A Full Deck

This is my 52nd post since my first post on July 18th. Fifty-two posts in seventy-eight days, so it just work out to 2 posts every 3 days. Not bad, huh? But I know I'm lazier and lazier these days. Like a new singer, I used to have a lot to say. But the topics are running out and I'm posting exponentially (see Lewis Black) less than I used to. Lately it's more about food than anything else, I really should change the name of my page to "The Weight-Gain Diary of a Compulsive Eater".

OK, lately ES has somehow become pretty good friends, I don't know how. She's from Japan, a few years older than me, married to a Cambodian and have a 2-year old son name Ken, but since I use initials on everyone and I know his middle name, I'll call him KEL. I think the reason why we became friend is that I'm very interested in Japanese culture and since we are both from Asia, we kinda think alike. ES is very outgoing, and she's pleasant to be with. Unlike myself, who seems to be a dark cloud no matter where I go. We have been going to dinner at least once a week, we went to Mitsuwa together, sometimes we go to the gym together, and she comes to my office and we chat for at least an hour a day. We are so close that KEL called me "Dad" in Japanese once. I was thinking to myself, if I were interested in girls, she probably would be the type. But too bad... Sooner or later we'll run out of things to talk about and this friendship will probably end, at least now I got the feeling that she talks a bit too much and I get the "husband mentality" and pretend to listen to her while I'm really not paying attention to our conversation. But it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate her being there.

ES told me about a lottery program that the US government has. Every year the US government gave out 55,000 green card to people who particapate in the lottery. I must have heard of it before and either thought it wasn't for real or just plain didn't do anything about it. When she told me that a few of her friend applied for it, and got it after their second or third try I got interested. I don't know why but it's very hard for me to believe that something is true unless I or somebody close to me experience it first-hand. So I when online and find out that and read that the application for the lottery will open tomorrow, talk about timing. The application is relatively easy and it is open to people born from Hong Kong. And it's completely free, how wonderful is that?

ES asked me to call my lawyer to see if I can apply for it or if my current application through my lawyer will be in any kind of conflict. My lawyer assured me that there won't be any conflict but the chances are quite slim (about 10%). I can that he has a dismissive tone in his voice and I think he don't want me to apply because if I got it that way, he won't get paid. But it is really not about him at this point. But then I got nervous, the application says that each person can only apply once, anyone who did it more than once will be disqualified immediately. What if my lawyer sabotage me and applied more than once in his office? I hope he won't. Another thing is that the application called for a very specific digital photo from the applicants, it has to be 320 pixels high by 240 pixels wide, 24-bit color jpeg file under the size of 62.5 Mb if it is taken, if it's a scanned photograph, it must be 2-inch by 2-inch scanned in 150-dots per inch scanner, 300 by 300 pixels square. What if I screw up?

The whole thing is getting me pretty nervous. I think I don't really have a full deck.

Read more...

The Wonders of Mitsuwa (Repost)

There's really no mystery to my weight gain. I've given up going to the gym last week because of the stitches on my back and ES and I went to Mitsuwa on Saturday. I wrote a post right after I got back but I guess because I posted two pictures along with it, I got an error message an the whole thing I typed up was gone. After that I was just too discouraged by it and gave up on the retype.

The gist of it is that I always like going to Mitsuwa because of the great food and grocery available in there. Of course there is chinatown and different Korean or other Asian supermarket around. But none can compare to the great Mitsuwa. People do travel hours just to be there. I spent more than $200 for groceries that day. Half of it was for Kobe beef and pastries. At $20 a pound, you can really get lost in the marbling of the beef. And then, there's the different snack food. Right now in the office, I'm surrounded by Rokkatei's Baby Chocolate Mix, Morinaga's Choco Flake and Tameda's Tsumami Dane Cracker Mix. the best way to eat them is to mix them all together and shove them in your mouth.

From when I got home on Saturday at 5:00 pm until now, I've managed to finish the 10 onigiris within the first 24 hours, 5 Kobe Bouchees and still had oden for dinner one night and sukiyaki for dinner the other night. I feel like I'm punishing my body with food. Am I addicted? Is this an addiction? My allergist told me that I've gain four pounds between the two appointments I've had with her in a two-week span. God, I've got to stop. Under ES' recommendation I've also bought a whole bunch of individual packaged pasta sauces. Exotic ones too, like squid ink, ebi cream, three mushroom and cod roe. I guess I'll be eating pasta for a while.

I also got a claypot for sukiyaki and shabu-shabu. But after I took it home, I realize that I don't even have space to put it and that I don't really need it. Maybe I should take it back and return it. But that would have to wait until next weekend, or until Principe have time to go with me. He went there once and enjoyed taking pictures of Manhattan across the river tremendously.

We have had great food over there. The picture on the left is of sushi kaiseki from Matsushima and the right one is chocolate parfait from Cafessa.

Read more...

Angel from X-Men and Porcupine, The Human Petri Dish

I took a day off today for some medical appointments I've set up a while back. One of them being my dermatology surgeon, I've been looking forward to this one all week. I have him took a cyst off my back last week and he stitched me up afterwards and I've been itching to get them out ever since. Not for nothing but it's time like this that I can really appreciate El Principe. He has been cleaning my wounds and reapplying my bandages all week day and night, twice a day. He was very attentive. I was gonna write an entry dedicated to him, I might still do it but for now I decided to keep his feet on the ground. The whole reason I have the surgeon cut off my cyst is quite vain. First, it is seriously quite strange and unattractive to have something probing out of my back. Second, I keep remembering the scene in Alien where eventually a beak will poke out of it and start killing people. But after I have it cut out, I start thinking what if it will grow into a wing? Since I was a child, I always wanted to be able to have a pair of wings and fly. Given I've grown into a chubby kid and I doubt that I'll be able to fly even if I have wings. I'll be like a turkey or chicken, the best I could do probably will be jumping a bit further than normal people. I know it's all just my imagination, and it won't ever grow into a pair of wings, but I feel a loss somehow.

I went to an allergist last week and she gave me a breathing test and somehow my test result were not as ideal. My lung capacity comes back as 66% of a normal adult. Today I went to have a more extensive test and the results comes closer to 80%. My allergist told me that with my chest x-ray comes back and my lung seems fine and with exercise, I should be able to train my lungs into normal capacity. After that I took a skin test.

I took the skin test because usually when I wake up in the morning especially in winter, my nose is always stuffed up and I quite hate that feeling. So my allergist suggested I take a skin test to find out the agents that I'm allergic to. The nurse gave me a very strange looking paper robe to put on and she starts drawing all over my back and prickling it with forty-some toothpicks, then we waited 15 minutes and the doctor starts looking and measuring the effects. After that the nurse drawn on my arms and injected 20 agents with needles and we waited again. I'm a wuss when it comes to needles. I hate them, never liked them and never will. After another 5 minutes, we measured the effects again. So we found out that I'm allergic to some trees, some weeds and also some dust mites. That's why I can't breathe well at night. She suggested I get special casing for my pillow and start using nose sprays. Both of which I don't think I will do at all. Not to be rebellious, I'm just not fond of those ideas. But now my back and arms look very busy, with pen marks and red dots all over it, I hope I don't scare anyone.

Read more...

Food Digest Vol. 1

I think food really is a cultural obsession. I know there are people who don't care much about what they eat, but there aren't many of them. So I decided to write an entry periodically about the food I've been eating, exciting ones. I reckon that it'll be so much better if I can accompany them with a picture and it's not that I don't have a camera. But I'm also very easily embarassed and afraid to be categorized with the "Asian Tourist Syndrome". I know that it must be the self-hate in me and Principe Rana has taught me that this "disease" extends beyond the Asian race. But as I said I'm easily embarassed. Although ES has just ordered a very high-tech digital camera for her blog, should I do the same? If I do, I'll have to carry a "Man-purse" around all the time.

OK, I finally tried making raisin bread at home. It all started because Principe like the braided raisin bread stick at a Chinese pastry shop and he said he wants to learn how to make it. What can I tell you? He and his crazy notions. So I decided to learn to make it first, so I can teach him in Spanish. I don't have a food processor or a big mixer to help me mix the dough, but DC bought me a fancy high speed egg-beater mixer for X'mas one year and that worked pretty well. I used a challah bread recipe I find in one of my cookbooks and made the dough with yeast. It was fun to see the dough rise and have to beat them down afterwards. I form the dough into strings and braided them and baked 8 loaves. The bread is a little tougher than I thought it would be, although Principe and my colleagues ate them up I think next time I'll you a croissant dough instead to get the texture I want.

I did a very nice pasta on Sunday. The Principe and I sometimes go to this restaurant that opens late at nice and they have a mussels in white wine that we like a lot, they put corn and sausage in with the mussels which give it a sweet earthy taste. So I tried to make it at home with linguine. I bought two bags of mussels from a supermarket that I trusted and about a quarter of the mussels turned out to be dead. They weren't cheap either. So I throw the dead ones out, scrubbed, steamed and shelled the rest. Sauteed some garlic andd the trinity (onion, celery and green pepper) in butter, added the mussels. Then I squashed a can of whole tomatoes, but like half a cup of corn in there Fried two bratwursts and a chorizo cut them up and throw them in witha can of chicken broth, salt-and-peppered and there's my pasta sauce! It tasted so good with the linguine. I was immensely proud of myself.

Last night, we went to a Hongkong-style restaurants in chinatown for dinner. We (or I) ordered half a peking duck, lobster fried harbor style and a crabmeat on pea shoots. Dinner was good, I pretty much liked all of them. The Peking duck is seperated into crispy skin and meat, comes with some chinese soft buns and hoisin sauce. The lobster is stir fried with a bit of pork and it's slightly spicy. Crabmeat on pea shoots has always been one of my favorite Chinese dish, I was actually thinin gof how much I like this dish while I was eating it.

As you can tell, the lollipop has not suppressed any of my appetite. If anything, I'm eating more than ever. ES and I are going to Mitsuwa supermarket in Hoboken, NJ this Saturday. So I guess, I will just have to wait until next monday to go back on atkins. But until then, I'll keep munching on.

Read more...

Lollipop, Lollipop, Lolli-Lolli-Lollipop

The weight-lost lollipops finally came in. They were ordered back in July but they must have been popular because they were all out of them. I was very skeptic about these pops, I still am. How can you suck on a lollipop and lose weight? Plus they are using some kind of new ingredients found in Africa called Hoodia. How much research have they done with the ingredient and how do they know it's safe for constant consumption? It might cause cancer, you know. Everything does nowadays.

The pops come in 9 different flavors: Rootbeer Float, Pina Colada, Cinnamon, Pink Lemonade, Mountain Berry, Butter Pecan, Watermelon, Green Apple and Cherry. So far I had the rootbeer one and the berry one, the rootbeer one taste like toothpaste but the berry one was pretty good. There is a pamphlet with instructions telling us to drink 8 oz of water after each pop and eat a balanced meal. The pop took 45 minutes to an hour to finish and they are a little gritty. Though, my appetite wasn't suppressed at all. However, somehow I felt happier. Maybe because it was friday, but somehow another colleague that took a pop felt the same afterwards, strange.

Another colleague was convinced that it works as mouth plugs. During the whole 45 minutes you can't really eat anything else, so you won't be able to gain weight. Maybe it acts as speed, but I really haven't notice any change yet. Plus, I can't go to the gym now that my back is all stitched up. Maybe I'll gain weight instead. But we were convinced that if our mood were enhanced after the pop, we'll keep on getting them. It's better than taking Prozac.

Read more...

Little Johnny Huang

I went to the surgeon today to cut off a little growth on my back and see if he could have done something for the vuscular spot on my right arm. I was really dressed casually today, white t-shirt, jeans, sandals and a sweat jacket. So I wasn't surprised when the nurse gave me attitude. I'm asian, I'm used to being talked down to like I don't understand English. The doctor was nice enough and made a few jokes along the way when he was seeing me, although he asked whether I was born in the states and made a comment that he was surprised that I wasn't because I don't seem to have any accent. The nurse gave me quite a few anesthesia shots on my back, they hurt like hell and she gave me like 9 shots around the spot all together, afterwards I felt the doctor scraped something, pinched something and pull and tuck something, within 5 minutes we were done. I wonder how much pain I would have been in without the anasthesia. For my arm, we went to another room and the doctor gave me a pair or sunglasses and he used his laser gun on my arm. He zapped my arm a few times and he said after a month there will be some progress and asked me to wait and see. The doctor is very sociable, he asked me what I do and what my job was like making a few jokes here and there trying to make me feel comfortable, but I think he's trying a bit too hard at times, but nevertheless I appreciate his effort. I'm due to go back in one week so he can take the stitches out. Meanwhile, he told me that I shouldn't wet it or exercise until the stitches comes off. So I get to be a bum and rest for the next seven days.

I went to a sportwear store to get a bit more gym clothes, because I'm running out of them (shocker!) for the first time of my life. Then, I went to get my haircut. Kelvin has been cutting my hair even since I got to this city, which is like seven years ago. He was like twenty years old back then. He used to cut hair at another studio and after he left that place, I followed him to this new studio. I've been referring colleagues and friends over there for haircuts, the owner loves seeing me. Kelvin and I are like pseudo-friends. I say "pseudo" because we only see each other once or at most, twice a month. The only time that we meet outside of the salon was one time when he asked me to fix his computer. So I went to his "bedroom apartment" and helped him out.

Kelvin got married last year to a buffet restaurant waitress, the girl is from FuQian, same as Kelvin. I guess that's how they met and got along so well, in a buffet restaurant. Who would have thought you can meet your life-long partner that way? Who am I to say? I've done worst for myself. I didn't know he was getting married until after the fact, I gave him $50 tip after my cut as a wedding gift, he felt guilty and took me to lunch although at that time I've already ate, but I let him buy me a smoothie anyway. Today, he showed me pictures of his new born son named "Johnny" on his cellphone. I've seen better looking baby, but I was really happy for him. He's only 25 and he's already a father. That concept never crossed my mind. We were always taught to be financially established before we have kids, my uncle didn't has his first child until he was near 40 and my other ones aren't even married until after that age. Johnny still don't have a Chinese name yet, Kelvin said he don't know what to name him.

Actually I thought Kelvin was gay, most hairdressers are. The one I had in NYC tried to pick me up and calls me on X'mas and New Year's Eve. Plus Kelvin has a very outrageous haircut that he dyed reddish-brown and frosty white on the tip. He's always wearing tight, skinny Kenneth Cole-ish shirt that is a little bit too short and when he raise his arms, his stomach and the edge of his boxers would show. He also has tattoos on his arms and telling me how he would go to clubs and play basketball in the gayborhood basketball court with his friends. Imagine my surprise when he told me he was getting married.

He told me that he will send little Johnny back to China so his parents can take care of him when he and his wife work in the States. Since Johnny was born here, he would be a legal US citizen and he and his wife could probably apply citizenship because of Johnny's status. Personally, I would really be upset of the fact that Johnny's gonna be seperated from his parents. I sorta grew up like that, it's not really a good way to be. But honestly, I was happy for Kelvin. He said he has only slept for 4 hours each night ever since the baby was born. I gave him some money as a baby shower gift. I can tell he was embarassed, but I'm sure he'll need it. There'll be so much more expenses, now that his wife is sitting at home and there's a baby on board.

Read more...

Away

I want to go away. It seems everybody around me are somewhere else but me. My boss and his concubine are going to be in Hollywood, the one in Florida but still they are going to be in Hollywood before winter comes. My best friend DC and his partner are on a mediterranean cruise. My friend ES is going to be in Minnesota. A colleague drove up to Montreal, another one is going to camping this weekend somewhere with his friends. AC was gonna go to Phuket and Jill is going back to Hong Kong two months from now and perhaps Bangkok. Lately I'm just on the treadmill walking 2 miles a day going forward but in fact going nowhere.

I want to go to Greece being around white houses looking out to the blue skies and blue waters. I wanna get lost in the streets of little european cities. Maybe going back to Hong Kong and get to a cooking class or eating and shopping my heart out. What about Las Vegas or LA, even Provincetown sounds good. I'm tired of being here in the city, I need to be away.

If I go to the gym after work like I'm planning to, I would have gone to the gym 5 times in a row. I think I might be hooked to the endorphins that my body is procuing through exercise. They say endorphins can be as strong as morphine. I can offically tell people that I go to the gym "5 times a week" now, it's quite an accomplishment for myself. Tomorrow I'm going in surgery, and the doctor told me that I might not be able to exercise for the next 2 weeks. Well, we'll see.

Met a guy online and I'm thinking maybe I should start a local Mahjong group so people can meet up and play regularly. There are like 23 people who's interested, but if I want to contact those people I would have to pay like $20 a month to set it up. I don't think it's worth it. Especially I don't have a place to host the game, and I don't really know if those people are for real or not. But if i do sign up I might have a great social life and I do love mahjong. I really have to think hard on this one.

ES asked me to go to Mitsuwa with her next week, so it may count toward my wish to do an outing. Maybe I'll just go to NYC again or Atlantic City to calm my nerve a bit. Why can't I be rich, if I had money, I would have just gone anywhere I like and not even worry about it. (Lottery ticket, lottery ticket...)

Read more...

Heads & Tails

Started some time last fall, mice and roaches have somehow overtaken our city. At first, I thought it was just my apartment. Maybe because I cook a lot at home, maybe Principe Rana left the sugar out after making his coffee and don't clean up afterwards, leaving the trace of sugar on the kitchen counter to tempt the little ones, but I was surprised to see a mouse in my apartment.

To be honest, the building that I'm in wasn't that well kept. I went for a week-long conference years ago and when I come back from it my apartment was pratically flooded from a storm and a ceiling leak, my lamp was crushed into piece because of a block of cement fell down on it. I thought someone broke in and trashed my place. I didn't expect this to happen because I live on the second floor of a 4-story building, how am I to know that the leak would affect my floor? When I called my landlord, he said there's nothing he can do and that I should have gotten renter's insurance. But I stayed because the rent is relatively cheap.

I remember a time where the laundry room in or building was infested by hundreds of flies like in a horror movies. Since the management didn't care, I went to a hardware store and got a few of these glue trap things and hung it in the middle of the room and a week later they became like fly-skewers that chameleons would definitely appreciate.

Mice are different, they are a whole lot smarter and faster. They are really irritating but they are really cute, if they would leave me alone I might even have them as pets. But then I don't like germs and I believe they might be full of them, so I got some glue traps around the corner where they like to roam in order to catch them. You have the understand that there are a lot of holes in my apartment, a huge cave thing behind the fridge and a pipe cabin in my living room. If I had my way I would have blocked it up, but I can't. So there are places where they can go and hide. I used to be able to catch them. At night, when one get caught in the glue trap, they would scream and make noise. I would feel very bad because I'm making them suffer, so I'll get Principe Rana to get up and "take care" of it. He'll get up grab the trap, showing it to me first to gross me out and toss it out the window, which I find it extremely hilarious. It's a good thing that our window face the backyard. Imagine walking late at night and a glue trap falls right in front of you with a mouse twitching, or worse the glue trap fell on your hair or your clothes. Ew... But after a while the mice learned what a glue trap is and where they are, so they learned to avoid them, so who got stuck on a trap manage to set themselves free. So now they just run around and play around as they pleased, chasing each other and only run back when I start to yell at them. Principe called them "Su Amigos" which means "your friends". My apartment is small, and I wasn't gonna take care of a cat.

My friend ES, my colleague SJ and I were talking one day and somehow the subject of mice were brought up. ES said that since the end of last year, she stated to have a mouse problem and SJ agreed. When I told her I had the same problem, she suggested that I get those other mouse traps that flap a metal bar over, because it snaps their necks and cause an instant death. She says it's more humane that way. All she does is smear some peanut butter on the metal and when the mouse gets it then "SNAP!" it's done. I'm still iffy about killing those poor mice, but what am I to do?

It seems the whole city is infested but mice. The other day, a mice went into one of our staff's office. Our office is in the 11th floor of this building. How did it get up so high? Took the elevator? I got into the office just because I was helping the staff installing a software, this volunteer came in, me and him surrounded the mice in a corner, he used a poster rolled it into a tube and trapped him inside. Then he caught the mouse's tail and went to the men's room and flushed it down the loo. He could have been a cat in his past life. I wonder if the mouse died. Back in Hong kong we have rats, which is a lot worse and I remember all the traps for rats and what people do when they caught one, they drowned them in a bucket which is a lot worse.

I wonder why suddenly they all got indoors though. Are we gonna have a flood or an extremely cold winter? Is this nature's way of telling use something big might happen soon? Are they sensing soemthing that human is not sensing? It's weird.

Read more...

Stereo Type A

Lately, I've noticed a lot of talk about stereotyping and racism on TV. Of course, everybody made a big deal out of it when the popular show "Survivor" seperated the contestants by race for the competition. The latest episodes of Mel Gibson proved that his film "Passion of the Christ" is really an anti-semitic movie. "20/20" talked about stereotypes in depth this week. It was interesting because it brought up a theory that there is no difference in people from different racial background. The difference that exists is because people perceive themselves to be one way or the other. Like Blacks are better in athletics because they believe that because they are Black, they should be better in sports so they try harder and hence perform better. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because you have confidence on what you do, so you do better. It's very inspiring. In that, pep talk works and I should really have more confidence in my daily life. If I really believe I can do something, I could really do it and it's really not a cliche. One marvels in the power of one's mind.

I never understand what's so bad about stereotypes. It's animal instincts. When I walk on streets at night, I instinctively avoid small, dark alleys because it is stereotypical that dark alleys are more dangerous to walk on big lighted street where a lot of people are. You call it stereotypes, I call it "common sense". Fat people are more proned to diabetes and heart-related illness, of course some fat people can lived to their 100s, although very rare. But I'm going to the gym to lose weight. You called stereotypes, I call it "statistics". If I'm walking down the street and see a loud, rowdy bunch of kids or guys walking towards me, I'll be more alert. I sure won't be as alert if they were female. You called it stereotype, I call it "self-protection".

Maybe I'm a sexist, I remember in my psychology class, the professor gave us a sheet of 25 words (like "boat", "salt", "pepper", "car", etc) and ask us to assigna gender to each word. After we did that she ask us how many words were we able to assign a gender. Me, thinking that it was a trick test assigned a gender to almost every word and after I told her what I did she told me that due to the country I'm from, I might be sexually biased. Well, I did what I did because when I learned French, there is a gender assigned to every object (e.g. the table in French is "La Table", "La" is in this case "Feminine", because table in french is a feminine object.) The same goes with Spanish, so I felt I was so wronged at that time, and I still do. I have the tendency to be a gentleman, opening doors and carrying heavy object for my female counterpart, but by doing so, means that I'm gender aware, which makes me a sexist.

I don't have much problems with stereotypes though, you can call me name like "Chink" or "Fag". It doesn't mean much to me. I don't have much value assigned to those words. In "20/20", there was this gay guy who told his parents that he was gay when he was 13, and his mom throw him out on the streets because of that. He turned tricks to earn a living and a bunch of "White-Supremacist" or "KKK members" beat the s#!t out of him until he was lying in a pool of his own blood half-dead. Twenty-years later one of the white-supremacist realized he has been hurting people all his life and moved out of his neighborhood and changed his behavior and become one of the "good guy". He works for this "Museum of Tolerance" and befriended one of the staff and finds out that the staff was the "Fag" that he and his friends beat up 20 years ago. His response was "There were so many people I used to beat up, I used to hate everybody." When asked "But he's gay, doesn't it bother you still? How can you be friends with him." His response is "He's still human, ain't he?" So if he is changed now, who can we blame for his past actions? Like my psychology professor, all I can blame is his upbringing.

We are all brought up differently, we were given all different information when we grew up. We were given different education. My grandma used to say Indians smell, my uncle is scared that I live in a black neighborhood and ask why my apartment doesn't have a gate in front of it and constantly reminding me to move to a "better" neighborhood. While, in reality I live in one of the best neighborhoods in my city. They were brought up differently than me, I have my own set of prejudice but blacks being criminals are not one of them. Certain religions taught us that homosexuality is a sin. Being a homosexual, I don't feel like it is one but I certainly can feel the pressure from other people. I think that is the difference, really, as long as you are not in my face telling me that you think what I'm doing is a sin then we can live in peace. Indians, Orthodox Jews and vegetarians don't go condemning people and rally in supermarkets when others don't oblige with their own dietary constraints whether religious or not. I guess, what I'm trying to say is "You have a right to believe in what you believe in, just don't make other people to obey your personal rules. Because I do believe that everybody should stop smoking and use alternative energy for cars and home, and that cable TV and Internet costs too goddarn much, and women should never wear things as torturous as heels. But you'll never see me riup the heels out of people passing by me on the street.

We all have our own values and its great, you can even judge people with your own values. But everybody is free to do what he/she will, it's called free will. When you act upon it and take away other's opportunity or try to take away other's free will based on your own values, you are going too far. --- "Live and let live"

Read more...

Week of Feasts

Since I've been "abandoned" my diet, I've been eating pretty good. Monday night I joined a colleague of mine and we went to one of the restaurants for restaurant week. It was great, 3 course dinner for $30. A lot of prestige restaurants participated and we managed to stumble into one of the best restaurant in the city - Le Bec-Fin. They used to be a five star restaurant, but recently some critic took a star away from them, I wonder why.

From the outside, it looked like a secret club. The restaurant is behind two sets of doors. I was expecting snobby waiters full of attitude, but our waiter John was more than friendly and accomodating. The decor was old victorian glamour, I was quite impress with their decorative silverware, a big silverplate that got swiftly taken away upon our order. The food was pretty good. I ordered a chicken fois gras for appetizer, roast pork loin for entree. My friend ES got chicken galantine for appetizer and the braised lamb shank for entree. We both have tiramisu for dessert. The food itself was not bad and the environment made the whole experience a lot better. The only complaint I have would be the tiramisu, it taste like it was just defrosted because there were a little trace of ice and the bottom pastry layer was a bit watery.

Tuesday I was supposed to go to Harrisburg for a pointless training meeting but I stayed home instead. Went out with Principe Rana and we went for Vietnamese Pho. Of course when I come back to work on Wednesday I just told everyone how mundane and boring the meeting was and everybody ate it up. When I get to the Gym last night my legs were killing me, but I still burned my 350 calories plus 150 crunches. Maybe somehow I'll end up without my tummy. Made some beef dumpling last night and went to the Cheesecake Factory today for lunch. They had a Da Vinci pasta that was really excellent, mushroom, onion and chicken in a marsala sauce over penne. The lunch portion was humongous, I wonder what the full portion is like. Got myself an irish coffee (drinking on the job, I know!) and got a piece of Toblerone cheesecake which was alright, but I only had half of it because I was so full. (Although I snuck two bites of strawberry shortcake from my colleague's plate when she went to the bathroom, the strawberry sauce was sickly good!!!)

For dinner tonight me, my friend ES and her son Ken went to Mama Palma's for Pizza. We ordered three small pizza and a piece of cake. They have gourmet pizzas at Mama Palma's, we ordered a pizza di mare which is topped with shrimps, mussels and scallops, a peking duck pizza and a hawaiian pizza. Of course, the pizza di mare was my favorite. The cake was a canoli cake that is moist and tasty. Ken is 2 and he is a cute little guy that like to get his mom's attention by pointing at thing and asking "What's that?", his main language is Japanese and I had a hard time following. He loved the cheese in the pizza and he ate most of the cake and the whipped cream and the chocolate chips. He was really cute. I was originally worried because online, they said that the restaurant wasn't really kid-friendly, but they were ok and Ken is really a good kid. Knowing that I might never have children, I really do enjoy Ken's company. It gives me a sense of my alterlife.

I think I'm going back on my diet soon, I already gained 3 pounds within this week of "diet vacation". ES told me about lyposuctiona dn that it only costs about $1,000. That might be really a lot easier if I do that. Suck, suck, suck and done. That's so American. Throwing money at our problems, it's a lot faster and easier.

Read more...

Before, During and After 9/11

I had a great time Friday night going out with a few of my colleagues to a martini restaurant in town called "Continental". I laid off my diet completely and had the best mashed potatoes I've had for years. I got a cocktail and I felt the alcohol rushing through my veins. I felt a little tipsy right after one little drink. I have to admit that i'm not really well trained in that department. The most I can fathom is about 3 to 4 cocktails, anything aroun 4 or 5 then it's sure that I'll be spending the night throwing up my dinner. But that little drink made me really "happy", happier than I've felt in a long time. We had several asian-influenced dishes and some desserts. One of them announced that she maybe pregnant, she tested a weak-positive. So I got us a piece of cake with a candle on top to celebrate.

I decided to go off my diet for several days, because it's restaurant week and I've decided to join the fun. So since then, I've had two ice creams, two bowls of noodle, a fruity lychee drink, fries, a filet-o-fish sandwich, a tiny piece of bread, a kit kat bar, an orangina and I made four dozens of gyoza from scratch. I gained a pound or two because of that. I thought it would be fun to make gyoza, it was quite easy. and the pleating of the edges was fun. I'll be back on the diet starting tomorrow.

My boss is sending me to a meeting in Harrisburg tomorrow, I go there every other month, but since we are closing soon, this meeting is pretty much meaningless and yet I have to put up a facade to got there and talk to people who pretend to be concerned of our current situation. My boss don't want to deal with them and I don't either. I rather use the time to do some actual work, or even go home and play on my PS2. I'm on "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories" right now, it's really amusing and addictive. Spent the whole day yesterday doing laundry and doing unique jumps and paramedics in the game.

I just got back froma chest x-ray and I'm gonna be in a "jacket required" restaurants for "restaurant week" tonight. I'm wearing jeans though, I hope they let me in. Honestly I can't stand these snobby restaurant that requires a certain dress code. I'm the one who's paying, I should be the one who rtell them what they should be wearing, not the other way around. We'll see.

Read more...

Doctors and Tests

Since I know that I might not have a job soon and my medical insurance may be gone, I have been scheduling a lot of medical appointments just in case. I went for my regular doctor to do an annual check up, told the doctor my latest efforts to remain healthy. He didn't say yea or nay but told me that I've lost 10 pounds since my last visit. I told him I'm at the age that I'm slightly worried about getting diabetes and he said by losing the weight that I planned to lose, I would less likely to get it. I also told him I want an allergy test done to find out what kind of allergy I might have so I can avoid them.

So I got blood drawn, went to the allergist. She turned out to be a "Dr. Kylie" type. (If you watch MadTV, you'll know who I'm referring to). Her last name is spelled "Cheung", so I figured she might be from Hong Kong and she was. I was telling her all the symptoms I have, the shortness of breath, stufinees in the morning and at night especially in winter, stuffiness after eating MSG, first time in my life to have mild allergic reaction during spring... etc... She was quite chatty and explained to me why she can't do an allergy test for MSG and she can't do any allergy test especially since I took Advil Cold and Sinus last night. She was really friendly and told me I had big tonsils. I ask her if that was a compliment and she can't stop laughing. She asked me tons of questions and some questions I don't even know if they were necessary, I got a feeling that I was being hit on. So when she asked me whether I was living by myself, I said: "No, I live with my partner." She was all: "Alright, ok!" lifting her hand up in the air and turned around. Honestly, that was quite amusing.

She did a lung test for me where I have to take a deep breath and blow in a tube real hard for like 8 seconds. We did it three times and my results comes to around 66% of a normal people. I thought that would explain why I never really knew how to swim and I never did well in sports. After that she gave me an inhaler and have me do the test again, the result wasn't that different. I don't quite know what it means, but she recommended for me to do a chest X-ray and another full scale respitory test. So my lung capacity is much smaller than a normal person, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I have been around smokers all my life, it might be the reason for that. Maybe it's all tarred-up, maybe I have a smaller pair of lungs, maybe I have lung cancer. I wasn't planning on living that long anyway, it's not financially stable to live that long and let's face it, who wants to live that long without a little bit of money and all alone to wait for death? I rather die when I'm still young and not wrinkly. Maybe it's just me.

Read more...

Unhappy Endings

I have difficulty ending things. I bought a set of 54 Detective Conan Comic Books back in March and now that I'm at number 54, I don't want to finish it. It has been the same way for me with some of my favorite TV games. I think I might be afraid of that empty feeling in my stomach once I finish them. I have had so much fun with the comic books, I want that great feeling to linger; Once I finish them there will be an emptiness in me that cannot be replaced by anything else. The purpose of the object is fulfilled, mystery solved, it will become a dead issue.

I think that kind of feeling I have extend beyond comic books, I feel the same about relationships. When one relationship starts, I get really passionate about it. Rushing to the heart of the other person like I'm in a race, ignoring all the danger signs and desperately convincing myself and the other person that we're in love. Most of the time I succeed in creating an environment like that for a long period of Until one day I wake up and see all the annoying habits of the other person, seeing that we are actually not that compatible and finding myself thinking "I can do better" or "There are better fishes out there" and completely lose interest in that person or the mirage that I (not we) have built for years. After an extended period of time which I manage to really break off with that person, I'll look for the nearest person to rebound with and create another relationship that lasts too long for my own sake.

But I never knew how to break up with a person, a person that I've said Thousands of "I love yous" to. How do you say goodbye to a person that you have lead on for years? I said "I love you" not because I really meant it, it was because I wanted to hear somebody else said that to me. It was purely selfish behavior, and if I say it enough, I know that person is bound to say it back to me. The whole mechanism is like lying to myself and when that lie get tiresome, I will lose interest and move on to a new person so the lie would seem fresh and new and exciting.

The last relationship I broke off lasted 5 years. The person became a stalker and an alcoholic. I get calls late every night around 12am to 1am, after I pick the phone up it hung up right away. My apartment got broke in several times before I changed my locks. I got assualted when we met in a bar. They say after a broken relationship, it will take half of the time to heal. It has been three/four years after we broke up, and I still get e-mails and text messages from that person from time to time asking me whether I'm ready to get back together. I never reply them, just because I know it will never be the same between us. Honestly I think I deserve to be harassed.

I'm in a great relationship now for the past three/four years. I do feel loved. I have no intention of ending it, although given my current situation, it might be unavoidable. i might not have a job soon and if I have to move out of the area, we might not be able to stay together anymore. Even worse, I'm afraid that one day I'll wake up and all the sudden lost interest in this person. I don't think it'll happen but I'm afraid it might. Then, I'll scatter around looking for the nearest interesting person to fall in love with and start the whole routine again.

Trust me when I tell you: "It's not you, it's me!"

Read more...

End of the Four-Day Weekend

I don't know if exercising makes one stronger or not but I know I got sick. A cold, itchy throat plus sneezing and runny nose. How attractive is that? Thank god I made an appointment with my doctor weeks ago for a detailed check-up. I figured if I'm not gonna get insurance soon, I might as well get everything checked up first. I also got something on my back and arm that need to be cut out by my dermatologist. It's a vanity thing, but my insurance covers it so might as well.

So I am sick, but I'm still gonna go to the gym. I was sick Monday but I went anyway. I heard that you shouldn't exercise when you have a cold because it will just make you sicker. I wonder if I'll lose more weight by being sick. When did I become so concious about my appearance? I don't think I used to be like this.

Went to the aquarium with Mi Principe Rana, I had a good time. It was raining like hell, but being out is absolutely more fun then staying at home. Touched a shark, took some pictures and used my video cam. He's a freak for pictures, so all of the pictures are pretty much about him. I'm really camera shy, ever since a few years ago a friend took a picture of me and I see how huge I have become. The new season of "House" was on last night, great show, loved the episode. It's like a detective show for medicals and I'm a freak for detective shows. On "Queer Eye" they have 2 people participating on a weight loss program, they came in right under 240 lbs and after a few months of gym and diet they have lost 50 lbs. I want to lose 50 lbs. My goal is to able to take off my shirt next year at the beach. Well, I'm hitting the gym after work today. Let's all cross our fingers.

Read more...

Little Struggles

I had ice cream today. It totally broke my diet but it was all that motivated me for my gym session today. They open on labor day until 2:00 pm which surprises me. I went to the one near my house for the first time, I was upset to find that they have a vednding machine instead of having water fountains in the gym. That is such a scam and I'm so anti-scams. My work-out routine wasn't as complete as I like it today, I only burned like 315 calories and I didn't do any sit-ups. I was kinda fed-up after walking for 35 minutes on the treadmill, all I can think about it having ice-cream as a treat/reward, so I bought a small cup of Mr. Softie. I've been telling myself the whole time that since ice-cream is mostly cream and I'm aloowed to have diary, I should be able to eat it. Thank god I have the sense to throw half of it away and I didn't think about the starving kids in Africa.

I read a friend's blog and he says that the kinda people who over-indulge in advocating for animal rights or Tierschultz, as he called them, are usually anti-social and fails to relate to other human beings, they prefer the company of animals to humans because animals cannot talk back and they don't have any interest in human rights. I wonder, I do have friends that live solely with animals and do not have the ability to make much friends. It's not like I hate animals or anything, I know that I wouldn't be able to take care of animals, so I know I wouldn't become one of those Tierschultz. It's not like I would advocate for human rights either.

As it's standing, I lost 5 pounds in the past 3 weeks, so it's about a quarter pound a day. If I want to lose 30 more pounds, than I'll have to do what I'm doing right now for the next 4 months. I doubt that I can keep up with my diet, or if I want to for that matter. Life would be so unbearable without carbs. No pizza, no cake, no ice cream, no tempura, no katsu, no curry, no orange soda, no rice... that would be hard. It's a struggle between two things I want; To lose my stomach and to fill it with things I like.

Read more...

The Four-Day Weekend

It's the weekend of Labor Day and I took the coming Tuesday off as well, have myself a four-day weekend.

I promised a friend to find a particular piece of clothing for him earlier, so I went to New York and had myself a walk yesterday. It was raining, but I loved it. It's a different city, a whole different environment. That's why I like traveling so much, I welcome the change of scenery. It relaxes me to see different things. But honestly, I only like the urban environment though, I can't deal with rural or even the suburbs much. I like to walk around on my own too much.

I went to a Japanese buffet restaurant for lunch just because I've been there before and liked it a lot. Although for lunch, it wasn't as good as dinner. I'm still on a diet, so buffet it's pretty much the best way to go. After that I walked out to the Korean district right next to the restaurant and found a lot of different Korean joints and they all look very cute and I'm sure their food is good too. Maybe I should stop sticking with what I know and start experiencing new things next time. It's hard to go to a big city on a diet, there's so many great food I want to have but I just can't.

Afterwards I walk around for clothes and found what I was glad to find what I was looking for. It wasn't until I go through six stores that I found the article. The other big find of the day was a chapter of a comic book series that I'm following right now - "Detecive Conan". The chinese version was prohibited to sale in the US ever since the english version got picked up and published. I was very happy that I managed to find the latest chinese installment from a bookstore. I do like detective comics and novels, and television series like the CSIs, Numb3rs, and such...

In the preface of Detective Conan Vol. 53, writer Aoyama Gosho says during the past 5 months, he has been on a diet and he was really happy that he has lost a total of 11 lbs and his colleague complimented his figure. I thought to myself, "He only lost 11 lbs in 5 months???" Why do I have to be such a snob? I do hope I'll lose more weight than that and I'm happy to say that slowly but surely I am losing weight.

Read more...

The Sinking Ship

So everybody is looking for a new job. One of my friendlier colleagues went to an interview at another non-profit company that offers better salary and benefits. He is interviewing for an account payable manager position, if he gets the job he'll be getting a raise, more vacation time plus he'll be working flex time. There are only 2 people interviewing for the job and from the looks of it, it is very very possible that he'll get the job; he was well prepared, charismatic and he sent the handwritten thank you cards right after the interview. It'll be hard if he's gone, but I do hope he gets the job.

Other people are applying for jobs in big corporate companies, other non-profits, universities and hospitals. I have been putting that task in the back burner. The thing is I've been in this organization for more than 5 years now and due to the lack of training, I think I'm quite behind on a lot of technology stuff, so I'm not confident enough to apply for IT jobs. I never got any Microsoft certifications and I pretty much give back all the things I've learned post-graduate back to the university. Though, I still think my math skills and my analytic skills are better than average, maybe I can apply for relevant jobs like business analyst, financial analyst or statistical work.

I know a few languages, maybe that would help out. Since the Chinese market is the next big thing, I'm sure a lot of company would be looking for people who speaks Chinese. My job experience here will probably help me too. One of my friends used to wokr for the UN and she liked it a lot, maybe I can look for jobs in the UN. Their official languages are English and French, I'll be set if I keep up with my French. But if I do work for them, it'll mean that I would have to moved to New York and the living expenses are quite a bit higher there. I really want to know what's gonna happen to me, and with my visa status. I hope I can find another job soon.

Read more...

Foul Mood

This morning I decided to wake up earlier so I can start walking to work. It's not really that long a walk and I can save $6 everyday if I do that instead of taking the cab. I got to the office before 9am, and I immediately start working. In come the building manager saying "This is the part of the problem!", pointing at my half-opened window. My operation manager came in behind him and sheepishly explained that the bathroom window was opened last night and the rain that came in caused a small flood in the men's room.

The building manager was a smuck with an attitude that everytime I see him I want to smack him in the face. Since I'm one of the few men in our office, he proceed to interrogate me with questions to see if I left the window open yesterday and told me the window should bnever be opened. It was not the right way to approach me, especially not in the morning. So I told him the reason I opened "MY" office window is because I was cold, there's no way for me to turn the air conditioner off, there's no way to control the temperature in the office and that's why I open up my window. As for the window in the men's room, it was kept open all year long. If he needs the window to be shut all year round, he can either paint it shut or nail it shut. He said that he shouldn't have to do that and we should tell people not to open the window again. I snapped. "I really don't have time to stand by the men's room window and tell everybody who entered not to open the window." He can put a sign there, we share an office with a doctor's office, there's no way I can tell every patient that come in, not to open the bathroom's window. He can tell the cleaning crew to close the windows when they clean, and I shouldn't have to teach his how to manage the building.

The whole incident put me in a foul mood since this morning. I mean, what do they want from me? I work my ass off everyday and other people are just lounging around. Why are they still harassing me with these little shitty thing? It's a good thing that he ran after I showed color on my face, I could really have chewed his head off. Maybe I woke up too early for my own sake, that's what put me in a fighting mode. But people who knows me, know to not mess with me in the morning.

Read more...

Ye Have Little Faith

My colleagues and I were discussing the various charities and causes that we have done personally. Giving back to the community is nice but rarely done in my part. I'm too skeptic. I work in a non-profit that receives donation sometimes, but the donations are being set aside as "unrestricted funds" and more often than not it's being used to pay for my executive director and other staff's traveling fees and meals that no other funding would pay for. I'm sure we are not unique in this situation and I don't have a problem with using these donations to increase the salary to already unnderpaid staff, but to use other people's good intent for other people lavish lifestyles, such as airplane tickets to a conference that they won't even attend or meals at a five-star restaurant is, how should I put it... Wrong!

We used to do the AIDS walk every year, after we realized that only 25% of the raised funds goes to service and the other 75% goes to administration costs, we don't walk no more. Plus, HIV nowadays are not as deadly as they once were, so nobody cares as much. Katrina, 9/11 and breast cancer seems to be good causes, but they all seem so distance. If there any causes I would walk for, is getting George W. out of the White House. But for a lot of reasons, I don't believe in donating money.

I used to give money to homeless people who ask for money on the streets, until somebody told me not to because they are just gonna use it to buy drugs ans alcohol. Other places I've been has triads that organize a group of poor old people begging on the streets and take their money as an income. I never understand why churches pass that basket either, and the story they tell about poor man gave the church every he has is far more impressive than the rich man sharing part of his fortune is such a scam. I don't trust organized religion. Nowadays with all the child molestation cases that the Vatican don't even condemn the priests for doing it. I think the churches' moral values are a little crooked.

Some department stores would set up a X'mas tree where children's wishes on them, so you can buy things in the department store to fulfill those wishes. I know those children are from less fortunate families and all, but that is such a shitty scam from the department stores, you have to buy those things full price from the stores, and most toy drive only accept new toys. What's the deal with that? Getting rich from people's good intentions? Hell, nah.

I really want to do some good though. I do believe in the boy scout's motto "Do one good thing a day." I try to be nice to people, I try to smile. I donate can goods and clothing every year. Buy the homeless guy a breakfast sandwich. I believe that a person has to try their best to support themselves first before asking for help. If they seem young enough and can walk and stuff, I won't bother. They should just get a job and work like the rest of us. I don't like to work either but I am still doing it. Asking for money is easy, earning it is the hard part.

Read more...

End of Round One

So I broke my diet. I did it because of my friend's birthday was yesterday. I had cake and udon and fried rice. Feel guilty really, although in the beginning I said I will stop my diet yesterday, but I did want to keep on going until I lose enough weight. And because all the fruit compote that is left with the birthday party, I made almond french toast this morning for the whole office, originally I thought I would just wrap the fruit in crepe along with whipped cream and nutella, but the supermarket don't sell crepe anymore and I'm too lazy to make it myself, so I did french toast instead. They liked it, the whole stack of 25 was gone in 10 minutes. I still have the udon to get rid of though, I'll give it to somebody for lunch and get a salad myself.

There's no way to know how much weight I have lost during the course of the diet. Since I started with my half-broken scale and ended it with my new scale. But my guess is about 15-20 lbs. That's good, I think. Right now I think I still want to lose 30 more lbs. It's very ambitious of me, but I tired of carrying a belly around. My colleague is ready to officially join the gym and he wants me to do it with him. it will cost me $59 a month if I join for a year and $69 a month if I do a month to month thing, given that I might not have a job soon I may do the month to month thing for now. I remember joining a gym class after high school, that and my summer job keep me in good shape.

I need to start waking up early and walk to work. At least I would save some money, so I don't have to take a cab every day anymore. That would save me enough money to pay for the gym. As for the diet, I would kick start again this week, although I haven't decide whether I should get right back on it or if I should wait until next monday so I can have some stuff that I was missing out on before getting back in my diet.

Read more...

Dreams

Dreams are wonderful stuff. I enjoy all of my dreams and I'm fascinated about them. The details in your dreams are all made up in your head, it all comes from your unconsciousness. It's like a movie that you self-directed, self-written and you are the star of it. It's so entertaining and so relevant to your daily life. The strange thing is sometimes you can't even remember what you dreamt about, all that's left is the lingering emotions. You search through your head and all the details are gone, drawn back into your subconscient. How peculiar?

My favorite ones are the ones which I can fly in them. That has been my wish since I was little, I want to fly. Doesn't matter if I grew a pair of wings like Warren Washington III or propel myself through the air like SunGoku, I just want to fly. When I was little I had dreamt that I was traveling on a flying carpet at night in London, that was nice. Of course, I had dreamt that I was a superhero too, I'm a guy after all. And of course, if I dreamt that I was a superhero, on of the power I had whould be flying. Unless that was the kind where I use a metallic robot. Every asian boy must have dreamt those kind of dreams, those robots were in all the best cartoons.

I used to have sleep paralysis. A reoccuring dream in which I woke up in my bed but I couldn't move my body or say anything at all. I always scared shitless when that's nothing worse that can happen to me. I would kinda scream and yell inside and eventually snap out of it. After doing some research online, I realize that it is only a dream. So when that happens the very next time, I wasn't scared anymore and just because I knew that was a dream, I flew up in the air and left. After that my sleep paralysis was cured. I'm self-conscious like that. Sometimes I would realize I'm in a dream and slap myself in the face. When it doesn't hurt and I know I'm in a dream, I start to do things that I want to do. It never lasts long enough, but it's a good way to relief stress.

Read more...

Drama

A lot of people like to invite drama into their life, I try to stay out of it as much as I can. I understand the value of drama, it's a release of emotions, it's entertaining, and a lack of drama can make life dry. I was against Mary J. Blige when she said "No More Drama", I was against Sinead O'Connor when she said she was not gonna scream in her songs anymore; they are singers, the need to express their emotions, it's a part of why we love them. But I don't want drama in my life because I don't want to hate anyone around me or talk behind somebody's back.

If I can choose I'd like everyone around me to be good folks and I want them all to prosper. I want all of us to do good, I don't want to envy people. But then that wish is like winning the lottery, it's quite unattainble. After all there ARE assholes in our lives and we can't build a wall around ourselves fast enough to block them out.

I'm usually very laid back and reserved, but when someone provoke me I can go pretty far out, even to an uncontrollable state. That's why I steer out of drama. When I need to express my emotions or stored up anger, I rather listen to music, watch TV or play TV games. Maybe there's why I bitch so much on this blog, typing out my anger, this should be healthy.

I do think people needs drama in their lives, or else life would be too boring for them. The only thing I hate is when people jump to every opportunity to create drama. They read into every little comment you make and try to make a big deal of every move you make. It's like having paparazzi and tabloids surrounding you. It's a stressful environment when people feed on this kinda thing. The only thing you can do is befriend them even it's against your will. "Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer."

Read more...

Doppelganger

There's someone living in my city that looks exactly like me, I'm convinced. Actually I know, because I've seen him in person. He hosts a local flim festival every year, I saw him on stage, heard him talk, he's real! Although, he doesn't sound like me and I only see him from afar so I don't know how tall he actually is and I don't quite seem to remember his name. My friend saw him on stage when we were attending the film festival, he thought we look similar but not exactly alike. He thought the guy look not as good as I do, he says I have a poor self image. But I didn't think the guy looked bad or anything, I just thought we look alike.

Every now and then there'll be someone coming up to me, saying "Didn't I see you somewhere before?", random people. A cab driver said to me one time, "Didn't I drive you to... the other night?", maybe it's just that "All asians look alike" thing, but I'm pretty sure it's the movie guy, my "Doppelganger". He must be a nice person, everyone that had mistaken me for him seems pretty happy to see me.

It'll be nice if I can get to know him and be friends so I can pretend to have a brother, I always wanted one. To learn how his life is, what his background is, it may give me some answers to my "What ifs". But how am I supposed to befriend him? "We look alike, let's be friends???" I mean how ridiculous would that sound? But somehow I'm quite comfortable with the fact that there's somebody would looks exactly like me walking around the same town, almost happy, really.

Read more...

Gym Here, Gym There...

One of my colleagues forced to to go to the gym with him. There's this new gym around the office called Sweat (appropriate but ironic), and they have a free 7-day trial thing that we signed up. One of my best friends gave me a 3-month membership at another gym as a birthday gift before and I did sign up at that gym for two years. I might be enthusiastic at first but after that it gets boring then I avoid going completely.

Actually my problem with the gym is mostly that there are like tons of people there fighting for machines and equipments. And the machines were old, the air conditioning non-existant, no music and no TV. It was like paying a few hundred dollars for a second-grade run down gym.

This new gym is great. Tons of machines, don't have to fight for it. And each and everyone of them has a little personal TV with lots of cable channels. I really like it. I might just sign on for a longer period after the 7 days and really start exercising and hopefully losing more weight.

So me and my colleague went together Monday and Wednesday, just for 30 minutes cardio. It was quite intense, I can't barely move afterwards, that's how bad a physical state I'm in. My thighs still hurt like hell. Interestingly, I discovered that my diet is having a strange effect on me, I get tired nowadays easier. I thoguht I was lack of sleep, but when I eat something I feel a lot better. I guess it makes sense to other people but it's the first time that I feel this way.

Also I sneaked a little bit of bread and rice in my mouth yesterday, chewed and spat it out. That's so sick... But I still want to go on this diet, maybe until the end of September.

Read more...

Lion King and such...

I went to see the Broadway version of Lion King with a friend last night. It was in town for the past two months, but I don't really keep track of this stuff. So when I realize that they are actually in town, it's already the very last week of their stay. I bought two tickets and it costs $169. Actually for the past few days I have been online and try to find the best seats, but all there's left are seats that are either behind a column or those that are far, far away. I called them up and they say if you get tickets two hours before the play at the theaters, they are going to be $25 each. But when I got there the line was so long that i rushed to a ticket center and got the better seat. So me and my friend were like 6 seats apart, but we found seats they are pretty close and not behind anything.

The play was quite nice, I've seen some footage of their creative costumes before, so I was expecting to see really elaborate things and they delivered. I have to say I was touched about how they integrated the aspects of Africa into the show. Of course, everybody knows the storyline of Lion King and we have all heard the songs before but seeing the story being told in a different way is very delightful and they did add a lot of "ethnic" chanting in the play. Since I don't understand the language they use, there's so way for me to know whether it is "African" or not, but I've heard that Disney is pretty good with authenticity. Maybe not quite, Mulan was quite horrid. But the entire feel of the show was quite nice.

When the whole show was over, me and my friend when to eat in a neighborhood restaurant. It was like 10:30 pm and I nearly fell asleep on the table. It wasn't a bad restaurant, but I'm so used to the fast service of Asian restaurants that waiting 5 minutes for the waiter after being seated is quite unreasonable for me and it's not like they were busy. I cannot stand slow service, I'm hungry, I'm here to eat. They didn't even give us bread, not that I can eat it but bread is like a common courtesy thing. The food was ok, a bit on the expensive side, the service lousy but I still gave them more than 15% for tips. They are pretty much the only restuarant who still serves at that hour. And I'm pretty sure I took in quite a few carbs either in the tamarind-glazed ribs or the white mussels with chorizo and corn. It's hard to be on a low carb diet when you dine out.

I really need some sleep. I think I'll go to bed early tonight.

Read more...

Purpose???

A blogmate named Thena posted something very inspiring yesterday on her blog Kill Bunny entitled "Sorry For Forgetting That You're Not Me" It's inspiring because I think most of us are out here looking for an answer to life's biggest question, i.e. Why are we here? What's my purpose in life?

While I use my blog as a diary to write down things that happened through my daily life, it records my mental state. Part of it is my still unfinished thesis on what would I like to be when I grow up, looking for my own purpose. In Thena's post, she question why people even bother with soul-searching; There might never be an answer, or even if there is, it maybe of little significance. I wonder why I called myself a cynic and never reached that high ground.

I think in some way I was being very naive. Let's say we found life's purpose, what then? What good would that do? We'll still have cynics like myself to question that and rebels who go against it. We'll still have to earn a living, live our daily mundane life. So instead of wasting our time to search for the one true love or the one purpose in life that cannot possibly be found, we just need to except that life is just what we put into it. Nothing more, nothing less. We should quit telling ourselves that each of us are special in our own way. Not all of us has an unique gift; After all, there are 6.6 billion people on earth, how unique and special and significant can one be?

But then, won't that make everything we do quite pointless? Why even write a blog? Why even do anything at all? Maybe life is of little significance, but somehow we have to tell ourselves otherwise. For our own sake, we have to set our own purpose and run for it. If not, how can one live with oneself?

Read more...

Personality Flaws

Yes, it's another post about myself. What an egomaniac? I recently read a post of a friend which describes personality. So I went online to do a personality test and find out that I'm actually an aggressive type. It surprises me because all along I thought myself as quite a laid-back person, if best, I am can only be passive aggressive. So I have a type A personality, type A's are more likely to succeedbut are also more proned to heart-attacks and heart-related health problems. But I'm so lazy, how can I be a type A?

Although lately I do realized that I get hostile very easily. I have to tell myself "not everybody is against me". It's hard when I come from a family that pinpoint every mistake I make, I'm pretty much brainwashed to believe otherwise. You might find most of my postings I blame my unbecomings on my family, but I do believe it's mostly true. Of course, there are great things about my family, but I believe that I have suffered some psychological trauma due to my family. (I don't even know if I'm exaggerating...)

I get obsessive at times, lately I have been on Yahoo! Games a lot playing Mahjong and a card game called Pyramids. I played Pyramids so much that at night I'm dreaming about it. I get cold, defensive, sarcastic, cynical, passive aggressive, some even think I am a very angry person. If politics is an art, sarcasm should be an art too, it's much prettier and a lot more brilliant. The bad thing about me is I can't hide my feeling, I can't shut my mouth, if something is on my brain, it's very hard for me to not say it. It just blurp right out, I have to learn how to better control my impulse.

By the way, I'm saying all this because I use this blog as a mental page. If I insulted you or bored you along the process, I'm very sorry!

Read more...

Another Posting About Food

I'm a procratinator with a short attention span. I know, it's the worst. I was gonna go to New York today to fu=ind something for a friend but I was playing games online and watching TV at the same time. By the time I'm done playing it was already quite late. So I decided to prospone my trip til next week.

I read one of my cookbook and decided to make roast beef. So I get of my ass and went to the market. I have to say this diet is costing me a fortune. By the time I'm done dieting, I'll lose a few pounds and all my savings with it. The 4-pound tenderloin costed me $65. Maybe I can stretch it out and eat it for the whole week.

Then, I went to this Japanese restaurant around Chinatown that has great Bento boxes and ordered a Sashimi deluxe. It was around 3 pm and I was the only customer inside. It's called Mixx and it's a relatively new shop with great prices on everything. The deluxe costs $20 and there's approximately 20 pieces of fish. The quality is ok, I mean the fish is on the muscular side and not exactly premium grade, but I liked it. It comes with a bowl of rice and soup or salad which I can't really touch, but I had the salad anyway. After I finish, they even gave me chocolate ice cream for free, but I had to rudely ask them to take it back because I'm on a diet. Everytime I go there they give me free ice cream. I'm sure I went there knowing that fact. Maybe I went there because I wanted to tempt myself. How sick am I?

I talked shop with the sushi chef for a while. That shop is right next to Chinatown and the prices are really reasonable. I thought they would do great business, but then I thought most foreign people are scared of new things, especially when they are raw. And if they come to Chinatown their intentions would not be Japanese food and no matter how reasonable the price maybe it can never be cheaper than Chinese Food anyway. Maybe that's why their businees hasn't been picking up much since they opened. Anyway I wish them well. It'll be upseting that they have to close down, because I really liked eating there. (And the free ice cream, of course...) We had a great Japanese/Korean seafood buffet in town called Oasis and they had to close because they were losing money, that was really a shame.

Read more...

The Brilliance of Stephen Lynch

I consider myself a music lover, and there's a wide range of music that I enjoy. My favorite type of music is R&B/Soul, but I also like Pop, Hip Hop, Acid Jazz, Jazz, Rock, Dance, House, Blues, Alternatives, Reggae and everything in between. Since I'm from HK, of course I would listen to some Canto-Pop. And during my course of life, I learned to appreciate Reggaeton and Cumbias. So you can imagine how much my iPod means to me.

To liven my llistening pleasure, I also burned a few comedy CDs into my iPod so when I'm shuffling my songs I get some unexpected cheerfulness coming on to make my life happier. It does work, I find myself giggling all the time walking down the street. Yes, I'm the annoying crazy dude that suddenly bursting into laughter and scare the shit out of everybody else. So far, I have Dane Cook, Margaret Cho and Stephen Lynch. As you can see, I'm a liberal curved to the left.

Among these comedians, I like Stephen Lynch the best. He is just a very talented singer-songwriter who writes these magnificently absurd songs which makes you laugh so hard that snot comes out of your nose. Of course, some of them could gross you out and some of you may not be able to stand the number of curse words or their suggestive nature. But it just make the songs so much more interesting. Stephen seems to be in his best when he's playing live, the reactions from the audience amplifies his energy. He's musically and lyrically gifted. With a guitar, he sings his songs in various styles. Each piece of his work is carefully crafted to make his punch line stands out. You just can't help but enjoy yourself and laugh yourself silly.

I hope Stephen will continue to publish more materials. While being the headliner for The Wedding Singer could be a great career move so more people will know who he is, I think most people love Stephen for his own act. If you want to hear some of Stephen's stuff, you can go to his website. The ones I personally like the best are [Love Song], [Little Tiny Moustache], [Vanilla Ice Cream], [Talk To Me], [She Gotta Smile], [For The Ladies], [D&D], [Lullaby], [Albino], [Pierre], [Down To The Old Pub Instead], [Bitch] and [What If That Guy From Smashing Pumpkins Lost His Car Keys?]

Read more...

The Insulting Scale

The whole thing started with my diet, which I'm still on by the way. I wanted to know exactly how my weight would change during this diet by I don't trust the scale I have. The reason why I don't trust it is because when I go to the doctor, I'm like 20-25 lbs heavier than I measure myself at home, so I wanted to get a new one just so I can have an accurate number to work on.

I was just gonna go to K-Mart or Target to get one, nothing fancy, a $20 scale would do just fine. But my Japanese suggested me to find a "Tanita" scale, she has one at home and those scales can measure your body fat, bone mass, water retaining percentage, how much calories you should be eating per day amongst other stuff. So I looked and got one from ebay for around $100. It took two weeks to get here because the seller uses Paypal's money order function, it took a whole week to clear and another week to get here from New Jersey, which is like an hour from here. I could have picked it up myself from that moron.

The scale looked fancy. It's like a piece of reinforced glass sandwiched by these two piece of stainless steel and a lot of buttons on it. I was afraid to get on the scales and break it. It's weight limit is stated as 330 lbs, so I know I should get on it fine. The scale does tell you a lot of things other than your weight, according to this scale, I'm 8 lbs heavier than the old scale told me. More than a quarter of weight in my body is from fat, ew... And from my body rating, apparently I'm "obese". That was a comment that I didn't expect from an object. Insulting and rude, really. I could have handled "Fat" or even "Chunky", but they word they chose was "Obese". I understand its shock value but it's such an ugly word. I was gonna bang that god-darn scale to the wall if it hasn't cost me $100. I should leave the seller a negative comment on Ebay just for selling that rude product.

Adding insult to injury, my friend saw my my pictures earlier and commented how much skinnier i was before coming to the states. I thought it was true, because that was before I know how to cook. I should really stop cooking and just eat bagged salad everyday until I'm happy with my weight. I feel like Urkesh Davlet.

Read more...

Working Girls

Every family has their own secrets, mine is not that different. Aside that my aunt had told me in private that I am not the only child that I thought I was, there are juicier stories. One of the more interesting stories concerns my grandma. In fact, if she writes down her life stories and send it to the publishers, she can possibly get a book deal out of it.

Growing up, I was amazed of how many relatives I have. I always thought that it is just because we are Chinese. My grandma has more than 10 people that she called "sister". It was nice for me though, because come Chinese New Years I would have a lot of elders to go visit and earned some cold, hard cash through the custom "red envelopes". You can't expect much from these old folks, but sometimes their married children would give me some envelopes too, it usually add up to a pretty nice sum, given if I have the patience to visit each and everyone of them. Later on though, I found out that these people are really not my grandma's sisters, but they are her "blood sisters". Actually not even, they just happened to "work" together at one point in their lives.

According to my grandma, she used to live in Vietnam when she was young. I always thought how interesting to be able to find Chinese in every part of the world. My friend who works for the UNICEF went to a small village in South Africa once and to her surprise she found a Chinese restaurant there. I travelled to watertown, NY once, a small town that is small in population deserted after the one main factory in the town has closed down due to the obscurity of the location and there's a Chinese Restaurant. We Chinese do that, we go to the strangest part of the world and open restaurants. So anyway, her parents used to have a big house in Vietnam and they used to be rich, at least comparing to the locals. And then world war II hits and she migrates back to Hong Kong met her husband and gave birth to seven children and turned into the grandma that I now know.

But the interesting part is, somewhere down the line I think she worked as an escort. Not the sex kind, no, no, god forbid. But in the old days, rich folks can go to these clubs to drink and there would be girls chatting with them and entertaining them. I found that out because she kept pictures of herself in those days, they were balck and white pictures, but her lips were colored in bright red. She looked very pretty and glamarous. I still wonder how the war turned her family from being rich to a situation where she needs to work in those places. It must have been tough for her. But then from my uncles and aunts, I heard that she met my grand-dad who was rich at that time and did not take care of her childrens, my aunts and uncles were raised by servants. So all the people she calls sisters were all "working girls", I suppose. Fascinating, eh?

Read more...

The Struggle with Atlantic City

I really wanted to go to the beach. Sitting on the sand on a mildly warm day, feeling the sea breeze blowing on my face, hearing the ocean waves. It must be so relaxing and therapeutic. I wanted to go there for weeks, but the most accessible beach around my area is in Atlantic City.

There's nothing wrong with AC, it's not like it's "Sin City" and even if it is, I'm old enough to control myself and to not "Sin". I do gamble from time to time, visit casinos. And I believe that I'm pretty good in a little game called BlackJack. I usually win, if there's a score board between my wins and my lost, the winning team would be way ahead. I usually managed to win enough so my travel and food get covered plus making my wallet a few hundred dollars heavier.

Although, I'm not in a gambling mood these days. I just want to be relaxed and go feel the breeze, that environment would make my mental state a lot healthier. Don't get me wrong, I like casinos. They build these giant attractive hotels, decorated to wow its visitors in its luxury. The only problem is that I would have to wake up early enough so I can be at the beach while its still cool. And the buffet... I'm still on a diet doing the best I can, and I'll be damned if I go to Atlantic City without visiting its buffet. So I guess I'll wait until I finish with my diet and then go there. As for now, I'm walking around town trying to calm my nerves.

Read more...

Paths and Runways

'Project Runway' has been one of my favorite TV shows since it had started, it's a show about fashion designers competing to show in New york's fashion week and potentially get their clothing mass produced and sold to the general public. The thing that drawn me to the show is the sheer creativity that these people have, to work around the same topic but create different garments based on their own styles and values.

For some reasons, I never thought making clothes from scratch was possible. Although my mom did made me several outfits when I was in France. There are paatern stores that you can get patterns for anything you want in any sizes. When I was in school in Paris, students were required to put on a drama show every year for Saint Baptiste Day or something like that. I played a cat-cooking chef one year and a cow-baron the other, and my mom made me both costumes, they were very well made too. We had a little Singer sewing machine at home.

There is a saying in Chinese to describe 4 basic needs of us humans; "Clothing, Eat, Shelter, Transport." While I can pretty much walk to any place I want and I can cook. I can't build shelters and I can't make clothes. Although lately, I ahve the urge to learn how to do things in order to fulfill my potentials. I was learning the ppiano for a semester, I'll be interested to learn another language or get professional training in my cooking, maybe a class in photography or sculpting or painting. Watching 'Project Runway', designing clothes is like another way to express your own creativity. They make it seemed so easy that I wonder if I can do it. I really want to know what I'm good at, and I'm really want to know if I'll be good at this. They say god gives everybody an unique gift, I feel like I've yet to open up my box and see what it is.

Like I said, I'll probably have to win the lottery in order to do any of these things. Funny, once you've started your career, you've entered a predetermined path and it's not often that you get the opportunity to change that path.

Read more...

Time of The Month

I don't know what is with work lately, it's so hectic all the time. Don't have time to eat or even breathe. We are almost gonna 'close shop', what's the deal? I don't have that much enthusiasm to do anything anymore. Last week, I was on Yahoo! Mahjong almost all day for two days, and now I can't get a break. Going through 15,000 records again and again trying to find consistency, budgets, reports, invoices and computer repairs. Check this, double-check this again, fix that, read this, reply this forward that. We are closing, the last thing I need is working til the last f#@king day. Get me outta here already! Did I mention that my heart is not in the fight anymore?

I don't know why life has to be so difficult sometimes. Nothing seems to be working out right. Maybe that's a bit exaggerated, but everything seems so overwhelming all at once. I know what it is, I'm PMS-ing, silly me!

Read more...

The Distance Between Me and Everybody Else

As I have mentioned before I used to be a very sociable person, but somewhere along the line I have completely changed. I remember being with my friends and getting myself in every conversation possible, and I had an opinion for everything in everybody's life. I wonder what happened.

Maybe I was way less confident when I came over to the States with my language barrier, although I didn't think that happened. Maybe because I was depressed for a while and it changed my world view. Maybe I realized that whatever my opinion is or however much I voice my opinion, there are little people who cares, I can't change my surroundings, less the world. Maybe I was just getting older.

My life right now is traveling between two space; home and work. Sometimes I'll step into a coffee shop or two, the dry cleaner's place, the two supermarkets, the bookstore, the record store, the video store. Occasionally, a restaurant or two, or a bar, or the mall. One of my friendlier colleagues loves to go to bars and he's always inviting me to go along, while I feel immensely friendly toward him I fail to be enthusiatic about 'hanging out'. I don't see the purpose and that's really not my scene. The truth is my energy level is too low these days and I feel too comfortable being at home with my TV.

Human relationships can be so distant. I feel like a satellite or a sleeping cell in society. My linkage to the outside world is so trivial. I feel like one of the people who if dead nobody's gonna notice for days until their dead body starts to smell. But then that could not be the reason for me to start socializing. The thing is I don't have the patient for the drama of everybody else's life. I have a hard time keeping tracks of my friends already, why do I have to know things about strangers that I hardly know, like my colleagues cousin's or their son's girlfriend or their cats?

Read more...

Bean Counting

I went to Maggiano's last Friday after work with my colleagues for happy hour and dinner. I always liked Maggiano's. I know is a chain restaurant and all but the food is pretty good in both quality and quantity. I'm still on my diet, so I avoid anything with carbs. I didn't order any wine/beer/cocktails, I had diet coke. Didn't eat bread, no food with breading or pasta. No dessert, not even my favorite chocolate zuccoto cake and the nice tiramisu that they had. I thought I was being pretty regimental and was pretty proud of myself especially when I weight myself that morning and I've lost six pounds in five days of effort.

I knew it will be trouble dining out, all the sauces involved, if I were I chef I'll probably use flour to make roux for sauces and use sugar to make to tomatoes sweeter. But i still went, because one of my colleagues just got a job in another agency as the executive director and I was happy for her. So I tried to be on my best behavior, but I come to find out yesterday that beans have carbs and I ate quite a bit of them when we were out. My colleagues ensure me that beans were pure protein. I had my doubts, but they did taste very good with the mussels. So I gave in. When I weight myself again yesterday my original six pounds lost has lowered to four pounds. I'm quite disappointed. If I knew that would have happened, I would have gone for the cake.

I'm still sticking for my diet though. I don't know why I'm so obsessed right now. I'll be a lot happier if I can lose 20 pounds and I only have 20 more days to go. Last night I made a huge pot of stir-fries with chicken, cauliflower, celery, shiitake, green onion, ginger and garlic. I also added some oyster sauce, soy sauce and chicken broth for flavoring. I figured since soy sauce and chicken broth do not have any carbs, I could use some oyster sauce sparingly. 5 carbs per tablespoon, I used about 3 tablespoons, but I'm not eating the whole thing all in one day so I wouldn't have exceeded my 20 carbs per day limit. Besides, it wouldn't feel right if I cook shiitake and don't use oyster sauce.

In some way, I think you could say the whole diet thing forces me to be inventive in my cooking, but then I can't shake the feeling that the whole thing is quite pathetic.

Read more...

My Heart's Not in The Fight

I'm supposed to stay here in my company at least for another 19 month, but I can't stand it any longer. My boss does not have any vision, and the other bozo is folding paper planes and distracting everybody else during the meeting. They don't have any visions and directions. They don't have any concepts of what work is, as long as they don't have to do it everything is fine. They credit for other people's work and blame others when they screw up. How can I work here anymore?

As you can tell, I'm having a bad day at work. actually I was having a good day until my boss showed up at 3:30pm. I wish he would have stayed home the whole day. It's not like he does not do that two-thirds of the week anyway. And I am not cranky because of my diet, in that department I'm doing fine. I went out with a friend out to a bar yesterday. All I had was diet coke and a bacon-wrapped shrimp and scallop. I really behaved, I even suprise myself. I'm going to an Italian restaurant that have my favorite tiramisu and an outstanding chocolate zuccoto cake. It's like dying and going to heaven; solid chocolate mousse covered chocolate genoise and cocoa powder on top. I won't be having that though.

The weekend is near, I don't know what I'm doing yet. Maybe going to the mall around me, looking for an iPod attachment for a friend's birthday. The birthday is not gonna be until the end of the month. And I really want to go to the beach, if it's not too hot. It cooled down a lot today. I need some 'R' and 'R'.

Read more...

Community Property

I know it's not proper and all, but I was "borrowing" my neighbors internet connection using my wireless laptop for the longest time. Well, somehow they found out probably because I was doing some downloading and caused a slow connection on their side. (My guess...) So they password-protected it and now I can't use it at all. Surely, I deserved that but the cable internet in our city costs too much, they seduce you with the $19.95 for the first three months, but afterwards, they raise it to $42.95 per month. I find that outrageous.

I don't have a home phone. I had that but nobody calls me except telemarketers, so I canceled it. I have a cell phone and it does just fine. But then I won't be able to get DSL or dial-up. In our city we have a monopolizing situation with our cable company. I'm paying nearly $100 a month with my digital cable TV subscription with HBO, and adding on another $19.95 or $42.95 per month for the net would just be too much. I don't know exactly how I can afford all this. Ever since Sex and the City is over, I don't find HBO that essential anymore. Bill Mayer and Carnivale is nice but they are only seasonal. The other shows are really not that great; Bravo is free and I like it so much better than HBO.

The city was planning to get itself to be one of those cyber city, where you can access the internet everywhere given your computer has wireless access capability. They had been saying that for over a year now, but we don't see anything happening yet. To complicate the matter more, the city is also actively attracting the major cable company mentioned above to move its headquarters here, they are building their headquarters as we speak. According to the city, it will attract business and revenues. But if they do have their headquarters here, I doubt that they will proceed with their plan of making the city wireless. The cable company will lose a whole lot of income, we are talking about $43 per month per household, it is in no way a small sum. On top of that they are using their Cable TV business to produce bad press for DSL and DirectTV services. Every time I see their commercials, which is often, is like watching those degrading political campaign commercial during election period. So low-class and annoying... I wish they would have more competitors to drive down the price.

So here I am dragging my laptop in the rain looking for a coffee shop with internet access so I can have free service again. I did sign up for the cable internet thing but they will have to ship me a router or something so I can hook it up myself and of course... They charged me for the router, and if I can't put it together myself and need to call them, I'll have to pay an additional $50, if someone needs to come to my place and do it for me it'll be another $50. Comcast is too outrageous!!! There, I said it!!! (exhale)

Read more...

The Problem of Knowing

Last night was kinda disappointing. I guess it's become I've seen the same show too many times, so I know how it was supposed to go. The main character in Quidam is john, who was supposed to be played by this 6'5" white guy who is an excellent mime actor. But he got replace by this short dude whose mime acting lack luster. There were so many mishaps in the show that makes it looks like a rehearsal act.

Other than the Vis Versa, Diabolos, the Banquine and the Rope-skipping, they are all forgettable acts and they are all pretty much the same. They might be able to do well as lone acts, but when you put everything together they seemed too much alike and too repetitive. The clown acts while entertaining, took too long to finish. Seems like more than a third of the show belong to clowns. I don't know why but it did not impress me as much as it did. While many shows have been improved or rearranged, the whole feeling of it changed. They should really get rid of the cloud swing. I never got the point.

The heat and my diet might have got into me. We went to a Mexican restaurant before the show, all I can get was steak with pico de gallo and a slab of guacamole. Can't have frijoles, can't have rice, can't have Jarrito. I so wanted to have ice cream in this heat. But I was trying to be good. Two small bottles of water in the circus cost $9.00

I have been reading labels before I buy stuff. Do you know that a standard serving size of a small 20 oz bottle of Sprite is 8 oz. That means you are supposed to separate that palm size bottle and drink it two and a half times? Who are they kidding? And I just find out that soy sauce does not contain any carbs. I don't know why I didn't figure it out before. I guess I thought everything in a diet would be tasteless. Oyster sauce is not so bad either, so I guess I'll use some of that.

Today it's suppose to "feel like" 115 degrees, I hope I don't die in the heat.

Read more...

Another Hot Summer Day

It's supposed to be 110 degrees Fahrenheit today and tomorrow. Unbelievable, I don't think I've ever experienced this heat during my years in northeastern United States. It's so bright outside that the pavement is emitting light. It's too sunny a day for me. My perfect day is cool, cloudy and windy, that's my kinda weather. I'm supposed to go out tonight to the circus, I wonder if how I can even go out in this heat. Thank god there's air conditioning at home and at the circus.

I started my diet yesterday, got a $7 salad for lunch and made cabbage and pork for dinner. The cabbage and pork is really addictive. I put ginger in it and salted the pork before cooking, it was surprisingly good. I think I might just make it a few more time, since it was so easy to make and I seemed to be satisfied afterwards. I made so half-boiled eggs and pastrami for breakfast, it is not the same without toast. I'm still a bit hungry, looked through all the vitamin water in the coffee shop for something flavorful to drink, but everyone of them have 13g of carbohydrates, I guess I won't be drinking anything but water here for a while.

It's August already and soon it'll be January. By the end of December, my company would have to downsize drastically. Although I was guaranteed a position afterwards and I need this job to get my green card. I was thinking if I wanted to stay with my company at all. The problem is my boss intend to keep useless people around, while he say that they are loyal, in my opinion they don't produce at all. I'm more of a merit-based person, while my boss is a relation-based person. I can't agree with my boss and that would just mean more work will be on my shoulder while others get to lounge, I don't know if I want that. They have been f#@king things up pretty badly, but my boss don't even say anything to those idiots, so maybe my company is not the place for people like me anymore. One of my colleagues is trying to start something new, and she asked me to join her. I have the concept of our new project down and I'm pretty sure it's gonna be easy and profitable. But I still have to think about my green card situation, I might have to stay in this company for 19 more months just as my lawyer had said, I wonder if I have the patience. This may seem very snobby of me, but why do I have to struggle with other people's incompetence?

It's so hot today that even the heat from my laptop here is bothering me. I should just go home and watch TV or play videogame. Something to take my mind of the heat... and my diet!

Read more...