Selling Her Soul for Adidas Stuff

Sat is volunteering for the Countrywide Classic, the tennis tourney being held at the UCLA Tennis Center.

While rooting for Kei Nishikori last year (he won through the qualifiers & lost the first round of the main draw), Sat noticed that the adults were passing out Adidas shoes to the ball kids. Then she noticed the matching shorts, jacket, and hat... and decided she wants to volunteer to get free Adidas stuff.

So she signed up to be a driver. She gets to drive a Mercedes Benz, since they're the official car sponsor.

Let's see how much Adidas stuff she gets.

Dennis' Birthday Evite

Dennis' birthday Evite has been sent out. Did Dee draw that map art?

I added Nadine, James, Sofie, Ben & Rhona. But Rhona's email bounced. I'll have to dig out her gmail account.

I figured Sofie would know Dennis' college friends, so I asked her to add them.

Hmm, I don't think Bung is on the list.

Planning Dennis' Birthday Party

Sat delegated Dennis' birthday planning to Dee, Mike & Allen during SDCC.

Dee had much to complain about it, but he came by the office to talk to Dennis about what he wants to do for his birthday.

So after talking about it for during work hours for three hours (I'm not commenting about this one), they decided to do a scavenger hunt at Third Street Promenade. And maybe a BBQ party at a nearby park.

Dee's been wanting to do a scavenger hunt for a while... and apparently Jon has been planning one himself as well. So it's likely that they'll be planning it together. Probably during work hours (I'm not commenting anything about it).

They'll be looking for a park in Santa Monica that has BBQ area. And maybe watch a movie outdoors.

The Evite should be going out later this week.
And Chris wants lots of girls invited. But not girls we know. Girls other people knows. How is that going to work?

San Diego, All Done

We just got home from San Diego.
Gosh, it was a long week.

Shiz Shopping:
* I didn't buy anything at Gama-Go this year again. I think I won't buy anything from them anymore, since they don't have cute t-shirts for women lately.

* I also didn't buy any tote bags from the Dumbrella booth. They didn't have a sale on the last day, like they did last year. Oh well.

* I had じゅるるbuy me a Squeaky Poo plushie. I got the veggie one. The sign in the photo says $12, but she charged us $13 on Saturday... I guess it was selling pretty fast, so she decided to increase the price?


The end.

Three Down, One More Day Left

Today was a non-work day. Yay!

First Ards showed up. Then Sasami (+ sis) and じゅるる. We searched around for Steph's autograph session, which Ards mistakenly heard "Four Entertainment." Score, four...

Ards, Sasami, Steph, じゅるる and I went to Anthony's to eat lunch and met up w/ Sat. Lunch took FOREVER to make, and there was a piece of bread in the sun-dried tomato butter. Ew.

Then I went to the hotel room to sleep for 2 hours, while Sat & じゅるる watched Wayne's World.

For dinner, じゅるる and I met up w/ Sinterniklaas, then met up w/ Steph at the Horton Westin. But before we found Steph, we bumped into Sasami + sis. Steph introduced us to the guys who were sitting w/ her -- "Ryan and Will." Steph later told us that the "Will" guy is a particular actor Ards & Sasami used to have a crush on in ST Next Gen.

We went to eat at an Indian restaurant. Yummy!

One more day... plus break down left.

Two Down, Two More to Go

Okay, two more days to go. And one of them is the dreaded Saturday. I was planning on staying in the hotel room all day Saturday (like Sat), but I have some business to take care of tomorrow morning.

I forgot to mention that I saw Jerry yesterday. As usual, he flaked about drinking later that night (nor did he invite me to go eat at Morton's).

I don't think I ate anything for lunch. Maybe two Hawaiian bread rolls.

And I went to Yoshino Japanese restaurant for dinner. The owner lady remembered me from previous years (cuz I'm the only one who drinks green tea, while everyone else drinks alcohol). I told her I'll come back again next year.

One Down, Three More to Go

Ards came down to San Diego to go to the Dr Who panel. Geek.
But she helped us big time in the morning by driving back the rental car to the hotel. Thanks, Ards.

I heard there was a huge accident on the I-5, and it took everyone 5-6 hours to get from LA to San Diego. Geez.

Good thing I didn't have to drive back & forth to LA to pick up stuff. But Dee had to endure the horrible traffic. Sorry & thanks, Dee.


Today, I had a protein shake & multi-grain pretzel for lunch.
And went to a Japanese izakaya "Masa" for dinner.

Dreaded PN Over, 4 More Days

So the dreaded PN is over. But I was so exhausted from being awake at 6:00am (sleeping at 2:00am the night before), I retired early.

I posted on work blog 2 on what freebies I got.

Dennis got bit by something in his sleep. He has bumps all over his face, so I asked housekeeping to replace their entire bed coverings. Hopefully he doesn't get bitten tonight.

Oh, I have a big bruise on the top of my right knee. I dropped a box of books yesterday... on its corner. There was a bump yesterday, and today it's blue-ish.


It's on my bad knee, so there's double the pain when I'm standing all day. Boohoo.

Today I ate Mexican food for lunch & dinner. My tummy is going crazy, so I'll drink a protein drink to soothe it for tonight.

We also found out that they don't allow sale of alcohol past midnight in that area of San Diego. I guess there are too many drunken parties gone wrong during the annual geek fest.

Yama Sisters in San Diego

We arrived safely in San Diego.

I forgot to tell Chris that we were going to pick him up, so he showed up at the office. Tee hee.

It ended up for the best, since there were some stuff that needed to go into the rental car. And we were also lucky that I ended up with a SUV even tho I reserved a full-size car, b/c they were out of full-sized cars. Everything falls right into place. Sat thinks I'm generally lucky with these types of things.

We ate Jack-in-the-Box for lunch, Denny's for dinner.
We're saving Anthony's til later, when more people are in town.

Oh, we went to a 24-hour Walmart. That was pretty exciting.

The hotel room is cold & I didn't bring a long sleeve shirt to sleep in. So I'm just bundling up. Brrrr.

Tomorrow is a long day... the dreaded PN.
As Ards would put it... h8.

Getting Ready for the Big Event in San Diego

I'll be driving down to San Diego tomorrow for the annual geek fest.

I'm taking Sat & Chris.
Dennis is going on in a different car.

I think Dee is going Thurs & Fri.
Ards is going Thurs & Sat.
Sasami is going Sat & Sun.

See you all there.

Grunion Run 2008 & Summer Event Plans

Dee finally sent out an Evite to go see the grunion run.

So Chris, Dave, Sat, Erika, HangYee, Steph, Michael & I met up at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro, CA.


The beach was crowded, because it's the peak time for families to come out & experience this "California only" event. But it's not necessarily the peak time for the grunions to come up. It didn't help that everyone was using flashlights & was wading in the water before the grunions came up on shore.

We got there at 10pm and waited until 12:15am for the crowd to go home... but they didn't. In the end, we didn't catch any fish. We agreed to come earlier in the season next year, so we can actually see the fish come up on shore.

The hungry folks (Steph, Michael, Erika & me) went to Koraku to eat ramen.

We decided to plan out the rest of the summer events, now that the work event season is wrapping up. Couple more obon festivals, Tofu Festival, etc.

As stated in my email,
This weekend: Mitsuwa Torrance summer festival, Pasadena Buddhist Church obon, Venice Hongwanji obon.
Next weekend: we're all in San Diego, so I didn't bother look.
Following weekend: Gardena Buddhist Church obon.
Mid-August: Nissei Week (minus Tofu Festival).

Time to send out Evites.

Hair Cut Sisters

Sat & I went to get our hair cut today.

I went first, because Sat wanted to finish eating her takoyaki that she bought at the Mitsuwa Natsu Matsuri (Summer Festival).

Sat & Dave were giggling at the "How to Become Popular with Girls" mook that was in the waiting section.

I think it was mostly there to showcase different kids of hair cuts & styles for Japanese guys, but I was surprised about the aftershave cremes that makes your facial hair thinner over time. It's to reduce the blue-ish tint that remains after you shave your face.

Then there was a section on removing body hair (chest, legs, arms). And a device that keeps tapping at your nose to make your button nose more shapely. Japanese guys have to work awfully hard to get girls.

I headed over to the Natsu Matsuri to check it out & take photos for the blog. But I realized I forgot to put the SD card in my camera. I took photos, but I can't post them until I go home and get the cable. *sob*

Sat & Dave went to Max Karaoke while I went to the Natsu Matsuri, but I ended up not spending a whole lot of time there. So I sat at the entrance when Angela & Liyin came in. They were meeting friends for karaoke.

Anyway, here's the new Shiz


Tonight is grunion run!
I'll rest up by watching TV.

A Wonderful Way to Wake Up

I woke up this morning because something fuzzy was brushing against my foot.

Koge Shu had rested her chin on my foot!


きゃ～、カワイイ！

I slowly grabbed my camera in my purse & took the photo, trying not to disturb her. She did open her eyes, though.

Then I got up to pee after I took the picture. Mission accomplished.

Dark Knight @ Midnight

We just got back from watching the Batman movie @ the Landmark theaters in Westside Pavilion midnight showing.

The usher told us it's a 2-hour 40-minute movie.
The movie started at 12:15... so we were going to get out at 3:00am!

じゅるるand I groaned at that moment.
We're too old to stay up that late.

Anyhoo, I missed about 1/3 of the movie because I covered my ears & closed my eyes.
I should have known better that I can't handle movies like this.

Found Old Friends on LinkedIn, BBS Version

A long time ago, before the internet days... Vu & Erikku got me into BBS.

So the later half of my high school days, and early part of my college days were revolving around this chat board. I won't mention the BBS name in fear that creeps... er, geeks... er, people... will find this blog through Google. (No, I'm only kidding. Old creepy friends are always welcome)

Anyway, I got a LinkedIn invite from Dilan, who I met on the BBS.
He had contacted me out of the blue several years ago (5 years?), but then we didn't really keep in touch. Well, my workaholic level was 200% at the time.

I sent a short note back and a link to this blog.
I haven't heard back yet, but I did say I was busy until August. But I still write the blog daily... my priorities? My three blogs (and four, when I revive Industry Babble!).

I added a new category called "BBS Life."
I wonder who'll be next in this category?

Geeky Dinner at Furaibo

This really belongs in work blog 1, but since it's currently moving to a new location, I'll just write in here for now.

Steph messaged two nights ago saying Jerry was in town & wanted to know if we could meet up for dinner. When we were making a list of who to invite, we realized everyone had to be old folks who've been in the industry for a long time.

Anyway, we decided to meet up at Furaibo in West LA.

Here's an update on their lives:

Steph: got a voice agent. Apparently a lot of actors are signing up w/ agents now because『ア』VA's are finally getting recognition now & can get work.

Jerry: now works at Sega as inbound licensing acquisitions guy. He gets to read early scripts to planned movies to determine what games to make. He moved to SF. His g/f may follow after school, so he says.

Stephen: still enjoying his "retirement." He went to Japan in Dec and bought a lot ofヲタsutff.

Michael: he's voicing in an adult swim show called Venger Brothers? I'm sorry I don't know anything outside of anime. He'll be in the panel at Comic Con.

No updates needed for Toshi, Steve (ponytail) and じゅるる.

We just talked about geeky stuff. Mostly work related, people related to work, and iPhone.

I think we were really old compared to all the college-aged kids at Furaibo & at Volcano Boba Tea. But a lot of us started working in this industry around that age... 10 years ago!? Gosh, we're old.

Holes in My Kuri Manjuu

I bought 栗まんじゅう at the Nishi Hongwanji Obon Festival, and I was planning to eat them as snacks at work this week.

I packed up my lunch, and was about to put the 栗まんじゅう in my lunch bag when I noticed that one of the まんじゅうwas crushed.

Hmm, it must have been crushed when I was carrying it around.
I thought.

Until I looked at the bag closely and saw... bite marks.


Koge Shu was digging around in the Trader's Joe bag the night before. I yelled at her then, but she must have gotten to it while we were sleeping.

I yelled at her again, but I know it was too late. I shouldn't have left the 栗まんじゅうwhere she can get to it easily.

DQ Mania: Marine Slime vs Slime-Tsumuri

じゅるるgot me a Slime Knight plushie & PVC figure for my birthday. But I didn't want to take it home because I was worried Sat would take them away from me.

So I asked Sat if she'd promise not to take it from me.

「だいじょーぶ。きーちゃんがほしいのはマリンスライムだから」
Don't worry. I only want a Marine Slime.

「しづきもマリンスライム好きだよ」
I like Marine Slime too.

「しづきが好きなのはスライムツムリでしょ？
スライムツムリは緑だし。
マリンスライムは青だし」
You like Slime-Tsumuri, right? Slime-Tsumuri is green. Marine Slime is blue.

「そんなのどーでもいい」
I don't care.

「えー！？
マリンスライムはヒャドとか使うんだよ。
ツムリは何も使えません」
What!? Marine Slime uses 'hyado' too. Tsumuri can't cast any magic.

「そんなのわかんないしー」
That's waaay over my head.

Sat brings up these obscure DQ info that no one gets.
She was hoping she can DQ out w/ じゅるる, but he's not a gamer... oh, the huge disappointment in her eyes!

PS.
Prince K was upset that the big announcement about FF was about 13.

He said,
「７のPS3版はー！？オレの期待を裏切ったなー！」

ここにもヲタがいます。

Nishi Hongwanji Obon Fest Follow Up: Frosted Hair Boy

じゅるるemailed me today saying he looked at Sasami's Flickr account.

The boy with the frosted hair... is his後輩's son.
"こないだ会ったばかりだから間違いない。"

So I replied,
"If you were there, I would have been able to take as much pictures as I wanted."

残念。

Nishi Hongwanji Obon Festival

Ards, Nadine, Sasami, Sat & I went to the Nishi Hongwanji Obon Festival in Little Tokyo today.

It's the Buddhist temple Sat & I used to go when we were kids because my childhood friends' (Shiho and Shino) dad was a monk there. They moved up to Fresno area when we were in elementary school, so I haven't seen them in forever.

Oh yeah, I had a photo of them uploaded to Flickr.

Shiho on left, Shino on right, Shiz in center. Around 8 years old?

Anyway, back to the obon festival.

Sasami bought three plants to grow in her back yard. She mentioned that half of the plants she's bought are still alive, which prompted Ards to say, "So she kills 50% of the plants she brings home." Sasami said the シシトウplant she bought before died, and Ards started to make a check off list of plants Sasami killed off.

The taiko performance started, and there was a young boy with frosted hair in the group. We (I) sent Sasami to take a photo of the boy. She always does my dirty work. She came back with the requested photos. Good job, Sasami!

Sat & I bought 栗まんじゅう and later bought 沖縄ダンゴ, which is just fried donuts. It was really crunchy this year, and I liked it a lot.


We left before the 盆踊りstarted.
Nadine thought that they were going to have a race at the dance area... because there are lines drawn on the ground where the people are supposed to dance around. Tee hee.

We all headed over to Little Tokyo Shopping Center to buy cold drinks at Mitsuwa. Sat wanted to eat あんみつ, so Ards, Sat & I went to Hanaichi. Miho-san said there were a lot of kids in cosplay who came by last weekend (AX), but it's been slow ever since. Weird, since there's two obon festivals going on in Little Tokyo this weekend.


After Hanaichi, we went to Max Karaoke to sing some anime songs.
やってることがヲタと変わらないじゃん。。。

Prince K Got iPhone

Prince K and I went back to the Beverly Center to get an iPhone.

The line was just as long as the day before, but we had the special ticket (stamped business card) to get in a separate line.

So we waited for 10 mins to be let into the store. Another guy with the special ticket came in with us, along with 5 other people who lined up today.

We waited for 45 mins until one of the Apple sales reps was able to ring us up.

He punched in Prince K's cell phone number & last 4 digits of his social security number into a hand-held POS device, made Prince K sign the service agreement into the hand-held POS device, and the iPhone was all set up. It was awfully fast, but I guess AT&T's system was really jammed up last night.

The sales rep asked if Prince K wanted to get Wireless Me service, which is some sort of email alert system. It costs $70 with the iPhone (regularly $100), but we didn't really understand it so we opted out of it. Other people were getting other CD packages, so I guess they were buying the additional services.

After Prince K paid for the iPhone, we were led to another station where a geeky looking Asian boy hooked up Prince K's new iPhone to a MacBook. I guess it was to connect the iPhone to iTunes, but Prince K didn't know his login ID. We asked the geeky looking Asian sales rep to convert the iPhone into Japanese, and it was done really fast.

After that was all done, we shopped around the Apple store for accessories. Prince K wanted to buy a case & screen protector, so the iPhone won't get scratched.

Of course we were geeking out over the packaging of the iPhone. Every purchase came with a box-like bag, printed on a pretty thick card stock paper... with silver foil stamp for the "iPhone G3." Lots of money being spent on something that will eventually become trash (altho people will hold onto it for 3 months or so).



The language option is a neat little feature that other smart phones really don't have. Especially if you're Prince K who can't speak a single word of English even after living in the US for 3 years...

Five Hours for the iPhone

Prince K wanted to get an iPhone, so he asked me to go with him to the Apple Store at the Beverly Center.

We get there... and there's a long line.


So I left Prince K and guest M in line, and went to buy undies at Victoria's Secret. I come back 30 mins later with Frappacino in hand, and they hardly moved! Maybe about 10 people worth.

And so the line went for the rest of the evening. By the time we got to the front of the outside line, we've been waiting for 5 hours.

Then the store manager came out with a stack of business cards.
"I'm sorry blah blah... the line inside will take another hour to hour-and-a-half blah blah... if you come tomorrow & present this card, we'll put you in the front of the line blah blah..."

Long story short, they told us that we couldn't buy an iPhone after waiting in line for 5 hours.

So Prince K and I will go back to the Beverly Center tomorrow and try again.

I have a "Pass Go" ticket, but I'm not buying an iPhone. I wonder if I could sell the ticket to someone in line for $20?

Peanut Allergy?

I might be allergic to peanuts.

I bought a rice cake covered peanut snack from Ralphs in Monterey Park. It's a typicalおかきsnack, although I haven't seen it in other Ralphs around West LA.


Anyway, I was munching on it Monday night and the next morning, I noticed bumps around my jaw line.

I didn't think much of it, and ate some more of the peanut snacks on Tuesday, but the bumps started to get worse.

So I stopped eating the peanuts, thinking I might be allergic to them.

It's a bit itchy, but nothing I can't handle. If the bumps don't go away after couple of days, I'll go see a doctor.

Here's a photo of my jaw. It's a bit hard to see, but there are bumps all over the underside of my jaw.

A Day Early

I received a card & a package at the office today.



It's a day early, so I'll open both of them tomorrow.

Back from AX for Now

I'm finally home after one week of AX stuff.

I only slept 2-4 hours each day, so I'm gonna crash now. I hope I can get up tomorrow to go to work.

Bought a Bluetooth Ear Piece, Almost Lost It

I bought a hands-free Bluetooth earpiece at Best Buy yesterday.

I was kinda needing it during the convention this weekend, and I finally had the chance to buy it when my clients went to Best Buy to buy a GPS for the rental car.

So I bought a silver Motorola one that's designed for women.


I also decided to sign up for the Best Buy rewards program, since I was buying an expensive item. Plus my clients bought $200 worth of Guitar Hero items, and another $700 worth of GPS and digital camera items. That's almost $20 worth of gift certificates. Whoo!

I charged the earpiece overnight and started using it today.

Then at the end of the day, I had the earpiece in my hand when the phone rang... I also had a lot of things in my hands because I had just left the car at the valet... and I dropped the earpiece, and it went through the BIG crack between the elevator & the elevator door.

From the 6th floor.

It was in front of my clients, so I played it off cool... but inside I was crying "I lost a $70 piece of equipment that I only used for 1 day!"

I went to the hotel front desk, and the maintenance guy was able to find it.

The staff at the Marriott in Downtown Los Angeles are wonderful!

It seems like the earpiece survived the six-story fall. It's a bit scratched, but nothing terrible.