Oh No, Sony!! Why why why? Here’s an example of how Sony Playstation have embarassed themselves at E3. I’ve been debating about this system on and on again. Here is the link:

Sony’s Embarassing E3 2006 Presentation

All I have to say is, “Giant enemy crab … in the Genji?” (I know Murasaki understands. Haha.)

But you’ll never know. All of this, like the Wii is pure speculation. Besides, after the system, it’s really all about the games in the end.

He Roxas My Soxas!!
Speaking of games, I’ve been playing Kingdom Hearts 2 or “KH2″ as we like to say it in the biz. My above statement speaks it all. It damn rocks!! Wooo!

I’ve been travelling to and from worlds, just having a blast, as I recall all their characters that they have integrated from the world of Disney and the Final Fantasy world. This has to be my favorite RPG so far. It’s just FUN. And the nostalgic ratio is just off the roof! Hahaha.

Don’t be a lamer. Play it.

Jing Jing Jing
Last night, Jing — the Chinese exchangee — me and Matty all sat around the island table and chatted over dinner.

Matty and I had pasta with home-made tomato sauce, salad with red and yellow bell peppers, and a small piece of baked salmon.

Jing, who came later, just ate some pasta or “Italian noodle” as she likes to call them. She’s so cute. I really like talking to her. Because of her experiences with my parents, she feels more grateful and appreciative of her mother, who’s a divorcee and been taking care of Jing by herself.

Feeling Encouraged
I just got a happy jolt of energy. More info on that later. Wee. All I have to say is that January 2007 is going to be more of a determining factor for my future goals than I thought it will be.

No one is perfect. Everyone has their own idiosyncrasies, personality traits or “quirks”, that is defined by the many years of experience that has shaped their own the physical and mental capacities and limitations.

The problem with most people is that they look for that “perfect” someone. No one can be an ideal. On top of that, no one really knows what they want and that “perfect” someone could really not be all that “perfect”. The trick is to find that special someone whose idiosyncracies syncronize with your own. Or, in other words, the trick is to find someone whose irritating habits aren’t irritating to you. Heck, some people may down call them “charming”. Hahaha.

That being said, Matty and I has smoothed over some edges in the past two days. We’re not perfect people and when we are grumpy — we are grumpy. We were both Grumpy McGrump in the past 48 hours. We both pout, bitch, and complain in our own little ways and our tempers would flair, while the other would try to comfort the other. I realized that since we both react in very similiar ways when we’re in bad moods, I realized that we must be very similar in ways to comfort those bad moods: a hug, a rant, and then a good nap. Hahahaha.

Ashia called it, “passing over the honeymoon stage” where couples would go ga-ga and moony eyed over each other, not realizing faults and everything seems to be red wine and roses. No. I think that Matty and I have passed over the honeymoon stage a long time ago. I think that there has been a couple incidents between Matty and I that isn’t at all red wine and roses; it has been more like diet coke and dandelions. We’re pretty grounded and I like the fact that despite these rough patches, we are able to work ‘em through. Weed ‘em out. Spray some pesticide. Hoe between the rows.

Enough gardening imagery.

He’s not perfect; I’m not perfect. What matters is that our Lego pieces fit together.

My Little Garden
… may be dying.

I have no idea. This is my attempt in having my very own little herb and vegetable garden. I’m constantly fretting over my tomato plant. It seems strong enough, but all of a sudden the leaves would yellow. May be I shouldn’t have planted them now and I should have waited until after the May Long Weekend. Gah. I just want my plants to be GREEN.

The Case of the Missing Inge
Friday, May 19th. Bryce and I are off to Tasty Tomatoe’s. He’s either coming to pick me up from my store at 8 or 9pm, depending on when I could get off early. If you’re in for the Italian feast, or even if you can’t come, call me!

Outfits: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I have a Rotary function to attend on Saturday and I am having a hard time deciding between outfits. Now, the day event is meant to be business casual.

I first decided on a cardigan: I’m likely to choose plain black, but the other option is this House of Virtue fushia and light pink cardigan.

Then comes the hard part. Do I simply wear a dress underneath the chosen sweater, like this Picnic frock dress in navy blue, white pinstripe, and blue and pink polka dot fabric? Or should I wear my Allison Wonderland ‘jacks’ patterned dress shirt and match it with a Dagg & Stacy pin-stripe 3/4 length trouser pants? You can see them below.

Click here for larger picture sizes.

The shoes will be my brown leather flat Mary Janes from Thailand.

You decide casual reader. Remember that this is the same people who has chosen me to be a scholarship recipient after I wowed them in the interview whilst I wore my green Dace pencil skirt, my handmade grey-striped U-scooped necked t-shirt with pink trim, and purple cropped velvet jacket. Hmm. What to wear?

A Poem to Inge

Ingey, Ingey, Ingey.

You once were here, but now you’re gone.  I’ve left this note while your raid’s on.  Good and I knew you well.  To contact you, I’ll send a ‘tel’.

Damn you WoW.  Damn you.

Mother’s Day Brunch with Matty
Mother’s Day Brunch was spent with the Goods. Matty, Matty’s mom, Jeff, and I got together for brunch to celebrate. Matt and I arrived at his place at 7:30am where he and I began to make preparations for an apple strudel. Matty used this crazy recipe.

Needless to say, the dough was a disaster. His mother saved the dessert by helping Matt finish the dessert and baking it. It was pretty funny to look at it since it was this strange cresent shaped monstrosity of dough with this ridiculous amount of apples inside. It would have been excellent if the dough wasn’t doughy, but now we know for future reference what NOT to do.

He also planned to make Eggs Benedict — which was fabulous. It consisted of egg, back bacon, english muffins, and hollandise sauce. We had two pieces each which was more than enough since it was soo rich with sauce. I enjoyed myself.

My fries, sweet-potato fries, were good as well. I ended up battering them and then frying them. They turned out alright, but were not as excellent as the Eggs Benedict ala Matthew.

We chatted on the balcony. Nothing serious. Little chit-chats about our lives and what we want to get accomplished. Matty’s Mom was so cute in getting herself comfortable in the lounge chair. It’s a strange sort of chair that’s a bit tricky to get into. It was fun.

I followed the lazy day with a small nap. Then Matty drove me back to my place where we spent the few hours watching Munich before my parent’s picked me up.

Mother’s Day Dinner with my Parents
Oooh. Tensions ran high in this time as my family ostensibly got along fine at Red Lobster and to the drive back to my parent’s. Then all hell broke loose.

What was suppose to be funny — Jing, the Chinese exchange student, putting two small water-filled water bottles in the toilet tank — turned to a disaster the moment my parents’ blew up into a violently angry rage at her face and my litte sister Bea, berating them for their “stupidity”.

Lea and I walked out of there as soon as the formalities were finished (I was to take care of Jing while they are away in the Philippines; Lea was helping my father re-learn how to use web-based email). I was extremely disgusted at them, especially when they yelled, swore, and lectured little frightened Jing. Most of all, I was disgusted at how they ignored her, pretended as if nothing happened, as she cried in her room.

I knew something stupid like this was going to happen. I knew it. I walked out. I walked that long kilometer stretch with my sister to Superstore as we waited for James to pick us up and then went home.

Sometimes there are parents who are not meant to be parents. Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that taking in a Chinese girl is an act of kindness and from a genuine interest in the Chinese culture for them. No. My parents, my dad especially, are racist against the Chinese and would insult them as much as they could. This is an act of finanical benefit in the guise of generosity.

They take things out of proportion; things that are meant to be innocent curious fun turns into World War 3 and another mental trip to self-beration and judgement.

I hate my parents. I only go to these so my sisters and I can get together to have fun and sponge wonderful meals in restaurants from them. Ugh. I think Father’s Day is just going to be as stupid and meaningless as this one. I think I’d rather spend it with Matty’s family.

My friend MaiMai convocated from university in Japan. For her graduation, she and all other Japanese females are clad in beautiful colorful kimonos. She sent me some photos so I am posting my three favorite to share. She’s absolutely stunning in red.

It seems to me that every culture embraces color with the exception of North America. Formal situations here usually call for blacks, whites, beiges, and other drab colors. Meanwhile, other cultures are, like, BAM! — RAINBOWS!

Another picture of her friends with the ultra famous fashion pose, beyond Blue Steel, “the Peace”.

Ana Drives Around the Parking Lot
I drove. That’s right. I drove. Matty and I exchanged places. I sat in the driver’s seat, clutching the wheel until my knuckles turned white. I didn’t even use the gas pedal. I just let the brake go and carefully wheeled around lamp posts as Matty instructed me and encouraged me to “go a little faster”, “carefully touch the gas”, “turn until you’re comfortable”, etc.

That was my first driving attempt. I went around in circles and tried to line the car up to parking spots. I wasn’t too bad, but the gas pedal freaked me out. One, it’s kind of hard not to freak out when I know that this pulsating, bazillion ton car has the ability of crushing me at an instant. It’s like horseback riding when you’re apprehensive about communicating by small kicks with a bazillion ton horse that has the power to crush you. Same same but different as the Thai would say.

Kendo and Sawdust Treats
Matty and I were tested for Ni-kyuu (2nd level) at kendo on Sunday. After a year or so, we would be testing for Ikkyuu (1st level) then the “dans” start. I was really nervous. I felt unprepared. If I wanted to pass, I wanted to pass with flying colors. The moment that I began to teeter I knew I had to calm myself down or else I would just do crappy. I had this frozen look of shock as the entire gym was quiet and watched us go one by one, technique by technique.

I passed. So did Matty. Well, so did everyone else. It’s his opinion that everyone passes the first test and you’d really have to screw up or be a complete moron in order to NOT pass. True true. I still wanted to be the best in our grading class. I liked the comments that the sensei’s have. Some of them I already knew and anticipated — “foot too high”, “kikentaiichi”, “good back posture”, “kamai gradually went further from body”, “RELAX” — but it’s good to have constant reminders so then I know what to work on.

After class, we went to Garden Bakery to pick up a couple buns. We also picked up a lotus cake bun thing for $0.90. I thought it would be flowerly sweety goodness. It wasn’t, it wasn’t at all. Matty and I agree that the lotus cake thing has the same taste as sugared sawdust. Bleh. No more sawdust for us.

We relaxed for a bit on his balcony and then headed back to my place to wait for our fellow D&D buddies.

D&D TO THE MAX!
After a tiring day and night trek across the continent away from flower plant infested villagers, we were rather calmed by the path across the woods we happen to be on. The woods were … woody and full of trees. Suddenly, a rotten dirty fruit came flying by and landed on Angus the minotaur. We looked up and way up high was — the BARD?!

The bard whom we thought we abandoned on the flower plant infested village, suddenly came a carolling on his stupid mandolin with some stupid mocking song with a stupid grin on his stupid face. Stupid bard …

I, Azucar, jumped high on the branches and landed to confront him. I asked him casually, “What’s the big idea?” and without a word he kept carolling along. Stupid bard. Suddenly, the branches I was on, enclosed on me, and whacked me on Angus the minotaur. He wasn’t too happy in discovering that the tree the stupid bard was on was a tree ent. GAH!

We defeated the stupid tree and the stupid bard who casted duplicates of himself. I managed to kill one at 30 HP! (Even though it was only a mirage and only required 4 HP to disappear …)

We got sick. We got healed. We also managed to start up another fight in a bar in the little dutchy town where some flower-infested princess is off to get married to the prince/duke of the land. I stealthily killed the local chef. And while things were on fire and we were trying to escape as inconspicous as we could, I ran into the main room, yelled, “The shit has hit the fan!” and blew my horn of fog. Then I ran away …

Being Fabulous
My sister, Lea, has been keeping up with the new diet change and has successfully lost 10 lbs in two months! This is a great start and it only gets harder now.

I’ve been alright in keeping up with the diet of healthy eating and exercise, but outings and ridiculous work hours provide to be challenges. I tend to snack and nibble if food is around. It doesn’t matter if I am not hungry. If it’s there, it shall be eaten.

I went to the Kendo Potluck and nibbled, nibbled, nibbled on everything. I even took sips of white wine here and there. Heck, when I didn’t have anything to say I just kept on nibbling.

At work, my boss provides popcorn for the staff and for the customers. It’s kettlecorn from the Farmer’s Market so it’s “healthy”. Beh. My boss also generously provides tartuffos and the occasional dimsum delights that I rush out to eat.

I’m still at a constant 120-122-124lbs range. I want to be at 118lbs with defined muscle. Matty helps me out with weights (which I LOATHE!) on Mondays, but I think I need to suck it up and just do them. I really do hate weights though. I really hate ‘em.

New Friends and Bday Dinner
Ashia is a newbie at Polly Magoo’s, but I think she and I are becoming fast friends. She’s really cool: she’s a mother of 2, fun, funny, smart with computers, likes video games (her son’s name is Atari!), independant, and driven. She’s like many of the female friends I have: superwomen.

Her soon-to-be-husband Lorne is a cool guy. My first interaction with him was on the phone when he and I were just chatting about delayed airport flights and decisions my boss makes when he travels. He works near the garrison and likes to do some simple carpentry.

She, me, Lorne and Matty all went out for sushi last Saturday on the fly. We went to Furusato and spent a good hour or two just chatting. I would have never have guessed from the conversations that Lorne’s a shy guy. My favorite line had to be, “I don’t care what angle or how far I have to throw the line in fly fishing and all that technical stuff — did I catch the fish or not? If not, I gotta go it again”. Hahahaha.

Yesterday, it was Ashia’s 26th B-day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHIA!! After being disappointed in finding out that the Kasbar did not open on Sundays, everyone went to Julio’s Barrio where I met her brother and his fiancee, Lorne, their friend Mike and their two other couple friends, and “Laura from upstairs”. Laura from upstairs is really cool. She’s already married, been to Mexico, really laid-back, and works in architecture and the like. Damn cool people.

Oh — I had my very first pina colada frozen margarita. It was yummy. I would want another one in the future.

Yesterday night proven to be a success! With the joint effort of Beatrice and I, we managed to get a group of 10 to have a great time at Furusato.  The guests include Mattn’ana, Jacobea, Nowens, Mahe, Prince, Blythe and her date, Chris.  Matty and I munched on gyoza and spider rolls, while everyone else munched on their bento boxes and sushi boxes (or other people’s sushi box).  It was great to catch up on people and to find out what everyone else was up to.  It was fabulous seeing the Nowens couple fresh and smiling, full of vigor from the “garlic incident”.  Beatrice and Jacob were fashionably late as usual (Jacob has this permanent glimmer in his eye — I swear he puts it in artifically via miracle make-up or something).

Oh oh oh! Beatrice is off to THAILAND!! A big congrats to Beatrice, though some more persuasion is needed to convince Beatrice’s mom that Thailand is a-ok to travel to in December if you are with a male companion.  I wonder if I can do anything to help … ? A dimsum date perhaps?  I’ll think of something.

Blythe has unofficially joined Wednesday Night.  We shall continue again with HALO and with other GameCube games if the group keeps on growing.

Work
I managed to wrangle an extra $400 in sales yesterday despite my lack of enthusiasm and blatant tiredness.  I was blaise, not in anyway helpful yet for some reason my “I-don’t-care” attitude managed to work!

“Hmm, I can’t seem to decide if I want this red synth silk top or the blue one?” said some random customer.

I had been half-assed folding some karate pants into a decorative messy pile when I off-handedly replied, “Huh — ? Yeah, well get both then, right?”

She beamed at me and with a determined decisive confident smile. “You know what.  I will!”

WHAT?!  And this continued the rest of the night!

“What do you think?”

“It’s cute”

“I’ll take it!”

or

“Do you have naag chama incense?”

“No, we have these little packs.”

“I guess I have to settle getting five of these little incense packs then”

and

“This doesn’t fit too well”

“No, not really”

“I like your honesty.  I think I’ll take it.  I could probably alter it somehow.”

“Huh? Uh, ok”

Bizarre day.

LINKS
I updated my links.  MAHE has been added. I think everyone should go to MAHE’S page.  It’s all about PARCOURS and has pictures of MAHE and his buddy Nick running around the city, jumping over stuffs.  The movies of them doing stunts, like MAHE AND THE WALL, is the highlight of the page.  Thank god MAHE’s foot is more or less healed now.

Lots of love to ya, Mahe.

I’ve been spirited away. The moment the plane touched down and my handsomely tanned boyfriend came waltzing into the airport back from his 30 day excursion in Italy and the rest of Europe, I was on my tippy-toes pecking him kisses of hello — then I was whisked away for the past two-three weeks on god-knows how many dates and little reaffirmations of how we’ve missed each other, little present exchanges, and cooings. Oh, the cooings.

Now it’s back to reality. Sort of. We coo like pigeons to each other once in a while. Sickening, I know.

Anywho, the weeks have been fun-filled with dates as I earlier mentioned. Recently we went to Sorrentino’s in Little Italy with Sparky for their Garlic Fest. I ate my whole entree. We three all stank, but were patting our little tummies on how full we were. Yummy. I’ve seen two plays: Faithless at the Roxy theatre with Bryce, Inge, Lea, and James (her date); and Hedwig and the Angry Inch at some theatre in Red Deer.

May 1st was a very special day. Sure it meant my parent’s 24th wedding anniversary, but more importantly, it was Matty’s and my 6 month anniversary. Yeah, yeah — technically, “anniversary” means “annual” or “yearly”, but who the frick cares? I got Matty a cute card to commemorate so the card makes it official. We made for each other a special dinner:

- roasted garlic and brie cheese on french bread
- bacon wrapped scallops
- soy-lacquered salmon fillets, asparagus with oyster sauce and rice
- banana turon with ice cream (which I ate the day after).

After we wanted to watch a VHS copy of Bill Cosby that we managed to find at the Wee Book Inn. However, to my disdain, I saw “STEVEN SEGAL IN UNDER SEIGE 2″. DAMMIT! Wee Book Inn, you failed me! Instead we snuggled in the couch and watched the hockey game. Matty jumped up and down in glee and I just yelled.

I have now a huge collection of books. I love books and have a hard time NOT buying them since I see them as investments for the betterment of oneself. I have bought the following:

- National Geographic Traveller “Costa Rica”
- Sewing for the Apparel Industry
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- French Women Don’t Get Fat
- Garlic Garlic Garlic
- Rebar
- The Sales Bible
- 99 Ways to Sew and Cut Your T-shirt

I plan to read as much of these books I can. I also want to get back into independantly studying Japanese.

I’ve been playing a bit of Kingdom Hearts 2. Awesome game so far. Been enjoying myself and been enjoying watching the Disney characters interacting with each other. Hades rock! Haha! Also, my plants have potted!

I’ve been losing weight and gaining muscle fabulously. I feel fitter and more energetic. I eat what I want in reasonable portions and I exercise much more frequently. Yay! In no time, I’ll have my slimmer thighs, tigher buns, and flatter abs in NO TIME! WOOT WOOT!

SUMMER SUMMER SUMMER — HERE I COME!!