cindy's world

I just watched Aeon Flux, a futuristic post-apocalyptic movie which is a cross between The Matrix and The Island of Dr. Moreau and Stargate. It was very interesting, and for such a complex storyline, it was told and unraveled very cohesively. Extremely entertaining, full of action, special effect, fantasy, morality/humanity issues, even romance. On top of it all, there are few things I like better in a movie than a hot girl kicking ass. Except for maybe a Jennifer Aniston movie.

What’m I doing at 2:40p blogging today? I’ve got Margaret Cho’s album “The Notorious C.H.O.” blasting next to me so I can drown out the sound of USC running all over UCLA right now, 17-0. USC just finished scoring on us again, and in the following kickoff return, a UCLA player catches the ball, takes a few running steps forward…and falls flat on his face, literally. The ball is dropped and USC grabs it. Instantly upon this occurring, my cell phone rings. My jujitsu instructor is calling to harass me.

Yeah, so hot chicks kickin’ ass. Thus the beauty of Catherine Zeta-Jones in Zorro; Kate Beckinsale in Underworld; Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore in Charlie’s Angels; Jennifer Garner in Elektra. It’s very inspiring. Charlize Theron even executed a defensive take-down combination that was nearly identical to something I’d learned recently in jujitsu. Movies like these make me wish I were thinner and could pull off latex.

Sometimes I wonder how many great ideas were stopped by an unreasonable scrooge. How much has the world lost out on just because someone’s creative contribution were smothered in its prime by the jealousy of someone just slightly higher on the power ladder?

I was IMing with Jimmy just now about his new 20″ flatscreen monitors that were so cheap that he bought two. He said they were $330 each. I said, “Wow! I want one!” and then I realized I can’t buy one, because my homeowner’s association wants me to fork out another $400 by the end of December to contribute to the costs of repairing the roofs of the other units that had been leaking. I had already given then $1000. I wouldn’t mind contributing as much if 1.) it were tax-deductible, which it isn’t; or 2.) my roof were being repaired. As it is, this is just money given to them without any benefit received whatsoever. None.

Jimmy’s suggestion was, “You should put a few bullet holes in your roof, just to get in on the deal.” I’d never thought of that. That’s brilliant! Since I’m on my laptop in Mr. W’s bedroom, I walked out and asked Mr. W if he’s willing to shoot my roof for me. I came back and wrote Jimmy, “Uh, yeah. He said no.” Jimmy said that it would’ve been a double-plus because I could get my roof fixed, AND I could let off some steam. So I said, “Oh, you mean to have ME shoot my OWN roof! He wouldn’t shoot my roof for me, lemme ask if he’d let me borrow his gun.” So I walked off again. Mr. W’s response was, “Nope. My gun can not be used to shoot anything.” I gave a disgusted grunt, and said, “What is it, just decorative for your hip?!” Without looking up, he said: “Yup.”

I came back and reported to Jimmy that it’s a no-go. Jimmy wrote, “Disappointed, huh?” Truthfully, I’m not sure. The adult side of me (the very small one) is kinda relieved that Mr. W’s not irresponsible like that, cuz I wouldn’t know what to do if he agreed. Yet the silly child side of me is disappointed that not only does he not support me, he doesn’t even PRETEND to play along.

Hee hee hee. 😀 I like being here.

I don’t want to elaborate on what events lead me to write this, because it’s kinda sad, but I seem to be surprised more and more at how little my mother knows me. Maybe my dad doesn’t know me well, either, but he doesn’t go around claiming that I would do x and y, when I would never do x or y and my staff and my friends know it without batting an eye. One of the peeves I have is people claiming they know me when they don’t, or claiming I’m like this, or I’d do this, and they’re totally off-base. I think if people are pompous enough to predict my reactions to things, they’d better be right. I don’t think I’d mind as much if people hypothesize nice things, but my grandma, for example, used to act all shocked when I’d eat tofu, and say things like, “She eats tofu? She knows what tofu is? That’s pretty good! She’s still Asian enough to be willing to eat tofu!” when anyone who knows me at all knows that if the US banned soy products, I’d have to move back to Asia. (No, actually, I wouldn’t, but I’d keep bitching about it.) And I am not THAT white-washed that I’ve turned my back to all things Asian. She almost passed out when I read a simple thing in Chinese once.

And yet there’s the part of me that wonders whether my mom being so off-base with me is actually my fault, because I’m not there as much as I should be, or I don’t share with my parents all the things in my life for them to understand how I am. But I feel that no matter how much I share, she will always still see me a certain way, and the image she has is offensive to me.

Actually, it surprises me that the two people who really should know me the best really don’t know me, and they expect very bad things from me, and are shocked when they don’t receive it. That both hurts and angers me. In a microcosmic analogy, it’s as if I’m walking with someone who’s supposed to really know me, and we walk by a homeless vet on the street, I give him a couple of dollars, and the person I’m with turns and gasps, wide-eyed, and exclaims, “Oh my GOD! You gave him money! That’s so kind of you! I didn’t know you’d have that kind of generosity in you! That’s is SO unlike you!” when my two regular charities (and this is true) is Los Angeles Mission, a homeless shelter that gets people back on their feet, and DAV, Disabled American Veterans.

I think I’m more apt to just wave off the mom thing and categorize it as a lost cause.

I walked into jujitsu yesterday wearing my UCLA jacket. The first thing the instructor did upon seeing me was turn to another student next to him and say, “I keep forgetting to bring in a handicap parking placard for her.”

I would love to argue that, but I can’t, considering I’m aware of certain people I was very close to in college abusing handicap placards back then, who still does it to this day. =P

Apparently the USC Cheerleaders have been on the news giving the top 5 reasons why USC will beat UCLA on Saturday, the best one in my opinion being “Because we play the entire game, not just the final 4 minutes.” UCLA’s Cheerleaders gave 5 reasons why we’d win them, but the only one I know about is “Your men wear skirts,” which I suppose is a comeback to what they said about how we’re pansies in powder blue.

P.S. As an afterthought, I thought I’d give a bit of background to readers who are not local to Southern California, or familiar with university sports rivalries. UCLA (my alma mater) is the cross-town rival of the private university USC. UCLA’s mascot is the Bruin bear; USC’s is the Trojan. Thus, all the jokes about Trojan condoms (“A Bruin is forever, but a Trojan is only good once.”), and about their armor resembling a skirt. And a few years ago, a story hit the news that some doctors local to UCLA would significantly lessen the standard for declaring students physically handicapped before giving them a handicap parking placard — for a fee — which some students abuse to park in the very hard-to-park Westwood area. My favorite rivalry item is a burgundy T-shirt with a yellow square in the middle, and in the square is a yellow profile of a trojan. It looks exactly like the typical USC shirt with USC colors, except if you look closely at the letters on top of the square, instead of saying “USC” it says “SUC.” Oh, the reference to UCLA playing the last 4 minutes is due to the fact that we have pretty bad defense, and in the games this year, we’d let the other team score on us until a hail-Mary type comeback in the end when we’d turn the game around and win based on offense alone. Our colors are blue and gold, but in the early days of UCLA when newspaper photographs were black and white, UCLA’s athletic department realized powder blue photographed better in b&w, so they made their uniforms powder blue, altho to this day our official colors are still a sort of royal blue and gold.

The November statistics barely beat the October stats in hits. October: 26,309 total hits. November: 26,891 total hits. I was totally rooting toward the end of November, trying to — by mental prowess alone — push the bar graph higher so that November’s bar gets just a little higher than October‘s. It didn’t happen until the very last day of November.

There are some new countries and sources this month, but in the lead are some of the same countries. The US first, then Sweden with 4.38% of total hits, then Australia (0.55%), Cocos (Keeling) Islands (0.53%), and then Canada (0.42%). I hadn’t heard of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, but I looked it up online and it’s beautiful! What waters! US Military, welcome! I saw on the stats for today that there are some of our best and bravest, stationed in Kuwait, giving me a visit. Hi!!

For the rankings of the top 30 of 39 (5 more than October!) total countries/sources, click on the “more”:
(more…)

This is the best trailer I’ve seen in awhile. It’s for an upcoming Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner movie called Rumor Has It. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard at a trailer. The movie is about a family getting together in Pasadena, CA for one daughter’s (Mena Suvari, the blonde friend in “American Beauty”) wedding and the other daughter (Jennifer Aniston) finding out that their mom lost her true love (Kevin Costner) before she married their father because he slept with the grandmother (Shirley MacLaine), and Jennifer Aniston’s character was intrigued about who this man is, and this man actually comes to the sister’s wedding, and next thing you know, Jennifer Aniston’s character gets sucked into his charm as well. BTW, her character’s engaged to a great guy (Mark Ruffalo). It’s just a big mess with some really great, witty lines.

Rumor Has It trailer

Unfortunately, it doesn’t come out until December 25 this year. “What’m I gonna do till then, implode?” I wailed to Mr. W, who sent me the trailer.

Diana has a link to a UCLA page that not only has the words to the UCLA fight song, “Sons of Westwood,” but PLAYS it in its full band glory, complete with the cheer

U! (clap, clap, clap)
C! (clap, clap, clap)
L! (clap, clap, clap)
A! (clap, clap, clap)

U-C-L-A! Fight! Fight! Fight! .

My family law reference judge is/was an active Trojan, and his daughter is presently a USC student following in his footsteps. He is away on a judicial conference for the next couple of days, and won’t be back until Monday. So I called his line in his chambers, waited for it to go to voice mail, and played the song in its entirety into his voice mail. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Gawd, I hope UCLA wins this Saturday against USC at the Colliseum. Cuz if we don’t, when the judge comes back on Monday and listens to this voice mail, it’d just be inane. Good thing I didn’t identify myself.

Haha, due to my playing of the UCLA Fight Song in this prank, my bailiff du jour (not my regular bailiff) is now stuck mindlessly humming and whistling the song. HA! Now if I can get this song stuck in more people’s heads… Muahahahahaha!

***
Update 10:40am: I just returned from another floor. The UCLA-USC rivalry is rampant around here! People (judges, clerks and lawyers alike) are actually wearing collegiate pins and colors and insulting each other in the elevator. I always knew the rivalry was a big thing and I’ve been harassed by judges before coming back from jogging at lunch wearing a “Bruins Unlimited” T-shirt. This is GREAT!

I was talking to a friend about our childhood eating habits. She to this day will not drink milk nor eat chicken, because she has always despised the way they taste. She said that as a kid, her mom would make chicken and rice on the same day each week, and my friend ate rice and her brother ate chicken, so when Mom left the table, they’d switch plates and eat what the other won’t. Then her brother moved out and my friend would just sit and stare at the glass of milk on her table, and stare at the chicken, until one day her mom finally got the picture. I asked why she couldn’t have simply told her mom that she didn’t want the stuff. She said that in her household they couldn’t be picky and had to eat whatever was in front of them. When her brother left, she finally told her mom that she had never eaten the chicken.

I told her that in my house my dad always conned me into eating something I didn’t like by telling me some crazy story about how it’s magic or I’m creating a park in my stomach and the broccoli is the trees and the people would be sad if my park had no trees for them to sit under, the soup is the lake and I need to eat some duck to swim in the lake, and of course I need more rice so that the people can use it like bread to feed the ducks, I can’t very well let the poor duckies starve, etc.. (I blame my wild imagination and constant psychological guilt on my parents.)

My no-nonsense friend said, “That would never work at our house.”