Bye Bye, September...

It's shocking to think tomorrow is already October!!

Anyone getting dressed up for Halloween?

Great use of instant messaging...

Are you ever on a conference call, and you're talking to people, but you have your Instant Messaging window open to some of the people in the call - and while conversations are flowing, you throw in your *true* two cents about the conversation and enjoy a good laugh in the midst of it?

You can use it to ask questions like,

"OMG Who's doing all that heavy breathing on the line?"

"Oops, i zoned. What's he talking about right now? You zoned too? Okay, hopefully he keeps talking until we figure out what he's been talking about..."

Ebay Addiction

Ebay is great and Ebay is evil. It's great because sometimes you'll walk through a store and say, "Gosh, if i just had a cheap pair of bowling shoes, i'd save $4 bucks each time i went bowling and it would pay for itself." And then you go on Ebay and wait till a decent pair in your size comes along.

What you realize after getting bowling shoes, one of those slide on Adidas hat visors, replacement buttons for your cell phone, CDs, Sponge Bob license plates, and Teapot shaped Egg Timers later... is that you got a bunch of random 'spontaneous' items, that you might or might not really need.

Final Score

USC - 31
Stanford - 28

:)

Day worth smiling with upper teeth....

It's Saturday!


Today will be good because:

1) No work. whooo hoo!

2) USC will clobber Stanford in Football today...

3) See #1.

ooouch

I have a huuggge headache. Maybe cause it's 7:30PM and i'm still at work? I'm out of here...

TV blabs

So last night i caught America's Next Top Model and i must admit that I watched the last 2 seasons of it and was hooked then too. It's too soon to pick favorites, but obviously you remember the extremes... this season has one loudmouth that everyone hates right off the bat - but she immediately breaks down when Tyra Banks calls her on being mistreated herself. Then another girl announces she's legally blind and will be blind by 30. Which is really sad, but just seemed to be brought up for 'opportunistic' reasons... you know?

Also watched "In America" - about an Irish family that migrate to Manhattan with nothing and manage to make a living and stay. It didn't really seem that interesting offhand, but it turned out to be really endearing. The 2 little girls were really good and convincing and you really felt like you were 'living' in the neighborhood with them. Only one attempted robbery at knife-point (and I'm guessing in reality there'd be much more crime - especially where they supposedly lived) but overall, it felt pretty realistic!

Communicating Concisely

I learn this in a training course that had a segment on "Communicating Concisely"... let's see if this could be applied to a real life setting...

So here's what you do... If you ever have to communicate anything to anyone... start by first thinking of a headline.

Under that headline decide how many supporting points are attached to that topic. (try not to exceed 3-4 or you'll just lose your audience's attention)

For each supporting point you can then address 'sub-supporting' items.

So for example, if you're discussing where to go for lunch...

"Guys, it's almost lunchtime and I suggest we go to Central Burger for lunch" (headline)

"There's 3 reasons we should go there and that's Cost, Exercise and Milkshakes" (set up the supporting points)

(Now for the Sub-supports to each Supporting point)
For Cost, this is a great place because everything is less than $5 bucks or so.

For Exercise, it's in walking distance so we get good exercise.

For Milkshakes... well they just have pretty good Milkshakes and that alone is reason to go."

At that point the group shrugs off your odd outburst and proceeds to lunch at Quizno's instead.

Trees never have to worry about dieting...

Somewhere in Sequoia National Park...

Walked to the mall today

Found out it takes about 30 minutes to walk from my house to the nearest mall. Not bad! :)

Pop Tart Saturation

I am officially over Pop Tarts. I have eaten my last one.

I used to think Pop Tarts - though not particularly very healthy... were convenient, tasty, fun to eat and inexpensive. Man... so when they were on sale, $1 a box, i said... "Deal!"

I think i got 2 or 3 boxes.

argh...

i think i had like 3 little 2 packs over 2 months... and my taste buds are saying NO MORE. just typing about them is making my face frown. Maybe i can get Herman to eat the rest of my Strawberry Yogurt Pop-Tarts.... ;)



bleaacck.

Water Leftovers

So I routinely get a cup of water to have at my desk to drink from. But i'm really bad at remembering to drink enough water each day. And usually i am so swamped that all my work days just seem to blur into one long horrendous mega day.

So the bad part is... sometimes i fill up my cup and forget i didn't drink it... so it sits all through the night and the next day... it's still a full cup of water... but is it new? or old? Sometimes I just can't tell. Did i walk over to the dispenser to fill that up this morning... or was i remembering yesterday morning?

I hear you can get sick from drinking 'old' water. But is a day considered old? :) Good thing i have a nice plant for all my water 'leftovers'.

aiee... 6:30AM and back at work...

i have the work of 3 to complete today... hope i get through at least 1 person's amount...
Go frappuccino go!

Fun Game of the Day

www.scoobydoo2movie.com/cluehunt

(i'm biased because i worked on this...)

at least i'm not in open water...

When you’re having a hard day at work, just think:

“At least I’m not abandoned in the middle of the ocean to be shark bait.”

Sunday Brunch in Pasadena

The hosts, Sonya & John...


Some participants, Jen & Herman...

How Long Will These Last...

About a month ago i put a few plants on the steps of my place...

It's important to note that I'm not very good with taking care of plants. That's why you'll only see the types of plants around my place that "thrive on neglect". I literally bought one plant with that in it's description.

So Last month i bought almost 20 dollars worth of little 'heat loving' plants to put on the steps in these cute little plastic matching planters. Fast forward to the present and 3 of them have turned into crispy yellow fritters. So this weekend i trekked to Home Depot and bought 'trailing lavendars' - that are meant to be heat and drought resistant ground cover plants. So we'll see how these green friends fair on the sun-soaked steps of my place.

Meanwhile my indoor palm tree from SAV ON was starting to look a little sad and droopy. (I've had it for almost a year, believe it or not.) Could it be it's little roots were sticking out of the dirt because it's pot was just too small for it? I'm guessing so.


We upgraded from 12' pot to a 19' pot and now the palm is styling the oversized pot look. Let's hope this does the trick.

Niki... happy now?

"I'm linked to your site! You gotta update your site Man!" - http://www.nikisimental.com

Friday Night - Party Time!

Whoo hoo! Friday Night! Parrrtay! Okay. Not so much.

In fact, it's 11:17pm, and after watching Tom Brokaw take us through a hiker's experience of cutting his own arm off to survive, i decided it was a lovely time to chip away at some of the work i brought home.

I'm sure in future posts, all i'll do is complain about how much work I have... so consider this your first warning. :)

Other than that, looking forward to getting a new planter for my indoor palm tree. It's looking sad and i think it's because it's outgrowing it's planter.

Rainy and Hot in Southern California

Just testing out my first post on my new chatterbox. :)