a sure sign that im getting old and turning thirty this year. i just spent the past hour cleaning my apartment. i swiffered, vacuumned and even *gasp* cleaned my bathroom. toilet, shower, sink the whole works. something that i usually rely on my housekeeper to do but for whatever reason, i couldnt get a hold of him this week so rather than risk my visitors thinking badly of me, i got out my scrubbing bubbles and windex and cleaned away. even if those visitors are only my twin and sagging monk.

i even turned down an invitation to a wine bar tonight just so i had time to clean. something that the old me would never have done. the old me wouldnt have given a second thought about tidying up the place or making sure all of the towels were clean or putting everything away in their proper place. or at least piling it neatly in a corner. and its only january. who knows what other revelations might be in store for me as i make my way towards the big 3-0.

for all i know i could be hosting a dinner party for ten next although i wouldnt be holding my breath for it.

ive been introduced to the world of yelp recently even though ive had an account since july 2006 but in this time, ive only written a whopping total of 7 reviews. i never really knew there was this entire yelp community out there complete with its own acronyms "rotd" (review of the day) which i couldnt figure out for the life of me and finally had to ask someone or that people could send you "compliments" or more importantly that there is such a thing as a yelp elite member. what is a yelp elite member you ask? i mean honestly when i first heard about it i couldnt figure out why anyone would want to be a yelp elite member since what benefits could there actually be until i found out that there were yelp elite parties. with free drinks and food. now that sounds like my kind of party so ive convinced my friend to take me to the next one and will have to report back. it cant be too bad right, a party with no cover, free drinks and filled with fellow food lovers.

when i first created my account last year, i remember sending out invites to my sf neighbors and some joined, others ignored me but no one was very consistent in writing any reviews and it kind of just fell to the wayside. little did i know that some "elite" members yelp about every single place that they visit right on down to the local coffee shop. me on the other hand, i usually dont get the urge to write anything unless i really love it or hate it which would explain my lack of reviews. i have enough trouble trying to update this blog on a consistent basis as it is but i do love it when my friends write reviews.

part of the fun of living in a city is that there are so many different options for everything. two of my favorite eating places were recommended to me by a friend that i probably would have never discovered on my own. another friend uses yelp to help keep track of where hes been which actually makes a lot of sense. i mean anytime we go out anywhere the questions asked are always, whats the dress code? is there cover? and whats the music like? one can usually find the answers to all these questions with one quick search on yelp and even better if one of your friends has already reviewed and tried it.

i find myself on yelp a lot more often these days reading different reviews and coming up with my list of places i want to try. maybe this will replace what friendster was to me before because "friendster is so old school" i was informed by a stranger this past weekend who then went on to exclaim disbelief that i didnt have a myspace or facebook account. is it really that odd? although he was impressed that i knew what twitter was. so thanks twin for keeping me up to date on these things. i wouldnt want to date myself with my friendster knowledge now.

my last week and a half were spent in sunny (or not so sunny i should say) san diego home for the holidays. its been a while since ive been back for that length of time but what made it that much more special was that it seemed everyone else was back for the entire time too. my mom obviously but then there was my twin who has now moved back home, sagging monk the one who actually still lives there, des and victor i pretty much saw almost everyday and put in a smattering of the nose, hong, lilly, even grace and aubrey, it turned out to be just what i was needing and looking forward to for ending 2007 with a bang.

its amazing how fast a whole week of doing nothing can go by. my first couple days back i was bored out of my mind and was itching to get back up to sf but after a couple days, i was right back to my old break schedule of going to sleep at 3 or 4am and not waking up until 11am or so. surprisingly, in looking back i felt as if i accomplished pretty much everything that i had wanted. ate burritos with horchata and carne asada fries, boba and yogurt world up the ying yang, dumpling inn and on the hanging out front, saw everyone and anyone including old family friends that i hadnt seen at least since college, grace and aubrey, caught up with college friends, my godsister, frank and jennifer made an appearance, its amazing how busy i felt even with no schedule. finally tried persian food at ameer's house and of course, guitar hero dominated most of my break as well. i started off as an easy player and by the end of the week, i am now a full fledged hard bass player although the jump from hard bass to hard guitar is just too much of a gap, its going to take me a while.

i capped off the end of the year and break with a 1989 theme prom party for new years eve at lilly's and in a rare occurrence, all of us got into the spirit and foraged the thrift/vintage shops of san diego in search of the best outfit. mine was quite charming i assure you and the party didnt disappoint with its own bartender to boot. theres nothing like dancing to songs from your past where each and every song is dance worthy and the countdown was spent among close friends and well thats all one can really ask for these days.

this is probably the longest time that my twin and i have spent together and we got along beautifully, or at least i think we did. while being dropped off at the airport, i was quite sad to have to head home but looking forward to it at the same time. but he will be coming along with james to stay with me for a couple weeks soon and as i have been telling everyone, it will either turn out to be a great load of fun or a big potential disaster. well see but if its anything like my xmas break, im all set and ready for it.

im slowly starting to get into the holiday season and the timing couldnt be better as im off to michigan tomorrow where its supposed to snow four to five inches tonight and tomorrow so i really might be enjoying a white holiday for myself. my office mate and i even bought christmas lights today to put up and i have to say, i did a pretty darn good job. but of course we purchased too short of a string so only her side of the office is lit up while my side is completely blank. figures. we even bought snow in a bottle and have grand plans to draw a little village on our door. knowing that both of our drawing skills are a bit lacking, we are accountants after all, i practiced my xmas tree and snowman on a piece of paper first and i think im ready.

while christmas is usually a favorite holiday for most people, ive never been that into buying presents or putting up xmas trees or anything of that sort but this year, im really starting to enjoy walking around the city with its twinkling blue lights on the trees or the parking meters made up like candy canes and im even participating in our office white elephant ornament party and stocking stuffer activities.

the only thing im dreading is the cold weather in michigan and the fact that my eczema will probably be acting up but ill have my tub of cetaphil cream with me to combat any dryness.

did anyone else watch the movies rock celebration that was on friday night? i dvr'd it and spent my sunday afternoon watching it while i really should of been studying but procrastinate i did and the show was great. they should just get rid of all of the awards shows and just do more of these. what could be better than some of your favorite classic songs from your childhood being sung by artists of today? my only complaint was that i wish there were more performances but ill take it.

my favorite had to have been carrie underwood's rendition of sound of music since that is one of my all time favorite movies...i just wish there could of been a bit of doe, a deer, a female deer in there but ill take whatever i can get. isnt it crazy to think that she came from american idol and jennifer hudson was also one of the performers and she wowed the crowd as well. with so many great singers out there, i feel a bit ashamed to have supported britney in buying her new cd a couple of weeks ago (the first cd ive purchased in who knows how long) but i couldnt deny the inner teen bop in me.

watching this really brought me back to my childhood and isnt it amazing how just hearing the first few notes of a song can bring you back to the day. this makes me want to bust out all the old movies and just have a marathon night. i remember when my twin and i memorized the lyrics to part of your world from little mermaid and even to this day it makes me nostalgic just to hear it.

now if they would of only performed a song from top gun that would of just have made it that much more perfect but maybe next time.

i have a new boyfriend. her name is christine and she is my kickboxing instructor at the gym. im dedicated to her as ive never been before. ive faithfully attended her class every single week and in the past couple of months, ive only missed one or two classes total. i leave work on time for her, turn down any and all happy hour or dinner invites and plan all events around her. i even *gasp* set my alarm on a sunday morning to get myself up and one of my favorite things to do is sleep in on a weekend. i even make sure i dont drink too much the night before so i can get up on time...thats how dedicated i am. but its worth it, i love taking her classes and its such a good workout. this is probably the most consistent ive ever been in my life in going to the gym.

just last week i managed to force myself to go up and talk to her after class, really i just wanted to figure out the name of a song she plays that i am in love with and since she didnt know it offhand, she offered to make me a copy of the cd. and then what happens, i show up to class yesterday and not only did she remember that she was supposed to make me the cd (it has to wait though, she ran out of blank cd's at home) but she also remembered my name! i was shocked...and sadly enough it made me really happy. and since the class was the day before thanksgiving, it wasnt nearly as crowded as it usually is and so she warned us in the beginning that she would be walking around the room watching us so i made sure to concentrate doubly hard on the moves and do all the squats and situps my little heart could muster which might explain why im having a bit of trouble walking today.

but she informed us that she would be gone for the entire month of december and then back in january only to be gone again for another month...news which disappointed me greatly. im just not sure if ill be willing to commit myself to someone else although a girl has to get her workout somehow but it just wont be the same. i did find out though that she is from san diego as thats where she was heading for the holidays so my next step is to figure out just what part of san diego that is.

and yes ladies and gentlemen this is what gets me my jollies these days. ha

i found out this week that one of my ex's got engaged which would bring the total to two in the past month. november is already shaping up to not be the greatest of months for me what with spending thanksgiving alone for the first time in a while to look forward to but more on that for another blog.

so yes two of my ex's are now engaged and while i cant say i was completely shocked when i heard it was still a bit disconcerting. one cant help but reflect on things when this type of news travels your way and seeing how i am less than a year away from hitting the big 3-0 any type of marriage news is bad news these days. on top of this i also discovered pretty recently that another ex of mine is now a wedding photographer, a husband and wife team who take pretty damn good pictures i have to admit and seeing his picture after ten plus years really threw me for a loop and brought back some unfond memories. lets just say that relationship was a big sore point in my family leading to constant arguments and me jumping (yes jumping there was no ladder involved) out a two story window, living with a different family for a summer and a mark on my record as a runaway. although my twin did benefit from the late curfew hours i got for us...whether he put them to use is another story in itself.

im pretty sure ill be invited to both weddings with one of them taking place in just a few short months in the bahamas of all places and while i toyed with the idea of going, if anything more to just get a free place to stay at a sandals resort, the fact that the wedding takes place on a weekday probably makes that impossible. but i do fully intend on attending the second one. it will be my first wedding of an ex ever and well, all i can say is to my twin and sagging monk, better start clearing your calendars next year for all these weddings that are popping up.

my world was turned just a little bit upside down today and has left me confused, disappointed and unsure of who and what i can believe anymore. my faith in the good of people has been shattered just a bit and all i can do is try to make sense of it in my head but even after a full forty eight hours of trying to comprehend and digest it all, i still cant reconcile what ive learned and what i thought to be true. i had an idea this was the path we were headed or at least a small inkling that this was coming but the way it happened, how blindsided i was and now i feel like a fool by trusting and believing so much that at the end of the day, i dont think i can ever look or see things the same way again. its sad that it came to this but it certainly showed the true colors of some that i truly truly had faith in and while i understand that work is work and that office politics is just part of the game, if this is how it works then i want no part of it. i have never felt so let down in this type of situation before and my head is still reeling from the events of the week. i guess this is the perfect culmination of my past two months where i have attended three weddings and a funeral...just one more wedding and i could of been andie macdowell.

pretty ironic as tomorrow is "the" sixth anniversary. the last time i blogged about this topic was in 2003 and i will admit that in the past two or three years, i havent given much thought to this date, a fact i feel pretty guilty about but this year, ive been fully aware of it and feel the need to go visit the next time i am back home. ill be the first to confess that i havent fully dealt with my feelings nor do i really want to and shamefully have never gone to visit since the first year. im not even quite positive i would remember exactly where to go...isnt that horrible of me as a daughter? sure ive attempted to several times, even gotten in the car and been on my way there but every single time ive turned around and gone straight home or made a detour to somewhere else conveniently. but this year, i will be visiting if anything just to clear my head of some thoughts and to feel that bond again and if all works out, ill be back with a wing reminder to take home with me too.

a friend of mine went to kenya this summer and returned with this video...it touched me so much that i actually made the effort to try to figure out how to post videos on my blog and this is it

my thank you letter to those who donated but i wanted to post it as a reminder that today would be the day i completed my first 5k ever AND attended a justin timberlake concert (in just a couple hours!)

hi everyone - i did it!!! i can now officially say that ive participated in a 5k. my time wont set any records but i finished in a little under 40 minutes (by my unofficial count from my cell phone) and this was with my co worker with an infected toe! i honestly thought i would end up walking all of it since she could barely walk on friday but lo and behold we only walked for 14 minutes during the entire race. and for those that live in sf, i ran from the ballpark to the ferry bldg without stopping! ive never done that before.

i had so much fun and it was such a great experience and thank you all for supporting me and donating! :) i have never felt so accomplished in such a short time and it was awesome. yes i know its only a 5k but i get to bask in the glory of finishing for a little bit dont i?

i definitely want to do it again next year and hopefully youll want to join team wonderbras! we all got customized tshirts and they turned out really cute too as an extra incentive.

thank you so much i was definitely thinking of you guys during my run and how i didnt want to let you down!

i had the pleasure last night of going to dinner with my mom and some relatives and received the three (although i have four listed, i decided to break out personality and attitude separately for further clarification) key points when looking for a husband/wife and thought i would share my mom's wisdom with you all.

1) skill set - easiest way to put it is that they need to have some sort of skill that would be considered valuable by society standards and no that does not include surfing the net or sitting in front of the tv all day. the idea is that as long as they have some type of skills, this will hopefully ensure their continued employment irregardless of what the monetary gain is

2) personality - very self explanatory i would assume but do they have a positive outlook on life and are they fun to be with? after all you dont want to spend your entire life with someone who doesnt understand your sense of humor or laugh at the same jokes or enjoys the same activities. otherwise those years will stretch out to seem like an eternity and not the happily ever after we read about in fairy tales either

3) attitude - how do they treat those around them? are they only nice to you but treats their family and co workers the exact opposite? if the answer is yes the answer here is dump them. dump them now and get out while you can. you can thank me later

4) health - do they exercise? get regular checkups? take good care of themselves? all the stuff we never really worried about as a teenager but as we slowly start to creep up in the years, all the more vital. so if you are a smoker, i suggest you run out and buy your patch now and quit tomorrow. dont regularly floss? go to your local drugstore tonight and pick some up, i highly recommend purchasing the mint flavored floss and the citrus flavored mouthwash.

while these traits in a mate may seem to be fairly easy to find, i assured my mom that in this day and age it really is not as easy as learning your a b c's. its amazing how looking back to just a couple years ago, if she had told me the same thing i probably would of tuned her out but now that im older and wiser, im soaking up her advice like a sponge and if i get any other little nuggets of wisdom during her stay here, i will be sure to pass it along.

if you are a teeny bopper like me 9pm sunday was a must watch tv moment. i didnt dare believe it when i first heard the rumors but then when it was officially confirmed, i honestly thought this was it. the comeback ive been waiting for and i truly thought she could of pulled it off. the song surprised me, i found myself actually liking it, the beat was catchy, she looked as if she had lost most of the baby weight and the articles written about her rehearsals were positive. in fact they werent just positive they were absolutely raving about how great she was and how she was going to shock and surprise everyone...i was ready. so ready...its britney bitch!

but what the hell happened? i made sure to dvr the pre show, the show and the after show so i wouldnt miss a moment and holy bejesus as if you even need me to say it, all my dreams were crushed with that first shot of the back of her head. you would think for all the money that she makes, she could at least get some decent hair extensions but i could literally see holes where her scalp was showing through. ive seen pictures of her with just short hair recently and she should of just came out with that, she would of looked so much hotter.

and her outfit...where the hell was her publicist? her manager? why werent they there to get her to cover up her belly at least. i literally had to watch her performance with half my eyes covered and i just felt so embarrassed for her...i wont even go into the dancing or the lip syncing but supposedly one of her heels broke off during the show so i went back to go watch it and couldnt really tell if it was true or not. at this point i have watched it five or six times and the shot of 50 cent's face halfway through pretty much summed it all up. it would of been so great if she came out and blew everyone away.

damn what a disappointment. she danced better during her rehearsal video than during the show! as if britney wasnt bad enough, the entire show itself was a big letdown. i didnt get to catch most of it last night so i watched it on dvr today and the only decent parts were chris brown, alicia keys and timbaland and jt at the end and that was it. it took me less than 30 minutes to watch the entire two hour show and i hated that half the show took place in the suites. i know they were trying a new format to boost ratings and all but if i wanted to see half naked girls writhing around a pole id go to a strip bar. i want to see full on performances complete with laser beams and set backdrops and choreographed dancing with backup dancers ...i want the works isnt that the whole point of an awards show? none of this singing in a hotel room crap.

ill stop now but boy was i feeling let down after this although i havent completely given up yet. im still secretly hoping shell shock everyone at some point and make a career comeback, it will be the best thing ever. maybe her video will do it...i just want the old britney back!

you know you are getting old when on the morning of your 29th birthday you find yourself sitting in the office of a hand specialist getting a steroid shot directly into your inflamed tendon as a result of a bowling night more than three months ago. yes you heard me correctly...bowling. not the most glamorous of reasons right? imagine everyone asking you why you are wearing the wrist brace and having to explain that it was from bowling. usually the first question after that is along the lines of just how long were you bowling for? and the answer to that is four games of which i bowled damn well for and was the top two scorer for each of the games. at least it wasnt for nothing but that one night of bowling has caused me more pain and trouble in the past couple months than i would have ever imagined.

i was diagnosed with de quervain's tendonitis a little over two months ago with strict orders to wear a thumb spica splint 24/7 for a month and if things didnt get better, the next possibility was getting a steroid shot. the only problem with this was that the brace they gave me was so big and bulky that it was pretty much damn near impossible to type at work so i would only wear it at night. stupid i know but when your job is number crunching and excel is your life, not typing is pretty much out of the picture. so i would wear it while sleeping only to wake up in pain each morning as soon as the brace came off and the pain just got worse and worse so i went back to my doctor who referred me to a hand specialist and that is where i found myself this morning.

at this point i would of pretty much begged for that steroid shot but when the doctor actually told me he was going to give me one directly into where it hurt the most, i was starting to have second thoughts but before i could fully process everything, within 5 minutes, the needle was going into my wrist and boy did it hurt like hell and then continued on for the next couple hours. i could barely move my wrist but i was told that the pain should be gone in three or four days but i would still have to wear a brace for a month to give time for the tendons to heal. this time, im following doctors orders to the tee. i told him about my typing dilemma and he outfitted me with a much slimmer and dare i say fashionable one where my fingers are actually free to type. after all i am blogging am i not? not even a little tendonitis can keep my away from updating this thing for my faithful readers.

when i initially got the brace, even though it was pretty cumbersome, i thought it was pretty damn cool that i had to wear one since ive never had a brace of any kind before. ive never broken any bones, never needed a cast for anything so this was pretty much the closest ive ever gotten to having a real injury. sure it may not sound so cool once people find out its from bowling but i felt like i was a tough chick walking around with that thing. although i really should learn how to embellish my stories a little better in person and sound convincing at the same time so that i could get away with some much better reasons, bar fight, skateboarding accident, you name it. although im not sure how cool it is once you see "the hand center" logo plastered on my brace.

a great start to my last year in my "20's" but rest assured that ill be following doctors orders and wearing this thing all the time now because i certainly dont want to have surgery and ive been warned that would be the next step although only 10% of the people even need to take it to that next level. so lets hope this works and that you will be seeing me back in a bowling alley in the near future.

i signed up for a 5k a week or so ago much to the shock of most of my friends and for good reason too because i dont run. ever. i might do a step or kickboxing class here and there even branching out to hip hop and strip tease every once in a while but running? never. i always found it to be so monotonous the couple of times i have ventured out there but i knew i wanted to sign up for a 5k one of these days so when my friend started her own team i had to join. plus its for a good cause (breast cancer) and as an extra incentive, were all going to wear matching pink t shirts...thats the plan anyways.

i even coerced my co worker to join with me so i can have someone to partner with since im sure ill be the lagger of the team. i had originally signed up with the intention of walking the entire time but as people have been donating money to help my fundraising (im well over my goal of $250 already!) i felt that i should really put forth some extra effort so now ive set for myself a goal of jogging/walking the entire way. a big upgrade i know.

but i even went online and printed out a how to go from a couch potato to running a 5k in just two months. seeing how i only have six weeks until my event, i skipped right ahead to week 4 and today was my first real day of training and following the guidelines. i have to say, it went by pretty fast, i stayed on the stupid treadmill for a little over 20 minutes jogging/walking a little over 1.5 miles which i dont think is very fast but i followed my little guideline to the tee. and surprisingly, because i was so damn focused on the time and alternating between walking and jogging in the intervals it said that it was probably the fastest 20 minutes that i have ever passed on the treadmill. now i am known for starting lots of things and not following through to the end so i dont want to jinx things too much seeing how its still the very beginning stages but ive set my mind to really sticking with this plan and i may just surprise myself at the end of this. thats what im hoping for anyways.

everyone has been super supportive of me which i greatly appreciate...quite unlike my twin whose initial reaction was, youre asking for money for a 5k? try a marathon first to which my retort was...a 5k IS like a marathon for me and if you dont believe me, just ask those who ive gone running with after getting winded after just two blocks.

so wish me luck and ill be sure to keep my faithful readers updated on my progress.

of course the one week that i didnt vote, my favorite girl was kicked off. figures with the week that ive been having. now im not sure who im going to root for anymore, pasha maybe? although my bet is for lacey to win it all...benjis sister of all people. too bad this wasnt a piano/flute duo competition, im sure my twin and i would take it all. and to make things even worse, for some reason the show never got recorded on my dvr so i was only able to catch the last thirty minutes of it and missed all the solos. i was looking forward to it all day today too and i here i sit, after having had a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner with a glass of wine fuming at the fact that the one and only time my dvr has failed on me has to happen today of all days. there really is no justice but i will pick myself up and stop ranting and raving for a second to ask, is anyone up for going to the tour with me?

dragonlance. for those not in the know, dragonlance is a series of science fiction books which up until a couple of weeks ago i had entirely no interest in reading. back in the day, while my recollection was always of my twin immersing himself in dragonlance books, I was always on the complete opposite end of the spectrum in reading babysitter's club, books by mary higgins clark and sweet valley high with anne of green gables and the little house on the prairie series thrown in for good measure. but recently i was presented with a draglance book and if it had been given to me under different circumstances or anyone else i would of laughed in their face and said, i don’t do science fiction and handed it right back to them. but i found myself picking up the book one night and starting to read it little by little fearful of what i would learn but intrigued at the same time.

it took me a while to get into it, a couple pages here and there as i do all my reading right before bedtime and since ive never been into any type of fantasy games (magic or dungeons and dragons), i really had no clue what an elven dwarf or kender is or what they even look like or if im even using these words properly at the moment. i really had a hard time trying to picture them in my head and on top of that, i found i also had trouble remembering fictitious city names or characters (fistandantilus - I still don’t know how to pronounce this properly or tika? tas? pretty similar to me) and had to flip back every so often to refresh my mind of who exactly they were in the story and all this is probably why i never had any type of interest in science fiction ever. i never really understood role playing or why it was so fun but to be fair, this might be because in reading this book, i forced myself to read it word for word and not to just gloss over certain paragraphs when it got boring and you know what, after a while i started really getting into it.

i found myself staying up longer and longer to read each night and even brought the book down with me to san diego and stayed up till the wee hours of the morning just to finish as i was so concerned to see the outcome but lo and behold, what did i find? this book was part of a trilogy! i was not forewarned of this, if i would of known i wouldn’t have been expecting there to be a decisive ending but imagine my disappointment when i got to the end and poof there was nothing. it ended without really ending if you know what i mean. I even flipped in disbelief thinking some of the pages might have been ripped out by accident and only then did i notice on the inside cover of the book that there were other two books listed in this series. what a huge letdown.

i was all set to go out and buy the other two, yes that is how engrossed in them i was and when i need a book i need it right away but then i learned that my twin had the other two books and boy oh boy was there a crapload of dragonlance books at home. two whole shelves worth in fact and this in no way means i intend on reading all of them but i found a couple other interesting ones i could probably get into. im always looking for new books to read, i go through them pretty fast and i never know what books to buy when I enter a bookstore. some of my best books were recommended by friends or stolen off their bookshelves so for my faithful readers, if you know of any good books please email them my way. i wont go into details here but i feel like i could write a whole essay on the parallels between my life and this book but i wont. its been a while since a good book has passed my way that I really liked, the last one i can remember was seven types of ambiguity but nobody i know has read it yet so i couldn’t even discuss the ending with them, as in what the hell happened? but now its been so long since I read it that I probably have to re-read it again to refresh my memory. science fiction, who knew?

ive been on a quest lately in trying to cook more and eat out less and this doesnt just mean heating up a lean cuisine for dinner either, this involves actual grocery shopping with purchasing of real vegetables and meat, not the frozen kind. shocking yes i know but ive been doing this for a couple weeks now, at least on weekdays anyways and im really starting to get discouraged. what ive found is that i lack that "chefs instinct" of knowing when something is done or whether it needs more sauce and regardless of what i do, all my dishes taste exactly the same. ive even followed a receipe or two and every single time, something has gone wrong and not once has anything turned out like i imagined. the first recipe was one i received for shoyu chicken which seemed really easy as there were no more than five ingredients total, all recognizable which is my number one criteria in choosing recipes (i dont even attempt to make anything if i dont know what everything is, which limits my options quite a lot as you can imagine) and the instructions were also five steps long. but even with faithfully following everything step by step, i still somehow managed to burn the soy sauce and the brown sugar had turned lumpy on me that it literally became a paste over the chicken that it was barely edible. my apartment smelled like burnt soy sauce for a good week or so but i forced myself to eat it as i had wasted close to half a bag of brown sugar on this thing.

then there was the other time when i was making oven roasted vegetables which sounds pretty easy right? cut up some veggies, drizzle olive oil and pop it into the oven it says. yes i have a recipe book for this too...just to give you an idea of just how little i know. but instead of modifying the ingredients for the amount of veggies that i had, i put in exactly what it said and ended up eating salt for dinner. im telling you, all of this is really starting to make me think that ill never be able to cook and should maybe just stop trying. in the time ive taken on this new mission, ive eaten chicken which started bleeding when i tried cutting into the middle, eaten salmon that was still raw on the inside and i think my worst was when i didnt even boil my frozen edamame completely through. it said boil for three minutes on the package which is exactly what i did, i even timed myself with the microwave clock. it really is depressing.

but all is not lost however as i have learned a couple of things in this experience. i now know the difference between a cucumber and a zucchini, i feel like grocery stores should just put them right next to each other to clearly distinguish between the two, im sure lots of other people have made this mistake before. i also bought asparagus for the first time in my life and my next steps are to learn how to cook green and yellow peppers just because ive always wanted to buy some if only to just add a splash of color to my shopping cart. i sort of know how to cut cauliflower and broccoli now although the first time i tried it i literally cut my finger and ive discovered that for some reason or other i really enjoy cutting meat. i hope thats not too weird?

for now though, i will keep on chugging along if only because its saving me money from eating out all the time and maybe one day miraculously everything will just come together and ill finally be able to make a dish that is cooked all the way through, not burnt and have a little bit of flavor. that is all i ask. when i find that dish, you can bet ill be having myself a dinner party. at least i always have a good stash of wine to wash it down with or to mask the taste if needed.

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.