i got a haircut today and getting a haircut probably ranks in one of my top five favorite things to do and im not really sure why because more often than not i come home disappointed thinking ive spent too much for not enough results. even after so many years of getting my hair cut, each and every time i have my hopes up that somehow i will come home with a drastic new do that will make my hair look full and luscious even though its always been thin and flat without fail for my entire life.

back in college my mom used to tell me that getting a good haircut was one of the most important things and makes all the difference in the world even if the rest of you looks like crap so she started taking me to her hairdresser where haircuts were fifty bucks and i would recoil in horror at the thought of spending so much. but go i did, a couple of times in fact but that is mainly just because i didnt know where else to go and my mom usually paid for me. and while i never disliked the haircuts i received, i never really loved any of them.

then when i moved to san jose, i was introduced to a hairstylist that all my roomates swore by so i went as well and this is what i call my period with short hair. or my hair nirvana i like to call it. i have never been as in love with my hair as i did then....my hair was short, it looked great, it had body and bounce, it was low maintenance, required very little upkeep and the best part was that it looked as if i had spent hours styling my hair. now i finally knew what my mom was talking about...i swore by my hairdresser and ended up going to her for a good four years until i moved to the city.

that was about the same time that my urge to be able to tie my hair up in ponytails grew too strong that i decided to start growing out my hair and while i still did trek down to san jose in the beginning to get my hair done, i decided that i would find someone in the city that i loved just as much. i mean this is the city after all, full of salons on every block that it couldnt possibly be too hard to find someone right? how wrong i was.

i started my task by asking around for recommendations, the first rule of thumb when trying to find a new hairstylist. my co worker was the first to suggest someone who she claimed cut great asian hair so i made an appt and what a disaster that turned out to be. somehow he was able to convince me that my hair was "wavy" and finished off my haircut using a diffuser...something that no asian with stick straight hair should ever be using and while it looked great when i left, as soon as i washed my hair the next day, it became one limp mess even after i applied all of the "curl enhancing" products i was convinced to purchase.

my next try was also another recommendation by a friend and while he was great in dying my hair back to its natural color, the haircut didnt do much...all he was really able to do was cut off all the shaggy layers i had gotten in my last hairdresser's attempt to make my hair wavy and i ended up hating how lifeless my hair was and always has been. why oh why have i been blessed with unmanageable hair? contrary to what most guys believe, not everyone can have jennifer aniston-esque hair.

and then theres today. i spent a good three figures on my haircut including tip and while my hair is shorter and cleaner i get the sinking feeling that once i wash it tomorrow, i will feel a big wave of disappointment wash over me yet again. and i already know it definitely was not worth the price tag. to think that a couple of years ago i couldnt fathom spending fifty bucks for a haircut and now im spending double that with the same results. sure i know you partly pay for the atmosphere where this place, quite trendy might i add, offered mini cupcakes and wine and even a latte if you like, id much rather save my money and forget all the pomp and circumstance.

so ive made a pledge from this day forward, im going to stop my search for the perfect hairdresser in the city because after at least five or six different attempts, ive decided that no one is better than the one i already had in san jose and that i should just stop looking and the lesson to be learned here is that when it comes to hair, the grass isnt always greener on the other side and if youre lucky enough to find one hairstylist that you adore, then stick with it and stop looking and wasting your money.

a lesson i learned the hard way but from now on i will be driving my ass down every couple months to get my fine, limp, asian hair groomed once and for all. and who knows maybe ill even go short again even if it does make me look like a damn boy.

the grammy awards. award shows these days are pretty boring what with the abundance of them, there seems to be an awards show for everything...nickelodeon kids choice awards, people's choice awards, mtv movie awards, billboard awards and i can go on and on...that by the time it gets to the grammy's, THE music awards show that really matters, weve already seen all the stars perform their hit songs several times already that it kind of loses the excitement.

but and this is a big but here, for those who missed the grammy's tonight, boy oh boy was it awesome. i was extremely impressed by all of the performances. they just kept getting better and better...mary j blige was amazing, dixie chicks (i love love that song), justin timberlake (how come i had no clue he knew how to play the piano?), lionel richie, even the trio of john legend, john mayer and corinne bailey, gnarls barkley....are people in agreement with me here? in fact the worst for me was shakira she always sounds horrible live but even her performance wasnt too bad and all her hip moves more than made up for it. carrie underwood was pretty bland but after all the raucous from the other acts, it was kind of nice to throw a little breather in there. not more than one or two awards were given out before there was another live performance which in my mind is what it should be. i dont really care about who wins what awards too much, i just want to watch everyone perform.

but i wonder what its like being friends or acquaintances with people who are so talented. when i think about my friends, theres only a couple i know who are truly gifted with talent and he is often referred to as the alpha male of the group. but to be sitting at the grammys and watching one by one as your peers take the stage only to outsing or outperform you and knowing that no matter how great you are, youll never be able to belt out a tune like a beyonce or christina must be humbling. even the 15 year old asian violin player has more talent in her one hand than i could ever hope to have and its just not fair. how is it possible that one person can be blessed with not just singing talent but also able to tap (chris brown), play the piano (jt...john legend), play the guitar (john mayer) and with good looks to boot. and here i am, took piano lessons for ten years and i still cant play half as well as the alpha male...but i can play the five chinese songs i know over and over if you like.

now im all pumped up from hearing all these songs with nowhere to go except to try to wind myself down and get ready for work in the morning. oh is the life of the accountant.

uggs. they have become the bane of my existence these past couple of days. it all started when my godsister came to visit last weekend and i made a casual comment to her while planning our shopping excursion of how i wanted to look for a pair of uggs. it turned out that she too was looking to buy a pair but they were all completely sold out in new york. as in not a pair anywhere to be found in the city. impossible i told her. this was california and while yes it might be cold here in sf, i was sure we would be able to find a pair. so off we went, quite optimistically might i add and hit up good old nordy's. as soon as we went to the uggs stand, a salesman came over and said very matter of factly that unless we wore a size 9 or above, we were out of luck. he then proceeded to tell us that not only have uggs been sold out for a while now but that even online they were backordered, some until august of this year. i pretty much just looked at him like he was crazy. this was uggs after all, a shoe that i dont even consider to be very cute but out of practicality, have finally caved and decided that i needed to buy a pair.

you see here in sf, its gets cold. my flip flops for the longest time was what uggs were to most people but you cant always get away with flip flops here unless you want to freeze your toes off. so then i would always wear socks with tennis shoes which got annoying after a while because i was sick of having to sit my butt down and tie my shoes before going anywhere. so this is when i decided to get uggs. i do realize that i am a bit late in this fashion trend if its even one at all but ive been exposed to this shoe for quite a many years now. in fact, des was the first person i knew to own a pair, which is no small feat seeing how we were living in good old sunny san diego. if memory serves me correctly, i used to remember her walking around in her pink pair when we were younger and just recently, not more than a month ago, she was sporting another fuzzy beige pair down in la. but yet still i wasnt dead set on owning a pair.

before my godsister came, i looked for knock off version of uggs but for some reason or other, they didnt fit me right. so i gave up after one trip and didnt continue on my quest until my godsister was here. to continue my story, i was convinced the salesman at nordy's had no idea what he was talking about so we continued on our search to bloomie's. we hadn't even gotten to the uggs stand yet, just walking in that general direction when we were stopped once again and right away told the same story we had heard at nordy's. can this be true? since when did uggs become so popular? have i been living in a cave of the no fashion zone? i certainly think not.

in our desperation, we tried one more place. a specialty shoe boutique that carried uggs and while they did have uggs in my size, they were in the most ugly color possible. i was still not yet convinced that our search was over so we headed home and started browsing on different shoe websites and on the uggs website and lo and behold, it was confirmed that yes indeed the color, size, and type of uggs that i wanted was "expected" to be back in stock on 8/15/07.

now the thing that i cant figure out is if uggs are so damn hard to find, why is it that everyone and their moms seem to be wearing a pair everywhere i go? is it just because they had caught on to this trend before they became popular? even when i was watching the movie because i said so (horrible by the way, save your money for something better) diane keaton was sporting them all throughout the movie. diane keaton! i think they might even have been the exact same ones that i wanted too.

so desperate times calls for desperate measures and i have moved on to finding my uggs on ebay. somehow the fact that i cant seem to find a pair anywhere has convinced me that i must own a pair. the first thing one will notice is that most of the sellers are from china. fake uggs im sure. either way im not chancing it so after much time wasted, i seem to have found a pair with the buy it now feature for a whopping 150 bucks. 150! i can not just can not believe that uggs are so expensive. if i end up buying this sucker, it will be the most expensive pair of shoes that i own...and i own a shitload of them. more than any high heels or pointy toe shoes or boots and im not quite sure if im ready for that yet.

this item now is sitting in my "watch this item" bin while i contemplate whether buying this pair of uggs is worth it or not. ive never even tried on a damn pair...knowing my luck ill buy it and hate it but i need something to just slip my feet into...ive decided i will sleep on this decision, maybe consult my ugg expert and see what tomorrow brings.