Archive for the ‘malingering’s better business bureau’ category

Well, I will tell you. I bought a Western Digital MyBook external hard drive and put all of my photos (January 2009 – present) on them to clear up space on my desktop.

WD MyBook:

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At some point a slight nudge + gravity knocked it over and I get this:

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At which point it starts flashing and clicking and making this terrible noise and next thing you know, I can’t access any data on it. I took it to two different people who said they couldn’t fix it, and finally sent it in to a data recovery place who says that IF they can save any data on it, it will cost me over $800. Seriously?

So my photos are lost, somewhere on there. I KNOW, I KNOW, I SHOULD HAVE USED ONLINE BACKUP BUT IT’S TOO LATE FOR THAT NOW SO STOP SUGGESTING IT TO ME. But anyway. That’s why I haven’t been posting so much. 1) I don’t have my photos and 2) the thought of dealing with anything photo or computer related just makes me depressed.

Fortunately baseball season began this month and there will be fans aplenty to replenish my collection of fashion disasters. So hold tight. And tell Western Digital to fuck off.

(I just bought a Seagate FreeAgent hard drive to back up photos from birth-2008, we will see how that works out.)

the mascara test: in photos

July 31st, 2009

In this time of economic hardships, I am here for the people. One of the world’s most pressing issues: mascara.

Should one spend $30 on expensive brand name mascara? Is the $6 drug store stuff just as good? How will my lashes be lush enough to survive this recession?

This began because I (for some odd reason) sometimes zone out to America’s Next Top Model Obsessed marathons on the Oxygen network when I am so tired from work that I can’t get off the couch to find the remote. There are mascara ads at every commercial break for Cover Girl and the eyelashes on those people look freaking amazing. So I went and bought the mascara and was somewhat disappointed as my lashes did not grow by a factor of 9 as promised. I figure this is because of my Asian heritage as I am rather sparse in the eye lask department.

Given my obsessive nature and also the lack of good documentation of mascara comparisons, I decided to pursue comparing as many mascaras as possible. I risked pink eye by borrowing these from friends and family. (I know that my eyebrows need grooming so don’t bother mentioning it. Also to the reader who just wrote to me saying that I made this blog because I am so ugly that I need a way to deal with it, I’ll have to let you know that comments about my appearance do not bother me in the least and you’ll have to try harder than that to upset me. Sorry.)
too faced lash injector mascara-1estee lauder projectionist mascara
Too Faced Lash Injector………Estee Lauder Projectionist

maybelline XXL extensions mascara-11sasa mascara-5
Maybelline XXL extensions…………………….Sasa

luxe cover girl-1loreal double extend-2
Cover Girl Lash Blast Luxe……..Loreal Double Extend

revlon lash fantasy mascara-4 the balm two timer-2
Revlon Lash Fantasy……………..The Balm Two Timer

dior blackoutmaybelline colossal volume-1
Dior Blackout………………..Maybelline Colossal Volume x9

sumptuous estee lauder maybelline lash stylist
Estee Lauder Sumptuous…………….Maybelline Lash Stylist

Well, I know which ones I liked the best, but I won’t say anything to bias anyone. I really prefer my lashes not clump together into a total of 5 eye lashes, and I also don’t like it to look like I have spider legs poking from my eye lids. FYI: the ones that stayed on the best while working out were Maybelline Lash Stylist and Loreal Double Extend.

I’m going to start some sort of Cash for Clumpers mascara program. Why should the bailout be limited to cars?

caught in Neptune’s Net

June 8th, 2009

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Bikers, fried seafood and beer… A perfect Sunday afternoon.

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Everything should be fried. EVERYTHING.

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We pretty much destroyed the crab. Sorry little guy.

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mac and cheese burger

May 29th, 2009

At Hamburger Mary’s.

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I know, it’s out of control.

picasa

Maybe I shouldn’t bitch about something free that isn’t working well. But I’m going to anyway.

I have been using picasa to edit and organize my photos for the past 3 years. I import them with picasa, crop them, and then upload to Flickr from my picasa albums. Recently they upgraded to picasa 3, which one would hope would be better than picasa 2, but in fact there is nothing better about it at all and every time I upload a photo to Flickr or delete a couple photos from an album, the thing is (NOT RESPONDING). Now that it’s happened six (6) times tonight, I’m getting fed up. Ugh.

It is not my intention to be a dick, but at the same time I am a big proponent of telling the truth. This leaves me conflicted here but as always, the truth wins out so here goes.

As it turns out, I didn’t have to make a decision about what to do about CrossFit LA because the next day I got an email telling me that my contract had been canceled and I’d been “removed from the system.” I didn’t get a phone call, or a “we need to talk,” or a “this is a warning,” or even a “Merry Christmas,” I simply got an email stating that my membership had been canceled. The explanation is as follows (I would paraphrase as I don’t particularly like cutting and pasting directly, but in order to avoid being called a liar or anything else, I’m going to print the words straight from the gym’s mouth. Of note, this is not gossip as it is my own personal affair and gossip involves the affairs of others and not oneself.):


I’m thinking now that it’s best that we just part ways… you obviously don’t want to be here. Or, maybe you do, since it seems to give you regular material for your hate blog… In either case, it doesn’t support you, me or our community. I don’t want you here against your will or better judgement [sic]. I would much rather have you leave us on somewhat good terms rather than continue down the road you are determined to go down and have you burn all your relationships here.

You know, you’ve had every opportunity here to be a contributing, inspiring, motivating, and positive impact on our community. You have chosen time and again NOT to do that… and now for the past several months, have chosen to take the low road – publicly complaining, gossiping, lying, and generally spreading hate… rather than choosing to be responsible and helping to change or improve the environment you chose to be a part of.

I take full responsibility for what I write on my blog. I feel these are my honest and extremely candid opinions and I will stand behind them as truthful and genuine, albeit often silly and purposely over-the-top. And if being honest and critical gets me kicked out of Crossfit LA, well, so be it. I’ve never been one to pretend things are okay when they aren’t.

Basically, I’ve been gym-dooced.

We all might be happier living in a delusional world, where we can eliminate criticism and ignore dissenting opinions and make-believe that everyone around us is in complete agreement with our own beliefs. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been tempted to delete comments which insult me and call me a sexless ugly cat lady, etc. And I certainly have the power to, because it’s my blog. But I don’t, because I think there is room for everyone to have a voice regardless of whether or not we share our opinions. I feel if you truly believe in what you’re doing, then it should stand up against criticism and defend itself.

Which makes me wonder what Crossfit LA is so afraid of.

Regardless, they are a private community and have the choice to do whatever they like. If removing anyone who expresses a dissenting opinion or questions the validity of certain practices from the gym is what they need to do to survive, then I respect that. I would have expected that at this point they would have had the confidence to believe in their program and have the faith that they could flourish despite criticism, but we all have our insecurities and have the right to act accordingly. Unfortunately with this move they’ve slid out of the realm of business and professionalism and into the realm of cult behavior and childish retaliation, and I find this to be disappointing (yet not surprising to anyone who has seen how mild criticism is attacked on the Crossfit.com message boards).

I know I’m not the only one who has criticisms about Crossfit. This is not to say I don’t believe it works, obviously I wouldn’t waste 18 months of my life ( which is over $3000 in membership fees) at Crossfit LA if it didn’t. Nor would I have blogged about it positively and brought in 8 new members in my first 6 months. But there are two sides to every coin, and I’m not alone. I have received emails and messages from Crossfitters around the country who have the same opinion as myself, that Crossfit has immense benefits and a number of risks (as well as douchebags). Interestingly, the majority of the people who wrote to me recognized that the Crossfit community is not mature enough to handle a dissenting opinion and will throw insults right and left when threatened, or better yet, delete them from the system and for this reason chose to stay quiet.

I suppose we can all try to create our own isolated delusional systems. The world will seem like a better place if we eliminate everything and everyone we are unable to tolerate and surround ourselves with our own self-created bliss. We can label everyone we disagree with as negative or a liar or spreading hate, and then remove these toxic individuals from our environments to make everything all happy-slappy again. Why bother accepting that people have different opinions when you can simply abolish them? Sure, maybe it’s overly simplistic, intolerant and self-deceptive, but it’s a hell of a lot better than accepting reality.

After all, reality bites sometimes.

free wireless

I apologize for using this space for personal issues, because there are way too many whiny petty blogs about people’s problems that no one else gives a fuck about and I feel that my contribution to that genre is mere pollution of cyberspace. On the other hand, I see the appeal of public ranting. All anyone really wants is validation, why not give it to them?

Basically that’s just a warning to stop reading right here because everything which follows will be annoying pointless bullshit.

Today I would like to rant about online dating. My sister and I were watching the Olympics and saw a few ads for an online dating service and in the emotion of a fallen Brazilian gymnast and a few dropped relay batons, my good sense had been weakened enough to not only sign up for the service, but also pay them my hard-earned money. (And dear lord, what better demographic to suck money from than a bunch of 30-somethings looking for love? Why didn’t I get on that?) The initial questionnaire involved questions about my finger length, the size of trapezoids, and how frequently I brush my teeth. Since I have never used these as dating criteria before and all of my past relationships have failed, this must be the solution. Hooray! So I spend what seemed like a week clicking on answers, dragging levers from left to right about whether or not it’s important this person can read or how essential it is that they’re employed and finally I get 5 matches. One happened to be a good friend of mine, three were completely not my type, and one seemed reasonable (though later after reading a few emails, I discovered he managed to get through college at a 4th grade literacy level, which would be fascinating to explore in another arena but not really in my bedroom).

So I decide this sucks and I go to bed. I wake up in the morning to thirty-three emails in my inbox with the subject line “So-and-so is interested in you!!!” Um, great. I thought this whole computer-matching system was supposed to weed some of this out so that I’m not spending an hour a day sorting through these terrible profiles. I am convinced there is some website out there that is providing generic profiles for all of these people as they are all loyal, kind and adventurous and want to have fun and meet that special someone who likes walks on the beach and sushi. It’s sort of like Wheel of Fortune. Yes. R S T L N and E are given. Now pick your other four letters so I can actually see your brain working and determine if you have a goddamn personality. Do you believe the horoscopes are written just for you as well?

Then there’s the issue with people’s photos, which drives me insane. A huge percentage of these guys have photos of themselves on the golf course in their back swing or a photo taken of them surfing in a wetsuit. And the photo is taken from shore so their head is about 3 millimeters even when the photo is expanded. At least half of them have photos of themselves surrounded by hot women, where they are wedged so far back in the group shot that you can see one eyebrow and possibly a nose. Then there are the guys who have outdoor photos of themselves in baseball caps, so that their face is completely shaded by the brim and you can only catch a glimpse of their chin, but it doesn’t matter, because most of them wear sunglasses in their photos. And then there are the dudes who post a photo of every hair style and facial hair permutation they can think of, so maybe if you don’t find the first 3 photos attractive, at least you know he’s got the potential to look like photo number 4, though there are a few that I am convinced are actually all photos of different people, as the quality is so poor and the faces are so distant they could all be of a different ethnic background and you wouldn’t know. I also like the guys who post photos no recent than 2004. This makes me slightly concerned that there was some sort of dismemberment or decapitation that happened that no one wants to talk about.

And don’t get me started with goddamn eHarmony. I knew it was a mistake to sign up for anything run by right-wingers and I fully admit to my errors. I logged into my account today and I have 168 matches. Um, WTF? I don’t have time to sift through all of these douchebags with photos that are too small to see and lame ass generic profiles and crap. I thought the damn thing was supposed to find me my soulmate, not just hook me up with any fat ass that moves within a 100 mile radius. And then, once you filter through this endless assortment of terrible profiles, you have to go through an 85 step process to ever get to talk to them. Send multiple choice questions. Read the other person’s answers. Send open ended questions. Read more about yourself. Rad more about them. Read why it’s important to avoid people who ask you for money in their first email. Read about what they want in a woman. Okay, now that it’s 5 weeks later and they’ve already met the love of their life, now you can email them. Jesus Christ I’m annoyed. I’m even more annoyed at those happy couples on TV who say they got married because of eHarmony, because they actually had the time to get through all of these fucking questionnaires and meet someone which pretty much assures me that neither one has a job and they’re both totally lame and gave up like 3 weeks of their lives trying to get to the “open communication” stage, which is pathetic.

Anyway, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going to complain about it until I figure it out. I’m sorry for littering cyberspace. Then again if global warming isn’t caused by people, maybe this blog pollution isn’t actually my fault.

ninjin

July 26th, 2008

I’ve been to Ninjin a few times this month and I’ve been quite pleased with them. First off, they always have baseball on. They even have something called the “Go Baseball Special.” Second, their food is great. And lastly, the sushi chef makes fun of me for eating so much. He points and laughs. So I come back.


seared albacore

Oh how I love tofu salad.
tofu salad

Spicy tuna + shrimp tempura = yum
rose roll

Olympus Stylus 710 blows

July 22nd, 2008

My beloved Canon PowerShot SD 700IS is in the shop right now after it started making really weird noises and the switch to toggle between functions broke. So I am stuck using the ever evil Olympus, which some of you may remember was defective and took three attempts and several angry complaining emails to get a replacement. This weekend in Vegas I was stuck with the Olympus Stylus 710 which blows.

Look at this photo of the two pimps. You can’t even see his teeth clearly enough to see that his initials are on his teeth in gold caps. WTF. A perfect photo, ruined by a shit camera.

This is a Scottish guy who asked for his drink straight and got it on the rocks. So he decided to stick his hand in and pull all of the ice out and throw it on the casino floor. But the camera did not capture the moment, did it? No. It was almost as if the camera was drunk and couldn’t handle Vegas.

Fucking Olympus.

mercedes grill

July 8th, 2008

I eat breakfast here a lot. Because you can get poached eggs on cornbread with plantains. Hello? Heaven?

The Arizona: poached eggs and cornbread on black beans with plantains and avocado.

The Venice: corned beef hash on spiced cornbread covered in poached eggs.

Mercedes Grill at the Venice Beach Pier. Yum.