.:: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 ::.

W got me a new mp3 player! so now i can take all my rhapsody albums i've downloaded with me! the best part is i DL the rhapsody playlists too, and my favorite is the grey's anatomy playlist. it' slike 4 hours of music from the show. love it.

my mom told me that our family friend's son is going to be on the new season of survivor! i still can't believe he did it, i never would've guessed he'd be the type. it'll be interesting to watch him on TV! i grew up with him, he's practically family!

very much looking forward to the 3 day weekend. :)

:: joyce 6:47 PM [+]::
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.:: Sunday, August 27, 2006 ::.

my favorite spot in our house is our deck. there's really nothing fancy or great about it, but it's perfect. it's just big enough for our patio set and it's got this great awning that's an extension of our roof, so it keeps us covered and cool in the afternoons, and protected from the light morning rain. it's also become my favorite reading spot. in the summer, all our trees are full of leaves, and it creates a nice wall around our house, so you can almost forget we have neighbors (except on one side where there are no trees, and their trees aren't big enough to really create any cover). it's a nice little sanctuary, and even when it's raining (not storming), the sound of the rain on the trees is kinda soothing.

so i finished the kite runner, and it turned out to be a really great story. it was a very quick and easy read, and it made me cry more than once. i haven't cried reading a book since memoirs of a geisha (and i read that YEARS ago, probably when it first came out on paperback). i like fiction that reads like non-fiction. this is what W's friend D would call a "life story." he likes reading life stories and had asked me a few times to recommend good "life stories" to him. i think he'd like this one.

on to my next good book...this one also comes highly recommended by several friends. i love getting (and giving) great book recommendations from friends. :)

:: joyce 11:50 AM [+]::
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.:: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 ::.

i'm so tired. i'm sleepy. and exhausted. i've always known that i wasn't a work-a-holic. for the past 3 or so weeks i've been working 10-12 hour days, and it's really starting to take its toll on me. work has been so hectic and busy, i don't even know how the heck i'm able to wake myself up at 5:30am to get to work by 6:30 (thank goodness for my 3 mile commute!). at first the OT was nice, but now, i'm just over it. i want my 8 hour days back!

:: joyce 8:08 PM [+]::
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.:: Saturday, August 19, 2006 ::.

i'm just about half way done with the kite runner (it's a very quick read, thank goodness, cuz i have lots of books waiting for me, and still more i want to get!). i try not to think of all the hype it's gotten, and how everyone loves it so much (altho i have heard a couple of comments that it's not all that great). the only complaint i have is all the farsi he uses, which he then translates to english. he does it a LOT and it's really distracting. oh, and the way he makes fremont sound like the ghetto with chain link fences and houses with bald tires and beer bottles littering their front yards. okay, fremont has it's areas that aren't so pretty, but gosh, do you have to make it sound like such a dump? and, the indian movie theater on fremont blvd didn't turn into an indian movie theater in the 80's. that didn't happen til the mid 90's. i know this cuz my friend went to the rocky horror picture show at the then ABC theater every saturday at midnight. so far i like the book, but i agree with M, there is something about the book that is very elementary.

i realized that my new blog layout was meant for ppl with larger monitors set at a higher resolution, so parts of it might not look the way i intended. i guess we underestimated everyone's monitors. sorry guys.

:: joyce 11:59 AM [+]::
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.:: Sunday, August 13, 2006 ::.

ugh...i'm sunburnt. we spent the day at the denver grand prix. i wore a loose linen 3/4 sleeve shirt to make sure i don't get any more funky tanlines (i have to wear a strapless dress for M's wedding in october! it's not lookin' pretty right now...). well, the top of my back/shoulders got burnt!! and i have a mini V inside my original V (from the motorcycle riding lessons). grr...i really hope this mistic tan works or else ppl are gonna think i have some weird skin disease!!

(warning, champ car and world challenge race spoilers ahead...)
it was a great day of racing! we got there early cuz we got paddock passes, so we wanted to check out the paddocks before the main event at 1pm. we checked out the champ cars, caught a glimps of sebastian bourdais, and saw the teams tuning up the cars. then we went over to the world challenge paddocks, where W spent some time talking to one of the mechanics for the acura realtime team (he was the head mechanic for brandon davis, who's actually from denver). it was pretty cool to learn about what they do to the cars and stuff. after that, we grabbed lunch and headed for the grandstands to watch the champ car race. it was a pretty good race all the way up until the LAST lap, when butthead tracy was trying to prevent bourdais from passing him, broke way late, lost control and HIT bourdais. the LAST lap, they were literally 300 feet from the finish line. i couldn't believe it!! tracy has been a real a$$hole for the past couple races, so i had no problem booing him as he rode by. there was almost a fight when bourdais got out of his car and walked over to him, exchanged some words and shoved him!! but the race officials got there before anything serious could happen. i was routing for bourdais, but allmendinger (from CA, but now living just outside denver) won. still, tracy sucks. but the world challenge race was really good, with realtime acuras in 1st, 2nd and 3rd! it was super close at the end, but davis won by literally inches. it was a very exciting finish!

W and i noticed that all the good race car drivers are named sebastian or peter. so if we want our kid to be a race car driver, we'll have to name him sebastian or peter. or peter sebastian. hahaha... i told W to become a race car driver so i can quit my job and just travel all over the world with him. "i'm a driver's wife. i don't work!" (we just watched talladega nights...soooo funny.

:: joyce 9:02 PM [+]::
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.:: Friday, August 11, 2006 ::.

alrighty folks, here it is! the new and improved y'om say'n! i would love to take all the credit for it, but it was W's mad programming skills that made it all possible. it only took him a few days, but blogger has been buggin' with his code. there are still a couple minor issues to work out, but it's working pretty much how i hoped it would. and for those of you using safari as your web browser, we have no clue what this site is gonna look like (since we don't own a mac). i think it's best viewed with IE, but firefox users will see 99% of what IE users will see.

some of the fun new features... hover over the ? on the graffitied y'om say'n. and check out the new links sidebar. and check out my new photos marquee!

so give me feedback! especially if something's not working right! hope y'all like the new look!

p.s. yes, the dragon is there...but not for long. :)

:: joyce 9:12 PM [+]::
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.:: Monday, August 07, 2006 ::.

i've been wanting to change the look and layout of my blog for some time, but have just been too lazy to tinker with it. in the past, i would just change the colors when i got bored. but i think it's time for a complete make-over. so W came up with some ideas and i put in my 2 cents, and a new and improved look is in the works. W even took my dragon tattoo and computer graphicized it for my blog (using the actual outline the dude used for my tat). it looks really cool!! but then he brought up a good point. do i really want my tat on the web? for any fool to steal and put on his/her body?? i have an original design and i don't want anyone else to have it! so all that work may be gone to waste. what to do. he can probably do stuff to make it hard for the average joe shmoe to try to print or save the image, but anyone who knew what they were doing and really wanted to take it could still take it. i'm trying to come up with creative ways to prevent it from being stolen. hmmm...must think more about this one. the rest of the new layout looks very cool tho. i can't wait to unveil it!

we've been extremely busy at work, and i put in a good amount of OT last week. and this week's already off to a busy start. i was at work for 12 hours! and i'll have to go in early tomorrow to finish what i didn't tonight. the worst part is, i'm doing work for other teams! i hope all my hard work pays off and someone notices that i'm a valuable asset to the company!!!

if you haven't seen morgan spurlock's 30 days, (now in its 2nd season) you should watch it. i really like it. he has various topics of interest and puts himself or someone else in the situation to see what it's really like. last week's episode was about outsourcing. a computer programmer that was recently laid off went to spend 30 days in bangalore, india, the "silicon valley of india" where most tech companies go to outsource. he had to get a job and live with an indian family whose members were working for american tech companies. he brought up an interesting point about all this. these indians don't know that the jobs they have are due to americans being laid off. they think they're just new opportunities for indians, and if an american loses his/her job, they can easily get another one. there is an abundance of jobs in bangalore right now, mostly call center/telemarketing jobs. it's actually glamorous to work in a call center in india. but it's also affecting their traditions and culture. women are no longer taking care of the family and house, they want to be part of the workforce too. it's creating a shift in their duties, as they try to essentially do 2 jobs at once. it will be interesting to see how outsourcing will actually impact india's traditional culture. but it also showed the division between the rising wealthy middle class and the struggling poor, living just on opposite sides of the road from each other. they showed a janitor working at the american call center in bangalore, living in a tiny little hut with his whole family, obviously living below the poverty level there. the roads are crowded with ox carts, chickens and cars. it's a strange mix of third world poverty and fast-paced industrial growth.

and lastly, i've been sucked into the korean drama obsession. haha...i used to watch some of them in high school when my mom would bring them home. i remember such classics like "pilot" and "the family with 4 daughters" (or something like that). i was browsing the channel guide yesterday when i came across this korean drama marathon. i was glued to the tv for 5 hours watching winter sonata! it was your typical korean love triangle drama, but it's easy to see why it's so addicting! the girl is pathetic, the boys are dumb for wanting her so bad, and the plot is very predictable. but for some strange reason, i had to continue watching! they only showed 10 out of 20 episodes, and now i'm dying to know what happens! i haven't read any spoiler sites yet, so hopefully AZN airs the rest of it soon! cuz i definitely don't want to shell out the cash to actually buy it!

:: joyce 8:54 PM [+]::
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.:: Saturday, August 05, 2006 ::.

we spent another day of hiking in the rocky mountains! we went to REI last night after dinner and found a pretty cool book on hiking trails on the front range. so of course W was very excited to try one out this weekend. we woke up bright and early (well, not really, we both kinda snoozed) and headed off toward evergreen. what should've only taken about an hour took us nearly 2 because of weird directions from our GPS. we ended up back tracking and taking the route the book said to take. finally we found the trailhead for the chief mountain trail and we were on our way. it was a short hike, just 3 miles round trip. but it went up pretty high. we started at about 10,600 feet and steadily climed up to 11,709 feet. that's 1100 feet in 1.5 miles! the views of the surrounding mountains and arapaho national forest were quite breath-taking (altho it was about 65 degrees at the bottom of the mountain, and by the time we reached the summit around 10:30 or so, the wind was picking up and it got kinda chilly). there were so many parents with their babies (you know, in those crazy baby holder hiking contraptions), and a bunch of dogs on the trail. it makes me want to get a dog. maybe someday we'll live in the mountains and get a bernese mountain dog and a husky. :)

here are some pictures...



here are the rest of the pics

:: joyce 9:03 PM [+]::
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.:: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 ::.

okay, so my new favorites are:
last comic standing - ty barnett (chris is starting to go downhill, and last night's performance was better than the previous, but still just not doin' it for me anymore). i like ty cuz he doesn't talk about the stereotypical stuff that most black (or hispanic or asian or etc) comedians tend to do. he's just funny.
so you think you can dance - tough one, cuz they're all great, but i predict the final four will be heidi, donyelle, benji and travis. i think heidi and benji are my faves now.
project runway, - still kinda early, but so far i like alison, robert and michael best. i should mention i have yet to root for the winner. season 1 i liked kara saun and season 2 i liked daniel. both 2nd placers!!

btw, i just found out that i can get FREE downloadable audio books thru my library! seriously, my library card just keeps getting cooler. :)

:: joyce 9:31 PM [+]::
...

a friend and former coworker wore this t-shirt on one casual friday, i recall it was orange, and the back of the shirt had the phrase "y'om say'n?" on it. i asked him, "what's that?" his response: "y'om say'n?" and from that day on, everytime he wore that shirt, he'd see me and say "y'om say'n?" and i'd respond with "word."