Happy New Year!

Free Rice

I recently learned of this ingenious site called Free Rice. You play a vocabulary game and your winning scores contribute to the donation of rice to impoverished nations. Please visit freerice.com to participate and do something good for others today! :0)

Dobojite Dobojite

As I expected, this Fall quarter was way intense, and so I had to abandon my thought spot for the duration. Luckily, I survived the last 3 months. :0)

To kick off my Winter break, J and I went to MOCA to see the works of my favorite Japanese Pop Artist, Takashi Murakami. Murakami has this incredibly fantastic imagination, which is mesmerizing to see in his designs. *-*

Unfortunately, photography isn’t permitted in the gallery. In the gift shop, I did make J take a picture of me and the pink flower, since I couldn’t take it home. ;0)

Pups at PetSmart

So, last week my parents took the pups to PetSmart for this “happy 20th birthday PetSmart event”…

That’s all. ;0)

Wednesday Sushi & Dessert

I met with my bestest girl friends in San Diego for some sushi and dessert.

We ate some really good stuff at Ra Sushi at pretty decent happy hour prices. My favorites were the Crispy Spicy Tuna, the Seaweed Salad and the Fried Tofu. But then again, that’s all I tried.

Afterward, we went to our usual dessert place in Little Italy. There was no fruity bread pudding this time, so instead I had the Blood Orange Ricotta Torte. mMmMm. :0)

Us girls always have a lot to talk about when we get together, especially since we don’t see each other too often. And as a bonus, we got to meet Aillyne’s new boyfriend, who is pretty nice. ;0) We (mostly Anna and I) probably vocalized more random and silly thoughts than Aillyne was expecting, which might have just been more embarrassing in front of the new guy. But that’s okay… it’s all in good fun. ;0)

On a side note, Tiffy gave us some souvenirs from her recent trip to Portland – a mug and a Moonstruck chocolate bar. I put mine in my trunk, and when I got home and unwrapped the mug to show to my uncle I found that the handle had broke during the drive! Does that suck toes or what!? I’m sad. What a bummer. I was looking forward to using it during late nights in studio too. :0(

For more photos from today’s events, visit my flickr photoset: Wednesday Sushi & Dessert

CALI

One of my favorite days this summer with my bun…

We went to Downtown Disney and took pictures with some of the California Adventures letters and shared a small lunch at Jazz Kitchen Express.

Dim Sum Monday

MJ and I had Dim Sum at Crystal Jade in Irvine earlier today. It was not as yummy as how I remembered my first visit last month, i.e. this time the coconut jelly did not taste as coconutty; they didn’t have the tofu in sweet syrup today; the fried shrimp roll had a funny flavor; and MJ said the steamed beef balls, which they called beef siu mai, wasn’t very good (I didn’t try it). It is more Americanized than authentic, e.g. their pork siu mai has crab on top w/ a dot of sriracha sauce, and they serve fried calamari, which is not a traditional Dim Sum appetizer. On the upside, they do serve yummy baked and steamed lai wan bao, which tastes really clean. And, I enjoyed the egg custard tarts better this time. :0)

Regardless of my criticism, Dim Sum and lots of tea was great because I’ve been eating way too much fatty foods lately: Pink’s hotdog w/ onion rings and chili, Pastrami sandwich w/ onion rings and fries from The Hat, duck and ribs at Thai BBQ, and Korean BBQ buffet for the last two weekends in a row. :0P Not to be a complainer of mouth-watering food, but often times greasy foods end up making me feel sick. :0(

Star Struck in LA

Last Saturday, Jesus and I went out to LA LA Land.

First, we went to Marc Jacobs, actually Marc by Marc Jacobs, which is across the street from Marc Jacobs on Melrose. I left empty handed, but that’s okay.

(cheapest meter ever – 30 min. per quarter)

Then we went to Meltdown Comics on Sunset to check out LA Myth, an art show featuring artists and their works regarding their ideas of mythology in Los Angeles.

(Meltdown Comics on Sunset Blvd)

BTW, if you’ve never been to Meltdown Comics, you should go! It’s pretty cool – huge store w/ the most comics, related toys, art books, etc. :0)

My good friend, Santino Lascano, is one of the featured artists. He’s so talented!

(Quake by Santino Lascano)

(Stars meant they’re sold!)

Some of the work was really awesome, others… not so much. I took photos of some of the ones I liked, which you can view on my Flickr set: LA Myth

I really admired all the pieces by Wilson Hsu.

And here I am with Aaron Clark’s friendly monster.

After, we went back to Melrose to eat at Pink’s!

(Pink’s @ the corner of La Brea and Melrose)

We waited in line for 1.75 hours, but for our first time we thought it was worth it. I regret getting a spicy (vs. mild) dog though. It was too spicy, even for me!

(Spicy Chicago Polish Dog, Planet Hollywood Dog, Onion Rings, and a Bowl of Chili)

(We’re weak! This is what we couldn’t finish. BTW, don’t get the chili by itself – it’s super greasy!)

Our last stop was at the nearby Pinkberry.

And this is where we were star struck! We saw Sarah Chalke who plays Elliot on Scrubs!! :0D Yes, she likes Pinkberry too! ;0D I noticed her as she walked out of the store pretty quickly and into her friend’s car. I was so bummed that I didn’t have my camera out, so I didn’t get a picture with her. Oh well, I was really excited to have seen her at all because I think she’s really funny on Scrubs. :0)

Switching to Mac

I saw this article, Weighing a Switch to a Mac, on Lifehacker.com, and so I just had to blog about it…

In response to the article mentioning Apple not offering ultraportable notebooks, I just want to say… *cough*Macbooks*cough*. According to About.com, ultraportable notebooks “are generally under 5 pounds in weight and are less than 1.5″ thick. They can be as thin as a spiral bound notebook or a paperback book. They sometimes sacrifice features for portability.”

The 13″Macbook is 1.08″thin and 5.1 lbs. C’mon! If it were any more compact, it probably would sacrifice great features! :0/ But I guess I can understand the article’s intention. Afterall, a mini Macbook, perhaps something comparable to Sony’s 11″Vaio TX or maybe even something smaller like Sony’s 4.5″Vaio UX could be handy. But to that, I say *cough*iPhone*cough*.

Okay okay, I know that’s a stretch of a comparison, which probably totally weakens any sort of strong argument I might have had going. blah. Well, maybe Apple is working on plans for an iPhone w/ more practical applications for business people, such as a text editor and spreadsheet. Ooh… that might be neat! Especially if you could plug in a keyboard for easier typing. Aha! I should work for Apple eh? Or, maybe I should just stick to reading up on Mac Rumors, as Byron suggested.

Anyways, back to the article…
…which also brings up the switching experience.

I <3 my Mac, although I didn’t as much at first. I was soo used to Windows that I found it slightly difficult learning to use my Mac. Really, I don’t even want to address this as a big issue though because it’s not. Like anything that becomes routine, it’s hard to break from it. The Mac interface is totally opposite from Windows. That is, the basic stuff like layout, menus, and buttons. Navigating through my hard drive and system preferences was quite different. Ultimately, I got used to my new Mac though, and realized it’s way simpler to use than Windows!

The Mac interface makes more sense. Applications are super easy to install. The Dock is cleaner than Windows Start–>Programs menu. Exposé is awesome; for all you non-mac users, Exposé is a feature that lets the user quickly and conveniently find the window she needs through the clutter of windows typical of a busy computer user. Capturing screen shots is the best; so smart!! Dashboard is extra cool; I can set any of several widgets to choose from. Currently, I have these widgets: weather, calculator, calendar, dictionary/thesaurus, translator, and currency convertor, which all appear/disappear at the click of a button. :0)

Mac OS X is really brilliant. I don’t know how else to describe it. And my Macbook Pro is not just a fun tool. I use the fun apps that came w/ my iLife, but I also use Adobe software (i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator) on a regular basis, as well as the more “serious” stuff like Microsoft Office.

I currently do not use Boot Camp or Parallels since I don’t want to buy a copy of Windows plus an anti-virus software. I really don’t need to run windows; except I do use AutoCAD, which does not come in Mac version. Lucky for me, however, I have a very nice boyfriend who lends me his PC notebook to work on my AutoCAD. :0D

Anyways, I guess I had more to say than I originally thought. ;0P Read the article. It’s good stuff! :0)

SF 2007 Photos

Here are a few of my favorite photos from our recent trip to San Francisco:

To view the rest of our photos, visit my Flickr set: San Francisco 2007