A Bookworm's Dream

Straight from Gizmodo, this bookcase stairway is TOO cool. Even better is it's from London! I want this more than I want a Sony Cybershot W80 and an iPod Touch combined. Okay, maybe not quite more but it's close. Be still my beating heart!

It's like I've died and gone to book heaven. This is so going in my future house.

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Hero - The Youngest Beatle Fan

Thanks for the clip, June.

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I Want An iPod Touch and Other Ramblings

Now there's even more to touch.

I've crossed over to the dark side: I now want an iPod Touch. After spending some quality time, as you must do with such matters that require a hefty commitment ($300+ is not a decision to be taken lightly), I've decided I want one. It's not too heavy or bulky (like the iPod Classic), nor is it an awkward size to hold (like the iPod Nano). My only gripe with it is it doesn't respond to fingernails (which my darling Moto Ming does), only to the pad of your finger. And it's too bad there isn't a (PRODUCT) RED edition.

My birthday's coming up... Wait, what? They don't do giftcards??

Other random thoughts from the past few days:
-yoga's getting easier to do; I'm getting used to the heat
-I feel like getting a matching water bottle and towel to go with my pink yoga mat
-my shoe collection is missing a pair of black high heel knee-high boots and a pair of black riding boots
-J.Crew's in Roma this season: two great loves of mine!
-93 days until Las Vegas
-I managed to get me and R's San Diego trip booked for his birthday month - SD Zoo and SeaWorld, here we come!

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Fairy Tales

I love fairy tales. There was one particular one I loved as a child (still love it actually) but for the life of me, I can't remember its name (it was probably Chinese). Anyway, here's one that a coworker sent me. Hit the jump to read the ending.

This is the fairy tale that should have been read to us when we were little:

Once upon a time in a land far away, a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess happened upon a frog as she sat contemplating ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle.

The frog hopped into the princess' lap and said: "Elegant Lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me.”

“One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I am and then, my sweet, we can marry and set up housekeeping…
in your castle
with my mother,
where you can prepare my meals,
clean my clothes,
bear my children,
and forever feel grateful and happy doing so."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night, as the princess dined sumptuously on lightly sautéed frog legs seasoned in a white wine and onion cream sauce, she chuckled and thought to herself: “I don't freakin' think so!”

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February,14 2008

So I guess I should blog about Valentine's Day. I detest February 14, really, and although a part of me loves the whole red roses (blood red, preferably), candlelight, wine and dine thing (IF it even actually happens), I still don't like it. All hopeless romantic notions aside, this year was actually quite nice. I told R we weren't exchanging presents; buying presents for him is ridiculously hard, even for an avid and inspired shopper such as me, not to mention it's just unnecessary. The day itself was quiet: he cooked a delicious Italian dinner (awww) and we just went to see Step Up 2: the Streets because I wanted to see it and it came out that day.

Since Valentine's Day fell on a workday this year, I didn't want to be out too late doing a dinner and a movie. (God, I sound old don't I?) However, I did want to go to The Melting Pot ever since going there for Em's birthday last month. "Anything you want, baby." Sweet. Reservations were on Saturday and it was DE-LI-CIOUS, as usual. Sadly, we were much too full for dessert *sob*. Happily, though, we still had Deathcake leftover from Wednesday. Thank you Cupcake Royale, thank you.

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Happy Chinese New Year!

A very happy Year of the MOUSE (I hate saying 'rat') to everyone! Chinese New Year is a time of much celebration and family'ness. I remember when I was 10 and we were living in Taiwan at the time, there were different traditions for the first 3 or 4 days of the new year. For example, on the first day, I believe families go visit the mother's side of relatives. I'm not so sure after that, but I do know that a lot of firecrackers, yummilicious food, burning paper money and, of course, red envelopes with money. But living on this side of the world, we don't have any extended family really close by (closest are cousins up in Canada and they're really sick and contagious) so there's not much celebration going on at my house; we just went out to dinner and got our red envelopes (although I'm technically too old to be receiving any) and hung out at home.

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"Change We Can Believe In"

It's a pretty inspiring video (and I sure did recognize many of the people in it). To all those in the US, don't forget to vote and make your voice heard. Enough is enough.

Links:
will.i.am's original post on youtube.com
Barak Obama - Change we can believe in

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Dell, Microsoft Launch (RED) Products

The title says it all doesn't it? Hurrah for them! It makes me happy to see big companies doing some good around the world. (The same goes with celebrities but that's a rant and rave of a whole 'nother post.) I'm not a made of money but buying (PRODUCT) RED branded products instead of generic items is a great, and quite often stylish and chic, way for me to do my part in helping the AIDS epidemic. (All my holiday cards and wrapping paper were (RED), thanks to Hallmark, and their line keeps expanding! Yay!)

With each purchase of a (PRODUCT) RED branded Dell personal computer including Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED, Dell and Microsoft will make a combined contribution of $50 to $80, depending on the PC purchased, to the Global Fund. Purchase of a Dell (PRODUCT) RED printer generates a $5 Dell contribution. One hundred percent of the funds contributed go to Global Fund-financed grants in Africa.
-source

If I'd only waited another 2 months before ordering my new laptop, I could've had a (RED) one! Drat!

A promo poster at Microsoft's Main Campus, courtesy of R. I'd have nicked it...

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Play! A Video Game Symphony

If Play! ever comes to a symphony hall near you, I highly suggest you attend. It's a world tour of full orchestras and choirs performing video game music with visuals. Even if you're not a huge video game fan, the music really is quite excellent, spectacular even, and nostalgic for some scores. I attended the Seattle Symphony's two weeks ago (ages, I know, and I've been duly chastised for not writing more often) and it was fantastic. I enjoyed every note and every visual, and it was so much fun reliving some classic childhood video game moments with my friends, like the feather in Super Mario World.

The entire concert was about 2 and a half hours, with an intermission in between, and the set was quite substantial. They played the big ones such as (a medley of) Super Mario Brothers & World, of course, Halo, Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy (There were 4 suites from Final Fantasy alone, I think, but they didn't show any visuals for it...perhaps couldn't get the rights?? Major bummer.). They also played Sonic the Hedgehog, Metal Gear Solid, World of Warcraft, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Kingdom Hearts, Shenmue, Silent Hill, Battlefield 1942, Guild Wars and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I wish they had played Morrowind (III) instead of Oblivion for the Seattle performance; I love its gorgeous sweeping scores and the whole epic quality of it.

There were 2 special guests that Thursday night: Marty O'Donnell, composer for Halo and , and Jeremy Soule, composer for The Elder Scrolls III and IV and Guild Wars. OMG it's Jeremy Soule!! When the conductor introduced him to the crowd, I was amongst many craning my neck (we were sitting in the balcony) trying to catch a glimpse of him. I didn't, though, and neither did I see him after the performance. Marty was sitting at a table meeting people but I wasn't terribly interested in meeting him and would've preferred meeting Jeremy. That would've been SO awesome.

Some observations:
- WOW, Chrono Trigger/Cross and Shenmue were surprisingly (to me) good.
- Silent Hill was a lot more rock 'n' roll than I'd expected.
- those anime-style games (i.e. Final Fantasy, Shenmue) sure love their wings.
- whoever they hired to play Super Mario World for the visuals kind of sucked.
- it really was too bad that they didn't have visuals for Final Fantasy, as I would've liked to have seen Cloud and his lovely head of luscious hair. (Too bad real men's hair don't come like that.)
- it is as inevitable as the rain in Seattle that at such events, one has to ignore the annoying geeks in the adjacent seats spouting on and on about Halo and outright dismissing all the other music. Oh, shut up already for *censored* sake.
- and then there are those people who dress for this as if they're going to SakuraCon. This is the symphony, not an anime convention people! There is a time and place for such things and a symphony at Benaroya Hall is not one of them.

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