5feet7

My pie making skillz have dropped by -1

2008-08-19T01:21:00.002-05:00

So basically last weekend I tried making a pie and failed! Cant believe I failed so badly. I was trying to make a no-bake pie. It should have been very simple. I followed the directions completely, but yet it still was an utter mess. It is no lie that my cooking skills are on a sub-par level. People who say cooking is easy are liars. I have tried many times making food and yet it always turn out badly. The only times it doesnt turn out quite bad is when I make rice and eggs. My recipe goes as such: Take eggs, pour into frying pan. If it turns all yellow and not soggy it is all done. Take rice, put in rice cooker with water and hit "cook rice" button. Wait 20-30 minutes and then eat hot rice with eggs. Oh add some soy sauce and salt and pepper to eggs. I only perfected this with the aid of my mother. She is an excellent cook - it's just sad for me that her ability isn't hereditary.

PS
I forgot I can make sandwiches like nobody's business!

Otakon 2008 - It was a convention full of BREASTS

2008-08-11T02:06:00.005-05:00

Ok yes the title is a bit ... tantalizing isn't it? I'm sorry, to my own disappointment, I'm not really talking about women showing off their assets. Yes I will not lie that there were women who were wearing costumes that did just that, but overall that was a minority. What I'm really talking about here is that the male female ratio had dramatically changed since the first time I went to Otakon in 1998. I was a teenager still in high school back then and the only thing I knew about anime was Dragonball and that Street Fighter 2 came from the same country. Back then it was considered a good number of females attended the con. I think from my memory it was a 70/30 male to female ratio back then. Also I remember seeing more stereotypical otaku guys... you know the fat smelly kind with large thick glasses. This year the male to female ratio to me was closer to 40/60. It's like almost a complete reversal!

I have not been to Otakon for about 3 years, but I decided to venture to it again because some of my good friends decided to get an artist alley table and I really wanted to see them again. I've been behind an artist table many times before, but it was more following around artist friends than actually pursuing to show off my own work or talking to people admiring it. This year was a complete different experience behind the table. I actually took commissions! I never really done that before, which I only now regret. It's fun if you can get the right kind of client who will let you run a bit free and wild. I know that I am late to this concept. My artist friends from my past, who are all highly successful, will laugh at me now.

I wasnt expecting to enjoy a convention ever again (hence why I havent gone to one for a few years) but now I am really excited to go to my next one. I want to have more art to show and hopefully can get to meet new and aspiring artists. It's something I notice about myself. Meeting new artists who have great potential makes me remember all my dreams and aspirations when I was their age. It makes me all hyped up to work on my personal projects again. I also enjoy giving them advice when I can especially when they think I am a person who can give good advice (alas if only they knew most of my advice stems from the lessons I learned from huge mistakes I've made in my life). That also is something new to me. I always give advice to friends but never to strangers face to face. It's really exhilirating, but can sometimes be annoying too especially if they go off in a tangent. I need to admit though my social skills need a lot of polishing up especially compared to my friends at my table.

Overall I had a great time at Otakon 2008 even though I barely went anywhere but the artist alley. I hopefully can make it to Katsucon 2009 and have tons more artwork to sell.

5.8 ! no 5.4 !

2008-07-30T00:14:00.003-05:00

So six months in LA and finally I experienced an earthquake. And it was a pretty decent one. At first it was recorded as a 5.8 then it downgraded to 5.4. You can see the details here: http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/ci14383980.html.

Well it was different from what I expected. I was in North Hollywood at work when I saw my desk start to wobble and I thought it was just my leg tapping the desk. It wasn't until all my moniters and cubicle walls begin to shake that I realized it was an earthquake. Once that dawned on me, it was basically over. Must have been only 6 seconds long. The only feeling I had was that I felt like I was sitting on jello and someone was wobbling it around. I was expecting more rumbling and not being able to walk properly and falling down. Even my toys on my desk didnt fall over. I'm kind of disappointed, but maybe that's a good thing.

Oh well at least I can scratch off earthquake from my list of natural disasters I survived. I think I only have volcanic eruption and tsunami left now.

Dragon Tametress preview

2008-07-19T02:21:00.001-05:00

This is an old unfinished piece that I just reworked and is finally now ready for me to finish coloring. Hope to finish it by August.

Brand spankin' new car

2008-07-18T22:22:00.011-05:00

As of July 18th, 2008, I am a very proud owner of a Black 2008 Volkswagen GTI!

I have been researching cars for 3 months now. I only got serious this month and started to test drive cars. At first I just wanted something to replace my dying 1994 honda civic. It was a good car but unfortuantly there were problems with it which resulted in me only being able to get on average 27-28 miles per gallon. To get higher MPG I had to drive like an old lady...a very very old lady.

So I was thinking of a Yaris or a Fit or maybe even a Versa (all hatchbacks tho..i love hatchbacks). I just wanted soemthing that will take me to place to place. After test driving the GTI tho, I instantly fell in love. It had 2 times the power of my civic and I could feel it with ever gear shift. There was no other car, driving wise, that made me smile so much. Firm, responsive, and aggressive. It's all there in my GTI.

It doesnt have the best MPG though, but this is more classfied as a almost-sports car and shouldnt be in the same class as a Yaris or Fit. From my unscientiffic and most likely inaccurate measurements, this car gets me about 28-30 miles per gallon so far. Better than the average of my civic and I am not driving as an old lady, but I'm also not driving like a teenager addicted to speed. I'm just now and then that a**hole who tailgates you when your slower car is driving up a steep hill.

So far I'm loving the car, but now the only issue that I have is if I can afford it. On paper after organizing all my finances and bills, I can definitely afford it with no issues and still live the way I currently live, but I still fear that I might not be able to. It's my first truly big purchase on my own and I really dont want to mess this up. I feel like it might be time to go back into that ramen diet that I enjoyed back in college just in case... Well if anything this will definitely boost my credit to help me in the future if I ever want to own any real estate.

Overall I dont regret paying for it; if I am going to drive, the drive better be as fun as hell.

Drawing Warmup- WOT characters

2008-07-13T18:05:00.004-05:00

Been re-listening to the Wheel of Time series in audio book format by Robert Jordan, so for warmup I decided to draw the heads of the main characters.

Audio Books

2008-07-13T16:04:00.004-05:00

I have an issue with books. They are a form of entertainment that I truly cannot ever share my attention with anything else. I become oblivious of all my surroundings when I read a book. I truly delve into it. My imagination runs wild and after each reading I am always left with untold stories in my head that the author might have thought of but never wrote down. All in all, I am in love with books and their power over me. But becasue of that, I tend to cancel plans or ignore situations that need my immediate attention just so I can read one more chapter. This is why after highschool I have only been able to read one book per year. Work, friends, other forms of entertainment, and personal ambitions fight for my attention now.

Audio books on the other hand are a godsend to me. Orson Scott Card (author of "Ender's Game") once said that audiobooks are the best representation of his works. I agree with this, but maybe not in the same way that Mr. Card sees it. For me audio books gives me the option to enjoy books while also doing another activity. It is easily carried around by an mp3 media player.

These days audio books serve as a form of concentration and not just as entertainment. I listen to them mostly now while I paint textures at work. This keeps my mind focused. I become almsot oblivious to my enviroment and I jsut let my hand flow freely as I work. I love my job, but having an audiobook to listen to makes my job even more entertaining. I look forward to always start working becasue of it. There's a touch more added excitement when I lay down a paint stroke. But this is as far as I can go with audio books. Unfortuantly if I do anyhting besides artwork while I listen, my multi-tasking mind shatters.

To me Audio books are better than reading; in the sense of being able to do multiple tasks. Because of audio books I have been able to enjoy 18 books in the past 6 months. This isnt including the re-listening of books that I also did. So I hope the production of them never cease.

July 4th 2008

2008-07-12T13:42:00.003-05:00

My roommate dragged me to go watch fireworks with her and her friends. I was very reluctant. I am not a fan of fireworks cause I feel I've already had enough of my share of them. But the place we went to, much of my surprise, was amazing. We went to the observatory on top of Griffith Park in Los Angeles. It had a great view of the Hollywood sign. At this point I have been living here for 6 months and it was the first time for me to see it. Anyways I am really glad she dragged me out. The fireworks were far away but it still was nice to view it from high over the city night. Someday I really want to go back and to check out the stars through the huge telescopes there.

A year later

2008-07-12T04:48:00.002-05:00

I have not posted for over a year now. As expected of such a length of time, a lot of things in my life have changed. I wish I could have been more fervent in my postings.

First off the biggest change is that I now live in LA. I moved here to accept a job as a character artist at a video game company. So far the job is great. I am having alot of fun and learning rapidly. It's something I always wanted to do, but I never really thought it was possible in my previous situation. Is it a dream come true then? If so then I would be almost admitting this is as far as I can go. I want to go further than that.

The 2nd thing is that I myself have changed. I dont know if it is a positive thing or not, but I have been more serious about almost everything. I usually just shrug things off and believe things will work out ok. It's a very carefree attitude. These days I take deeper breaths and calm myself to take more control of all the situations that I run into. I do not know how long that will last before i revert to my carefree attitude, but I hope that lasts for a while. I am enjoying my newer self. I feel less stressed out.

I look back at my older posts and I realize that I am completely too excited about everything. I remember when I wrote my older posts that I was alot more subdued than that. I can only look back and blush; maybe add a chuckle here and there too.

Knowing myself, I will most likely go on another dry spell of updating sometime soon. Before that I want to get up to date with all the things I've done in the past year. So we'll see a massive update this week and then a good length of inactivity afterwards.

New Apartment !

2007-02-02T20:49:00.000-05:00

I finally moved to a new apartment this week! It's small but cozy. Definitely was made for one person. The neighborhood though, I really like! It's like living in chinatown! RESTAURANTS everywhere! Open late! WOOT!

This is the first time living alone for me. I usually had roommates or at least house mates. We always shared things like the bathroom, kitchen, and food. Now it's just me. I know I'll probably feel lonely at some point, but right now it sort of feels great to be just on my own.

Anyways to celebrate my complete independence, I finally bought a monitor for my laptop! Yeah it's a 20" inch LCD widescreen, I'm lovin' it! The colors are so much clearer and so much brighter! I knew there was a difference between my laptop screen and a real monitor, but I never knew that it would be this huge! I also purchased a new wacom intuos3 4"x6" widescreen tablet to replace my 7 year old intuos. I'm lovin' it too! I rarely ever use the mouse anymore now. Hopefully this will revitalize my drawing fire!

Pictures are only of my new setup and my neighborhood, not my apartment cause it's not worth bragging about =P.

The worst stalker ever!

2007-01-24T22:12:00.000-05:00

Ok I can officially say I make the WORST stalker ever! I have proof of this! Now we all have fantasies here and there. And one of the many fantasies we all share is to date a celebrity right? Well the celebrity I am most in love with is a japanese actress by the name of Inoue Mao. She hasnt been in much, but she is popular in japan. What gave her success is her role as Makino from the japanese live action adaptation of Hana Yori Dango (well that's when i fell in love with her!). Here is a photo:

Yes there are prettier actresses, but this girl is more of my type. She's super cute and the girl can act! She won best actress in the Japanese 47th TV Show Awards, so that's definite proof there =)

WARNING!!!! SPOILERS AHEAD for HANA YORI DANGO SEASON 2!!!

Anyways onto my point. I had recently just watched the first episode of Hana Yori Dango season 02. They filmed in good ol' New York City! I was really surprised! I knew all the locations they shot. But there was a bigger shock waiting for me... I saw one location that stood out from the rest. And it hit me! IT was the alleyway behind my work place!!! My jaw literally dropped! Then something else struck me... I went and searched through my video camera, and OMFG!! A month earlier I had recorded that scene behind my workplace!! I had recorded it and i didnt even know what it was! I didnt know it was INOUE MAO!!!! OMG I AM THE WORST STALKER EVER! she was jsut like ten feet away and I never knew, a true stalker wouldnt allow ten feet to come between him and his err prey..sigh -_- so onto the pictures and stuff for proof

Here's a comparison of my shot of the alleyway and the shot taken from the drama:

Yeah so that's my sad little tale of the one celebrity I'm in love with and the one and only chance that I would have been able to have met her. Oh someone up there really likes to tease me T__T.

Anyways here are some more shots I recognize:

Cambodia:: Part 03: Beaches, Siem Rep, and Angkor Wat

2007-01-17T23:20:00.000-05:00

Okay I will admit I did a lot more than just rediscover my roots in Cambodia. We actually hit alot of touristy places. We went to beaches and all. I completely forgot the names though. I will look it up later.

We also went to Siem Rep, which is the town located near Angkor Wat. We actually stayed at a 5 star hotel there which was amazingly awesome. What greeted me there though was another thing. There were so many Koreans everywhere! They actually had a good amount of Korean restaurants in the area. I mean there isnt anything wrong with Koreans (alot of my friends are koreans), but I'm shocked how much of a physical influence they have in Cambodia (restaurants, guest houses, hotels all in koean txt). After all that I visited a Cambodian Cultural fair. It was basically like a small theme park that celebrated Cambodia's rich culture and history. They even had a good size Cambodian concert right outside!

Of course no trip will be complete to Cambodia if you don't visit the temples at Angkor Wat. Angkoy wat is absolutely breathtaking! I really wish that I couldve stayed longer just for that. But what really got me was the people that i encountered there. Most of the people there were tourists yes, but some that were cambodian natives were all dressed in wedding outfits. It seems many couples use Angkor Wat as a place to shoot their wedding photos. And the dress style varied from traditional garb to more of a modern western garb. Also what i think is great, is that the temples are still in use for worship. Going in you can see a lot of people offering gifts and thanks to Buddha. I had always thought it was only used for tourism.

Anyways I've gotten some complaints that my pictures are hard to navigate through. I'm not going to say who *cough*lana*cough*, but they know who they are. So i decided to actually put them up in google's picasa, which BTW is probably the best free web album thing I've ever used (and besides i didnt have to do the annoyingly sign up process, i just used my google gmail account, hooray for google), so just click on the link below to be taken away to my picasa web album ~ I'll probably be using this to put up all of my pictures from now on.

Cambodia_part_03

Part 04 Coming Soon!!

Cambodia:: Part 02: The Countryside

2007-01-15T18:02:00.000-05:00

I'm really proud of my parents, but I will have to admit this though first: I really thought they were full of crap when I was going through puberty and through half of college ^_^;

Before going to Cambodia my parents started a fundraiser to raise money to buy water filters for families in a small village around where my mother grew up. A lot of people in the countryside actually have access to cleaner bottled water (to my surprise), but it can get very costly and it becomes more of a luxury than anything else. These water filters aren't the filters like Brita or anything like that. These things are sort of like water pots. You pour water from ponds and rivers into it and the water drains out into clean drinking water. It's sort of weird looking at first but it does one heck of a job of cleaning water and it lasts for years. A lot of the villagers had actually commented that the purified water tasted just like bottled water!

Well anyways my family was able to raise close to $3000 US dollars and was able to provide filters for 300+ families in the surrounding villages, so I'm very proud of my parents for setting up something like this. I could see in the future that they would want to retire to Cambodia and start little projects like these, especially my mom.

Click image to see all pictures in the gallery!

cambodia_part_02

PART 03 coming soon!

Cambodia:: Part 01: Capitol City, Phnom Penh

2007-01-15T00:34:00.000-05:00

Along with my parents and little sister, I decided to take a trip to Cambodia. I'm a Cambodian American, so it seems natural that I should visit where my family started from.

As long as I can remember, my parents have always told me of stories of a depraved country, one that was full of violence and no hope for the future. They had grown up in the days of the killing fields and a lot of the trauma they endured still probably haunts them to this day. I could never imagine how it was like back then. So because of those stories and old pictures sent from Cambodia, I had this conception of people struggling everyday, always starving.

I feel ashamed to say this but I never did an in-depth research on the current state of Cambodia before. I really thought it would be uninteresting; something that really had nothing to do with me. The prospect of actually going there though made me research. The things I discovered really threw me for a loop. I was pleasantly surprised at the development of Cambodia. Internet, electronics, High-ways, and businesses were booming! It's a country in a state of rapid development. Unfortunatly it is still a third world country and like most third world countries, the gap between the rich and poor is fairly large. It's even more evident once I actually got into the main capitol, Phnom Penh, zooming through it by on a moto-taxi.

Anyways I'm just going to conclude that Cambodia is definitely not what I expected and I value my over all positive experience there. It's really amazing to see how much progress the country is making. On a sidenote I want to also say that the people in Cambodia seem a lot more relaxed and happier almost than what I see from the thousands of faces I encounter each day in NYC.

Part 02 coming soon!