Category Archives: random

Food we missed…

Leave a reply

These things that we have taken for granted are either hard to find or ridiculously expensive…

Frozen food in general.

Cheese pizza: pizzas have to have LOTs of toppings. Tried to teach a
server at an Italian restaurant how to make cheese pizza and they came back with crust and cheese and nothing else.

Strawberry milk: we saw apple milk & even fruit milk. No luck finding low fat or no fat milk.

Cucumber: only saw small cucumbers with no visible seeds, like English cucumbers only much smaller.

Carrots that are peeled and washed; people are not as lazy… I think…

Pancakes and waffles in some fancy restaurants, especially pancakes with syrup at McDs were a big hit with my kids, but syrup seems to be a rare find: if you can have honey or jam why would you want “thickened sugar water”?

Sliced American cheese. Fancy French cheese yes. Mundane sliced American Cheese, say what?

Cream cheese: surprised to see bagels @ several restaurants, and there is even a New York Bagel Shop. But big tubs of cream cheese are not sold at stores. Naturally.

Ice cream: not difficult to find all sorts of fancy ice cream shops, and the more common ones too, in Taipei, including Cold Stone Creamery now. But our sticker shock in Beijing – 90 rmb ($15) for a tiny tub of B&J’s prompted me to splurge on 3 @ 2 for $7 just now.

The small things in life…

An Ode to Nickel City, arcade the way you remember (and want) it

Leave a reply

There is NO scary mascots, no company team building events, no overblown space stuffed with TABLES & BARS. Just a good old-fashioned penny (albeit nickel) arcade the way you remember it from your childhood, IF you are old enough. FREE classic games in the back of the room completes this little piece of heaven. Is that Pac-Man I see? Yes, I do suck at the game, that’s why FREE is just perfect for me!

Posted via email from submom’s posterous

A flower for Joey Roth, the designer of Sorapot

Leave a reply

Humbleville, Interweb – Local woman awoken from her solipsistic stupor by designer’s sincere, genuine interest in feedback of his creation. Submom received a wake-up call when designer Joey Roth replied directly to her random vent of his creation, Sorapot. When asked to reflect more carefully, Submom admitted that she DID enjoy watching the Chinese flower tea bloom in front of her eyes inside the ingeniously designed Sorapot, when she had time to do so. “The last time I remember when I was able to sit down and relax was the day after Christmas. I have been on my feet ever since.” Her defense for her unfair criticism? “I only have one hand now because of my Twitter thumb, and I was getting frustrated last night because you cannot disassemble this teapot with only one hand!” Submom vowed to refrain from being a spoiled bitch, and to stop and smell, eh, drink the flowers. She compared Mr. Roth’s reaction to her complaints to the likes carried out by “Lands’ End who has my undying loyalty as a customer.” After a pause, Submom said quietly, “Honestly? I didn’t think that an artist living in NYC would care about the feelings of a suburban mom. We must seem like philistines…”

Posted via email from submom’s posterous

To @Wired: Whoever gave my husband the idea that Sorapot, instead of an IPod

2 Replies

was a good idea for a great Xmas present… is a f** idiot and can come & take it!

My husband’s attempt to surprise me at Xmas was a success if he only meant to surprise me… This “teapot” was an overpriced piece of, eh, paperweight. If you have no intention of washing it, then do NOT get it for me!

Yeah. Now can you honestly tell me that it looks just as stylish sitting on my kitchen counter next to my high tech rice cooker, as the air-brushed picture you have shown?

Seriously? And you did at least 2 reviews of this last year? The review in May was not enough for you, and you had to give it another plug again towards year end, AND on the 2008 Wish List?

My husband, who, despite my well-known wish of getting an IPod, decided that Sorapot was just as good, if not better. It has been two months now since I am the owner of the most expensive glass teapot in the whole god damn world. Why am I pissed every time I have to gingerly take this thing apart and wash it and then assemble it together? Well, you be the judge! Sorapot or IPod??!!

Posted via email from submom’s posterous

In praise of Kome Kome Shu: Sake that is easy to love and drink

Leave a reply

If you have never tried Sake, or if you tried but didn’t think that Sake is for you. Give it a try again. But this time, try the Kome Kome Shu. Literally, Rice Rice Wine/Booze.

The alcohol content is much lower than the common varieties out there, at only 7%. And it is SWEET, not dry. So easy to drink, it feels like elixir to go with your sushi. Or a lot of non-Japanese dishes. It reminds me of Riesling — and I love Riesling. I am the one stocking up on Dr. Loosen at Costco when they carried them for $9 a bottle…

Don’t believe me? Here is a glowing review of KomeKome Shu written by one Jeremy Kaplan, a guest sommelier in NYC (as of March 2007 when this review was penned):

“[The diners] are usually shocked, and 99% of the time super pleased. Even Japanese customers are taken aback by this sake. We sometimes leave the bottle on the table so the customer can study it, which in this case is dangerous for our bottom line and usually means the sake will get poured again, by the customer! A definite no-no. Of the many wines we pour by the glass, this is the one most people ask us to write down.

What’s nice about this sake is that it opens people’s minds to sake. It drinks so much like a wine that they better relate to it. And then you hope it opens the way to try other sakes. Which is the best way to learn. Taste, drink, taste, drink… and best with friends who also want to go down this same path.”

#Piqqem now has 270 followers…

Leave a reply

It is amazing to see how a Tweep (or, what’s the name for a company/entity that tweets? And Christi on Southwest… is she a Tweep or is the Tweet Southwest’s?) grows the number of followers. I wonder whether there is a 3rd party Twitter apps. out there that tracks number of followers for selected Twitter accounts at the end of each day. Then we can do some trendline analysis, plug in significant events into the timeline, and do some regression.

The power of word of mouth. The tipping point.

#followfriday and/or #fridayfollow

When does it become so big that it stops being effective?

Once again, I wish I were back in Grad School: so many fascinating topics to choose from for virtual Performance Studies. What would Ervin Goffman have said about all this in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life? Maybe nothing. Can Sociology be applied to virtual societies where you don’t see people, rather, you see the texts representing them?

Note to self: Buy lottery tickets. Win. Go back to school.

p.s. Piqqem acquired 3 more followers in the time of my writing this post. Yes, probably not as fast as how some celebrities acquire followers, but still… I am intrigued.

But, wait, there is more!

Note to self: Google is your friend!! When in doubt, Google. Even my 6-yo would say, “Let’s google!” when I cannot answer one of his rapid-fired questions. But as always, beware of what you read if the source is wikipedia. Anyhow, did some googling, and answered my own question wrt. 3rd-party tracking apps. No need to go outside of the house: the Twitter team has thought of that from the beginning. DUH. Check out #hashtags to see what’s being tweeted about right now. And for sure, soon it will be written up in the WSJ. When that happens, you know you need to find the next hottest thing.

Mankind’s reach for the sky – The Tower of Babel apparently did not teach us anything…

Leave a reply

Instead, we seem to pride ourselves on it. Free will. The power to accomplish the unthinkable. The art of one-upmanship.

Many did not realize that the 2300-foot tall Burj Dubai is “only” the world’s Tallest Structure, and not the Tallest Building yet. Until Burj Dubai is completed and occupied, the honor of “The World’s Tallest Building” currently still rests with Taipei 101. The grand opening of Burj Dubai is slated for September 2009. Hurray!

The Empire State Building held the title for over four decades, The Sears Tower, 24 years; yet they seemed to be the exception: Chrysler Building was the tallest for only one year before the Empire State Building took the honor away; The World Trade Center, 2 years; The Petronas Towers, 6 years. It has been almost five years since Taipei 101 was open in 2004, and the world cannot wait for a new Tallest Building. Here is a compiled list of timeline of the world’s tallest skyscrapers.

But wait! There is something in the making to top Burj Dubai even before Burj Dubai is officially crowned:

According to the latest issue (March 2009) of Popular Science, or as they are known on the street, Pop Sci , (sigh… as if they didn’t give themselves a cool name, the young kids would stop reading them…), Burj Mubarak al-Kabir, at the height of 3,284 feet, is being planned by the Kuwait government on the Tigris and Euphrates river delta, as part of its “the City of Silk” city development. In comparison, Burj Dubai is merely 2,684 feet tall (as originally planned; nobody knows how tall it will actually be until this September when it is finished). In order to withstand the high wind at that height, Burj Mubarak al-Kabir is designed as “three interlocking towers, each twisting 45 degrees top to bottom to help stabilize it… [The tower overlap in the center to form a triangular core.] No matter which way the wind blows, two of the three towers will always brace the building.”

Like the Washington Monument with a height that is easy to remember: 555 feet, Burj Mubarak al-Kabir will be 1001 meter tall, “One thousand and one meters for One Thousand and One Nights. It’s the difference between bragging rights and telling a story.”

Take that, Burj Dubai. Ouch!

By the way, the supposedly 2nd tallest building to be built, The Chicago Spire? Not gonna happen, if ever, any time soon. It is currently a big giant ugly hole in the ground both literally and figuratively… construction has been put on indefinite hold because the developer have not been able to secure additional financing, at the same time when the world-renowned Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava, filed a lien against the developer. Such a shame.

Betrayed by The Huffington Post? I want my Virtual Lives separated!

Leave a reply

It is clear that I intend to keep my blog anonymous. Not that it matters to anybody anyway since in the grander scheme of things, I AM anonymous: one of the masses, does not matter whether my name is known or not. However, in the unlikely case when someone at work or a family member stumbles upon my blog, I really don’t want them to know what I really think about things. I mean, some of the things are better left unsaid, un-discussed. If I could have discussed an issue or a subject with anybody at work or in my social circle, I would probably have discussed it with them and got it over with. No need to use this blog as my “therapy sessions”. It is the same as when I leave comments on the Huffington Post. There are acquaintances and co-workers who I don’t want to become privy to how I see things.

I made the first mistake when I signed up for the Huffington Post through my Facebook login. Lo and behold, my Profile name is now my real name, and when you click on my profile, you are prompted to a screen to connect with me through Facebook. Again, 99.999999% of the world population will not care or bother, since my name or “Jane Doe” does not make any difference to you. Again, however, in the unlikely chance that someone I know comes across the same posts and the same comments, I don’t really want to be “found out.”

Ok, lesson learned. Luckily the comments I left were pretty neutral and fair. No moral, emotional, outbursts of any kind. No bawdy remarks. No curse words (since they are not allowed in the first place). I left my first profile as is, nothing to be done about it. There does not seem to be an easy way to disenroll myself from THP. I am lazy. Whatever.

I created a second profile. This time I made absolutely sure not to log in through Facebook and used an inconspicuous handle. Things were going along well. No personal information divulged through my profile. Until just now…

Somehow, the system working behind the scenes detected my Facebook login when I was logged into THP at the same time, and automatically connected the dots on its own. Now my profile picture shows a tiny “F” at the corner and when you click on it, the screen shows my name, that I am on Facebook, and would you like to connect with me on Facebook.

Now the tiny F is a BIG GIANT HUGE F to me!!!

This brings back the memory when a tiny window creeped up from the bottom of my computer screen after I finished with my Blockbuster queue, announcing (not even asking!) that my friends on Facebook would be able to see what movies I would be watching. The window then quickly disappeared before I could click on the button “No F*ing way!”

In the age of social media, Web 2.0, etc. etc. it is probably boggles the mind of those who design these nifty, intelligent, systems that someone, like me, may not want to have all of their virtual lives tied up in a nifty bundle, that someone may still prefer to lead an anonymous life while pouring her heart out.

It is ironic. But we live in an ironic era, no?

“Congratulation, Neil Gaiman!”

2 Replies

Came upon this blog entry on Geed Dad (part of the Wired blogosphere). Was surprised to see that Neil Gaiman’s book won the Newberry Medal. Well, not really surprised. Actually was surprised that Gaiman was surprised.

My 5th grader couldn’t put this book down. True to Gaiman’s fashion, the book is dark (judging by the cover of the book… yeah…): it starts out with a little boy’s family being murdered and with the little boy being abandoned in a graveyard (hence the title) and raised by ghosts… Kids nowadays are so much more mature than when we were growing up so I was not concerned that my son was reading about the subject of death and murder at the age of 10. Glad to know that the judges (and many teachers and parents) feel the same way. We should never talk down to our children as if they live in a cocoon. I believe that’s a main reason why Gaiman is so popular with kids with a good head on their shoulder – he treats them like adults and speak to them truthfully about unpleasant subjects.

“On Monday Neil Gaiman was awarded the most prestigious award in children’s literature, a Newbery Medal, for his new book, The Graveyard Book. The news rocked the world of kid’s literature and was a surprise to Gaiman himself. Neil Gaiman is a beloved author for many GeekDads for his children’s literature. The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish and The Wolves in the Walls have been bedtime storybooks for my daughter since she was tiny. But Gaiman is also famous among GeekDads for his more adult literature, such as Sandman and American Gods; his movie adaptations, such as Stardust and the upcoming Coraline; and he is also a GeekDad in his own right, often relinquishing his blog to his daughter Maddy.” (Jan. 31, 2009)