and... i'm off to astro jump! in the cold and rain. :(

I had the best idea... I told alice to dress oski up like a horse and let the little kids sit on oski and take pictures of them. genius, right?

Her response: you have been influenced negatively by the evil twins!

Hey now, at least i know oski's name! at least i don't call him RAMBO!

Okay, to explain seri's comment below... alinna and i started a game. The object is to think of as many married couples as you can with the following traits:

1. at least one person must be a celebrity
2. neither could have been married previously
3. must be married a reasonably long time. how long is reasonably long? That's where we get into the gray area - long enough where we think they'd never end up in divorce. since nicole&tom got divorced after ten years, and everyone thought they'd be together forever, i say a safe number is at least 15 years. (so unfortunately, hugh jackman doesn't count...)

The celebrities we could think of were Denzel Washington... and um, I forgot the others. I think we had one or two others. Ohh... there's Kirk Cameron & his wife - but they're more B-list celebrities. We're talking A-list here. But it's really sad that we had to search our brains so hard to even think of anyone who fulfilled the simple three rules above. Goes to show the state of Hollywood.

Anyway, anyone can think of others?

btw, I thought I've always though pet costumers were hilarious... but check out this puppy. Now that's a pimpin' dog.

It's the last week of October... how could it be 95 degrees this past weekend? Only in California.

I had brunch on Saturday with mel & christine, in an attempt for our old college accountability group to get together, although mary and marcia couldn't make it. I had a great time catching up with them - we probably annoyed the restaurant a bit because we sat there for two hours, and they were packed and busy. oops. But at least we got to talk a lot. :) mel&jason should be one of the next AACF couples to get engaged/married.... but... "should" being the key word here. jason's gotta get his butt moving, although I know if I say anything to him, he'll ask me to contribute to his so-called "ring fund." I still have yet to make a visit to that richmond house, mainly because I swear one of the guys must look at my calendar to see when I'm out of town before they decide when to hold a bbq. jason likes to make it a point to tell me every time (which isn't often) i see him that I haven't made it to any of their bbqs yet.

I spent 14 hours at church yesterday, starting from arriving early for worship team, to afternoon meeting about our fall carnival this friday, to helping decorate and figure out some logistics for this friday, to watching the guys do their fantasy bball draft auction (oh man, i wish i had my camera for that one! To quote P.Dan, "there's some secret meeting going on in the garage!" Seriously, that's what it looked like. Tables, laptops, stats, binders, papers, projector, "money" for the auction, moderator, food, they had it all. On top of all this, the fact that they held it in one of the Farley garages really made it look like some secret testosterone convening of asian guys.), to helping byron/maria put together their wedding invitations and address labels... phew!

eh... alias wasn't all that exciting last night. Joseph suggested that they should make Will, in Joseph's words, the "true overlord," and to make him the leader of the Covenant. They can't make will evil! NO! Could you imagine evil Will and evil Francie hooking it up? EWWWWWW.

Okay, this time I swear, my last Jessica Simpson post for a while.

Jessica: Nick, I'm so hungry! I'm starving!
Nick: We don't have anything to eat.
Jessica: Are you starving? I'm so hungry!
Nick (looking in the fridge): Oh wait, we do have something. What is this? We have chicken!

What does nick pull out? A can of Chicken of the Sea. HAHAHA. Thanks to bob, more about Jess & Chicken of the Sea.

converstaion with eric...
eric (12:02:23 PM): ur at the top of my bcs
eric (12:02:33 PM): wow..that would be a good pick up line
karen (12:02:42 PM): hahahahahaha
karen (12:02:43 PM): gross
eric (12:02:49 PM): man
eric (12:02:50 PM): im good
eric (12:02:53 PM): i should save them

ladies, beware!

more reasons why olivia will kill me.

them tricksters...
The phone rings so I pick it up and the first thing I hear is "Hi, this is Sharon from El Camino Hospital, may I speak to Karen?" So I hear the word "hopsital," so of course I wonder if anything's happened, and I say "yes, this is karen." (Whereas if it were a telemarketer I probably would have hung up or just said I'm busy). Then the lady goes off and talks about meausre D and why I should vote for it and blah blah blah. Tricky! They use the hospital to make people listen to you! And the worst thing is if they do it again, of course I'd listen, because what if an emergency really happened, and someone really needs to get a hold of me? Those manipulative people...

How do I stop the andrew hyun monster???

Cal's kicking game can't kick worth anything. They (more like the kicker) totally lost that UCLA game. He almost lost the USC game for us too. I swear it's Cal's curse of the uprights. I remember that one year when we hit the upright like in every game. You should get 5 points for hitting the uprights. That's way harder than actually getting it through the two bars!

I think it's scary when Jessica Simpson tries on a skirt that's already about 3-4 inches above her knees, and then her mom folds it up and says that they'll hem it up another 3 inches. And then Jessica folds it back down and calls herself a secretary because it covers too much. 3 inches above the knee covers up too much? eegads. More Jessica Simpson quotes: "I'm not a very good try-er-clotheser-on-er."

eric and I have this theory that Jessica pretends to be dumber then she really is just so that people like us will watch her show because it's so funny, and that she's a pure marketing genius... NAH. No one can pretend to be that dumb, can they?

Okay, I promise, no more about Jessica Simpson. Unless she does/says something utterly ridiculous in the season finale.

The Canaan guys are doing a live auction for their fantasy basketball draft next weekend. That unfortunately sucks for jerry, who's stuck in Virginia. But regardless, I think this will be very amusing to watch - I can just see them duking it out and outbidding each other for a particular player. What I don't understand is how guys can spend like 8 hours in one day just doing this draft process for multiple fantasy basketball leagues - and that doesn't even include the daily hours spent on managing your team(s). crazy. Guys, please enlighten me.

Okay I have to clarify my statement below. I don't personally think olivia = chinese jessica simpson. That's a true insult. (um, to olivia.) But when she compared herself to our dear ol' jess, it was too funny. Season finale is already next week!

For the first time in a long, long time, I have a Saturday off. Wedding duties are over for the year, no missions committee mtgs, no praise band practice, no fnl activities. Although we're in quarter-end for work, it definitely doesn't feel like it. It's like the exact opposite extreme of quarter-end last time, back in July. (I sure hope we never experience something like that again.) So I'm definitely thankful to God for this rest and a chance to veg, sit around in my pj's all day, watch some games, exercise, read, clean, hmmm maybe i'm getting a little too ambitious here. ;) But seriously, this weekend off came at the perfect time. I think I'm totally burnt out with all the flurry of activities, weddings, outreach events, and other things that have been going on. When you come out of the weekend more tired then you went into the weekend, something is definitely wrong.

We do have another neighborhood outreach on Halloween, but I'm excited about that. Only because my small group is in charge of the ASTRO JUMP. Forget the kids, I'M going to jump in that sucker the whole night! :D

olivia = chinese jessica simpson?

Just for my own defense, *I* wasn't the one who came up with the analogy! In fact, olivia came up with it herself.

This was too funny for the olivia & karen blog only.

The end.

Boo on Armadillo Willy's... A bunch of us went there tonight to get the all-you-can-eat ribs special for $12.95. The ribs aren't so great, but hey - all you can eat for $12.95, right? Except when Andrew Wu seriously inhaled his ribs (he finished all his ribs before all of us finished one!) within the first five minutes of getting our meal, and asked for free refill, the manager came back to tell us that they ran out of ribs! First of all, it's a Monday night. Not even Friday or Saturday. Second of all, why couldn't they tell us before all 9 of us ordered the dish? They should have easily known they would run out when nine people ordered it! To "make up" for it, they offered us a free dessert. Free dessert (with the choices being root bear float, bread pudding, key lime pie, or a piece of chocolate cake) for all you can eat ribs? I think not. Andrew Wu boldly asked for a meat dish instead, so the manager extended the offer to appetizers. So most people ended up with extremely salty dried smoked salmon (can we say ew) and I ended up with onion rings which I fed to the movie club back at my place. In Pattycake's words, those onion rings "so weren't worth it." He should have been there so that he could throw down for us. That's the last time I'm going there. Check out the eating club's blog to read other diners' experiences. At least I got some green tea gelato at trader joe's afterwards to make up for it.

Jessica Simpson on her 23rd birthday: "23 is so old. That's almost 25 which is almost mid-20's." You guys HAVE to see Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica on MTV Tuesday nights if you haven't yet. Jessica carries that show on her own shoulders. Seriously, she epitomizes blonde Barbie doll perfectly. Look up "Barbie" in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Jessica Simpson. (other notables - when Jessica thought buffalo wings really came from buffaloes, when she though platypus was platyMApus, and when she thought chicken of the sea was really chicken. oh man. too funny.)

One thing I dislike are hypocrites - the biggest reason being that I myself am one, and I hate that about myself. I hate cliques, yet I'm guilty of being a part of it. I hate not feeling wanted, but I'm sure I make other people not feel wanted (on top of that, I shouldn't even have the need to feel wanted in the first place). I hate how I judge people, how I see them in a light other than how Christ would see them. I dislike it all, and I hear God telling me to look at the mirror and see/take out the plank in my own eye. sigh. More things to work on.

Many thanks to o, who doesn't know this, but her phone call came at the perfect time. I was in quite a grumpy mood yesterday, but her lovely (albeit very random) singing rendition of "Great is the Lord" made me laugh so hard I was crying. I generally tend to not think of myself as a moody person - please correct me if I'm wrong ;) - but if there's one thing that makes me cranky is lack of sleep. And that, I had this weekend. My inability to sleep in on a Saturday morning (why, why, why? I woke up at 8 am and couldn't go back to sleep), Winnie/Jonathan's wedding which lasted all day (which I had to be there 1.5 hours early, too), the fact that I didn't get home from the wedding until 11:30 because the only ride back I could find had to drop off flowers and stuff, and that I had to be at church at 8:15am for praise band practice made me not a happy camper on Sunday. So yes, thanks o! Bet you didn't know singing like a dork would lift me out of my grumpiness, but it did. :)

btw...olivia told me a certain someone named jonathan, aka jono, reads my blog. So i'm calling him out - oh jono, where are you? More importantly, when are you going to visit northern california? I promise you the rest of the girls aren't as scary as jean! ;) Hm, I gotta get myself a plane ticket to baltimore. Anyone else wanna come?

And, sorry to all fans of "the adventures of olivia and karen" (my whole fan base of one - olivia. Maybe two, if you count jono who probably only reads this to read about olivia. hehe.) because everything in the future will be moved to another location. If you can figure out the link, props to you. As a warning, there is a dummy one out there, only because I couldn't figure out how to delete the thing. I clicked on "delete blog" but the actual url still works. And this isn't meant to be exclusive, but only because I don't think anyone else is interested in reading about our, um, mature conversations.

One last adventure for you all. Most probably won't get it, and most won't care... but for those who do:

olivia (11:07:53 AM): swear on my headpiece

Can you believe she made me swear about something on her HEADPIECE? She means business.

Link of the day - you know those motivational posters with the simple picture and one word that captivates that picture? These are it. But read very carefully.... ;) Click on "Online catalog" to see them all.

I think olivia lives vicariously through my blog.

More adventures of olivia+karen...

olivia (5:27:37 PM): hey, help me think of something to decorate irving's living room walls
karen (5:27:45 PM): okay
karen (5:27:47 PM): posters
karen (5:27:50 PM): rug
karen (5:27:53 PM): wallpaper
karen (5:27:56 PM): pictures of us
karen (5:27:57 PM): HAHAHAHA
olivia (5:28:00 PM): YES
olivia (5:28:02 PM): that's it!@
olivia (5:28:14 PM): we should send him poster size of us!!!
karen (5:28:16 PM): YES!
karen (5:28:17 PM): or
karen (5:28:21 PM): even better...
karen (5:28:24 PM): LIFESIZE CUTOUTS
olivia (5:28:27 PM): life size cut
olivia (5:28:28 PM): HAHAHAHAHA
karen (5:28:32 PM): pure genius!!!!!!

five minutes later...
irving (5:34:26 PM): no lifesize cutouts of you or olivia please

and my response...
karen (5:35:30 PM): HEY!
karen (5:35:32 PM): i take offense
olivia (5:35:37 PM): as you should!
olivia (5:35:49 PM): who wouldn't want life size cut outs of us?!
karen (5:35:53 PM): I KNOW!
olivia (5:35:54 PM): on EVERY wall
olivia (5:35:58 PM): every room!
karen (5:36:07 PM): we should give them
olivia (5:36:09 PM): you. me. YOU! ME!
karen (5:36:10 PM): as housewarming gifts
karen (5:36:12 PM): to everyone
olivia (5:36:14 PM): hahahahahhahahahha
olivia (5:36:35 PM): yeah, don't blog this

hahahah too late olivia! All you people moving to new places... beware!

I cannot believe TERMINATOR THE BARBARIAN is going to be our governor!

I did my civic duty and voted! Did you? (I guess if you're not a resident from California, you're excused).

btw, I just discovered that a block away from where I live, there's one of those towers that firemen use to run drills and practice running up and down stairs and rescuing people. The things you learn when you vote.

I logged into friendster for the very first time today... it actually took me a while to even remember what password reni had set up. Anyway, I log in, and... lo and behold, I have friends! What a concept. The good thing is I recognize most people on my list... the bad thing is, well, I don't recognize ALL the people on my list. Where in the world did reni find these people who I don't know? Still don't quite get the hang of this thing, but it was at least interesting to see who my buddies are. I have a feeling this friendster thing will die out anyway. I also wonder how people found me since obviously I didn't seek any of these people out or request to be their friend or however this whole thing works. Gosh, I swear it must be some peoples' mission in life to acquire as many friends as they possibly can. Come on, do people REALLY have 500 friends? Please. It's all back to what I talked about earlier when I refused to sign up for friendster but reni decided to go ahead and sign me up anyway. (See my June 16 post if you don't know what I'm talking about). Oops! Im late for a conference call! See... I'm already experiencing the evils of friendster!! bye.

ARGH! Yahoo photos changed their format and now all my pictures are a mess... how annoying. I'll probably be uploading my new pictures into Yahoo briefcase now since they still allow subfolders, and yahoo photos does not. So... none of my picture links below work anymore due to yahoo automatically reshuffling all my folders... I guess I'll fix them someday.

A morning of chaos: yesterday morning, I arrived at church at 8:15 only to get out of my car to hear bob say, "I just realized I forgot something important." Yeah, bob, worship leader, forgot his guitar. So i had to go back to my place to get my guitar for him to use. On top of that jt, ended up being late because - get this - he forgot his shoes! He was driving with his socks, and did not realize he was shoeless until he was already on the way to church. On top of that, bob also forgot to get the missions update printed out, so he had to ask Maria to make copies. And, maria actually forgot to bring her copy, so she had to go back home to pick it up. yes... all of this happened before 9:15am. What a chaotic morning. Add on top of this the fact that byron got hit twice while driving on the freeway by a crazy asian man who hit and run two cars, and yesterday morning was just plain out of whack. Makes me wonder if it was more than just an "odd" morning. Some cool things - one of the ladies who lives right next to our church who came by our car wash has been coming the past two weeks. I talked to her for a little bit (she actually remembered my name from when I talked to her at the car wash) - she has quite an interesting background. Grew up in the church of scientology, and she's visited a bunch of other local churches around. She says she likes our church, so she just comes every week. Also, I met another guy who just moved up to the area just a few weeks ago. He's not a christian, but he actually took the initiative to look up churches in the area online and came by himself. He's also been coming for the past few weeks - when I talked to him, he said that he had been going to a church down in LA for less than a year, and found that the people there were pretty friendly, so he just kept going. So when he moved up here, he just decided to go look for another church. Yeah, had some refreshing conversations with both of them yesterday. Pretty cool, and of course, prayers for both of them.

Went to another wedding on saturday - one more to go of my series of 3 weddings in 3 weeks! Will post up pictures once i figure out the yahoo mess. Thank goodness the wedding marathon for the year is finally coming to an end. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for all my friends, but dang, it's tiring and expensive. Bridal shower gifts, wedding gifts, road trips to LA, and more. It adds up.

Oh, and call us lazy, but Alinna and I talked to each other on our cell phones Saturday morning for like twenty minutes. Yeah, we were like 10 feet away from each other, in our respective bedrooms. In my defense, she called me on my cell phone.

Oh, and thanks to jenie, I watched five episodes of Alias season 1 this weekend. Yes, five hours of my life (actually make that six because of the new season 3 episode I watched last night) spent on Alias!

Why is it that, whenever there is drama or ruckus on my blog, olivia is ALWAYS somehow involved? Hmmm something to think about. Next time you people think it's olivia+karen = trouble... no no no. It's just plain olivia=trouble!

And okay, I wrote to peter, "don't eat too much in korea. thanks." Come on, that's good advice, right? How does what I wrote to him justify his reply email? Like I said, I'm keeping it real. He'll regret this later when he needs someone to keep it real and I'm not around to do so. What to do with the hyun twins... one's a compulsive liar (funny, he's in law school...), and one farts in his sleep (hm, he's in seminary...). HAHA.

I just found out that Mary's dog Mikey passed away (yeah like half a year ago). so sad... although, I do feel bad about laughing at her story about how her dad wrapped a dead Mikey in foil afterwards. Sad that he passed away, but man, Mary's dad cracks me up! Ask mary for the whole story sometime. hilarious.

For all you bloggers out there... check this out: what gender are you? I wonder how accurate this is... it actually predicts me accurately.