Friday, December 19, 2008

Hibernate

It's been cold this week. Cold to me, at least.

I wake up in the morning and unconvinced it's really time to get up, press snooze and snuggle under the blankets for a few more moments. It really is more pleasant to close my eyes and stay under down alternative than it is to brave the cold bathroom, put on cold clothes, and go out in the chilly weather.

I stocked up on winter clothes at REI this week. Why I never had winter clothes (outside of a big warm jacket) when I was in college, I'll never know. Maybe I was dumb then, and am smart now.

The winter clothes are for my Christmas trip to my parents', as I know my adapted-to-California self can't hack the Great White North.

Can I go home and sleep now?

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Oktapodi

My sweetheart forwarded me the link to this film. It's super cute.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Restaurant Review - Din Tai Fung Dumpling House

There is nothing quite so satisfying as a soup dumpling, garnished with soy sauce, black vinegar, and ginger.

My sweetheart surprised me with a trip to Din Tai Fung, which is a Taiwan-based, international chain of dumpling restaurants. The menu, which you order from before you are seated, is bilingual, and the hostesses are very nice.

The soup dumplings are their specialty, but they have a variety of other dumplings and buns you can order. Their soup is very authentic, and for dessert they have a just-right size of 8 treasure rice pudding for two!

The prices are fairly reasonable, although they do get quite busy and sometimes you have to wait a bit for a table.

Din Tai Fung Dumpling House
1108 South Baldwin Avenue
Arcadia, California 91007
(626)574-7068

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Twilight and Why I Will Not See It

If 'Twilight' was 10 Times Shorter and 100 Times More Honest

Really? There are plenty of really great movies to see this Fall. I know I haven't been keeping up on my movie reviews, but I've seen several great films.

Quantum of Solace
Changeling
Burn After Reading
Tropic Thunder

A Mediocre One:
Appaloosa

Ones I Haven't Seen But Want To:
Duchess
Frost/Nixon
Milk

One I Haven't Seen But Heard Some Good Things About:
Australia

Upcoming I Want To See:
Spirit - The next Frank Miller adaptation happens to be a noir. Oh yeah.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Brad Pitt growing younger?
The Reader - Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes struggle with illiteracy and Nazism all in the same film!
Shanghai - I know nothing about this except John Cusack, Gong Li and Chow Yun-Fat are in it. And that's enough. :)

Hell, if you want something light and fluffy, I wouldn't even mind seeing Marley & Me! There are so many better films out there to watch!

This quote from the article sums up exactly why Twilight disgusts me so much:
"So, the next generation of young women are currently flocking to see a female lead starring in a movie by a female director based on a bestselling book by a female author, and in this movie the main character wants to become completely submissive and self-sacrificing for a male."
Yuck! I do enough self-sacrificing in my relationships that I don't need it to be glorified for me on the silver screen.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Car = Sentient Entity?

I'm sure I'm not the first person who has a love affair with their car. A symbiotic relationship between driver and machine. The strange imprinting one makes on steel and fiberglass that transforms an inanimate object into an entity.

I'd like to think I take good care of my car. I never let it run out of gas, I wash it occasionally and dry it with microfiber cloths, and I make sure maintenance is performed on it when it's due. In turn, my car takes me to work, takes me on the road, takes me wherever I ask it to go. The sound system feeds me music and the environmental controls keep me comfortable. In every aspect of this machine, it performs exactly as I expect it to. I know this car.

Last Tuesday when I was driving home from work a guy rear-ended me. It was a craptastic finish to a long and stressful day. I just got it back today. They had to replace the bumper and fix the rear body panel. Even though my car is a late model 2007, apparently it has the body of a 2008 and it took a couple extra days to order the new bumper from the manufacturer. I have the "sport" edition so the bumper has an extra "spoiler" or lip at the bottom of the bumper.

When I picked my car up today, it was my car, and yet it was not my car. There was a rock chip on the bumper that was not there anymore. I felt like I was picking up a stranger. It most definitely was my car, because the scrape on the front bumper was still there, the scuffs in the interior were still there, and the red luck charm that dangles from the rear view mirror still hung where I left it.

After driving around a PT Cruiser (by the way, I know now why so many grannies love that car) for a week, I was so happy to climb into my newly fixed car and drive off. Except it didn't feel right to me. What is going on here? The brakes feel a bit squishier than when I dropped the car off. I guess I'll check the brake fluid level and if it's low I'll add some brake fluid.

I'm sure in a few days I will become reacquainted with my car, and everything will be fine.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Yoga For Runners

I went to a workshop today, at YAS.

YAS stands for Yoga and Spinning, and is the yoga studio that I go to occasionally. It's a bit out of the way for me, in Venice, but I like the atmosphere and the workout is a good one.

The workshop was about Yoga for Runners, and things that runners can do to improve their training techniques. There was a physical therapist who spoke about stretches that are good for common running injuries and a physical therapist from Phase IV, where you can get VO2 tests and running gait tests done. So that was interesting. If I had the money I guess I'd have a couple of those tests done to see where I'm at.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Katherine Jenkins Honeyed Voice

I haven't posted in a while. Life has kept me away.

Somehow the month of November escaped me, and we're now solidly in December. What happened?

I had a lot of projects due in my online class; I spent a lot of my hours in a lab at school. Thanksgiving was fun; it's been a while that I've had the big family get-together and really felt included. That was a good experience for me.

This week I was rear-ended on my way home from work, so now I'm puttering around in a PT Cruiser. Let me tell you, I now know why little old grannies love that car! (At least I think I know)

The few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas really makes me want to listen to grand pieces of music. I just discovered Katherine Jenkins; her voice is richer than Charlotte Church's, and I would dare say, much prettier. Apparently she's a hit classical crossover artist. Why I've never heard of her before, I don't know. And for the guys, she's mega eye-candy. ;)