day of disgruntlement

What the title says. Whether it be my disgruntlement or a friend's, does it matter? It was a Monday.

at the "heights" of my fanaticism

Yea, go ahead and groan at my pun but it's almost 2:30am and I'm wide awake. I'm allowed to have some bad jokes at this hour.

I guess I've been absent from this blog for a while. I've decided to come back (for tonight, at least) to extol the praises on the Los Angeles cast of In the Heights. If I could buy a recording of the show with this cast, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I'm currently infatuated with Arielle Jacobs and Rogelio Douglas Jr, who play Nina and Benny, respectively. I did some undercover work (read: google) and discovered that they were both considered for the Broadway show, but they ended up doing the national tour while waiting for their chance to star. Lucky for people like me!

Arielle has the prettiest voice ever. It brings out an innocent version of Nina as opposed to the strong willed Nina that Mandy Gonzalez (OBC) presented. And it doesn't hurt that Arielle is super cute -- pretty betty! And is quite possibly the nicest person in the world. That last opinion is purely based on a 30 second conversation post-show when I asked for her autograph and photo.

And then there's Rogelio. My goodness, this man grows more and more on me every time I see him or watch a video clip. Mad dance skillz and a wonderfully soulful voice combine to what I can only describe as hotness.

Put both Arielle and Rogelio together as Nina and Benny, my two favorite characters in the show, and I am dying to go watch it again. Or listen. Or both. They have great chemistry on stage and I love how their voices harmonize together.

The tour comes to Sacramento during the first two weeks of November. Road trip? :)

P.S. Here's some links to watch if I haven't shared it with you already:

Arielle -- http://www.kost1035.com/common/edhardy_studio/index.php?id=85

Rogelio -- http://www.kost1035.com/common/edhardy_studio/index.php?id=87

true love waits

Conversation after I booked rooms for a wedding in April. I'm talking to Mike, who hasn't booked his room yet.

Christine: jacuzzi suite is all taken though
Christine: sorry buddy
Christine: won't be able to seduce the ladies that way
Mike: damn!
Mike: i want the cheapest room they have
Mike: that way i know its true love if a girl comes back with me

sounds so familiar..

http://clientsfromhell.tumblr.com/

Thanks to Elise for this linkie.

My favorite so far:

Client: “This is absolutely wrong. Where’s all the HTML. We want the HTML?”

Me: “I don’t understand. All the files should be on the flash drive we gave you yesterday.”

Client: “Well… whats all this php jumbo-mumbo?”

Me: “PHP is just a language. It does all the work for your CMS. You can’t have CMS with only HTML files.

Client: “I get it. You just don’t understand. WEB-SITES-ARE-MADE-OF-H-T-M-L… or did you not learn that in whatever school you went to?”

Me: “I didn’t go to college.”

Client: “I’m working with a bunch of idiots.”

not because you're ugly...

Marketing Designer to Doris:

"i'd like to use another picture of you"
long pause.......
"not because you looked ugly, or anything"

basketball, catchphrase

The weekend was full of fun-tastic activities. Haha. I truly enjoy hanging out with my team. It's the reason why I don't flinch at the $200-300 registration fees for tournaments. We formed Vertically Challenged during my senior year of college which was in 2004 so we've been a team for 6 years. The members have changed throughout the years due to injuries, grad school, and even pregnancy (Irene, one day you'll read this so I say hi!). Six years of friendship, including my roommates of 5 years, began from a sport. Gosh, I love basketball.

We didn't do so well this tournament. Our losses were close games, but sometimes that makes it feel more disappointing. Oh well. Since that part was a tad depressing, that's all I'll say about it.

On to the fun stuff! It's Ro's birthday on Thursday so someone brought an Oreo ice cream cake the celebrate in addition to shots of chocolate cake. We did all this while playing electronic Catchphrase. It's my favorite game of the moment. Playing Catchphrase can be pretty revealing. Last weekend, we learned whose mother shops at Ross, which of our friends are Harry Potter nerds (*raises hands), and just how politically knowledgable/unknowledgable we are. This weekend, we discovered how people clean out belly button lint (that was definitely TMI), the concept of free trade, and other fun facts. Catchphrase is fun, but it's even better when accompanied with some drinks. :D

Note to self: I need to visit 85 degrees C in Irvine. My coworker raved about this cafe/bakery so much that another coworker made the trek down there just to try it. We swung by the plaza but the line was so long that the thought of waiting in the pouring rain dissuaded us from going in. I also learned that I need to bring back taro bread for my coworkers who have never heard of it.

I wish I talked in my sleep...

...because then I would have a hilarious site like this!

http://www.sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/

And it would be viral. And I could sell goods based on random things that I said while sleeping.

Heck, I don't even know if I snore...

Nocturnal

I am a heavy sleeper. Or it's time for me to buy a new alarm clock. I set two alarms in the morning, one with my alarm clock and one on my phone. When I opened my eyes this morning, the clock said 9:45am. Good thing I set my clock one hour ahead! So I wasn't as late as I thought I'd be.

Of course, maybe I'm not really a heavy sleeper. It could be attributed to the fact that I've been up super late watching CHUCK season 2. I'm determined to watch enough episodes for season 2 so that I can catch up to season 3 on hulu. And I will.

But now I'm tired and I need to get to bed at a decent hour for the first time this week. Good night!

clusterf*ck day

What a crap day. Problems from the moment I stepped into the office and up to when I left the office... wait, I was still working on it just now from home. But now I'm done. And tomorrow will be better. I have to believe that or I will be very depressed.

Remind me never to walk into work after 9am unless I have an appointment. It feels like everything goes wrong when I come into work "late". I put the word in quotes because most people on the tech team step in between 9:30am and 10am.

I'm hoping to start up TKD again soon minus the jumping, twisting and kicking. That leaves me with form stances and weapons. ^_^ But that means I'll have to get into work early so I can leave on time to make classes. I can't wait!

Welp. Now that I'm done dealing with problems for the day, I am going to the GYM. Woooo. Let's see how crowded it is around 9pm. My boss told me to ask the front desk person at 24HR Fitness how many people checked into the gym for the day and log the results. It'd be interesting to see the drop off percentage over time. We're such nerds. (But you know you're dying to find out too!)

A Humdrum Day

First day back at work for 2010. Nothing exciting happened at work. It's not like Alias where Sydney saves the day at least once a week.

I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon today. He gave my knee the good ol' drawer test and mumbled to himself, "I like that!". Funny man. He really loves his work. Knee has the thumbs up and in a month, I should be running again. Woot!

In other news, I stopped by Carls Jr. for a 6 dollar burger on the way home from work because I've been craving a burger. Heck, I crave a burger at least once every three days. (Burgers and mac n' cheese are my biggest food weaknesses. Not necessarily together.) I picked up my soda cup and it promptly spilled all over my clothes AND my Totoro seatbelt cover. This is the second time in a row that the cup cover has failed to keep the drink IN the cup. I think it's a sign. Either I shouldn't get drive-thru food anymore or I need to stop drinking soda. Or both. Maybe this should be a New Years resolution, the first of the year because I never remember any resolutions that I come up with.

We're watching The Soloist now while I digest my food. I told Swan I wanted to watch something happy and this is what she decides on. So far, it's pretty depressing and depicts Los Angeles as the ghetto-est place ever. I'm hoping that it'll get more uplifting as the movie progresses. Otherwise, I need to pop in Lilo & Stitch or Mulan.

Linda watched The Soloist in theaters. She told me that she fell asleep during the middle of the movie. She has a tendency to fall asleep during movies with no prejudice towards any particular genre. Occasionally if it's a good movie, she stays awake. But this is not the case for The Soloist. I have Donut lying next to me, occasionally twitching while dreaming. Linda's left hand is draped over Donut, her head resting on the sofa back and her right hand laying on her knee twitching, fast asleep. Haha.

I don't wanna go back to work

"I don't want to go back to work" *sad face

I think I've read that or some form of that at least 20 times tonight on Facebook, Twitter and IM. Yours truly is guilty of being one of them. I only went to work once in the past 11 days. But alas, gotta get back to the grind at some point.

I've been residing in the Covina area or Las Vegas in the past couple weeks and now that I'm back in Los Angeles, I LOVE THE WARM WEATHER. Covina is southern California, but sitting here in my apartment in shorts and a tshirt is true warm weather. Covina is COLD. Too close to the mountains? I suppose this means I'll never be able to live on the East coast for an extended amount of time. Just thinking about snow and ice makes me shudder.

I finished a book today. It's the first book in a while that wasn't made for young adults (Twilight, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief). It helps that I'm stuck on cardio machines -- that's at least 40 minutes of reading time right there. The book is titled The Way of the Shadow. Swan recommended it to me because it focuses on the life of an assassin that's akin to the way of the ninja. I definitely got hooked on it and now I'm moving on to the second book in the series. :)

So...the past 3 nights, I went to sleep at 4am, 3am, and 5am respectively and woke up in the afternoon. Let's hope I wake up in time for work tomorrow!

Second!

Random question: Second day of the year and I woke up at 12:30pm. Does that mean I really only had a second half of the day?

Chill time with Joy today. Joy's normally over on the East coast freezing during the winter but getting an education at NYU. We watched Avatar, had dinner, and then watched 500 Days of Summer. Great movies, great food. Good times! During the course of the time, she mentioned that her cousin likes to make Youtube movies starring his stuffed dog Tugs. He's 11 years old:



So random yet so funny. :)

Twenty Ten!

It's a new year. It's a new day. It's a new life....

Well, it's almost the end of the day, but I will commemorate it with a new blog post. (And props to anyone who recognized the Michael Buble reference.)

I've given up on saying anything meaningful on this blog. Really, I just need somewhere to type when I have the most random thoughts while being in a caffeine-induced hyperness. :D

I spent the past week in Vegas with my parents, aunt and brother. Let me tell you, it sucks to be in Vegas and not be able to drink. Really -- why else would you be there other than to gamble and drink? In my parents' case, you go to Sin City to take photos. They asked a poor tourist passing by to take FIVE shots of our family because the lighting in the first four weren't acceptable. My brother and I shook our heads at the man's folly. At least he spoke English. Can you imagine if it were a Chinese speaking tourist? (Actually, he might understand the universal language of amateur photography.)

Also, I wouldn't recommend going to Vegas if you're unable to walk more than a mile at a time. We spent a lot of time trying to be creative with parking and driving routes because of my current handicap. That creativity came to a halt when New Year's Eve came around. Las Vegas Blvd was closed off so all those "secret" side streets were jam packed. All the hotels limit access to the parking garages for hotel guests with room keys. However, my parents are smart and parked at the Bellagio early in the morning, leaving our van there all day. Around 1am, they opened up a way to exit through the employee parking lot. That was pretty cool. It's like finding hidden Mickey's in a cast member-only area.

The streets were packed as expected. The fireworks were cool -- the same show/sequence shot off of seven hotel roofs, all at the same time. My mom only went out there to observe the crowd on Las Vegas Blvd in person. That's it. Not the fireworks but the crowd. Silly mom.

I wish I could say that Vegas was more exciting, but it wasn't. I saw a lot of drunk people, wished that I was drunk too, and wished that I would stop getting injured.

So here's to an injury-free 2010!! CHEERS!


And to end the first post o' the year...

I enjoy finding YouTube hits because it's interesting to see people out there who can utilize this online media well. I remember watching Sam Tsui before but he just came out with a medley of Lady Gaga songs. And it rocks. Check it out:



It was recommended by Joy, who I will quote:

i've listened to [the medley] 20 times already. i've wasted like two days on sam tsui youtubes.