black is the new friday

Ongoing post on what I bought for Black Friday -

Not sure how good shopping will be this Black Friday week. But I'll keep a post going to keep track. I am tracking things I am buying since 11/22 Friday:

11/22/2013 Friday: Norpro set of 3 silicone suction lids, from Amazon, $13 (kinda obsessing over suction lids these days - yup I have odd obsessions)
11/23/2013 Saturday: X-Files seasons 1-9 on dvd, from FoxConnect, $59 ($6 a season is too good to pass up - the rumored blu ray set is going to be way more expensive)
11/23/2013 Saturday: Dove's Men's Care Body Wash (qty 2), from Amazon, $1.80 each
11/23/2013 Saturday: Misc groceries, from Grocery Outlet, $21 (does groceries count as Black Friday shopping?)
11/24/2013 Sunday: From Up The Poppy Hill blu ray, from Amazon, $13 (Studio Ghibli blu ray for cheap is rare, so I am blind buying)
11/25/2013 Monday: Pasquale Pizza voucher from Livingsocial, $8
11/26/2013 Tuesday:  Misc groceries, from Trader Joe's, Grocery Outlet, and Safeway $25 (come on, when is real Black Friday shopping beginning?  This is all kinda lame, me logging in my grocery shopping.)
11/26/2013 Tuesday:  3 shirts and 1 windbreaker from Land's End Canvas, $65 (I suspect a majority of this order is going to be returned, since I am hit-and-miss with Land's End sizing.)
11/26/2013 Tuesday:  WD portable 500 GB hard drive, from Target, $40 (for the porn stash - actually to be honest, it's more for the Doctor Who and Three's Company stash, but admitting that is kinda embarrassing...)
11/27/2013 Wednesday:  Ninja Master Prep blender, from Target, $17 (kids, this is crazy - original price is $50, Black Friday doorbuster price is $30, and I scored this for $17 using Target's cartwheel app)
11/27/2013 Wednesday:  Dyson DC 35, from Target, $120 (get ready to have your mind blown - original price is $330, Black Friday doorbuster price is $200, and I scored this for $120!!!!!  Bam!  Now that's shopping!)
11/28/2013 Thursday:  Star Trek Into Darkness, World War Z, Pacific Rim blu rays, from Amazon, $9 each (all $7.99 plus tax)
11/28/2013 Thursday:  Pitch Perfect blu ray, from Amazon, $10 ($9 plus tax)
11/28/2013 Thursday:  Madonna NYC 83 photograph book from Richard Corman, from Amazon $27 (I love this period in Madonna history.  I've been wanting this for a while, used Amazon's 30% coupon code bookdeal for $10 off)
11/28/2013 Thursday:  The Conjuring blu ray, from Rakuten, $2 (used free points I magically had in my account)
11/28/2013 Thursday:  Voucher for $10 IceBee Frozen Yogurt, from Groupon, $0 (used free $5 credit I got from Groupon)
11/28/2013 Thursday:  Perks Of Being A Wallflower dvd, from Amazon, $4.60 (I've been waiting for the blu ray to come down to below $10.  Close but no cigar, so I opted to go for the dvd for $4 plus tax.)
11/29/2013 Friday:  Laptop sleeve and 2 camera cases, from Case Logic, $1 (yup one dollar for all three items)
11/29/2013 Friday:  Eneloop rechargeable batteries and charger, from Costco (qty 2), $22 each
11/29/2013 Friday:  Microfiber dish drying mat, from Costco, $6
11/29/2013 Friday:  Colgate toothpaste, from Target, $3
11/29/2013 Friday:  Toshiba Canvio portable 1 TB hard drive, from Staples, $44 (will probably return the Target drive I bought on Tuesday, since this one is double the size for double the porn, for the same price)
11/29/2013 Friday:  The Croods blu ray, from Amazon, $11 (got this in mind as a gift for a little person, and I don't mean a midget)


Total: $564 so far
(Am I going to come in under $500???  Oh craps, I went above $500.  I guess I am gonna return a few of the items, so it'll net down to just around $500.)

praise you

Things that I give thumbs up to:

Doctor Who Day Of The Doctor:  Tenth and Eleventh together!  Awesomeness doubled.  But oh Matt Smith - why must you leave?  One more episode only.  So sad.

Sandra Bullock - EW's Entertainer Of The Year:  She deserves it.  She is one of the few that I genuinely believe is THAT nice (vs. some publicity machine bullshit).

Grocery Outlet:  New store opened on Geary.  I love good bargains.  I bought a box of six Van de Kamp fish fillet for $.99.  That's crazy, right?

The Goldbergs:  I am going to say this is my favorite show on tv not hosted by Phil Keoghan.

Uniqlo fleece jacket:  $15 during grand opening sale.  And not cheap fleece either.  I love fleece.  It makes me feel like a cuddly teddy bear when I am really like a cold, hard, steely assassin on the inside.

Wrecking Ball:  Sooner or later I am going to have to stop feeling guilty for liking a Miley Cyrus song.  This song is so awesome, and she does sing the heck out of it.

Pats Beating Broncos:  I know I said I am swearing off the Pats but anytime Brady bests Manning is a good thing for me.  And I am liking the way Julian Edelman is rising this season.

we used to be friends

Things I used to like/love that now makes me shudder/annoys me:

Glee - Thinking back to the pilot and oh, what promises it held.  But I stopped believin' long ago.  It was all downhill from season one onwards.  The characters are increasingly annoying, and the plots non-sensical (you still need some semblance of character/plot continuity even if it's a musical!!!).  Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel have got to be the most self-absorbed protagonists in tv history.

New Girl - It's the Moonlighting syndrome.  They killed it by having Jess and Nick get together.  Their hipster romance is so misguided and so...hipster that I had to stop watching this season or I would have eventually stuck myself with a fork.

Lady Gaga - Yeah, when her first cd first arrived, I thought for a sec, we have a good Madonna wannabe.  I am always a champion for good old fashioned electronic dance pop (love Robyn!).  But then she somehow got into her head that she's some kind of modern art herself.  The costumes and the looks jump the shark, and we soon realize the emperor has no clothes.  In Chinese, there's a phrase called Run Fire Enter Monster that is totally appropos.  Last straw for me was her passive-aggressive feud with the Big M.  Bow down, you pretentious hack - you wouldn't even have a career without Madonna's blueprint.

Johnny Depp - Oh how I don't want to dislike Johnny Depp.  I love Edward Scissorhands-, 21 Jump Street-, Ed Wood-, Donnie Brasco-Johnny Depp.  I even liked the first Pirates-Johnny Depp.  But Pirates was the worst thing that could have happened, because it was his first major commercial blockbuster, and for the first time, he became predictable.  All he does now is play Jack Sparrow over and over again.  He's become a caricature.  Think all the subsequent Pirates movies, Alice In Wonderland, Willy Wonka - eeks.  Will we ever get our beloved Johnny Depp back?

San Francisco 49ers - How can I not root for my hometown team, with a rich history that includes Bill Walsh, Joe Montana and Steve Young?  I heart Steve Young!  But then you gave us Jeff Garcia - blah.  This was followed by a decade or so where I have no idea what happened.  It was all kind of a blur while my attention was stolen by the Patriots.  Now though my primary disdain for the Niners stems from the dick (Jim Harbaugh) and the thug (Colin Kaepernick).  I am actually rooting for the Niners to lose every week til those assholes are out of here.  (Yeah, I don't like them.)

the memories will be lost

I am the one who forgets.  I hate my bad memory.  People would accuse that I said this and that in some distant past, when I am pretty sure I didn't, or that the conversation didn't quite go exactly as they say.  Things get taken out of context or twisted.  But unfortunately my memory is so fuzzy that I cannot effectively defend myself.  I just think, I couldn't have possibly said that, but I may have said something close to it but not close enough for whatever I am being accused of to be the truth.  It's so frustrating and exhausting.

I probably get myself in trouble sometimes for not being tight-lipped enough.  I blame myself because it's not as if I don't know the pitfalls of gossip.  I am not naive, and generally I don't trust people, but yet, over and over, I end up talking.  Of course, it's all pretty innocent while it's happening.  You think you are having a casual conversation, or you are just venting or confiding to a close friend, or having a laugh or poking fun, or showing solidarity against a common enemy.  But it's a world of booby traps out there, and before you know it, you've got a mess.

So, from today on, I am going to try my sincerest to keep my mouth shut in the office.  Nobody needs to know my business.  And I don't need to know other people's.  Just keep focused on work.  That's what's important.  And not complain so much, because nobody likes complainers, whether legit or not.  I know this won't stop people from spreading plain old lies about me (as if I were a celebrity or someone worth lying about), but at least then, I could definitively say I am not contributing to it.

Either that, or I wish I could record every conversation as evidence.  That way, I would be able to prove my innocence or maybe learn from where I went wrong.  (But most likely, I will prove my innocence.)

the memories we made will never be lost

Yo, Marki - what ya listenin' to?

Well lemme tell ya -

17. Let Go - RAC featuring Kele & MNDR
16. Reflektor - Arcade Fire
15. The Mother We Share - CHVRCHES
14. Free Your Mind - Cut Copy
13. I See Fire - Ed Sheeran
12. Hey Lover - Dawes
11. Wrecking Ball - Miley Cyrus
10. Life Round Here - James Blake featuring Chance The Rapper
9. Confidence - The Dodos
8. Summertime Sadness - Lana Del Rey
7. Instant Crush - Daft Punk featuring Julian Casablancas
6. Over Your Shoulder - Chromeo
5. Barside - PHOX
4. Throw Your Arms Around Me - Eddie Vedder & Neil Finn
3. Let Her Go - passEnger
2. Small Plane - Bill Callahan
1. Shake - The Head And The Heart

origins - walls

Tim Biskup - The Tim Biskup serigraph in my living room was purchased online in 2005.  I paid a few hundred bucks for it.  It's called Hazel's Field.  Tim Biskup is a SoCal-based artist.  His style is psychedelic pop, with Japanese anime touches.  I was a big fan of this style for a period.  I even have a skateboard designed by Tim Biskup.  Of course, for me, skateboards are for hanging on the wall, not for riding and scratching up.

Paul Klee - In my college days, if you had asked me to name a favorite painter, I would have said Paul Klee.  I love the child-like quality of his works, as if kids had painted them but you know they couldn't really.  My old friend Henry gave me a framed Paul Klee print.  I cannot remember what the occasion was, but I have it hanging in my hallway.  Henry was a solid good guy who kinda disappeared from the face of the earth a number of years back.  He made a conscious decision to cut off ties with all his friends, so I think it was not just me.  I wasn't sure what was going through his head, but I wish I could have helped or was good enough of a friend whom he could have confided in.  But yeah, out of the blue, I just couldn't reach him.  I heard through another friend who knew his brother that Henry ended up moving away to Arizona and then did construction work or something like that.  I also heard that he is now back in Northern CA but I have no idea where.  Anyways, sometimes when I look at the Paul Klee in my hallway, I think of him.

Doors - I knew a girl named Alice in my college days.  She was a foreign student from HK, a rich girl who drove a BMW and had a $1000-plus per month apartment near Lake Merritt.  She was probably the closest friend I had at Cal.  But her taste was always too rich for my blood.  She liked going to nice Japanese restaurants for lunch, when all I really could afford was a fast food sandwich.  And she was high maintenance too.  But somehow we got along.  Most of the times.  Anyways, when we graduated and she had to return to HK, the last gift she gave me was a photographic print that showed a series of weathered doors.  On one of the doorways laid a lazy, sleeping dog.  I supposed this print symbolized all the doors that stood in front of us at that time.  Well, this many years later, those doors are still weathered and closed, and the dog is still lazy and sleeping.  I didn't really bother opening or walking through any of the doors in front of me.

In The Mood For Love - I have a small reproduction Japanese movie poster of In The Mood For Love in my bedroom.  It is probably my #2 favorite Wong Kar Wai movie, and I love this poster I got from eBay, which has Maggie Cheung in recline pose and Tony Leung with his face on her lap and his hand caressing her leg.  I miss Wong Kar Wai movies of those days - starting with Days Of Being Wild to Fallen Angels to Happy Together.  Chungking Express is my favorite by the way.  I think he lost his magic with 2046.  I haven't seen Grandmaster yet - I am not even sure whether it's coming out in the U.S.  My enthusiasm has waned.  Maybe one day I will be in the mood again. 

Project Hearts - Back in 2004 there was this public art project in San Francisco, where heart sculptures were installed over all the city.  Regina went around to take pictures of them for a photo collage.  She gave me one of her collage prints which I have hanging next to my front door.  I love her caption which says "Pictures taken with great fun..."  I imagine it would have been great fun to do a project like this - exploring San Francisco looking for hearts.  The thing that is inconceivable to me is that this was all the way back in 2004!!!  That's almost a freaking decade ago.  In fact, looking at these prints on my walls and telling of their origins make me somewhat melancholy and nostalgic.  I feel like I am one of those old people in the movies who is looking back at his life in flashbacks.

arancini and reality bites

Today I took the day off to use some of my leave and also because I have a dental appointment.  So before the appointment I went to stock up on groceries.  Here is my bounty:



From Kukje Korean Market:
instant ramen
frozen kimchee and pork potstickers (the Bibigo brand which I thoroughly enjoy)
fried bean curd
2 bottles of Korean BBQ sauce
Sriracha sauce

From Target:
Cheez It
2 cans of cream of chicken and 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup
Advil

From Sunset Super:
pork meatballs
fish cake
2 packs of saltine crackers
rice crackers

From Trader Joe's:
mini chicken tacos
arancini bites (never heard of arancini balls til Top Chef this week, then I see it in TJ's frozen section - it's fate, no?)
bag of kale
bag of mixed power greens
frozen naan

I also had a grilled pork over rice from Loi's for lunch.  I spent around $70.  Yup, days off cost me money.