No frills

“It’s like you have a web 1.0 haircut,” said Hikaru.

Enough to push me to get a haircut this week after spending a month looking.

No frills please. I don’t do massages and wine with graces of “you look great, honey” and “buy this product to make your hair shine”. I don’t need my hair salon to be a nightclub at night. Making an appointment more than week ahead when I don’t even know my schedule the day before? No thanks.

Less than 45 minutes spending about $20 plus tip still an equivalent good haircut. Amore recommended.

Pittsburgh Food

I cannot find challah in the Bay Area. And where’s the matzo ball soup? I want my half turkey sandwich (I know, I am too American to do pastrami or corned beef) and my matzo ball soup combo.

And where are my sandwiches with fries in between layers of meat and cheese? Not that I miss that so much.

Getting older

My coworker and his friends are in their late twenties, almost breaking into the thirties. Like every year, he throws a Halloween party–something to be the party of the year. But this year, he observed aloud, “Seems like the older we get, the less excited people are about things like this. When a core person gets a girlfriend or boyfriend, somehow things changes.”

I countered saying that it’s always the core people that matter. That to make something important and interesting to them will keep it going. But isn’t it? About half of my friends are in long-term steady relationships. There are the kinds where they disappear into their own world and there are the kinds where I actually meet the significant other. But will things cool off? Will we find ourselves in the predictable ways of white picket fences in suburbia, sending annual xmas cards without signatures? Is that our fate?

People naturally settle in rountine. It’s easier than living in spontaniety, but at the same time, the former whiff of youthful adventure is gone too.

In other news, I still have no idea what I should be for Halloween.

Finishing up Seattle…

I don’t know how I did it both losing sleep…but I was able to spend quality time with 7 friends in a mere 60 hours.

  • met up with a lot of people both from Microsoft and at UW
  • brunch at Julia’s
  • feasted at Cafe Septieme
  • drive through Volunteer Park
  • a gaze at the Fremont Troll
  • experience the Underground Tour
  • witnessed light fish throwing at Pike Place Market
  • money spending at Pike Place Market
  • walked into the first Starbucks ever…and walked out
  • spent $16.95 on a brown sparkly shawl
  • watched my first comedy show–a waste of $10
  • walked around GreenLake
  • sampled dozen of cooking jellies including beer
  • took 128 photos with my brand new-spanking sd630
  • asianize at a Japanese Tea Shop where I drank a whole pot of sencha tea
  • have a hoity-toity moment with a $3.50 crumpet (just a crumpet with maple butter) at the Crumpet Shop
  • lunched it at Matt’s in the Market
  • ambled throughout the Seattle Public Library despite feeling dizzy from the bright colors
  • feel satisfied with the greatness of finding parking in Seattle
  • saw a Lenin Statue!
  • drove past an Erotic Bakery Shop
  • Packing

    Most of the time, I naturally overpack–packing multiple sets of clothes and the like. Who knows whether the weather will change? What if I go to a fancy place? The unexpected adventure?

    So this time when I went to Seattle, I decided to pack less to squeeze everything into two small bags so I wouldn’t have a huge hassle going through security. Of course, what happened this time was that I forgot to pack long-sleeved tops leaving me with mostly camisoles to fight the chilly Seattle pre-winter.

    And it’s not because I am from California.

    Do you miss Friendster?

    The fall and rise of Friendster

    I remember joing six degrees back in the mid-90s, but I was a timid high school student who barely knew anybody. I wasn’t prepared…until Friendster came along. I was more fascinated by how everyone was connected than viewing people’s profiles. Seeing that my friend also knew someone else I knew was the most appealing part of Friendster–the common people we shared. Then it was reading the testimonals and how people would describe themselves on their profiles.

    But why I lost interest? Just like everyone else, other social networks had better critical mass. Or better speed.

    Free Choices

    Free choice is one of the things I have missed about living away from my parents. But this is the ability to say to yourself after work What do I want to eat? What do I want to do tonight? What do I want to buy? It’s a selfish, self-centered feeling.

    And yet, it’s something that disappears with the addition of a significant other, family… We trade it off so easily with friends. It becomes What would they want to eat? What do they want to do tonight? What would they want to buy? And we let go of our flying dreams for selflessness.

    But of course, for me, it also means there is nobody to help me assemble my heavy new bed.

    The purple crying blob

    What is that buddy icon? What is that thing?

    Before college, a friend gave me this buddy icon, stating that it reminded him of me. It was the first and only icon I have ever used (besides the default on a mac — always a fortune cookie).

    I also made it part of my first layout for my first journal/blog.