IS THIS A JOKE???

I was so excited to finally receive disc 3 of BSG season 2 today. After whipping up some pasta and salad (Badge is at band practice tonight), I settled onto the couch ready to watch four action packed episodes. However, after the second episode ended in an extreme cliff hanger, the dvd reset to menu.

Oh no.

Frantically, I checked the episode list.

Oh no.

ONLY TWO EPISODES ON THIS DISC???

WTFFFFFFFFFFFFF???

I'm so pissed right now I feel like my head is going to explode. I should be able to sue someone about this. This isn't right. It's just not right.

Ok, breathe.

To placate myself, I'm now eating ice cream. A lot of ice cream. Whatever, I deserve it. I went to yoga Sat, Sun, Tues, and Thurs. I would have gone yesterday but I've been in MoDA (Model Driven Analysis) training 8:30am-5pm Tues-Thurs and I had a backlog of crap to do on Wed. On a bright note, my soon to be manager told me today that he's opening up a req to initiate my transfer. It'll probably get approved for early next year since we're in Q4. Whoop whoop! I told my mom and of course her reaction was, oh when will you be a supervisor? Sheesh. There's no pleasing the woman. So reminiscent of grade school, e.g. if I bring home an A-, she'd ask why it wasn't an A.

Anyway, here's hoping it'll be smooth sailing the rest of this year. Still lots of work to do but Taiwan trip is coming around the corner and then it'll be the holidays!

By the way, I mentioned casually that Badge is at band practice but I don't think I ever elaborated. Yes, Badge has a band. He recruited a talented singer/bass player from craigslist who brought in his talented guitar player friend. And of course Badge plays the drums. He created all the songs (lyrics, general guitar riffs, drums, bass) and prototyped them on his mac using Garage Band. The band mates have helped him build on his original ideas but it's still essentially Badge's project. Now they're secured a free practice space and will hopefully begin recording in a month or so. These songs are pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Seriously, I couldn't pull out a song out of my ass if I tried. Badge does it like it's his birthday. Very impressive.

The Freak'n Weekend

Last week proved to be another long week of hard work. It's been pretty hectic because I've been trying to wrap up one project while ramping up on a couple new ones. Blah.

To say the least, I was relieved when Friday came around. For dinner, Marc and Kim picked us up to go to the soft opening of a BJ's in Carlsbad. Marc's company did the sound system for the restaurant so he was on the guest list. Surprisingly, this BJ's was in a huge decked out building that's much nicer than the one here in UTC. The food also seemed much tastier. We started with a flight of 7 beers including their pumpkin ale. For appetizers, we had avocado rolls; for dinner we had a buffalo chicken pizza and a spinach and artichoke pizza; and for dessert, we had an enormous cookie with ice cream on top. Mmmmm. We topped the night off by watching Mongol at home. Good movie.

On Saturday I went to yoga and got my ass handed to me. I only made it to class on Tues so I was definitely not prepared for Primary Series. That afternoon I took a monster nap and did a lot of horizontal lounging. The only productive thing I did was to hang up some old drawings in the dining room.


For dinner, Badge and I went to Hillcrest on a whim and decided to try out the Tractor Room. Delicious. We got a lot of things: cornbread, chicken and porcini mushroom pate (my choice), spicy chicken wings (Badge's choice), wedge ceasar salad, chipotle tomato pork ribs, and sharp Wisconsin cheddar mac and cheese. I had wine and Badge had some super strong cocktail and beer. Everything was delicious and though we were full beyond belief, we still dragged ourselves to Pinkberry for dessert.

Today, I woke up super sore but still decided to go to yoga. Amazingly, I was able to do scorpion without a wall and without assistance! I was even able to hold the pose for a while (granted my muscles were spasming in protest). Will have to attempt at home this week once my back recovers. In the afternoon, I did some work and started to putter around in the garden when I stumbled upon a huge spider in the corner of the yard. Wtf. It had a big bulbous body so I immediately thought of brown widows (there's been an influx of them in SD). The pics I found on Google varied but I thought it looked similar enough justify freaking out. Unfortunately Badge was at soccer so all I could do was hustle the cats in and cower in fear on my couch. Here's a pic. It's blurry because I didn't want to get too close. Also that boxy thing in front is a wrapped up fly that it was eating. Ew...


Tonight, we've watched Dexter and Californication. Badge is watching the Giants game now and I'm preparing myself to work on my contracting work. But first, it's off to get some ice cream...

Ebay Is My Friend

Whoo hoo, ebay came through! Remember those sunglasses I was ogling at the eye doctor's? Well, they're MINE. Thanks to wonderful world of ebay, I got them at half the price. And they fit perfectly! Yay.

Notes

• It's 11pm and I'm still doing work. This is baffling.


• Badge made five unsuccessful attempts to kill a house fly last night with a fly swatter. I took one swipe and that fly went down. Booyah.


• Anyone have ideas for presents to bring to my family in Taiwan? Thus far, Badge has bought Jack Daniels and my mom and I plan to bring back cheese. Monkey has made creepy dolls for the kids.


• My butt and knee both still hurt. My arch nemesis in yoga has taken this opportunity to surpass me at scorpion. Must recover and practice scorpion without the wall.


• Badge thinks I'm too competitive.


• Hair has grown into Bruce Lee hairstyle. Badge refers to my hair as my hockey helmet


• Cats are still pretty damn cute

Debilitated

Badge and I got food poisoning yesterday. We went for mexican (again) and feasted on chicken fajitas and spicy shrimp, and of course micheladas. Delicious as usual. We felt fine the rest of the night until about 1:30am where I was awoken by debilitating stomach cramps and was forced to take a trip to the you know what. Afterwards, I went back to sleep only to be woken up again. The cycle repeated several times until 4:30am when Badge also woke up to the same ailment. At that point I threw up. Greeeat. The bouts continued though the intervals progressively got longer thank goodness. Badge demonstrated poor judgement and a trace of insanity by still going to his soccer game at 8am this morning. The rest of this morning and afternoon was spent laying on the couch trying to eat stomach friendly foods. It appears the stomach cramps have finally ceased altogether and we've kicked the crisis. We think the shrimp was the culprit but it's hard to say for sure. We're both deeply disturbed that something so delicious could reek such havoc on our systems. It may be a while before we go back to that restaurant.

Aside from this unpleasantry, Badge and I have attended two films at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. The first was Children of Invention which opened for the festival on Thursday night. The director is a guy Badge met and befriended at Sundance earlier this year. The movie was vaguely reminiscent of my own childhood (in the sense that my mom was a divorced immigrant trying to raise two children). It was sad at parts but well done. Afterwards, we went to Rock Bottom to drink beer, and eat fries and buffalo wings. You know, real healthy. On Saturday, we went to see Cape No. 7, an interesting Taiwanese film about a motley crew of villagers getting together to form a local band. It was a tad long but still pretty entertaining. The festival lasts for 3 weeks so we're contemplating going back to see some more. In particular I'm interested in seeing Red Cliffs, a big epic movie by John Woo. I'm a sucker for historic epics and of course my man Takeshi is in it.

On Friday, we went to Spike and Frog's for pizza and SYTYCD. Dog and Luna came over and showed us this hilarious dog birthday cake they got for Truffles (pic of Chofies and Truffles painted on front). Too funny.


I guess it's been a while since I posted so we're long overdue for some garden pics. Here are the two mandevilla looking plants my mom brought. And the peach tree below.



In other news, I've finished the first two Twilight books that I borrowed from Michigan. The first book was good. A big melodramatic but hey it's a young adult's book so I understand. The second book however I could not stand. Way over dramatic. Every other page was about how heartbroken Bella was and how she couldn't go on, yadda yadda. The general plot line was good but I just wished there hadn't been so much filler about this "hole in her heart". Anyway, I'm still excited to see the movie. Overall, I was so irritated by the second book that it may be a while before I attempt to read the third. We'll see. I still much prefer the Sookie series but I know Nevertap prefers the Twilight series, so who knows, maybe it's whichever you read first. On a side note, I finished the first 4 episodes of BSG season 2. Must wait for more discs!

No Time!

Quick catch up, just the way you like it - bullet style!

• Fri:
  
  • Ladies lunch at Greek restaurant. Loved my Gyros. Less than enthusiastic about waiter.
    
  • Parents came over to set up more satellite stuff.
    
  • Went to Pizza Port for dinner with Spike, Kimbo, and Marc. Ate lots of pizza and drank lots of beer
    
• Sat:
  
  • Went to yoga and survived. Motivated to get back into it.
    
  • Uncle successfully set up satellite. We now get local HD channels.
    
  • Cleaned house furiously because Mom invited over a bunch of relatives and friends that were in town. Gave Badge go ahead to escape to soccer event.
    
  • Had 12-15 loud Chinese people come over. Circus.
    
  • Parents left at 5pm. Badge came home.
    
  • Relaxed that night with Badge.
    
• Sun:
  
  • Went to yoga and survived again. Still motivated.
    
  • Went to IKEA for curtains, shelves and misc things.
    
  • Worked on some art projects for house. More later.
    
  • Went to El Zarape for dinner with Spike, Frog, and Dog. Had two enormous micheladas and ate delicious fish tacos. Fat.
    
• Mon:
  
  • 8 am meeting. Not a fan.
    
  • Started working on new projects. Unfortunately old ones won't leave me alone.
    
  • Watched Dexter which we recorded. Love it.
    
  • Started reading Twilight which I borrowed from Michigan. Unfortunately started at 10pm and couldn't stop until 2am. Sleepy.
    

Blah

I'm sick. I blame Badge entirely. Runny nose, coughing, congestion, stuffy head. Blah. I probably shouldn't have gone into the office but it's so much easier to code at work with my two monitors. So I stuck it out and probably irritated everyone around me with my sniffling.

In the morning, I went to the eye doctors for my annual check up. My eyes are healthy as a horse and I still have 20/20! Whoo! God bless lasik. I also complained to the doctor about dry eyes and strain from sitting in front of the computer all day. He recommended I try some tinted glasses to wear in front of the computer which should help with the strain. Luckily I had extra funds in my FSA account so I pulled the trigger on some cute Bulgari glasses. I also tried on a great pair of Fendi aviator sunglasses that I was itching to get (especially when the lady said she'd give me 20% discount) but I resisted. However, I am still enamored with them since I love how aviators look but have never found a pair that looks good on me (in fact most pairs look downright comical on me). Maybe the urge will wear off.


Buddha diet has been successful thus far. For the final meal of our 7 day commitment, I made curry fried rice with onions, corn, and edamame. I also roasted some cauliflower. Pretty tasty if I do say so myself. Now it's off to Spike and Frog's to watch SYTYCD.

Battlestar Galactica

SO

FRIGGIN (or frakkin for you BSG fans)

GOOD!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

For the last week, I've been obsessively watching the first season of this action packed sci-fi show about machines versus humans (think Terminator but with more intrigue and plot lines). Monkey originally brought BSG into my life by making me watching the pilot episodes while she was here visiting. I gotta admit, I was not that into it at first. But once I started watching the season episodes, I was hooked. Great characters. Great plots. Hilarious moments. Everything that makes an addicting show. I've just finished the second to last episode only to realize those f***ers put the season finale on a different disc. A disc I don't have!!! AHHHHHHHHH. Must wait for Netflix to delivery...

What else have I been up to? Well on Saturday I woke up at the butt crack of dawn to drive to LA. There was no traffic so I made it in 1.5 hours, just in time to pick up my mom and take her to the Taiwanese embassy to renew my Taiwanese passport. Apparently, the office is only open on Sat from 9-11am. How inefficient is that? Equally strange, the pics I took for my US passport were denied because one of my ears was not showing. What? Why in the world would that be necessary? Whatever, I took another pic and my mom and I got the hell out of there. The rest of the day was spent washing the car, taking a long 2 mile walk to the grocery (gotta get my mom some exercise), and doing contracting work for my friend Bobby.

I also attempted to make flan again for my mom but I got cocky and flippantly decided a big ceramic pot would be fine even though the recipe specifically called for a certain sized glass pan. I also offhandedly decided to cap the pot with its glass lid rather than wrapping the top with foil. Disaster. The layer was too thin so it overbaked. Hard rubbery texture instead of the beautiful silky custard of yester year. So embarrassing. Hopefully I'll have a chance to redeem myself soon.

Yesterday, I drove home in the morning and decided to skip yoga (butt STILL hurts) in favor of gardening. The afternoon was spent planting the purple lantana cuttings, transplanting my out of control rosemary plant into the ground, and doing more propogation experiments. Uncle gave me some rooting hormone that he got from Home Depot so I'm hoping it will help my cuttings take root faster. My mom and Uncle have amassed an amazing collection of orchids and gave a beautiful tall white one to take home. Love it.


Unfortunately, it's back to work today. It should be less crazy this week so I'm happy. On another bright note, I received a gift certificate to a spa for the work I put in these last two weeks for the 510k submission. How nice! Great to be appreciated. Pleased as pie, I went to yoga and pushed my way through a painful class. I should suck it up and see a doctor about this butt thing. Thank goodness I have a lot of extra FSA bucks to burn through. Off to do some contracting work.

Slammed

Oops, I was suppose to continue my Lonely Hearts Dinner (LHD) series but completely forgot to post. Why? Because I've been S-L-A-M-M-E-D at work. Official slamming began last week, lasted through the weekend, and is finally beginning to lighten up. Aside from crazy last minute deadlines, work has been stressful in general. One day I'm working on diagnostics, next day I'm working on sequencing. One day I'm wearing my Business Analyst hat, next day I'm wearing my Software Engineer hat. Sure, variety is good but I'm beginning to feel like I have A.D.D. or multiple personality disorder. Maybe it's my own fault for wanting to do everything myself.

Back to LHDs: On Monday night, I ate a leftover burrito from my group lunch (plus flan) while working from home. On Tuesday night, I ate leftover sesame noodles, baby greens salad, and the rest of the flan. Sadly, I was also working that night (damn VPN). On Wednesday night, I drank too much champagne and ate too much cake at a work event, came home, ate rice and broccoli (poor Asian man's dinner), and took a monster nap before picking up Badge from the airport.

Today, I was feeling better or perhaps caring less about work so Badge and I went to the new El Zarape in Normal Heights for lunch. Unlike their previous quick bites location in University Height, this locale was a formal sit down restaurant with bar. We had fish tacos, chicken burrito, and the most authentic micheladas I've ever had in the States. Delicious! Unfortunately, I left my leftovers at the restaurant (boo hoo).

Tonight I'm off to yoga while Badge goes to soccer. We've decided to try a modified Buddha diet for the next 5 days in an effort to shed some pounds before our Taiwan trip. Our Buddha diet shall consist of fresh produce, fruit, rice, tofu, and seafood. No meats, pastas, or refined sugars (not counting breakfast since lord knows we can't last without milk and cereal). We'll see how it goes!