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in wonderful harmony.

I can’t say Phelps is my absolute fav swimmer though… I think Natalie Coughlin is probably my fav swimmer right now, since she’s (a) a Cal bear (b) a woman and (c) from the Bay Area.

But this is still pretty awesome.

I’m sad the swimming is over.  It’s the best part of the Olympics!!!!

Photo courtesy of gingiemay at Tokidoki Forum.

I just scarfed down almost the entire can of these:

Which SOMEBODY left in my bag this weekend!!!!  And, um… they were pretty dang tasty.  Spicy, salty, and yet sweet… hahahahha!!!!  Anyone going to visit Korea soon?  Or seen these anywhere in the US?  Let’s talk…

And, while we’re on the topic of yummy man parts… (As you can see I’m trying *very* hard not to get a million folks hitting my website on dirty google searches)  We celebrated Erica’s Bachelorette weekend in style.  In addition to the aforementioned snacks we also had the pleasure of enjoying the first inaugural ‘Speedo Sunday’ courtesy of WET rafting company - our two guides Jeff and Kyle were trying to convince all the other rafting guides to follow suit (haha, get it? I know, I know… couldn’t stop myself) but I don’t think it will *quite* catch on the way they were hoping…  but for your viewing pleasure I present Jeff in his hot pink speedo with yellow smiley faces, complete with www.raftwet.com screenprinted on the rear… oh and that’s me, Irene, and Erica (with her veil and matching hot pink ‘Bachelorette’ sash) along with Jeff’s gf in the raft (counter-clockwise from the bottom right).

The WET guides were pretty awesome though, speedos or not - I highly recommend!!

Yes, it’s time for another one of my infamous rants. Buckle yourselves in.

Back to hp.

They are one of the evil companies that sell you (or even give you - oh, how generous are they) cheap crap printers and then rip you off on the $50 ink cartridges.

I’ve been holding out on buying those ridiculously priced ink cartridges… but that meant I couldn’t print anything at home for the last 6 months, which is kind of a problem.

Enter Office Depot.

They entice you with their Office Depot brand ink… significantly cheaper than the official hp ink. I fell for it and bought them. (Note to self and all (5) of my readers: DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I knew things weren’t going to go well when I look at the contact portion of the color cartridge. Kinda crusty looking… hm… oh well. I load it into my printer. 5 seconds later: fatal error: color cartridge failed. #*$&@#(*!!

I take Office Depot on their ‘100% Satisfaction Guaranteed’ offer. I return the crap cartridges to the surly OD employee. I buy the real hp ones. I wanted to buy them from Staples or something, just to piss off OD by not giving them my $$ after all that, but I admit it, I was lazy. I just wanted my damn printer to work. I even sold my soul by selling my old empty cartridges back to OD for the $3 off/cartridge discount. (which they will use to make MORE crap OD ink cartridges… argh!!!)

Finally. I load the new, authentic hp ink cartridges into the printer. They work fine.

Then I try to hook the printer up to Ryan’s new fancy schmancy new double screen computer that he spent $$$$ on. I can’t figure it out. Ryan to the rescue. He goes to the hp website to download the driver for the printer… enters the printer model, selects the windows operating system, and then:

We are sorry to inform you that there will be no Windows Vista support available for your HP product. Therefore your product will not work with Windows Vista.

The majority of HP products not supported in Windows Vista are beyond seven years old.

If you are using the Windows Vista operating system on your computer, please consider upgrading to a newer HP product that is supported on Windows Vista. HP has numerous products on the market that support Windows Vista.

For more information on the different options, click the How to Buy link at the top of the page.

And Office Depot - you just plain suck at trying to make money off the cash cow that is printer ink…

I was referring to my doctoral dissertation as a thesis. Well, a kind friend (who also happens to be working on her dissertation) and this document from UC Berkeley has set me straight. And, according to wikipedia - which we all know is the absolute authority on everything (and anyone) worth mentioning:

At most [US] universities, dissertation is the term for the required submission for the

doctorate and thesis refers only to the master’s degree requirement.

Ha! Obviously the author of this wikipedia entry has a doctorate! Why are all the master’s students out there sweating bullets? It’s only a thesis.

Gotta love the social hierarchy of academia.

You have to admit though - ‘dissertation’ just sounds more important than ‘thesis.’ Plus, it’s a much longer word. 12 letters versus a measly 6. Twice as long - it must mean a dissertation is twice as snooty.

I guess we have to grasp at something after all these years… I mean, it’s taken me 6 times longer to get my phD than it took Ryan to get his masters - which, by the way, was a two year program he finished in one.

Damn overachiever.

No, this isn’t another post about the presidential election. Something totally different.

I came across the most awesome black and white baby art the other day. Why am I looking at art for babies, you ask me? Sigh… NO I’m NOT pregnant. Sorry if anyone is disappointed. HA! But I’ve been browsing some fun design blogs recently - I think my recent trip with Jill to a Lotta Jansdotter event inspired me to get more… well, inspired. And there are a LOT of interesting design blogs out there.

Anyway, the upshot of it was, I was dutifully working on my thesis (aka procrastinating on the internet) and I saw a photo of some kid’s room and it had the coolest b&w print in one of those framed photo collages - I can’t even remember which blog this was anymore, but it was great because I spotted it right away and was like - OMG that is the most adorable ________ (see I can’t even remember the exact animal, something about the shapes just caught my eye) where do I find that?!!! And this wonderful, now forgotten blogger linked to K Barteski’s site… where she has posted all of the original images for FREE!!!

FYI: For those of you w/o kids, apparently black and white images are supposed to be extra stimulating for babies… or something like that. Whatever, I’m ready to print these out for ME!!

And, in honor of my thesis writing, I post two animals that are related to my research:

SO COOL! The artist has a really young baby, and was, ah, unimpressed by the b&w stuff she was seeing, and she just whipped these babies up one morning. Just like that. Dang I wish I was talented. Sigh.

Check out her recently ‘published’ book via blurb - also looks adorable.

PS. For those of you non-crazy bioscience people out there - No, I don’t work with hedgehogs exactly, but a well known growth factor I do some work with is named sonic hedgehog homolog (SHH for short) after Sonic the hedgehog. Yes, that Sonic, from Sega video games. Remember Sega?

Soerha and I managed to meet up with the artist a few weeks ago, at the Berkeley Ironworks where his art is currently showing. (Kind of an odd place, but definitely gets a lot of foot traffic)

In any case, it was nice to meet the man in person, and to see some of the larger pieces in person too. And, of course, to get my goodies in my hot little hands!! I made a trip to Aaron Brothers and spent about an hour contemplating all the framing options. (Yes, I know, a little much but it was a difficult decision!!!)

And, without further ado… here is the final product on our bathroom wall!! Continue Reading »

First - a random aside. Things sometimes just stick with you from childhood… sometimes literally stick.

For example: David M. I will always remember him as the Booger Man. He would pick his nose (blatantly) in class, squish them onto his desk, let them dry, pick them back off the desk, and then eat them. I had to share a desk with him. Not the same PART of the desk, mind you, but close enough that it was a bit much. I wondered if he did it JUST to gross me out. Then the teacher, my savior at that glorious moment, moved me to another table… (A kid had transferred out of our class, thank God, because for some reason I was ALWAYS seated next to David. In every class. For years. I swear the teachers all wanted to torture me. Either that or his last name came after mine in the alphabet. I like to think the former.) Let’s just say that solitary David, alone at his desk, didn’t stop his booger collection. He would, however, do a courtesy lick of his booger infested finger whenever I accidentally caught his eye.

The same teacher that finally put me out of my booger infested misery in the 5th grade also taught me a valuable lesson in semantics.

Me: “Can I go to the bathroom?”

Teacher (looking me straight in the eye, with an eyebrow lifted): “Well, I don’t know, Can you?”

Me: “Um… yes.. well… ah… May I go to the bathroom?”

Teacher: “Yes.”

Did I mention that said teacher also had a huge 7 foot long boa constrictor in our classroom that was named “Arnold Schwarzen-snaker?”

Ah… memories.

Which brings me to the point of my post.

I grew up with the LA Lakers. I grew up in the 80s, cheering on Magic, and Kareem. They were the OG dream team… and I think the years of the great Lakers vs. Celtics rivalry was one of the only times that my mom let us watch TV during dinner.

I mean, come on… even my mom likes the Lakers. And since she’s pretty awesome, that must mean the Lakers are awesome.

Then Michael Jordan came around… and I respect the fact that he’s a great player, but I never liked the way his flashy style changed the way basketball became all about the marketing of limited edition Jordan sneakers. I mean, I really can’t be one to dog on the collectors of shoes - my tokidoki collection is protection against that - but seriously - do they have to be so dang UGLY?!!!

Finally in college the Lakers came back, a la Kobe and Shaq. I still remember in 2001 it was the beginning of summer - the playoffs always coincided horribly with finals at school… and my parents called to tell me the Lakers were in the conference finals, and I needed to turn the TV on NOW. I was crashing at Joyce and Priya’s studio at the time, watching the games on their slightly fuzzy TV, trying to make out the tiny score in the corner as they played the Spurs. I think I fell in love with basketball all over again.

One of my college friends made me a bet back then - that in 10 years the Clippers would be better than the Lakers.

Too bad he will lose. Okay, okay, it hasn’t been 10 years. Yet.

Anyway.

My question is: May I just have a little joy in the fact that the Lakers are in the NBA finals again? And against the Celtics no less?!

Ryan calls me a fair weather fan. But seriously, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WATCH MY TEAM WHEN WE DON’T HAVE CABLE??!! hmmmm?!!!!

I’m just not a big data analysis person. I hate statistics. I hate compiling and organizing data. I hate photoshop. I hate all of it.

You would think otherwise, due to my somewhat OCD personality. I think the problem stems from the fact that I just have SO MUCH data, and I’m not THAT organized, so the process of doing so is just overwhelming. Add to that my perfectionist tendencies, which don’t allow me to let anything by that I think looks ugly, or weird, or off, or just okay…

and you get a girl that who is going to be absolutely batty for the next month or two.

Watch out.

PS. I have a HUGE backlog of photos and other cuteness to post. I promise I will post it all someday. Maybe after July. If you still read this by then. Then again, I will probably need serious procrastination in the coming weeks, so maybe you’ll be hearing from me more than usual.

PPS. We need another two dozen or so glass beer bottles… brown or green, no twist off, rinsed (otherwise they tend to grow a bit of mold. ick)… extra points if you clean off the labels.. ha! Please send them our way if you have any. We are going to have TWO beers for your imbibing pleasure in a couple weeks… you know what that means…. DOUBLE the AWESOMENESS that is nanoBREW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stay tuned.

PPPS. How IS the thesis writing going you ask? Well, something a little too much like this…

“Stop sucking on my nunchuck!”

- From a 7 year old to a toddler, in between games while playing Wii Sports…

Gotta love the Wii.

I got two phone messages this last weekend, actually within an hour of each other.

One was from Daphne telling me that she found some tokidoki on sale at Leohmann’s, and did I want her to pick up anything for me?

The second was from my brother in law Nathan, telling me I needed to watch this youtube video of a hamster eating broccoli.

What can I say?  My friends and family share cuteness in the world with me…  and I LOVE IT!!!!