Once upon time, there was this wittle boy who made a new year\’s resolution not to joke around too much. He was afraid of hurting people\’s feelings or even worse have a joke go awry. One week after new year\’s, he made a joke and forgot about his resolution. Seven months later, he was doing it more than ever. He also made this wittle girl freak out on her cellphone that people were coming to investigate arson at the house. The poor wittle girl almost cried. But it turned out to be a joke. All was ok, but the wittle boy still has yet to receive a good slap on the wrist with a wet noodle. The End.

Unlike past July 4ths, I spent the entire day \”celebrating\”. The last time I had a bbq this long was when my friends came over to my parents\’ house and we bbqed in the pool next door. Then we headed to Pleasant Hill to watch the fireworks.

This time around with a close-knit graduate program. My house threw the bbq. I decided to creatively experiment with recipes. I made two types of marinade last night based on recipes from Marolboro\’s Cook Like A Man grill book. Then I made a vegetarian hot poato/corn dish. Then I made my potato salad which I concocted from inspiration.

Turns out my potato salad was a hit. I was afraid that people would hate it. So I had made the salad to suit my taste so that I could have it for the rest of the week. It had red potatoes, frozen corn kernels, celery, cilantro, mayonaise, sugar, pepper, fines herbs, salt, tomatoes and salsa. And magic! I only had a spoonful before it all disappeared!

We watched fireworks in Schenley Park despite the fact that I wanted to go to Point State…downtown near the water to hear the symphony. In the park though, we saw fireworks. Like real fireworks. Apparently, you can buy them in the state of PA. So I saw a few set off a few hundred feet away. At one point though, a girl set off roman candles and it accidentally hit a couple. The man walked toward the girl, who ran screaming \”Mommy! Mommy!\” The man continued walking toward the family in anger swinging toward his cane to and fro. It was like watching a car crash. Although I was very curious, I laid down on the blanket and whined, \”I want to go now.\” But it calmed down. And we continued to enjoy the empty sky (where we could barely see the city fireworks) with off-kilter singing and patriotic bellowing.

Happy 4th of July!

Time to chop lettuce. Slice onions and tomatoes!

On stupid internet drama. I am a hypocrite. I used to be heavily involved in it (sort of), causing the kind of flame wars my offline friends would never believe that I would do. But nothing compares to the drama of rating communities.

In early 2003, the FIRST rating community went online. It was the NONUGLIES–a community where members would rate a potential based on pictures. On appearances. Members were cruel and harsh, citing remarks based on an eyebrow shape or hairstyle. The lj abuse team eventually shut the site down, citing concerns of pedophilia, et. al Of course, there came the spinoffs, the_cuties and the one I actually joined, the_reviewers.

Yes, I joined a rating community for the purpose of rating my livejournal (which I used to write in). Many people thought it was a mess of thoughts. Some thought it was majestic. I barely got accepted. Of course being accepted, the rites were over. I found myself being pulled into a mindless engine of rating–being cruel. I couldn\’t take it and barely posted. I got a whiff of my true nature and quit. I hated feeling egotistical, because it\’s a quality I abhor–something so common in Berkeley CS majors.

So in my new project in xanga, I have discovered an idiot attempting to take the same journey. To make the next nonugly rating community. The sad thing is that the majority of the people in xanga are young teenagers. 13, 14, 15. Not like the older, mature people of livejournal. Protect the innocent I suppose. But rating communities aren\’t meant for people still living in their insecure ages. The people who go ana on the basis of one person\’s criticism. Nor for the people who still complain about how they hate school.

But then again, we all want to feel exclusive in some way.

I\’d like to share an old post from my more online days:
For some reason, Alecky told his family that I was going to visit UMich during their visiting days. To my amusement, his mother and brother told him (probably in a hushed voice so that my Berkeleyean mind wouldn\’t eavesdrop over 3000 miles), \”Alec, she\’s a bad influence.\”

I proceeded to tell Alecky to give his mother bad influence for her birthday.

It was a strange moment sitting in the back of the car. But I pretended not to notice and kept smiling.

Why do I have such a bad habit of smiling at times when I am not that happy? That\’s why I believe pictures are deceiving. People smile for the camera and not because they\’re happy.

But nonetheless, here\’s a fantastic picture of me yesterday when I was trying to fix my powerbook:

In Berkeley, Fridays used to one of those bad luck days. For me, it started out sort of normally. I woke up at 9:30 after only 6 hours of sleep (I couldn\’t sleep because I had just read a book on social psychology and it intrigued me too much). Then I tumbled downstairs to find Ian and Erin standing in the living room. Then I caught a bus after less than a minute I got outdoors. Everything was fine.

Then I decided to install my new hard drive into my powerbook which I had been waiting to install for more than 2 months ever since I decided that my current hard drive was falliable. I followed the instructions on pbfixit.com, which is very straightforward. But I got to the last screw and my nightmares were confirmed. Unlike this guy, I couldn\’t get out my stripped screw. I had a 20 piece electronic screw driver set with all sorts of phillips heads, torx…etc, but to no avail. A few other people who saw my demise attempted to screw it, but it just got more stripped. I spent the next hour wailing and moaning, wanting to throw my powerbook away. Rather than that, I spent it surfing xanga while my teammates tried different ways of unscrewing it.

I went online to find a hard drive bracket that I could buy. OUT OF STOCK. Another store provide it for $40 but it was only HALF of the bracket. I wanted to cry.

Fortunately, this story has a pseudo-happy ending. I installed my old hard drive back. My teammate offered to get his brother to buy the screws, et. al in Hong Kong. :D Thank goodness for resourceful people.

Later, we went to eat. Of course, I was interrupted by phone calls from people at a noisy bar. Half of what was said was lost on my ears. We went to first go to Aladdin\’s. We requested a table of 6 but two of us hadn\’t arrived yet. I saw a hostess prepare a table of 6 by asking a couple to move over. But they didn\’t ask to sit yet. So about 10 minutes later, I asked the hostess whether the table for six was ready. She said that she can\’t seat us until the entire party has arrived. It was somewhat understandable for me, but not for the others.

We left and finally met up with the two at Gullitify\’s. A serveer grumbled that there wasn\’t a hostess and finally the manager led us to a table of 6 in the upstairs portion. But that was not before when I heard a server saying that he didn\’t want more people in his section. A server came to us asking for our beverages. Since one person had to leave in a minute, she asked whether she could get water to go. I wanted a strawberry lemonade. We waited for another 10 minutes. The servers kept coming up to serve the other guests in the unusually unbusy restaurant. I saw the servers mingling near the kitchen. After awhile, we decided we didn\’t want to stay…and all of us packed up.

And we ended up at Indian Over. Half off after 9. Good service. We discussed dating and how someone could not date someone who is 22, but could date someone who is 23. I personally find that hilarious because I certainly didn\’t mature that much from one month ago. Right?

I am proud of my little sister! Through her natural charisma, she was able to pluck up an \”internship\” in an optometry office–just out of blue air! Go lady!

She\’s coming in less than 2 weeks for the first time to Pittsburgh. Excited!!!

An initial plan of things to do while she is here:

After going through my entire mini-library of books, I found Robert B. Cialdini\’s Influence hidden underneath dusty papers and notebooks. I had forgotten what a great bok this is. Of course, the memory of receiving it wasn\’t very…memorable. It was from a former potential who just…didn\’t…get…me. I told him that reading books was cool (along with a million other things I like to do) and he took that fact as a bookworm. But hey, the thought counts. He gave that book to me along with a hastily written card for Valentine\’s Day (note: i have always disliked letters that say i don\’t know what else to say here – LOOK SO MUCH BLANK SPACE. I digress.

The book is awesome. It is more of a scientifally based version of Dale Carnegie\’s How to Make Friends and Influence People (which I also was blindly recommended by another former interest.) I remember carrying that around during my freshman year during my struggle to meet people. What irony.

But I digress. Again.

Reading the book reminds me how often I fall prey to salesperson\’s techniques. During my sophomore year, I accidentally signed up for SF Chronicle newspaper – a free trial for a month. Despite knowing that I wouldn\’t be able to have that much time to read it every day. I found myself rationalizing it. And other incidents where I have just been, as Cialdini describes it, a patsy.

So making sure that I don\’t rely on my automatism (does anyone ever notice how I sometimes say good and you? even if I already asked you how are you?), I would like to tell people some of their tactics. In one instance (fully described here), I am accosted by a member of a campus bible fellowship known for their strong evangelical tactics. I attack back by slightly debating and dragging him for two blocks down Telegraph.

A teammate brought cherries to our office today. Of course, being me, I ate and ate. It was so good, especially since now I miss California fruits in the summer. But now I am feeling the aftereffects of eating more than 50 cherries in one hour…

doh…