My Weekly Blog

Okay...time to dwell into what I did this past weekend...oh the joy!

Thursday
--went to Wild Ginger in Downtown Seattle for dinner to celebrate Virginia's bday. Wild Ginger, I thought was an upscale Thai restaurant which turns out to be really an upscale Chinese restaurant. Oh at least I see Asian ppl in the kitchen so that must be a good thing(?). Watched as Virginia gets an iPod for her bday from her husband. Damn, I wish someone who love me enough to get me an iPod on my bday :(

Friday
--went to see a MICROSOFT production of Guys and Dolls, with all the performers being Microsoft employees and taking place in a Microsoft cafeteria. Despite having a very hard time finding this mysterious Building 31, I had a good time watching this play. Paul, someone we knew, was performing in this play which amazing enough had really high production value to me an amateur performance piece. Not only did everyone acted really well, they also all dance and sang, with even a live band performaning all the music. WOW! Why can't our company do that? :(

Saturday
--went to dinner with Di and Sunny (who's full name IS really SUNSHINE!!) at Wild Ginger, the EXACT same restaurant I went to on Thursday. Ate a lot while spending a lot too. Then Di and I headed to our concert, where we went to see The Strokes play at Seahawk Exhibition Center. Anyway, Di was pretty disappointed with the concert, for the amount we paid, we got to see The Strokes play for a hour while waiting for 2 hours just for them to appear. Oh, at least she had fun just hanging out with me (I think).

Sunday
--spend all day hitting Thrift Stores and Halloween Stores and Art Stores and Walmart just so I can "build" my Halloween costume for SF. I think it will be okay costume.

Syphon Filter

So, I am playing the demo version of the NEW Syphon Filter for the Playstation 2 and the coolest thing by far is the demo level takes place in TORONTO and its wonderful subway system. Sure, it doesn't really "look" like Toronto...it could be any major city with subway system, but who cares! Its finally good to see Toronto represented in a video games (not including sports game).

But then, I read this article about Toronto and Syphon Filter:

http://www.polygonmag.com/news/index.php?id=1041

Damn you Canadian government in which I no longer pay taxes to!

Randomness

Once again, its one week later, and I am finally writing a blog entry! Let's catch up!

--so I got Tivo running finally. Took it over to Oiyan's place over lunch, and hooked it up to a phone line there. It made two 20 minute calls before it had to "set itself up" the next 6 hours. I came back in the evening and it had to make 1 more 1 hour phone call before it was ready for me to take home and set it up using my wifi network at home.
--Tivo is AWESOME! I now can watch all the shows that I use to miss before and I got Tivo just in time for South Park and 24 season premiers. And it tapes stuff for me too! But for some wierd reason, its taping me a lot of children's cartoon shows and cooking shows. Very strange
--supposed to go bowling on Sat afternoon only to be called in for work. Not cool.
--invited to a bday dinner at this girl's place. Very lowkey dinner with ppl older than me.
--on sunday, was invited to attend this CANADIAN Thanksgivin' dinner by Linh, to meet her Canadian soccer buddies, who were hosting the party. Turns out, the host, who was from Toronto is the SAME GUY who hosted the last Canadian Thanksgivin' dinner I went to LAST year in Seattle! (see Oct 2002 posts) Wow...still thru different friends, I still ended up at his party! What a small world.
--watched Shaolin Soccer in this awesome theatre set up in their condos. Even though there were skeptically movie snobby people who didn't really want to see this movie, after they saw it, they couldn't believe how good it was and they absolutely loved it. Shaolin Soccer may quite possibly be the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!
--you know, after being here for over a year, I can FINALLY and OFFICIALLY say that it is THE RAINY SEASON here in Seattle. For the last year, Seattle has been really sunny and dry which is considered a freak of nature here. And as good as it sounds for this place to be sunny all the time, it really hurt the skiing / snowboarding industry here with the lack of snow in the area and the less than perfect slopes. Oh well...welcome to Seattle.
--last nite, I took my co workers to the Fado Happy Hour Party that I won a couple of weeks back. Though I invited about 25 people, only 8 people showed. Though I was a little disappointed, it actually turned out great. 8 people was just the right amount of people to have a good time and eat the just right amount of free food. I got to bond with all of them.
--updated my photo album with following:

Mario Kart Double Dash Go Karting in our parking lot--we had a mini go kart track set up in the back to help promote the new Mario Kart game coming. Our division won it all too! It was fun.

More Tokyo pics: from the other cameras. Check out most the last few pages of the album. New pics from that Ninja restaurant we went to and a couple pics of me falling asleep in the subway.

John's going away party pics: just a couple of pics in the last pages of Random Memories Deux Album. Yeah!

One Week Later

As it was pointed out by Doodlegirl, I haven't been putting entries recently. Sorry...I haven been really busy. But here is a summary for your reading pleasure:

Thursday
--ordered a 80 hr refurbished Tivo online for 200 bucks. On retrospect, I dont know why I brought a Tivo since:
a) I am trying to cut down on spending money
b) I am really broke this month...like REALLY broke
c) I actually dont watch that much tv anymore since:
i) I am very busy
ii) Its a pain to record anytime I like to watch on TV because I have digital Cable
iii) Its a pain to flip thru channels and find anything to watch on TV because I have digital Cable
anyways, I bought it cuz I always wanted one and it was on sale. And Tivo will finally make it worth while to have Digital Cable for once!!

Friday
--went to see Kill Bill at night with the company. I noticed I dont write reviews for movies I watch anymore but I have to say I really enjoyed Kill Bill and rank it as one the best movie experience I have had this year.

Saturday
--book shopping with Oiyan pretending to be John so I can use a gift certificate that was under his name
--work in the afternoon
--at night, went Fado Irish Bar with Linh and Sylvia and friends. While Linh and Sylvia were too busy being hit on by other guys, I put my business card in a draw to win a free happy hour party for 20. Later went to Alibi Room bar where we bet Linh can't stand at a bar for 5 minutes before some guy will try to have a conversation with her. We won!!

Sunday
--dim sum w/ Oiyan and then to Fry's to exchange and return items (like my new computer RAM that didn't work...now they do!)
--started FINALLY unpacking my stuff in cardboard boxes from my initial move, one year. Lots of stuff I recovered.
--while watching Alias, all the power in my neighbourhood went out. I got bored sitting in the dark at home so I went to work to surf the net. People are still at work finishing up 1080.

Monday
--decided to take a "personal day" and stayed home finishing up my unpacking and cleaning of my apartment
--went to dinner with Oiyan at this awesome Chinese beef noodle restaurant
--met up with Linh and her hot sister for coffee at 10pm in the evening in Capital Hill. For a coffee loving city like Seattle, you would think there are more coffee shops opened late but this is one of the only ones. Listen to the girl talk about their past childhood.

Tuesday
--remember that business card I left at Fado to win that contest? I WON!! Decided to take some of my coworker friends to this party because they all deserved it for working so hard these past days finishing up 1080
--find out that Tivo was coming today so I decided to go look for a wireless USB adaptor so I can hook up the Tivo to the internet (since I dont have a land phoneline). What a pain that was since ONLY SPECIFIC models work with the Tivo. I went to like 4 different stores till I found the right one BY ACCIDENT at a Best Buy in Lynnwood (30 minutes away). Since I was in the area, decided to hang out with Justin who lives up there.
--FUCKIN' UPS came to my place at 6:11pm to deliver my Tivo at my place. Since I wasn't home nor was the rental office openned at that time, they had to delivered it the next day. Who delivers AFTER 6pm anyways?!!
--decided I want to spend Halloween in San Francisco this year, because there's really nothing to do in Seattle this year for Halloween. Bought my plane tickets and told Jon and Denny. Already invited to 2 Halloween parties there.

Wednesday
--wake up in the morning and ready to go to work when I discover that my washing machine was leaking water and my closet carpet was all wet. Took moring off so I can place all my towels on the poodle of water to soak it up. I got blisters from wringing out so many wet towels for over hour.
--at least I was at home when my Tivo finally came. Went to work.
--got home at 10 pm ready to set up my Tivo. Was setting up my Tivo for about 1 hour before I realized that I NEEDED A PHONE LINE INITIALLY TO SET UP THE FUCKIN' TIVO. Spent the next 30 minutes calling people to see if I can use there phone line over night. The answers I got were:
a) not home
b) no phone line
Guess I have to find someone to set up Tivo tomorrow :(

YEah...you are caught up.

What I didn't do this weekend

This past weekend was the 4th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival. I was planning on flying down that weekend just attend and help out with the festival (just like last year), but I just couldn't fit it into my schedule. I am really busy with my project, even more busier since I went to Japan last weekend and still recovering from that (mentally and workwise).

But I heard it was a great festival, getting better and more recognized every year. I just read this review of it at:

http://filmthreat.com/FilmFestivals.asp?Id=1312

and it only made me more disappointed for missing it :( Oh well. Next year.

But what I did do this weekend was fun too.

Friday was John's Goodbye party. John was one of the nicest person I have met here in Seattle and a person I spend a lot of time with (him and his gf). John is also a bonafide rocket scientist who has been out of work for the like half a year now. Now he needs to continue his rocket scientist ways and they only way he can is to take this awesome job in Phoenix, Arizona.

So, he will be missed and we had this party to show how much we will miss him. A lot of people showed up and it was a fun get together. I really didn't do too much with him at the party...I decided to actually let him catch up with everyone else, since I see him so often anyways. In fact, I was one of the LAST person he saw before he left on Saturday afternoon, after our last Dim Sum together.

John will be missed by myself, but I do worry about his gf. She seems to be taking it well that he's hundreds of miles away now, but I know she's become really lonely and anti-social. I am sure that will pass.

Saturday nite. Went to a party ALL BY MYSELF in which I KNEW NO ONE AT THIS PARTY! I still had fun and met some cool ppl who made me feel welcome. Later with the party crew went to the Showbox for this awesome FUNK NITE party.

The Showbox btw, is a famous Seattle concert hall where a lot of bands play. In actual fact, I didn't know what type of music they would play tonite and was really surprise it was a hip hop /R & B nite. But the music was great thx to an awesome DJ and the place with PACKED, despite how huge it was! This was the first time I have ever gone to the Showbox and this one was one of the best parties I have ever gone in Seattle.

Later met up with Tom (who was supposed to go to the original party with me) and his lady friends and spent the rest of the night with them. Ate a good breakfast, home by 4am. Good times.

Tokyo Album NOW UP!

Go there NOW!!

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/tokyo_2k3!/

3 warnings!

1) Over 300+ pictures to go thru!
2) Tons of pictures of cute girls. If you are offended by that, LOOK AWAY!
3) Witty comments become lame. You try coming up with 300+ clever things to say!

That is all. Enjoy...

NEW PHOTO ALBUM!!

Okay, NOT the Japan album yet...still uploading and working on it (and waiting for some pics from one more co worker), but I got up my White Water Rafting pics up. Check them out here:

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/rafting_down_the/

I really like these pics because they were all taken by a professional photographer with a telescopic lens and a really good digital camera. In fact, the actually RAW images they gave me were just TOO big for my photo album so I had to reduce them. There's one picture of our boat that was just fantastic and I will big printing out a big shot of it for framing.

Anyways, hope you enjoy the pics and I will be back soon with the Japan trip pics...

I'm Famous!!

I made it to Season 2 of Denny's Phone Message 101! I am so proud of myself :) But man, do I REALLY sound like that :(

Now if Denny would only finish my website layout *le sigh*