Category Archives: a picture is worth a thousand words

Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

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I went to an actual Brick-and-Mortar bookstore today. This is a rare occasion ever since Amazon.com was founded in 1995. (I still remember when I first heard about it. “What a stupid name?! Who would buy books online?! And why would I want to buy their stocks?!”)

I do enjoy going to the book stores in real life: I love looking at the book covers, discovering new books via the store displays, getting a taste of what’s garnering the attention of the masses, detecting the harbingers of the next big thing.

Sometimes I simply like to read the clever titles and corresponding designs on the book covers vying for your attention.

“Pick me! Pick me!”

Sometimes I simply enjoy picking them up, caressing the book spines, feeling the weight of words in my hands.

And sometimes I do get a chuckle.

Since I have an iPhone with me now, anything that makes me laugh simply HAS to be photographed. (OK, I admit, having a blog is another reason…)

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Actual page from George W. Bush's memoir. Notice that he's using WMD as an excuse to justify going into Iraq?

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Guess which book is going on my Christmas list?!

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What is Fascism? "that thing someone else is doing that I disagree with. Not communism. The other one."

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It takes a comedian to provide the best explanations for communism, socialism and fascism...

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Raise your hand if you feel like crying because it is Monday? Raise your hand if you could use this book? Raise your hand if you believe that enforcing the said No Asshole Rule requires a good ol' can of Wupass or at least the threat of it?

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Sigh.

WTF Wednesday: These boots are made for walking

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These boots are nice, right? But I am not showing them because they are sexy. These boots were spotted 2 hours into a mountain climbing route...

This is what most of the paths on those mountains look like...

And this is what the mountain peak looks like...

Pumpkins and Corn

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Our annual ritual in the fall (and yes, I know some of you hate FALL like a Sunday…) is to visit the pumpkin farm. To be honest, the reason we go back every year is for the best apple cider donuts made fresh there.

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Pumpkins
Pumpkin in its glory
looking for the perfect pumpkin
Corn maze
Corn with beard
corn stalk
Pick me!

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The above is part of the Sundays in My City weekly blog-link event hosted by Unknown Mami.

Unknown Mami

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The following is the usual crazy stuff I blog about here…

Now, I am going to show you a picture that my husband took with his Blackberry. He claimed that he took it for me because it is blog-worthy. Sigh. This is true love, people! After all, when we saw the trailer for Red, I said, “Isn’t that …?” He said, “No, that is not Larry David. That is John Malkovich.” I said, “How do you know I thought that was…?” He said, “Because I just do.”

Anyway, this all sort of explains why we are made for each other even though on most days we are ready to choke each other (and not the sex-related kind).

“How do you tell if a pumpkin is male or female?” He asked, out of the blue.

“Hmmm.” I started wondering whether I had missed the biology class in high school when they talked about the sexes of fruits.

“Here.” He pushed his phone towards me, showing me this picture. “It’s when they have balls.”

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I guess I should apologize for ruining the magic of pumpkins for you. Fine. I’ll talk about corn then.

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Speaking of corn. When I first came to the U.S., I had trouble pronouncing some very simple words such as my own name and “corn”. I would make the word sound like something in the spectrum between “cone” and “comb”. It was an issue since I was going to a school surrounded by friggin’ corn fields. My boyfriend (now husband) taught me how to say “corn” by asking me whether I could say “porn”. And I did. Correctly. So now you know what I think of first whenever I say the word “corn”…

Corn with beard

What? Oh. I am very sorry for ruining CORN for you.

Is it just me? Every time when I see a corn maze, I immediately think, “Children of the Corn!” That is why I never go into the corn maze and I wait at the exit anxiously for my family to come out. Alive. And I pay special attention to my kids to make sure they don’t have any murderous intentions other than the usual on-going scheme to kill us slowly by annoyance and frustration.

After I’ve forever ruined corn fields for you, look at this picture again. Doesn’t it look ominous? Ok. Fine. It is just me then.

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Corn maze

Moon Struck

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I have witnessed history tonight (or last night). I reveled in the glory that was the Super Harvest Moon.

According to NASA, on September 22, 2010,

For the first time in almost 20 years, northern autumn is beginning on the night of a full Moon. The coincidence sets the stage for a “Super Harvest Moon”…

Northern summer changes to fall on Sept. 22nd at 11:09 pm EDT. At that precise moment, called the autumnal equinox, the Harvest Moon can be found soaring high overhead with the planet Jupiter right beside it. The two brightest objects in the night sky will be in spectacular conjunction to mark the change in seasons.

.This also means that yesterday was Mid-Autumn Festival for Chinese, the second most important holiday arguably after Chinese New Year. Did I remember it? Of course not. I really suck at being Chinese… So I made it up by trying to capture the image of Super Harvest Moon for posterity.

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This picture taken with my iPhod. Amazingly clear.

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Can you see the “spur” of light below the moon? That is Jupiter. Neither can I. Sorry. You just have to take my word for it: Jupiter was there. Right underneath the moon. It was so bright that I kept on asking Mr. Monk, “Are you sure it’s not an airplane? It is not moving?”

Sorry if it looks like a bullet hole on a piece of black canvas.

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This time I tried to take a picture with my Blackberry

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You can see why Blackberry is just not as sexy as iPhones…

This picture of the moon unfortunately reminds me of something that rhymes with one of the planets. Or it is calling my name to go through the tunnel. Maybe both at the same time. It is kind of disturbing to say the least…

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Since my Nikon failed me, I used my Flip video to capture the glory of the moon

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It annoyed me to no end that my Nikon completely failed me. Most likely user error but I am blaming it on the machine, like most callers to IT Help Lines.

When I remembered that I could use my video cameras for the job, the clouds came. So now Freddy Krueger can pop into the frame at any second. I get dizzy staring at this picture. Am I in a nightmare already? (3:41 am already? Yup. Better be in a nightmare otherwise I’ll have hell to pay tomorrow morning at 6 am when the alarm goes off…)

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A la Monet

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This one took the longest time to produce: I first used my Casio digital to capture a 7-second video of the night sky. I wanted to post it on my Facebook and be done with the whole thing but Facebook said it would take 76 hours to upload the file.

16.6 MB for 7 seconds of footage. Srly?

I ended up taking a screenshot of my laptop as the video was playing. Opened up Visio. Ctrl+V to paste the picture into Visio. Cropped the picture and saved it into a JPG file. Viola! Here you have a grainy picture of the moon, covered by dark clouds.

I expect either fiddlers to start showing up from the other side of the roof or the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw to materialize in this picture.

Super Harvest Moon has come and gone. The next one won’t be here till 2029. (The thought of how old I will be… STOP! BRAIN! Don’t even go there! Where was I?) Welcome Autumn because this means we can finally put up Halloween decorations and apple cider donuts are now officially in vogue.

I am going to bed. BUT not before I make it up to you by leaving you with this Harvest Moon in its finest…

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How to Talk to People (Now with Visual Aids)

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“7 magical conversational phrases”

I came across this article the other day on Match.com. (Eh. Don’t ask WHY I was on Match.com… That hot sexy blonde whose picture is winking at ya? Yup. That’s my profile: I used a picture I took of A Vapid Blonde… Now you know. People LIE about these things…)

It immediately caught my attention. I sure could use some help in social situations, and these are promised to be “magical”!

Smart phrase #1: “Tell me more about it”

Smart phrase #2: “What are the reasons for your opinion?”

Smart phrase #3: “I never thought of it that way”

Smart phrase #4: “That must have upset you”

Smart phrase #5: “How did it go?”

Smart phrase #6: “You are a really generous person”

Smart phrase #7: “I really admire that” or “That takes courage. I admire that.”

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As I read through the article, without much snickering, I became worried about the possibility that when the needs arise, I may not remember these 7 magical spells under duress. I remembered the days when I was trying to educate my kids the art of correctly using the alphabet: Yes. Flash cards work wonders, and visualization is the key to the mythical depth of human memory vault.

Here are the 7 visualizations to help me, and now you too, memorize these 7 magical conversational phrases and be the life of the party next time you are caught in one of those social occasions.

You are welcome.

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Magical Phrase #1: Tell me more about it!

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Magical Phrase #2: What are the reasons for your opinion?

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Magical Phrase #3: I never thought of it that way

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Magical Phrase #4: That must have upset you!

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Magical Phrase #5: How did it go?

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Magical Phrase #6: You are a really generous person

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Magical Phrase #7: I really admire that. I do!

What ya doin’?

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If you don’t count the works that were not supposed to be mine but when it all of a sudden became mine three precious days had passed and there were only two days left to work on it.

If you don’t count the general assholery that’s thrown over the wall to my cubicle.

If you don’t count wolfing down the rest of the Sookie Stackhouse True Blood Series because 1) I needed to escape reality so much that even blogging and twittering would not do, 2) the sex and the description of it just gets hotter and hotter between Sookie and Eric, and 3) I believe I have developed an addiction to voyeurism.

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Nuthin’ much. Really.


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I'm going to Disney World y'all. No. Not really. I've always wanted to say that.

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I suspect that Dilbert has been following me around at work otherwise how can every single one of these recent comics be so accurate in telling what I am going through??!!

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Oh, yeah. I realized that using the time it took me to work on the picture of me announcing my trip to Dilbert World, I could have written a better post. Shut up. Thank you. xxoo