Happy St.Patrick's Day!

--88 (that's a clover). Oh how I miss the high school days when I was known for my clover-ness. But this St.Patty's Day has been a good one, best yet, since freshman year of high school (I found six 4-leaf-clovers during track practice).

If you haven't noticed yet, I heart green! And I have always wanted a green flower. And since those don't exist, the next best thing is a dyed-green carnation, the ones they have around St.Patrick's Day.

Today I got one! And sort of for free! :D

"vase" courtesy of the myboys show on tbs, party pack!

So I went to that flower place on Durant today, and wanted a $1.75 carnation. I didn't have any cash, and there was a $8 minimum for credit cards. But the owner was like "You just want one? You can have it, and pay me back later." I was like :O!!!!! because of course that just means he's going to give it to me.

:O!!!! free flower!!!! I think I can safely say that I've never paid for flowers (and yes, I have gotten flowers)

So I picked out a pretty one (they were all pretty, they're green!), and that totally made my day. I love green and I adore my flower. Flowers live forever, right? I will definitely try and pay him back, although I normally never walk that way.

Today was a beautiful day to wear green. :]

hello hello

So I'm sitting here trying to think of a new cool blog topic (as I always am), but everything I come up with is somewhat depressing or vaguely bitter or ranty. Even with that last sentence, I am beginning to introduce these seeds of doubt that should not be associated with my worry-free drama-less blog.

Because, there should be plenty of things to write about that will not make my readers feel depressed or sympathetic or even... thoughtful! There should be many issues I can address that will not make me seem silly when I read back on this in ten years.

I am being too contemplative... this is a sign to switch to LJ

If you're too emo you might as well get this umbrella, paint it black, and carry it around even when it's not raining.

So the moral of the (what?) story is, don't be emo! Or if you are, you should get a livejournal and tell me all about it. Here is my attempt at keeping this blog drama-free.

So below are some things that have been making me happy:

Although there's an additional nine cents tax. Click for original image.


Cute animals always make me squee. And I haven't squeed in a long time (perhaps since Cassandra Clare visited last year)

That's all I have for today.

5 Reasons why Canada is cool!

Americans are so silly! I've never said 'eh' once in my life.

1. People are nice
Everyone in Canada is nice! If you've seen How I Met Your Mother, you'll remember that nice Canadian people give out free donuts. Now I'm not a big fan of donuts, but anything free is good in my book.

I still remember when I first moved to the United States. I thought everyone carried guns around! This is how violent and scary the image of the American is to the rest of the world. I went to school, and people said mean things about each other! None of my friends in Canada called me stupid :( Here, my friends called me that like twice a day! (should've gotten better friends, but remember no one is nice) Canada is just such a peaceful happy friendly place!!

2. Everyone gets free health care
In Canada, everyone got a cool green card with their name and picture on it, and you can get free health care! Here, you have to go find some lousy hospital, and every time you go you have to pay $15!!?? In addition to membership fees of course.

Why would I pay $15 for some doctor to look at me for about fifteen minutes, and then give me a print-out sheet of what I should do? That's $1 a minute! $15 for some useless sheet of paper, and then I get a prescription for some like $20 medicine in a tiny bottle. I'd rather just ignore the searing pain in my joints :P

3. We get to eat cool stuff like maple syrup cookies and ketchup chips
If you haven't had any of these... it's so good! Granted, I think they have maple syrup cookies at Safeway, but they're so expensive! In Canada you can probably go to one of those maple syrup tree farm things and make your own cookies, using sap straight from the tree! I've never actually seen it done, but that's besides the point. Also, ketchup chips! Best flavor of chips. I haven't had any in eight years :P


These are so yummy you don't even know.

4. Metric System is the normal way to measure
When are Americans going to stop being so full of themselves, and conform to the rest of the word??? The weirdo retarded pounds/feet/inches system is just not as good as the metric system! It makes no sense! Why can't we count right like every other country? I've been here for eight years and I still can't remember those retarded numbers that convert feet to pounds to yards to whatevers, and in my experience the people around me don't know either.

5. Less people = less competition
So I think the comparison is, California has more people than all of Canada. But isn't that better? It's not as crowded, and you can actually see trees and big fields and other nature things. There's less competition for everything, which means you can win more at life. If you're smart, there are probably only ten other people as smart as you, whereas in the United States there are whole universities smarter than you (case in point: Berkeley). Not only that, but because there are more people in the United States, there are a lot more dumb people too. Wouldn't you rather live in a place where there's less people, but each one is smart and nice!


So with the above points, I think I've proved that Canada is a great country to live in. Stop making fun of it! Spell it right! :( As you can see from the first chart, only dumb Americans make fun of Canadians because of false stereotypes. We're cool nice people! 8)

pics or it didn't happen!

I recently got an anonymous tip from my brother's friend (who I know too, supposedly), regarding my photography skillz.

??: and tell her to get a external flash and not use the ghetto one that came with the camera lawl
??: but she has a good eye for aperture setting
??: just underexposed
??: a lot of her pics are like that
??: thats one of my underexposed shots
??: theres shadows overcasting the subject, making the color washed out
??: getting a polarizer helps ..
r: it's underexposed bc i dont have flash, genius
r: and i dont need a polarizer, i have photoshop

It was amusing until I still couldn't figure out who it was. I'm usually pretty good at these things :D Anyway, before a cute Nikon D40 or D60 magically drops in my lap, I have to stick to my huge fat D1H. To show him who's boss, I considered putting together an album of some of my better shots, but alas, all of the good shots have me in them (obviously).

But here are some of them anyway. Enjoy :]













Off-topic, but:
n: did baba and mama let you pierce your ears by any chance
n: did they say when you can?
r: no
r: like never
r: why?
n: oh
n: i kinda want one
kekekekkekekekeee

why I don't (like to) compost

Those friendly green compost bins at our dining commons... yea I never really use them. At Crossroads sometimes I get peer-pressured into dumping my excess dinner into the huge bins, but at Cafe 3 I don't bother.

Because if they were really serious about not wasting food, the people working there would actually listen to you when you tell them you only want "A LITTLE BIT." Conversation Exchange I had yesterday at Crossroads:

Dining lady: rice and chicken?
Me: No rice! Just chicken
DL: *dumps rice on plate*
Me: No rice! No rice! ...awww damn it.
DL: *oblivious*

Maybe I should speak louder? Why do they always ask what you want, if they're just going to give you the same amount anyway? They always heap huge portions on my plate, and I can never finish it! Hence the extra food for compost, and hence my disinclination to compost.


stop your scooping movements!! I'm a small person and I don't need to eat moar!

at work

My first 4-hour shift at Moffit! At least I'm getting paid. Here's the plan:

First hour: cube, get 50+ solves
Status: still slow, only on 17th solve

Second hour: shop online. being here means I can justify spending money
Status: already started in first hour

Third hour: Pretend I'm coding for fun while in actuality working on CS project (2-week no homework policy for noobies)
Prediction: reveal secrets on aim, make embarrassing ranty emo blog posts

Fourth hour: Read Watchmen
Prediction: figure out how to not get mugged on way home (can I count on not waiting for night shuttle until 4am??!?!)

real post coming up laterz.

O HAI

That Valentine's Day thing is upon us. I've never actually had a vday that wasn't S.A.D. (singles appreciation day) Now I'm trying to remember what I did during this holiday...

Last year we were walking through Sproul after class when one of us got coerced into buying one of those candy rose things for a dolla. He didn't actually want the flower, so he gave it to me. Naturally my roommate wanted one too, and so our other guy friend ended up buying another one. Hell yea boys buy me flowers. I think I still have it at home somewhere.

In high school one year I managed to land two girl Valentines. Unfortunately one also had another Valentine who got her a rose (she let me hold it for a while, what a good friend). She wouldn't tell me who it was, but I later figured it out when my parents were like "hey I saw so-and-so with a rose today and he looked proud of himself." They were just friends though, so I'm sure I was still her favorite.


my ideal valentine's day candy - nerdy style

This year I will be at a most unlovable place, Stanford. Probably epic failing at my solves and programming my project. And after competition I get to find my way home by public transportation and continue coding. Sorry to disappoint everyone who keeps asking what my plans are. I plan to spend it playing with Lennie. :D

Anyway I like to think of Valentine's Day the way I think about New Year's Eve: in the future I will get to have a good real one. I am only through a quarter of my life, so plenty more years to go to a New Year's Eve party, and have a real vday. It's nice to know that I'll still have a lot of firsts, and I'm very patient.

9: maybe your stalkers will ask you out on vday
9: you should write your blog about them
9: ahahaha
r: potential valentines from blog stalkers?
First to comment gets to take me out to dinner on vday roflcakes