I’m happy to report to you that I have finished cleaning up my client’s following list from over 3,100 down to just a little under 400. There is still some fat to trim and some tweeps to start following, but overall, we are off to a great start.

Since I’ve gone through thousands of accounts, I came across many profiles and tweeting styles that baffled me. Some of them, in hindsight, I should’ve just taken a screenshot of as a lesson for all. More than anything, I have learned so many things about what one should NOT do in a twitter profile.

Twitter handle, avatar, and profile can tell you a lot about the person/account.  Much like how you’d make sure you look professional before you head out to meet a client, your business twitter profile should be as professional as you are.  You don’t need much for your profile to grab attention and not be considered junk.

1. Pick an easy to type and remember, and short and sweet handle

Remember that your name takes up character space when people mention you in their tweet. Signing up for @MyBusinessReallyRocksYall, while descriptive, might not be the best idea. At the same token, condensing into something of a license plate cypher makes it difficult for people to remember and to understand.  Say, who would remember @MyBizRllyRoxYll.  Also, make sure to spell things correctly.  I came across a twitter account for a local news tweets that spelled the town’s name wrong in the handle.  @LosAngelees_news_alerts.  Now, that’s the news you CAN’T trust.

2. Change your profile image right away

Not in a few hours. Not tomorrow. CHANGE IT NOW!  Even some dedicated spammers change their profile images right away–mostly with someone else’s image stolen off the internet. But if they even take time to fake an identify, why would you want to go around tweeting like a lazy spammer?

3. Write your 160-character profile in full and check your spelling

The 160-character profile is the ultimate elevator pitch.  Sure, you can be funny, ironic, and/or cryptic about yourself on your profile as long as casual lurkers can get a gist of who you are.  If the lurkers can’t glean much from the profile, it’s likely that they’re not going to stick around.  There were numerous accounts I deleted because their profiles told me nothing and their tweets weren’t clarifying that for me either.

Be clear and concise as to who you are. Check your spelling. And resist the urge to excessively use ALL CAPS, #hashtags, special characters and other ASCII art (seriously, that’s ANNOYING!), and Text/Chat language.

Sidebar: Condensing the tweet into text/chat language is my pet peeve.  I’m an advocate of spelling everything out in my 140 character tweets as well as in my profile.  If you can’t spell everything out in the space allotted, then your message has just missed the point of twitter.

And one of a very good profile example I could think of is this. Forgive me.

Short and sweet twitter handle. Non-Egg avatar. Concise, yet funny, profile description.  Dare I say it, winning!

Since I was going through so many twitter accounts. Some of them emerged as spectacularly bad profile.  Eventually, I started tweeting them at #YourAssIsGettingDeleted. (I know it should be “unfollowed”. But “deleted” is just more satisfying…)

Some of these accounts fail to follow basic the criteria I mentioned earlier. Of course, which account you think is appropriate or not to follow, that’s totally up to you. But I mean, some of these SCREAMED to be deleted.

Your ass is getting deleted if…

• YOUR PROFILE INFORMATION IS IN ALL CAPS JUST IN CASE NOBODY PAYS ATTENTION.
• Or #everything #is #in #hashtags #just #in #case #you #want #to #know #what #useless #topics #they’re #interested #in
• Or has excessive amounts of [heart symbols]
• Your avatar is the Twitter Egg. No, I don’t even care if that the account is spammy or not. No avatar, no follow.
• Even worse, your avatar is STILL the Twitter Egg despite the fact that you have been using the account to tweet regularly for a few years.
• But worst of all, the above account is for an “established marketing company”.
• While billing yourself as a marketing “professional”, your avatar is of yourself, shirtless, looking very Jersey Shore “guido”.
• Your twitter handle is a jumble of letters and numbers. (Usually accompanied by the Twitter Egg avatar.)
• Or in 1337 speak (that’s “leet speak”, the geeky way of spelling by substituting numbers for letters). I mean, SERIOUSLY? Who still DOES that?!
• When every other, if not all, of your tweets, you use the word “c*nt”. Profanity in tweets is one thing. I swear on twitter on and off myself. But that was too much.
• Your profile says “Follow me and I’ll follow you back”.
• Or “I like to enter sweepstakes”.
• Or “I like the share links to discounts”.
• Or “I’m one of the coolest people you’ll ever meet”.
• Or “I’m a kind of a hipster”…which no real hipster would admit to that.

But I digress.

Have you come across any twitter profiles that qualify for the  #YourAssIsGettingDeleted list? Share here or head onto twitter.

I found it odd that there was so much junk and spam on their feed. And then I realized that this account was following over 3,100 people.

And yes, the account was indeed following spammers, bots, fake accounts, and random people it should not be following.

It seems that at one point in time, this account had an auto-follow set up where an application would automatically follow whoever follows your account, indiscriminately.  On top of that, at some point, someone decided to just follow anyone who mentioned the brand, or perhaps tweeted about being at the same convention where the brand was exhibiting.

Some people–and businesses–don’t think that WHO they follow matters.  Some are under the impression that the more people you follow, the more people would follow you back.  We all thought that at the beginning. It is a classic newbie mistake. I’ve done it myself when I first started.  But then you quickly realized that by following everybody, you have cluttered up your twitter stream so much so that you can’t seem to keep up with all the information you wanted or the conversation you wanted to get in on.

As a company and a brand, who you follow matters. Actually, it also matters for personal users too.  For examples, CNN has over 3 million followers but it is only following only 565 accounts.  Even the King of Twitter himself, Ashton Kutcher, with over 9 million followers, only follows 687 accounts.

If you follow Tom, Dick, and Harriott coming through the door, that leaves you with a Time Square ticker tape of an incoming feed which makes it difficult to really get any information, let alone  interact with your community.

People you are following should be those you actually want to get information from and those you would recommend to others, like your business partners, your favorite news sources, or even your competitors.

As for my client’s account, not only following 3,000+ people unwieldy, it was full of junk.  So, I took it upon myself to scan through everything and start unfollowing…or deleting, really…people off the list.

There is no rules anywhere that you have to follow someone forever.  We’re no emperor penguins here, folks. We don’t “mate for life” with the people we follow.  You can unfollow people you’ve been following.

Some of the criteria I use is more specific to the account, but for the most part, the most important rule of them all is this to follow people you know or want to get to know.

D’uh, I know. But some folks keep forgetting that.

You want to follow people you are interested in getting information from.  You want to follow people with whom you interact on a regular basis, or have had interacted with once or twice but proven to be someone you are interested in.

Once every a couple of months, go through your account and see who you are following. Do you remember why you’re following these people in the place? Do you even remember following these people? Have those people interacted with you recently…or ever?  But more importantly, do you still want to follow them?

If the answer is no to any of those, it’s time to clean house and unfollow some people.  Or as I’ve been saying for the past few weeks: delete their ass.

Don’t feel guilty about unfollowing folks. You’re getting rid of the clutter so you can get back to making real interactions and sharing meaningful information.

And you and your account will look good doing it too.

Now, by the time I had gone through about 1,000 accounts, I’ve grown frustrated–at at times amused–by people’s profiles and the interaction from seemingly professional accounts. As a way to get myself through the day, I started to share some of those gems as  #YourAssIsGettingDeleted.

We’ll cover those and the tips of what NOT to put on your Twitter profile inthe next installment.

A while back, I bought a Groupon for a horseback riding and wine tasting package with Wine Country Trails by Horseback at Wilson Creek Winery. Now that Brandon is learning to enjoy wine, we thought we’d make a weekend in Temecula out of it. Besides, with my current employment situation, we can’t quite get ourselves to Hawaii like we wanted to do originally.

We spent one night out there at the Temecula Creek Inn, getting in on their date night package. The dinner at Temet Grill was superb. The room was nice and roomy, and had the most comfy bed which was incredible after a day of wine tasting and an hour of horseback riding.

The next morning we went into Old Town Temecula for breakfast at the Swing Inn at the recommendation of the cashier at Wilson Creek. Then we hit just one more winery, Masia de Yabar, which came highly recommended by Annette, and headed home.

We didn’t need much to be perfectly happy with this weekend getaway. Actually, we never really need much of anything.  The weekend was perfect.

Now, back to the horses.

While Brandon has ridden horses growing up, this was my first time actually riding a horse.  I had no idea what I was doing whatsoever, but I did look the part with a real cowboy hat on my head. (Thanks to Brandon’s dad for that lovely gift the second time I went out to New Mexico.)  They paired me with this lovely painted horse named Carter who was a total sweetheart.  He just wanted to be close to any horse that would let him.  He was perfect for me because he just followed anyone near by so I didn’t really have to give him much encouragement to move forward.

Our group trotted through the vineyards. The grapes are all dormant at this time of year, but it’s still a sight to see. Hills and hills of the dried vines contrasting with the lush green orange and lemon groves in the background.  We rode through the groves too and it took all my strength not to grab any of the hanging fruits.

Somewhere in the middle of the grove, for a moment, I let myself believe that this could be my life.

Me, riding a horse through an orange grove, heading back to the country house with a large front porch.

I was just telling Brandon as we drove down the I-15 earlier that I could imagine myself being a country girl. To some of you, being in suburbia now is pretty much “country”.  And I’m sure you’re thinking that this former little princess couldn’t fare a year out on a farm. And you’d be right.  I don’t think I’d even last a weekend on a working dude ranch!

But I do believe I can totally live away from a city and be perfectly happy about it.

The point is that while some people want a big house, fancy car, and a glamorous life; all I ever want is a quiet country cottage…with high speed internet, a dining room that will fit 8 people, a kitchen with an island, a couple of cats running around, and a vegetable patch out back. Maybe with a lemon tree. Maybe even with a dog.

Brandon also wants that simple life.

Some of my newer friends have this quizzical look on their faces when I show up to an outing by myself, or that my choice in movie, television, and music is pretty much opposite of Brandon’s.  They wondered how on earth these two seemingly opposite people managed to stay married for 10 years.

Well, that was it. At the very core, we both want the quiet, simple life.  That was the foundation upon which we built our relationship.

I didn’t get to test drive the vision of us riding side by side through “our” orchard since Brandon’s horse wasn’t letting mine anywhere near him, let alone tell him of my daydream of the Prairie OakMonster. It was the first thing I shared with thime when we got back to the winery.

Brandon hugged me.

“We can certainly have that,” he said.  He kissed the top of my head.

“But at this rate, one of us will have to win the lottery to get there.”

The man’s also funny. That’s another reason why I love my husband so much.

Cheers to us! (Thanks David for the pic from last year’s Renaissance Faire!)

My host mom Bonnie, also one of our school’s counselor at the time, had it planned out for me perfectly. She enrolled me in handbell choir with ultra small class size so I could get comfortable making new friends, and because my teacher Mr. Benjamin is from Singapore.  She also got me in Drama class to my parents’ protest.  Drama class would help my confidence, she said.  I was also in good hands with Mr. Nowlin whom had been asked to help me along.

Wouldn’t you know it? Bonnie was right about both classes helping me adjusted to culture shock. I got my confidence back in a big way.

You see, back home in Thailand, if there was a show put on of any kind, I was in it. I was the go-to ballet girl, and one of the “brave ones” that’d go on stage when everyone else would run away. Even if it was just turning on the lights and turning on A/V. (I was backstage enough to know ALL the switches and where everything was kept.) I was a stage rat long before I came here.

With a little push from Bonnie, by the 2nd semester of my junior year, I was already on stage, playing mostly-silent multiple roles in a student-directed children’s musical.  Senior year, I joined the women’s choir and performed a duet with my friend Amber at a choir concert.  And then I was in two student-directed productions, a play and then Snoopy the Musical.

I had a few lines in The Curious Savage as the psychologist Dr. Emmett who runs the asylum. My lines were few but they were poignant.  I was trying so hard to pronounce everything right that I would get nervous and rushed the lines during rehearsals.  I practiced all the time and I was told I did well at the performances.  But then again, I was my worst critic. So when the audition for Snoopy the Musical was announced, I was the only one who showed up begging for the silent role of Woodstock.

When I told Brandon, this, he didn’t believe that I volunteered to NOT speak. LOL

I gotta say though, I did like miming my way through Snoopy. And, you can say whatever you want, I DO like pantomime as a performing art. There. I said it. Let’s move on.

Over 10 years later, fate would have it that would run into the boy who played Charlie Brown.

A few years ago when I organized Thrill the World at L.A. Live, this tall gentleman was one of the volunteers at the event. All volunteers went to dinner afterward and he and I hit it off, so we connected over Facebook. It was then that I found out his last name…which sounded familiar…then I saw that he went to the same high school. One flip through the year book later, it was confirmed.

Crazy, right?

Later on Facebook would also have it that I also found Snoopy, the other Woodstock, one of the directors, and Linus who scanned the above photo for me.

That brought us to yesterday.

Charlie Brown showed up on my Facebook timeline for something else which jogged a Snoopy nostalgia for me.  So I went searching for those rare footage of high school performances of the musical so I can walk down memory lane. But then I found this clip which I thought would be a montage of bits and pieces of Snoopy cartoons with the soundtrack from the original cast.

But it wasn’t. It was so much more than that. It was the footage from the 1988 animated movie…which NONE OF US knew existed.

I need a copy of that. RIGHT. NOW!  It took a while of hunting to find that there are some VHS tapes available in the U.S. and that DVDs are available only in the UK.

My DVD is on its way to me now.

Oh my god. I’ve just become one of THOSE people who try to recapture their high school glory.

Given, my “glory” is a non-speaking part in a student-directed production of a children’s musical. For elite drama kids, I pretty much got the shittiest gig possible. But it’s one of the best memory I had from high school.

For a nerdy, loner-ish, first international student to graduate from the new, mostly white high school, that was a big fucking deal.  Big enough to track it down.

Then again, I also did track down–and contacted–my high school crush while in college. Cyber stalking…er…researching at the dawn of the internet age was no small feat, I tell you. But that’s a story for another day.

Have you ever tracked down a piece of your childhood or high school memories? Do share!

Got this from Despair.com

Olaina posted this article about craziest interview questions people were asked in 2011. I have never been asked anything crazy before, lucky me I guess.

I was asked once about what social media campaign I think was successful. And my answer was nothing I can think of. Why not? Because so far nothing grab my attention as brilliant just yet. So there, I might’ve just shot myself in the foot but seriously. If it’s good enough, it would have had ME, a social media nerd, all participating in it by now.

But anyways. I thought I’d take a crack at these 25 “crazy” questions to see how badly I’d do. And yes, I answered with the first thing that came to mind.

How many people are using Facebook in San Francisco at 2:30pm on a Friday? (asked at Google)

I don’t know. 42?

Just entertain me for five minutes, I’m not going to talk. (Acosta)

Do you have a piano or a guitar? Or perhaps some paper (I can make origami with)?

If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it? (Hewlett-Packard)

Have you asked the Chinese about that?

What do you think of garden gnomes? (Trader Joe’s … why am I not surprised)

I have a USC one named Theodore. He’s not in the garden, though. He sits inside our apartment by the front door.  I also have one that holds salt and pepper shaker on my dining table, but he doesn’t have a name. Hm. How did I miss naming him?

Is your college GPA reflective of your potential? (The Advisory Board)

My parents seem to think so.

Would Mahatma Gandhi have made a good software engineer? (Deloitte)

Seriously?

If you could be #1 employee but have all your coworkers dislike you or you could be #15 employee and have all your coworkers like you, which would you choose? (ADP)

#15. Happily.

How would you cure world hunger? (Amazon.com)

Have you seen “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”? Yep. That.

Room, desk and car – which do you clean first? (Pinkberry)

Car. I mean, I have to see my room and you’ll see why.

Does life fascinate you? (Ernst & Young)

Everyday.

Given 20 ‘destructible’ light bulbs (which breaks at certain height), and a building with 100 floors, how do you determine the height that the light bulb breaks? (QUALCOMM)

Have you tried finding better bulbs?

Please spell ‘diverticulitis’. (MSI Engineering)

Can you repeat that? (Are you kidding me?)

Name 5 uses of a stapler without staple pins. (EvaluServe)

By staple pins, do you mean staples? Oh, okay then. A projectile weapon. A blunt weapon. A paper weight. A gag gift. A door stop.

How much money did residents of Dallas/Ft. Worth spend on gasoline in 2008? (American Airlines)

More than they should have.

How would you get an elephant into a refrigerator? (Horizon Group Properties)

You’re gonna need a bigger fridge.

You have a bouquet of flowers. All but two are roses, all but two are daisies, and all but two are tulips. How many flowers do you have? (Epic Systems)

3.

How many planes are currently flying over Kansas? (Best Buy)

42.

How many different ways can you get water from a lake at the foot of a mountain, up to the top of the mountain? (Disney Parks & Resorts)

As many as you can think up.

What is 37 times 37? (Jane Street Capital)

Er… / Can I have a piece of paper?

If you could be a superhero, what power would you possess? (Rain and Hail Insurance)

Super agility or super fast reflex.

If you were a Microsoft Office program, which one would you be? (Summit Racing Equipment)

Movie Maker. So easy to use for simple projects but nobody knows it’s there.

Pepsi or Coke? (United Health Group)

Neither, really. I don’t drink that much soda. But if I do, I’ll take a Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke.

Are you exhaling warm air? (Walker Marketing)

Yes. (What the…?)

You’re in a row boat, which is in a large tank filled with water. You have an anchor on board, which you throw overboard (the chain is long enough so the anchor rests completely on the bottom of the tank). Does the water level in the tank rise or fall? (Tesla Motors)

It doesn’t change a thing. What does the anchor have to do with the water in the tank. And why are you in a row boat with a tank of water to begin with? Get a bigger boat.

How do you feel about those jokers at Congress? (Consolidated Electrical)

Has anyone called Batman?

…and those were 25 reasons why you should hire me. Right now.

P.S. And those who are wondering about why I keep answering with 42…

(The bit from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Someone asks why I set goals. Well, I’m trying to set a habit-forming goals instead of something I know I can’t attain.  Whatever I did well, I’ll keep up with for the years to come. Goal #10 has been a growing list, and I would like to keep it growing each year.

Now, let’s first look at what a failure I have been in 2011 before we move on to set goals for 2012.

2011 Recap: 5 out of 10

1. 12 books a year – Win!

Well, I got to 11.5. I’m going to call that a win. I spent quite a bit of time trying get through Emperor of All Maladies before I gave up, so I’m going to count that as a 0.5. I really don’t like nonfiction as it turns out.

1. The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
2. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – Seth Grahame-Smith
3. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer – Siddhartha Mukherjee …Did not finish
4. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs
5. Ghost Story: The Dresden Files – Jim Butcher
6. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? – Seth Godin
7. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
8. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
9. Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
10. Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files – Jim Butcher
11. Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale (Graphic novel)
12. Full Dark, No Stars – Stephen King

2. Play piano/guitar/sing on Sundays after dinner for an hour – Fail

I perhaps did that three or four times…

3. Eat a salad a week…Vegan Tuesdays don’t count!- Win

I did pretty good on this one. It’s good to have a few salads you’re addicted to and must have on regular basis.

4. Catch up on DVR on Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends (Friday is flexible) – Epic fail

LOL … Why did I even bother setting this goal!

5. Cook one new recipe a month…and blog it!- Fail

And you thought that with having more time during unemployment would be conducive to more blogging! I did cook more but I didn’t blog as much.  Also, once I started working at Saatchi LA, with me getting home at irregular hours, I actually haven’t cooked much at all.

6. Wednesday Date Night – Win-ish

Having gone out to eat quite a bit in the later months, we sort of just called that date nights too. At least we did get out to do stuff together a bit.

7. If the hair needs a wash, work out! – Fail

Again, why did I even set this goal if I keep forgetting?

8. Write every week day on the way to work – Fail

Hauling the laptop to work everyday became cumbersome. And then I didn’t commute on the bus any more. I could’ve written every morning during unemployment, but obviously that didn’t happen much either.

9. A secret goal…which was to find a new job than the one I had – EPIC WIN

So, yeah. I consider this a win because the old job did get left behind.  I still haven’t found a full-time position yet though. Hee.

10. Keep up with past success – Mostly win

Weekly lunch out and coffee treats, totally worked. I actually eliminated coffee treats altogether at some point!  Vegan Tuesdays stayed mostly dry and mostly egg-less.  I did switch out a few days in the year but I did quite well.  I’m still taking Italian lessons albeit ever so slowly. And I’m still finishing up magazine within days of their arrival.  The only fail in this would be that I didn’t try NaNoWrimo again.  November has become way too busy with tailgating and such that it was not realistic even to try to write any more.

Not bad, right? So…yay!

Now. For the next year…

2012 Goals

1. Find a job I love

Whatever it is! Now that I have had a taste of what it is like to work where you’re happy instead of just grinding away, this will be a difficult challenge. But I am sure I will find my place in the world.

2. Blog once a week on OakMonster.com

With all the microblogs I’ve got going on, this blog gets neglected. I’m going to fix that.

3. Cook one new recipe a month and blog it

Let’s try this one again…

4. Launch the Side Project

We have a web project we have been discussing with a friend for a while now. I just have to actually get to work on it.

5. Do at least 20 push-ups and/or crunches everyday

Baby step for this fitness averted girl.

6. Try one new restaurant a month

My taste buds need an adventure. Besides, this will give us perfect excuse for date nights!

7. Take a trip somewhere even nearby once a season

Once in a while I’d ditch Italian class for a weekend getaway. We’ll have to maneuver around the spring when Brandon is taking classes and the fall when I have football games. But we can totally do this! Already have a weekend getaway plan in January for our 10th wedding anniversary.

8. Play the piano/guitar once a month

Once a week was a bit ambitious. Let’s start smaller.

9. Update the paper trails

You’re supposed to keep, what, 7 years of documentation? I’m sure I have more like 12 years around here. Time to commit to cleaning house!

10. Keep up with past successes

Read 12 books a year. Lunch/coffee out only once a week. Veggie Tuesday (but less strict on eggs). Eat a salad for a meal on a non-veggie day. Continue with Italian classes. Leave no magazine unread.

Got goals? Share!

2011 has been a serious roller coaster for me professionally and personally. It seems like it was just yesterday when I was updating the 2010 end of the year list!

Golly.

2011 in Pictures

Jan – March: Welcome to the family, Robin Hood the Hyundai Sonata! / Custom made truffles from Drago Centro / Got laid off

April – June: New Zealand vacation / Cochon 555 / The Nerd Machine Slave Leia PSA

July – September: 4th of July at the Los Alamitos Base / Camping on Catalina / USC football season

October – December: Awesome Halloween / Thorough destruction of the bRuins / Annual candy cane martini at Patty’s house

Drinking Buddy of the Year: Brandon…again

When you’re unemployed for most of the year, who else would be your drinking buddy but your husband!  Brandon has returned to claim the title since he got it in 2009.  This year, the mister also started to try wine, so we’ve had a little more fun with that.  Speaking of wine…

Bar of the Year: District Wine, Long Beach

I was introduced to District Wine by USC Alumni Club of Long Beach.  The club has many mixers hosted here and the board congregates here for the board meeting for bottlomless mimosas on a Sunday.  Elegant but cozy place with friendliest of staff can be really mellow some nights and lively on others.

With a variety of wine by the glass and very reasonably priced by the bottle and delicious nosh, if this place was around the corner from my house, I would certainly haunt it.  I like District Wine so much when I was contacted by Ghirardelli to host the Intense Dark chocolate and wine pairing event, I didn’t even try calling anywhere else but here.

I’m looking forward to many, many more good times!

Restaurant of the Year: Vino e Cucina, Long Beach

My friend Brenda introduced me to Vino e Cucina a few years back. It was REAL Italian food, owned and operated by Italian family.  I totally loved the food there since the very first bite, but I couldn’t get Brandon through the door for the longest time.  You see, the first time we popped in was a Friday night when they were still in the one store. With no reservation, they couldn’t seat anyone. B didn’t like that too much.

Since then they had expanded into the neighboring storefronts, and I finally convinced Brandon to come order a to-go dinner on a weeknight. The food proved itself worthy.  And now we eat there about once every other month.

Newcomer Award: Saatchi LA Peeps

“But Oakley, you only worked there for 4 months! How could you be so attached to these people?”

When you find a work environment you like, meet the people you adore, and get a sense of a company culture that fits you like a glove, you can’t help yourself feeling like you’ve always worked there. I feel like I belong there more than any other place I’ve worked at before (maybe except HSX.com).  I’ve met great people and created some awesome memories in my short time here.  This will not be soon forgotten.

Oh, and again, thanks, Matt.

High point of the Year: New Zealand Trip

Fresh off the layoff, the trip was the perfect springboard into the new adventure.  It was a carefree trip. We ate a lot. We walked a lot. Then we drove a LOT but we also saw a lot along the way.  We nerded out with Lord of the Rings sites. We drank plenty of wine and guzzled enough local beer. We took a million pictures (and I haven’t uploaded them all yet).

It was great seeing my dad and getting him out traveling even on a very limited schedule. My mom had always wanted to visit New Zealand. In a way, we were taking this trip for her as well.

The best, though, is that my dad and I reunited with my cousins Nancy and Nat who we haven’t seen in 10+ years.  I also finally get to meet my nephew Brandon for the first time.

What an adventure.

Low point of the year: Unemployment

Yes, I was all gung-ho about my new adventures. Then I was defeated by the reality of it.  I had some days when all the rejection emails and resumes that disappear into the black hole that is the Orange County job market really got me.  There were days when I felt useless and stupid. And there were days when I thought I should just grab a cup and go panhandle.

I’ve gotten used to a set schedule and a steady paycheck for these past 4 months. Going back to not working is going to be interesting all over again.

Holiday of the Year: Halloween…again

That’s it. I’m retiring this category since a) Halloween is my favorite holiday, and b) it’s ALWAYS awesome.

This year I didn’t have quite the same number of costume change as last year.  But I still had quite a bit.  A 1980s prom princess at work pre-Halloween. A Trojan Cat in the Hat for Halloween weekend tailgate.  Myself aka the Devil for work on Halloween day and then the TARDIS in a tutu for Halloween party that evening.

That TARDIS outfit though, I’m quite proud of. Now you just have to find more occasions to rock out my blue tutu. Hee.

Song of the Year: Pumped Up Kicks, Foster the People

I know, I know. This song is now overplayed.  However, you have to give it credit of the catchiness.  I mean, I caught it a bit before it blew up and I still caught myself humming it out of the blue.

Movie of the Year: Captain America

As a Harry Potter fan, the final Potter movie should be on this list. However, it just wasn’t. Since I haven’t seen The Muppets just yet, Captain America will be crowned as my favorite this year.

Super hero movies has gone gray. You know, all the heroes have some kind of flaws or darkness they have to deal with.  It’s so refreshing to see a TRUE super her with no baggage.

Surprise Movie of the Year: The Warrior’s Way

Brandon got this on rental. Horrendously cheesy with the story, the comic book CGI, and gratuitous violence. Everyone is over the top and stereotypical. The plot is predictable as hell too. But you know almost immediately that you can’t take any of it seriously. Even the actors don’t seem to be taking it seriously. Once you look at this as a live action comic book rooted in no reality of any kind, some kind of a fantastic voyage where everyone is in on the joke, you’ll totally enjoy it.

Book of the Year: Hunger Game trilogy

Oh, Entertainment Weekly Magazine. You influence me so. After having read so much about it, I decided to pick up the Hunger Game paperback for my New Zealand trip. I just couldn’t put it down. I ordered the box set the moment I came back and plowed through the rest in a record speed.

I mean, what’s not to like? Post apocalyptic, totalitarian world. A teenage girl fights for her family. Two boys who love her yet she doesn’t really know what she’s feeling.

If you can skip through the narratives about the food, the fashion, and how she was confused about her relationships–pretty much the parts Brandon couldn’t stand and therefore didn’t read past the first book–you have yourself one kick-ass sci-fi trilogy.

And next summer, the movie. Squee!

TV Show of the Year: American Horror Story

I actually didn’t want to continue watching after I watched the pilot. My skin was left crawling. Too intense of an hour of television.  But curiosity–and free on demand–brought me back.

And boy am I back and so totally obsessed with this show now. (Glee? What’s that?)

That’s about it for 2011.

Photo from NeonTommy.com

The bRUINS will never live this one down for years to come.

But I, for one, really am thankful this year for my friend Matt.

Without Matt, I wouldn’t be working at this contract, making new friends, learning new skills. I surely wouldn’t have found a work environment I truly feel at home in.

Without Matt, I wouldn’t have the budget to continue to host a Thanksgiving feast for my “orphan” friends as I have done for the past few years.

I would say that I owe Matt my first born for his help, but he already has two kids and I’m not having any. But pretty much, if Matt calls my house at 3 a.m. in need of a babysitter, I’d do it.

I would write a song about Matt like the Cantonians sing of Jayne Cobb. But then I couldn’t quite make it rhymes. “The hero of the Borens, the man they called Matt…?”

Talk about owing somebody a big one. There’s no other person I’d be more than happy to owe it to.

So, Matt. Thank you for being my big brother. Thank you for my job.

And thank you for my turkey.

To be exact, the Guinness-Spiced Cider Brined Turkey…with mashed red potatoes, brussels sprouts and bacon salad, fresh cranberry sauce, and Johnny Appleseed cocktails.  The “orphans” are supplying the rest.

Amy is bringing stuffing and her famous raisin bread. David is bringing some form of green beans his kids will approve. Bob is bringing dessert. And Olaina is bringing Ella to provide the cuteness while Justin is at work.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

Us Thais, we traditionally celebrate every 12 years.  It’s a complete cycle in the Chinese zodiac.

These years are supposed to be your milestones in life. At 12, you’re not little kid any more–you’re becoming a teenager.  At 24, you’re now becoming a responsible adult. At 36, you’ve got stuff to show for now that you’ve been an adult awhile. At 48 and onward, you’re just celebrating having been around the blocks so long.

As of today, I’m a year shy from my 3rd cycle. And all I have to show for is a closet full of t-shirts, a messy home office, and a growing–but awesome–sci-fi-related costume collection.

I am the TARDIS!

I wrote on Facebook a few days ago that I’m not where I thought I would be at this point in my life.

I mean having a full-time job, living in our own place, raising a couple of cats, and reminiscing about the epic trip to Italy.

Instead, I’m working on a freelance contract at the dream company, living in a cozy apartment in a great neighborhood, occasionally hanging out with a neighbor’s cat, and reminiscing about the New Zealand trip we took after I lost my job in April.

It’s not all according to plan, but it ain’t a bad detour.

But that is life’s best gift right there. The surprises. The new experiences. The friends you meet along the way.  And wisdom that comes with age does come in handy sometimes.

The gray hair, though, is getting ridiculous…