seemed like a genuinely nice person and I personally wanted to understand what the heck the deal was with yellow fever, I literally sat him down to try and sort out his reasoning. Before we left, one of the girls wished him luck with finding his asian woman and he said he might give up now.
Angela: 1
Boy: 0

I've only seen 10 minutes of this relatively new series, Commander in Chief, so feel free to kill me for railing against it. I turned on the TV to see a shoddy West Wing wannabe with a female president. Great! No, just go home. Having not even completed one full episode made me hesitant to say anything, but I recently hit upon an article in a magazine that expresses my split second initial impression so well that it must be quoted.

I've been diligently watching week after week, trying to ignore the heavy aroma of cheese wafting from every scene, and I've come to the conclusion that what's being offered to me is not a sophisticated Camembert but rather a fluorescent orange blob of E-Z Cheese. Maybe I've been spoiled by the top-notch acting, writing, story development, and nuanced political discussions of The West Wing. . . , but I can't shake the feeling that we eager feminist viewers are being sold a bill of goods: Under the guise of groundbreaking entertainment, we're getting a lightweight program with bad pacing, jumpy editing, and wooden, awkward dialogue -- not to mention gender cliches run amok.

. . .

When, for the love of Gouda, will her annoying kids stop hogging episodes with their inane shenanigans?

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So, for anyone who cares and the people who don't, the groom's brother uploaded like 300+ photos... on a server that's not mine, meaning no blocking! http://www.basileaf.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=73

Loooveee this shot.

I'll try to lj-cut this ASAP.

Before I get into the actual wedding day though, a single photo (courtesy of Canaan) from our girls' weekend trip to L.A. two weeks prior :)

Awesome Italian restaurant, Massimo, that Heidi picked out. L-R: me, Heidi, Christine, Joanna, Canaan, Grace. Two school imprisoned girls, Anna and Tiff, not here :(


( March 25th, 2006 <3 )

Your Candy Heart Says "Get Real"

You're a bit of a cynic when it comes to love. You don't lose your head, and hardly anyone penetrates your heart. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: is all about the person you're seeing (with no mentions of v-day!) Your flirting style: honest and even slightly sarcastic What turns you off: romantic expectations and "greeting card" holidays Why you're hot: you don't just play hard to get - you are hard to get

I thought running with music would make workouts easier, but earbudding while on the treadmill leads to speedy fatigue because I have a hard time regulating my breathing. So, either I make a playlist of likable songs with the exact same meter and tempo, or I continue blanking out the window. Attempting the former would crazy, albeit of a lesser kind. Latter works just fine.

That said, I've been using my brother-given-video-iPod-Christmas-gift at work, which is 20 hours a week now as they've hired me part-time, to pass coding stretches. Disney and Boys II Men are coming back into Angela-world. (Being on a R&B kick is difficult when you never really listened to R&B. Recs this way please.) Also loaded it up with golden videos like Triumph at the SW Episode 2 premiere.

Unfortunately, music does absolutely nothing for staying awake. Found this out the hard way Monday when our cafe was, like, "BRB" for the entire morning.

And I so very rarely watch TV, but in weaning myself away from WoW I've been roaming the common areas more often. . . Meaning exposure to a lot of reality television. Does it ever occur to the people who go on these things that 10 years from now their teehee-fun appearance on "XYZ reality series" will possibly be the most horrifically embarassing footage of their lives in existence?

That question was semi-rhetorical.

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Amusing thread to follow for the first few pages.

Winner has to be Geki's reply:

"1. wwwwwwwwwasssddddsaawadwdwddwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww"

Dude. Seriously.

Aliotsy has a knack for finding and sharing slick sites.

1) For Davis go-ers, this might be amusing: Overheard in Cow Town

2) Cuteoverload.com. URL speaks for itself. Don't die.

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And I'm out of season 2 Battlestar Galactica episodes. Woe.

Interesting article my brother just emailed about Caucasians leaving our school district (Fremont Union) due to Azn invasion. True story!

Whites aren't quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they're leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests.

The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so bluntly, are too Asian.

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(First of all though, thank you, David Suh, for the cookies. I will return your tupperware soon!)

In August I realized that I'd lost my (expired) passport at some point between moving from the west side of Davis to the east, and while I was confident that it hadn't fallen anywhere outside, I had no freaking clue where it was. When the Alaskan cruise trip came up, because I failed to renew and had no current passport, I carried my birth certificate around for identification. Then guess what, after the trip it was all, "Well where the heck is my birth certificate?" So I took one of my older passports from home and went to reapply on Monday, but the passport man said I needed my most recent one. Oh, damn. However, in the case that I did not have my most recent passport, I could use my birth certificate!

. . . Oh damn :(

Now Angela's thinking, "Okay I won't be leaving the country for EVER," while walking out to the parking lot, and this tiny voice in my head starts whispering something so I stop, look in my bag, walk back into the post office, back to the passport counter, and ever-so nonchalantly pick up the other passport I'd accidentally left there.

I need a brain transplant.

Good news is my most recently expired passport was found in my parents' room this week. Why the crap it ended up there I can't even begin to imagine.

In other news, I can still type. Was worried that in addition to my brain other things were also wearing down:



And the text they give for the test is so interesting to read.

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It's very likely that someday I'll meet my end on the highway because I was staring at the sky. If it happens, remember: I totally called it.

Ate through the new Battlestar Galactica season 1 DVDs this weekend thanks to my brother. Not a clue as to how it compares with the original, but to people who enjoy sci-fi I recommend. I'm already attached to the characters and that's rare. Not even with Lost, honestly. West Wing might be the only other drama where I care what happens to the people. Galactica gets a little risque at a few points, but after watching a season of Nip/Tuck I'm not sure if anything else on TV will ever faze me.

Got boots and bindings, finally. Hadn't planned on buying all Burton but that's how it worked out. 151cm Burton Cruzer (for cheapness), size 6 Sapphires (boots), and medium Escapades. Tout blue and black. Also, while trying to figure out what to get, I learned that women's boards aren't called 'women's boards' just because they have fruity designs!! (The waist of the board is actually slimmer to allow for better control since girls weigh less than guys.)

Damn. Whodathunkit.

I've been living off rentals for the past several years though so I doubt that having a non-girl board will kill me.

Now. SNOW.

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