Stupid Email Series: Part 1

i'm planning the annual meeting for our socal alum nerd club. i'm really not sure how i got roped into being volunteer extraordinaire, but here i am. rizzy once told me that there are two types of people in the world: rich people and volunteers. i hope to be a rich person one day. or really soon.

so this annual meeting used to be a dinner at a local hotel. old and very cute grandpa alums would gather at the event in their little red jackets and reminisce the old times. but in order to change things up a little and make the event cheaper (and therefore making it more inviting to the younger alums), i planned this year's event at a local golf course and advertised it as a champagne brunch. the one thing i hadn't counted on was all the random emails that i would get. and you know my patience with stupid emails. enjoy the new stupid email blog entries. i'll add them as i get them throughout my volunteer term.

Actual email 1:
I bought 2 tickets for the MIT Brunch next Saturday. I suggest returning to the dinner format in future years. A brunch wastes the entire day. I will have to give up my regular tennis game Saturday in order to attend. I don't want to do that again.

My actual response:
Thanks for your input and for signing up for the brunch. We will definitely keep your suggestion in mind.

My desired response:
Gasp! Not your tennis game! Do you need us to wipe your ass for you after you poop too?

Random Dude

i was just looking through pictures....saw this and had to share. he wants to be our friend.

Schappy

last weekend, i saw the sex and the city movie with the girlies. as expected, the theater was filled with 98% women, 1.9% gay men, and 0.1% men (aka basel, nk's bf; his comment - "if a man tells you he doesn't want to see a show that has 4 women having lots of sex, he's lying"). anyhoo, the movie was as expected, fun clothes, screeching girls, and a happy ending for all.

on monday morning, when i got into the office, one girl asked me what i did for the weekend. after i told her i had an estrogen-filled weekend, she replied, "i wouldn't pin you as a sex and the city type of girl." hmm.

on tuesday lunch, one guy who sits near me said, "i have to tell you, i'm so disappointed in you." i'm like, "why?" and he says, "you totally started the sex and the city conversation with all the girls yesterday. and i thought you had our back."

so i'm on my 5th day of my 13th week at work (not that i'm counting). despite the truth, i guess i don't give off the sappiest retard on earth impression to my co-workers. they'll never know that i teared up when miranda and steve met on the bridge. then again, i totally teared up when the lakers couldn't make a shot in the 4th quarter and lost game 1 last night. i'm sure the boys would understand that. sniff.

Blue Jar, Not Fish

after 12 years, college friend heidi and her equally genius man haiwei finally tied the knot. i got my butt up to san jose to see them and hang with the mccormick crowd i hadn't kept up with in a while. it was great to see everyone and learn that i am officially the most delinquent person of the group. everybody was either a doctor, an engineer lead, a millionaire, a mother, a father, or all of the above.

before i continue, here's the lovely couple.














my favorite part of the wedding, besides the friends and the endless chinese food at the reception, was during the ceremony. the officiant had haiwei and heidi pour their respective jars of sand into one larger jar. the message was that by marriage they are as hard to separate as the collective grains of sand. his jar was of white sand and hers of blue.

so, when they started to pour the sand very slowly into the main jar, it didn't take long for one of us to start the chain of laughter. the combined jar of sand did not turn "light blue" -- it just remained the same blue from heidi's jar. when the officiant held up the combined jar, crystal and i started whispering things like, "heidi dominates!" or "heidi wins!" really, at this point, they shouldn't fast-forwarded the ceremony to the kiss.

Win

i was telling crystal few weeks ago about my friend mark who named his new baby daughter story.

i said to crystal, "...and he named her story as in...like...a stoooory."
she responded, "ooooooh!" and then pause.
few seconds later, she exclaimed, "wait a minute, do you realize what you just said? that was the worst explanation ever!"
i yelled back, "but you understood me!"
she had no comeback.
thus, i won. happy sauj.

btw, i heard kevin and bean quote someone this morning. they said that there be booming business for cat-sitters this friday when sex and the city is released. HAHA

Hiding Go

since we sit out in the open at work, one does not have any privacy in conversations. normally at other offices, people jump into open conference rooms to have their "oh baby i miss you" or "yes, i can come into interview with you tomorrow" convos. unfortunately, i work at a rapidly growing company where our 3 conference rooms are always occupied with employees doing real work. so, what do people do?

well, it's like playing hide and seek (which i always thought was calling "hiding go seek"...which is obviously stupidly fobby). i got a personal call at work last week. so i jumped out of my seat, put my friend on hold, and proceeded to walk out towards the lobby. someone was there on his cellie. so i walked outside to the smoking area. there were 2 smokers chillin' and 1 other person on his cell. so i walked in the warehouse to hide within our inventory (and grinning cause i thought this was so genius) but spotted another person on his cell between the shelves. beaten down, i walked in the back door where i heard another girl sitting on a staircase -- "sure grandma," she said. i gave up, hung up, walked back to my desk, and proceeded to IM for a really long time with my friend who originally called me.

now you wonder why i have such an IM addiction. i blame work.

301st Post

so, willets is right. my 300th post should have been a tribute to the humble origins of this blog. it's been just over 3 years since i had my quarterlife crisis, quit my job, moved out of my flooded venice beach apartment, and started to write my trivial random thoughts to the world wide web. i clicked on few entries to jive my memory of what has gone on in my life for the past few years. here's my quick recap...

input: lazy, out-of-shape, confused, fobby girl in search of a new career, love, life...going through a quarter-life crisis

process: kills 3 fish, 1 liver, few jokes, many brain cells, 1 startup idea, internet space for 300 blog posts

output: lazy, out-of-shape, confused, fobby girl in search of a new career, love, life...going through a third-life crisis

hmm, at least there is the new blackberry bold to look forward to: http://www.blackberry.com/blackberrybold/ yay!

Inappropriate

so the blogger tells me that this is my 300th post. yay. i almost feel like i have to give a kobe-eque gay mvp acceptance speech. to all my 3 readers, this goes out to you. i wouldn't be here at my 300th post of meaningless, nonsensical blabber of random thoughts if it wasn't for you. the 300th post is not an individual achievement. i wouldn't be here without you, my team. we're like a family, man. family.

now that deep thought is out of the way, can i tell you how lame i am? i was driving to a quick coffee break the other day when "talk of the nation" was on. i don't particularly care for the topics on this talk show, but i love it when larry mantle has to cut off some "expert" on the phone due to time constraints. it's totally like the oscars but for talk radio -- the music starts to play over the speech, the expert feels pressured and talks faster, larry tries to butt in with "uh...uh"...and finally he cuts the person off and says, "thank you blah blah blah."

anyhoo, i arrived at my destination before larry had a chance to cut anyone off, so i just sat in my truck. after a few minutes, larry pulled through for me and i got a good laugh. with a goofy, satisfied look on my face, i turned to get out of the truck...to see this random, completely sketchy looking dude is staring at me. i'm all weirded out but i have to walk past him, and when i do, he whispers to me in this totally creepy way, "waaaaaaaaaas it gooooood?"

i'm think to myself WTF but it comes out of my mouth as "yes, thanks. very satisfying."

and no, i don't want to know what the dude was thinking. all i know is that i gotta stop talking to strangers...and learn to keep it to myself when larry hits the spot.

Vacuum Thoughts

last friday, the new father's office in culver city opened for lunch for the first time. the culver city crowd was obviously dying for a new lunch option because it was like a hollywood club when we arrived there. the line was super long to get in, the doors opened later than expected, and there was even a dude checking ids at the door (i saw one grandpa really excited to get his id checked...too cute). and then once you got in, it was the usual bs -- no table service, so you had to stand in yet another line to order the food. after two lines and over one hour wait time, we got our $12 burgers. and the verdict? it was almost worth the wait. gotta love carmelized onions and bacon in anything. mmm.

so now, the question is this. would the "let's be frank hotdogs" cart across the street have more or less business?

oh, i just saw a commercial for the new dyson ball vacuum cleaner and completely lost my train of thought. i looked it up: http://www.dyson.com/homepage.asp. $399.99? hmm, i kind of want to test drive it.

Coolers and Hard Hats

i just put away my leftovers for tomorrow's lunch, which reminded me to tell you about my lunch on friday.

my new work is in one of those warehouse-converted-into-office-space locations. the inside setup is very startup-like and cool. i basically sit out in the open with all my co-workers, and when you have meetings at each other's desks, you roll up one of those exercise balls conveniently located around the office. while i enjoy being in a casual, non-corporate type of environment, when it comes to lunch options -- it blows. nothing really is conveniently walkable outside of these warehouses, so we have to drive out to get any sort of food. while it's nice to get out of the office every day, i found that after one month, even the drive to the local in-n-out was getting old.

and as such, on friday morning, i decided to pack myself a little bento box lunch. around noon, after my co-workers ventured off in groups to various lunch destinations, i busted out my cute little lunch sack and IMed katie, the genius with all the answers.

me: "it's nice out and i don't want to eat at my desk, but there are no benches or picnic tables around. where should i eat?"
katie: "duh! your truck! like a tailgate."
me: "that's genius, katie, you really are genius with all the answers."
katie: "construction workers do it all the time. though they always have coolers."

so i ventured outside to my truck, sat on the bed, and started to unravel my lunch sack. then i turned to notice the confused stares of few gardeners nearby, who were eating their lunches underneath the shadows of the one teeny weeny tree in the parking lot. what! have they never seen an asian girl eat her lunch on the back of her truck in the middle of her company's parking lot? hmpf! would they feel better if i had a cooler and a hard hat next to me?

after about 5 minutes, i felt pretty self-conscious and semi-sun-burnt, so i got in the car to drive to a local cafe and to eat my bento in peace.

just fyi, i'll probably just eat my lunch at my desk tomorrow.

Oh Mickey

a week or so ago, i heard that the guy who invented egg mcmuffins died. as a tribute to this herb peterson, a culinary genius of a man by my standards, i decided to up my morning mcdonalds visits to...um...everyday. there's a mickey d's conveniently located around the corner from my new gig -- it's almost like herb consulted big g to made this happen for me.

anyhoo, yesterday morning, i swung by the mc drive thru for my two egg mcmuffins. granted it was like the 7th straight weekday i was there, but after i shouted my "usual" order into the menu speaker display thingy, the girl greeted back, "you're back."

i felt fat and skipped the drive thru today. maybe once a week is enough of a mctribute.

At the Ho

yesterday in lovely scottsdale, bschool buddies sarah and nate got married. they are one of those best friend couples that you really feel like they will last. sarah is prim and proper and nate is a fun-loving goof -- when you see them together, sarah seems to always be laughing and nate to just be staring at sarah with puppy-dog eyes. in his speech yesterday, he said, "just look at her and look at me. i still can't believe she said yes." it was pretty cute. my favorite fact about them: when they entered bschool as a couple, sarah wanted to do without school-premise pda, so she and nate would high-five when they ran into each other between classes. the idea of a high-five pda is funny enough, but i think it was funnier to see sarah high-five at all. here's a pix of the couple:



















so the wedding. the location was scenic, the weather was perfect, the bride was gorgeous, the crowd was fun, the band was fantastic -- so, minus ucla getting hammered in the final four during the ceremony, the night deserved an A. the country club scenary:















so a few more fun facts. the ceremony was conducted by both a rabbi and a priest, which i'd never seen before. the two gentlemen took turns in conducting the ceremony in their own traditions. oh, the rabbi was way funnier. lindy was proud.















the ceremony was in front of the clubhouse near the 18th green. this made me crack up -- two random golfers finishing up their rounds behind the "i dos":















and last item in my camera that made me laugh. our hotel room at the "hotel valley ho" (actual name! super fun to say), had a bathtub in the middle of the room. here's lindy vanna:

English as a Stupid Language

just came back from watching "21" with a bunch of mit peeps. there's something about watching a movie featuring mit nerdiness -- you find it all nostalgic when the camera pans over the dome or laughing hysterically at fake mit class names that are clearly just a random permutation of nerd words. "i have a paper due on tuesday in quantitative literacy." tee hee. "he aced combinational algorithm." hehehe. yup, it's not funny to anyone else but us dorks.

though i have to admit, our nerdiness is really wearing thin. instead of missing boston throughout the entire movie, we all came out of the theatre talking about our next vegas trip. and no, not to go count cards -- we just wanted to go hit the dance floor. unch unch unch (that's my clubby music sound and my dancing to it, please use your imagination). ooooh yeah.

what else. oh, i was thinking about how schools with names like xavier could never recruit asians to go there. it would be too hard for the parents to pronounce. yesterday, my mom came over in the middle of my watching the ucla-xavier game. she looks at the screen and says, "oooh, so is ucla doing well against...HA-vi-er?" i start laughing and say, "mom, it's xavier, not javier like a mexican name." she insisted that she had a student once who spelled his name xavier, but pronounced it javier. after a while, she said, "whatever, the team is losing anyway."

and today, i went home to say what's up to my papa. he says, "your team played well yesterday. they beat that....x-team." i tried to teach him how to pronounce xavier, but after three tongue twister tries, he said, "well, that's just stupid."

Happy Easter and More

happy easter, jc! hope you all got lots of pastel-colored marshmellows to clog up the arteries. mmm.

so, per usual, my ncaa bracket blows. i had pitt in the final four and they lost yesterday. i should've known. i mean, their name is pitt! well, at least i have the bruins to cheer for...if they freakin stop giving me hard attacks with their close games.

on that note, every year i fill out the brackets like i know these schools. someone asked me the other day where davidson was located, and seriously, i don't know where most of these schools are! i googled a few -- of course, my a.d.d. kicked in and i stopped after these: 1. oral roberts - tulsa, oklahoma; 2. gonzaga - spokane, washington; 3. winthrop - rock hill, south carolina; 4. siena - loundonville, new york; 5. xavier - cincinati, ohio...

okay okay, i'm sorry if i'm supposed to know where these colleges are, but i'm an LA snob. you know, the people who ignore the existence of all life between the n-y-c and hollywood. rrrrr.


oh, so, more about my new work. the gig is in the video game industry. i haven't played a video game since super nintendo's mario kart, nba jam, and street fighter ii (i thought ryu was hot). i guess you can count puzzle fighter in college and the random dr. mario challenge with steph too, but as you can see, i avoid games. it's because i know myself too well -- once i start playing games, i'll never stop. it's like a weird mix of competitiveness and dorkiness that only happens with video games. i even deleted the freecell and minesweeper icons from my computer at one point. anyhoo, when the whole playstation, xbox, wii craze came about, my electronics-obsessed self looked the other way, "what guitar hero? what madden?"

as expected, it's not going so well for me. it's like a former alcoholic working as a bartender. a former fatty, working the donut shop cashier. seriously. it's only been two weeks, i'm about to go get myself few game consoles. sigh.

Unretired and Babbling

so i did the unthinkable last week -- i started a new job. i'm a finance monkey at a local startup, and despite my daily longing for my "reretirement," the gig ain't so bad. but of course, as with any new thing in my life, it provides endless material for the blog. that is, if i wasn't so lazy to write in it!

so, on the first day, my boss and few co-workers told me that the company uses AIM and caught me totally off-guard by asking, "what's your screenname?" without thinking, i answered and made a fantastic first impression as a classy post-mba professional, "it's saujinator." who would've thunk that the screenname i chose at the ripe age of 18 would follow me for this long?

oh, this has nothing to do with anything, but why do people wave down from the overpasses above the freeway? i was driving through the 909 saturday morning and was perplexed as to how people think that is an accepted form of weekend entertainment. okay, fine! i admit, i kinda wanted to join them and look down at passing cars like i'm big g hovering over the world.

btw, aly asked me this last week and i forgot to confirm -- do directors say, "end scene!" or "and...scene!"? anyone?

okay, that was a useless used space in the virtual world. but give me a break, i'm working full time for the first time in like three years and my brain hurts.