monday. june 8, 2009
so i made bacon chocolate chip cookies this weekend and took some into work. i was rather amused to find myself replaying this *exact* conversation with almost everyone.
me: hi, i have cookies if you'd like but.. just so you know, they're bacon chocolate chip
co-worker: sure! :pause: *bacon* chocolate chip? *bacon*?
me: :nod nod:
searching for chronos @ 2:15 pm
|friday. february 13, 2009
music| x - zasetsu
with all the stuff lately about bad food in the market place, i've become less and less inclined to buy any packages processed foodstuffs.
this op-ed in nytimes is just another reminder why not to... :P
searching for chronos @ 2:57 pm
|friday. november 14, 2008
music| dir en grey - audrey
went and saw dir en grey at terminal 5 today
i'm not the biggest fan of their songs - a lot of it's too dark but the vocalist, kyo, has a voice to die for so i've always liked the group and, while i wasn't sure what i'd hear today, i really wanted to go. i mean, when else would i get the chance to hear them live?
well, it was sort of as expected and the entire concert was far too loud, angry, and scream-filled but totally riveting (honestly, kyo can make screams sound attractive ^^;). kyo was this exploding bundle of energy for the entire 1.5hr duration of the show. lest i sound obsessive about kyo (or is it too late?), i have to say the other members of the band were excellent too (and cute!!) but it's hard to take your attention off of kyo because he's soooo charismatic (or was it just that he was shirtless? ^^)
anyway, i'm so glad i went ^_^ tho i'll probably be recovering from this for the rest of the weekend :P
searching for chronos @ 12:32 pm
|friday. october 3, 2008
music| x - kusanagi
reading the commentary on the vp debate last night, i have to wonder if some of the people out there were watching the same thing i was.. maybe their tv sets were picking up signals from a parallel universe? like one where palin's answers were on-topic, coherent, and with substance? cause the one i saw certainly wasn't like that at all...
searching for chronos @ 4:29 pm
|thursday. july 17, 2008
holey moley, it just hit me that aug is less than .5 months away! O.o....
searching for chronos @ 5:24 pm
|music| kaibutsu oujo - hakai conductor
oops. been bad again and not updating ^^; but i've been busy
with what, you ask?
that's a secret.... just kidding ^^ i found a new place online with stories (fanfics, originals, what-have-you) and i'm mildly obsessed. it's slightly horrifying, looking back, to count all the hours i've spent (and will spend, no doubt) on the site but.. it's soo fun! ^_^ a lot of the stories are ridiculous, with either awful plot or written so poorly that i cringe, but there are some really good writers out there too ^^
the one problem is, it's been cutting into my sleep time and, with having been sick this last sunday from something i ate, i'm not feeling my best ^^;... now the question is, how much longer until a) i run out of steam and crash or b) the site runs out of stories i want to read?
searching for chronos @ 12:00 pm
|thursday. july 3, 2008
music| blassreiter - another life
the last few weeks have been so packed with stuff going on, i'm not sure where to start my update.. ^^
just some highlights in brief, 2 saturdays ago, i got back home after 2 weeks in korea. the following sunday, i headed into the city to meet up with fan and ben to see 'get smart.' 2 tuesdays ago, a picnic and ny phil in central park. dinner and a stroll down at south street seaport to see 'the waterfalls' last thursday and the abt performace of 'la bayadere' on friday. then this week, i saw 'wall-e' on tuesday and 'the merry widow' by the abt yesterday (seee! i've been busy, i tell you!.. and this isn't even including the things i was planning on doing but didn't because i just couldn't get myself out of bed ^^;)
'la bayadere' and 'the merry widow' were both ok though they could both have been better. la bayadere - the music was so-so, costumes weren't great (when the costume makes a ballerina look chunky, there's a problem) but the story was sweet and the choreography, even though act 1 was kinda dull, act 2 and 3 were good enough to make up for it (act 2 was excellent). as for the merry widow - music was ok, sets gorgeous, costumes pretty if a little impractical (to go with the period of the piece, all the female dancers had little trains at the back. perhaps not the best idea since in the middle of the dance, one of the male dancers got his leg caught in his partner's train. he was able to get it out in time but what if he hadn't?), story a little stupid with characters i couldn't really get into, and, sadly, the choreography was also only so-so. good enough to see again but not ones i'd add to my list of favorites
both movies, on the otherhand, were great. i'd never seen the tv series for 'get smart' so i can't say if the movie captured the spirit of the original but steve carell is always fun. wall-e was adorable if a little cheesy at the end ^^
now for korea..
korea was sooo much fun! i hadn't been back in 5 years so there was a lot of relatives-seeing in the first week there. probably, with respect to seeing relatives, i picked less than optimal time to visit since it was final exams and the cousins were busy studying but i did get to see most of them (even if, for a few on them, it was for all of 10 mins ^^;). while it was nice catching up with everyone, by the end, i was thinking how nice it would have been if they all lived in the same area. not that korea is all that large but my mother's family just happens to live on the southeastern tip of korea, which is about as far as one can get from the seoul area where my dad's side is ^^;, so there was a lot more traveling involved than i really wanted :P
once matt arrived on friday, spending a few days in seoul seeing the historical sites (a lot of old palaces), hiking in bukhan-san (fun punctuated by moments of omg.. ^^), seeing the nanta performance, going to the fish market and picking out a fish for dinner, and swing dancing
after that, we caught an early train to the city of gyeongju. arriving around noon, we spent the rest of day doing a bike tour of the sites near the city (heavenly horse tomb, cheomseongdae observatory, anapji pond/garden, and bulguksa temple). anapji was peaceful and beautiful. bulguksa was also beautiful but there were several busloads of 4-5th graders running around the place that quite ruined the peaceful aspect of it all :P a shame really
the next day, we visited 2 temples: seokguram and golgulsa. both are pretty amazing but golgulsa was pretty special with a giant buddha figure carved on a rocky mountain side with little shrines in niches below. i'd never been there before and was glad i got the chance. afterwards, we left for gwangju, a city on the west coast.
the next morning, we hopped on a bus to boseong to see a tea plantation (hehe. are you surprised? and matt wanted to as well.. or he was just being very nice). i really enjoyed getting to see a glimpse at where some of my favorite drink stuff comes from (tho, actually, my favorite is japanese green.. but i'm sure the plantations are similar enough ^^) and, of course, i picked up some tea ^^
afterwards, we left the area and headed north to daejeon. i have an aunt and uncle there so we met up with them and my 2 cousins for dinner (shabu shabu. yummm). the next day, we had planned on going to gongju, a small city nearby, to see some more historical sites but changed plans and headed back to seoul to go see the kimchi museum, which we'd missed when we were doing the seoul stuff earlier in he trip (matt really really wanted to ^^). later that night we met up with another aunt and cousin for coffee, which was nice and relaxing. then the next day, it was time to leave
in between all the sightseeing and such, there was also a lot of eating and general silliness.. and tiredness from all the traveling.. but you get the idea ^^
searching for chronos @ 11:07 pm
|wednesday. may 28, 2008
music| tsubasa - fireseeker
just 3 days until reunions! alack, i'll only be going down for the saturday but i'm still excited ^^ to my sorrow, none of the x-roomies are going to be there this year but at least there'll be the other folks
as for life the last month or so i haven't updated, there's been lots of stuff going on, some good, some not-as-good (nothing serious, just really sick for a few days :P). it'd take far too long to go into everything so just some of the more fun highlights ^^
let's see... i went paintballing for the first time with ben and fan a few weekends ago. we timed it poorly so arrived at the place late in the day and wasn't able to play too many games but it was still fun. a week ago (about) i met up with matt while he was in ny for work. then this past weekend, i saw le corsaire (the ballet) from orchestra seats, which was pretty awesome ^^
whoo reunions!! ^^
searching for chronos @ 4:09 pm
|wednesday. april 30, 2008
music| claymore - kokoro no kizuato
so i fell asleep monday.. and got distracted tuesday ^^; anyhoo, on to this past weekend..
friday, stef got into the city in the late afternoon. after a brief visit to my office during which stef organized the book in my cube (i need to get her to visit more often! ^^), stef, ben, chrissy, esinam, and i headed down to the lower east side for an absolutely scrumptious dinner at congee bowery (207 bowery). fan joined us after dinner as she couldn't get out of work in time before and we walked across the brooklyn bridge to the pier there to see/join the little get-together the columbia and nyu swing dance clubs was holding.
since most of us had no idea how to swing (or had forgotten!), we sat on the sidelines for most of the night just admiring the other dancers (tho we did do *some* dancing). they were all quite talented, the weather was beautiful, and we had ice cream in our hands, so it was a lot more fun than it sounds ^^...
saturday, just esinam, stef, and i went for an early brunch at tea & sympathy. ben met up with us as we were leaving and, as we had no specific plans, we wandered over to union sq area where we serendipitously found a street fair and a dachshund spring fiesta (soooo cute!). then, as we were near astor place, we couldn't resist dropping by pommes frites and indulging our fry-craving ^^
later, we met up with more folks (chrissy, alexis, and fan) for a picnic dinner in central park on 'our' rock with cold cuts, bread, wine, cheese, watermelon, and cookies. it did get uncomfortably chilly near the end but still so much fun ^^ (i can't wait until the weather gets warmer!)
for the night, though we had initially planned on going to an improv comedy show, we ended up at ben's place and played charades and sort of put on our own improv comedy show ^_^
searching for chronos @ 3:18 pm
|monday. april 28, 2008
music| earthian - valhalla
last night, i was silly and started reading around midnight... and consequently didn't go to sleep until almost 5am ^^;
now it feels like my brain is packed in layers of foam and the synapses connecting it to the rest of my body have corroded away :P uuugh.. if i could, i'd skip kyudo tonight but i promised to sub in for someone and help out at a beginner program so that's not really an option *sigh* thankfully, today's been a slow day so the fact my brain is barely functioning hasn't been an issue
but this past weekend, before i royally screwed myself last night, was sooo much fun (well, last night was fun too but maybe not worth the pain)! full report to come later tonight after kyudo... if i don't pass out first :P
searching for chronos @ 5:14 pm
|thursday. april 24, 2008
music| strawberry panic - uruwashiki nin
whee! stef is going to be here tomorrow ^^
we'd thrown around so many ideas on what to do but it seems none of the shows are going to work out.. too slow in getting tickets :P ah well, at least we have other stuff to do ^^
i just hope the weather is nice over the weekend!
searching for chronos @ 4:46 pm
|tuesday. april 15, 2008
i think i was in a foul temper most of last week. i guess it was cause i was so tired and out of sorts from being sick... but i'm back to my normal self, whatever that may be ^^ it probably helped that i had a nice slow weekend and i got to rest ^^
friday night, before candide, eve and i went to dinner beforehand and had a fun long gossip session ^^ apparently i was in the dark about a couple things.. as if that's new! :P as for the show, it was campy and a bit silly but amusing. i'm just glad we went with the nosebleed seats ^^;
for saturday, initially i had thought to bum around the house all day but then fan suggested we do afternoon tea and i just couldn't say no ^^; so come saturday, it was off to the city again
since i was going in anyway, i decided to head in a bit earlier and pick up tickets for 4 abt shows in may and june; something i'd wanted to do the night before but couldn't because the line was so long and we ran out of time before candide. as part of a young people subscription thing, i got $30 orchestra seats, which totally made my day!! ^^
the day only got better as afterwards, i met up with fan and, since afternoon tea isn't until 4 and we couldn't possibly go until then without eating, we traveled down to the lower east side and got doughnuts at a place i saw on the travel channel (doughnut plant). yummm. sugar ^^ then we mosied our way northwest-ward to greenwich village, stopping at random points of interest, and timed things perfectly so we got seated and served just before 4. aren't we good? ^_^
the place we went to was called tea & sympathy and it's the cutest place with all sorts of individual size teapots lined up in the back and british paraphernalia all around. i absolutely approved! and how can you go wrong with tea and scones with jam and clotted cream??
anyway, after eating far too much, we both decided it couldn't hurt to walk some more (and work off a fraction of the calories we'd just consumed!). our goal was grand central so i could head home somewhat early but we took a roundabout route, hitting up a bunch of shoe stores, the union square farmer's market, and an indian place (curry in a hurry) in curry hill, ending up all together with a few miles under our belts, 3 sandals in our hands, and yummy indian in our tummies ^^
sunday, though, i did sleep a lot.. and not do much else
it was, all in all, a great weekend ^_^
searching for chronos @ 9:45 pm
|thursday. april 10, 2008
it occurs to me, as i sit in front of the laptop this hour before midnight, that the answer to my fatigue lies in more sleep.. but that would be far too logical and easy ^^;
searching for chronos @ 10:56 pm
|i was looking in the mirror while trying out a new t-shirt and i'm horrified by how large the bags under my eyes are! i feel like if they were actual physical bags, they'd be big enough to fit half my books in them... well, maybe that's a tad exaggerated ^^... but no wonder i feel so tired O.o
i'm suppose to meet eve and drew f. to see candide tomorrow. let's hope i don't fall asleep!
searching for chronos @ 9:09 pm
|wednesday. april 9, 2008
i left work early yesterday and didn't make it in today cause i was feeling pretty awful.. but after sleeping an obscene amount, now i feel better if still a little sneezy and achy :P being sick sucks
searching for chronos @ 8:25 pm
|monday. april 7, 2008
music| arjuna - 21
with all the protests that went on at the torch relay in london and paris and knowing it was going to be in san francisco, i got curious and took a look at a sf paper online. nothing terribly interesting but there was one article that really ticked me off.
first off the title is s.f. asians fret over insult to olympic torch but when you read the article, it only mentions the local *chinese* community... um... hellooo? asian ≠ chinese! but i just kinda rolled my eyes and ignored it. maybe they only had room for 6 characters and not 7 in the headline. but then in the actual article there are 2 more instances where the same assumption is made (once by a source and once by the reporter) and i got a burning desire to smack both of them upside the head for hijacking the other asian nationalities for their argument/point
i may have been on the fence about the whole thing before but now, all i can say is, this is one asian who fully supports the protesters and the disruption of the torch relay!
... yeah, i know. i have a perverse temper ^^;
searching for chronos @ 2:13 pm
|tuesday. april 1, 2008
the new president of south korea is getting attacked by the north korean propoganda machine for his hardline stance. while i'm pretty ambiguous about his policies, on entirely personal grounds, i hope he fails spectacularly in an absolutely, totally, huge-flaming fireball of destruction type of way!
searching for chronos @ 2:47 pm
|music| claymore - utsushiki kariudotachi
today someone gave me some hershey kisses as a little thank you for helping them with something. it's almost lunch time so i popped one in my mouth and ooof... i've never been a big fan of hershey's chocolate but, until today, didn't realize how sugary it is. i can feel my bloodsugar level just skyrocketing from that one O.o...
searching for chronos @ 11:47 am
|monday. march 31, 2008
music| outlaw star - dance
i took thursday and friday off last week to go to a 3.5 day kyudo program at the garrison institute in slightly upstate ny. the place used to be a capuchin franciscan monastery and was not only beautiful but really helped set a contemplative feel for the program. the place even inspired me to join in a morning meditation session! the first morning, it was in the main meditation hall. the hall is just incredible: vaulted ceilings, highset gothic windows to let in lots of light, faux stone walls, and some wooden paneling. having seen the place when we arrived thursday afternoon, i thought it worth losing 30 mins of sleep to experience meditating somewhere like that ^^
one funny thing that happened; our program just coincided with a visit from the nytimes to the institute for an article on one of their programs on global warming. i don't know exactly why but my guess is the reporter saw us shooting and just really wanted to mention kyudo in his article (i mean, kyudo *is* awesome) and so we were mentioned in sunday's nytimes ^^ i'm not a fan of the article because, if you don't read it carefully, it kinda makes it sound like we're shooting to prevent climate change (and makes us sound so much loopier than we really are) but maybe it'll help attract some people to kyudo ^^;
while i feel like have knots in my shoulder the size of grapefruits and most of my body aches from sudden and excessive shooting, i'm so glad i went. it was fun, and quite helpful in improving my form to boot ^^
searching for chronos @ 4:21 pm
|tuesday. march 25, 2008
well, i did it. i'm going in june this summer come hell or high water!
searching for chronos @ 5:00 pm
|music| angelic layer - time up mazika
so i'm going to china and korea this summer, mainly to visit family. all the dates are worked out and all i need to do is buy a plane ticket and i'm having the hardest time getting myself to do it! :P... everytime i see the prices, something in me goes 'eeeek' and i just can't get myself to click on that final 'confirm' ^^; it's funny because i have a feeling i'd be reacting very differently if i were buying something more tangible...
searching for chronos @ 4:55 pm
|wednesday. march 19, 2008
music| amaenaideyo! - ma no umi
as i sat at work eating breakfast this morning, it struck me that if the saying 'you are what you eat' were literally true, i'd be a cow with chicken wings by now.. or maybe chicken feet...
lately, my typical a typical breakfast consists of granola and yogurt, lunch of cheese, bread, and some fruit, and dinner of poached eggs with cheese and english muffins. my diet probably consists of 60% yogurt and cheese, 20% eggs, and 20% other ^^;... a little bizzare, i know, but i've found that breakfast foods are tasty, aren't too unhealthy, and it's hardly worth the effort to actually cook for just myself. i probably should eat more greens tho...
anyhoo, enough random ramblings on food
yesterday, it finally hit me that my new mac has built-in burning capabilities (only took me 4 months!) so i spent a chunk of time last night creating some back-up data disks. i do have an external storage drive but that could still crash and make me lose everything... having lost irretrievable info a few times before because of harddrive crashes, i'm a bit paranoid when it comes to that :P
and since i can't see a new tech toy and not play with it, i tried creating a movie dvd. i got a huge kick out of having made an actual tv-playable dvd but the process took so long (5+ hours for the file encoding.. oy!) that i don't think i'll be doing it very often
searching for chronos @ 3:56 pm
|friday. march 14, 2008
music| record of the lodoss war - adessa e fortuna
so here's a funny anecdote.. yesterday, i went to get my hair done. zeki, who'd done my hair the previous few times had left the salon, so i had an appointment with a new stylist. i had thought about trying to find where zeki had gone because i really did like him but my innate laziness won out... before i went, i had googled a bit and the new stylist, ali, had rave reviews on par with what zeki had, so when i got there, i gave him carte blanche to do what he would with my hair (potentially disastrous, i know, but that's what i'd done before with zeki and it had worked out great). when i was done, lo and behold, i had the exact same cut as before! well, perhaps a bit more layered and with a slight bang but essentially identitcal.. i think this just means the style i have is meant to be ^^
searching for chronos @ 3:56 pm
|wednesday. march 5, 2008
went to see amateur night at the apollo theater in harlem today. perhaps my expectation going into the show was too high but i found most of the acts a disappointment...
the night would have been quite unbearable if we hadn't been able to 'boo' acts off the stage. too often, whatever remorse i might have felt was quickly overpowered by the fervent desire to stop the assault on my hearing. the only act i felt sorry for was a 2 person comedy act that got booed off even before they got to say anything. granted, their presentation (in terms of their dress and such) was pretty atrocious.. they were wearing wifebeaters! ugh... but i thought they should have at least been allowed to start their routine
searching for chronos @ 13:26 pm
|thursday. february 28, 2008
so i've been making poached eggs lately (poached eggs with triple cream cheese on a slice of bread with a little pepper is so yummy for dinner ^^). after you try it a few times, it's not that hard and now that i have that down, i think i'll try making hollandaise sauce.. well, actually, sauce noisette, which is sauce hollandaise made with beurre noisette. just cause beurre noisette seems easier to make than clarified butter. no straining involved ^^;
i love breakfast foods.. although, seeing as how hollandaise sauce is made mostly of egg yolk, it seems kinda.. well.. redundant to put it on eggs as one does in the case with eggs benedict. oh well, it is tasty ^^
searching for chronos @ 8:16 pm
|friday. february 22, 2008
reading the articles on mccain and his lobbiest connections, some old sayings/phrases come to mind...
the lady doth protest too much, methinks
a man is known by the company he keeps
lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas
.. ok, i'll take off my cynic's hat now. politics just makes for a grumpy yeppie :P
searching for chronos @ 1:24 pm
|sunday. february 17, 2008
music| heroic age - azurite
today, i killed a lobster... and felt kinda sick when eating it later... intellectually, i know there's no difference between the lobster and the lamb that died so that part of its shank could sit on my plate yesterday save that i had to personally kill the lobster but the only thought that crossed my mind during dinner yesterday was in the lines of 'tasty'... the hypocrisy in my reaction struck me rather keenly as i've been trying hard lately to be more conscious of my food habits. i had recently wondered if i would really be able to eat meat if i had to kill the animals myself... perhaps the answer is no (though, i guess i was able to kill the lobster in the end....)
i'm still mad at my mom for bringing home a live lobster and then forcing me into the position of having to cook it. she was too chicken to actually do it (she never actually *thought* about the fact that we'd have to kill the thing to eat it! sometimes i have to wonder what goes on in her head...) i really debated to myself the possibilities of saving it but the poor thing had been out of the water for a few hours so it the gills were probably drying out, the ocean is at least a hour+ drive, we couldn't give it away (and not have it stay alive)... maybe i was just taking the easy way out and making up justifications in my head but i concluded the lobster was dead anyway so i might as well make it a faster death... ugh
but enough of that unpleasantness. i also baked a cake today. a 4 layer yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and honey cardamom-clove buttercream frosting. its tasty but not at all pretty to look at. the vanilla buttercream i used on the outside is too soft so it's a sticky mess ^^; i wanted to experiment with different types of buttercream so for the vanilla, i tried it american style, using the whole egg, and my guess is thatthe frosting just isn't as stable at room temperature and won't harden as wanted in the fridge because of the extra fat in the yolk. the honey cardamom-clove frosting was made using only egg whites and it's much much easier to work with. it's really a pity about the yolk though.. it adds a certain creamy custardness to the frosting that's quite delicious ^^
searching for chronos @ 12:51 pm
|tuesday. february 12, 2008
music| gackt - maria
maybe now i'll get a green card before i die of old age...
searching for chronos @ 1:00 pm
|sunday. february 10, 2008
music| i! my! me! strawberry eggs! - glass bell's days
i made grapefruit sandwich cookies today. the recipe i was following may have been a bit wrong in the final baking instructions because the first batch started burning with about 2 mins left on the clock :P such a shame... the other batches came out mostly ok, with varying degrees of burned-ness as i played around with baking times (tho no more ended up as badly as the 1st batch!) they're not as grapefruity as i was hoping but still good ^^ but now i'm a little overloaded on sugar. afterall, i can't bake without sampling everything to make sure it tastes good ^^ but i may have had a little too much of the frosting...
the cookies are for the new year's party at kyudo tomorrow (for the lunar new year). i hope people like them ^^
searching for chronos @ 4:56 pm
|wednesday. february 6, 2008
my dad wants to play matchmaker. in korea(!). and my mom think it's a good idea O.o... why, why, why!?!?! it's like they're desperate for me to get a boyfriend... bah.. i would find it absurdly funny if i wasn't so horrified..
searching for chronos @ 9:35 am
|saturday. february 2, 2008
music| hellsing - musical entertainment
just got back a few hours ago from princeton where i went to take part in the cake and food tasting for julie's wedding.
we started in the morning with the cake tasting (cake for breakfast! ^^) at chez alice, now at a new location in palmer square (now, why couldn't they have done that before we graduated?). we tried out 5 different flavors and they chose 3 for the cake (should i say what or should that be a surprise?) and picked a lovely outside design ^_^
next, we headed over to nassau inn for the food tasting. while it was called the food tasting, it was more an overall reception planning meeting where they had to decide table arrangements, decor and etc. i had no idea the process would be so involved! so many details :P but the food was very yummy and made a very satisfying lunch ^^
afterwards, i decided to tag along to some of their other appointments for the day - the chapel organist and 2 florists - to see if i could be of any help and i was having lots of fun ^^ more fun than julie i think, probably because i hadn't been doing this already for 2 whole days (kinda like with the dress shopping) ^^; not that she wasn't sort of enjoying herself too but novelty factor was definitely gone for her by that time
one thing that really shocked me was how expensive flowers are. i mean, i sort of knew but it never quite hit me as it did today when i found out a budget of a $1000 (for flowers only!) is considered hard to work with.. yikes.. so it may be that the bridal party will be doing the centerpiece arrangements, which i personally think would be fun ^^
searching for chronos @ 12:53 pm
|friday. february 1, 2008
music| vampire princess miyu - track 7
yay, i'm heading down to princeton tonight to meet up with julie and greg who are in town to do some wedding stuff (meet djs and florists and such). i'll be going to the cake and food tasting tomorrow morning. should be fun and yummy ^^
searching for chronos @ 5:11 pm
|wednesday. january 30, 2008
music| magna carta - prologue
yesterday, there was a pretty cool author event i got to go to. john grisham came and did a little talk and q&a session. i guess he was in the cty for the release of his latest book, the appeal, so was available. while i haven't read many of his recent books, i do like the earlier work i read so it was pretty exciting to get to hear him talk about his writing process and how he got started and such ^_^
lately, i've been working on something new for the website.. yeah, more useless info to add to the internet ^^; i'm trying to figure out how to use databases. my goals for the new section were modest at first but the more i think about it, the more i want to add to it so it gets harder and harder ^^; but i'm enjoying it. i forget how much fun and, at times frustrating, it is trying to figure out something new web thing ^^
searching for chronos @ 9:53 pm
|sunday. january 27, 2008
music| platinumhugen ordian - eine no remake
i don't think i've been as sick as i've been this weekend is a long while... it just figures it happens over the weekend when i have tons of sick days that are just waiting to get used :P..
as a result, i really haven't done much other than sleeping 2/3rd of the day away yesterday and mostly resting today.. tho, i did try slow cooking a round of beef. it's soo easy and comes out delicious! you basically get a large chunk of beef, coat it in salt and pepper (i added some shichimi togarashi - a japanese spice mix - for some added flavor), brown it, then roast it in the oven at 170 for 2-2.5hrs per pound depending on the diameter. i started it friday night before i started feeling so lousy and left it in the oven overnight. i was worried about starting a fire or something but because the oven temp is so low, it's really fine. this is definitely a must-serve the next time we have people over ^^
searching for chronos @ 8:37 pm
|thursday. january 24, 2008
music| fushigi yuugi - ai to iu no tatakai ni
i dropped by cvs after work today and realized it's almost singleness awareness d... um.. valentines, i mean! honestly, i'm not that upset (tho it *would* be nice to have someone special to share it with) but i dislike this time of year to begin with. the cold weather, accompanied with sweaters, scarves and such, is fun at first but, by this point, i'm tired of the dreary weather and of being cold almost all the time. so having valentines fall now-ish with no special someone again is like extra icing on the cake of unhappiness.. err.. perhaps not the most apt metaphor but you get what i mean ^^;
now, i think bears totally have the right idea on what to do about winter. humans should follow suit and hibernate. we'd be so rested for the rest of the year ^_^
searching for chronos @ 8:00 pm
|i'm so falling asleep right now :P thank goodness it's almost the end of the day!
searching for chronos @ 4:30 pm
|sunday. january 20, 2008
music| kaibutsu oujo - oumagakoi (bloody baptisma)
yesterday, i met up with ben and laura for dinner and a movie. i had heard 'sweeney todd' was exceedingly bloody and i knew what it was about, i'd heard the music at school, but yikes.. the movie was great but a little too graphic for my tastes. i had to hide my eyes every time sweeney was killing someone..
then today, i went to an extra practice session for kyudo and i'm so glad i did ^^ jim (one of the instructors) figured out what it is that's been throwing my form off for the last few months! yay! of course, now fixing it is the harder part :P i have to tweek how i'm holding my right hand and it's making all sorts of little used muscles in my arm and shoulder come into play when i draw so now i'm having trouble drawing a 9kg again. bah.. just when i was starting to feel comfortable with a 12kg..
searching for chronos @ 9:10 pm
|music| death note - mello
new layout! ^^
i really seem to be into the red tones lately, ne? the last few layouts have all been like that but i have to say, this hot magenta is really making me happy ^_^
one odd thing though. the colors are a lot more vibrant when i look at the design in photoshop.. anyone know why and how to fix? this layout would look so much better if it could be fixed...
searching for chronos @ 1:12 pm
|thursday. january 17, 2008
this has been a pretty good week in terms of entertainment ^^
tuesday, i went to see romeo+juliet performed by the new york city ballet. i'd only seen the abt perform it before with choreography by sir kenneth macmillan and it was interesting seeing a different choreography by peter martins. overall, i think i like macmillan's more but i did think parts of martins's was more interesting. martins's was a bit more playful and had a sort of spontaneity that was fun
one thing i couldn't get past, which may have ultimately biased me against the nycb performance, is they abridged the music! in the interest of making the ballet move faster and perhaps give it more energy (or so they said), they cut repeats (argh!). now, i know very little about dance but i know music and what they did was wrong. so, so very wrong. why would you mess with something so fantastic? not to mention, repeats serve a very important part in building and giving more weight to the storyline! they also played a lot of the slower sections too fast so that they didn't have the gravitas they should have. then to top it all off, the orchestra was even worse than the abt one though... i suppose it may just have been because of where i was sitting (last row of the nose bleed section) . the theater just isn't designed with music in mind.
then yesterday, i met up with fan for a dumpling dinner in chinatown and a visit to muji and uniqlo. for all that we were just browsing through some stores, it was quite fun ^^
now, hopefully, i have something to do this weekend though, at this point, it seems unlikely..
searching for chronos @ 12:03 pm
|wednesday. january 16, 2008
music| elfen lied - lillium
last weekend was great. i was up in boston for a kyudo program and, since nicole was off having fun in peru, i stayed with the er*(c)ks
i got in late friday and crashed after dinner (erik did his expert chef thing and made pasta. simple but yummy ^^) because i had to wake up at an un-godly hour of 6 so i could get to the program early to help set up (not to mention i had half the class equipment in my car..)
after practice, it was dimsum with the boston p-ton folks. yum. post dimsum, as we sat there digesting, there was much discussion on what to do afterwards as eryck was acutely feeling his reponsibilities as host ^_^ while we were all feeling rather overstuffed, we finally agreed on going to north end for cannoli (i mean, how can i say no to dessert?). on the way, we saw the aquarium and decided that was our plan for the remainder of the afternoon
in the evening, we had to return to fort somerville for football and, more importantly, sumo draft. yup, sumo draft ^^;... and yes, while i too rolled my eyes and sighed in exasperation at first, i have to say it was quite amusing ^^ (but then, i guess i may tolerate a lot more... *shrug* ^^;)
when all the sumo and football craziness was done, we made the mistake of starting a game called 'axis & allies.' a mistake, i say, only because it didn't end until 6am when jon conceded the game because he wanted to sleep. needless to say, i was extremly unhappy when i had to wake up at 8:30 to get to kyudo again at 9... i was fortunate melissa drove back to ny with me and helped me stay awake (not to mention it was nice having a chance to chat with her ^^)
searching for chronos @ 2:02 pm
|tuesday. january 8, 2008
i've never come so close to throwing a laptop out the window as i have these last few days :P
the old wireless router died sunday while i was updating the firmware (or should i say because i updated the firmware?? grr, the piece of junk). since then, i've been frantically trying to get a replacement set up. one would think that wouldn't be too hard, right? just buy a new router, connect it and voila! but nooo, it can't be that simple...
since sunday, i've gone through 3 different model (tho i finally settled on one!) because my mom's laptop kept giving me a 'weak signal' error even when it was just an arms length away from the router
with the first model, i thought it was the router (i'd been cheap and bought something inexpensive) but the next two i tried were pretty pricey things and they didn't work any better (or so i thought at the time) well, after much cursing and hair-pulling, it turned out that her laptop has a weird quirk (incidentally, the lenovo thinkpad is also a giant piece of junk), maybe from having 2 different programs that both control wireless access, and you have to jigger settings in both for anything to work. bah!
sigh.. at least it's all set up now ^_^
on a better note, someone wanted to buy a cel i painted! i didn't sell it for much because i didn't think i did all that great a job on it but it was still exciting ^^
searching for chronos @ 11:40 pm
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