T Minus 2 Days

I'm so overwhelmed with packing for my long trip --- visiting Hong Kong for almost 3 weeks! Craziness. I just keep thinking of things that I might need. But, I don't know if I'll need it. And it takes up a lot of space. Argh! What to do!?!??!

It's been a busy week of doing nothing. I actually hung out with Will and Lany on Monday... at Valley Fair! We shopped and ate at Nordstrom Cafe. I believe we've convinced Will of its greatness. Yay! Yesterday, I went to Oakland to help my mom pack up her office --- she's moving!!! And she fed me awesome Asian food that I used to eat all the time. I also had dinner with Priya and Phuong at night. Girl talk is always fun. And today, it's been chaos getting everything together for the trip. Sigh. Plus Chris left for NY! Booo.

More packing, scrambling to buy last minute presents and necessities, and hoping that I'll have everything ready by Friday morning. Yikes. Better get some sleep.

Melting Pot

I've never had fondue in my life! So, last night's dinner at The Melting Pot in San Mateo was quite an experiences. We learned a number of things. First, fondue for dinner is a whole night ordeal. We were there for about 3 hours. We agreed that it's not a place to take a first date because if you don't have anything to talk about, you're literally going to be staring at each other for a few hours. Yikes. Secondly, cheese is really filling. It's suuuper heavy and rich. And I think it stuck to my insides the entire night. Gross. The main course was decent --- it's like hot pot, except you use skewers to cook things in wine and chicken broth! Yay! We had lobster, filet mignon, assorted veggies, other meats like sausage, chicken, beef, etc. Lastly, the best part of fondue (and if I ever go again, this is the only course I'll order) is dessert. We had dark chocolate with cookies and marshmallows!!! Sooo good. They give you a platter of strawberries, bananas, rice krispies, cake, and more goodness to dip dip dip in warm chocolate!!!

It was pretty fun since we had all never been there, but yeah... it was a long dinner. We also exchanged Secret Santa gifts! Woot! Stef was my Secret Santa and I was hers (this is the second year in a row that this has happened). Strange. After dinner, we headed up to Double Dutch in the Mission because that was where Anna was. It's a small hip hop bar that had a TV that played breakdancing competition footage, a showcase of sneakers, and wall of old school boom boxes. We had a few drinks before heading home EARLY as usual. Boy, we are getting too old to stay out past 1am. Haha. Really sad.

Our Very Own Holiday Party

Banana Cream Pie

I had an odd craving for banana cream pie last night, so I convinced Stef and Young to go with me to Heidi's Pies in San Mateo. Mmm mmm delicious. I also like banana cream pie from Marie Callendar's. That might be the next stop.

So the past couple of days, I've been mooching off of Google. I got free lunches (not once, but twice this past week) and also a buncha free drinks! It's like I never left! Haha. We were saying how Google is a lot more fun when you don't work there, but get to reap the benefits. Oooh la la.

Tonight is our annual holiday party. Yeah, just one tradition that we started amongst friends. It's not affiliated with anything. Duh. We're going to The Melting Pot in San Mateo! It'll be my first fondue experience, so I'll update about it later (not to mention, yelping). Wooo hooo to it being almost Christmas.

Have a good weekend y'all!

Jessica Alba

... is pregnant! That is the exciting news of the day. See? Yesterday, it was about finance. Today, it's celebrity news. I'm very well-rounded.

Yesterday, I went to Crossroads Trading Co. in San Jose and sold some of my old clothes. It was mostly clothes that are just taking up space in my closet because I never ever wear them. I made about $60! Nice! I also put my Michael Kors bag up at the store for consignment or something. It means if someone actually buys the purse, I get half of the selling price! Woot! This is how I'm making money now... I should start a used-stuff store too. Interesting thought.

Stef's parents came over last night also and invited me along for dinner. How exciting! We tried a restaurant in Cupertino Village that Mrs. Chin was not a fan of. It's so popular though. A lot of people eat there. I think it's cuisine from Northern China because they have this weird dish with cornbread. Yes, Chinese people who eat cornbread. Craziness. It was not that delicious, so maybe our palates are not aligned with the cuisine. In other words, we don't get it.

Anyways, today was hardly interesting. I have some errands to run and then I'm heading up for our monthly Santa Ramen night. We <3 <3 <3 that place. Yippeee!!!

Financial News

Big news in finance --- the Fed is lowering interest rates by .25. Just thought that might be interesting to some readers. Oh, who am I kidding... I'm just really bored. This is the BREAKING NEWS!

Celebrity Sighting

What I spent this past weekend doing was mostly... watch movies! Saw both the Oscar contender, No Country For Old Men and the controversial, The Golden Compass. I thought both of them were really good. I love the holiday movie season!

So, Friday night was really fun. Stef's coworkers, Bria and Christina, came over and we all made Vietnamese spring rolls! You know, the ones with shrimp and noodles and some greens that you dip in peanut sauce? I kinda just tagged along. My spring rolls didn't turn out that great because apparently I don't know how to do the burrito roll. Eeek. Side note: thanks Drew and all other friends that ditched me for the Google Holiday Party. I hear that it was fun. Jerks. Haha. After dinner and conversation, Chris and I went to Santana Row for desserts at the coffee/pastries place next to Straits. I had the Hazelnut cake. Yummm. I think I always get that one. And a Banana Hot Chocolate. I think I'll lose the banana next time. We made it to the 10:50pm showing of No Country for Old Men... the theater was surprisingly NOT empty! How come I thought it was so late? I guess I hung out past 10pm when I was in high school... or did I? The movie was violent and kinda scary. Chris said it's a lot like Fargo if that helps explain anything. I never saw Fargo, so this is irrelevant to me. IRRELEVANT! Haha.

Saturday was a blur. I slept in. Really late. I think I got out of bed around 11ish. Dang. Laziness takes over me. I headed up to SF in the late afternoon to go to H&M and Zara to return expensive winter clothes that I'm not going to wear. Instead, I bought more stuff from H&M. I'm so lame. BUT, I did see T.R. Knight (you know, George from Grey's Anatomy) on the street outside Macy's. I was almost dumbfounded. No one in my immediate company had any clue who he was, so I just let him pass. He's sooo pretty. Very clean cut and unsuspecting. If only he weren't gay... oh well. On the way back from SF, we stopped at Young's apartment for this Mayweather v. Hatton party. I don't really know anything about boxing, but it was fun to watch Mayweather knock the living daylights out of Hatton. MWAHAHA. I also ate a lot of Pizza Hut pizza and snacks. After the fight, some people decided to watch UFC. UFC is the bloodiest thing I've ever seen in my life. There was blood over the entire ring floor. And it's basically two buff guys beating the s!@# out of each other. Gross.

On Sunday, I, again, overslept (sorry Christy!) and was late for our double date with Christy and her Aaron!!! We brunched (!!!) at Country Inn Cafe in Santa Clara. I had the Hash Benedict and it was quite satisfying. I've been craving brunch food items for a while now since I'm not longer privy to the abundance of eggs and breakfast goods at Google. Yum yum yum. I love corned beef hash, so it was fun that it was like Eggs Benedict minus the ham. Afterwards, we were supposed to go see The Golden Compass with Christy (and Aaron, but mostly just Christy).
I had to pass because Chris couldn't go and it would be more weird that I went with two people who were supposed to be on a date, right? Haha. I'm gross. Well, it's ok because Chris went to see a bunch of apartments (since he's thinking of moving) and he felt bad that we missed the movie that we went to see it later at night. I thought it was cool. I love big fantasy movies like that (i.e. Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, etc.), so it was really enjoyable. Meanwhile, Chris yawned through the whole thing and mentioned that he won't be watched any of the sequels. Hehe. Ok, so it's a little unrealistic... polar bears, witches, child-soul killing factory in the middle of nowhere. I still liked it and I can't wait for the sequels. This week, I'm going to finish the book... now that it's a little bit easier to understand the concepts. Seriously... I had no idea what "daemons" were until the movie!!!

♫ With You - Chris Brown

I'm addicted to this song. ;-)

Burnt Cookies

Yes, I bake cookies. But, they didn't turn out as expected tonight. Sad. It even set off the fire detector. Sad times 2.

It's already midweek and I've been semi-productive this week. Like yesterday... I got a bookshelf for my room. FINALLY! I mean, I did it all by myself. I carried it home from Ikea and built it... alone! Go me! The next project is to decorate the walls.

Alright, you got me. This isn't a very interesting update. I'll sign off now. Have a good Thursday!

December Blues

I've heard somewhere that depression is more rampant this time of the year... and I can see why. It's December... the last month of the year. It really makes you reflect on what you've done (or not done) and what's in store for 2008. It's a lot to digest. I guess we all have a few more weeks to think about things...

Anyways, how was your weekend? Mine was quite pleasant. I was in SF both Friday and Saturday nights! Crazy to think that that was the norm a few years back and now it's like some amazing feat. Haha. Well, Friday night was both exciting and not. I ate dinner (Japanese takeout!!!) by myself and waited for George Such Chang to pick me up. He wasn't too late and I got to ride in his new SUV (hahahaha... "his"), so that was cool. We met up with Stef and Young to go to Lion's Pub in SF for Karan's 25th birthday celebration! The bar was out in the middle of nowhere and we found it without written directions! Anyways, it's a trendy little spot on Divisadero that serves a drink called the Greyhound. It's essentially fresh squeezed grapefruit juice (they do this in front of you) and Grey Goose! I think I had about 5-6 of these. They really don't taste like anything, but grapefruit juice! Plus, no sugar added, so it's a win-win-win? HAHAHA. The night ended with us at IHOP in Foster City. Nothing beats eggs in the middle of the night when you're buzzed/drunk.

Saturday was also fun. I met up with Phuong and Priya (I like to call them P&P without them knowing) for brunch... or just lunch. Giiirl talk is so much fun when you can make fun of boys that you all know. Mwahaha. Later in the day, I met up with so more Google friends at Malibu in Redwood City for go-kart racing, batting cages, and other random arcade games. It was the most fun that I've had in a while and really nice to hang out with cool people. I ended up being the slowest driver. Oh well. But, I did manage to hit a lot at the batting cages, even though I was at the slow pitch one. We decided to get dinner nearby afterwards and ended up in downtown Redwood City at a interesting place called Citrine. It really reminded a lot of us of Charlie's! Haha, but the food wasn't too bad. We also got Beard Papa's for dessert! Downtown Redwood City isn't too shabby. I got back to the apartment pretty late and had to rush to get up to where Stef and Jen were before heading up to SF again with them. We hit up (yes, I said "hit up") 2 parties --- the first one at Roe on Howard and then at Forty Four 3 (the old Velvet Lounge) in North Beach. Both of these parties were ones that I knew no one. The party at Roe was for Stef's coworker's birthday and at Forty Four 3, it was for Jen's coworker's birthday. I was just an innocent bystander. Haha. I got really tired early and wasn't much of a party animal. Ooops.

As for Sunday, it's the usual boring day. And it shall stay that way. Woot! So, the question is... what to do this week???