KooKoo for KokoPuffs

Backpacking Again (Part 1)

2008-10-07T19:04:00.000-07:00

[This is quite late...this draft has been sitting around for awhile because I'm still recovering from lack of sleep, so I've decided to release this in parts =)]

So I did what I said I wouldn't do -- I went backpacking again. I think as punishment for me going back on my word, I got a similarly horrifying experience. Don't get me wrong, the people were awesome and the accomplishment was amazing, but man, that was a lot of work! Some of you already got a snippet from Nelson, but here's more of the story:

The trip was organized by our fearless leader, David. Props to him for doing an incredible job organizing a three-day trip with 10+ people. The trail was called Skyline to the Sea somewhere around the Santa Cruz Mountains and the reward was ending at Waddell Beach.

Day 1: We needed to drop off a set of cars at the end point so we would be able to drive back when we were all through -- I volunteered to be one of the drivers. The whole ordeal took longer than we thought, so we didn't get started on the trail until after 2, which gave us about 4 hours to hike 11 miles before the sun goes down. Needless to say, we didn't make it, so we speed-hiked
for about an hour in the dark after probably the worst cramp of my life on my right calf (and by this time, those with knee problems were also feeling the pain). We finally made it to the campsite where two more people we waiting for us. We chowed down on some awesome freeze-dried campers meals and set up for a good night's rest.

Unfortunately, I was woken up at around 11:30 PM by Jean who informed me that I was about to be drowned in a puddle of water. I had chosen to sleep with my head on the downward slope so that my legs could be elevated after a strenuous day of hiking -- bad move on a rainy night. The sweatshirt I was using as a pillow was already slightly damp, but I flipped around my sleeping bag and continued sleeping. I got maaaybe another hour of sleep before I woke up again, this time because it started really pouring and the bottom half of my sleeping bag was soaked in water. I whipped out my flashlight and examined the tent -- water was beading through all of the walls and since my corner was the lowest part of the slope, it was accumulating at my feet. Jean woke up again soon after, partly from being wet, partly from my flashlight (amazingly, Kolina was unphased). We basically sat around for next few hours thinking of what to do, the lack of sleep, and how we're going to continue the next day with wet sleeping bags and a wet tent. (This is when I started to text Nelson because the other 2 girls did not bring their cell phones.)

Somewhere between 3 and 4 AM we couldn't take it anymore and decided to call out to the other tents for help. David and Henry heard our cries and shuffled out into the rain to see what our problem was. They didn't have a solution for the bleeding tent, but volunteered their sleeping pads so that Jean and I would at least be elevated above the water (such sweet boys!). We also lined the sides of the wall with trash bags to deter as much water as possible from dripping on us. Kolina's sleeping bag held up much better to the water so she was relatively dry. With that, we tried to sleep for the remainder of the night...on and off for me because it was horribly uncomfortable having the lower half of me baking in dampness.

Little did I know that the first night was actually more pleasant than the second.

To be continued...

AOL Bitterness

2008-09-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

I had an upsetting night after checking my bank account online. I noticed some weird unauthorized charges on my account, and after doing some research (ie. googling the description), I found out that they were fraudulent charges by TWX*AOL. I have absolutely no association with AOL, but for at least the past few months, they had been charging an inconspicuous amount of $25.90.

I called Wells Fargo and reported the case. Thankfully, the woman on the phone was extremely sympathetic, and it was a relatively short call to file a claim and have a new check card sent to me.

Make sure to take a closer look at your bank statement, guys! I wish I had a bat with me right now.

*Update (10/15): "We have completed our investigation of your recent inquiry and have determined that an error was made on charges to your account. Today we have credited your account ending in XXXX for $XXX.XX and your claim is now final." Woot.*

My Adorable Cousin

2008-08-11T01:50:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of time this weekend with my Canadian cousin, David. The highlight would have to be our trip to Great America with some of my friends and coworkers where he spent many hours in line getting to know these people. He is 13 and does not fully appreciate the level of sarcasm and dry humor that my coworkers are best known for, nor does he understand that he should stop slapping a girl's wrist with all his strength when it has turned a bright shade of pink (sorry Jean). Poor Michael got the brunt of most of his attacks, but it's just too funny not to share. I do apologize ahead of time.

Here are some of my favorite exchanges:

My sister left early leaving us with an odd number of people for rides.
David: Aww, someone's going to have to sit by themselves.
Me: That's ok, some of them are used to being alone.
David: Like that one? [points to Michael]

The day after.
Me: So what do you think about my friends?
David: They're boring and have no expression.
Me: That's not a nice thing to say about my friends.
David: Well they talk like this! "Blah blah blah blah" [in Michael's usual monotone voice]
Me: So you just mean Michael? What do you think about my friends, minus Michael?
David: Oh...well they're ok.

We continue this conversation and this is basically his summary of people:

Michael: boring, expressionless, weak (I told you to stop, Michael, but you just couldn't do it eh?)
Reid: quiet, but ok because he's asian
Mike: muscular
Beah's Dan: the cool non-googler (I believe his exact quote was "at least [Dan] was there".)
Justin: creepy and perverted (Someone obviously ignored my repeated warnings to keep things PG.)

Girls, I'm sorry, but he had nothing to say about you all. He's apparently at the age where he still thinks we have cooties. But judging from most of his comments, I think it's better that we were kept out of it.

Joking aside, he really did have a great time and it wins the award of "Best Day in California" so far in his trip. Good job team.

Sacramento Slogan

2008-08-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

This is a shout out to my brother who knows about my blog but has not read anything.

I just got back from vacation in Winnipeg, Canada with my family where we'd get these questions periodically:

Question: Where are you from?
Answer: Sacramento, CA (because it's easier than saying Roseville)
Question: Oh, what's there to do?
Answer: Um...

So besides visiting the capital and the local rodeo (Hi Matthew), there isn't that much to do. We're in a middle of the state and end up listing stuff that is "nearby" -- San Francisco, Reno, Tahoe are a couple hours away, and Yosemite is a few hours away. So, my brother came up with this slogan:

"Sacramento - Almost where you want to be"

Please note, I was joking about the rodeo.

My First Taxi Ride

2008-07-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

I have never used a taxi in the US before and certainly never by myself. I was pretty terrified just thinking about it because it involved being alone with a stranger, having to tip, and doing it with a strict deadline (of having to get to the airport to catch my flight). My plan for that night was to drive to YouTube and take a taxi to the airport by 4AM to meet my family. This is what happened:

2:30 AM - I start driving to YouTube.

3:10 AM - I arrive and park in the parking garage. My taxi reservation is at 3:45 so I decide to call the taxi service to see if they can bump up my pick-up time. No answer.

3:30 AM - 8 attempts later with multiple numbers (thank goodness for having my laptop with me to look up the info), and still no answer.

3:45 AM - I am sitting at the curb in the dark and the street is absolutely dead.

3:55 AM - The taxi is still a no-show. Luckily, I looked up a different taxi service while I was searching for alternate numbers for the original evil taxi place. I call them, and a mean dispatcher tells me that they Youtube address I gave doesn't exist and yells at me for not knowing where I am. He will not allow me to just give him the intersection -- he needs a freakin address. It is dark and I don't see another building address in view. I start to panic because I'm already late so I look up at the street sign and see Bayhill 1200s ->. (Ya know, the arrow indicating that the buildings in the 1200s are "that way".) So I tell him "1200 Bayhill". He says ok, and I have absolutely no idea if there is actually a place with that address.

4:00 AM - I am wandering the streets with my luggage, hoping I find a building with an address that's at least somewhat close to 1200 Bayhill.

4:05 AM - Horray, it exists! I get there just in time to see a taxi circling the parking lot.

4:15 AM - I arrive at SFO and give the taxi driver a pretty hefty tip because I'm glad to be alive and somewhat on time.

...

I originally planned to give a detailed schedule of the rest of my travel day, but I'm too exhausted, so my taxi experience will have to do. The rest of the day was very annoying, but not quite as pathetic so you're not missing much. Let's just say I finally arrived at my destination at 8:30PM and I'm pooped.

On a positive note, the friendly, trusting Canadians like to leave their wireless networks unlocked, allowing me to post this blog entry. Yay Canada!

Unreliable But Cute

2008-07-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

Long Live Life

2008-07-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

Coldplay is on their North American Viva La Vida Tour and they came to HP Pavilion. It was awesome! We had seats right smack-dab in the middle, but waay in the back.

Didn't bring my regular camera so this is from my camera phone.

I'm a little disappointed they didn't have screens displaying close up shots of the band for the people in the back, but everything else was lovely! This was my third concert following John Mayer and Leehom Wang =P. I must say Chris Martin is not quite as engaging as the other two, as he did not make a lot of chit chat with the audience, but the music more than made up for that. I was surprisingly delighted to hear them play most of their classic big-hit songs, with The Scientist and Yellow being my favorite -- the crowd went nuts over them and made the atmosphere a lot of fun.

The stuff from their new album was also really good. It took me awhile to warm up to the songs, but I'm definitely a fan now. Favorite songs: Strawberry Swing, Lost!, Violet Hill, and Viva La Vida.

Wysz Gone Wild

2008-07-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

For those of you who were OOO this last Thursday, Michael came to work like this:

Camping Disaster

2008-07-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

I went backpacking/camping with my crew in Yosemite this past weekend. You can read Michael's rendition of the trip on his blog, so I won't go into a whole lot of detail in terms of time line.

Reasons why we are not as "soft" as Matthew likes to think:

It was forecasted to be over 90 degrees (high)
We started the hike between 1pm and 2pm, meaning we hiked during the hottest hours of the day
Air was smoky and hazy from the Yosemite fires
Terrain was very rocky and mostly uphill
Distance came out to ~9.7 miles (first day) according to Reid's GPS device, including all the backtracking we did from going in the wrong direction.
We were carrying very heavy camping backpacks
Most of us ran out of water approximately halfway through

Reasons why I'm never ever doing that again:

Almost died from exhaustion.
Almost died from dehydration.
Almost died from being eaten by a bear.

Other reasons why I did not have an awesome trip:

Having to hike back the next day
Needing to use a trowel to bury "waste" at least 6 inches deep
Sleeping like sardines in a tent while being very hot and uncomfortable
Getting 7 mosquito bites, 5 of which are on my face, 4 of which are on my forehead. I look almost as bad as Dan and you can connect the bites on my forehead to make an annoyingly nice rectangle.

What made it sorta worth it (but not really)?

Michael offering his life savings for a Pepsi.
Michael fashioning a pair of shorts by cutting up his jeans.

Twitter for Blogger

2008-06-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

I just added Twitter's Blogger widget to my blog. I don't like how the Twitter link is under the separator though (ok, I just removed it all together).

For the few of you out there reading this who are not my coworkers, Twitter is yet another way to painstakingly document every boring moment of your life. It's a cross between blogging and instant messaging -- a way to send quick messages, announcements or questions to a group of people. I like to use it when something happens and I think: I want to tell someone, but I don't necessarily want to have a conversation about it (IM) or write a detailed story (blog).

I'm still not the biggest fan, but it has slowly worked its way into my life via cell phone updates.

*Oh, a good example of when you should use Twitter instead of blogging: http://www.thewysz.com/wyszdom/ (06/18-06/21)

Hoping We Don't Get into an Accident

2008-06-18T21:49:00.001-07:00

This is what the bus window looks like:

This is the sign under each window:
There are no written instructions. I don't know about you, but both drawings look the same to me. No one I asked nearby on the bus knows what this sign could possibly mean.

Spit Soup Anyone?

2008-06-05T00:13:00.000-07:00

We had a conversation at lunch today about shark fin soup which reminded me of something I had last time I went home to my parents. I remember it was my first time, and while I was eating it, I was thinking (at the expense of sounding like Wysz) "I need to tell my friends I ate this"...so here it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird's_nest_soup

The pictures I found online varied, so this is the one that most closely resembles what I had. It actually tasted pretty good, but I was uncomfortably aware that the tiny bowl I was consuming probably cost a good $50.

Note: I had the sweet dessert version made with rock sugar.

Driving Home

2008-05-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

My car just got egged on my way home, no doubt by some hooligan who has nothing better than to waste my time. UNHAPPY!

The Gift That Keeps Giving

2008-05-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day present 2008:

17 Bags of Manure -- purchased, hauled, and carried at 8AM.

Happy Mother's Day!

Sales Conference

2008-04-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

Some highlights of the conference this year:

Al Gore came to speak! Woman empowerment will solve global warming. For details about this, please ask Beah.

I don't know how we pulled it off, but MC Hammer was the surprise celebrity judge for the talent show. Craaazy.

OSO Google attempts to break the Guinness World Record for the largest cake decoration competition or something like that. This is my team's cake. The idea started off promising...I blame Leotta for not using his muscles to tear the spatulas away from these people and then channeling his mother to build an awesome rickroll cake.

I don't have a picture for this one, but I was also pleasantly surprised by a case study session I had with Harvard Prof. Francis Frei. She was excellent and insightful.

Better than last year I think.

Relay 4 Life

2008-04-13T23:06:00.000-07:00

We participated in Relay for Life this weekend -- AGAINST cancer! This is the event where you create teams and have at least one person walking around the track at all times for 24 hours. We were part of the Google team (the top team, woot!) and took the 3-6 AM shift.

The most exciting part of the walk?
5 AM: The big announcement...it's exactly halfway through the event...and we get the honor of...turning around and walking in the other direction! I almost couldn't handle the excitement.

Props:

All donations to the 3-6AM team -- Thanks for the support!
Reid for driving and giving me a brief tour of Stanfurd.
Charlene for donating to a complete stranger on accident.
Nelson for running the most.
Michael for running the least.

Pathetically Entertaining

2008-04-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

It Started With A Kiss is a very cute drama with a well-paced story line and satisfying ending. The music was suiting and catchy. It is also the third highest rated drama series in Taiwan. With that said, the main character is the most frustratingly insulting female lead I have ever seen. The basic idea of the series is a very dumb girl who falls in love with the smartest boy at school.

[As a side note, apparently schools in Taiwan divide students based on intelligence. All the smart kids are in the A Class while the most troubled students are in the F Class - I don't quite know how I feel about this system, so I won't debate it at the moment.]

Back to the story. The male character is conveniently perfect in every possible way...all except for his arrogant demeanor which often leads to some rather harsh interactions with the girl. Normally I would pity the girl (which is the reaction I think they were trying to go for), but they made her so incredibly pathetic that I was having a hard time rooting for her after awhile. So she is mind-numbingly dumb...ok, that's fine. I can handle that, but one would usually expect that she would have SOME other sort of admirable quality. Maybe she's creative. Maybe she's athletic. Maybe she can cook, clean, be hard working, be coordinated, make a decision, have a spine or do something...anything! What DOES she do in the series you ask? She throws herself at this guy who constantly rejects her and is, at times, quite mean to her (I feel kinda bad saying this but rightfully so). She has no talent, no aspirations and spends most of her time day dreaming about how to land him for a husband. Basically, she shamelessly followed him around for four years while I counted the endless number of steps backward she takes for all women kind.

They say the lesson to be learned from this series is persistence. What a bunch of hoo-ha.

My Theme Song

2008-04-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

There's a girl i know who's hop to da hip
and she goes by the name of k-koklynn yip
she pops da code-a like a soda so don't ya even trip
ba-ba-ba bop be-be be-bom ba-da bop bip bip!

-Charleezy

Audio Converter Without the $$$

2008-04-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

Years ago I downloaded a couple of radio dramas...yes, in the days of TV, DVDs and the internet, I still find pleasure in stories told on the radio. I can't say how popular it is now, but I think it was a rather big thing in Asia in the 90's. Anyhow, I still listen to them once in awhile, especially on long drives back home, but one of them was in .ram format. Ah, RealPlayer...I don't see too many now, but if you like to download random international things, I'm sure you've come across a number of these files. Unfortunately, these don't convert in itunes nor are they compatible with other portable players, so I went in search for a converter online.

After much work searching and coming across TONS of gross download sites and shareware trial versions, I finally found something that worked. The program is called SUPER. Instructions on how to use it can be found here for those of you who are technically challenged. =)

If you try to download the app by following the links on that site, you'll find yourself going in circles and misled by conveniently placed ads. After clicking through three pages of bait, you finally get to the download page. I'll save you the trouble and link you there now. If you scroll all the way down, you'll eventually get to a very inconspicuous link that looks like:

Looks shady, but it works...I can now enjoy the dramas from my ipod and there were no nasty side effects that I know of...I hope...

Follow Directions: Part 2

2008-03-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

I know I'm really late with this post, but the time difference between this and the last post is no indication of how long it took me to finish the cabinet. REALLY! In fact, I finished it the day after.

So I woke up the next morning with new-found strength to finish the cabinet. There was nothing I could do about my dowel issues (at that point I had not yet realized the 5/16th problem), but I figured I could just pop out the camlock since I just popped it in to begin with, then hopefully reset it. Obviously it wasn't going to be easy since it was lodged in the tiny hole. My solution? -- use a needle to get in there and pop it out. Needless to say I was left with a broken needle and had to go sulking to work.

I came home with a new idea. I could try separating the 2 pieces by pulling on them while using a screwdriver to try to turn the camlock back to its right position. Miraculously, I was able to do that by myself and it worked! The rest of the assembly went relatively smoothly, but since I STILL didn't realize the 5/16th problem until after I finished and started blogging, I was left with 2 more similar...mishaps. I didn't take pictures of them, but you can look at my first post for a good idea of what it looks like.

So here it is...BEFORE:and AFTER:

It's not perfect, but I think this answers the question on the Wysz's post! HAH!

Follow Directions: Part 1

2008-03-10T22:21:00.000-07:00

In my latest attempt to be an independent woman, I decided to check another item off the infamous task list: organize my closet. There's one particular corner that's piled with junk so I went off to find something to put my stuff in. I brought home a box that had the words "Floor Cabinet" and "Assembly Required" on it. I've put together several shelves in my day (I won't comment on their quality) so I figured this couldn't be too different...what's a door and a couple more panels?

I opened the box and took out four pages of confusion aka the instructions. One of the first things I noticed:
...maybe for amateurs.

I proceeded to whip out my tools and began construction. I made my way past the first couple of pages which consisted of checking for the right pieces and attaching all of the appropriate screws and dowels to each piece. The first thing that pissed me off was the glue/dowel application. It said, "Apply some glue and lightly tapping the dowel until 5/16" visible." Never mind the bad grammar...what I read was "Apply some glue and lightly tapping the dowel until 5/16 visible." If you missed the difference, I didn't see that it was suppose to be 5/16th of an inch. Instead, I spent 5 minutes pulling my hair out trying to figure out why someone would use that kind of fraction for this tiny piece of wood -- how am I suppose to know what 5/16th of this thing is?! I started pounding in the dowels, stopping just past halfway, thinking it's not really a big deal if I'm a little off. Well, since I misread it, I was off and it was a big deal. This is what happens when you don't pound the dowels in deep enough and you try to connect it with another piece:

Even after this mishap, I didn't realize I misread the instructions. I thought maybe something freaky happened with this dowel or perhaps I left this particular dowel slightly higher than I should have. I did a quick check on the other dowels -- it looks like 5/16 of it is sticking out to me! I moved on.

Next came the Camlock. I had no idea what that was, and all they provided was a diagram and a couple of arrows as it if meant anything to me. However, I did figure out that I was suppose to stick another screw through it, then turn the Camlock to lock it in place. What I failed to deduce was the fact that the Camlock had to be oriented a certain way to get the other screw through. So, I spent 30 minutes trying to get the screw to go in the hole by pounding my little heart out on the poor piece of wood. Obviously, that didn't work and I was left with something crooked that looked like this:

It was 2 AM. I was tired. So, gave up in despair, quite certain this was $30 and 3 hrs down the drain. End of day 1 and this is what I had:

To be continued...

Corner With Love: A Barbie Show

2008-03-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

I actually finished this series awhile ago, but I've just put off writing anything about it because I'm lazy. For those of you monitoring this blog and are not obsessive with Chinese music and movies, I apologize in advance for flooding it with these posts. However, if you know me well enough to follow this blog then you probably already expect this. I'll liken it to Reid's numerous American Idol posts of which I do not understand.

Getting back to the series...It's a romantic comedy called Corner With Love starring Barbie Xu and Show (Alan) Lou. Barbie's character is a spoiled rich girl who's family goes into bankruptcy. Her filthy rich fiance is forced to dump her, her stupid parents flee, and all she has left is a poor boy who makes delicious oyster pancakes. The series is cute, the leads are gorgeous, and that's usually enough fuel to keep me satisfied through the 15+ hours. I also appreciate the lack of a super evil, super cheesy villain, but they weren't really able to fill the hours with much diversity in terms of obstacles. I sorta got tired of watching Show chase Barbie on a bike and juuuust missing her EVERY time after the first 10 attempts. This usually follows an annoying argument where neither of them are able to admit their true feelings even though they've sent each other a million "go" signals. I want to scream at them for being so gutless and dense, but then I get over it soon because they're so pretty.

The best part of the series is the music. Lots of nice songs that are now part of my collection of Chinese music. I didn't give Show's album a chance when Evan suggested him to me, but I'm a fan now so here's a plug.

Artist: Show/Alan Lou
Album: SPEShow

Favorite Song: Love's Corner (Ending theme from the series)

You can watch the series here: http://www.mysoju.com/corner-with-love/
Thank you for your attention.

Vista - The Enemy of My Laptop

2008-03-03T22:18:00.000-08:00

My philosophy about my electronics is that it should be used and used to my convenience. I totally see the up side to keeping everything pristine and in proper form, but I can't always live my life that way -- there are going to be bumps. My laptop has been a trooper through all of these bumps: a bump into the wall, a bump into my desk, a bump into the floor after being flung 4 feet from the table....ya know, the usual. Luckily it's an IBM Thinkpad, so it's been a tough cookie, but after the most recent bump, it started to fail me.

Problem 1 + Solution:

Blue Screen of death (crashes)
Upon immediate startup error message: Media Test Failure - No Operating System Found

After speculation about hard drive corruption, fan failure, etc., the obvious first test would be to reformat. My brother is a Vista fan so he convinced me to go in that direction. Let the horror begin (well, continue)...

Problem 2: "Failed in finding proper screen mode for Gr2D"

After the hours of backing up and installing Vista, my first program installation would obviously be Maplestory. If I can't game, what else is there? I would get that annoying Gr2d message every time I try to start the app. My brother narrowed it down to having the improper driver installed for my video card. Vista automatically installs the generic VGA video driver because it does not support the ATI Radeon Mobile 7500 card on the T42. After several more long hours of trying to work around the problem (including installing the XP driver), I finally found the solution on Google.

Solution 2:

Manually update the driver by going to Device Manager. Navigate to the Display Adapters section and select "Upgrade Driver". Select the option to "Browse my computer for driver software", sift through the huge list of drivers, and select the ATI Mobile Radeon 9000 driver.

Problem 3: "Connection Status Unknown: Server Execution Failed" and Network Folder Frozen
I took my laptop home that night excited after finding the solution to the video card driver. I tried to connect to my parent's network and started installing a couple random things including AIM. However, I noticed that my connection was failing (red x), but then the internet still sorta worked. When I tried to view my network folder, the whole thing would just freeze. I uninstalled everything I just installed, but it was still having the same problem. So for hours the next day, my brother and I tried to figure out the problem. We thought it was a driver issue again but for the network adapter this time. No luck. Finally, again with the magic of Google, I found the problem...
Solution 3:

So the culprit was the newest version AIM. All you AIM haters don't snicker quite yet, the forum posts indicated the same problem for Yahoo Messenger, MSN, etc...sounded like a bunch of chat programs caused this problem. Why in the world a chat program would affect the network connection and freeze a particular folder is beyond me. To fix this problem? Uninstall the chat program and do a system restore. Forums say installing an older version of AIM is fine, but I'm not about to try it just yet.

Problem 4: Installing Adobe CS3

I love Photoshop. It seems that everything I love causes problems to Vista. So I wanted Photoshop, but the version that is compatible with Vista is CS3. CS3 requires at least 1 GB of RAM and my poor IBM T42 does not have enough.

Solution 4:

Purchase more RAM! This solution was straight forward but painful nonetheless. Keep in mind that there are 2 slots for memory with a max of 2GB, but one is pre-populated with 256MB or 512 MB, so there's no point in buying two 1GB chips.

Maybe this will help someone, but my advice? Don't even go there, not on a T42. I'm keeping it because I've put it way too much blood and sweat, but if i knew beforehand...

Conclusion

Me = Enemy of my laptop
Vista = Enemy of my laptop

Therefore: Me <3 Vista (I guess)

Labels for FTP Account

2008-02-27T23:11:00.001-08:00

Yay! Found code to get labels working for a Blogger FTP account that didn't take too much thinking. For those of you who don't want to abandon Blogger for Wordpress just quite yet:

phydeaux3.blogspot.com - Labels for classic template

Luckily, I just took a time management course today and can now check this off my task list. One done -- 999,999 more to go! I have now freed up energy to tackle the next task: contemplate why someone would use human hair to construct a dress.

So Much Drama

2008-02-17T22:23:00.000-08:00

My recent craze is spending an absurd amount of time watching Chinese dramas -- specifically Taiwanese dramas since they are particularly good at producing teenybopper fairytale romances. In lieu of having an actual life of my own, I immerse myself into another world filled with girly fantasies and the oh-so-perfect man. I must say it makes going into work in the morning a total drag.

I've had my fair share of Chinese drama exposure growing up. The love probably sprouted from late night sessions with my family watching 80's TVB period/wuxia series (worthy of its own blog post in the future). So this recent surge was caused by stumbling upon a drama post that named a drama that broke Meteor Garden's record of highest viewership in Taiwan. I was a definite fan of Meteor Garden so I felt that this new series was a must-watch. I went off to eBay, bought a horribly English-subbed version, and literally spent a whole weekend watching episodes back to back. In English, it's called The Prince Who Turns into a Frog. I'm happy to say I was not disappointed. The lead couple was so charming, in fact, I went searching for their most recent drama together, Ying Ye 3 + 1.

Joe Chen Qiao En + Matthew Lin/Ming Dao: Qiao En is part of the girl group 7 Flowers while Ming Dao is part of the boy group 183 Club...both under the same label. They are both talented actors and have really nice chemistry together, but I have to admit I'm mostly a big fan because Ming Dao is quite dreamy :)

The Prince Who Turns into a Frog

Girl runs over rich boy. Boy loses his memory and falls in love with girl. Boy regains memory then...uh oh. This story gives hope to all materialistic girls who dream of nabbing a ridiculously rich man that sees past her materialism, but it doesn't really matter because he is still ridiculously rich.

Ying Ye 3 + 1

A group of kids who grew up together, fight together, and fall in love. There are two distinct stories. Part 1: The girl's father is a policeman who loses his gun. The four friends work together (using their kung-fu skills) to solve the mystery, fight off bullies, and uncover their feelings for one another. Part 2: A mysterious guy shows up from their past to cause more drama and tear the couple apart. Note: If you've ever thought of having a TV show where lovers fling themselves off of an eight story structure to prove their love, you're apparently too late.

If you don't want to actually buy the DVDs, you can watch both of these series for free with ok quality and English subs at mysoju.com and/or crunchyroll.com -- so glad I found these sites.