post halloween party 2005:

Saturday October 29
Taiwan time: 10:34pm
LA time: 7:34am

so I’m blogging from the plane. Not quite blogging, only because I’m not on the internet, of course. How cool would that be if I could be on the internet while on a plane!! That’s the next step I’m sure. It’s quite bumpy on the plane – a lot of turbulence. We even had to re route a little bit to avoid some worse turbulence. I don’t mind it too much.. it’s kind of fun.. like a roller coaster ride. I’m not antsy about planes, I’m sure Beth would be having a cow. What I’m not so keen about is mr. guy next to me who has been hacking up his lungs, and snorting his snot all flight long… sometimes covering his mouth, sometimes not. I really cannot be sick right now. And especially with me going to the Halloween party my immune system won’t be able to handle any attack of germs. I also am not keen about the crying baby 5 seats away from me. Crying all flight long, wah wah wah… It makes me a little sad, missing my nephew.. but my nephew isn’t bad like that – plus I’m sure my sister won’t be in crowded economy with dozens of people cursing her under their breaths. Hahhahah. Poor parents.

I’m watching Batman Begins for the second time this week. My sister rented it and we watched it, and now on the plane. I have nothing better to do, since I am in economy and I can’t choose which channel I want to watch. well I could sleep, but it’s only 10pm Taiwan time, so I’m not totally tired yet.. plus I already took a mini nap. Now that I think about it.. my Saturday will have been 39 hours long. Kind of neat huh? 24 hours from the first Saturday, and in 1.5 hrs it will be Sunday in Taiwan, but 9am Saturday in LA… so I get 15 more hours of that. whoo!! It’s like a three day weekend too.. I soooooooooo don’t want to go back to work Monday!

I have been up and down about this party.. wanting to go, not wanting to go… I hope overall it will be fun… not too crowded, not too chaotic ? I’m sure it will be.. if anything, alcohol makes everything more fun huh? Just kidding…. I’m not a lush.. I promise.

I also can’t wait to get home and dig through all of my new belongings… hahahah.. I have almost a WHOLE suitcase of stuff I bought. A little overboard huh? Oh well, it was a good time.

Stuff that I wanted to do in Taiwan, but missed out on:
1. ride the giant ferris wheel
2. eat at Mos Burger
3. feed jake
4. .. something i was just thinking about but it escapes me at the moment

Argh!! Now I’m coughing… grrr… stupid guy. I wish I had bought some airborne or something. I think I’m going to listen to my iPod.. maybe nap before the next movie.

i was at the night market today (shih lin) and i saw these rainbow leg warmers that i wanted to buy so bad!!! i don't know why i just had the hugest urge to buy them. i've never owned or worn leg warmers in my life, but for some reason, they just seemed so fun. maybe i could be an old school jazzercise chick for halloween. and then i remembered my old want of being rainbow brite for halloween!!! sooooooooo cute. but it's too late now because the work party is 2 days away, i'm in taiwan, and all the adult rainbow brite costumes are the cheap slutty ones. grrr.. maybe next year. but it'd be soooooooooo cute to have a rainbow brite costume that actually looked like the real one. and have a ponytail full of curls. regardless.. i still wanted those leg warmers.. but seriously.. where would i wear them? to play softball? haha.. that would be a riot. i would be a freakshow.

i think the medicine i was using for the bugbites is part of making it worse. the bug bites are still swollen and achy.. but the skin around it is red and puffy. so i put more medicine on to try and help it.. but it makes the red puffy part worse!! this draws me to the conclusion that although the medicine provides cooling relief, it is somehow prolonging the getting rid of efforts. argh.. so i will have to suffer in itching misery in hopes that they go away quickly. i'll just have my mom and sister slap them to make them stop itching.. they always enjoyed doing that. i can do it to myself, but i never slap myself hard enough, for obvious reasons.

gosh.. i can't believe this week is almost over.. i leave in less than 2 days!! i thought this week has been so long, but it's quickly coming to a close, and then it'll be back to the grind, back to losing softball, back to crammed messed up schedules. grr. oh well.. vacation wouldn't be as nice if your life was always like that.

and what's with all the selling of weird strange herby type dried foods next to the purses. has is always been like that? last time there was a whole store dedicated to just purses.. now it was half of the weird smelling dried food stuff. but another store was the exact same set up. is there some correlation between purse buyers and smelly food.. cuz i don't get it.

argghh.. itchy itchy itchy.. and stickiness from the humidity.. bleh. time for another shower and sleep.. it's 2:15am!

there are times when taiwan does not agree with me. the night before i stayed at my grandma's house because i came back too late from the night market. that was okay because i think my relatives really like it when i stay with them. people here are very big on having you stay with them.. maybe it makes them good hosts or something. anyways.. it was my cousin's old room, but they had moved the stuff out, so i slept on a mattress on the floor. i don't know if it was cuz i was closer to the ground, or i had the smell of stinky tofu on me from the night market (ps. i HATE that smell.. it makes me want to vomit. whoever thought it was a good idea to make tofu smell putrid and then eat it was obviously delirious from the odor).. anyways.. i woke up in the middle of the night furiously scratching my arms because of multiple bug bites. i think i even woke up once to the sound of a flea buzzing around near my ear. i was so mad, plus i was cranky because i couldn't get back to sleep because my arms itched so badly. ARGH!! i have 8 on my left arm, 4 on my right arm, and 2 on my face. it's weird because somehow i think they're spreading or something... i know bug bites don't "spread" ... but really.. they're getting worse. i thought it was okay because they had gone down.. but later the next night (yesterday).. they're worse! they're swelling up and they're even achy now. i have no idea what's wrong.. it's like i'm allergic or something. when my dad stayed at my grandma's nothing happened to him.. so either... i taste a lot better.. or they wanted revenge for not being able to attack my dad. either way i have been rubbing all sorts of ointments all over to try to stop the itching and getting them to simply go away. bleh.

in other news taiwan is good. sort of drizzly still. but it's light rain so i just walk around because it's not cold, still a little humid almost, which makes it warm, but not unbearable. i think i'm going shopping again today. whoo :) maybe to eat ice monster. hehe. mm.. maybe nap time. and then baby time before lunch, and then shopping!! i'm out of control. now if only the itching/achiness would stop.. everything would be dandy.

i have the worst case of buyers remorse right now. well it's like half buyer's remorse.. but it felt sooooo good to just keep buying.. but i felt silly carrying so many bags, buying so much junk, and didn't even want to walk into my grandma's house for fear that they'd all laugh at me. silly american who went crazy. and hey.. it's not all my fault.. people asked me to buy stuff for them... but like.. who knows what they like. i hope they like it.. they'd better!! cuz i am not getting stuck with it.

cute things will be the death of me for sure. i will probably die suffocating in all the cute little trinkets that i buy. sanrio, disney, no-brand super cute little characters... all of it.. i melt to pieces. i bargained pretty successfully with the vendors (or so i think.. i know they are still scamming me)... but how can i really bargain successfully with bags and bags of stuff in my hands?! they already know i'm a shopaholic! they can see it. just wave some cute thing it front of me and the money the jumps out of my pockets.

i had steamed dumplings and beef noodle soup at the place by my grandma's house today.. yuuuuuuuuummm. the dumplings aren't my favorite just because there are hints of ginger.. but i still like it anyways, that's how good they are. but today i realized that i haven't had beef noodle soup since the last time that i came to taiwan. isn't that crazy? not since december.. and i really only eat it when i come here. so silly.. but i guess it's like if i can't have the "real thing" why bother you know?

i finally went to the taipei 101 observatory deck. :) i had gone to taipei 101 before, but just the mall part was open, not the observatory deck. it reminded me a lot of being in chicago and at sears tower. i knew that beth would really appreciate it, and they even gave you these neato free listening guides (using your license as collateral to make sure you'd return them.. but no fee!) that would tell you about what you were viewing around the city. it was pretty neat. in my perfect world there would be a pressed penny machine.. but taiwan is not that cheesy. but it didn't stop me from buying tons at the gift store. (seeing a trend?.. but wait you already knew this.)

another thing beth would appreciate is the tons of cute fobby things. mispelled words.. i thought they were so annoying when relatives would by my clothes with "SNOOPQY" .. but now it's so charming in its own way. i'm not really talking about fake "pdidas" (adidas) or "emma" (puma) stuff.. but just the very fobby stuff that seems unassuming but is so funny and ridiculous in english. just like when american people walk around with asian stuff... i really hope someone has that tattoo of like "i have a small penis" or something. i dunno.

nicole would appreciate all the hello kitty stuff they have here. in fact those were her parting words to me :P even the fake stuff she might like because it's cheaper. and some stuff is okay to buy because it's not too atrociously fake.

sakura would love all the jeans they have here. i wish i could buy her some, but of course she'd have to try them on. but everytime i pass by a stand/store.. i think of her.

linh would appreciate everything there is to eat here. hahahaha.

tonight is the first night i haven't been tired at 10pm. last night i was sooooo tired and fussy it was ridiculous. i guess i'm getting over the jet lag. but i leave in a few days..and then i will be so messed up it will be bad news.

well.. i'm sure my cousin wants to sleep, and i'm in his room rattling away on the keyboard. night night.. miss you!

"real time" 1:37am - wednesday the 26th.

so i've finally landed in taiwan. it seems like it didn't really take that much time to get here.. probably because i slept most of the way here. i didn't watch a lot of movies, which i usually do.. i was far too exhausted. plus i wanted to get the jet lag in check since i'm not here for that long. i can't waste it in the wrong time zone! yesterday was a marathon of packing and trying to get things ready. i got 2.5 hours of sleep and still made it through the work day, went to go see my chiropractor, bought a halloween costume (which i'm still not sure about yet), and finished up the packing. i got to go into the vip lounge and sat and had wine and crackers and then we had to take a bus to the remote gate where our plane was docked. it was strange because we were on this bus on the tarmac just cruising around. it was like we were vips.. or maybe in the movie speed. hahah. i fell asleep once we boarded and even slept through take off, which has only happened one other time when i had gotten 0 hrs of sleep the day before. watched the longest yard which was actually good and funny. i laughed out loud a few times.. i hope i didn't wake anyone up. i could totally tell where they filmed the parts at el co.. so i got pretty excited for that. ate and slept.. that was the plane ride :P

it's 20 degrees celcius... i'm not sure how that translates to farenheit... i was never good at that. it's drizzling too.. bleh.. i thought i had gotten away from that. we landed around 6am, got a ride to taipei and now it's almost 9am. sucks though because i only now just realized that we totally forgot the luggage with all the stuff my mom wanted to bring for her. it makes me feel so self absorbed.. that i was only concerned with my stuff, and packing stuff for my sister, that it didn't even occur to me that even though we only had 3 bags, no one remembered about the stuff for my mom. bah.. it's not quite that simple, and there are a few reasons why, but bottom line is i should have remembered. argh.

the 1 month party for my nephew is tonight :) so that will be fun. it's small and only family. so nothing too crazy :P i think i'm going to nap and shower and get ready for the day... i shouldn't be tired, but i still am... luckily since it's 9am, people won't think i'm too lazy if i go back to sleep (as opposed it being 6pm in cali).

this morning on E! news weekend

"move over brangelina... vaughniston is the new hot couple in town."

ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

seriously!? can this just die??!!

(comment on the combination of names, not on the subject matter)

aaaaand..

happy birthday angelee!

man oh man...

so i don't know exactly when these came out.. but it almost makes me hesitant to buy anything just because when you buy it a few months later the newer version will come out and you'd wish you would have bought that instead. boo. technology moves too fast for us.

apple has two more products to add to their line.. well.. not new.. but new models.. the ipod video, and the new imac G5. crazy. i'm not really upset or anything.. i'm just amazed on the more and more things that come out. i love my ipod more than the models out here and i'm not really longing for any of the ones that are out now. but it's kind of school that you can watch tv shows and what not on there. the imac G5.. neat. it has a built in isight.. which is cool in itself.. and a smart idea, because i have the problem where the isight sits too high on my computer so only half of my face shows unless i sit super straight up. plus now there's a remote which is neat like when you want to lay back and watch a dvd or something. i love my imac to bits too.. and i bought it 10 months ago.. so waiting for all this wouldn't really have been useful for me. plus i have an isight and i guess i'm not that lazy that i need a remote.. hahaha.. but it's nice to have nifty things :P

if you haven't donated yet for my walk.. please do :) i'm halfway at my goal.
support me @ aids walk!

i *heart* san diego <3> (minus the bumper car pictures)

my dad is currently driving to san francisco. "right now?" you ask? yes.. this very second. they left around midnight, and i guess are going to be there early morning. good for avoiding traffic i suppose. my dad has monday night because of columbus day a or something and city of LA employees get all kinds of extra days off.. like cesar chavez day.. haha. i hope my dad took naps and got lots of rest... i'm a little bit worried although i know he is a great driver and knows what he can and can't do.. i still worry a little bit. i think i get it from my mom. my dad used to make the norcal drive all the time. especially when my sister was going to berkeley and we'd drive every fall and summer to cart her stuff around. my dad was always fond of the long drives.. road trips. i remember once we drove to canada.

my dad also has to get home somehow (since he's driving someone else's car up for them). not that my aunt isn't willing to buy him a plane ticket back.. but my dad is insisting on taking the train back. the TRAIN.... from norcal. actually.. it's a train to bakersfield and a bus the rest of the way. bleh. you know how i feel about buses!! it'll take 7 hours or so but my dad keeps saying he's never been on a train (in the US) so now he wants to experience it, he's not just being polite.. he's really excited about taking the train. my dad is so odd sometimes. so funny.

i now have to go the chiro three times a week to "heal" from the car accident. and maybe now apparently i might also have TMJ. argh. it sucks so bad with all the time i have to take off of work and all.. and all the gas and driving that i will have to be doing now. bah. there are times when i feel fine, and time when i don't feel so hot. my jaw hurts so bad right now. and it seems like such a silly thing to say, but that's all i can think about right now.

maybe.. just maybe i should think about sleep huh?

my mom is thinking about getting a laptop... i think she realizes how convenient it is, especially if you are on the go or not at home. i don't think she likes having to share computer time with my sis, or imposing on her and just wants to have her own so she can be on it late at night in her own studio while she's watching her chinese soaps and writing out her 2 hour long emails. haha.. my sister told her apple's are better so i told her she should get an ibook. probably a 12incher. it'll be SO CUTE!!! i think i would have to occasionally steal it just to play with it and hold it. i'm sorry to cheat on you powerbook but i swear i still love you too. who knows if that'll happen.. but i got excited for a second. so lame.. i know.

i was going to start this great music reorganization (as angelee calls it).. and make sure all the songs i want are loaded onto my iMac and thus loaded into my ipod before i go to taiwan. but i got lazy and distracted by SNL and myspace. i can't believe they let ashlee simpson back on snl. well i can.. ratings and all. but bleh. i'm sure she sang live this time, can't risk not. but she is still super annoying. she was so pleased and giddy after she did "well" she was jumping up and down for joy.. like she had never sang a real song in her life. or maybe she was pleased she got away with the lip-singing this time. haha... the show wasn't as funny as i hoped it would be. the funniest was the opening monologue where they had cast members pretend to be people that napoleon dynamite was "supposedly" based on. i laughed out loud it was so funny. the neighbors must have thought i was crazy.

okay.. pretty tired.. tomorrow.. i dunno.. i hope it's super hot so i can layout by the pool. i've been wanting to do that forever but i haven't be able to. and lately the days it's been sweltering are weekdays when i am wasting away indoors. boo. if not i'm sure i can find plenty to do. we also have a softball game tomorrow... we'll see how that goes.. bah :P

so.. i know philly will hate this.. but..

tom and katie expecting!

there's also the story here and here.

personally... i like them. i do thinks it's a little crazy and very hollywood. poor chris klein, but i'm glad tom gets his own kid. hahah.. i think that's probably important. so strange though.. joey potter is pregnant!! hahahaha. i'd rather read about them any day rather than "bennifer2" bleh. i heard that michael vartan got killed off alias because jennifer garner didn't want him there anymore. whether it was because of ben affleck or whatever.. that still sucks so bad.. i hate her even more.. now there's even less of a reason for me to watch that show..not that i really do anyways. haha.. i'm glad that i don't have to record the shows onto dvd anymore.. it would just make me mad. haha.

i signed up for the aids walk with the team at my work. so.. everyone should donate. my goal is $200, and i emailed 38 people so far... if everyone donated $10.. i would totally surpass my goal. i know not everyone will donate but i am practicing wishful thinking anyways.

donate to me! :) i would for you

yikes.. be careful :|

car accidents = boo.