Gratuitous Shout Out Posting

To my friends doin’ their thing like Wing Stop’s lemon pepper chicken wings, in no particular order:

Crystal Chin aka the mechanic seamstress, is making big design things poppin’ for DUWOP.  Mastermind behind The Twilight duwop line (Stylelist needs to get it right and give credit where it is due, but whatever, I’m just letting you know.)

http://www.stylelist.com/blog/2009/06/22/twilight-beauty-the-movie-saga-to-launch-vampy-makeup-line

I’m not a Twilight fan, but I have to admit, the package design makes me want Volturi blue mascara real bad.

Ali Wong ( www.aliwong.com ) was voted SF Weekly’s best Comedian in 2009 and now we can no longer wander the streets of SF together without people recognizing her.  However, she now spends her time MC Hammering her way through NYC with a vengeance in her high waisted black stretch harem pants.  Please Ali, don’t hurt’em.

http://www.sfweekly.com/bestof/2009/award/best-comedian-1524944/

Eric “Fatgums” Strand aka Enrique Strandglesias is making big music/beats poppin’.   Check him out and if you like what you hear, support him and vote here!

http://www.urb.com/promotions/next1000/profiles/1676-FATGUMS%20X%20BAMBU.php

I also just recently found out that a long lost friend, Misa, started her own jewelry line.  Which can be purchased at select stores or here:

http://www.misajewelry.com

Damn.  I don’t know about the Jones’, but I definitely feel the need to up the anty on the talent/creativity/entrepreneurial department to keep with the Chin’s/Wong’s/Strand’s/Hamamoto’s.  I think It’s time to go back to Color Me Mine and glaze myself some more ceramics.

Calorie Counting for Dummies Addendum

Ok, so there are a lot of you (2, including myself) that are taking this calorie counting thing very seriously, so let me see if I can clarify some gray areas.  I will try to clarify in the form of FAQ’s, frequently asked questions.  (The use of the word frequent is used very liberally in this case.)

FAQ #1

What exactly constitutes breakfast?

Breakfast foods can be eaten at any time of the day, but in this case, breakfast has to to with the timing of your meal.  To keep things simple and consistent, let’s use the McDonald’s Universal Law of Breakfast: Breakfast ends at 10:30AM daily.  This means, the transaction must be complete and you are actively consuming that breakfast by 10:30AM.  Weekend brunches, no deductions.

FAQ #2

What if I had a bowl of fiber O’s and a banana before work, then a whole grain bagel at 10:30AM, which one is breakfast?

Anything consumed before 10:30AM but after your long period of sleep (calculate accordingly night shifters) is considered breakfast.  You can have as many breakfasts as you want.

FAQ #3

I want to save my 20% duduction from my fiber-O/banana meal for a meal later in the day.  Is that ok?

No.  The coupon is not transferrable.  It is a gift, not a right.  Use it or lose it.

FAQ #4

Since I ate a whole grain bagel during breakfast, does that mean I get an additional 10% the already existing 20% off?

Yes.  That’s a loophole.

Hope this is helpful (Cit) !

Calorie Counting for Dummies

Hello friends!  It’s that time of the year again, summer.  Time to get it tight get it right, right ladies?  Or try to at least.  Low-carb is very in, so is vegetable soup, South Beach, Slim Fast, Green Tea Fat Burner, Xenadrine, Alli “you may experience greasy anal discharge” has also been quite popular at my pharmacy.   But one tried and true technique is the old classic, “Calorie Counting.”  How this works is, you find out how many calories are in everything that you eat, write it down, and add it all up.  The point is to stay under a certain daily calorie intake by the end of the day.

The problem with this method is, the calories always get used up before the end of the day.  Then what do you do?  You could eat less earlier in the day, but this constant failure is not good for anyone’s self esteem.  People need training wheels.  If you’re learning to swim, you can’t just jump in the olympic sized pool and be expected to Michael Phelps your way to the other side.  You need floaties.  So me and Cit formulated some helpful training wheels for the calorie counting novice in the form of deductions.

Rule #1:  All calories consumed before 10AM is 20% off.

Justification:  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and is likely to be burned off quicker.  So if you are going to eat something fatty, do it in the morning.

Rule #2: If there was a decision between white refined carbs, and complex whole grains and you chose whole grains, give yourself a 10% deduction.

Justification:  Nothing truly truly sinful has whole grains in it (e.g. Sprinkles red velvet cupcakes) so you should reward yourself for sidestepping those options.  Whole grains usually have insoluble fiber which keeps you full and helps you poop, which is good for your GI tract.

Rule #3:  Calories from food bitten off of someone else’s plate don’t count.

Justification:  You COULD HAVE ordered the McGriddle with Sausage and Egg if you wanted to, but you didn’t.  And you just wanted to taste it.  Instead you got a medium coffee.  Black.  No sugar.  If it were to push you over the edge to order it in the future, those calories would count.  I think the price of temptation is enough, don’t you?

Rule #4:  Rollover calories are ok.

Justification:  If you were really good one day, you should be able to keep you calories for the weekend.  It’s the American way.

Rule #5:  Anything you eat while watching TV and that you aren’t looking straight at, doesn’t count.

Justification:  Hm.  This was one of Cit’s.  I don’t know about this one.

Rule #6:   Whole Foods deduction 20%

Justification:  Because you already paid off the Whole Foods organic mafia for those calories.

Rule #7:  Sparingly applied dressing deduction.  25% off.

Justification:  A for effort.

Rule #8:  Chinese “I don’t want to waste” deduction.  Full deduction.

Justification:  If you can be honest and say that you cleaned your plate not out of lack of self dicipline, but because you didn’t want to waste, you can deduct the full amount of the leftover food in question.  For example, yesterday I ate shabu shabu and i was full but there were 5 slices of beef left.  I could have stopped, really, but I just didn’t want to waste.  I was taught that the dead will rise and haunt me in my sleep if I did.  Had it been another type of cuisine, a to-go box would have been ok, deeming the deduction invalid.  This deduction is only given in rare circumstances, and I didn’t just make it up because I ate this meal yesterday.

I hope this is helpful.  After a while, it may be wise to take off the floaties and try to do it the right way.  But if you need a litte help and like math, this may be a good starting point.  Let me leave you a picture of what not to eat (courtesy of Paula Deen).  Because the 20% breakfast deduction would not help very much anyway.

Chuionthis Top 3 Stress Relievers

Xanax, Valium, and Ativan? Not for me.  I am a big advocate of lifestyle modification before drug therapy.  In most cases at least.  Just say no to drugs.  Hugs not drugs.

1.  Yoga

I was once a skeptic, but yoga does wonders.  Maybe it’s the abnormal stretching of the body, or the blood that rushes and pools in your head and face.  Whatever it is, it works.  So if you’re stressed go get your ohm and downward facing dog on in a pair of personalized Lululemon yoga pants on a bright purple mat.  Yoga is also really good for improving intestinal motility (trust me).

2.  Biking

Biking is great for releasing steam when you are pissed.  Channel that negative chi into your quads and pump as hard as you can, up a hill.  The frustration of barely crawling up a hill in your granny gears will make you forget all about whatever you were pissed off about before your ride.

3.  Retail therapy

I say this with great caution, because the aftermath of retail therapy could be worse than the initial stress.  Impulse buys can be a double edged sword because these purchases often lead to next month’s financial stress.   Systematic measures must be put in place to avoid the “impulse buy.”  One method is to save an item in your “queue” that you need, so that when you NEED to shop, buy that thing that you need rather than a pair of fabulous shoes.  For example:  I’m pissed, I go to Target, I buy lightbulbs because I need lightbulbs.  I’m pissed, I go to Sports Basement to get a BPA-free water bottle for my bike to decrease my chances of getting breast cancer or having my unborn children be born with 3 eyes.  Unfortunately, my local Target is connected to a giant mall, and my local Sports Basement sells everything under the sun, so this system still needs refining.

Inner Struggle

I face internal emotional struggles all the time.  Love versus hate.  Good versus evil.  Need or want.  Yin versus yang.  But the worst is arguably Hunger versus sleepy.  This is a common emotional struggle that women deal with all the time, and that I have daily.  What do you do you are hungry and sleepy at the same time?  Should you eat?  But if you eat, then you can’t sleep, because then you’ll get fat.  Should you sleep?  But then you didn’t eat, so you’ll be hungry, and hunger is painful.

Oprah says no eating after 7:30.  I say, no Oprah after 7:30.

Wii fit, gives this advice:

“measuring…measuring…measuring.  It looks like you gained 0.8 lbs.  Why do you think you gained this weight?  (click night time snacking).  Try eating easy to digest foods like yogurt if you feel hungry at night.”

My fantasy world gives this advice:

“measuring…..measuring…measuring.  It looks like you lost 8 lbs.  Why do you think you lost this weight? (click night time snacking).  Try eating easy to digest foods like french macaroons in lavender, pistachio, or hazelnut flavors from Patisserie Phillipe or La Boulangerie if you feel hungry at night to accelerate this weight loss.”

Back it Up

This was the week of devastation.  It started off with me being shipped to Pleasanton, California,  which is more like Old-white-bald-big boned-people-in white-collared-shirts-ton, for work training.  And the town isn’t so bad, I’m cool with old white bald big boned people in white collared shirts, but people in Pleasanton have bumper stickers that say unfunny things that someone in that car must think is funny or witty enough to permanently stick on their vehicle.  e.g.  “My German Shepherd is smarter than your honor student.” =/

This, however, was devastation.

This is the new sad Mac.  Apparently it is your computer’s way of saying “I hope you backed it up, biatch, or you’re screwed.”  The Genius bar man talked me through the grieving process.

Him: “It’s not you, these things just happen.  You had 2 good years. ..”

Me: “All my photos, memories, gone, all my music, my jams……… my LIFE, and I literally just bought my external hard drive.  I was going to do it this weekend, really, I was.”

Him: “Well you can always use a data recovery service, but that is not covered by Applecare and it may cost minimum of $600 up to over a thousand and you may not get everything back.”

I snapped out of it and said:

“$600?!  Damn Gina.  It’s ok, I’ll just take the blank hard drive, thanks.”

Take Home Message: BACK THAT MAC UP.

Which I am going to do….starting now.

5 Seconds of Fame

Last night, I performed at the Punchline Comedy Club in San Francisco.  Well, Ali Wong and six other comedians performed, but I did get some stage time.  You see, AFTER the show (you know how they always like to save the best for last), me and  Chris Garcia were chosen to model her new FTC sponsored T-shirts (printed on American Apparel tees, made in the USA, good.) designed by our very own mechanic seamstress with the mostess:

At first I was embarrassed and refused to go up on stage because I felt like I was bamboozled.  I know Ali Wong and she did not “accidentally” bring over her new t-shirt to my house the day before and “accidentally” tell me to wear it to her show.   And I was not “accidentally” the only person in the comedy club wearing the girl version, with Chris being the only one wearing the boy version.  But I’m just speculating.  I finally agreed, then got a little too into it, started mimicking Ali’s  Old-Chinese-Lady-in-Golden-Gate-Park Tai Chi bend and arm swings, and maybe a got little too into it.  Luckily people laughed with/at me so it all worked out. And that was my five seconds of fame.

What many people may not know, is that I actually taught Ali all the Tai Chi all the moves she knows. All the talk of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and the bird bath jokes though, I don’t even want to know where she got those from.=l

Coldplay @ HP Pavilion

Before I got my bike this weekend (which i rode all day today, all over the city, just because i can), I went to see Coldplay @ HP Pavilion.  People love Coldplay, old people, young people, in-betweenies like me, white people, white people…..  and I am usually the first to hate on AC’s of all types (adult contemporary music, Slater, self-hate), but Coldplay is pretty good.  It is so fascinating to me that they are able to evoke a particular emotion throughout the audience, almost like puppeteering.  It was so interesting just WATCHING the audience and their reactions to different songs.  One minute they are jumping and clapping, the next minute, everyone is in tears.

Exhibit A:  The Scientist:

“Nobody said it was easy…… (sobbing and nodding), it’s such a shame for us to part…. (crying and post nasal drip)..Nobody said it was easy, noone ever said it would be this hard….. (wahhhhhh)”

Exhibit B: Fix You

“Lights will guuuide you home….. and igniiiiiiite your bones…. I will try…… to fix you  (aaand……..makeout).”

I remember my korean friend had a first date with her ex-boyfriend at a Coldplay concert, and SURPRISE! They got together after that.  I would argue that the Coldplay effect is more decision altering than the alcohol effect.  If the two were together, it is romance on a silver platter.  And if you can’t close the deal, you must be a treasure troll.  Brandon argues that instead of Coldplay manipulating people’s emotions, certain people actually USE COLDPLAY for it’s decision altering effects.  I can see that, some higher risk than others. (Luckily, I went to this show with my brother so I sidestepped this dangerous phenomena.)

Bike Hunt 3: Introducing…..

(almost $800 later with accessories)……my new Raleigh Cadent FT2 Performance Hybrid!

Although it may seem as if I have chosen performance over fashion, if you look closely, you will see that I subtly accessorized to up the anty in terms of fabulosity:

Buying a bike can sometimes be like buying baby gear.  I felt pressure to get the best products, similar to the pressure I imagine a new mother must get to buy the Baby Bjorn, because if you don’t, your baby may lose a chromosome or develop a lazy eye along the way.  But it’s really up to you!  I definitely had a couple “It’s up to YOU, but if it were ME, I would go with the …….(insert something expensive here)” and “It’s really a good investment to consider.” suggestive moments.

Another concern I had/have  is that it is made in China.  Apparently almost all bikes in this range is built in Taiwan or China.  But if you have ever shopped with a Chinese person, you will notice that they usually like to check and make sure the product was NOT made in China or Taiwan.

But other than that, so far so good!=D

To be continued….

Bike Hunt Episode 2: Goldilocks and the Three Bikes

Yesterday after work I went to REI on Brannan St. to check out their bikes.  I was greeted by a pleasant young man, but 5 minutes in, he was off and referred me to his colleague, ABM (asianbikerman).  I had already said I wanted to try out the following bikes, the novara corsa (left) and novara transfer (right):

ABM looked at them skeptically and asked me what I was using it for, “just for fun,” or for serious commuting? Have you considered a road bike? And I said, “I understand a road bike is faster and lighter but I tried it, I’m just not a road bike type of person.”  Then he said “yeah, people have been coming to see this bike ever since it was in Dwell magazine.  Then he did the condescending quote two fingers hand motion and said, what do you mean you’re not a “road bike” kind of person?  At that point I just said, look Asian Biker Man with your asianbikermanlegs, I just want to try it ok.  The transfer (red and white on right) turned out to be TOO heavy.  I would not be able carry it up to the 3rd floor after a long day.  The corsa (booger green one on the left) was TOO ugly.  I asked if it came in other colors, and he laughed at me.  (Not the “oh how cute” laugh, it was more of a “this chick is so not hardcore like me and my ABM friends” laugh). I did not feel the “relationship” I felt at American Cyclery, so I said I would think about it.  Onward ho.

Today, I went to American Cyclery and met two more nice nice people James and Cory and I finally got to ride the bike I ride in my dreams: the Bianchi Milano Citta:

Obviously, I love the look.  It’s sassy, I’m sassy, enough said.  I like the stepover, so I can theoretically wear a dress, though not recommended.  However, this is an 8-speeder so I wanted to see how it was going hills.  I tried the little hill up arguello towards UCSF (which I also tested with the Specialized Sirrus) and I have to say, it was definitely more work on the Milano Citta.  But through the park, around Kezar Stadium, I got my Corinne Bailey Ray on, and it was a lot of fun.  Is it TOO Corinne Bailey Ray?  I don’t have to be the most hard core asian biker girl but I don’t want to be the weakest link either.  Am I the sass X 7 or a Phish and Chicks in the land of Jabbawockeez?   Although I love the looks, is it smarter to go for performance?

Which machine, reigns supreme?

I can’t handle the inner struggle.  Stay tuned…. the plan is to get one so I can ride this weekend!