pretty

Watermelon pedicure photo that I saw (original):

laffy taffy jokes

Yesterday a few of us were sitting around, reading the jokes printed onto Laffy Taffy wrappers.



I would read the joke opener, and then we'd guess what the answer would be. Here are my favorites. See if you can determine which ones were made up by us, and which were the Laffy Taffy answers.

Q: If your dog kisses you, what do you call it?
A1: Arr-ful.
A2: A pooch smooch.

Q: What do you call an owl in armor?
A1: Armored-owl-o.
A2: Knight owl.

Q: What has a head and tail but no body?
A1: A linked list.
A2: A coin.

star trek outing (no spoilers)

On Saturday, Azer and I went to see the new Star Trek movie on IMAX.



Just as we drove up, a car vacated the best parking spot along the street, right under the theatre. In his excitement to parallel park into the spot, Azer ended up too far from the curb.

Azer: [completely pulling the car into the street] "Let's just start over."

Me: "This is just like how I'd expect you to be at work. 'Let's just delete this piece of code and write it over again from scratch.' I can totally see it."

Azer: "Yup." ... [as the car rear wheel hits the curb] "And this is what happens when you rewrite the code. You solve the existing problem, and introduce the opposite problem. Now we are too close to the curb."

...

He managed to straighten out the car. As we get out, crowds of people walk past us from the garage a block away, where they had to pay $10 for parking.

Azer: "That's it. We can't leave the theatre tonight. This parking spot is too good."

We got there 30 minutes early, but the line already wrapped around the lobby. While waiting for the movie to start:

Me: "I'm excited. I'm a big Star Trek fan."

Azer: "I've never seen any Star Trek."

Me: "I watched every episode of The Next Generation."

Azer: "I don't know anything about the next generation, the previous generation..."

...

Anyhow I quite liked the movie. [TINY SPOILER] Spock was very charming. It was strange for the Starfleet cadet to remember the epithet "cupcake" for three years, but otherwise the plot continuity was good. It was lovely to see Captain Pike. His calm demeanor reminded me of my friend Bob L.
[END OF TINY SPOILER]

Yesterday, when discussing the movie, Omst claims that in his prime, William Shatner was very good-looking. I disagree! He has a smarmy look to him.

san francisco summer spectacular

I moved to Noe Valley in San Francisco for the summer. I'm sharing a sublet with my college friend Lori. This is my room:


We have a little yard that is pleasant on sunny days. View from the yard:


I am more affected by the weather than I previously realized. San Francisco climate flips wildly from one day to the next. Monday was bitterly cold. Yesterday, I bundled up in two sweaters, to find it sunny and 70 degrees outside.

Tom is still staying at my townhouse in Mountain View. I miss living with my brother.

Lately I was organizing some photos. Here is one of my all-time favorite photos of me and Tom, because he is acting like a goofball. It is from the Louvre:

eloquent story about gay marriage rights (updated)

I found this three-minute excerpt by Dan Savage very eloquent. He opens with a story about a woman whose partner of 18 years was barred from her deathbed, by a Florida hospital.

He also has an interesting take about America's stance on gay marriage and equality rights in general:



UPDATE: Now I am reading an article about this story and similar stories, and it's bringing tears to my eyes.

Such was the case with Sharon Reed, another Washington resident who said she was repeatedly told to leave her dying partner's hospital room by a "temporary" night nurse in 2005.

Reed, who, like Langbehn, had all the legal directives to serve as her partner's health proxy, has filed a lawsuit against the employment agency that hired the nurse at Seattle's University of Washington Medical Center.

...

"The day before Jo died, she told me, 'I'm scared, don't leave me,'" said Reed, now 70 and a psychotherapist. "I promised I would stay with her, but every time I tried to see Jo [the nurse] would scream at me to get out of the room, 'You don't belong here.' She was very hostile from the beginning."

...

Today, Reed told ABCNews.com that she felt she had let her partner down at the end of life.

"Ours was the kind of relationship had been a dream of a lifetime for both of us," said Reed. "We had spent the last 17 years, buying a home, raising a child, being successful in our careers, having loyal friends and sharing time with our families."

"We absolutely adored each other and everybody knew it," she said.

startup humor

Talking over IM to a friend from college and Google, who founded a startup in China. He's on a trip to the US, meeting with corporate partners. After discussing our respective work endeavours:

ac: good luck

ac: Add oil! (chinese phrase, meaning 'go for it')

niniane: thanks, you too

niniane: though it sounds like you don't need it

niniane: you are already on fire!

ac: yeah, it's called my burn rate

my brother is so funny

Talking to my brother in the living room.

Me: "Nice haircut. [looking at it] Are you no longer spiking it in the front?"

Tom: "I usually do, but I didn't today."

Me: "Oh, I like it this way. This says 'I'm a casual guy.' When you spike it, the message is, 'I'm a high-maintenance metrosexual."

Tom: "I better spike it then! Wouldn't want to give the wrong idea."

yay indentured servitude

I had a tea party yesterday. Just before the party started, Susan was in my kitchen preparing papaya and cantaloupe.

Me: [setting laptop to play pandora.com classical music]

Susan: "Wow, the music really changes the setting."

Me: "Oh?"

Susan: "Before, I was just cutting up fruit. Now I'm in your Victorian household as an indentured servant."

Me: [lol]

disgusted by froyo!!

Dan and I were walking down University Ave in Palo Alto an hour ago. We walked past the Grand Opening of a frozen yogurt store. So we went in.

There were three young men standing around in aprons. One of them looked familiar. I asked where I saw him before, and he said he worked at the Apple Store. He was the Mac Genius Bar employee who treated my MacBook when its hard drive failed.

Dan got colorful yogurt, and I got cheesecake froyo and chocolate froyo.



Well, now I feel uber disgusted! There must have been too much sugar. I even threw away most of the brownie and pound cake pieces. Blech! I wish I could vomit. Or go back in time and un-eat this frozen yogurt. Disgusting!! I want to go into a sauna and sweat all the froyo particles out of my system.

the Getty

I went to the Getty Museum recently. I saw it in 2005 and was underwhelmed, but this time it was just gorgeous.


Overlooking the cafe. Later, I sat in one of those chairs and ate chicken tortilla soup.


Lovely period rooms.


I really liked this painting, because if you look closely, you can see the horse is smiling. It's a Mona Lisa smile.


Garden by the tram.