BLoGGeR PaNDa

My kinda guy: one who can feed the household. Hee hee

Wish I had an update that I can be proud of, but I don’t. Everything about last weekend was decadent (I might overuse this word cos I love the sound of it) - meaning self indulging, state of decaying… Yes, we ate too much good food and watched Blockbuster and/or Netflix all day and snacked like crazy. David didn’t put on a pinch of fat, of course. I, on the other hand, hmm.. let’s not talk about it.
We blame the weather. Nobody in their right mind would step out of a nicely air-conditioned house and deal with the burning leather car seat unless it’s absolutely a matter of life-and-death. (Like going to Blockbuster when the DVDs ran out)

P.S.  If anyone of you in the States ever heard of the drinks called Crystal Ball, hit me back.

P.P.S.  At the moment am reading the Da Vinci Code. Riveting. (Nice break from DVDs.)  I just wish I’d remember my art history or at least kept the syllabus!

last weekend:



hollywood walk of fame, chinese mann theatre, beverly hills’ rodeo drive, santa monica’s 3rd street, j. paul getty museum. everything awesome in california. (i’m such a tourist!)

i’m sad.
david ika left and MAN i despised saying good bye. but people stop by your life and everyone leaves a puzzle piece with you, and at the end you’ll put the pieces all together and have this beautiful picture. i’m not a good writer so i’ll leave the task to professionals. but you get what i mean, right? and david ika was to me one of those friends who leave a few and more, not just one, pieces of the puzzle. he was a good friend. hopefully he’ll come back to live in the states. the guy’s more american than anything!

even sadder:

the backyard is turning into a no-man’s-land. any kind of weeds, just name ‘em, they’re all there. bugs a-flyin’ outta grass (or weeds, i suppose). and the pool has a life of its own with all that "stuff" growing in there. dumping in a scary amount of chlorine helped only a bit. so, my left hand is waving a little white flag while my right hand locks the door to the backyard becos i’m pretty scared of going out there again. i’m not over-reacting! even jaka spends only 2 seconds out doing his thing in the wild before sprinting back in the house! he used to love hangin’ out in the backyard running around aimlessly or barking at neighbor dogs.
note to my aunt: NOT a good idea giving the gardener a month’s vacation.

oh and anybody sick of jaka yet? i’ve had it. i’m coining a term: Jakaism. stands for behavior of extreme clinginess at all times; literally clinging unto a piece of garment that’s on you (or skin); following you around at a distance not farther than 2" away, even if he ends up being stepped on or kicked in the face or stomach (unpurposefully).

disclaimer. i love dogs, but not jakaism.

First, some miscellaneous stuff.

Anton Boulevard near South Coast Plaza.

Pretty creative ad for Fantastic Four, done on the sky. David and I saw this in the making while driving on the freeway. Granted, there was a little bit of traffic caused by rubbernecks like us.

Jaka munching on my index digit. This is a game which only he enjoys.

Last weekend Lukas and I went down to Irvine for Irene’s birthday. Poor Irene was running around the place managing her 60+ (or maybe more!) rowdy guests. Fun times for me cos David’s friends kept hassling him about me, which I think was adorable. Aww…

Kurt’s leaving this Friday for China, really sad cos we will miss his infamous sarcasm. But once he’s there, he won’t even remotely remember us. All that Saturday that we hung out, he kept hitting on these Asian girls - quite a variety too. One of them was half Vietnamese - and he even guessed correctly which parent was Viet. So I assume he’ll love China, where all the girls will hit on him instead of the other way around.

David Ika is here. Well, he’s gone to Vegas for now but that’s not the news. What’s news is I FOUND OUT HIS BIGGEST WEAKNESS!! I guarantee you wouldn’t ever have guessed it. A big tough macho guy like him, you would hurt yourself laughing if I told you what scares him the most. BUT, this information is not for free. Hah-ha! Unless you were part of the “S Club Jilat” back in the day. (Anton, you’re ok too although you weren’t ever officially part of us.) Gosh, this is so much fun! Just don’t tell the big tough guy himself.

This Korean mob boss kidnapped me to OC again! Hahaha..

Several high points of the long weekend: (if I can remember them all. This was one of those whirlwind weekends.)

• Hangin’ with some more new people at the Newport beach house. Watching the ocean at night - ahhh.

• Shopping at South Coast. Huge shopping district. Too-awesome stores! Some personal favorites: Paul Frank, Godiva, Club Monaco, and the APPLE STORE… Yes I finally did my pilgrimage to an Apple store and saw the humongous 30″ cinema display. David almost got a Powerbook with that free Minipod deal (NICE!!), but managed to refrain himself. I wasn’t much help in the restraining department. =p

• Corona del Mar beach. Botched bonfire plans but still had a great time. Really beautiful view at sundown from the hill, watching people coming home from work and parking their BOATS. Not cars, no no. Boats. Went back to the spot much later and enjoyed lights from the land across the waters.

• Laughed my head off watching David’s weatherman video! So far the only eyewitnesses are Kurt and I. So make sure when you see David, ask him about it and watch him wince. Muahahaw..

• Last but certainly best: Dinner at Yamashiro on the Hollywood hills. Food was alright (CalAsian) and decor was like amazing, but we were there for the view. The place overlooked Los Angeles and when night fell all the lights came on and WOW talk about indescribable feelings. Plus the occassional fireworks in the distance.

This weekend was definitely about beaches. I was a happy panda.

P.S.: The gun was for the shooting range. And David is not a mob boss… as far as I know.

I love working with creative people. My pet peeve is having to cooperate with them so-called graphic artists who are effects-happy (they who emboss everything and use every other filter function there is in the universe on one tasteless cluttered page). But I’m so lucky to have worked with Synergi and Bentuk. They’re true artists. They inspire my being.

Some update on Jaka (for you Jaka fans). He’s doing perfectly fine now and he loves me to death - probably thinking I’m his best bet out there to feed him. So I’m just glad I didn’t have to put him through a dog spa for his stress. I know who needs a spa right now, though. ME. Managing my uncle’s house is not glamorous whatsoever. Barely have time to do stuff for myself, fun-wise. Like yesterday, scratch gym time and replace with watering all the plants and trees that the sprinklers can’t get to, getting trash out, water more plants in the house… plus having Jaka is like having a kid. I have constant guilt trip about leaving him at home everyday, all day, all by himself. So I come home from work and he’s all hyper and I take him with me everywhere including ice cream mochi shopping, even if he only gets to stay in the car. I feel like a working mother.

Went to Elephant Bar last night (only for an hour or two!) and had the best salad ever. I’m usually for soups, not salads, so this item called Thai-High Sweet and Spicy Chicken Salad was serious stuff. Had Mai Tai and had a buzz from it and had a crazy drive home: a minor almost-crash and lotsa stops at wrong turnings and many illegal u-turns… My bad. Lukas (in the passenger’s seat) was screaming on top my own screaming, and Dicky (tailing us) was honking frustratingly. Everybody (that’s Alia, Juan, Dicky, Lukas) kicked back at the house, trying to get Jaka to drink Smirnoff, all that good stuff.
This weekend I’ll be in LA for fireworks. Haven’t packed and was so late for work this morning. And Jaka has no idea I’m leaving him for the whole weekend. I’ll make sure I give him super-sized treats before I go. ; )