Eviction

Wow. So today Hubby and I found out that we are getting evicted. Why? Cuz we were running a meth lab and caused a small explosion accidentally. I mean, it's just a small explosion. Geez-wheez.

Okay, just kidding. We are being forced to move cause the landlady decided to sell her property. :( No harsh feeling. Just came very sudden. Should have seen it coming when she didn't press to renew the lease when it expired back in February. =.= Funny thing was, when I saw the enveloped addressed to Hubby and I (oddly enough, after 3 years of marriage, not a lot of mail goes to both of us), I was kidding about it's an eviction notice. Had to open my big mouth.

My only reaction was giggled all night long over the ludicrousness of this. This will be the SIXTH times in FOUR years. Even my online friend from Singapore asked me: aren't you tired of moving yet?

Interesting enough. The friends I told freaked out more than I did. "So what are you going to do?!" they asked. "Move," I told them, like I have another option? It's alright. Other than my full time job and full load at college, Hubby and I (and even Kitty) are already experts in moving.

A Successful Blog

What makes a successful blog? Well, I suppose interesting matarial will be a good first bet.

I started blogging about 2 years ago. Yeah, I know, this blog does not go back two years. I started Banana Tree House blog when I moved to San Diego and it was sunny and I had a low stress job so everyday all I want to do is blog, blog, blog. Then I moved to bloody bay area (silicon valley) a year ago and life sucked out here and all I could think of was bitter thoughts. At least I had the sense to realize that no strangers out there would care about sitting in front of their computer and read pages and pages about me bitching about my work and my coworkers so I stopped wriing altogehter. But, alas, one cannot deny the writing bug. I itch to write again. So Banana Tree House turned into Banana Bread Pudding. Interestingly enough, I don't even like banana all that much.

But I digressed (surprise). The article I read about blogging have 10 tips to make a great blog. I only remember 2 now: have a theme and post regularly. Ugh. Does my random thoughts count as a theme? I hope it can, cause I am a very random person. :) As to regularly... those of you who know me would know how long I can sustain my attention span. Doing something persistently is almost impossible to me. XD My friend M said, "Everything to you is a fling." hahahahaha

Super DVD Thing

And per Hubby's request, the "Super DVD Thingie" is also known as Home Theater PC. :P

***

So a couple of days ago our DVD player died. Prior to this one, we own an el cheapo made in China (what's not made a China nowadays? Oh yeah, those that are made in India instead), which died promptly after a year. Okay, afterall, what could one expect out of the cheapest DVD you can find at Fry's? So we bought a $200 LG one, which also promptly died after exactly one year (probably to the exact day after the warranty expired). As a man, Hubby wanted to attempt fixing the broken DVDs (yeah, he still has the dead boy of the el cheapo). As a woman, I kindly informed him that DVD players are obviously disposable now and to just buy another el cheapo one. After all, the blue ray ones will be coming soon. (Coming soon as in affordable customer prices.)

Again, as a man, Hubby still want a solution to the problem. So he is going to build his own Super DVD Thing by hooker up a super computer to the TV!! It'll have your regular DVR function, super capacity (dual 300 GB harddrives which I just bought yesterday! From FRY's!), and best of all, I'll be able to burn programs onto DVD directly! :D Of course, when all is said and done it'll come out to about $1,000, but who's counting? I'll try and track the progress as this SDT is being constructed.

Components so far:

Maxtor 300 GB Harddrives x 2 = $160

For everything else, there's MasterCard.

My Home Theater :D

Again, I've exercised my excellent shopping skill at FRY'S and found the following items that'd look absolutely adorable in my future home theater. I can't wait to just line them all up in a row. XD Check out the Old Fashion Nostalgia line of hot dog roller, cotton candy maker, ice cone dispenser, and the indispensable popcorn maker. :D (And I don't even eat popcorn. hahaha)

 
 
 
  

Teddy Bear Eating Car!

I saw this car in San Francisco, and I just have to take a picture of it. :) I didn't know anyone can hate a poor, innocent teddy bear that much! O.o

  

House Warming Gift Idea :D

So I saw this Santa Fe quesadilla maker n margarita sunrise set at Fry's the other day. I know, what a strange place to find kitchen stuff. For those of you who has no idea what Fry's is, I believe it's whole name is "Fry's Electronics," folks usually go there for computers and accessories. It takes a true shopaholics to find something they want at virtually any shops. Don't be jealous, it's a gift.

I think I need a new house (at the very minimum move out of this dinky little place in the bay area) to go with the quesadilla and margarita set. :D I think that'll be my housewarming gift for myself after Hubby and I move to Palmdale. BUT, if anyone wants to buy that for me as a gift, please don't let me stop you. :D

Mickey Kitchen

As I have mentioned before. I'm not a big Disney fan, but definitely like the Mickey series of kitchen ware. I went browing on their website today and found these following interesting items:

 
 
 

My fav is the Mickey fruit rack, but Hubby obviously thinks I'm out of my mind. :P 

Movie: Derailed

I've got to stop signing up for month plans only to keep the first two movies that we rented for two months. =.= At this rate, we are better off just BUYING the movies up front. *sighs*

Anyways, before I digress too much, which I do a lot (see what I mean?), back to the movie. I went to Hollywood video to nab the movie the first day it came out, only so I can watch it today. Story of my life.

The movie was, WOW. Yet another example of why you don't need Hollywood big budget explosion or special effect to make a good movie. Don't get me wrong, I like those too, Harry Potter, Terminator, Jurassic Park. All I am saying is: it's not the ONLY thing. Just like we have more than just Kung Fu genre in Asian movies. Yes, I know it's very hard be believe. But why WOULD the Asians make anything OTHER than Kung Fu? An Asian movie based on the MODERN time? Huh?

I like the movie a lot, has it's twists at a thriller. And I particular like movies that tie in all the lose ends at the end. Everything that seemed out of place at the time, and including those little hints that you overlooked all made sense. They were foreshadows, they were clues that suggest the big twists in the end.

Again, great movie. Definitely worth the time to watch it.

Movie: Memoirs of a Geisha

So I finally got around to watching this wonderful movie. I've loved the book. I can't recall off the top of my head a lot of books that I can say I loved, but this is one of them. The movie sticked to the book as much as it could, except for the end they didn't go to New York, but in all honesty, that'll just make the movie seemed more fragmented. The ending was just fine. It was true to the original.

I am baffled why critics didn't give this movie a higher rating. Everybody said it wasn't a very good movie. I had refused to read the critics before watching the movie. I didn't want them to ruin it for me. I remembered there were complaints about using Chinese actors for the Japanese females roles. Okay, I can see that. But this is primarily an US movie. It's even done in English. How many Americans can really tell Japanese and Chinese apart?! As to how the actresses have heavy accent. Well, get over it. Especially those who can only speak one language.

I think it just get a low rating because (1) it's not based on US pop culture (there's a world exist outside of US? Nooooo!) (2) the plot is not simple enough. God forbid, no good v. evil and the good prevails in the end? Blasphemy! and (3) where's all the hollywood big budget explosions?! Oh, and I almost forgot, (4) a "foreign film" thats NOT kung fu? What is this world coming to??

In short, Geisha is an excellent movie. It was olso beautifully choregraphed but not so deliberate like the usual Asian films made for the US market with stupid plots. It's worth your time and your money.

Ethics

Got to love those self-reporting work ethics questions. Seriously, if
I have embezzled $1 million from work before, would I admit to it? My
favorites are the ones that ask whether you "believe" in certain
behaviors, not whether you have committed them, or wether you will,
but wether you believes <em>others</em> do. For example:

"Do you believe that people steal from work?"

Why, of course! I've seen it with my own eyes. Wouldn't that make me
stupidly naive if I don't believe in something that I have witnessed
with my own eyes? And just how does that relate to <em>my</em> ethic?

"Do you believe that people call in sick when they are not really sick?"

Oh, c'mon. I didn't see that one with my own eyes, but have heard with
my own ears management complainting that some workers will just use up
their one sick day a month quota by randomly calling in sick once a
month, usually a Monday or Friday. How can I not believe that someone
somewhere will have no qualms about doing that?

Why don't they just ask, "Will you do that?" It doesn't matter how you
phrase the stupid questions, we still know what you are trying to get
at.

In fact, those who would commit such a thing probably would be
<em>less</em> likely to give an honesty answer. Perhaps they should
just reverse the grading system and test for honesty and integrity,
huh? How about that?

Not Enough Love?

I listened to a radio show with Ho-Sun Chan, the director of Perhaps Love. And it was, to say the least, very thought provoking. He said, as far as Chinese movies go, Hong Kong and Taiwan are very small markets, so it's either mainland China, or the US. And whilst folks in mainland China might actually watch more foreign films than US folks, they prefer the pirated versions of them. And it's not just the cost, but the censorship. Therefore, the better the movie, the more one has to watch a pirated version of it. And the only movies that people will pay to watch in a theater has to be considered "big." He said he doesn't want to do a regular kung fu film with romance. That's just like a West Side Story (yes, he said that in English, this *is* a radio show in the bay area :P). In stories like that people don't question about whether they really want (love) or not, they just want it because others tell them they can't have it. On the other hand, his movies are about not enough love. He said in modern days, there are not such thing is forbidden love anymore. Anyone is free to love anyone else. That's when people actually question whether they really want it or not. And that's why his movies are not about too much love, but not enough love.

Wow, I never thought of it that way. "Not enough love." I've always thought romance = A loves B, B doesn't love A, B loves C, C doesnt' love B, and so on and so forth. OR it can be like "Grey's Anatomy," just have sex with the next available man/woman. Not enough love is definitely a brand new concept for me.

The SCS

I've been told by multiple coworkers at multiple jobs that I am infected with the SCS. The SCS, short for Single Child Syndrome infects those who are, well, single children, and can also infect those who has such a big age difference with their siblings that they are practically raised like a single child. Symptoms include: selfishness, self-centerness, and an unwillingness to share.

 

Luckily, Hubby is also a SCS infectee, so we feel that it's perfectly normal to have two separate sets of various items at home, i.e. personal computers, laptops (yes, we each has one of each!), etc.