Driver's in China

Watching these people driving so slow at the driving school is hilarious: Link to CNN article.

Dreamgirls

We went to go see Dreamgirls tonight! I heard all about the nominations, but was mostly excited to see Jennifer Hudson, since I was really mad when she got kicked off of American Idol and I know she can sing. I'm not a huge fan of musicals, but with the Motown/soul music and the great story, I really loved it. Wei Yan thought some of the sequences where they are singing dialogue were a little weird, and some of the scenes with Eddie Murphy made me laugh cuz they had just a little too much resemblance to the "Sexual Chocolate" scenes in Coming to America. So, in terms of story telling, I think it's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

New Year's resolutions!

didn't think much about new year's resolutions this year. I think it might just end up being to work on all the stuff I started before the end of last year, or didn't, but wanted to. mainly exercising and organizing/decorating the house. today after work, finally went to pilates for the first time this year. it was a good session, but I think I can now admit to hurting my left shoulder somehow. guess my body figured it was at least the same year as my 30th birthday, and me falling apart can't wait until the actual day.

so come home & wei yan has cooked me orange chicken from Trader Joe's. I surfed for shoulder injury prevention/treatment info on the web after dinner while we watch the class & how I met your mother. I try out some stretches and exercises and things feel better. after the end of 24 & heroes, I'm off to do some cardio on the elliptical. 25min later I'm feeling quite accomplished.

and I even vacuumed the floor of my bathroom & closet!

Wei Yan actually booked our trip to Hong Kong while I was vacuuming upstairs. So we are off to Hong Kong from Feb 9-20th! Now, he just has to get his passport renewed.

Death of the Zojirushi Air pot

I've had my air pot unplugged for a few weeks. I noticed some black flecks in the water & unplugged it. Today I finally busted out the steel wool and CLR - hoping to clean up a bit of rust or hard water build up, but after 20 minutes I deem the airpot unsafe and beyond repair. I tried, but it was in vain. Alice gave me that air pot when she left to NYC. This all happened a while ago and with a little work it was back to new. I thought about getting a new one back then, but then I discovered that they are really stinkin' expensive. Maybe we'll be able to find a cheap one in Hong Kong. That airpot had a long & useful life and will be missed...until I get used to the reclaimed counter space that is.

Michael & Judie's NC wedding reception

So after an anti-climactic 3rd place finish on Friday night, we slept in until about 12:30pm on Saturday. After lunch & a few chores, we headed off to Michael & Judie's NC wedding reception. We of course are running late, and when I get there, there are 2 ayi's (aunties) who are manning the greeting table. Embarrassed that I'm so late, I hand one of the aunties the box I made for all the cards, proceed to put my stuff down and then try to figure out what to do. One of the aunties is fluent in english, mandarin & cantonese (she did a fair amount of translating sermons at RCCC) and she knows practically everyone at the reception....so I doubt there is any benefit to running her off after showing up late. Before I can think too long, Nancy arrives and sits down. I join them and try to help with what I can, directing folks to their tables and getting the guys to transport gifts when they pile up.

Michael & Judie had a few new pictures in their slide show. We get to see a ton of folks we haven't seen in forever. We sit at the same table as the Lenfestey's and the Fan's and with all the kids, our corner of the room turns into a play room. The kids were all fairly quite, until the balloon start floating up to the hot lights & popping. One of the toddlers catches onto the clinking of the glasses. Very cute....but Michael & Judie probably couldn't appreciate it much.

After we help clean up a bit & help Dan with loading his car, we head home to watch the UNC game on DVR. All the folks with kids were outta there by 8:30-8:45pm and probably got to watch the game live, but it wasn't bad. We just hope we don't get a call or text from someone to spoil the game. Game was awesome, Carolina played really well and GT didn't seem to have a chance. Spurts of greatness...some very talented kids on their team, but just not enough. Felt bad for who ever it was on GT team that wasn't looking & got nailed in the head with a bullet pass. Pretty embarassing turnover...and there is footage of your coach all but laughing at you.

Madison and the Fern

My parents have a basset hound named Madison. Her previous owners kept her in a crate all day and she would howel all day, so they were planning on sending her to the pound rather than get evicted. My parents gave her a home and she is obsessed with their fern. She likes walking under it and letting the leaves "pet" her. Growing up, I saw my dogs do really stupid things, like chase their tail, bark at the wind, etc. But, I never saw anything like this:

Dec 2006 Cali Trip

Finally!

Yes, finally I am posting. I've been really sick. I'm hoping that today is the day I finally get through a day without a coughing fit. I've been sick for a little over 2 weeks and trying to take it easy. When I got back from LA, I went back to work right away and tried to do a little too much - and then I was back to super sick again. Cough syrup with codeine is my friend. The $35 co-pay is not, so I'm hoping to shake it before I need a refill.

Well, in LA, we were busy with my friend's wedding before Christimas. A few pictures are here:

Michael & Judie's Wedding

Then there was Christmas, getting together with friends, and then I was sick in LA for the last few days & New Year's.

Oh, and for the LA casino's I'm finally up overall for a trip - I usually don't do so well since most players perseive that I'm a tight player and never pay me off. I didn't play as tight as I usually do, and folks folding to me just built up a lot of curiosity to what I was playing since they didn't get to see what I was playing most of the time. Not up much, but I will totally take a positive. Gotta start somewhere.

new favorite stuff

Aside from Grey's Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives and Heros (yes, I know I watch a lot of TV), one of my new favorite shows is The Class. Maybe I miss the gay jokes with Will & Grace gone or something, but the dark humor always catches me a little off guard. The last Thanksgiving episode was pretty funny - check it out on the website for a few laughs.

So, yes, I watch entirely too much TV (and college basketball season has started, so that won't change - it's November, but it's starting to feel a whole lot like March already). But, I did actually start reading a bit lately. The last 2 books I read were:
Goodbye Tsugumi - picked this up at a Barnes & Noble bargain table, not something I do ever, but I'm glad I did. I might check out a few more books by the author - Banana Yoshimoto (unusual name, maybe that's what intrigued me). Not sure how to describe the book - honest, thoughtful, but it's up for grabs if anyone is interested.
The Known World - I think I actually heard about this book when the author was on Oprah. If not, at least that's why I thought I'd heard of it. I guess it took me a while to pick up who all the characters were - since I kept getting only a few pages read at a time, but after I got over that ADD hump, it was very interesting. Black slave owners, the slaves owned by them. Also up for grabs.

Need to decide on a new pda phone too. Been so busy & scatter-brained with the March of Dimes 5K volunteering, that I dropped my pda yesterday & it broke. Maybe I'll ductape the battery in just to be funny...probably the last thing I need to be doing is worrying about trying to learn how to use a new phone, but I was going to get a new pda phone soon anyway.

In need of a little laugh? I find myself back at these ads. I just can't help laughing, even though I've seen them all several times. pc is so cute and lovable - not what the mac people had in mind, I'm sure. But enjoy my geek humor.

Oh, and for some universal grins. This is on the wall in the Brier Creek Brazillian churasscaria steakhouse:
Yeah! Last laugh is on us! We just have to figure it out....

Oct 10, 2006: We celebrated our 2 year anniversary at Magnolia Grill in Durham. :-)

Vegas WSOP pictures

So here is our poker crew in the WSOP lobby...

I'm at the center table here, sitting across from the dealer. This was the best picture I got of myself at the ladies $1K buy-in tourney. Next time I'll have to last longer than 2 hours to get a good picture. I think Shannon Elizabeth was seated 2 tables down the row, but no well known players at my table. The lady in seat 2 at my table made it to day 2 (final 24).

When they re-drew seats for the final 2 tables, Carlos Mortensen (standing), John Phan (left-side of picture) and Humberto Brenes (right-side of photo) - all the well known pro players left were seated at Wei Yan's table.

naming my blog

I'm not sure what's motivated me to start a blog. Normally, I would consider myself a pretty private person, but enough of the folks I would like to keep in touch with now blog, so perhaps it's worth trying this medium to try to keep in touch with all of us being so busy now.

Here were some of my other potential names:

• Messy enough to be happy (a quote I heard recently from a stampin' up consultant about her housework philosophy. yeah....not quite there yet.)
• Stoopid friends (but I'm only Michael's stoopid friend)
• Moo (if you have to ask....)

In the end, I think that this quote from my favorite movie of all time (Pixar's A Bugs Life) captures something about me that transcends different phases of my life. It's not something that only my childhood friends would understand, or only my college friends would understand. It's my stubborness, my frequent clueless confusion, my love of laughter (even if it's at my own expense) and that little bit of childlike mischeviousness.

Life these days have been busy. At work we are doing a Charity competition where we compete with our different departments to raise money for a charity. I started out being a co-chair of the Charity Committee, but now I am the only chair, so it's been busy. This year we are raising money to support the Alliance for Lupus Research and the March of Dimes. Yesterday, we were supposed to play our softball tournament, but it got rained out. Lucky for me, since I'm a bit sore from playing on a Cary city co-ed team (filling in for an injured coworker) the day before yesterday. My ego is a little bruised as well, after striking out (swinging) to end the blow out game. Great premiere. I was hoping we would play an easier team tonight to redeem myself, but still raining. I don't know how I ended up volunteering to play 2 nights a week - but the exercise is good for me.

I'm waiting for my new Epson scanner to get here so I can continue the organization of my film negatives and photos and eventually my wedding negatives/photos. Course this is also so that I can continue my scrapbooking.