bleeuaaaurrgghh

Smells like winter soup

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:26:00 +0000

The construction around the 520 and 405 junction smells like something that reminds me of mom's winter chicken soup with herbs and grains.

Officially old

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:08:00 +0000

Originally posted Saturday, December 4, 2010

I'm preclined to having white hair like my dad and I've noticed that I've had quite a few since my mid-20's. A guy at Jersey Mike's last year commented while I was next to him in line, "Oh, I was going to complement you on your highlights, and it turns out they're white [hairs]. That's really cool!" I took it as a positive, at least it grows in streaks.

Then this hazy Saturday morning, the man of my life gazed at me, and then looked me over. "Whoa, you have a lot of white hairs!" and proceeded to preen through the rest of my head and proclaimed "they're all over the place!" Helpfully, he notes that because they're white already, I just have to dye it some other color, and then the colors will really show off. Thanks for the help.

August 2011 Update:
Got a Groupon for cut and color, so got my hair dyed warm chestnut color at Sweet Lily Salon by B. It was a nice change to have the color, not much happened cut-wise. Since my hair's grown about a month since and there's almost an inch worth of roots, I can see the contrast of how the dye colored my white hairs, but also browned the dark black. Good FYI if anyone's trying to keep their hair black.

Mini-goal Week 2 Outcome

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:49:00 +0000

Mini-goal Week 2 was successful. I went to the gym three times that week for at least 20 minutes. Shortly after that, was a vacation trip. Vacations and events that disrupts the pattern makes it tough for me to get back on a workout schedule. Knowing this, I've been determined not to let that happen.

Since June, I've had this schedule:
Monday - spin
Wednesday - lunch workout or after work gym class
Saturday/Sunday - non-gym activity (football, basketball, tennis, paddle board, running, so far)

And in between, at least one other day, I go to the gym, or at least go on a walk. Last week Wednesday it was bike ride between Kirkland and Juanita.

Anime note, I watched Trinity Blood last month. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to others and agree with wikipedia reviews noted under Reception section, but there were are lot of aspects I liked. There was a lot of art and scenes of old Europe integrated in the scenery that I admired. Integrate with a semi-decent story and throw in vampires in it, and I will watch the whole thing.

Creating mini-goals.. Week 1 - Get a full night's sleep

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:20:00 +0000

It's easy to let the days and weeks slip by and I oftentimes have thoughts of "ah, shoulda done this as that, next time!" For a little time, I'll create goals for the week, and check back to see how I did as I go into the next one. Thinking I should try this out for a couple of months and hope that some good practices becomes habit.

Started this last week, so this is a recap entry.

Week 1 - Get a full night's sleep
Result, I got 9 hours of of sleep for about half of the week. In order to do this, I have to set an alarm that tells me it's time to wind down, get ready for bed. That was a good and odd feeling, feeling rested on waking up.

Next week - to go to the gym at least 20 minutes

Where old receipts can take you

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 08:48:00 +0000

I don't advocate being a pack rat, but it has some nice side effects. In skimming the old receipts, good old memories came back of places that are long gone or much past their heyday. Remember any of these from Cupertino? A Clean Well Lighted Place, Miyake?

Bloated banana body

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 05:18:00 +0000

I like CSI: Las Vegas, and despite all the silly things they dramatize on the show, I felt like I had a firsthand experience of seeing a bloated, dead body. I'd left a banana on the counter, the companion eaten the previous week. This banana softened and started to turn black (which is common), but when I noticed it a couple days later, it lay in its pool of brown stucky goo, the carcass swelled up like a hindenburg, looking like it would burst at the shriveled ends. great, huh?

Anime/Manga Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:56:00 +0000

Watched Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2001) yesterday, and was really, pleseantly surprised. The animation and artistry were well crafted, rich and fleshed out. Story, fairly standard, decent pacing. I laughed at vampire zombies that in one scene at a deserted village. (It wasn't meant to funny, and I doubt someone else would either.) I hadn't watched any of the series before, I was actually expecting an anime series because of Blockbuster's (1 of 1 Disk) note. It was a nice change to watch a well-done anime that does a throwback to the classic anime style.

I'm sad that OneManga, a manga site's shutting down. It had a great collaboration of so many different mangas to explore many different stories and art styles. I feel like it's stupid to mention something that's good but gone, like telling my friends about great restaurants that are closed, but it's a way to say goodbye to something good that I spent many an hour on. Let me know if you've got recs for another site!

Could I be an aggie?

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:40:00 +0000

I have a sudden urge to grow something. I currently live in the city where there's no yard, but that's no excuse. I have a balcony that I can make some use of, and there are neighborhood peapatches of collaborative land plots to grow goodies. Apparently there's been a rising popularity of people raising their own chickens for eggs in the city, although it's not something I could do.

Growing up eating the fruit off the trees in my parent's back yard and the occasional corn and chive garden (I remember our one-time flaccid carrots, we never watered them enough), I developed an inherent understanding of the resources it takes to grow your food (whether it's meat or veg), and how your crop can be demolished by weather, pests, disease, or some unknown reason. I've continued to learn about how food grows and now understand that science is a significant part in farming (PH levels in soil/water, make of the dirt, etc.). It bugs me that I have a bias that food grown on the massive scale isn't as attractive as the small gardens. Small farms (I've seen veg, pigs, fruit orchards, private gardens, peapatches) are so picturesque. But I know that regardless of whether it's a mass producer or a small backyard garden, everyone cares about their products and do their best to make it thrive, because the crop is either for profit or our own plates.

But I wonder if the farming moguls eat their own genetically modified, pesticide-sprayed lettuce, or spring for the natural organic goods? Weedkillers and pesticides are used for killing things. If it goes onto the plants, doesn't it get into my body when I eat, then out of what I pee/poop into the water systems that cycle back into my tap water? Afterall, if I were starving and there were only rats around, I'd rather eat the rat I caught in a rat trip, but not the one killed by rat poison. (haha, sorry, that image popped into my head, but the concept applies still!)

This feeling of a need to grow something is probably motivated by the PCC Market's newsletter article that on a Farmland Trust they have going, currently at Orting Valley Farms. It's a program intended for sustainable farmers to get a jumpstart, because they say it's difficult to get started. I'd support that as a consumer.

I've only experienced the taste of farming's complex balancing act, of what nature gives us and how we can coax what we can out from it. But the little I've had, I really respect the farmers and the process. Understanding where my food comes from really has me feeling that saying "you are what you eat", so I hope more people can be aware of what they eat and make conscious decisions.

so i'm not an aggie, but i sure appreciate them. keep on growin!

Telling someone they were wrong (scientifically)

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:50:00 +0000

I'm prone to taking people's word for it. What bugs is how long it takes for to call someone, mentally at least, on something that's incorrect.

Started thinking about this because I read some MSN article link explaining the facts behind white hairs this past weekend. (I'm getting quite a few more of them!) One of the facts they noted is that your hair color is determined at the root, it can't change color in the middle. Randomly, a day or two later, I realized, Hey, bogus!! I have had multiple white hairs that change in the middle, from black to white, and once in awhile, back to back again. Definitely on the same hair.

Just a reminder, don't take all the little "facts" you see to truth. Does this mean I'm older and wiser? ; )

Ripening

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:46:00 +0000

Most of you know that bananas help ripen fruit, right? if you have an underripe mango, papaya, etc., you can put it in a (paper) bag with a banana or apple (I recommend the apple route) and it'll ripen much more quickly.

Anyways, I left my bananas spooning my grapefruit for the past few days, only to lift it up this morning and find my grapefruit molded with the banana outline. ick! I dislike that yucky "suprise!" feeling. The bananas are completely fine. I'm going to moosh them into their place with impending banana bread.

*munches on a unscathed tangerine*

List of eateries

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:43:00 +0000

I like eating, tasting, sampling foods drinks everywhere I go, and it's a longer list than I ever realized. I don't like that I forget where I've been, so I've started keeping a list of places I've been to as a source of ingestion. Unfortunately I've missed a lot of places outside the USA because I don't remember them.

There aren't any reviews on my part, better to look them up online for or feel free to ask me before you go. http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/#/mhyr38pww22w5nqk

The list goes on! I may document them based on the year, that'd be fun I think
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=47.62599945~-122.33300018300001&lvl=4&dir=0&sty=r&cid=D835C4D60A01BEAC!483

noreply@blogger.com (Ching) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:22:00 +0000

Chinglamb's been doing great and playing quite a bit of Left4Dead 2. When left alone, she closet plays Puzzle Quest. While she was distracted with games, I took over her post.

Don't know if anyone's checked up on this, for the time being, it'll be "bleeuaaaurrgghh". It's stands for the spew that will come forth. That I don't know what I ought to say or do or tell the world, boomer bile just ended up coming out.