DAILY UPDATES

this is how i got my coworkers to study for the trivia bowl.

1:07 AM 10/13/2007





it's not a kangaroo, it's a wallaby. look how he stares at his paws after the bird steals his food - it's so sad!

anyways, i have been a little preoccupied this week with working 15 hour days and attempting to car shop. it's beyond exhausting, but on the plus side, i'm much less of a pushover when i'm insanely cranky and sleep deprived. here's an example of a conversation i had earlier today with some dude from mckenna bmw (and trust me, this is pretty much verbatim):

connie: ok, why are you quoting me $707 a month when your website says $549?
dealer: well, the model on the website is base only
connie: (interrupting) no, it's says right there that the sports package is included. the MSRP is 43K.
dealer: wellllll, there's no premium package on that model. and it's manual.
connie: fine, so tack on a couple grand for the premium package and steptronic transmission. that brings MSRP to $47K.
dealer: right, and as a general rule, for every $1,000 increase in MSRP, your lease payment goes up $25 a month.
connie: wait, WHAT? hold on. twenty five bucks a month, times a thirty-six month lease - that's nine hundred bucks!
dealer: err....that's correct.
connie: so you're telling me that i'm gonna pay nine hundred bucks over the life of my lease for a one thousand dollar increase to MSPR?
dealer: well, you see, the lease calculator here says...
connie: no, back up a sec. does it make ANY sense for me to pay nine hundred dollars over three years for an extra one thousand dollars in MSRP when i'm leasing?
dealer: well, uh, when you put it that way...uh... ok i see what you're saying, but when you take into account the interest rate factor...
connie: what kinda obscene interest rate factor are you talking about here? what is it, a zillion percent? i mean, holy cow. that's ridiculous.
dealer: well, with leasing, you put less money down and your monthly payment is lower, meaning you're essentially only paying for about 35% of the car.
connie: um thanks, i know that. so if i'm only paying for 35% of the car, shouldn't i only be paying approximately $350 more over the life of the lease for every $1K increase in MSRP?
dealer: uh...hold on...where are you getting your numbers from again?
connie: MY CALCULATOR.
dealer: well, my leasing rates are fixed on my computer, so i don't know what your calculator is showing you...
connie: oh for the love of... ok, look, what you're telling me makes no economical sense. at this point, i might as well buy the car.
dealer: yes, but your payments would be about eight or nine hundred dollars a month. and you'd have to put more money down.
connie: i realize that, but if i'm gonna get gouged either way, i might as well own the damn thing, right?
dealer: i....suppose. you know, if you really want to pay less, you should just get a 328i convertible.
connie: i don't need a convertible. i want a 335i coupe.
dealer: but then you could put the top down, and it'd be like having two cars in one.
connie: i don't like the way the convertible looks when the top is up or down. besides, i'm not a huge fan of skin cancer.
dealer: ha-ha. wear sunscreen, then. or a hat.
connie: i hate wearing sunscreen. and nobody likes hat hair.
dealer: fine.
connie: fine.

can you believe our conversation actually got even stupider after that? needless to say, i am still driving around in my old car. some of my coworkers joined the search earlier this week and have been diligently helping me call B.S. on nearly every single dealer in a fifty mile radius of LA. i think i've pretty much exhausted most of the supply in southern california. guess i'll try arizona next week.

ok, i gotta be at work at 9:30 tomorrow so it's bed time. i can't decide what's worse: trying to make it through fifty-two weeks of busy season or attempting to negotiate a lease on a car with an overinflated market price. both make my head hurt immensely. i need to sleep this pain off. or just buy myself a civic and use the rest of the money on a nice, long vacation in tahiti. hey, a girl can dream, can't she? later, kids.

12:41 AM 10/16/2007

i was struggling to come up with a post earlier this weekend and decided to fill out one of those dumb meme survey things instead (cop out, i know). only i got stuck at question #2: "diamonds or pearls?" because i honestly couldn't pick one over the other. so i just gave up. sad. now everybody out there in cyberland will never know my response to question #34: "what color/type of underwear are you?"

busy season officially ended today...everybody left the office around 4:30 to celebrate being done at a firm-sponsored happy hour @ elevate. as expected, my busy season was indefinitely extended until march 2010 (that's when i finally keel over and die), so i was at the office until 10pm, along with the rest of the poor honda team. dude, the whole point of making manager was to work less, but i think i'm going backwards here. but that's another topic for another day. as i was packing up my bags to go home tonight, one of my senior managers reminded me that i'm supposed to give a presentation tomorrow at a 4:30 meeting. in front of multiple partners. on complex topics that i haven't researched yet. because i completely forgot, given the billions of hours i've worked these past couple of months. at this point, i'm not entirely sure i'm capable of giving a half intelligent presentation - my brain is totally fried. i think maybe i will put together a quick power point presentation and draw lots of stick figures on every slide, each one depicting me at work. "here's connie sitting at her desk. here's connie blinking funny because she forgot what real sunlight looks like. here's connie eating CPK for the fortieth night in a row." haha, it'll be the most awesome accounting methods presentation of all time.

this morning i crawled out of bed and managed to get dressed and went downstairs to put on a pair of heels for work and discovered that there was ginormous spider the size of a blue whale sitting in my right stiletto, just waiting to sink its fourteen inch fangs into my foot. i would have screamed bloody murder but i was too preoccupied with beating Tarantula On Steroids to death with my laptop bag. which reminds me, one time in first grade, i checked out a book called "Be Nice to Spiders" from the school library in a sincere attempt to get over my fears. then the library said i lost it and fined me six dollars for the book, even though i swore up and down that i returned it. honestly, if you think about it, why on earth would a five year old girl keep a book about being nice to spiders? anyways, my mom paid the fine (since i had no source of income back then) and then proceeded to lecture me nonstop for DAYS about being responsible and not losing other people's property. all this for a stupid book that i didn't even like in the first place. dude, where was i going with this story? oh, right. basically what i'm trying to get at is SPIDERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OUT TO GET ME AND I HATE THEM WITH A PASSION. and i don't care if they eat other bugs and build pretty webs (see, i still remember the lame arguments from the book) - THEY ALL NEED TO DIE. PERIOD.

in honor of my horrible mood, i will share with you guys some of my favorite videos on youtube:

you MUST watch this one until the very end. i guarantee you'll die from the cuteness.

everybody's favorite: dance, white boy, dance!!

ucla aca hip hop - you just had to be there.

there, that should keep you occupied for a few minutes while i continue to work. woe is me. seriously.

p.s. i guess i'd pick a diamonds over pearls....not because i like the way they look more (i like both equally), but because diamonds have a higher resale value. and you all thought i wasn't practical.



for all you haters out there who think a round brilliant cut is boring (namely, keri kaba) - i challenge you to look and not drool.
if this is what boring looks like, I'M TOTALLY COOL WITH IT.

um, did i just use the phrase "totally cool" in my sentence above? apparently my vocabulary regresses back to sixth grade when i'm exhausted. i'll update more later, when i'm a bit more coherent. have a fabulous week, everybody.

1:18 PM 10/17/2007

one of best and prettiest cures for a bad day/week/busy season...



gorgeous...

10:39 PM 10/19/2007

for the past nine years, i've sworn up and down that benzes were better cars than BMWs. james and johnny (and johnny's suicidal driving in the 540i) did their best to convince me otherwise, but i refused to budge - i just couldn't see how the "ultimate driving machine" could measure up to the pure, unadultered german luxury of a benz. now i'm eating my words, and IT FEELS GREAT.


i'm not sure which is prettier, the car or the license plate frame.


here's the front (duh).



my camera is jacked up - ignore the blurry spot in the middle of the picure.

if you ever wanted to know what countless hours of work, weekends at the office and ten straight nights of eating CPK salads can buy you - well, this is pretty much it. you'd think i'd be able to afford a F430 by now.

i went to yet another wedding this weekend, this time for a family friend i've known since forever. oh, where do i even begin. i have a love/hate relationship with weddings. mostly hate, because sometimes i think the over-the-top crap associated with fancy weddings is a distraction from the real reason people get married in the first place. on the other hand, i am a closet sucker for all things cute and romantic, so there you go. i'm a bi-polar idiot. anyways, here is a list of things i'm NEVER going to do at my own wedding (if i ever have one, that is):

1. marry a trojan. UGH.
2. choreograph a routine for my first dance. we're not competing on dancing with the stars, for pete's sake.
3. kiss my husband like he's got cooties.
4. wear a generic, strapless white dress. yawn.
5. wear ugly shoes. people can see 'em under the dress, you know.
6. refuse to dance once the DJ starts spinning.
7. let my husband smash cake in my face. unless he is cool with shelling out $120 for a second makeup application and not getting any on his wedding night.
8. wear a tiara. come on, it's only cute if you're five years old, prom queen, or miss america.
9. be too uptight to laugh at embarassing stories of myself or my groom during the toasts.
10. force the guests to toast with apple cider, instead of champagne. that's just...lame.

i guess that's it for now. i wore a new dress last night and very quickly came to the realization that i should have tried sitting or climbing up stairs in it before i shelled out beaucoup bucks. it took me ten minutes to figure out how to get in and out of a car without having to hike up the dress and flash half the world. my mother also insisted i wear a cardigan over it at all times so i wouldn't scandalize the entire south bay taiwanese community. see, this is why i detest going to weddings with my family. my mother fusses over how i dress, my sister teases me about how much i drink (man, you get slightly tipsy ONCE at a wedding at the ritz carlton in marina del rey and suddenly you're the official family alkie) and my dad just sits there and looks bored out of his mind. i imagine this is what my own wedding is gonna be like one day (keep your snide comments to yourself, i already caveated the fact that i may never get hitched in the paragraph above).


we lost the bride and groom in this picture.


in the garden where the ceremony was. look at the bling on my mom's dress.


this is me squinting in the sunlight next to a fountain. really attractive.


getting dragged out onto the dance floor (grandma cardigan and all).

12:42 AM 10/23/2007







hang in there, california...

9:14 PM 10/28/2007

in case you missed the pictures of my baby...

so lately one of my neighbor's dogs has been barking incessantly. i'm talking like, five or ten seconds intervals of "WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF." for hours on end. now, i could care less about the barking during the day, since i'm chained to my desk at work and can't hear the constant woofing all the way up in downtown LA. however, when i'm at home and trying to work/sleep/talk on the phone, the stupid barking is all i hear. jack suggested i try operation: hush puppy, which involves soaking a hot dog in antifreeze and feeding it to the offending animal. get it? hush puppy. i told jack that dog owners shouldn't be allowed to make sick statements like that. people who are cruel to animals often end up being serial killers, you know. of course, when the stupid dog started howling and yelping at 3:30 AM saturday morning, my first coherent thought after being jolted out of sleep was, "i wonder how much trouble i'd get into if i just shot it." then i remembered that i'm not interested in pursuing a new career as a serial killer and started evaluating other possible solutions. the only problem was i couldn't figure out which house the dog belonged to - i mean, the barking was so loud that it seemed to be coming from every direction. so when i heard him/her again this morning, i snatched up the phone and called lynn right away:

lynn: hey, i was just about to call you!
connie: dude, do you HEAR that?!!?
lynn: yeah, it's loud!
connie: go outside and find that damn dog - i think it's on your street, not mine. i'm gonna yell at it.
lynn: all right, one sec. i'm walking down the street.
connie: dangit, he stopped. give him a minute.
lynn: okay, weird, i wonder why he would suddenly just -
stupid barking dog: WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF.
lynn: oh, there he is.
connie: holy cow, i think i just went deaf from the freakin' surround sound barking.
lynn: uh oh.
connie: what do you mean, uh oh?? you found him, didn't -
stupid barking dog: WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF.
connie: okay, you found him. seriously, i'm totally deaf now.
lynn: dude, it's nero. my neighbor's german shepherd.
connie: uh huh, and....?
lynn: you know! the K-9!
connie: the K-9!?!? the pretty one? are you sure??
lynn: yup. i'm looking right at him through the fence and -
stupid barking dog: WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF. WOOF.
connie: uh, did you say something? i think my eardrums just blew out.

ugh, i almost poisoned/shot/called the cops on a K-9. aren't police dogs supposed to be well behaved (although with a name like "nero," i guess you never know)? now i'm hesitant to go over and complain because 1) he serves the community - i should be patting him on the head and giving him a biscuit instead of throwing a hissy fit, and 2) what if the owner gets angry and sics him on me and i get my arm chewed off?! part of me thinks that it just isn't worth it. forget all that crap about the squeaky wheel getting oiled - in reality, the squeaky wheel gets thrown into the garbage truck and smashed into a cubic inch of rubber. ouch. my mom thinks i should call the cops anyway, just so they have a chance to set one of their own straight. i told her i didn't want to piss somebody off and get put on torrance PD's List of Annoying Complainants to Harass in the Future. she (jokingly, i think) told me to give them lynn's name instead. i told her duh, they could probably trace the phone number back to our house. as i was walking away, all smug about having the final word, my mom said, "stupid, go over to lynn's house and use her phone to call the station then." HAHA. you didn't think i got the shady bastard part of my personality from my dad's side, did you? which reminds me of this one time when my mom was reading a story in the newspaper about how some zoo in mainland china couldn't afford to feed its baby tigers and was exploring creative ways to solve the problem, such as loaning the tigers out to private owners to feed on their own dime (a completely idiotic and unsafe idea, but i'll save that discussion for another day). my mother's suggestion: "maybe we should feed the mainlanders to the tigers. fix both food problem and population problem at once." see, this woman has a logical solution for EVERYTHING. i don't know whether to be frightened or impressed.

anyways, i gotta to go practice some piano because keri needs me to record some christmas song for her to sing along to. last week i discovered i can barely stumble through the songs that i competed with when i was 10 or 11. it's nice to know that the 12 straight years of piano lessons ended up being pretty useless. however, i've managed to retain most of my sight-reading skills (carefully developed from years of cramming in new songs 20 minutes before my lessons started), so i guess that's one small consolation. maybe if i have enough time, i'll record and post a new song every day for the 12 days before christmas. i'll play requests too (except for "i saw mommy kissing santa claus," i hate that song with a passion). all right, have a fabulous week and halloween, everybody. if you happen to have any extra chocolate, send some my way so i can get through this busy and stressful week at work. mmmmm, sugar. adios amigos.



shut up, nero! your cuteness isn't gonna make up for the annoying barking!