*

2009 Awards

Drinking Buddy of the Year: Brandon, actually. Surprise!  The mister doesn’t usually party down, but he has taken up a beer here and there this past year, a stressful one for his work.  So we had gone out for a beer together more than the year before.  Cheers to you, honey bunny!

Bar of the Year: Hennessey’s Tavern and Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach. These two places never fail to deliver cold pints and some great eats.  They’re our go-to places when we want to run away from the daily life for a little while.

Sorry to disappoint y’all with the lack of Downtown LA’s bar feature this time around.  I haven’t partied in town much at all.  Climate change around the office will affect your happy hour weather, I tell ya.

Newcomer Award: Twitter Gang. I have grown to love folks I met at Tweet Ups especially @dananner, @anaperiodista, @fstop23, @davidmoyle, @sendchocolate, @joncruz, @vbesack, and the disappearing @phraktyl.  We went shooting pictures.  We played Rock Band.  We got drunk.  We had overall great times on and off line.  Great year to make new friends!

High Point of the Year: Watch Thrill the World Los Angeles became the awesome success. From mere 100 last year grown into the thousands. It still blows my mind.

Low Point of the Year: The Christmas Flu and USC Football Rebuilding Year. Yep. Suckage.

Best Holiday: Halloween…again. I mean, prancing through Pine Street as Zombie Princess Leia, rocked that stage with my awesome crew of zombies?  Best. Halloween. EVER!

Song of 2009: Glee soundtracks. I mean, I can barely pin it down to just ONE song!  Almost everything from Glee I totally dig.  I’m especially partial to Somebody to Love, Don’t Rain on My Parade, Defying Gravity (the duet), No Air, Sweet Caroline (Can I get a hell-yeah from Team Puck?), and this one I can’t stop singing.  Lea Michele.  What a revelation!

Movie of 2009: Avatar. I’m sorry, Star Trek and District 9!  You came sooo close!

Surprise Movie of 2009: Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story – Rod Faifa Ma Ha Na Tuh – รถไฟฟ้า..มาหานะเธอ.  I’m soooo in love.

Restaurant of the Year: Bottega Louie. Great food and ambiance.  Totally a favorite place to run away from work to for a long lunch.  Okay it’s a little loud, but what an awesome place to be!  Affordable awesomeness.

Book of the Year: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Seriously. Go read that.

TV Show of the Year: Glee. Duh.

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2009 Goals Tally:  6 out of 10…kind of.

1. FAIL – Explore Kung-fu.  HAH!  I did not.

2. FAIL – Drink more water.  Did okay for a couple of months before waking up to pee in the middle of the night got old.

3. FAIL -More guitar/piano/singing – at least twice a week.  I did try for once a month, but that didn’t happen since my office got so messy I can’t even get to the piano.

4. PARTIAL SUCCESS -Read more books – One book a month at least.  Actually did 10 out of 12.  Not too bad!

• Water for Elephants, Sarah Gruen – Love it.
• Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Lynne Truss – Learned all sorts of new things.
• Watchmen, Alan Moore – The movie ending makes a hell of a lot more sense than the book I tell ya.
• Turn Coat: The Dresden Files Book 11, Jim Butcher – Always love Jim.  This is no exception.
• Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert – Definitely love the Eat/Pray part. I could do without the Bali experience.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith – Best. Book. EVER!
• Bad Things, Michael Marshall – I’m still scratching my head at that one. Whuh…?
• The Foodie Handbook, Pim Techamuanvivit – Totally enjoyable and awesome.  She takes gorgeous pictures.
• Heat Wave, “Richard Castle” – Totally a fun read for us Castle fans.

5. FAIL – Add yoga to the routine – at least once a week.  Not so much.  However, I ended up losing 6 lbs. from September through November with the Thriller work out and stress diet.  Haven’t gotten any of it back…yet.

6. SUCCESS – Take a language class.  Buongiorno! 

7. PARTIAL SUCCESS – Cook one new recipe a month.  I went with a few new ones in a month and then go without cooking for weeks.  But we did try new recipes.

8. SUCCESS – Fix them teeth.  5 more months!!!

9. SUCCESS – Fix them eyes. Well, I *did* decide on not getting LASIK done after extensive reserach and serious discussion with my optometrist.  There’s a 50/50 chance I would come out normal or my dry eyes are going to get more severe to a level that’ll become problematic.  I’ll stick with the glasses with that kind of odds, thanks.

10. SUCCESS – Keep up with whatever is working well.  Still a latte a week here.

My knowledge of MJ is backward than from most people.  I was growing up in an era in Thailand where trends and pop cultures arrived months, if not years, later than in America/UK.

It was my brothers who introduced me to MJ after his famous moonwalk on MTV.  I remembered the MTV video we bought and watched, and watched and watched.  At some point, I remember my brother Onk had learned the theory of the moonwalk from somewhere and was teaching me.  We quickly realized that we couldn’t moonwalk on carpet.  And/or barefooted.

I never quite connected Billy Jean video with MJ back in the days. All I knew was either the song by itself, or that video where the sidewalk lit up.

Then came Thriller video.  My mom bought us the special video with the making off documentary.  After having seen it through the first time, the many times that followed, I would stop the video after the dancing was done.  The zombies attacking the house scared the beejesus out of me.  And I didn’t even know what that Vincent Price–obviously didn’t know who he was either–was saying but his voice scared me.

And of course, just like anyone else, I tried to learn the dance.

Then it was time of Bad. Back then, I absolutely adored MJ’s new face.  He was beautiful to me.  And Smooth Criminal video, and subsequently, Moonwalker became my favorite movie.  I even remembered playing Moonwalker Nintendo game at my friend’s’ house.

I’ve ALWAYS wanted to visit Neverland when I was growing up, and wanted to HAVE my own Neverland when I grow up.

I haven’t followed MJ much after that until my brothers came home one summer with Dangerous CD and all the buzz about Black or White video.  Again, watched bajillion times on video.   I coudln’t stop listening to that CD or stop going over all the tiniest little details on that cover art.  The obsession bled into my choice of performance for a talent show at school.  Me being an environmental nut at the moment,  choreographed and rehearsed over a weekend with another friend to Heal the World. It was a message piece nobody got and obviously written off as boring.  Probably my worse school performance ever.  LOL.

It wasn’t until I got to the U.S., I found out about MJ as a part of the Jackson 5.

After Dangerous, I haven’t gone back to Michael for musical inpiration.  Okay, maybe for a moment there with Scream. He seemed to going off the rail right about then and I stopped paying attention. Until he announced a performance in Bangkok.

I wasn’t home in time that summer to go to the concert with a huge gaggle of my school friends.  But dammit, I WANTED TO GO!  (Consolation prize? My dad took me to see Whitney Houston later on.)  As we all know, that was his last before THE trial.

As much as I wanted to not pay attention, I still gravitated toward MJ somehow.  My first trip to the U.S. and visit to Disneyland, I wanted to keep going back to Captain EO.  As a matter of fact, until it was closed down, two things I never missed were the Captain and Star Tour.

My freshman year in the dorm, I dug around my closet for a Halloween costume and turned up as Michael Jackson circa Black or White video.  I had a white tank top underneath a white button down, black pants, white socks and black loafers. I wrapped one arm with gauze for that one glove/bracer thing he had going.  My suite mates helped  braided my hair the night before to get that lovely MJ curls.  And, the final touch, our Caucasian suite mate loaned me her foundation to make me “white”. My friend Katie probably has a picture of us around somewhere still…

Not until Thrill the World was I reconnected with Michael again as an adult.

He might have been a total wack job and an alleged pedophile.  But there’s no denying his musical genius and dance prowess.  There’s also no denying he has always been a part of my life.

Good night, Michael. You finally have your Neverland.

Gregg, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

Now. The coverage.

David brought wings from Hooters. I brought pasty pies from Pasty Kitchen. Gregg provided alcohol.

This past Friday, the Hooters & Pasties was born.

(Thank GOD, nobody taped me channeling Thom Yorke and Eddy Veddar…)

Proceed at your own risk of hearing loss.

The second session contains some truly frightening vocal performance. However, hilarity factor is REALLY high.

But Dresden is just too frellin’ CUTE in this!!!

A shocker? Nah. I think Susan approached burn out right before the finale.  And she already has all the publicity one would need to succeed.  These boys NEED BGT win to make it out there.

Poor Shaheen.  I was rooting for you, kid!

The show hasn’t even started yet but I have Glee on my brains.

Talentless little outcast who just wants to sing.  My life story?  Yep, pretty much.

Also, once a choir geek, always a choir geek.

Since I saw the clip a couple of days ago, I have music–just random songs–playing in my head all day and caught myself walking around singing or humming.

Not that I’ve been extraordinary happy or anything.  I just feel like singing.

I mean, I was waiting for the bus today.  Looking around the people around me, I imagined myself breaking into a song.

“On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady was the tune.  Partly contributed to British Got Talent’s Holly Steel.

But it was kind of appropriate in the middle of Downtown LA open space. By a fountain. And some lamp posts…well, flag poles, but yeah you get the idea.

I was *this* close from actually burst into song.

This living room rock star actually wants to be on Broadway.  Sometimes she tries to claw her way out of the living room into real life.

I ended up humming loudly to myself while I wait for my bus.

Not today. But someday.

Sometimes, you really can’t stop the music.

So when the final purchase of my shirt-tastic shopping spree came in (I mean, Rock – Paper – Scissors – Lizard – Spock!? How could you NOT buy?), it took all of 5 minutes for us to set up this shot Brandon took, and for me to submit with suggested caption of “You Spocking to me?”

Ladies and gentlemen, you are now looking at the winning portrait of  ThinkGeek.com’s Action Shot of April 2009.

It didn’t take ThinkGeek team long to approve the shot.  James was surprised when he was browsing ThinkGeek and found my picture a couple of days later.

“Am I hallucinating or is this you?” he emailed.

I’m sooo certifiably geeky.  AND proud of it!

My mom had always told me, according to all the fortune tellers, that I, like my dad, don’t have any “luck”.  As in, we won’t win the “enter to win” type stuff or the lottery.  Money won’t fall out of the sky or someone would give us anything out of the blue.  We have to earn our success, making our own luck.

So far, I earned a couple of them this year.  First was the Port of Long Beach photo contest which I was one of three winners–one other being Annette (@dananner).

And now this.

Mom and her army of fortune tellers was right.

*

P.S. For those of you oblivious to RPSLS, please edumacate yourselves.

Dear Wade aka Deadpool: I am from a far off exotic place and I’m “new, exciting people”.  Meet me and I’ll let you kill me with your hotness.

And Wolfy, darling, milk DOES your body soooo good.

Yummmm

I’m not much of an environmentalist but I’m slowly becoming a plastic bag usage nazi.

I have canvas bags in my car and use them for my grocery shopping everywhere, and I refuse to take any plastic bags whenever I can carry my own loot out of the store…which was met with a LOT of  “Are you sure?”

Yes I AM sure I can carry my prescription and a bottle of Nyquil out on my own.

Yes I AM sure a loaf of bread, a pack of sliced cheese, and 2 tomatoes won’t need a bag.

Yes I AM sure I won’t need a bag for ONE bottle of Dr. Pepper, doesn’t matter what size it is.

It’s not just us shopper who need to change. It’s the shopkeepers as well.

I do recycle bottles and cans at home because we have a recycling trailer thingy close by.  And with the amount of sodas and Yakult consumed by Brandon and I, respectively, it would be ridiculous not to recycle those.

However, if our apartment has a full recycling trash pick up like those in private homes, I would recycle everything possible.  I think it is worth the time to recycle.

Finally, my biggest environmental guilt.

I am a big guilty for not bringing my coffee mug down to Starbucks.  I was doing that for a while and ended up with up to 3 unwashed mugs on my desk.  Now that I’m doing Starbucks latte type only once a week, I probably should pick that habit up again, and bring a plastic bottle in for my occasional iced tea treats.

Now only if we can do something about garbage BAGS we put all this stuff in.

And it wouldn’t be Earth Day without this.