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No time to post today because my laptop got overtook by a nasty virus. The kind where the screen is blinking and I can’t open anything including my antivirus. Sad. :(
Friday: scored last minute tickets to see one of my favorite bands Jack’s Mannequin play a secret show at the Viper Room. At first I was kind of iffy about the new album but it’s totally grown on me. Seeing them live always reinforces my love for the band as well. Andrew totally rocks out on the stage live and puts so much feeling into his music. He also did a cover of MGMT’s Kids…which I didn’t recognize at the time because it sounded so different with his voice! Cool though!
Saturday: Saw my parents who are in town and visited my grandfather in the nursing home for the first time. :( It was really depressing. He has early stages of Alzheimer’s so they couldn’t take care of him at home anymore. Another reminder of how much I don’t want to grow old!!!! After that, headed back to W. LA. We ate at Souplantation (blueberry muffins!!!!) for dinner and saw someone famous! Sam Jones III. You don’t think you know him but YOU DO:
It’s Pete from Smallville!!!
Then we rented Rocket Science where I developed a tiny crush on Nicholas D’Agosto. I forgot that he was on Heroes. I remember when he was on that show I thought he looked NOT cute and actually kind of weird but in this movie he was really, really cute. Anyways, I think most people will think the movie was boring and not that great but I thought it was amusing/entertaining. If you liked Rushmore or other quirky movies, you might like it too.
Sunday: Spent the whole day with my parents. My dad changed my oil (dad=best car mechanic in the world!). Celebrated my little cousin Jadon’s birthday. He turned 5. He’s sooo adorable! Love my family. The night ended with some yummy shaved ice from Boba Time. If you love shaved ice you have to try the one here. They add coffee to it and TONS of fresh fruit. It’s the best! (Just a small disclaimer that out of the 50 times I have been here one time I went the boba was very soggy and gross. Normally it’s the perfect consistency though!)
I’ve had a history of playing horse with boyrobot since our early days so this game has always had a special place in my heart. This guy who beat Lebron James is AMAZING! I especially love the trick he won the contest with in the warehouse.
Why am I not surprised that the American version of My Sassy Girl will be going straight to DVD? To be released on August 26 for those that are interested.
I’m disappointed in the trailer but I will definitely be renting this if I can find it. It sucks that it turned out so bad considering the people involved at least had some credibility!
I have 1,306 emails in my gmail inbox. I’m hoping to achieve Inbox Zero, having zero emails in my inbox. With the practically unlimited email space, I got lazy about upkeeping my mailbox and just let emails pile up. It doesn’t help that I get about 10+ emails a day! Here are some steps I’m going to utilize to help empty and organize my inbox:
1. Start archiving! For the longest time I never even noticed that Gmail has an “archive” button at the top. And when I did notice it, I never wondered what the purpose of that button was. Basically, the archive button will remove emails from the inbox without deleting them. It’s a great way to save those really important emails that you don’t want to delete because you might want to refer to them some day in the future but don’t need to see it every day in your inbox. To view archived emails, you can just click on “All Mail” on the left hand side.
2. Labels. There are a few reasons why I keep emails. Some of them are ideas I have for upcoming post on one of my blogs. I’ve started tagging these emails with their respective blog names. Also, since I’m planning a wedding, a lot of my emails are wedding related that I want to keep for reference and I’ve started tagging these as “wedding”. This makes it so much easier to find emails later on when I need them.
3. Star items that I need to read again or need my attention.
4. Unsubscribe myself from useless websites. When i buy things, they auto subscribe me to their newletters and I get lazy about unsubscribing. There’s no reason for me to keep most of these newsletters so it’s time I take the few seconds to unsubscribe
Hopefully I’ll be able to achieve Inbox Zero sometime this year hehe.
No brain dump mondays until I’m back. Hopefully I’m not stuck at the airport all day like on friday when my flight was delayed and then CANCELED! I hate flying!!
6 Scary diseases you don’t want - wow, some really weird ones in there!
Read at work - classic novels made to look like powerpoint slides. ingenious!
One man’s quest to sport every beard type - so. awesome.
Customer Service Hall of Shame - worst was AOL, best was nordstrom’s
Top 10 most annoying office habits - Lucifer’s lunch: eating smelly food haha….I’m guilty of this
The best kitchen knives for any budget - this is so useful. every kitchen should have a good set of knives
Tip: If you don’t already have a Costco card, now is the time to get one….cheap gas!! well compared to everything else out there.
Just found this cool Itunes plugin that tracks your music and then lists upcoming concerts in your own personal calendar. I could have totally used this way back in the day when I went to concerts all of the time! Oh to be old… :(
This post is dedicated to RiSe since I know he’s a big Indiana Jones fan!
Indiana Jones comes out this week finally. Here’s some IJ related links…
The 10 most memorable Indiana Jones moments compiled by Film School Rejects
Indiana Jones CEREAL!
Tours where you get to be Indiana Jones - This seems fun but scary at the same time. Last I heard…Egypt was not the safest place to travel to!
Adventure vacations inspired by Indiana Jones
If you haven’t seen it yet…the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trailer
Rottentomatoes page - so far it’s at a very fresh 80%!
The Indy Experience - the self proclaimed ultimate guide to Indiana Jones
Free Indiana Jones movie ticket with a purchase of four 2-liter Dr. Pepper bottles
I’m a Chowhound convert. I used to use Yelp for all of my foodie selections but after being disappointed again and again, I started using Chowhound…the well known website for FOOD SNOBS! I’m not a food snob, but I’ve found that the reviews and suggestions are a lot more on target there. The only bad part about Chowhound is that it’s a forum rather than a review site. So it’s harder to find places by category/location. I usually just use their search tool to find types of food I’m interested in. It’s always interesting to look at the most recent posts….sometimes you’ll find an interesting topic and discover a restaurant/type of food that you never even knew existed in Los Angeles (or wherever you live). Anyways, for all the foodies out there….I present you some useful Chowhound links (for the LA area since that’s where I’m from. Bookmark it! if you’re from out of town…you never know when you’ll be visiting!)
Ultimate Los Angeles Restaurants 2007
Help me leave LA with no regrets
Vote for the best hole-in-the-wall
Mmm. I’m hungry!
FYI: For some reason, 99% of the time I can’t reply to comments at work. I think it has something to do with the firewall. GRR. Anyways, I was going to reply to Hakushaku’s comment but I kept forgetting/or being too busy when I got home to congratulate him. I didn’t know my praise meant so much to him! So I looked on someecard for an appropriate card for him but all I could find were these:
This is a bit too late seeing as how he’s graduated:
And this is too early. Maybe in a few years I can send him this one again:
JK. I know you’ll pass the first time!
This one would have been so perfect but I think you’ve already deluded someone into hiring you:
Ahhh, that leaves this one:
Congratulations Hakushaku. There…are you happy? :P
These pictures are awesome:
And can you believe they were taken with a Canon digital point and shoot camera? Check out the rest of his pictures here.
Ok, the trick to being able to do photos like this is to download the Canon Hacker’s Development Kit. Lifehacker has a complete tutorial on how to install and use it.
Things you can do with the CHDK:
The current set of extra capabilities fall into six categories:
a. Enhanced ways of recording images - you can capture still pictures in RAW format (as well as JPEG), and for video images you can have increased recording time and length (1 hour or 2 GB), and a greatly increased range of compression options.
b. Additional data displays on the LCD screen - histogram, battery life indicator, depth of focus, and many more.
c. Additional photographic settings that are not available on the camera by itself - longer exposure times (up to 65 seconds), faster shutter speeds (1/25,000 sec, and faster in some cases), automatic bracketing of exposure, etc.
d. The ability for the camera to run programs (’scripts’, written in a micro-version of the BASIC language) stored on the memory card - these programs allow you to set the camera to perform a sequence of operations under the control of the program. For example, a camera can be programmed to take multiple pictures for focus bracketing, or take a picture when it detects that something in the field of view moves or changes brightness.
e. The ability to take a picture, or start a program on the memory card, by sending a signal into the USB port - you can use the USB cable to take a picture remotely.
f. The ability to do a number of other more useful (and fun) things, such as act as a mini file browser for the memory card, let you play games on the LCD screen, etc.
Ok…I ate SO much for dinner that I’m literally too stuffed to think straight and make a real brain dump post so this is sort of a copout. Have you ever eaten so much it hurts? uhghgh. Never again. So anyways, this past weekend I went to my friend Andy’s graduation party from UCLA Law and it made me realize that a lot of people in my life deserve some sort of congratulations right now. So a tribute to some people in my life:
Congratulations Andy on graduating from UCLA law…that’s quite an accomplishment! Even though he has no plans on practicing law.
Congratulations Christine, my cousin, on getting into UCSB!! I really am so proud of her.
Congratulations Fong who just found out she got into UCLA’s very prestigious business school!
Congratulations to my little niece for celebrating her first birthday! I can’t wait to see her in a few months.
And lastly, congratulations to my good friend Cheryl who just got engaged!!! I have someone to talk wedding planning with :)
All pictures via someecards (the best ecard site ever)
Not all new but I failed to mention them before so people who read my blog through an RSS reader might not have seen them:
1. Chat with me - on the sidebar there is a link if I’m logged into my gmail, it will display that I’m online and you can talk to me in real time! In fact, I just had a chat with reader Lori today and I’ve met a few other readers this way in the past. Fun!
2. Share This - I’ve finally fixed my Share This link so it’s not showing up twice and isn’t hard to read. You can now share any of my posts on a variety of bookmarking/social sites as well as emailing it to a friend. Very simple to use….try it!
3. Random post - I used to have this but somehow it disappeared. Now it’s back! Click on Random Post (found at the bottom of each post next to the Share This link) to be magically transported to a random post on girlrobot. ha ha.
In other news, I’ve started a new wedding blog called One Red String. I basically highlight the cool wedding posts/ideas I come across on the web. I realize that most girlrobot readers aren’t really interested in boring wedding stuff but if you are going to get married anytime in the future, check it out for some unique and fun ideas for your wedding! I post craft links, tips, and even hot deals related to weddings.
Lastly, I’d like your opinion on some possible future changes:
That’s weird…I had 2 polls but the other one won’t show up. It was about Brain Dump Mondays and if I should continue them or not.
Any other suggestions or changes you’d like to see? Thanks!!!
The other day I was watching that South Park episode called Logging Off, which spoofs what would happen if the internet died. It’s hilarious if you are as internet dependent as I am. It actually made me feel kind of…lame. I really use the computer way too much! I don’t know what to do with myself without my laptop. In fact, at this very moment I’m in my usual position with my two roommates. We are all in the living room on the couch with our eyes glued to our laptops haha. Anyways, I was reading about Shut Down Day which is an experiment to see if people can live without their computers for 24 hours. It’s on a Saturday (May 3rd), so it’s actually doable for me. I’m not sure what one day would prove, but why not….I’ll be shutting down my computer that day. I related WAY too much to that South Park episode! hehe.
