A Weekend Guide to Palm Springs

I spent the weekend in Palm Springs. In my nine years of living in SoCal, I had never been to Palm Springs. I only had a vague picture of the place in my head, of gold courses and palm trees (duh) and hot springs (duh). But it turned out not to be entirely how I had imagined it. There were palm trees, planted unnaturally in the California desert. There were hotel resorts that said "spa". But I actually didn't see any golf courses (I think you have to drive to them somewhere), and I was surprised to see the mountains right there, just bam! In your face. The weather was dry, nice and warm enough for a tank top during the day but not blazing hot, and quite cold at night. The downtown area was nice and laid back, with a retro old hollywood feel complete with its own star walk of fame. The main street was lined with restaurants, souvenir shops, and several icecream shops. And yes, there were quite a few senior citizens. William and I ended up playing a game while sitting outside in the sun and waiting for our food at a cafe/bar/coffee place (I know, it's redundant, but that's what it said). The rule was simple. We look towards different ends of the street and whoever spots anyone younger/same age as us first, wins. This game lasted for at least 10 minutes, and this is a busy street with constant traffic.

Aside from counting the number of people under 30 years old, we went to a little town west of Palm Springs called Cabazon to check out the outlet. I'm always hearing about this place from my friends who visit from Japan, and I was finally able to see it with my own eyes. It looked huge, but in the end it was not that much. I guess I was not in the right mood for it either. It was pretty funny to walk into Gucci and Prada with a 1 gallon jug of water and a ziploc bag filled with grapes. I did get one thing that I am very happy about from the outlet though. The pot. Yes, the one I had been dreaming about for a while, and already wrote about in this blog. There was actually a Le Creuset outlet store, so of course I had to go. After considering all the colors, I decided on a classic cherry red. Besides, they were having a sale where everything red got an additional 20% off. I ended up paying $128 for a 5.5 quart round French Oven. It doesn't get much better than this.

Low VS High tech

Spent the day looking through magazines and drawing. I felt like I was going through a slump, not being able to draw very well. I switched from a mechanical pencil to a pencil to a pen, then back to a pencil and finally my trusted Pentel R.S.V.P. ballpoint pen. It worked. I really love that pen.

Yesterday we made a plan to go hiking this morning at 9am, but that didn't happen due to staying up kind of late. William got himself an iPod yesterday, and we spent the night trying to get his newly downloaded iTunes to recognize it. It just wouldn't show up, and my years of experience with iTunes and the now vintage iPod mini was practically useless on a PC. But luckily after a good night's rest, William was able to figure it out. He now has the 5th Generation iPod with video and everything. Mine is a mini, which they don't even make any more. I think they made two generations, then decided that the mini was not mini enough. I'm jealous but I am looking to the future which is the iPhone. Well, I don't know if I'll really get it right away but my phone IS ancient (black and green screen). It's so hard to keep up with technology. I'll be happy as long as they keep making my pen.

What's all this then?

Where does the line "'Allo, 'allo 'allo. What's all this then?" come from???
One day William busted it out with this crazy voice (British accent, according to him). The way he said it bothered me and made me laugh at the same time, and when I asked him what the hell it was, he simply said "It's what British people say." I didn't believe him. Who says that?
But then today he told me that he heard it on "Futurama" as well as on "Class of 3000" (both are cartoons by the way). So I had to google it.
I was shocked to see the results.
However, I could not find the origin of this line. Is it a reference to something? Or is this what British people really say?

Nabuwhat?!

I started this blog about a month ago, at the height of my obsession with FFXII. A few weeks later, I lost it all. All my data, that is. Almost 80 hours into playing the game, it was gone in a matter of seconds. Life is fleeting, and so is data. I won't go into detail about how this tragedy happened, but I will just say that I was crushed.

Since then I have attempted to download a gamesave and load that onto PS2, but it was way too complicated for my mind to comprehend. I am beginning to consider starting the whole thing over again, but can't bring myself to do it. It took so much time and dedication to get to where I was, and knowing how obsessed I will become once again, I feel like I should be doing something else that is more productive instead.

So I am practicing Tekken Dark Resurrection.

I started out by attempting to learn Christie, the Capoeira girl. I have been intrigued by Capoeira, and have even taken a class once. ONCE. It required so much strength to do it (especially your legs) that I decided it was not the right time for me. I was unfit for muscle challenging activity. (Maybe I will try it again sometime when I am feeling a little more adept.) I played Christie for a while, and managed to learn one combo. Then PS3 came along, and I was onto trying out a different character. I chose Baek. I liked his kicks. He seemed like a good character for beginners. (Maybe not. I wouldn't know, I'm a beginner.) After I went through that phase, I somehow ended up with Asuka. Ok, she is Japanese and I am too, AND a girl, but that is the very reason I had avoided her. It was too obvious of a choice. I had this "Humph. Asuka my ass," attitude towards her. But for some reason which I can't recall, I decided to attempt learning her. I have learned a couple of combos, and am slowly trying to move away from button mashing. It's hard. I lose my cool real easily and panic, which leads to major button mashing and tight gripping of the controller, which then results in fatigue and a sore thumb. I can see a small improvement though, and it is encouraging me to keep practicing. Unlike data, skills will not be lost as long as I keep practicing.

Hole in my pot

I used to have a rice cooker. But after having used it for 8 years it finally broke. Well, not because I had used it for 8 years, but because I accidentally put in the wrong amount of water and it overflowed and bubbled up, ruining its digital system for good. Since this tragedy, I had been using the good old method of making rice in pots. Today I went to make some Wild Basmati Rice mix in this pot that is also 8 years old. It was one of two pots I had bought when I started college. Not a great pot by any means, but something cheap that did its job. The bottom of the pot had been burnt and scrubbed clean countless times, and the silver metal was surfacing from under the original black coating. I knew it was time for a new pot. Afterall, this was a college dorm pot. Not something that a 27 year old who actually enjoys cooking should be using. I had been dreaming of getting this other pot for a while now, and thinking I'd perhaps make this a Christmas gift to myself.

As I cooked my rice and daydreamed about my soon-to-be pot, I noticed that some water was dripping onto the stovetop. Oops, I'd better lower the flame. No wait, but it's not overflowing. But there's water dripping onto the flames...

It was then that I realized that my 8 year old pot had a hole in it. A hole in my metal pot. I couldn't believe it, but then again, I could. I had gotten more uses out of that pot than it's lifetime. A pot with a hole at the bottom is a useless one indeed, but then I got started on thinking about the good times we had together. The wonderful dishes we made. Oh the joy of cooking!

I know I have to throw it away, but it will be hard to say good bye.

Nabudis...?

I am blushing as I make this first post to my new blog entitled "Nabudis and Nabudat". Am I serious? Is this what I'm going to call this? Just because I am obsessed with Final Fantasy XII at the moment and can't stop saying "Nabudis" among other things?? ... But the reality is that I can't think of anything else right now, and I am not particulary good at coming up with names and/or titles, so this will have to do.