cindy's world

On the drive to work yesterday morning, I heard a sound bite on the radio, something to the effect of a male voice saying, “Actually, I’m not even really sure what the premise of Indecent Proposal is. I’ve never seen the movie. I guess, like, the guy from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wanted to sleep with my wife or something? Like, who doesn’t? But I never saw the movie cuz I was too young at the time and I guess it’s R-rated and my parents wouldn’t let me watch it.” And I realized it was Ashton Kutcher. The quote made me laugh, cuz it’s reminiscent of how I sometimes “remind” Mr. W of our age difference. (Mr. W: “Remember this guy? He’s from such-and-such a movie.” Me: “I really wouldn’t know; I was like 4 at the time and didn’t speak English yet.”) I then realized that I’d never seen Indecent Proposal straight through either, only in bits and pieces, and I thought that I would like to watch that movie sometime.

In typical Cindy’s World koinkidinkal style, I was channel surfing late last nite and Indecent Proposal was playing. I didn’t get to watch from the very beginning, but it was probably within the first 10 minutes. The movie was surprisingly good. And Robert Redford is surprisingly charming in his character. I’d had a conversation with Mr. W last week about how some friends in high school had crushes on Robert Redford, which I’d found odd at the time, cuz to me he was such an old folgie. But after this movie, I can see what the attraction is. The movie did rip a few reluctant tears out of my eyes, but I like to think if it as late-night oversensitivity. I was, however, disappointed at the lack of sex scenes. Why’s this movie R-rated? Maybe the cable channel had edited out the good stuff.

Two scenes that stuck with me:
1.) The turning point scene at Robert Redford’s character’s mansion (which I recognized to be shot at the Huntington Library. In fact, lemme see if I can find a photo of it.). John (Redford) finally explains why he was pursuing Diana (Moore) so hard by telling a story from his youth. To paraphrase, “When I was much younger, I was extremely shy around women. One day, on a bus [train?], I saw a girl sitting there. She was wearing a dress with a shirt that was buttoned all the way up to her chin. But she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. But when she looked up, I would look away, and when I looked at her and saw her looking at me, she would look away. Then when I got off, I looked back at her through the window. She was looking right at me, and then she gave me the most beautiful smile. That moment was horrible for me. I wanted to break down the glass doors and get back to her. I went back on the same bus every day, at the same time, for the next two weeks, but she never came back. There hasn’t been a day since that I hadn’t thought about her, and about what I’d lost. I’m not going to let that happen again.”
2.) The scene in the limousine when John let Diana go by telling her that she was just one of thousands worldwide in the “million dollars’ club”, i.e. that he’d paid many people $1mil to be with them for a night, and his chauffeur, finally catching his drift, played along. She was at first confused and hurt, but then she realized what he was doing, and looked at him gratefully. “Thank you, John,” she said as she kissed him one last time. “Goodbye.” And then she exited the limo and ran into a bus to go back to her ex-husband. “What was that all about?” the chauffeur asked John. “I wanted to end it,” John explained, looking wistfully after Diana. “She would’ve never looked at me the way she looked at him.”

In the movie, this was John’s front yard leading up to his house, altho in the photo (from our visit in 10/06) it was under renovation:

Here’s what lines either side of the yard/fountain:

I like this picture. This is from James’ bday shindig some weeks ago. I’m posting it because 1.) I think it’s artsy, being taken in only candlelight; 2.) it reminds me of happier times, before I was sick and sniffling, and before James abandoned us to his wanderlust in Japan; and 3.) if I hold my hands up real close to the photo, I *almost* feel the warmth of the candles, and it helps me ignore the roar of the air conditioning over my head. I can pretend. I mean, there ARE a lot of candles on that cake. Poor James. (Hey, I can torture him; he’s all the way across the globe and probably won’t even see this for WEEKS until he gets back.)

From the moment we stepped into the fenced-in lot off the Long Beach Convention Center, I was excited. I exclaimed more than once, “This KICKS Nascar’s ass!!” This, my friends, is drift-racing.

That was a qualifying round. This is a head-to-head face-off:

TurboTiger was right. There were a lo-ot of niiiice, fixed-up cars and custom paint jobs. (Rest mouse pointers over photos for captions.)

Some cars are so fancied up I can’t even tell what model a lot of them are from just looking.

Of course, YA KNOW that if I find MY car model, I’m gonna take pictures of it. Because the IS350 is a new model, there are few after-market modification parts available for it. The owner of this car is doing almost all the mod parts from scratch himself, and expects to be done with this baby next week:

I just thought this little cherry-red number is cute:

Mr. W liked this RockStar car:

This dude’s one of the premier drifters in Japan:

After the race, Mr. W and I took a walk down to The Pike and chowed down on shrimp at Bubba Gump. And then we took a stroll to a nearby Borders book store, where he purchased a yoga/pilates book and a “better sex” book which he claims to have purchased only for the pictures. I had a really good time, and am looking forward to the October Formula-Drift event in Buena Park, where we’ll be in the VIP box. Jealous?

Well, don’t be. I think I’m growing a penis from all the testosterone floating around today. Speaking of that, this morning’s question of the day, introduced while still lounging in bed, was What would you do if you wake up one morning and you look down to discover you’ve changed gender? My answer was that the first thing I’d do is jack off. I wanna see what all this penis hype is about. After that I can panic.

Vanessa managed to steal some free time to post about James’ birthday shindig, so I’ll just refer you to her post. 🙂 Plus, the photos she sent me were so large that my image hosting site wouldn’t take them. This is the only 2 photos I was able to successfully download, so I’ll refer you to Vanessa’s blog for the photos, too. How large were they? Well, as I told Vanessa, they were SO large that when I tried to view them, all I got on screen was, like, an elbow, and I couldn’t see the rest until I scroll it to death. And then the image that scrolled in was so large that it scared me and I had to close the window.

Oh, I will add one thing that Vanessa didn’t cover in her post. We didn’t get to the ice cream cake until past 10pm, which the waitress was nice enough to have stored in the freezer for us and brought it out with plates when we were done with dinner. Around the same time, she told us that the bar was about to close, and asked if there were any last drinks she could bring for anybody. I highly recommended the chocolate cake shots, which Wilco’s fiance Christi turned me on to when Mr. W and I visited San Francisco a year ago (time flies!). We finished the cake closer to 11pm, and left a bit after that. The waitress was very nice the entire time. It wasn’t until later that James realized Taps closes weeknights at 10pm!! We totally overstayed! This is such a different treatment from when I, Mr. W, Vanessa, and her friend were eating Korean tofu and they KICKED US OUT because patrons were waiting for a table. Aside from having the BEST ahi tuna tar tar (which I ordered and everyone was jealous of once they got a taste), the service is enough to have me going back more often. I’m glad I gave a 30% tip. James’ friends were so generous in putting down their shares of the tab that I was able to apply extra toward tip. 🙂

After work today, Vanessa and I hooked up to assemble James’ belated birthday present. I’d sent out an evite last week to James’ friends to meet up for a belated birthday dinner on Wednesday evening at Taps Fish House & Brewery. Vanessa and I figured we’d go above and beyond the hostessing of this event by making him a basket of treats, too. Here are some clues as to what we assembled for him.

* There’s a magazine in the collection. To help with his…”hobby.” He probably wouldn’t read it for the articles, tho.
* We included a bottle of performance-enhancing supplements.
* A rapid hand-jerking back-and-forth motion is required to take full advantage of some of the goodies.
* There’s wood involved.
* There are many little packets that you tear open to use the contents.
* There are lots of products meant to make you swell. Real big. And hard. Like a real man.
* Some products may result in frothy, milky fluid production.
* There’s plastic to wrap the wood in.
* We even included a cloth to put around the hips, you know, to catch the drippage.
* There are multiple single-use packages of long items for inserting into moist holes.

We can’t wait to present this big collection of goodies to James! We know he could use it! We just regret that we couldn’t get the inflatable sheep, but it’s on backorder. 🙁

CAUTION: This post contains workplace unfriendly material. DO NOT…I repeat…*DO NOT* click on the “more” below when you’re at work, or in front of your parents, or your children, or other people who may be offended or embarrassed by human nudity. In fact, if you’re related to me or Mr. W, don’t open this further. And if you don’t want to see nekkid men and/or TMI stuff, don’t click on the “more.” You know what? Just close your browser right now. Thanks.

You guys know that I got Mr. W a 3-year prepaid gym membership for Christmas. You know that he started working out with me every lunchtime and sometimes after work and on weekends, and that he’s become even more fanatic about the gym than me. He didn’t have any personal training, except for a few tutorials from me, and then he’s gone and run with it. Here are some “before” photos from last year, and “after” photos I took this weekend, which I’m really proud of, not only because he’s done an amazing thing for himself, his health and longevity, but because I am an amazing photographer. Uh-huh. That’s right, I take credit for this.

Again, DON’T click on the “more” below if you’re at work or could possibly get in trouble for viewing non-PG images. I’m serious.

(more…)

The purpose of this post is two-fold. First, because I got a new Billabong swimsuit that I really like on Saturday. (Mr. W decided that it was my fault we don’t go to his jacuzzi more because I don’t have a bathing suit at his house, so he “decided” unilaterally that we were going to go out and buy one, pronto.) Second, because you guys asked for photos after reading this recent post. So here you go. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.

This is the swimsuit worn the way I like.

This is the swimsuit worn the way Mr. W likes.

Side view of, um, swimsuit.

Another side view that better shows off the, um, suit.

Rear-ish view.

Unfortunately, I’m already starting to bloat up again. 🙁 That didn’t last long. But fortunately, the sliding weights scale at the gym Saturday night (after a grueling 3-hour workout, at the end of which I ran a mile just to kill time as I waited for Mr. W and his buddy to pretty themselves up. I’d never run just to kill time before.) put me still in the mid-120s. Yay!

I know it’s a negative Asian stereotype to say we squat, but here are some photos I discovered in Mr. W’s laptop alone…

At a park local to my work, one lunchtime, July 2006:

In San Simeon, July 2006:

Around San Simeon Pines Lodge, July 2006:

more beachside later that day:

At the Huntington Library & Botanical Gardens, hunting for turtles, October 2006:

In Hawaii, a cliffhanger squat from behind, November 2006:

WHY are there so many photos of me squatting?!
At least I’m not *really* squatting here:

Here’s what I look like when I’m NOT squatting:

Just thought this was funny cuz Mr. W handed a guy (brotha’ from Philly, early 20s, on vacay in Oahu) the camera so he can take a photo of US in front of Diamondhead. Here’s what he took:

You all know about my hidden captions, right?

I had a really nice surprise when I came back from my lunch workout today. The loveliest bouquet of yellow and sunset roses were sitting on my desk in a pretty brass-colored jar-like container. They were from Vanessa, as a thank-you for being there for her. Awww, thank you for the flowers, Vanessa! Being the good friend that I am, I know what she really wants. So I’m posting a photo of my hair under the guise of taking a photo of me with her flowers. Please keep in mind that I’m bloated from PMS, and not just bloated, but especially bloated cuz my monthly visitor is running late. So I’m not at my best.

I just got back from my forced march to see the movie 300. The only thing I’m gonna say about it is that it’s Gladiator meets Lord of the Rings meets Kill Bill. I like to go to the movies to relax and have a feel-good air when I walk out. Instead, this is what I looked like coming out of the movie.

Vanessa’s on her date watching this movie tonite. I wonder if she’ll wear the same expression. She’ll probably enjoy it, though. Altho, I did learn one thing from the movie. I do not have elongated nipples. Sorry, Jordan.

I forgot to add another thing that I was grateful for yesterday, aside from good friends and having hair that a salon could screw up. I’m happy that I found my old jazz shoes before bellydancing yesterday, because we did so many chaine (pronounced shuh-NAY) turns that it would’ve been impossible barefoot. I would’ve been screeching haltingly on the wood floors, or flying across them uncontrollably if I were in socks. Who knew that bellydancers did chaine turns? I was also grateful for my prior dance experience.

Here’s a normal-ish photo. These photos make me want to post some old really good photo to redeem myself. But this isn’t my laptop. 🙁

I was rifling through my CDs at work and was surprised to find a CD-Rom where I’d saved, among other things, old photos that were on my last work computer. I looked through them and wanted to post this series, cuz I forgot how funny they are. Rest mouse pointer over photos for captions!

This is me with the Northern Cal gang at some beach up there for Wilco’s July 4, 2005 barbeque. I never remember what beach it is. I wanna say Santa Barbara, but I think that’s wrong. Santa Cruz? Some UC town.

Brad discovers that Diana had fallen asleep on the beach blanket.

Brad and Jen take advantage of the perfect opportunity to beat Diana up.

The slaughter continues.

Tah-dah! Jen’s declared the winner over a knocked-out Diana.

Brad takes the camera so I can get in on the action, too. Jen and I help BBQ utensils reach their full potential.

We didn’t have a flag, so we had to claim Diana as our conquered land with a beach umbrella. Diana wakes up just in time to protest before our big plunge.

This is what happens when people hang out with me. Ensuing antics. Photographic evidence.