Friday, October 31, 2008

Dee's Halloween Party

I went over to Dee's house to pass out candy & toys to trick-or-treaters.

We took a lot of trading cards, mini clear files, keychains and figures from work that we wanted to get rid of. If we're lucky, we'll get rid of most of it...

I played w/ a gray tabby that was hanging out in Dee's backyard. It was sooo cute & friendly! It played with the string on my hoodie for a while & even sat on my lap. Gah! 鼻血ブー!


I think it's a female cat, but they thought it might be a male because Courtney saw it licking its penis. But it's awfully small, doesn't have balls (even an empty fuzzy sack) and looks like it has female genitalia. Do female cats have something like a penis?

Anyway, Dee & Courtney carved pumpkins.


Courtney carves the same pumpkin face every year. It's a vampire pumpkin.

Dee carved a kabocha pumpkin. (Weird) He carved the face of his Facebook Pet Society pet. (Weird) He would like me to mention that it's awesome.


They also played ring toss with the glow-stick bracelets & Rambo headband.

Courtney got around 4-5 rings on the horns. Dee got 0.

Since they were competing, 2 people complimented Courtney's jack-o-lantern. Dee got 1.

We continued to pass out toys until 9pm.
We were surprised more people didn't come by earlier in the evening... there were a lot more after 8pm, but we were getting tired, so we stopped around 9pm. I don't think there were 1000 people this year, though.

Oh, and several kids came by two, three times to get more toys. I shoo'd them away the third time around.

We found more toys & figures in our office, so Dee's mom doesn't have to buy any candy for the next few years.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Voting Registration Confirmation Arrived

My voting reg confirmation letter arrived today.
The letter said I registered too late, so they can't send me a voting packet. I can go online to look, or pick it up at their Norwalk office.

I know what I'm voting for.
* President
* NO on Prop 4
* NO on Prop 8
* Yes on Prop 3 (?) - only because Jamie Lee Curtis told me to

I don't think I'll fill out the rest because I'm not sure what they're about.
I'm guessing we're supposed to vote NO on Prop 7 (energy bill?). And I don't know if I care if meth users and dealers are out on the street, so I won't vote for Prop 5.

I wonder if there are other important politicians I need to vote for...

I'm going to Interiors Made Eezz store along Washington Blvd.
Although I'm working that day, so it would be nice to go somewhere closer to work...

I don't know what I'm supposed to take with me, so I guess I'll take the confirmation letter & my driver's license. I hope I don't need anything else.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Dizzy Morning

I went to sleep pretty early last night (before Conan got to his guests), so I thought I got plenty of sleep. But I woke up and felt exhausted and a bit dizzy, so I decided to take a half-day today.

After I slept until 1pm, I did feel a lot better.
I wonder what that was all about?

I drank a yogurt drink for lunch.
I took rice & veggies for a late lunch, but ended up not eating it.

So I ate it for dinner.


The veggies are Green Giant brand's microwave-able ready-to-eat veggies. They're currently $1 each at Ralphs, so I bought a bunch. Normally they're around $2 - $2.50 each. Cheap, right?

The rice has 唐辛子ふりかけ sprinkled on it. We got it from someone from Japan, and it's really yummy! She found it at Narita airport, so we'll look for it next time we go to Japan.

I think this would make a good lunch in the future.
I'll take it tomorrow... I haven't had salad in almost a week. After going three weeks straight of salad day & night. It's because they didn't have romaine lettuce one day... then they didn't have the mixed cherry tomatoes the next time I went. So I couldn't collect all of my salad ingredients.

Maybe I'll go back to salad next week.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Prepped Food

This was my dinner tonight:


Looks pretty good, right?
Like I spent some time making it.

Bzzzt!
All of this came pre-made.
Because I can't cook.

The fish (hokke) was part of the employee food at Noshi. Ichigo brings it over because a lot of the waitresses don't want to eat the same ol' employee food every week. The hokke is a bit oily, and a bit too "jerky" (= tough & hard), but I like it.

The rice is from Noshi too. We get balls of rice wrapped in plastic wrap every so often. So they're usually frozen & we nuke it for five minutes.

The seaweed salad was bought at a Korean market. This one is really good.

The black beans were also bought at a Korean market. I was expecting soft sweet black beans like the Japanese New Year's food, but this one was tough. Like the beans weren't cooked fully. And a bit salty. It is sweet, though. I'll find a different side dish from the Korean market this Friday.


PS. I haven't called up COSTCO yet. I'm still wearing my single-armed glasses. I dug up the broken arm & taped it to the stump, so it's a little easier to wear. I'll have to re-tape every day, though. Boo!

PPS. I was almost hit by a Blue Bus driving along National today. I didn't want to get hit, so I got in the center lane... I wrote down the bus number, so I should call and complain. Too bad it's not like Japan & they don't send a rep over with a box of snacks. Hmph!

PPPS. I might be coming down w/ a cold. I went to sleep w/ the windows open, b/c I didn't realize Sat had them open. It's been cold & I didn't think she'd put herself in a position to get sick. But I woke up shivering around 5am, and I was a bit warm this afternoon. Or is it a negative effect from drinking Theraflu at night so I can go to sleep? Time to call up Duc?

Monday, October 27, 2008

Prepping for Dee's Halloween Party

It's not really a party, so don't think you're not invited.
Unless you want to come, because Dee's family doesn't really want to hold this party.

But Dee's neighborhood gets over 1000 people trick-or-treating. So I like to call it a party. A candy-giving party.

Since we have a lot of junk to get rid of at work, I had Dee come over to pick up a bunch of keychains, mini figures and stuff.

Dee's mom prepped about 400 pieces of candy & we have about 800 pieces of junk.

It'll probably take until 9pm to pass out all the candies & toys...

I wanted to have a little booth in the corner of their front yard to have a candy trade-in. Like "gimme 5 pieces of Kit Kat for this Gundam figure." It'll prevent kids from getting fat & getting cavities! And maybe I can send the candy to the soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But I probably won't do that. Unless we have more helpers. But it's a Friday night, and everybody probably has plans.

I'll just be sitting on the porch w/ Dee, Court & their mom having a party.
I wanted to carve a pumpkin too... maybe it's not too late to go buy one.


PS. Prince K is back from Japan. And he brought back shoyu flavored Kit Kat.
More on that on my work blog~

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Wrong Prescription Glasses

I ordered new glasses back in September and I didn't pick them up until a month later.

Then there were other things that happened, like me losing the new pair of glasses in Sat's car... and I didn't get to try them on until this weekend.

I took off my contacts & wore my glasses... and I couldn't see a thing.
I think they got the wrong prescription for my glasses.

I knew what the problem was.
I took my prescriptions, but ordered them using Sat's COSTCO card. Somewhere along them taking my prescription info & adding in Sat's info, they took Sat's prescription info from her database instead.

Sat checked the order form, and it said -2 / -2.25.
Mine are -6 / -6.

Hmmmmmmm.

I'm gonna go complain to them, and hopefully they will replace the lenses for free. Worse case, I'll have to pay for new lenses (around $70)... but I'm going to channel Ards when I go complain to them. I might have to make a few bitchy phone calls to their customer support center too.

Wish me luck!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Day Shiz Wore Heels

Well, I dressed up because I was going to the Japanese General Consulate's home for a kimono demonstration thingie.

For why I was invited, you can read my work blog tomorrow.

Whew, am I glad I went dressed up.
The invitation said "business casual," but everyone went pretty dressy. Plus there were people who wore kimono (they were from a kimono wearing class), so it's good that I wore a dress.

And heels.

And my feet hurt now.

And I'm really hungry because they only had cheese and crackers, meatballs, deep fried gyoza, and quiche.

So now time to eat.
And soak my feet.

Photos of the event coming to Flickr soon!

PS. I took off the dress, and the plastic bead thing caught my nose.
It hurt...
And I was washing my hand, and there's a cut on my nose!
Dangerous dress yo!

PPS. My lunch for today.

Same as yesterday. Salad + Spanish rice.

Dinner was... cereal, yogurt. Very sad...

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Pho w/ Dee

I went out to eat dinner w/ Dee tonight.

Topic for today was career goals.
And amazingly, we discussed politics. We never do that, but I guess SNL brings out the politic ramblings out of everyone.

I drew a nice circle on my pho.

Isn't it pretty? It wasn't enough Huey Fong sauce, so I had to add more in later. Next time I'll draw a 花まる with the sauce.

Then we went to the Korean market to buy some groceries.
I got a ton of enoki, oyster mushrooms and sweet potato, so we can have a meat-less teppanyaki in the near future! I did buy a pack of beef tongue, though. And a packet of flavored tripe.


PS. For lunch I made my usual chopped salad w/ turkey meat.

And I took a small container of the Spanish rice that was leftover from last night. I was inspired by this salad w/ garlic butter rice that じゅるる got for me one time. It was really oily & probably really fattening, but it was really good... so I thought I'd give it a try w/ the Spanish rice. It was yum.

I'm eating all these veggies, and why won't my poo come out!?
I finally poo'd today after three days... it didn't hurt, but it sure was a lot.

Lately, I've been in a 1-1-3 pattern. That's one day of poo, another day of poo, then poo three days later. I'd like to be able to get to the 2-2-2 pattern some day.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Spanish Rice & Cod Fillet

Well, I got a lot of help from Rice-a-Roni and fisherman Gorton's.

Spanish rice from Rice-a-Roni said to add a can of tomato.
Or 2 cups of diced fresh tomatoes.
Or a jar of salsa.

So I added some of the leftover salsa Sat had in the fridge. But it was too spicy!


See the label? It says "HOT" and it's really really hot.

I wasn't sure if I would be able to eat it as is, so I decided to dump in ketchup. Ketchup is tomato flavored. And it's sweet, so maybe it'll tone down the spiciness?

I looked in the fridge.
No ketchup!
Of course not... neither of us likes ketchup, so we don't keep them around.

But I did find couple packets of Heinz ketchup. I wasn't sure how old they were, so I opened a packet & licked it a little bit. Kinda dark red, but seems okay. So I dumped three packets of ketchup in the Spanish rice.

I think it made the rice milder.

After the rice was ready, I checked on the frozen fish grilling in the toaster oven.

I realized that I had no veggies, so I decided to sautee some green beans.

The final 20-minute (instant) dinner came out like this:


Actually looks decent, huh?
Can't tell that the rice came out of a box. The fish came out of a frozen box. And the green beans came in a frozen bag.

PS. I just had a bloody nose. I was picking my nose b/c it's been so dry & itchy... I guess my nose was all dried up too & was ready to bleed.

Recent Comments Widget Added

I wanted a way to see the recent comments on the sidebar.

I get notified when someone comments, but sometimes it's hard to find the original post. Of course I could just click from the email I get, but I tend to delete it immediately after reading.

So I looked around for a tool. I guess it's called a widget.

Google search gave me this site, but when I tried it, nothing was showing up. I read through the comments, and I guess the original Javascript disappeared or something.

So another person fixed it here. The widget links back to that person's site, if you want to add it to your own Blogger page.

I currently have 7 comments showing.
I wish the text wasn't as spaced out like it is now, but there's no way to fix it on my end.

The free Japanese blogs tend to have all of this built in. Why doesn't Blogger do the same?
Calendar & recent comments are common tools people want, no?

Well, I do appreciate the no-ads on Blogger, though.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Itchy Belly!

I got bit by something over the weekend.

Right on my belly.
Along the belt line.


It's really really itchy!

Sat thinks it's bed bugs.
She would know because she had over 30 bites on her body... that was gross. Ew.

I tend to get bug bites whenever I watch TV at じゅるる's apartment. And I was lying down to watch SNL...

I don't think vacuuming is going to help. Just don't watch TV? Where else am I going to get my Animal Planet fix!?

I use the anti-itch cream Sat has. But it still itches, so I have to sit around the house with my belly out in the open. I hope no one visits...

And Sat & I walked to Trader Joe's today. And the whole time walking there, I had to keep scratching my belly. I almost didn't care if other pedestrians saw my fat belly.

And when I go to work tomorrow, I'll be scratching my belly all day long too. Poor staff!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

My New Eco-Bag

I went to the Disney Store today & saw a Wall-E reusable bag.

I know Sat would yell at me if I got another eco bag... but it was cute... so I asked じゅるるto buy it & keep it in his car.

Now I think I should have bought the Mickey Mouse one to send to Japan too. It was a retro Mickey face image. Not retro-retro (like Steamboat Willy), but retro.

I forgot to take a photo of the bag. Maybe next time.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Dave's Birthday Dim Sum

We celebrated Dave's 31st birthday in MPK today.

14 people showed up!
Dave said it's because people like him. Sat said it's because everyone doesn't have a lot to do in mid-October.

We went to Capital Seafood on Garvey & Atlantic. The Yama fama likes this place b/c it's never crowded, food is pretty cheap & the food items are pretty consistent in flavor. Not great, but not terrible. Their menu is kinda sporadic too... we didn't see any rice dishes (sticky rice fried rice, or the steamed sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) that we would usually get.

Since Allen was picking up Steph and Panda showed up first, we nominated Panda to be our official ordering person. Dennis wanted Chinese broccoli, so Panda ordered... and we got sauteed broccoli in garlic sauce.


That's not Chinese broccoli... says angry Steebu.

Panda "That's what Chinese broccoli is!"
Everyone "No, that's broccoli!"
Steph "Panda, they mean mustard greens."
Shiz "The plant w/ yellow flowers?"
Panda "Oooh! (something in Chinese)!"

So other things on menu were:
CHINESE chicken feet
CHINESE pork spare ribs
CHINESE hao gao...

Panda did redeem herself and re-ordered the real Chinese broccoli.

Dennis looks happy now.

31 photos are up on Flickr (need to be a "friend" to see them all).

Friday, October 17, 2008

Sat Addicted to Word Challenge

Dave & Sat signed up for Facebook today.
I have no idea why they signed up. I thought they didn't like that sort of sites. And they're anti-social. Hermits don't belong on Facebook, yo!

Anyway, Dave started playing Word Challenge.
But he sucks at these kinds of games & couldn't get past 3k.
Sat plays, and goes all the way up to 10k (teacher/professor).

So Dave is now listed higher than Ardith, Hangyee and Ben. But he would NEVER get a score that high. I think there should be a "reset" button.

Sat is currently addicted & playing like crazy on her blue Dell.
She's going to beat my score one day. Maybe tonight.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Cheap Hotel Stay, In Exchange for My Soul

Well, not my soul. Just two hours of my time during my vacation to listen to Wyndham resorts sales people talk about timeshare. Like I can afford that.

I signed up for Vegas for now.
Either Imperial Palace (probably not) or Tuscany Suites (more likely). Three nights for $119 flat. Not per night, for all three nights. Not bad, eh?

So I can go anytime as long as I don't check in on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

When should I go w/ Sat?

Shiz Registered to Vote

I registered to vote for the first time in my life.

I became a US citizen when I was around 20 (I don't really remember), but I never bothered to register to vote. It just seemed like a hassle to go to a voting place during work hours.

So why now?
After missing three presidential elections and then some?

I don't really care about the presidential election. It's not like a Republican is going to win in California anyway. My vote would just off-set Alpha Ben's vote or something.

I decided to register because I wanted to vote against Prop 8.
That's the one where a crazy Pepperdine law professor is talking about not wanting his kids to learn boys can marry boys in school. I can't believe such a hateful commercial is allowed to be aired on TV.

Well, those crazy commercials have been running for weeks now, and they didn't push me over the edge to register. Facebook did. I had assumed everyone I know would be voting against Prop 8, but I recently saw a post supporting the hateful measure and I was a bit devastated.

So much so that I went searching around the web and found a Japanese blog written by a gay man living in San Francisco. He doesn't plan on getting married to his longtime partner (marriage isn't important to them), but he made an argument against Prop 8. And because he can't vote, he asked anyone who can to vote against it.

Silly me.
Before I get disappointed at my friends for supporting Prop 8, I should just vote against it.

So the voter registration sheet (I didn't know it's a half-page form) is in an envelope & being dropped off at the post office today.

Good thing I made it in time before the Oct 20 deadline.


PS. I was really really really thinking whether or not I should be writing this here. I mean, I haven't asked every one of my friends if they were voting against Prop 8. Even those with religions that don't accept gays.

But now I even think I should write about this in my work blogs too. I work with gay literature (even though it's not targeted to gay men, but to straight women), so I feel like it's my responsibility to have our readers think about it.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Tomato Bruschetta

I forgot to take photos, so I don't have any proof of my bad cooking (or non-cooking, today).

Sat wasn't home tonight, and I didn't have anything to eat at home.
But I had garlic & cheese sourdough bread from Trader Joe's. And some tomatoes Ichigo brought.

I thought, could I make a tomato bruschetta without looking at a recipe?

So I tried.

I knew the tomato needed to be diced.

I know there are green things in there. Probably basil, but I don't have any fresh herbs in my house. I knew I should have bought those frozen basil cubes from Trader Joe's. I bought a garlic one, but I didn't think I'd ever use basil. I think I'll buy the cilantro one too.

Well, it'll just have to do without basil.
I figured I could flavor it with salt & pepper.

And I dribbled on some olive oil.
Or ee-vee-oh-oh, like Rachel Ray calls them. I think the term (EVOO) is really stupid, but I'm repeating it in my head when I'm shopping. Get out of my head, Rachael Ray!

And that's all I did.

For the garlic & cheese sourdough bread, I toasted it with butter in the toaster oven. And then toasted it again to make it a little more crispy than usual. Why not put it on high? I'll do that next time.

Afterwards, I looked up bruschetta recipes. I guess you're supposed to also include garlic and vinegar. I'll do that next time too.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Chris & Mike's Half Marathon Adventure

Chris & Mike participated in the Long Beach Marathon, so Dee & I went to cheer them on. Well, Dennis was supposed to join us, but we couldn't get in touch w/ him.

The half marathon started at 7:30am, so we were trying to get there 15 mins early... but by the time we were walking around the Long Beach Arena, we could hear the MC yelling "Ready, set, go!"

Damn, we missed them.
But there was still a big crowd at the start line area... because THOUSANDS were participating in the half marathon. So we could have looked for Chris & Mike, but there was too many people. We find out after the marathon that Chris was taking a dump right when they started, so they were in the back of the pack anyway.

After the race started, we went around the sponsor tent area. Nothing too interesting, plus I didn't want to get freebies not being a runner. Then we were gonna go eat by the aquarium, but stopped to take pictures & video of the runners.

We were hoping to see Chris & Mike run by at the 10k mark. But it had been 1-1/2 hours after the start, and we thought they already passed that point, so headed towards the finish line.

Then we waited an hour. Everyone we saw at the 10k mark was finishing... damn, the boys were behind these people!

Here are the boys right after they finished.

Chris made that face to look tired, but they weren't as tired as we expected. Mike said they were running slower than he wanted to run.

Dennis & Allen arrived a few minutes later, and the boys (+ me) walked to Yard House for a late lunch.

Hmm, I have no photos of myself at this event.
It's OK, I went as a historian for the boys' life. Otherwise they don't have any photos of themselves to use on Facebook & Match.com.

And then we headed home.


The End

PS. It was cold in the morning, but it was sunny but breezy during the half marathon. Mike said the marathon goes along the beach and was a scenic route. Probably a perfect event to start participating in marathons.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Baking is Hard Too

I wanted to make apple tarts because I saw it on America's Test Kitchen (ATK) season 8 and it looked easy enough.

Well, ATK makes their own pie crust.
But I don't have a food processor, plus I'm not good at measurements... and pie crusts require a lot of precise measurements, so I bought the Pilsbury baking dough.

I've been wanting to make this for couple of weeks, since I bought the dough a while back. But I never got around to buying the apples. I usually don't eat apples, so I'm not in the habit of buying them.

But I bought two Granny Smith apples at the Korean market when I bought the teppanyaki supplies, so I was good to go.

Sat doesn't really like apple pie, and she was against peach pie or blueberry pie. So I said I'll try it with pineapples too.

I forgot to take pictures while I was preparing the stuff.
Shows how nervous I was.

Anyway, ATK said to prepare the apples first (after you make your pie crust dough... but I skipped that part). They peeled the apple with a veggie peeler. I didn't know you could do that. I went with the traditional paring knife, though.

I don't have an apple corer (I don't know anyone who owns one), so I just cut the apple in half and started slicing. When I got near the middle of the apple, I just chopped off the core part. That seemed to do the trick fine.

For the pineapples, we had canned pineapple wedges. So I cut the wedges into thirds to make them thin enough for the fruit tart. They ended up being the perfect size. Yay!

I cut the baking dough into 4 parts, flattened them out a bit & rolled the edges.
Then I realized the apple slices were too big for the 1/4 piece tart crust, so I had to cut some of them in half. It's all about making little adjustments, isn't it?

ATK added a BUNCH of sugar on top, so I thought I put a lot... but it wasn't enough. More on that later.
I also cut up butter into tiny cubes & sprinkled them on top of the fruit. I forgot what it was for, but it must make the tart delicious.

I put the tarts in for 20 mins, then planned on turning them around in the oven for 20 mins. Cuz that's what ATK said. But it was too long. I took them out after 30 mins, but that was still too long. The crust was burnt, but edible.



Next time I'll dump double the amount of sugar on top.

We poured honey on the tarts, and they tasted better. Well, ATK did put watered down fruit jam on top, but Susan said it was to make it look glossy... maybe that adds to the sweetness.

Anyway, I'll try this again at someone's party. I'll try not to burn it next time.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Teppanyaki at Home, All Weekend Long

Sat, Dave, Dee & I had teppanyaki for dinner tonight.
We bought 5 different types of meat (tongue, expensive beef, medium priced meat, pork belly, and marinated pork) and lots of veggies. It was a lot of food. Gefu~

Forgot to take photos, though.

I bought enough food for the whole weekend, so I'll be teppanyaki-ing all weekend long.

Aside from that, I'll be helping Sat on a few projects at home.

Oh, today was Dee's first day at school for this school year.
Thank goodness he got some work.

Dee & Dennis told me that Chris McD & Mike M are running a half-marathon on Sunday in Long Beach. I might tag along to cheer them on.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Snot on the Door

Sat and I decided to meet up at Yogiyo on Venice for frozen yogurt.
I think she was hot & I was craving something sweet.

I left work a wee bit early & drove there. Sat was going to walk all the way from Westwood (it was a 30 min walk!).

So I get there pretty early & waited in the car.

My nose was itchy, so I was wiggling it around w/ my hand. But something was stuck in there. Like lint or something. So I snorted out, and out flew a piece of snot... all the way from the driver's seat to the passenger side door.

This is the length that the snot traveled.


Close up of the snot on the door.


I didn't have a napkin in the car, so I couldn't clean it up until we got frozen yogurt at Yogiyo. Sat said I should have gotten out of the car while I was waiting & gotten the napkin. Whoops, I didn't think about that.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Shiz Sucks at Word Games

I started playing the Word Challenge game (anagrams) on FaceBook.

And I suck at it miserably.

I told how bad I was to Dee, and he said he wanted to play.

So he signs up for Facebook & gets a score just below Stephanie's insane score of 28k on HIS FIRST TRY.

I just checked the scores, and now he's over 32k.

Me? I'm in my low 3k.
Most of the time, I'm in my 2k.

Panda is at 8k.
Ards is at 9k.

I really suck at this.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Shiz Has Blue Snot

I was picking my nose with a tissue drill (that's when you twist the tissue into a cone-shape & use it as a drill to get all the booger out), when there was a blue dot on the tissue.



I told Sat about it & she said she had it too.
I was wondering what blue thing we've been snorting in, and she said it's a bacteria that makes snot blue.

Whatever Sat.
Is there a towel with bright blue lint?

Sat wasn't kidding. Dave looked it up for her.

So I decided to take a picture.
Sat thought that was gross.

I told her the picture wasn't coming out that good.
She said I needed to collect more & put them on the same tissue.
I think she's just as gross.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Okinawa Mini Festival w/ Sherwin & Erika

Since I had nothing to do this weekend, I decided to go to the Okinawa Association of America's annual bazaar & festival in Gardena.

I Evited, and Sherwin & Erika decided to go.
Dee was pooped out from driving 3+ hours yesterday (plus he wanted to work on his scripts), Sat & Dave went to church, so I went on my own.

Steph wanted to come too, and Ben had offered her a ride, but Steph needed to call up her insurance company & car rental places so they both decided not to come. BTW she's doing fine, but has bumps and bruises from her airbag.

The Okinawa festival was really small, but I went there for the rice taco and Okinawa soba, so had both. Waaay too much food. Rice taco was originally $4 each, but they lowered it to $3 by the time I bought it. Okinawa soba was $6, which is kinda expensive for the small bowl, but I figured it was donation to the organization.

I was asked to register for the bone marrow twice, and both times I told them I registered 4 years ago & I was contacted recently that I might be a match. I haven't heard back from them, so I should check to make sure I didn't have to fill out anything in the paperwork they sent me.

Sherwin registered before I got there, and they asked his age b/c they thought he was under 18. Har har!

And we just chatted for a long time. Lots of catch up to do, since we don't see everyone all the time.

I took photos, but they're in my camera's internal memory. I have to look for the USB cable to connect to the computer. Til then, no photos on ShizLife or my Flickr account.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Road Trip to Middle-of-Nowheritta

Today Dee & I drove out to Riverside County to visit Ards.

Panda wanted to go too, but she had a lunch appointment w/ a friend, so she couldn't make it. Maybe next time.


Ards said there was The Original Pancake House over there, so we went for a late lunch. I was really hungry so I ate all of the Dutch Baby, took several bites from Dee's German Pancake (bigger Dutch Baby), and half of Ards' Eggs Florentine. Piggy Shiz.

We went to the nice new Target to shop for things.
I bought a ton of things. Thomas the Engine phone toy for じゅるる's nephew, Domo-kun chocolate for Prince to take to Japan, birthday wrapping paper, 4-year old birthday card, flower-shaped window clings and a hippo CD case.

Ards was looking for the Target limited edition Iron Man movie on Blu-Ray, but they were all sold out at that store.

So we went to the second Target store to look for it. The older smaller Target isn't as popular & they had a lot of the Iron Man movie. We also got the Classic Taito games on the Wii.

It comes in an Iron Man mask.

No other case. How are you going to put this away?
Dee suggested mounting on a wall, but they don't have a mounting hook on the back. They should have thought of that when they designed the case... it would have made all the Marvel fans happy.

Oh, Ards really liked the dinosaur toy on display at Target. The music & initial grunting sounds a bit... porn-ish *chuckle* Check my Flickr account for the video.

For dinner we had teppanyaki.

Ards' dad prepared the marinated meat while we were shopping for veggies. Everything was so yummy!

Oh, we watched Iron Man too.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Helping Steph Plan Her Japan Trip

I guess Steph is going to Japan for TGS, and she called, messaged & Facebook'd me asking for hotel info.

Most of our conversation was on the "wall"... and I realized that the "wall" isn't private. And it's shown on all 450 of her other Facebook friends. What if she has stalkers!?

So after I searched for hotel info on Rakuten, I decided to email her.
No more stalkers.

I don't know what happened to the hotel reservation Sat made for us, since we were planning on going. She must have canceled by now. Altho the hotel is kinda far for TGS use. It's pretty handy if you only want to stay around the 乙女ロード area.

BTW, did Bung end up asking Sasami to buy the iTunes Japan cards?
Cuz that would be much easier than having Bung pay me to give money to Prince to buy the iTunes cards. I hope he figured that out & talked to Sasami & just forgot to tell me about it. Or do I need to hand $200 to Prince? Gosh, I hope not. And I don't want to be stuck w/ $200 worth of iTunes cards that I wouldn't use... or maybe I would. Do they have lots of ani-songs on iTunes Japan?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Shiz on Facebook

Ards said Steph said I should get on Facebook.
So I made an account.

I'm not going to bother looking for people, though. They can find me.
I used my real name & my real DoB. That should be enough, right?

I was wondering why I didn't recognize anyone listed under "Keppel"... and I realized I wrote in the wrong graduation year. I always seem to think I graduated from HS in 87, but that would make me really really old.

I hope no one emails me on Facebook.
I don't even read messages on Mixi. Or LinkedIn.