Saturday, October 29, 2005

Maple Syrup

For those of you who may be outside the NYC area and haven't had the pleasure of either first-hand experience or constant exposure to the local news, it smelled like maple syrup all over the city on Thursday night.

I came home from work and my first thought when I walked into the door of the apartment was that it smelled like cookies. I couldn't quite place the scent; it wasn't as distinct as the chocolate chip cookie smell that used to pervade Streeterville in Chicago periodically, but it smelled sweet. Alvin told me that he thought he smelled maple syrup around the table, and then it all clicked - that was what the smell was! Maple syrup!

But it was so bizarre - I hadn't smelled it outside at all (probably because I was rushing home and it was cold; on the way home, I also think I walked by Jai from QE on the street), but it was so strong in certain parts of the apartment. I was so confused - I don't own any maple syrup! And all the windows were closed, so it was a big mystery.

Yesterday, I started finding news stories about the "maple syrup mystery." Apparently, the scent stretched all the way from lower Manhattan to Harlem. That's a huge area for a single smell to pervade! It's actually kind of alarming, and with everything going on in the world, I did have a thought that maple syrup might be the perfect way to cover up some sort of biological agent or something. But apparently the authorities have determined that it is nontoxic. Who knows. No one knows where it came from still. How could this still be such a big mystery?

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Eleemosynary

Is it just me that didn't know or are there others that didn't know
the word "eleemosynary" existed?

I don't think I've ever seen it until reading this no-action letter right now.

Why can't they just say "charitable" instead? Is there a difference?

(7:45 pm)

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Frosted Toes

Note to self: when you know it's going to be in the 40s all day, when you know it's the coldest day of the fall so far, when you see your breath in the air in front of you as you walk, when you know that there is a freeze and/or frost warning for areas north and west of the city that night, and when you see all the people walking on the street in warm winter coats, that is not the day to wear a light and airy skirt, just because you "don't feel in the mood to wear pants."

Aiya.

My legs were numb by the time I got to the bank this morning. It was such a mistake. But I was hostile to the idea of wearing pants this morning even though I knew it was cold outside. I don't know why. And I knew I was going to have to walk around in the afternoon to go to the doctor, yet I still didn't want to wear pants. What's wrong with my head?

I must keep warm tonight and not get sick, because I have a flu shot tomorrow. Wheeee.

My toes are still cold, even though I've been sitting under a blanket for about 20 minutes. Coldddddd.

Sleep

I was supposed to go to sleep early last night. But then I was
watching baseball. I tried to stay up until the game was over, but I
did not succeed. I think I fell asleep somewhere in the 13th inning.
And what was the first thing I thought of after I finally got up? "I
have to find out who won!" Sad. I watched Sportscenter to find out
the score before I went to go take a shower. Ha.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Dining Out

Tonight I went out with a few people for dinner at david burke & donatella. No, I don't normally go out for fancy dinners on Tuesday evenings. It was a summer candidate that we were taking out for a "second look" at the firm. It was lots of fun. I had been to db&d once last summer for lunch, and this was my first time back.

(Note: I don't have any pictures, unlike the last restaurant review, because that's not really a thing to do during interview season. Maybe next summer.)

The meal started with an amuse that was a small duck spring roll with a teriyaki-type dipping sauce. It was small, light, and good. The thing about db&d is the presentation. They're really big on making the presentation creative and different. This one showed up spiked on a small fork that was standing straight on a flat red plate.

For appetizer, I got the parfait of yellowfin tuna tartar and salmon tartar. It came topped with some sort of buttery type spread and came with a few pieces of bread. It also had 3 different sauces, but I don't remember what those were. The tartar was nice and light. Not sure where it falls on my tuna tartare scale from last summer though. I'll have to think about that.

My entree was mustard-crusted tuna teriyaki. It was slices of crusted seared tuna, and it came with seaweed salad and two little sushi roll type pieces that were stuffed with peanut sauce soaked soba noodles. (Or something like that.) I think the theme of the night for me was food that was "light." This definitely fit the bill. I wasn't crazy about the soba noodle sushi pieces, but the tuna and seaweed salad together were wonderful. I loved it.

Since most stuff I had was light, I wasn't really weighed down by the time dessert came around, so I figured I would try something. We didn't get cheesecake lollipops like last summer at lunch, but I got their version of a strawberry shortcake. It was a light white spongecake topped with lots of chopped strawberries, a strawberry consomme and lychee sorbet. Yummy, sweet and light.

Dinner was wonderful. Good food, good company, nice design. The only bad thing was that when I emerged from the restaurant, it was freezing, windy and starting to rain. It seems like we skipped straight from late summer to early winter. Where was fall?! No doubt lost in the endless days of rain last week. I have all these fall jackets that I never got to wear on walks in the park as a brisk cool breeze flowed through the trees... Nope. All there was was rain, rain, rain.

I just checked the Weather Channel. It's 40 degrees. No wonder it was so cold. I was only wearing my rain slicker. Ick. And I like autumn!

Time to watch baseball and relax before heading to sleep. Hope you're a little warmer!

Goblets

Is it bad that I've already been on Fandango contemplating what time I
want to buy tickets for the Harry Potter movie that opens in 3.5
weeks?

Monday, October 24, 2005

Boots

I was re-reading my previous entry about rain slickers and all I could think about was Paddington Bear. I love Paddington Bear.

Rainy Again

Raining again. As if the 8 straight days last week weren't enough, there's a nor'easter heading this way that's going to smack straight into Wilma or something and create a whole big mess. Great.

I felt stupid walking to work this morning in my blue rain slicker. The sun was peeking through the clouds, and there wasn't even a huge dampness to the air. But I felt pretty good about the decision as it was lightly raining when I left work. And as it was heavily raining by the time I reached my door. Go rain slickers! Now if only I had rain boots to go with it.... I was supposed to get some last weekend, but then it rained on Saturday and I didn't want to go out. Not like there's going to be a huge availability of rain boots in the rain either.

I love that GSN replays old episodes of TAR. Helps me dream about races that are better than Family Edition.

Going to take Tylenol PM and try to sleep early. Good night!

Sunday, October 23, 2005

White Sox

I'm rooting for the White Sox in the Series. (If you care.)

And I totally forgot, until I flipped the game on tonight to see the winning home run, that I've actually walked on that field! We played a softball game against Northwestern during 1L in the outfield of Comiskey (sorry, should I call it "The Cell"?) and the primary reason I played was to be able to walk onto the field and be there. Only major league baseball field I've ever walked on... so I definitely won't forget it. I think having a personal connection with the place is one of the reasons I actually like the Sox. Ha.

Woohoo! Go White Sox! :)

Barça 18



This evening, Alvin and I went with my parents for dinner at Barça 18. It's this new (less than a week old) Catalan/tapas place run by BR Guest, taking the place of the departed Park Avalon restaurant in the Flatiron District. During restaurant openings for BR Guest, if you go during a designated period of time, you get a 20% discount on your entire meal. (I don't remember if it used to be 15%, but it was 20% tonight.) So, of course, we took advantage of it. I haven't been to a BR Guest opening since Blue Fin years ago, so I've missed the fun. But this was definitely fun.



We started with 4 tapas and a pitcher of red sangria. The sangria was wonderful. The patatas came drizzled with spicy and mild sauce, but this was my least favorite dish all night. It was good, but the spicy sauce was quite hot, and outside of the sauce, it was sort of ordinary roasted potatoes. I much prefer the patatas bravas at Cafe Iberico in Chicago.

We also got atun en escabeche, seared tuna (picture above) garnished with carrots and onions, and all soaked in aged sherry vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. (Thank you, online menus.) This was really good. The tuna had perfect flavoring and texture and the flavor of the whole thing was great. It was also pretty creative because it looked like a sardine can when it arrived on the table.



We also got almejas tiernas, baby clams and white beans in salsa verde. Those were pretty good, but not too substantial since they were baby clams. The flavor of the green sauce was good, but more white beans would have been better. (I am sure I must have mentioned white bean dip on this blog at some point.) The last one of the tapas was calamar, described as crispy calamari with spicy romesco sauce. The calamari was perfect - it was soft, fluffy, tender - and the sauce was a great complement. (Not that I don't also love it with marinara-type sauces.) Yum. I'm a huge fan of fried calamari.



We also shared two entrees: rodaballo ("rosemary & thyme scented halibut and asparagus cooked on slate with warm herb vinaigrette") which was amazing and the paella barça, which came with chicken, shrimp, mussels, clams and calamari. The paella was also very good. The calamari there was the perfect texture too. But the halibut was my favorite part of the entrees.



Dessert came, and we split 3 more. (Hey, when it's 20% off, you feel a little more liberal when you're ordering, I suppose!) I got a sorbet sampler, which came in passion fruit, green apple and berry. It was light and refreshing and the flavors were good. My mom's choice was the pan con chocolate, a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, toast and maldon sea salt. (No idea.) That one wasn't too heavy (I just had blackout cake on Friday, so I'm glad!) but it was very very chocolatey. I only had about 3 bites because I was concentrating on the sorbet. Alvin's choice was clafoutis, a brandied cherry tart with vanilla ice cream and candied walnuts. I think it was the prettiest dessert on the table.

So what's the verdict on Barça 18? I liked it a lot. The flavors of the dishes were good, and as far as pricing, for restaurants of its type, I think it was actually pretty affordable. Atmosphere is nice, and I like a good one, but it's lower on my priority list than taste and price when I'm paying for it myself. I think the 20% off dinner promotion ends tomorrow, but the lunch promotion will start up soon. Yummy dinner. :)

Sunday

It's a slow sleepy Sunday.

I watched an episode of Boston Legal and 2 episodes of Survivor. I'm totally sucked into Survivor Guatemala. But what makes me sad is that Gameshow Moments Gone Bananas isn't on again. I caught the end of it yesterday, and looked on DVR to record it because it made my stomach ache from laughter, but it was nowhere to be found. How sad.

I'm still recording Supernatural (oh yeah, I watched another episode of that today too, the 2nd one), but while it's a good show, I'm wondering how long I can last with it before it totally freaks me out. I didn't watch the X-Files because it was too creepy, and at first, Without a Trace was too eerie for me (I saw the episode where the person disappeared and they still didn't know what happened to them by the end of the episode), and these 2 episodes of Supernatural have really made me jump. Like jump backwards on the futon and scream. But I'll stick with it for now until it really freaks me out.

I emptied out 2 boxes in the apartment today and put the stuff away. (Although, one box was law school books, so those either went into a bag to bring to work, or another box of books to store/get rid of, so it's only sort of unpacked.) I'm proud of myself, as I haven't emptied a box in a long while.

The Redskins game was ridiculous. Thank goodness FOX had enough sense to switch to a different game halfway through. 52 points?!

I need to order prints from Snapfish so I can finish the picture collage on my office wall. It's only part done, so it's kind of lame right now. I intend to alternate pictures of food/scenery/things with pictures of people, and hopefully put together two rows of prints. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for putting up with a totally random entry. But they're all that way, aren't they?

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Note

When you see a post where the paragraphs don't look very spaced apart and when it looks like I am incompetent at hitting the space bar between some words, you'll know I posted by email. I am not that incompetent now, am I?

And a side note for people in law school, although I highly doubt anyone comes here for advice: If you're thinking about possibly going into transactional work, I highly recommend Securities Reg and secured transactions classes. They always say that class has nothing to do with what you do at work, but I can tell that you that if I didn't take those, I'd be about a hundred times more lost than I am right now. Just the background info and the terminology makes such a huge difference.

And with that, I have some work to do.

Jewel

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Thank goodness... although it did take me a lot longer to do these than it probably did back then. Although, maybe that's because I was only doing them in my head...

Kelly Clarkson Shares Your Taste in Music


See her whole playlist here (iTunes required)

Funny, considering my obsession with one of her songs.

Awww, and now the 90s channel is playing Stevie B, "Because I Love You." I don't know what this song reminds me of, but it makes me feel all fuzzy inside. :)

[I just looked down at the "change time & date" thing on Blogger, and OMG, is it really Oct. 22 already?!? Where did the month go?!?]

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Flavor Explosion

I've ordered from the same Chinese restaurant on Seamless Web at least 4 times now. They respond quickly via email; they deliver really fast. And the food is pretty good. Both the sushi and the Chinese food.

I ordered the chicken chow fun once before, but as soon as I started eating it tonight, I knew something was different. It was definitely a different cook, because this time there were shiitake mushrooms. In chow fun! I was pleasantly surprised. It's a very different flavor, like an entirely different noodle dish. But it's really good (despite being so greasy), and I have eaten more of it than I should have.

But just now, I took a chopstickful from a certain area of the noodles, and oh my goodness, the flavor is exactly the same as these dumplings my grandmother makes (souy gow, I am so bad at Chinese transliteration from Toison). I think it was the crunchy cabbage + the shiitake mushroom + the chicken, and oh my goodness, I am dreaming of those dumplings and want to go home to make them even if I don't know how.

I have got to put the noodles in the fridge so I stop eating and just finish up what I've scheduled for tonight so I can go home. One more bite first. Or maybe two.

Beverly Hills

Speaking of songs, this is the 3rd or 4th time I've heard Weezer's Beverly Hills today and I'm still bopping around to it at my desk. Not as much as I bop around to Holiday though.

I printed out a Sanrio calendar for October. Deery-Lou is staring me in the face.

Songs

I really like that Kelly Clarkson song, "Because of You." So much so, that I almost started singing it aloud right now. Too bad my office door is open...

I got headphones from supplies so that I can listen to the radio when I work. My officemate was out for the holidays for a couple of days so I'd gotten used to playing the radio through my computer with the office door closed. Couldn't go through a day of silence again.

I used to bring my iPod last summer when I was working, but I really hate the earbuds and need to find better headphones (maybe I can use these!) and I need to find my iPod charger.

I'm eating a granola bar. No, that has absolutely nothing to do with songs.

Back to work.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Happy Boxes

Songs that have been in my head since work this afternoon:
  • Jingle from the Uno game commercial
  • Some jingle from a car commercial that I think has the words "magic carpet ride" in it
  • Hamtaro theme song
  • Grey's Anatomy theme song
On the topic of GA, with last week's episode (not this past Sunday, but the one before), it officially passed Desperate Housewives as my favorite show on Sundays. GA took a bit of time to grow on me; I had actually been hesitant to watch the very first episode. All I could think was, "another medical show?" And since I'm not a huge fan of ER, I didn't think I'd be in the mood for another medical show.

But I was pleasantly surprised. I stuck with it because it interested me and because I was watching DH. But now... I think I like GA better than DH. Yes, DH is ridiculous, but it's supposed to be ridiculous. But last week's episode of GA actually made me feel for the characters. I could feel their pain. And not a lot of TV shows can actually make you feel the pain of their characters. That was the clincher for me.

And speaking of good writing... I'm still on the Threshold kick. I think I like the writers because they read my mind. For example, they were questioning this Korean guy, and they asked him if he knew a guy named Park. His answer in Korean was, "I don't know anyone named Park." My answer (aloud): "Yeah RIGHT." The linguist character then said something like, "What Korean person doesn't know someone named Park?" Excellent. Reading my mind. It's happened a couple more times since then too.

It's a great show. Which makes me perplexed as to why it doesn't yet have a full season order. CBS ordered additional scripts, which is good, but c'mon. It's on Friday nights, it's doing fine in its time slot. And it's good! And if you'd actually gotten the pilot done in time for the reviewers, there would probably have been more critical buzz and they might have raved about that instead of Invasion. (Which, by the way, I've stopped watching. I would start watching episodes, and never finish them on the DVR. So I just quit. Besides, Drawn Together starts on Wed. Yay!)

But Bones did get a full season order from Fox. I'm happy about that. And that means that they can finally start promoting it as much as they do Prison Break. I'm happy about that too. Angel lives!

Going to sleep. It's always past my bedtime. But at least I haven't been saving emails as much tonight, so tonight it's not my RSI that's keeping me from sleeping. Need more hours in the day!

Monday, October 17, 2005

Spree

4,559.

And yes, the question really should be, why am I still awake.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

OCI

I've been reliving OCI (on-campus interviewing) lately. First, I've been doing interview lunches at work with candidates for the summer program, and that brings back a lot of memories. Second, I've been saving emails from September and October 2003.

And then I realized... it was exactly 2 years ago today that I had my callback with the firm at which I now work. Funny.

I liked OCI, so saving all these emails hasn't really dredged up very many painful memories. There's a whole bunch of reasons why I liked it. One is the sense of class togetherness. It was like 1L in the sense that there was this shared experience that every person in our class was going through at the same time. There wouldn't be another moment of that type until graduation. It was like one last hurrah. Also, with everyone in one building, it was easy to see people and talk to acquaintances that I never ended up seeing for months once everyone split apart for different class tracks and activities. And it's always fun to meet so many new people in such a short amount of time. Each interview, a new beginning. Not to mention the fact that in those couple of weeks, you feel like your entire future lies ahead. It's pretty exciting!

But enough about OCI. I've got more emails to save! My inbox is very close to 5000. I've made decent progress, I suppose.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Love Connection

I'm watching Love Connection on GSN and OMG, this girl he picked to go on a date with is a total BITCH. He suggested all these dates, but "from the sound of his voice, I could tell I wouldn't get along with him" so she didn't want to have a long car trip. And then she complained about what he picked, how she had to plan the whole date (after she turned down all his ideas), his table manners, his ears, his height, etc. Ewwwwwwwwwww. She's such a bitch!

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Take it Back

I admit it. I was wrong.

Back on February 11, 2004, I wrote this in an email to Alvin:

"wireless is so unreliable in class
it's so disappointing
i doubt they're ever going to fix it"

But they did. We went from having a very unreliable connection in only a few rooms in spring 2004 to having full strong wireless in the building in fall 2004 with the renovation. I never thought they would do it, because they even talked about how the professors didn't want internet in the classrooms, but I guess they thought they needed to do it so that it wouldn't be a negative distinguishing point between schools.

Going to finish saving this day of emails, and maybe another, and then do a little exercise. My parents' roof is leaking from all this pouring rain and they just got their roof fixed last year! (Yes, I know those 2 sentences are unrelated.) For those of you in the rainy northeast, I hope you're keeping dry!

Tired

I'm tired, but as it stands right now, I get tomorrow (well, today) off as a holiday, so I can sleep in! Well, sleep in a little bit and then actually work out. Yay!

But for now, more thinking about Lost, more saving email and some quiz posting!


discover your jack-o-lantern face @ quiz me



find your inner PIE @ stvlive.com

(I'd love a trip to Florida right now...)

You Should Get a JD (Juris Doctor)

You're logical, driven, and ruthless.
You'd make a mighty fine lawyer.

(Well isn't that a relief? The quiz came up with the same answer for the one I already have!)

You Are Warm Nights by the Fire

Peaceful and romantic. The best part of fall.

(It was actually kind of chilly outside today - cold, dark, rainy, damp, gloomy. It hasn't stopped raining since Friday night or Saturday! And it's supposed to keep raining for a couple more days! Yet I forgot to get the hot chocolate at work for the weather... at least I got scallop potato chowder for lunch...)

It really feels like a Friday but there's no Threshold on ... I'm annoyed with CBS because they haven't picked up Threshold for the full season yet but they picked up Ghost Whisperer. Sigh.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Reality

In February 2003, it seems I had an obsession with Joe Millionaire.

Not the guy, but the show. I'm forwarding some of my sent mail, and it seems like the majority of the emails have to do with Joe Millionaire. Of course, we were writing our Bigelow (legal writing course) papers at this time, so I was probably looking for distractions, but it looks like an obsession. I was emailing about every promo I saw!

And on the topic of reality tv, I was quite disappointed with this leg of TAR:FE. Both the result and the structure. It was left entirely up to chance with 4 teams arriving at once and trying to grab numbers, and barring something terrible happening to an earlier team, there really wasn't much ability to make up any time. Having the pit stop be so close to the roadblock with that much lag time between teams just didn't feel fair. Or maybe it's because I liked the family that had to go home.

Back to emails. Need to sleep; it should be a decently hectic day tomorrow.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Alarm Clocks

Inbox is close to 9,500. At least I'm under the 10,000 mark. That makes me feel slightly better... but only slightly.

Back when I needed to wake up for class in law school, Alvin used to give me wake up calls. Especially when I was tired, I never heard my alarm, or would snooze it or turn it off in my sleep without ever realizing it, and I only seemed to wake up to the phone.

On May 28, 2003, I sent Alvin an email saying something like, "did I really miss your 1st call?!" Apparently, I had slept straight through the phone ringing and Alvin leaving a message without hearing a thing, and didn't have any idea that had happened.

Fast forward 2 years.

There was a time this spring (or perhaps it was during Barbri) when I missed 17 straight calls. Granted, this was on my cell phone and not on a landline, so it was more melodic and less of the loud intrusive ringing, but that's still pathetic! 17 calls! And to think I was so horrified back in May 2003 at missing one call!

But I was right about one thing at the time I missed that one call. I had said that it was a bad thing because me not hearing alarms or the phone could only get worse. So, so true.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Deja Vu

I feel like I'm running across the same emails over and over and over again.

In December 2002, our school email servers crashed. It was during exam time and mail was virtually unaccessible. (Since it was our first law school exam period, this was stressful, to say the least.) When mail came back on, they said everything was restored and no mail should be lost.

However, once I started looking through old mail, I realized that, on occasion, some emails had been spliced into pieces and some had randomly attached themselves to other emails. Still others were duplicated. And not always one after the other, but 200 emails apart in the system. It's making forwarding emails right now into a very long and slow process.

Not to mention the fact that I think in the crash (and I never noticed before) my sent mail folders from September, October and November 2002 vanished. At least they're nowhere now. They were my best hope at recreating a "journal" for myself of what happened during 1L, since there was a limit to what I was willing to post online and I was terrible at doing the handwritten thing anymore. Hopefully it will be some other people's quoted messages. I hate when I feel like I've lost part of my past.

I think I'm going to forward about 10 more emails and then finish handwashing the shirt in the sink. Wheeee. So much laundry to do. But I'm taking it back to SI instead of paying $2 for each wash and dry. Laundry can get really expensive!

Ha

Email from Jan. 17, 2003:

"i also need to clean out my email box this weekend. well... start at least. :) i really dont' want to get to 5,000 messages... i'm so close..."

5,000? I guess back then I never thought it would balloon to 20,000... and that's just the inbox!

Scents

It looks like I've made no progress on my emails because my inbox is at the same level; I've been deleting from folders. My goodness, there are so many emails!!

Anyway, my bedroom smells like vegetable egg rolls. I certainly didn't fry or microwave any. Must be one of the Thai restaurants on street level.

Numbers

I just forwarded an email from December 2002 with the subject line "815 815 815."

My first reaction?

"Oh no!! It's the numbers!!"

Right...

Anyway, I am not under 10,000 emails yet. But I'm getting close. I had thought most of the emails left were from my conversations with Alvin when he was at work, but I was wrong. I just discovered entire screens full of emails from fall 2002 that are still there. And I do want those, especially since it was my first quarter of law school. It will be nice later on to see what I was like. So more forwarding is in store! Wheeeeeee.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

test

subject: forgetfulness, 5:50 pm, 10/6

Testing, testing. I used to do email posts before and they used to
work, but then I tried again a few months ago and they didn't. So I'm
trying it again now.

There has been 3 days of work this week and it's already been 5 times
that I've forgotten my ID on the way to the stairway. (You need it to
travel the stairway between floors.) Luckily, 4 of the 5 times I
remembered it before I locked myself in the stairway. Once, I locked
myself out, and then couldn't remember ANY number of anyone in the
firm. There were 2 possibilities for the reception number in my head,
but of course, on my first try, I called the one that was really the
fax number. What a mess. Why do I keep forgetting my ID? I didn't
forget at all during the first 2 weeks.

Let's see if this posting method works.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Days Off

It totally feels like a Sunday because I had the day off from work. (Rosh Hashanah is a holiday at our firm.) Now I'm going to be all confused tomorrow, thinking it's Monday, and thinking that it's October 3rd so that I have even more time to save emails.

To celebrate my day off, I got up earlier than I normally do for work and went with my mom for today's taping of The View. (It's too bad that I found out later that the entire first half-hour was preempted for the idiot's press conference.) It was a show all about weight loss. I left thinking a few different things: (a) I really need to get back in shape; (b) It's been ages since I've done yoga and I hate that fact; (c) Maybe I should go on a fruit diet; (d) I need to eat better and exercise more.

And I also left with some presents. The past times I've gone to the View, there's been no gifts. But since it was Tuesday, we were hoping for the Cinderella DVD but I didn't want to get my hopes up. They came out with it and put it on the table during the last segment, so I started to get excited. Then they announced what they were giving away to the studio audience - a Swiffer WetJet, a Disney-inspired CD, and the Cinderella DVD! I was so happy! We've been wanting a WetJet for awhile, and now I don't have to buy one myself! And I got the DVD! It was fantastic. And kind of funny watching many people all walking toward the subway and down into the subway station with big purple rectangular boxes wrapped in blue bows. I bet people were wondering what was going on. Yay for Swiffer!

Going to attempt to sleep before 1, unlike all the most recent work nights when I've stayed up saving emails. Right now, I'm at 12,078. It goes so slowly...

Email Update

October 4th. Email still works. Down to 12,278.

Edit: Oh my. The first time I published this, I wrote, "October 2nd. Email still works." Sad.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Weekend Update

I've decided to stop doing the Week in Review feature, and will replace it with Weekend Update. I figure that this makes more sense... after all, if I continued to do WIR, it would start looking like, "Monday: work; Tuesday: work; Wednesday: work," etc. Boring, right? At least for readers...

Even though it's called Weekend Update, it won't be only about the weekend. I'll talk about anything interesting from the weekend and also anything good from the past week. But I won't have to do a real full WIR. I think this is better.

Last Wednesday, I did an interview lunch at Osteria al Doge. It was pretty good, although for some reason, I was cold throughout the whole meal. Like almost teeth-chattering cold. But it wasn't that cold in the restaurant and I was even wearing a pants suit. It was weird. Anyway, it's a very inviting atmosphere and I liked it. For appetizer, I had the tuna carpaccio, and for entree, I had salmon that came with spinach and roasted potatoes. Yum. No time for dessert, but the fresh berries looked good.

On Friday, to celebrate the end of my first "real" week of work, Alvin and I went for dinner at Meskerem, an Ethiopian restaurant in our neighborhood. Yum yum yum. We split the vegetarian sampler, which had 7 different dishes, and a chicken dish (the boneless one). We left feeling extremely full, but very satisfied. I look at the picture and my mouth starts to water.


This weekend was both relaxing and full of events and errands. I spent Saturday recuperating, but on Sunday, we went down to the Lower East Side to check out the Pickle Day festival that I had seen online. It was great. There was so much free food. Lots of pickle samples. I liked the half sours. And the Korean booth was the best. They had rice cakes, kimchi pancakes, japchae, 2 types of kimchi... all for free for sampling! It was fantastic. Ran a couple of errands at Target, which always makes me happy.


Ended the weekend with dinner at Republic and a walk in the beautiful warm fall weather through Union Square. Weekends are so short!

Fall TV

I think I've finally set my fall TV (ahem, DVR) schedule. It is unbelievable the ways in which DVR has changed my life. I always said I would get it once I got out of law school, and not only has it been amazingly practical because of the hours I work, but it would be great even if I were home all the time to watch TV. For example, I was watching Family Feud on GSN yesterday (can I also say how much I've missed GSN? Haven't had it since junior year of college), and it was this old CBS v. NBC one, and had lots of soap opera stars and I thought, hey, I'll tape my live TV. It was great.

Anyway, my fall TV schedule (I also put in whether or not I've seen the episodes of the show, in case you wanted to discuss them with me):

Sunday
5: Supernatural (seen zero, but it's on DVR)
9: Desperate Housewives (up to date)
10: Grey's Anatomy (up to date)

Monday
8:30: Kitchen Confidential (up to date)
9: Prison Break (seen zero, but it's on DVR & tape)
10: Medium (up to date)

Tuesday
8: Bones (first ep on tape, seen the rest; I'll end up watching GG in repeats/DVD)
9: Amazing Race Family Edition (up to date)
10: Boston Legal (on DVR); SVU (up to date)

Wednesday
9: Lost
10: Invasion
(I had the first ep of Martha on tape, still haven't seen it, but now it's getting moved around anyway.)

Thursday
8: Alias (up to date); Survivor Guatemala (missed 2); The OC (missed the latest one)
9: Reunion (seen zero, on DVR & tape); Apprentice (up to date)
10: Without a Trace (up to date)

Friday
9: Threshold (up to date)
10: Numb3rs (up to date)

Saturday
9: Naruto (up to date - at least I think it's at 9)

It's easy to be up to date for shows that have only had one episode... and can I just say that I'm glad the Fox shows are going on hiatus for baseball? It will give me time to catch up.

It disappoints me that I don't have a show in every time slot, but I suppose that's not a bad thing since I shouldn't really watch TV all day/night. And I guess it's not really that different from before when I said I had a show in every time slot. Here, I still have a show I could watch in every time slot (ex.: Wed, 8, So You Think You Can Dance) but I'm not willing to tape them all. Same was true last year, except I was supposed to be studying so I was always in front of the pretty box.

TAR 7 is on GSN now and my TAR 1 DVDs are on the way. And if you like Gilmore Girls, the S1 and S2 sets are only 18.88 at Target this week. I guess you can tell what I did today.

It is way past my bedtime. I hope I'm functional tomorrow. I blame Snyder's, because I had this strong craving for honey mustard & onion pretzels for 2 hours and then I finally gave in and ate them for way too long. And here I am, 1:30 am.

Good night!

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Quizzes

Your Personality Is

Guardian (SJ)


You are sensible, down to earth, and goal oriented.
Bottom line, you are good at playing by the rules.

You tend to be dominant - and you are a natural leader.
You are interested in rules and order. Morals are important to you.

A hard worker, you give your all at whatever you do.
You're very serious, and people often tell you to lighten up.

In love, you tend to take things carefully and slowly.

At work, you are suited to almost any career - but you excel in leadership positions.

With others, you tend to be polite and formal.

As far as looks go, you are traditionally attractive. You take good care of yourself.

On weekends, you tend to like to do organized activities. In fact, you often organize them!


Your Animal Personality

Your Power Animal: Swan

Animal You Were in a Past Life: Rabbit

You are passive, sentimental, and emotional.
You sometimes lack self-confidence, but you are creative and rational.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Threshold

Hasn't been much blogging because of work and because I've got emails to save.

But a couple of things:

- Watch Threshold. I think it's the best new drama of the season. (But I haven't watched any of my recordings of Prison Break yet, so keep that in mind.)

- I have 14,161 emails left. This is going so slow.

- I just forwarded an email to myself, October 1, 1:09 am. I forwarded the same email to myself, October 1, 2002, a little after midnight. From my Yale box to my Chicago box, and now from there to gmail. The same message, never saved, still forwarded... 3 years and 1 hour later. I'm not sure whether that's amazing or sad.

Back to the inbox.