With Friends Like These

My friends shot this video, and I think it's pretty dang good. It's funny and disturbing and sad and funny...and just watch it. It's only 8 minutes, and it's just the beginning of what I think is going to be a really great little collection of shorts.

Wii Fit

My mom sent me this video. It is hilarious. Enjoy.

PS - I still kind of want one...

Sunny Day!

Ok, so I haven't *really* posted in a while. It's been busy at work, which is a welcome change (I even like being tired at the end of the day! Well, mostly...). Rachel is coming to town tomorrow for her book tour (buy it!) so I actually have to clean my crazy apartment a bit. It's amazing how things just start piling up when you're not home every weekend...I think I still have things left out from the holidays. Eek.

Lots going on this week, including Rachel's Book Tour, a play at Berkeley Rep, a party at Laura's, potentially buying a washer/dryer, Super Bowl, hockey...oof!

For now, I'm trying to take deep breaths and enjoy the sunny but crisply cool day.

Images from my Gmail inbox (so much sunnier than they were on this day)

top of inbox

bottom of inbox

Rainy Day...

It's raining. Yesterday, I found out it was raining because my gmail theme changed. Not because I looked out a window (there isn't one in my current cubicle). Because my gmail theme changed. Awkward. However, I totally love it. The theme is "tree" for anyone who is interested, and it looks something like this (click the pictures to enlarge them, it's worth it, maybe):

top of inbox

bottom of inbox

This post is basically an excuse to show off the pretty theme, because I like it. So, whoopie.

Happy Inauguration Day!

I hope everyone out there has a chance to watch the Inauguration events today, whether you attended in person, watched it at work, or recorded it somehow to watch later. I'm sure every media source is streaming or posting videos all day long, so if you missed any of the action, it shouldn't be hard to find! And the official website of the White House, www.whitehouse.gov, has been updated. What a great day for America!

Aretha's performance of My Country Tis of Thee made me teary, despite the cheesy montage. Watch it here if you missed it. CBS News also has a lot of content if you're bored at work or tired of studying. And, um, also...I love that Malia was taking pictures the whole time...I'm sure those will get published in a book at some point.

The Boy took this picture on the UC Berkeley campus this morning

Golda Meir

My mom sent this to me via email, and I thought it was worth sharing. Apologies for the fuzzy image.

Obama Speech Generator

My lovely friend Kate works for Atom, and they have this fun little thing out right now called the Obama Inauguration Speech Generator. Try it out!


My speech:

My fellow Americans, today is a lovely day. You have shown the world that "hope" is not just another word for "bear", and that "change" is not only something we can believe in again, but something we can actually skate.

Today we celebrate, but let there be no mistake – America faces humorous and smelly challenges like never before. Our economy is wonderful. Americans can barely afford their mortgages, let alone have enough money left over for colors. Our healthcare system is pricey. If your elbow is sick and you don't have insurance, you might as well call a landscaper. And America's image overseas is tarnished like a computer lamp. But talking together we can right this ship, and set a course for white house.

Finally, I must thank my silly family, my red campaign volunteers, but most of all, I want to thank lawyers for making this historic occasion possible. Of course, I must also thank you, President Bush, for years of sketching the American people. Without your brisk efforts, none of this would have been possible.

Happy Things

I haven't written in almost a week, what with the new job and crashing on the couch at 9pm and all, but I'm writing now and I'm in a good mood, so here's a list of a few things that are making me happy.

1. I am going to bake more bread this weekend (I hope). I am kinda really into baking bread. I might even get to bake bread at Erin's house while doing laundry and (sigh) learning the majesty that is (supposedly) Friday Night Lights.
   
2. I have almost completed one week at the new job. It's pretty awesome. Getting used to a new job is always a tiny bit overwhelming, but I really really like it here so far. It's been kind of slow workload-wise because I'm still getting settled, but it will ramp up pretty soon and I expect to be quite a busy bee. Everyone is really nice, and I'm excited about the project I'm on (CarsToons, for those of you who haven't been reading lately). All in all, I'm feeling good about it!
   
3. I went to the gym after work (at work). Elliptical for 30 minutes, and a little crunching/stretching after. Not revolutionary, but better than sitting on my butt on the couch. I mean, that's what I'm doing now, but at least I got 30 minutes in. The gym is smaller than the Google gym, and there are no TV's, but I read Martha Stewart Weddings (by accident, I thought it was Martha Stewart Living - though that doesn't change the fact that I got a little choked up reading about people's weddings), and the locker rooms are really nice. And there's a dry sauna. Which I didn't use. But cool that it's there, no?
   
4. Rachel is coming to visit me! Ok, she's coming on her book tour, but she's going to stay with me for (I think) 5 whole days! Woo hoo!!! She is awesome, and it has been too long.
5. On 30 Rock tonight, Kenneth performed the end of the "Top That" rap from Teen Witch (one of my all time favorite movies if you haven't seen it go see it now right now especially if you are a girl but even if you're not omg the cornfields and the saxophone and the cheerleaders and the shoulder pads). Thank you, NBC. Thank you, Tina Fey. Thank. You.
   

OMG THE BREAD IS SO GOOD

OMG I just tried the bread and it is SO GOOD that I had to blog about it. Oh. My. God.

freshly sliced

serve with a chunk of Trader Joe's goat cheese with honey
(not as yellow as it appears in the picture - dang cell phone camera)

mmmmmm

Comcast: Thank You, Raul!

So, as the start of the new job approaches, and my anxiety about smaller paychecks grows, I decided to call Comcast again. After my less-than-pleasing experience back in July, I was a little hesitant to do it, but I realized that just cannot continue to pay $115 a month for cable+internet. I decided that if they wouldn't give me a deal, I'd try switching to basic cable (aka no TLC, HGTV, Comedy Central, E!, etc.) and slower internet and see if it's really a big deal. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: I can't afford the payment - I've been paying $115 a month for several months now, and just can't afford it anymore.
Comcast Angel Raul (in the cancellations department): So you want to cancel?
Me: Well, I don't want to, but unless you have some sort of magical deal going on that I don't know about, I'm going to have to. Do you have any promotions or discounts you can offer?
Comcast Angel Raul: Well, right now the only discount we have for current subscribers is the Triple Play, where you get phone, internet and cable for $90 a month.
Me: Yeah, I know about that one, but I don't need phone service, and $90 is almost what I'm paying now that I can't afford...
Comcast Angel Raul: Ok, let me see if I can override it. Can you hold for a sec?
Me: Sure! (crossing my fingers)
Comcast Angel Raul: Ok. I can lower your monthly payment to $68 a month for 12 months with no contract.
Me: Wow! Really? How can you do that!!!???
Comcast Angel Raul: Well, I can't call it a promotion because we're not promoting it, but I can just apply the discount and lower the payment. Is that ok?
Me: Yeah! Wow! Thank you so much!!
Comcast Angel Raul: No problem. Thank you - I know how easy it is for you to leave for another company, and I'm glad we can keep your service.

So there you have it. Hooray! I think the trick is that you have to pay full price for a few months, and then they'll give you the discount again to keep you. Woo! Success! And I won't have to pay for February or part of March because I have already paid full price for January!

Granted, it would be even cheaper to do the basic cable and the slower internet, but $68 a month is cheaper than what I was originally paying when I signed up, and now I don't have to sacrifice or change anything (spoiled spoiled kim!). If it turns out to be too pricey still, I can go down to the basic/slow situation...but for now, I will sit here spoiled watching "Property Virgins" and "17 Kids and Counting".

Happy New Year, all.

Baking Bread!

The lovely Reed and I baked honey wheat oatmeal bread today. Well, she taught me, which means she did a lot of the work, but I stirred and kneaded and folded and spread the egg stuff and woo hoo. It looks delicious, and is based on this recipe from Epicurious. Pictures below (please ignore the bad quality of the pictures - I had to take my camera to the shop today and took these on my cell phone):

ball of dough before rising

ball of dough, after rising

dough in pans, before rising

dough in pans, after rising, and with egg rinse and oatmeal

bread!!!

Resolutiony Things

New Year's Eve was low-key and fun, and my wonderful friend Reed spent a few days with me, helping me run errands, unpack from the holidays, and bake bread (post to follow). We are very exciting, I promise. I'm not huge on New Year's Resolutions, but I always make them (maybe because I love making lists), so here it is for 2009. Enjoy.

1. Only buy what I need. I have been spending too much frivolous money lately, which I credit to the job at Google where I made more money than I actually needed. This resulted in $80 Old Navy shopping sprees, way too much money spent at Product Body (the magical wonderful delicious-for-your-body stuff that I will still buy, but only on occasion when I run out). Now, I was also saving around $300 a month, but just think how much more I could have saved if I didn't buy stuff that I didn't need. Also, I am going to be making significantly less money working at Pixar, and will really need to rein in my spending. I'll try to make more crock pot recipes and maybe I won't buy sun dried tomato mixed olive bruschetta every time I go to Trader Joe's. :-) (PS - I am still planning on buying a washer-dryer for my apartment...this is not a *necessity* but it is something I really really really want to have here, since there is no laundry facility in the building and the laundromat just sucks. Yes, I know plenty of people out there use the laundromat, but I am lazy and spoiled and hate it and just want to wash my clothes at my own apartment. So there.)
   
2. Make one recipe from a cookbook every month. I have a TON of cookbooks, and I don't ever use them. I tend to make my "standard" recipes, or variations thereof, and I'd like to branch out a bit and try new things. I'll start with one a month, but I'd like to expand to twice a month soon, and eventually once a week? Ooh? Fancy?
3. Eat Less, Exercise More. This is always on the resolution agenda, but I think it's a good one to keep in mind. I tell myself that having a gym closer to my apartment (Pixar has a gym) will help, and I hope it will, but I know I'll really have to make a concerted effort to do it. I heard that the Pixar University classes include a ballet class, and I hope to god it's true because I really want to take ballet again and I can't afford to sign up for classes at a studio. Either way, I need to take advantage of the gym there way more than I did at Google. No excuses!!! And as for eating less, I want to focus on smaller portions and less sweets. More whole grain and less snacking.
4. Spend time with my girlfriends. I have a few friends who have recently moved to the Bay Area, and I won't be seeing my good friends from Google every day anymore, so I want to make sure I nurture the friendships that matter to me.

And that's that!

Bad Blogger

I have been a very bad blogger lately, because I have just been in crazy holiday travel mode (spending much needed time away from the computer). Still am. But I am planning a few post-holiday posts, so don't you fret. At some point between now and Sunday, they'll be written and published. Topics include such riveting things as: holiday food, snow, and perhaps even 2009 Goals.

Until then, I hope all of you out there are having wonderful holiday seasons, and here's to safe travels and a happy new year!

Totally Looks Like...

A friend of mine emailed this to me, and some of them are pretty great. And because I am waiting on hold for an Alaska Airlines representative (flight to The Boy's parents' house was just canceled! Hooray snow!), this is about all the blogging I can do right now.

edit on 12/30/08: apparently the images didn't work, so if you want to see what I saw, go to www.totallylookslike.com.

New Job For The New Year

So, exciting news around the Kitchen Sink these days. I've withheld posting about it so far, just because, well, I don't know I guess. Since I've emailed the friends and family, and mentioned it briefly on Facebook, I guess it's about time to blog, right?

I will be leaving the Great Google as of Wednesday next week. Starting January 5th, I'll be working for Pixar...and I'm pretty damn excited. :-) Google is a great place to work and all, but I've really been missing the arts. It'll be really nice to be back working in a field I'm passionate about, and I'll be getting back about two hours a day, since my commute will now be 7-10 minutes each way (instead of 75+ minutes each way). Granted, my actual working hours will be longer (it's a 50 hour week instead of my current 43-ish hour week), but to be doing work I'll actually enjoy? And to be less than 10 minutes from home when I'm done? Awesome! (this paragraph had a lot of parentheses. sorry.)

I'll be working as a Production Coordinator, and while I'll be doing a little admin work (booking a little travel, making sure my manager gets to her meetings), I'll get to be involved in the production side of things (pinning storyboards, setting up meeting rooms). Nothing terribly glamorous, but that's the industry for ya. You have to start somewhere so you can slowly work your way up (in any business, but especially in theatre/film), and I'm really excited to be at the not-totally-bottom (hey, I'm not a PA) of the ladder. And the projects my team will be working on are things I'm totally stoked about - where I had trouble connecting with the projects my engineers at Google have been working on, I think that here, I'll be able to connect to the work much better. (this paragraph had a lot of parentheses too. sorry.)

So yeah, I have three more days left at Google, and I feel pretty ridiculous and very, very lucky. In this economic climate, with news of layoffs by the thousands from companies all over the country, I feel a little guilty and incredibly blessed to be able to choose to quit my job at one fantastic company because I have been offered a job at another fantastic company. Granted, I work hard, and I plan hard. Even if it's only hypothetical, I think about the future. So it's not like this fell into my lap or anything, but still. I feel just freaking lucky to be going to a new and awesome job right now, that's all.

So that's my news for now...time to get ready for the my Google team holiday party! One last hurrah! :-)

More to come...


PS - putting in your two weeks' notice is kind of scary in the Real World.

Too Many Shoes!

I came home from work today to find this mess in my closet:

Note the bent bottom part just above the UGG boots. That, and the side parallel to it, was just totally bowed out. Not sure how to proceed, and not wanting to just put all the shoes back on (since the weight of the top levels would just make the bottom levels bow out again and it would just fall over again), I devised a little system to temporarily hold it all in place.

The temporary system involves a belt and a curtain rod. And that's about it. Hopefully it lasts for a few days...or more...but I'm thinking I'll have to get a new shoe rack at some point. Hey, this one lasted over a year, and it was just a cheap one (like $30) from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

The shoe rack, picture taken in the mirror. Yes, I have a lot of shoes. Note how it is standing upright, except you can still kinda see the 3rd level from the bottom bowing out again. Bowing in? Whatever, it's still kinda bent.

The view from the side. Same view-ish from the first picture, but it looks a lot neater.

Anyway...do any of you out there have any advice for longer-term shoe storage? Any shoe racks you particularly love? This is the space I have. This is the amount of shoes I have. I have gotten rid of 4 pairs already, and I'm not totally sure how many more I'll get rid of at this point..maybe one or two more, but it's still up in the air. That is, I'm still not sure if I can do it. :-)

Celestial Smile

I missed seeing this in the sky, but you can read about it here.

Cozy...

I'm feeling a bit under the weather this evening, so I thought it would be a good night for a bowl of soup and a little apartment decorating. It's just about that time when I should remove the pumpkins and ghosts from the string of white lights in my window, and get out the December decorations. Have I mentioned that I love having my own apartment?

Soup: tomato/red bell pepper, with goat cheese and sun dried tomato bruschetta and fresh basil from my window box garden. And Saltine crackers. Mmmm. Metropolitan Museum of Art Advent Calendar from last year (we, erm, forgot to use it last year).

Candles I bought last year. Should I light the tree-shaped one? I feel like I shouldn't...but that's what candles are for, right? You can't really tell, but all of these candles are covered in glitter. Yep.

I intertwined my blue twinkly lights with a really pretty white garland thing I bought last year on sale and draped it along the top of my hutch. It took about 25 minutes, maybe more, to figure it out. Longer than it should have. Worth it.

Not taken tonight, but this is how I feel. Cozy.

Gas and Flowers

I was driving around town the other day, and saw some shocking gas situations. There is a gas station up the street from me that has been boarded up for a few months, and it looked like this:
Note that the price of gas is/was $3.91 a gallon. Also note that this gas station is the "cheap" gas station, where it is typically ten cents per gallon cheaper than any other station.

I turned my head and looked across the street at the Chevron station. This is the "expensive" gas station, where you can typically expect to spend about the same as you would at most stations, but like I said, at least ten cents per gallon more than the "cheap" station. On this day, a few weeks ago, it looked like this:

$1.89 per gallon. Wowzers! Now, I know we have been conditioned to believe that $1.89/gallon is a hugely good deal, and I see the proof of this in the fact that gas was almost $4/gallon just a few months ago (pre-election...hmmm). I've been told that gas prices always drop right before and after an election, and I'm just hoping they don't go back up again. Maybe they'll even go down? Eh? Eh?


While you ponder that, peruse some pictures of flowers that I took at my parents' house over Thanksgiving. Pretty! TwistNHook would be proud.

Planty Plant Plant

So the plant is ever-growing...that little bit that I had referred to as a "sprout" that had previously been a "nubbin" is now it's own full-blown...leaflet? Branch? What are the technical names for these sorts of things? See pictures below.

the leaflet grows!

the full body shot...I think it's almost time for a new pot.

surprise! a new nubbin!