The coolest thing I've ever seen

Got back from south Florida yesterday. Our 3rd wedding anniversary!! We stayed in Kay Largo one night, Key West one night, and Miami two nights. The coolest thing I have ever seen in my whole entire life, seriously, was the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden featuring the art of Dale Chihuly ("Where Art Meets Nature Meets Breathtaking"). It is the AWESOMEST, hugest garden (tropical rain forest included), PLUS glass art pieces imbedded everywhere into the plants. If you are in the area, you HAVE TO SEE IT, unless you don't like to be in the hot outdoors... but still, you don't know what you're missing.

First photo is of glass "onions" floating on the lake, with iguana in the foreground. I am obsessed with these onions, they are so gorgeous and whimsical.

And here is a picture of us in front of a large glass sculpture. There's a rail in this pic, but it's uncharacteristic of every other area in the garden where there's nothing between you and endangered plant species and the glass pieces.
I mainly think this is a cool picture, water lilies in a pond with glass balls: Orchids just growing out of the crazy roots of this huge tree:And us at the beach of course:

Brownie badges

Ever since my previous blog entry on Brownies, I've been slightly obsessed. I looked into the current Brownie badges, and they are so different now, they are really new school! I have to say I like the old-school ones a lot more. I think you'll agree wtih me. The top picture (I know, out of focus) off an Ebay listing is what my badges looked like 20 years ago. The center one should be the Pixie badge (my fomer group within the troop). The bottom picture is of some the new group badges. I'm guessing I know which one is the Pixie. UNCOOL.

Avril Lavigne rocks

I know what you're thinking, I must be a teeny bopper to love Avril Lavigne. But she can sing her butt off, which is what singers are supposed to be able to do. I've never gone to a concert, but when she sings live on TV or when I've heard her live performances, she is even better, so much effortless talent, those pipes are perfect, and she even looks great doing it. (Unlike, for example, Jessica Simpson, whom I find has a terrible voice and is a hideous performer.) And her songs are easy and fun to listen to. My favorite is "Fall to Pieces."

See her perform here. Please please please, watch it. It's so worth it.
(VLi, what would I ever do without your videos, pics, funny emails, etc.?)

That 80s Lady

"Is that Rosanna Arquette??" is what I kept saying during the first episode of "What About Brian," about seven friends who are all in their twenty-somethings... except "Is that Rosanna Arquette?? She's like forty-something!"

She's the "80's lady" (coined by Tak Stewart) in Luc Besson's Le Grand Bleu! She's 47!

There better be some future episode where they explain how she's oddly one of the seven friends.

Today also saw L'Enfant and Thank You for Smoking. During which I was stewing in anger and hatred toward almost every human being alive for not caring about global warming, due to a preview about a documentary on the subject. I guess I'll just have to say it again, it's not about the environment, it's about PEOPLE. Why don't people care that PEOPLE are gonna DIE prematurely because of this? Why don't people care that Hong Kong will cease to exist because of this? Don't you HKers care about your homeland? Or almost every important city--because important cities became important because they are port cities, which means they will be under water or rendered unlivable due to constant hurricanes and tornadoes. The only hope I have, seeing how no one cares, is that we'll adapt. I just think it's really sad that someday we'll look back on today and think we coulda shoulda.

I just HAVE to blog about this

My boss drive me freakin nuts due to the fact that HE HAS NO BRAIN. Moreover, for someone who went to Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, he SUCKS at doing math on the spot. When even I'm 5 times better, you know there's a problem.

1. This is an example of a scenario that happens ALL THE TIME:

My boss is in China. A client asks for the cost to ship something from China to US. The problem is I have no idea how much the thing weighs, which is the entire basis for how much it will cost to ship. I proceed to figure out how much it's gonna weigh, based on how much the item costs, compare it to old projects, calculations, etc.

Me: I made an estimate on the cost to expedite shipping on that project. I figured that weight should be around 7000 kg max.
Boss: NOOOooooo, it's not that heavy. It would be much more expensive if it's 7000 kg. I'm guessing 4... no, 5000 kg. Well, hmm, 5000 - 6000 kg.
Me: OK. I was just thinking maximum.
Boss: I'll call you in about an hour to give you an estimate.

[One hour later.]

Boss: I figured the thing is 7000 kg. Use that to do the calculations.


WTF?????


2. How about this scenario:

Last year was year of the Rooster.

Boss: What's your Chinese zodiac sign?
Me: Rooster.
Boss: So how old are you?
Me: 24.
Boss: My dad's year of the rooster. Hmm, so how old is he?
Me: 72.
Boss: Nooo. 78.
Me: 72.
Boss: No wait. 76.
Me: 72.
Boss: Hmm... yeah yeah 75.
Me: 72.
Boss: Oh I got it. He's 74.
Me: 72.
Boss: Oh right right. 73.
Me: Well, since it's January, I figure there's 11 out of 12 chance that he's still 72.
Boss: OK.


3. Or how about this one:

Boss is in China, I get a call from a client who says we totally screwed up his order. I tell him I will let Boss know and have him call him.

Due to the fact that Boss had previously said he was going to call me soon, I wait for him to call to tell him the bad news. He doesn't call, so I finally call him after waiting a while.

Me: Client said we totally screwed up his order, I told him you would call him ASAP.
Boss: Why didn't you call me right away?
Me: Because you were supposed to call us, so we were waiting for your call.
Boss: Next time, don't tell the the client I'm going to call you and you're waiting for my call. That is like internal information.
Me: I didn't tell him that. [Thinking: WTF?]


Seriously, if you think ur boss is annoying because he taps his pen or gives you work, try mine, a royal self-riteous idiot. He does this type of thing to me and my co-worker here all the time!

I love today

Today is the first hot day of the year in Evanston, and it makes me very happy. It just makes drivers and pedestrians seem nicer, and every song on the radio sound perfect, and I parallel park gorgeously, and the stained glass on the churches shimmer and shine against the backdrop of blue sky and fluffy clouds, even the bare tree branches look more like beginnings than ends (they'll soon be covered in bright pink and white flowers before the leaves grow in), and the old-world Evanston smell of brick and mortar remind me of days of yore that I didn't live through but must've been cool with Victorian houses and the Temperance Movement, and perfect suburbia. When summer comes all the students will be away and I can go spend some quality time with Lake Michigan and green pastures, trees, trees, and more trees, and hundreds of wild rabbits and ducks (and mutant fish) by Northwestern's lagoon.

The downside is I'll soon hate the heat and think I love winter. Sucks.

Gilmore Girls & Scrubs

I love Jess. I've never even liked Rory, with her goody-two-shoes ways, perfect hair, beautiful dresses and cool preppy clothes, flawless taste, selfishness, wastefulness, stupidity in relationships, brilliance even though you never see her study, etc., etc. I have issues with Rory.

And Jess, what an annoying ass he used to be all the time, acting all immature as high-school boys can, being an all-around "bad" kid, even though he was obviously really intelligent and especially into literature. He was extremely immature all the way until he "left" the show three (?) seasons ago.

But I always loved him and Rory together. Together, Rory turned stupid, and Jess turned nice.

And I especially can't stand Rory these days, with idiot frowny Logan, so when she went to see Jess, I thought Yay they'll rekindle, but no, she is too stupid and Jess politely asks her to leave. What an idiot!!!

Scrubs alluded to House, by the way.

Kelso: [to Dr. Cox] You're so uncaring and cantankerous, you're like House without the limp.

Why Yahoo's Sitebuilder program is super lame

My online store was created using Yahoo Sitebuilder. It is currently the only program I am willing to use b/c I use Yahoo Merchant Services which is like super compatible with it (to do shopping cart, etc.), and since I suck at computer stuff, I pretty much have to use this program. But this website building program is so lame!!! This is how:

1) All hyperlinks have to be underlined. LAME. Looks crowded and ugly.
2) Can't do borders on images or text boxes. LAME.
3) No "autoshapes," including lines. The borders on my site are actually images!
4) Custom text colors cannot be saved to reuse.
5) Absolutely no image editing, including cropping.
6) Can't do "master" template; have to change EACH page manually.

I'm sure I'll think of more...

"work"

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/wdc/142058107.html

mass destruction, idiots, God, Katrina

Whenever I see a city skyline at night, a chill runs up my spine. During 9/11, I was in HK, watching it on TV at night (the broadcast interrupted Weakest Link HK version), at the same time staring out of my future husband's apartment's window at the vast and calm and sparkly HK skyline. It was eerie, wondering why this was happening 12 time zones away, while right outside the window everything is still. I was waiting for a fireball to come hurling out of the sky. (The world is that small to me.) Which is what I wait for every time I see a city skyline at night, something bad to happen. Night time is darker to me than most.

Sometimes I imagine what if the Earth lost gravity and everything left the ground and we all die. I pretty much imagine daily what a nuclear bomb explosion will be like; you know, like will I be dead before I hear the rumble, will I feel my skin peel off, will it be a ball of fire like in "Terminator"? As you can imagine, I nightmare about airplane malfunctions. And these thoughts occur only at night, which is why I have a love-hate relationship with the night.

(Going on tangent now...)
I hate when people act like they know what God's thinking, including preachers. It's fine to say definite things or guess based on scripture, but no one knows what He's thinking really if it's not spelled out. Like when idiots say Katrina happened because God wanted to punish New Orleans. OK, we all know those people are idiots. But then some famous evangelist says God was so NOT punishing New Orleans, because if he were to punish, he'd do it to a place like Las Vegas first. Right? What? Are you stupid? Firstly, he can't make assumptions one way or another--maybe God was punishing, maybe not, how is he supposed to know?? Secondly, why is it that people always use logic to explain the metaphysical? How does he know there wasn't some crazy bad terrorist in New Orleans that God had to kill; conversely, how does he know there wasn't a couple of future Mother Teresa's in Las Vegas? Maybe something worse would've happened. Maybe He was getting our attention about compassion. Maybe something good will come out of it in 500 years. WHO KNOWS???

Things on my mind

1) Blogs are weird

[Veronica opens the door to find a prostitute-looking woman standing outside.]
Veronica: [smiles] Dad, your hooker's here.
Keith: "Escort," honey. Go to your room and do your... blog, or whatever it is you kids do these days.

--from last week's episode of Veronica Mars

It is weird having a blog and also a journal, because you have to share and multiply your total amount of devotion to each. One being the things you want to shout to the world, the other being things you want to keep all to yourself. A while back I re-read my old journals, starting from 1995, and they were RIVETING! I was seriously rooting for my younger self and feeling sad for my younger self. Blogs, on the other hand... how honest are they really?


2) What I'm reading

On a separate note, I'm reading the most enchanting book called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, unfortunately extremely slowly (about 60% through right now), due to my two jobs mostly. But this book is so good, I don't mind reading every lush sentence slowly to make sure I enjoy every word. I've already marked various passages that I love and want to type up and frame on the wall. It's that good, read it.


3) Jim Block, my high-school English teacher

Mr. Block to me is like Dr. Cox to J.D. Always seeking his approval, and approval is always at an arm's length. I think I am scarred for life.

Probably one of the least mean things he's said to me is a comment that I was wearing jewelry during P.E. class. Ahh, how I cling to that least-mean comment.

Gilmore Girls and Scrubs

Another frustrating episode of Gilmore Girls tonight. Frustrating because Rory and Lorelai are avoiding their issues with Logan and Luke, respectively. There was an AWESOME storyline about Zach and Lane, in which Mrs. Kim tells Zach he has to write a hit song and get a record deal if he wants to marry Lane, and she actually helps him write the song it's sooo funny. Zach is awesome! There was also a hilarious part in the beginning where Paris bitches Logan out HAHAHA. Logan's so annoying, he needs to tone down his acting man, stop with all the frowning. AHHH but Jess is gonna be in the next episode!!! I LOVE JESS! JESS ROCKS! YEAH JESS!

Then Scrubs had a really hilarious part about Gilmore Girls. It turns out Turk normally spends part of his off day watching Gilmore Girls (although he lied and said "anything on ESPN")...

Turk: [in front of the TV, talking to himself] Mothers and daughters. They talk so fast, but they talk so true.
[Turk's phone rings, he picks up]
J.D.: [at the hospital, on the phone] I am so mad at Lorelai!

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Hmm... looming still is the question of the life of Gilmore Girls... it would be safe to bet that Gilmore Girls will be back for at least another season, since supposedly there's a cliffhanger ending for this season's finale. AND NOW I PRESENT... my absolute favorite Gilmore Girls screencap. It makes me immensely happy.

Grey's Anatomy again

Meredith Grey's life SUCKS. In tonight's episode, she found out she has two very happy and successful half sisters, and that her estranged dad is "so proud" of them. OMG, I was about to die. Can her life get any crappier???

Everything about Meredith is wrong, but everything about her is lovable. What an amazing character.