funny (weird, not ha ha) convo at the doughnut shop

ppprmntmonkey walks into doughnut shop
doughnut man: hello; ni hao
ppprmntmonkey: ni hao
doughnut man: (in chinese) do you speak chinese?
ppprmntmonkey: (in chinese) i don't speak it well.
doughnut man: (in chinese) i don't know how to speak it; i'm from thailand.
ppprmntmonkey picks out doughnut in english and proceeds to pay for it
doughnut man: (in chinese) i'm from thailand. have you ever been there?
ppprmntmonkey: (in chinese) once, when i was little.
doughnut man: (in chinese) i don't understand what you said.
doughnut man gives ppprmntmonkey change; ppprmntmonkey thanks him and walks out of shop

there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; in fact, there's no rainbow at all

why doesn't anyone make rainbow sherbet anymore? i mean just plain old rainbow sherbet. none of this new-fangled "rainbow sherbet, tropical" or "berry rainbow sherbet." i like mine with raspberry, lime, and orange. no berries. no pineapple. it's as much about the colors as it is about the flavors. in the defense of ice cream manufacturers, they do sell raspberry, lime, and orange separately. but that's not what i want. i want mine premixed! i don't want to have to buy one and a half gallons of ice cream at a time. that's messed up!

i noticed they have branched out on the vanilla front, however. breyers now makes vanilla, french vanilla, natural vanilla, lactose free natural vanilla, calcium rich vanilla, homemade vanilla, extra creamy vanilla, 98% fat free vanilla, 2% milk light vanilla, all natural light natural vanilla, all natural light french vanilla, sugar free vanilla, sugar free french vanilla, and carb smart vanilla (who eats vanilla? (besides my dad. and han.) what is the difference between vanilla, natural vanilla, and french vanilla? can anyone taste the difference? the only way i can tell french vanilla from vanilla is that it's yellow. and who eats low-carb ice cream?? actually, it's not even called "ice cream" anymore. breyers calls it a "frozen dairy dessert." i've tried low-carb on 2 separate occasions and both times it tasted like somebody ground paper and ice together.) breyers doesn't make rainbow sherbet. nobody does anymore. the good 'ol days are officially over.

read the book; now gimme the movie

books, originally uploaded by ppprmntmonkey.

just finished reading memoirs of a geisha, which i'd picked up at the borders in the washington/dulles airport. (what a rip off! i could've saved $5 had i bought it from amazon) bro recommended it and it was actually quite fantastic. (nothing like shogun, which I found dreadfully boring.) had a lot of cultural stuff, which is always interesting. i hope the movie will be good, as it stars zhang ziyi, who i think is pretty. she should be good in it since, as the bro said once, "she's good at playing roles where she gets raped." i suppose there is no "raping," per se, in the book, but perhaps they will write it into the movie so she can do her magic. the movie also stars ken watanabe, gong li and michelle yeoh. gong li and michelle are supposed to be 2 geishas in their prime, but in real life they seem old. then again, could be they'll be covered in rice flour the entire time. aside from their being older than i'd've imagined from reading the book, the casting of these peeps seem really good based on looks alone.

anyway, next on the reading list is soul of the fire, which is book five of terry goodkind's sword of truth series. am somewhat wary of it, as, supposedly the main characters won't be able to use magic. (or, magics, as han would call it.) how will they cope?!

japanese cuisine - twinkie maki sushi

IMGP0781, originally uploaded by ppprmntmonkey.

look at how beautiful these are! jen made them following the directions on this website, which heather found. and you can see a better picture of them (with their siblings) and read about her grueling experience here. she (and everyone else) thinks they're gross tasting, but i think they're absolutely fab. i was actually surprised i enjoyed them so much, considering how i went on a hostess binge last night and ate so much i thought i was going to puke. (their orange cupcakes really ain't all that.) but the flavors meld together surprisingly well in this twinkie concoction. the tartness of dried fruit in the center perfectly complements the delicious golden sponge cake and creamy filling that is the twinkie; and the fruit roll-up adds a wonderfully fruity zing. on a scale of 1 to 5, i give these a 5++! thank you, jen!

my new aves toy

IMGP0778fix, originally uploaded by ppprmntmonkey.

look what i got from aves with my antibody. it's so cute! you can get one too if you order a chicken antibody. i miss those career fair days when you can score dozens of stress balls (albeit none as cute as this one.) those were good days those were... my favorite was a yellow smushy star from ernst and young... anyway, perhaps i will use this one to relieve my stress when the antibodies aren't working.

so anyway

that's a view from the plane somewhere between hartford and dulles. i have no idea what river that is, but it looked cool. see the chunks of ice floating? ok, so not that exciting, but i thought it looked interesting.

first photo

fromtheplane, originally uploaded by ppprmntmonkey.

from the jeneview...

here's what genevieve* said to anita* today:

"you're just a big poop; a biiiiiig steaming pile of feces." and then later, for no reason i could fathom, she said: "my bum hurts right now."

*names have been changed to protect the innocent

from the hantastic point of view...

here's what han said to thomas in the flyroom today:

"hot! you're so hot!"

from the hantastic point of view...

"She likes coke and chips and she likes to watch TV and soap operas. She doesn’t do any sports. She doesn’t do any knitting or crafty things. She likes to smoke pots. Did I mention chips and coke? You don’t think Anita’s* a frat boy? She’s not going to be happy. Did I mention pot? I didn’t say that. Heather said that. She said that once, that Anita's a frat boy."

-- Han 2005

*name has been changed to protect the innocent

i may wake up at 1pm, but i'm a morning person

i wake up after 12pm a lot. in fact, almost all the time. everyone thinks i'm weird, that i like being awake at night and despise the daytime. i don't! i hate waking up late and only seeing 2 hours of daylight (if any at all); it makes me depressed. i actually love being awake in the morning, when the sun is still in the east and the day is full of potential. why do i not wake up earlier then, you say? ah, simple answer to that really. i'm lazy.

dreams really suck

and by "dreams" i don't mean the kind you consciously think up and plan on fulfilling, as in "i have a dream." i mean the kind you have when you're sleeping. well, _my_ dreams suck anyway. for some reason, i never have happy dreams with fluffy clouds and chocolate streams; the only dreams i have are on the nightmarish side. luckily i don't dream often.

last night i had this dream that i'm staying late in the building where i work because i was stressed out about studying for an exam. i was next to the water fountain and this scary grizzled old man came up and made me give him my wallet. i'm not sure what exactly happened next but i remember i was panicking because nobody will know where he takes me. needless to say, i don't think i'd be too good at the "thinking clearly" should i ever be in such a sitch in real life.

and last week i had a dream that i was in a government compound in another country and while everyone was really nice, they were going to hang me. and not hang to die, but hang and keep alive. i'm not quite sure how it is done but i saw this one person hanging in the semi-dark, swinging from the noose like a regular lynching. it's not that they keep the people alive by taking care of them; it's that the people just don't die for some reason. it was freaky. at one point i remember i was quite adamant on brushing my teeth because i won't be able to while i was hanging for months and months.

ergo, i hate dreams.

am i lame? hell yeah!

wow. it's nice to be able to post again. i can't believe i actually forgot my username. that was lame...

so i finish applying to all the schools whose apps are due in december. now my only problem is one of my recommenders isn't sending in his letter and i can't seem to get in touch with him. this'll mark the earliest i've requested a letter, all for a no-show. see what i get for thinking ahead? procrastination is good! (really, it is. people take pity on you cuz you're all stressed out. whereas if you do everything with plenty of time to spare and act all breezy they just don't take you seriously.)

pre-halloween phun

i think today is an extension of a very bad yesterday, when i worked through the previous night, went home at 9am, took a shower, fell asleep in my bathrobe, and woke up freezing cold cuz this weather just plain sucks. after i dragged my ass to the grocery store due to lack of food in fridge, i was so out of it i tripped over what turned out to be absolutely _nothing_ and skinned my ankle and bruised my knee. (i think the last time i fell and skinned myself was in 7th grade when i tripped over julie yoshioka in mr. dugan's pe class.) then my bathroom flooded and i had to clean it up. the only good part was that i was finally able to put my subscription of the wall st. journal to some use. since i didn't come back to work after i went home in the morning yesterday, i actually got enough sleep last night. so why is it i woke up with a headache? i hate this; this is driving me insane and i can't get anything done.
halloween party across the hall is great though. people have spectacular costume ideas. and now the entire floor of our building reeks of beer.
tomorrow i get to carve a pumpkin. yay! i have to find a good picture of a buff dude first though.

i think my white shirt is cursed

73.92% +/- 0.01% of the time i wear this white shirt i spill food/drink on myself. this time it was hot cocoa and, unfortunately, my sweater got in the way. hot cocoa is apparently very persistent though. it still managed to stain my shirt, and i think, to make up for the parts it wasn't able to stain due to the poor sweater, it also went on my jeans. that just really does not look good. thank god it's night and there's no one here to see. i really ought to stop wearing this white shirt unless i want my wardrobe to reflect that of a panhandler. poor me, you say? yeah, i think so too.

our building manager

yeah, it's great that we had all our locks updated to those spiffy numeric keypad ones. but really, couldn't you at least tell us the new code to the vending machine room? how'm i supposed to eat the overpriced junk in there if you don't tell me the code? tell me the code! please...