FREE KAREN!

I think I might freeze over in the office today. If no one sees me around later, check my cube. Bring a blow dryer while you're at it, because you'll probably see a big ice cube on a chair in front of the computer.

I'm bringing gloves, a scarf, my ski jacket, some wool socks, ear muffs, and a blanket to work tomorrow. When they say shut down, they really mean it. We can't even figure out how to override the heater to get it going, although supposedly we are supposed to be able to. ACK frozen fingers!

"All by myself... don't wanna be... all by myself..."

Yes that's what I am at work, and it's very quiet and very lonely. Working during company shutdown is weird... but hey, at least I got prime parking. :)

Yesterday, o, joy, geo and i went all over town literally (think Mt View to Cupertino back to Mt View back to Cupertino back to Mt View...) visiting furniture stores, mattress stores, and Home Depot. At Home Depot, as we were waiting for the key maker finish copying my keys, we noticed a pole with measurements marked off on it. As we measured how tall we were, we noticed the measurements went all the way up to 16 feet. And that got us to imagining... what would a 16-foot person look like? Could you imagine him playing basketball? It'd take him 3 steps to get across the court, he'd never get called for traveling! And he could just hold the ball at his chest, and even yao ming wouldn't be able to jump and grab the ball away from him. Or... use him on defense. Just have him stand in front of the basket every so often so that the other team can't get the ball through the hoop. Then he could just use his finger and block all attempting shots. Although the guy would have to be careful to stand with his legs together b/c otherwise the little 6-feet guys could run in between his legs.

On Friday night, some of us got together at bob's place to watch Cal (the school) in their bowl game. Cal (the person) predicted that our team would have to score 50 points to win, and we all laughed at that idea - eric came up with a more reasonable 34 points. Little would we know that Cal's prediction would actually come true! Even better was Bob's absurd (at the time) idea that we would win 50-49. He was only 2 points off! What a shootout though, 52-49... who would have thought the kicker would win the game with literally 0 seconds left on the clock? (You should have seen all of us agonizing over the thought of the kicker having to win the game for us... as "missed last 5 field goal attempts" and his stats flashed across the screen.)

Okay back to work... at least there are 3 other people in my group here, lonely with me.

You can thank andrea for getting me to upload my pics.

gifting fun:
White elephant

celebrate Jesus' birthday:
Christmas celebration

and... lots of RED:
JT's red bday

gift card total now = 10. I'm sure gonna be drinking a lot of jamba juice in the future... i've got a fat wallet now ;)

It's very lonely in the office today. Next Monday through Wednesday will be worse since I'll be in the office during shutdown. someone give me something interesting to do during work those three days!

a story about spumoni

alinna decided to be adventurous at milk pail one day and brought home a tub of spumoni. It was the grossest ice cream we ever tried, and ever since then it's sat in our freezer untouched. We couldn't even get patty cake to eat it. so jenie practically lives at our place and loves our ice cream almost as much as she loves Jesus, so alinna and i devise this plan - we would get a tub of heath bar crunch, and switch the lids to see if jenie would bait and eat the spumoni thinking it was heath bar crunch. last night, bops comes over and we're searching through the freezer for food since alinna & i live like guys and have NO food. our conversation:

jenie (picking up the "heath bar crunch"): oh, this is the spumoni. (looking at the lid) oh wait no, heath bar crunch
me: yes, it's heath bar crunch
jenie: no, wait, spumoni
me: no no, it's heath bar crunch. you should have some.
jenie: huh? no, it's spumoni (shows me the tub)

alinna and i, the idiots that we are, forgot there's a label on the SIDE of the ice cream container! our master plan failed miserably. i tell jenie about our great idea on how we would get rid of the spumoni, and jenie's reply: DORKS! I would know after the first bite!

needless to say, operation spumoni bombed. now the spumoni sits in our garbage.

Corporations must love people like me... I have 8 gift cards and counting... but I never use them! Nordstroms, Macys, borders, jamba juice x 2, starbucks, blockbuster, hollywood video - some are over a year old, and gift card amount ranges from $5 to $150. eek time to go on a shopping spree. Think I can drink maybe three or four jamba juices and some starbucks while watching, hm, 4 or so movies and read a book or two all in one day? ;)

Also, save the date: Sunday, Jan 11. I believe eric is FINALLY going to pay up on our 6-year-old-bet. House of Prime Ribs, baby! He owes quite a few dinners to quite a few people. I still remember eric screaming like a little girl in Charles' dorm at stanfurd because he was SO sure he was going to win our bet. ha.

Earthquake

Even though the epicenter is like 120 miles away, we all definitely felt it here. Went on for some time too... everything was rolling around. I forget we live in earthquake land... in fact, my dorm freshman year was directly on a fault line. How's that for safety!

Saw ROTK on Saturday! Definitely made up for the unspectacular Matrix 3. This is how good I thought ROTK is - I didn't fall asleep at all. You may think that that's ridiculous, and that by my standard, every movie out there is great - but for those who know me and have watched movies with me, I fall asleep during EVERYTHING, whether in the theater or a rental. I mean come on, it's dark, you're in a comfortable position... perfect napping conditions! Heck, I fell asleep during Star Wars. On top of that, I had gotten less than 5 hours of sleep the night before, and I was already drifting in and out of consciousness during the previews and commercials.

Had a packed weekend, from going down memory lane with alinna & o late Friday night (hence the less than 5 hours of sleep) (we decided that I got jacked and had the worst & most senile high school teachers out of all of us) to taking al to SFO & praise band practice Sat. morning (had fun jamming afterwards since it was only bob jt and me. think "jingle bells" ska style, rock style, blues style... hehe), to watching ROTK, to hanging out with HS friends at karen's bday party and playing cranium until we got distracted by the end of the Cal bball game and watched them lose at the last second, to JT's bday dinner on Sunday and decorating him and his household in all red. Can't say I approved of that since, you know, we bleed blue & gold, but it sure was fun! alex, o, and i successfully snuck into his place before everyone got back from dinner and decorated his entire downstairs in red... (imagine three crazy people running around in the dark with red bows, streamers, tape, and more, since we only had about 10 minutes to decorate the place) but when o & i snuck upstairs to decorate his bedroom, we got caught red-handed (literally. hahaha). still managed to do quite a bit of damage, even decorating his diploma in red (yes, I'm a disgrace to the Cal community). I also managed to give olivia a charley horse (not my fault - she tackled me!)... and olivia is also quite disconcerted about being compared to pippin from LOTR. Byron insists that olivia is pippin and I'm merry. well, at least i'm not pippin, the ever-so-curious always gets into trouble hobbit. okay i'm starting to talk like a geek.

One day when I get off my lazy butt, I will upload pictures.

addendum: olivia just put me in a headlock as she read the post below. how rude.

what olivia does at 1 in the morning when we have to wake up at 7am tomorrow morning to take alinna to the airport: no, she doesn't go to sleep. Instead she pops in Finding Nemo, skips to the turtle scene, and talks to the turtles on tv. I can hear her talking to them right now. She says "hi" to them and stuff. ok actually I just made up that last sentence, but it sounds like something she'd do. I do hear her talking to them, just not sure what she's saying.

Charlotte's granddaddy paid me another special surprise visit this morning. Luckily, I didn't scream like a girl like last time - I calmly picked up the most powerful weapon near me (vacuum) and sucked the critter up. I hope he doesn't crawl back out of the vacuum. That wouldn't be fun if he paid me another surprise visit.

I came out of my first consistory meeting yesterday afternoon and checked my cell phone - 5 voicemails. What the - from just a 2 hour meeting?? It was from olivia, alinna, and evelyn, calling me mulitple times about o's delayed flights and more. Good thing I got out of the meeting just at the right time to pick her up. so, olivia's back home... let the trouble, er I mean, fun times begin! .Just last night we managed to: kidnap ev, try to visit the Saratoga library only to find it closed 10 minutes earlier, visit Tapioca Express, wander around aimlessly, have a fashion show, read old letters from jr high & high school, and scrounge her house for food (we ended up with frozen honey bbq wings/drumsticks from costco, and buckwheat noodles in vegetable broth. yes, her house had NO FOOD.) Unfortunatley, I didn't have my camera with me to take pics of olivia in her becoming old prom dresses & more. I'm sure Jono would have loved those pics! ;)

We had our annual white elephant gift exchange this past Friday, and I have to say, the gifts are reaching an all-time low. Obviously Vivian Chow made an appearance (what, 5 years in a row now or something?), but there was also an annoying yapping dog, two cans of beans, a set that included two movies - Music of the Heart & Love Letters (never heard of either) AND Titanic: the Musical soundtrack (?!), electrical wire, and more. Unfortunately, the original sausage had to be "expired" due to molding and other nasty things, and the monkey head went out of rotation last year when someone's friend took it home. I'm pretty sure that yapping dog will make a special appearance next year. Will upload pictures later.

more pictures:

thanksgiving weekend
maria's bridal shower

There's extravagant, and then there's extravagant. When you spend $4 million on a wedding like Trista & Ryan did (or more like ABC did), that's extravagance. Quoting seri, "that's $4 million they should have spent on pre-marital counseling instead!" amen. Seriously, it was too much of everything - flowers, pink, even helicopters. You couldn't hear anything going on because the helicopters were so loud even the cameras couldn't get rid of the noise. And what was that sand thing in place of the unity candle? Not only did it seem pointless and dumb, but it also probably cost like $1000. eek.

alinna & i have two pet spiders. One is named Charlotte, and the other remains unnamed, only to be called "Charlotte's granddaddy" because he is so freaking big. These pet spiders are not voluntary pets, but more like we were scared out of our wits to kill the suckers, and now they roam free in our bedrooms, ready to drop on our faces in the middle of the night and suck all our blood. Charlotte's granddaddy was discovered this morning at 6:45 am as alinna searched through a basket in my room for a bag and we got a special visit. He scampered down a roll of wrapping paper, and into the basket where alinna & i now refuse to venture into. Instead, we screamed like girls, loud enough so that jenie, who was sleeping over last night downstairs, heard our screaming in her dreams. haha. Now, who wants to come over and find our little pets and destroy them for good? We will let you use the weapon of your choice. Our favorites have been the vacuum, a large picture frame, and a lot of newspaper and toilet paper.

calling all gamers...

want 25% off any EA game offered on their online store (yes, includes games for XBOX, PS2, GameCube, etc)? Thanks to my employer, they've given us a one-time use coupon. Let me know before the end of the month and I'll hook you up. Email me. If you don't have my email then I obviously don't know you well enough to buy the game for you anyway ;)

EA online store

maria's bridal shower was fun, although tiring. One funny thing is that she got three of the exact same gifts... I'll upload pictures later, and no, I didn't take pictures of any of her gifts!

moving madness...
Seems like everyone will be moving in the next two months. Sad part for me is that three weeks before alinna & i leave Central Park for good, Joy and Maria will be moving into the complex! I'm bummed they're moving in when I move out... but at least the Central Park legacy will live on. Joy is actually going to live downstairs from Byron & Maria (maria will be living there until they get married, and then byron will join maria). Byron is actually returning to Central Park. Oh well, central park has been a lot of fun, especially when byron, ted, and jerry lived there. Who can forget our hilarious dumpling night, with the infamous jerry "ROAR," the dumpling bits flying out of his nose, and the rubber dumplings? and of course the classic look on byron's face as he witnessed everything happening. Or cramming into Jerry's room to watch Episode II on his computer b/c their dvd player won't play any DVDs? Those were definitely good memories at Central Park.

it could only happen to me...
Yesterday I was doing my laundry at our laundry room, and I placed my laundry card on the washer right next to the one I was using. I finished loading my clothes from the washer to the dryer, so I shut the lid to the washer. As the lid drops into place, I see something fly really high up into the air and land somewhere, presumably on top of the dryers (which are front-loading and double-stacked, so they're very tall, vs. the washers which are top-loading and not stacked at all). Two people happened to walk right in as this was taking place, and one of them turned to me and said, I think something just flew up in the air. I responded, yes, I thought I saw something too... and then I realized that it was my laundry card! What the heck? I shut the lid to one machine, and my laundry card, sitting on top of the other machine flies up in the air and lands on top of the very tall dryers? Yes, things like this only happens to me, folks. So anyway, I had just added more money to the card and I hadn't even inserted it into the dryer, but thankfully the two people were very kind to me. One climbed on top of the washers to look for my card on top of the dryer. Once she spotted it, she had the other person hold onto her as she leaned over to the dryers to grab my card. Nice people rule. Better yet, when we move in January, I won't have to deal with laundry cards anymore. woohoo!

I think it's really sad when you try on a pair of pants labeled "cropped" but it fits like normal-length pants perfectly. The curse of being Asian.

We got Alias Season 2 on DVD... party! woohoo!

To cap off my already horrible day, as I was driving on 85, going about 70mph, the hugest bird poop I have ever seen landed on my windshield. I mean, come on, I was going 70mph - what are the chances it'd hit MY windshield? I'm not even exaggerating when I say it was BIG. In fact, I would have left it on my windshield to take a picture to show to you all how insanely big this thing was, except it was obstructing my view of the road! yes people, I am serious. It made this earth-shatteringly loud "SPLAT" sound (I thought a big rock hit my windshield), and the next thing I know, I can only partially see anything in front of me. Must have been a bird the size of a donkey to make poop that big.

Wow four posts in one day. Don't think I've ever done that... I think I'm done posting for a while now. I obviously need to release some built-up pressure caused by work.

olivia (5:51:18 PM): u walked right into that one
karen (5:51:29 PM): no i didn't!
karen (5:51:38 PM): it's tempting me
karen (5:51:40 PM): my blog is calling me
olivia (5:51:45 PM): KAREN
olivia (5:51:48 PM): CHIU
olivia (5:51:50 PM): SELF
olivia (5:51:51 PM): CONTROL
karen (5:51:51 PM): HAHAHAHAHAHA
olivia (5:52:37 PM): man...
olivia (5:52:42 PM): i hate your blog
karen (5:53:35 PM): you LOVE it!!!!

I exhibited self-control. I didn't post what we were talking right before this. Big pat on my back! :) And now you guys will never know what I was tempted to post.... ha, i'm such a tease.

of course olivia would send me this link....

some of you may think this girl is cute, but quite frankly, i think she's a little scary! It's that scary smile....

genius musician
getting the dance groove on

work... has SUCKED. And I'm getting very frustrated, especially with one particularly large company which I won't name (except to say I will never buy their products after bad experiences owning three of their products previously), who decides to blast me with a billion emails from all their different sites worldwide. And on top of that, the ppl from many of their US sites are bugging me nonstop so I can't get any work done. I'm in a bad mood, and it's obviously affecting my work attitude. I need a vacation so badly... I have about 4 weeks PTO now... where can I go away and hide for a month? :) Okay, back to the grind. >:(

How the heck did I end up in a BCS bowl? I'm going along, minding my own personal blogging business, and suddenly I'm in the Ramen Bowl... go figure. What if I chose to decline the bid? Never liked the BCS anyway... college football needs to go to a playoff system or something. Who would take my space? Bob? Hmm I have to think about this.

And hey, look! My line separating my links and posts magically reappeared sometime over the weekend. Weird... I didn't touch anything...

I know I say this everytime, but holidays are wonderful. Coming back to work after a holiday is not.