Do you see two common themes?

J: speaking of forgetting to bring (haha) thank you for delivering my watch to Jen next week :D
L: oh yeah
dammit i better remember that
maybe i need some incentive for me to remember
J: hahaha
Daily fb wall reminders, with personalized messages attached?
L: um, that will make me forget :D
J: evil :*(
L: so lets talk about incentives :D
J: lol, what is it going to cost me
L: i dunno...what do u have to offer?
J: friendship? Baskin Robbins coupons?
L: not free ice cream? just coupons?
...how valuable is your watch again?
J: it has sentimental value!!
fine free ice cream!
L: which means it's invaluable you would say?
and that it's worth more than the cost of the watch itself
hmm....
J: lol I am so being hustled
L: and ice cream is what? $3.00?
J: plus tax
L: i am thoroughly enjoying this
in case you haven't noticed :D
J: yes, I am fully aware!
L: so 3.50 for a very nice Seiko watch with invaluable sentimental values attached
sounds like i'd be gypped if i accept this offer
J: damn it, if you were Adam I could throw in ***ual favours :(

[subject was conveniently changed]

[some 20 minutes later]

L: btw, what's it feel like to be without your watch?
J: I had to revert back to an old watch that ran outta batteries! So I replaced that. It's weird. A lot heavier than my other watch, took some getting used to
L: oh, so i guess you really would like your watch back, huh
J: what do you think?! :P
L: oh, i'm just making sure, that's all
it's important to put a fair price on what i'm selling so fact check is warranted :D
J: :(
L: haha
sad face doesnt work on me
i use that on other ppl all the time
J: :****(
L: you still have four days to make acceptable offers
so no worries
lots of time to think about it :D
_________________________________________________
E: yo
L: yaow
E: did you pass my Quest shirt to Jay Kwan?
L: erm...no...lol..
we forgot it at home
we should keep it hostage until u pay us back tho
hahahaha
since now im hustling jay
i might as well hustle u
E: we'll be mean to you
L: How? im not even in the city
E: when we visit you
hahahha
L: haha, u cant visit me and be mean to me
that defeats the purpose!!
E: yes i can! i can go see Adam.
hahhahh

Cougar Alert

Yesterday, I posted the following on my FB:

Mike Zhang and I are trying to figure out who I should go for, Leonardo DiCaprio who is 8 years older than me, or Taylor Lautner who is 8 years younger than me. The real questions is, which one can I pull off better, dating an 18 year old or a 35 year old? Btw, Inception has rekindled my love for Leonardo DiCaprio. Gotta dig out my old posters from Romeo & Juliet and Titanic ♥

It garnered a lot of responses...mostly girls.

And then monica msged me today.

_________________________________________

- mun.:
lynnnnnnnnnnnnnie!
so did you decide
leo or talyor

Lynnie:
hahahahahahahahaha
whoever i can get!
i think taylor might be tired of all the old women drooling over him

Lynnie:
i just googled taylor lautner
his abs are....
i feel like a pedophile

- mun.:
hahahhahahahhah
DROOLS?
hahahha..
you must have saw this one
http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://cdn.buzznet.com/media-cdn/jj1/headlines/2009/03/taylor-lautner-shirtless-abs.jpg&imgrefurl=http://justjared.buzznet.com/2009/03/19/ashley-greene-taylor-lautner%25E2%2580%2599s-shirtless-scenes/&h=300&w=300&sz=24&tbnid=YcGHK-pdvvqzTM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtaylor%2Blautner&hl=en&usg=__4ME35vAu-9qGskws5JQ_ZXBG7ic=&sa=X&ei=-kNGTKaSJ9CKnQem09HiA
8 pack!
hahahhah

Lynnie:
i did! i asked adam if they were photoshopped
he said they were real

- mun.:
well
how do you tell
look kinda airbrushed in that pic

Lynnie:
thats what i was telling him
and i said makeup helps it get defined better
but then we looked at a few other ones
and he deemed them real
i'd like them to real
so im really not gonna refute that

Testing the i___

I'm currently on the adam's iPod touch using the app called blogwriter lite. I'm pretty impressed with this gadget. The iBook app is my favourite. I think if I had an iPhone I'd end using it 24-7 because I can do anything on this almost anywhere. Crazy. I'm still not a fan of the touchscreen keyboard though.

Inception is a must-see

Inception is not mind-blowing: the ideas are all too familiar, there is no profound or thought-provoking ideas.
Inception is not a challenging piece of puzzle: everything is explained before you need to figure anything out.

Inception is well-executed in story-telling, cinematography, special effects, music, casting: 3 levels of reality happening at the same time, haunting actors, beautiful scenes, and full 2.5 hours of tension, suspense, and dramatic music.

Inception is essentially a menage of classic greatness:
There is nothing new about the content, you can find all the ideas in many classic psychological sci-fi thriller, and, of course, Freud.
There is nothing new about the style; you can see shadows of the Matrix, Ccean's Eleven, James Bond, Blade Runner, 2001.

But it makes you feel like you're watching something completely new and original.

It is a good story that was told in a way that made it better.
It is a real "good movie"
It is what all movies ought to be.

If I had to say one bad thing about the movie, it would be that it was too packed with action--Non-stop from beginning to end--I'm not sure how my heart handled it.
But for some, that only makes the movie that much better.

Go see it.

Technology Overload

Last night, I reformatted my Netbook from XP to Windows 7, with negative help from the boyfriend. Kudos to Microsoft, and technology in general nowadays, for making everything so dummy-friendly. Actually, to be fair, I gotta thank my brother who managed to provide me a uber copy of windows that had every edition on a formatted usb flash and all I needed was a product key. If I had to format my usb key into an hdd I don't know if I'd ever reformat...

It's funny though: I bought my netbook right before I went back to Taiwan so I can bring it everywhere with me. I left my darling VAIO at home for my mom, gave back the XPS to Oculus and I was left with this tiny little thing that lags when I (used to) play Restaurant City. Not to say that it didn't serve me well while I was in Taiwan, but by the time I got to Boston, the netbook was left in the tiny apartment corner and only taken out when we felt like streaming something to watch in bed, which was very rare.

To be honest, the Netbook lost its glamour when we each got a Blackberry. The BB is no iPhone, in that surfing the net is not "ideal", but it serves its purpose for FB, twitter, google map (!!!), whenever we need to look up life trivia, and, of course, definitely for E-mails and messaging.

So after I installed all the necessities back onto my netbook, I looked at its pretty face and wondered when will be the next time I'm going to use it; all the while, Adam is sitting next to me YouTubing videos of basketball players and cars on his iPod Touch.

And here it is.

Between Adam and I, we EACH have:

• a work desktop,
• a work laptop, and
• a blackberry;

Together, we have:

• a new Dell Studio desktop,
• a Netbook,
• and an iPod Touch.

How many other ways do we need to be connected to the interwebz?

Seriously, we have no need for more machines. We can't even find a use for the desktop and netbook at home anymore. We thought about hooking the desktop up to stream movies on TV but it was too much work, both setting it up and actually using it (on top of that Netflix and HD channels provide an over abundance of entertainment). At this point, even my mother has more machines than she can use (my leftover desktop and laptop and my brother's leftover desktop...)

Adam and I have been thinking about getting a Mac (iMac? MacBook? Mac Mini?). One can argue that getting a Mac is not about purpose, but just about keeping up with technology...right?

I think they should rename our generation to generation spoiled.

But don't worry, we currently do not have the funds to purchase an expensive Apple item.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, most of the stuff I have is red...including my desktop that's not pictured here.

It's ALIVE!

No one in my family has a green thumb..in fact, the concept of having plants was obscure to me until my first coop term, where, at the end of the term, I received a pot of plants as one of my goodbye presents. At first, I was confused and excited...ooh my very own plant. I placed it next to my window and watered it religiously..until one day, I discovered fruit flies around the plant, at which point, I tossed the whole pot into the garbage and brought it down the garbage chute. Insects in the house...didn't know civilization was going backwards(!!!)

We were at IKEA a couple months ago, trying to figure out how to make our place look better with decorations and we bought some art and I wanted some fake flowers or sticks as decor. At the fake flower section, I saw a bunch of fake potted plants, because, y'know, IKEA isn't a nursery so it's gotta be fake right?

I spent a lot of time picking out the best looking plant ("Wow, Adam, these are amazing! No two fake plants look alike, they must spent a lot of time on the mould!"), accidentally depotting some by picking them up from their stem, and getting soil all over the floor and my clothes ("Man, Adam, IKEA is amazing! Can you believe how many realistic looking plants they have? Even the soil looks real!"). I even bought a white plant pot to put the plant in, because that would match our bathroom better than the ceramic looking pot in which the plant was plotted.

A few months later, while I was in the bathroom, I found a brown leaf on the floor. Weird, I thought to myself, where did we go to attract a brown leaf into the house.....if this were a movie, there would a loud "DUN DUN DUN" from the background music the moment it hit me and i looked up at the plant sitting on the shelf.





I've been watering it regularly now. It still looks unhealthy. I just looked up instructions on the IKEA website and it says to leave it in bright, but not direct, sunlight. There's no room where our window is for that plant and having soil in the bathroom is enough for me. Mr. Real Plant, hopefully you can survive in our bathroom with being watered whenever I remember and am feeling sorry for you....Just pray that you're not going to attract any fruit flies, k?

How much is it worth?

Adam and I were on a mission today to go to the mall to return a bunch of stuff. Two weeks ago, Adam and I went shopping for summer clothes and I bought a bunch of stuff from Aeropostales, only to find similar stuff for a lot cheaper at H&M and the AE outlet (I know some of you cringe at the thought of returning stuff, but I'm all about the buy first, decide later policy that all retail stores push for hahahaha).

Now there was a halter top I bought at H&M (without really trying cuz the line was too long) and a pair of jeans from AE that didn't fit me right. These items costs $5 and $14 respectively and many people would say, oh why bother trekking all the way to the mall to get $19 back. And they are probably right, but since I need to return a large $$$ worth of stuff at Aero anyway at the mall, why not right? If I don't, they would just end up sitting in my closet (like another shirt I bought for $7 at H&M) with the tag still on and never be worn.

So I'm at the H&M store, holding my $5 piece of cloth and the line was ridiculously long. I'm at a cross-road here. Is it worth the time to line up? One might argue, yes, you're there anyway, what's another 15 minutes, $5 is still money, while another might chastise: $15 minutes is worth way more than $5.
___________

Last week, when I went camping, I noticed Adam's cousin-in-law with a beautiful looking pedicure. I've never gotten a pedicure before, and have only gotten manicures twice. If you can find cheap places, a mani+pedi is $30. If you don't look hard enough, a mani can cost you $25 while a pedi $45.

Now, if you decide to do your own at home you can buy your own nail polish for $5 and the top coat for $7. And if you want really do it up, a nourishing undercoat for $10 or add a kit (like I did) for $40 and you can get french tips or stamps of designs for $45. Ok, so the cost is about equivalent but with a spa treatment you get to have exfoliation, scrubs, aroma oil, massage while with a DIY kit, you can do your nail polish over and over and over again, up to 20 times(!) with the same amout of money.
__________

Sometimes, when I have a rough day at work, and I don't feel like cooking, we eat out. Sometimes I have a rough week at work, and I run into this dilemma: We've been eating out for the last two days, there's produce in the fridge that's rotting, but I'm so hungry and exhausted and by the time I'm done cooking I'd be insanely hungry and cranky and we'd still have to clean...but if we eat out, the food is expensive, and the produce would be wasted AND it's less healthy.
__________

Some of those who values the importance of money would tell me: stay in line and return the shirt, buy your own nail polish and do it yourself, and eat at home.
Some of those who values time, convienence, and comfort might tell me: don't stay in line and donate the shirt, go treat yourself at the spa once in a while.

What do/did I do? I stayed in line and returned the shirt--it's going to clog up my already collapsing closet. I have bought my own expensive nail polish kit before--my enthusiasm lasts for about two times and now i have ugly nails all the time. I sometimes suck it up and cook, sometimes we end up eating out for a week.

Growing up and living an environment where we're more privileged than many others, there really is no right answer. My only solution to this cognitive dissonance is a philosophy to not be wasteful. If I don't return that shirt, I'd be wasteful. If I buy nail polish I'm never going to wear I'm going to be wasteful. If there is food at home and I don't cook it, I'd be wasteful.

That's my goal now..less waste the better, though I might still have ugly nails because I'm too cheap to go get manicures often, but at least I won't have bottles of nail polish in the closet that dries up before they are done.