mildly neurotic

….sort of. I’ve been posting more on tumblr lately, and that’s where I disappeared April last year. But now this place is being resurrected since I’m trying to get back into web design. I just spent two hours making a little flash “coming soon” page for my portfolio site. So, things to do for MildlyNeurotic:

1. Upgrade WP
2. Redesign!

Yay! Wheeeeeee! It’s almost 3AM so all this is going to wait until tomorrow– I’m so sleepy and my brain is running on, um, nothing.

I have some things to get off my chest (as always), but these grievances are addressed to specific people. Here we go.

Dear Man sitting behind Bill Worrell at the Rockets vs. Kings game,

Were you aware that everyone in Houston watching the broadcast could hear you taunting T-mac, telling him he should have eaten his “wheaties?” Better yet, do you know how ignorant and hick-like you sound? I guess not, otherwise you would have shut your mouth and spared all of us the agony of listening to you. We in Houston did not appreciate being subject to listening to your continuous, stupid, meaningless heckling. I used to think of Sacramento as an intelligent, charming city. You have single handedly proved me wrong. Please go choke on some of those Wheaties you love so much. Thanks!

Coincidentally, both the Rockets and the Astros lost tonight. Each by one point.

Dear Stephen King,

Congratulations on making The Mist. I am now truly frightened of driving around in the mist. Really, I am. Also, the ending of your movie was really…upsetting. I must say, my remaining hope in humanity went down the drain with the ending. Well, it actually started going down the drain when everyone started buying into the extremely pious, crazy lady because I know that in our society, most people would probably do the same thing.

I have been meaning to write for the past two weeks but have been putting it off because (you guessed it)– life is so busy.

I have a thing or two to say to my fellow Houstonians. First of all — how about those Rockets? With the boyfriend being such a huge Rockets fan, I have gone to a few of their games this season. We have some tickets to see the Celtics on Tuesday night, but will most likely sell them to the highest bidder.

Secondly, as I’ve mentioned before, the traffic here really sucks. I read an article in Wired a few months ago about gridlock traffic. A study suggested that traffic gridlock would never be prevented because (to put it bluntly) people are stupid. One single person slamming on their brakes can create a butterfly effect that will cause gridlock to every car behind them. So, my suggestion to you, dear fellow Houstonians, is to lay off of your brakes. If the car behind you is slowing down and not slamming on their brakes, just take your foot off of the gas. It’s a novel concept, I know. You all must be a very nervous bunch– I have seen people two car lengths behind a car and slam on their brakes for no reason. You, idiot, are the reason that everyone else is stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. Every morning, I leave my apartment and sit in I-10 traffic, but only for about five minutes. After I pass up Gessner, there is no more traffic. I wonder why that is. There must be a small group of idiots driving that way every single day that ruin it for everyone.

To continue with my rant– I have no realized why Michael Moore created that documentary on the US health care system. I have in front of me an invoice for $651 that my insurance was supposed to take care of. According to this invoice, it was originally paid by my insurance in October of last year but they have recently issued a “take back” for no apparent reason. Gee, Aetna, thank you so much for all of the warning that you gave me. Luckily this was under one of my parent’s insurance plans and I am having them call and yell tomorrow. I love Asian parents– they are good at calling at yelling. Not only to their own young but to other people as well, and the result is pretty much the same.

If you know me, you know that I love the finer things in life: sexy cars, travel, good friends, and killer shoes that I never wear. This weekend combined two of the three. I also got to watch a decent rockets game and I walked 2 miles for charity.

This weekend will arguably be one of the best weekends this year though it’s just gotten started. Pics after the jump since the front page is taking forever to load.
Continue reading ‘first best weekend, 08′

This is going to be the first good weekend in a while. Tomorrow, we have the Houston Auto Show (one of the true highlights of my year), Rockets Run 2008, and the Rockets game against the Utah Jazz. Cars, basketball, and walking for charity. Yay!

To keep you in suspense until then, here is an inside-look (literally) at my eyes. This was from my visit to the eye doc yesterday:

Also, on a side not about Cloverfield…(spoiler warning, click at your own risk) Continue reading ‘yay! weekend!’

I am sitting in an amc theater waiting to watch the much anticipated cloverfield. I am wet and my feet are still thawing from the freezing temperatures outside. Houston weather, to say the least, sucks today.

Also, I’ve just realized that blogging via smartphone is a major pain in the butt. To remedy this, I will be installing some mobile-friendly plugins as soon as I get home. (Mostly for my own personal mobile-blogging convenience.)

I hope everyone is having a great start to their new year. <3

Update: Writing this post has taken 15 minutes so now the previews are about to start. Yay!

Update #2 (from my Mac): This can now be viewed on most smart phones. The download link on Andy Moore’s blog was disabled so I had to settle for Alex King’s version. It makes it easier to read the blog on the go but it’s still quite a pain to post on the go without enabling e-mail posts. I have class in nine hours so my thoughts on Cloverfield will have to wait until tomorrow, probably during lecture.

Hello everyone and belated merry Christmas! I hope that all of you got what you wanted this year and more. Among my fat loot this year is the Sims2 for Mac (unfortunately this is still in the mail), fender earrings, a capo and some hello kitty guitar pics, a wallet, and a speeding ticket!

That’s right– I got my first-ever speeding ticket on Christmas day. The scrooge that gave it to me claimed that I was doing 63 on highway 6, but who doesn’t? Anyways, I figure any cop that is working on Christmas is not a very merry soul. My girlish charms and (later) tears had no effect on this hard-ass. On the bright side, I can test out everyone’s theories on how to get a traffic ticket dismissed. The plan: stall, stall and pray that the officer can’t make it to court. If all else fails, cry.

I almost forgot. Houston Christmas pictures:

(This set will get updated periodically until New Years since I still have some random pictures that haven’t been uploaded.)

Also, there’s one thing that I did not get for Christmas– a dwarf robo hamster. Because I like the name, and they look cute as hell when they are all trying to keep warm, here is a picture:

Teehee, their name sounds like robot dwarf.

Last month, for my birthday I decided to treat myself to a ton of new toys including a new phone, camera, and a pro flickr account. With the pro flickr account came 10 free moo mini cards, which just came in the mail on Friday. These are the cutest things I have ever seen in print. Pics of mine are below. Flickr has more print recommendations at flickr.com/do/more. Moo is my favorite by far but I also love qoop’s mini photobooks, HP’s picture cubes; and last but not least, blurb’s professional-looking picture books.

Ladies and gentlemen, and other random internet stalkers that are reading this, I have a few things to get off my chest. So please bear with me in the following, somewhat sardonic, rant.

First of all, I have been working my butt off at work only to be passed up multiple times for a promotion. Where I work, the word supervisor gets thrown around like ping pong ball. Honestly, if you are a tech and have been with the company more than four months, you can take “supervisor” calls. Some, not all, of the “supervisors” are a fucking joke and do not have an ounce of common sense or knowledge of company workings.

Let’s make a specific example. The boyfriend works in the same department as me in the same company. A few months back, he was offered the ultra-coveted Manager position. In my head, a very loud “what the fuck” resonated. No insults to the boyfriend, but it’s a no-brainer that I was better for the job. I had more knowledge on the sales and technical side and I was also working my butt off at that point. Currently, I don’t care who becomes the next manager for our department. It’s been made clear to me that I am not cut out for this job. Their reasoning? Because I am in school and would leave them as soon as I got my degree. Now, if I recall properly, there are jobs out there with a nifty thing called tuition reimbursement. Having tuition reimbursement means that the company that you work for is willing to pay so that you can get an education. Even if it means that your education has nothing to do with the current job you’re doing. What a novel idea! Companies want smarter people. Who would have though? Of course that’s not the case where I work, let’s not promote the girl that’s aspiring to get her Bachelor’s. How completely idiotic! Let’s promote the inept ones that have no alternate future and will therefore be our slaves employees forever.

I’ve now changed my tactics. I’ve become completely fine with other people over me and congrats to whoever gets the next promotion. All I want now is the raise that I have been asking for for the past two months. It does not take THIS LONG to get a raise approved. Bills in congress get approved faster than my raise. I think I deserve a raise. I work hard, I keep to myself and I tend to what’s asked of me. When I came into my interview in January, I was quoted a certain figure that people could make after one year of employment. While I know that was more of a come-work-for-us pitch than a promise, I think that I do work as hard as most if not all of the my co-workers. And at one point, I did care about this company. Sadly, the little episodes of bullshit that I must deal daily with are slowly dwindling the work ethic that I once had. I hate the fact that I am in a mid-position. I’m not unimportant but I’m not important either. I am the in-between. And I also am blessed with a revolving door of titles that are made up on a whim. Right now, my routine is to come into work, do my job and go home. I could really care less about the other goings on outside my realm of work. What’s that? We are now implementing shock collars with homing beacons? Sure. Frankly, I care less each day. Thank you, upper management, for instilling such an apathetic attitude in me.

The bottom line is this: There are plenty of other jobs out there that will pay what I currently get paid. Those jobs are for “real” companies and some of them include that novel thing that we discussed earlier– tuition reimbursement. The company that I work for entrusts me with their highest paying customers. I sometimes hold their hands and walk them through how to take a poop and install RAID. I don’t mind. I actually love helping the clients and usually they are appreciative and polite. More appreciative, I must say, then the people who cut the checks. If you had someone dealing with accounts that generate a lot (I won’t say how much) of profit each month– wouldn’t you want this person to be hard-working? Shouldn’t this person also be at least a little better paid than her other co-workers? I would think so. Unfortunately, someone does not agree with me.

I got this in the mail earlier last month and just found it on my coffee table. Introducing the first personally-addressed snail mail I have ever received. It comes in a plain white envelope with no return address. “Yay,” I think to myself, “A personalized letter!”

Aw, someone sent me something…thoughtful? I think. But wait, who the hell is J?

And why did he send me a newspaper? This is when I finally realized it was snail mail spam. How disappointing. Like when you realize that you’re really not the beneficiary for a South African Prince’s fortune.

On a completely unrelated note, I finally got a picture of the divorce van parked in front of a gas station on highway six. False advertisement? I think so.