dancing, sexy furry animals..?

probably the most disturbing and ridiculous commercial i've ever seen. oh, orangina. made by the mill: www.the-mill.com

i <3 target.

it's holiday season! and that means holiday commericals, and that means target's marketing people must have come up with some sweet tv spots with some sweet music. i adored last year's using the sounds of frapp. this year, it's jim noir's "my patch" reworked especially for target. very catchy little tune that's been running through my mind all day. gee, it must be tired.

and of course, the actual jim noir song:

A message from the President, Provost and EVP

We are writing to inform you of a serious incident that occurred on the periphery of the Penn campus involving several individuals not affiliated with the University.

At approximately 12:10 a.m. today, two Penn police officers responded to a reported disturbance involving an armed suspect inside of Club Wizzards, located at 38th and Chestnut streets. The Penn officers found that one of the club employees had been shot and critically wounded by the suspect. The suspect, who ignored police requests to drop his weapon, was subsequently fatally wounded by police. The club employee is listed in critical condition at HUP.


which reminds me, just a few weeks ago, there was a shooting outside koko bongo's (same block) on a saturday night around 1am. oh, ilafilthia, killadelphia, how you worry me.

thanksgiving2007 : bostonMA.

thanksgiving i was up from 4am until 6am. woke up that early to ensure i could shower, walk to the train station, take the train to the airport, and go through airport security without having to worry about time. surprisingly, the airport wasn't that busy and my flight wasn't delayed and even landed early.

after taking the free shuttle from manchester to boston, harv picked me up and then we went to logan airport to drop off heidi (cindyL's sister) and pick up theodore. from there we went to john's house where i got to see my niece natalie for the first time in almost a year (and she has gotten so smart and talkative and even more adorable, which i really didn't think was humanly possible) and meet my week old baby nephew dylan. he's a little ball of sleep and gums. and so tiny!

dinner consisted of wine, a turducken, meat loaf, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet mashed potatoes, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, mango salsa and yellow tail sashimi fresh straight from japan. it was a very yummy dinner. around 11, harv, cindyL, mum, dad, theodore and i drove to the outlets to do some black friday shopping. i was feeling sick, and traffic was absolutely horrendous, but we managed to start shopping around 1ish and stuck around until almost 5am. once i walked around for a bit in the fresh, albeit freeeeeezing, air, i felt a lot better. in the end, i bought a pair of pumps (originally $120, marked down to $30) from kenneth cole and theodore got a bluish-grey sherpa-lined hoodie from j.crew.

friday, the fam had a late lunch at shabu-zen in chinatown, and teddy and hannah came along. nowhere near as good as the shabu shabu place in little tokyo, los angeles, but still decent. we walked around boston for a bit. had dinner with the fam at giacomo's, which has an amazing huge-portioned seafood pasta. saturday morning we had a taiwanese-style breakfast at this little place in the middle of nowhere, then we headed over to harvard square. while mom and dad did their shopping for harvard paraphernalia, theodore and i grabbed burgers at bartley's - sooo amazing. other tasty stops that day in the square: berryline for frozen yogurt and burdick's for hot chocolate. theodore left to catch his flight to chicago in the evening, and harv rented i now pronounce you chuck & larry. stupidest movie ever. but, it was so funny to my parents that neither of them fell asleep at any point, which has never ever happened. ever.

today low-key and spent mostly at john+cindy's playing with natalie and dylan. caught the shuttle back up to manchester and got back to my apartment in philly around 9pm. exhausted, btw.

as for theodore and my family. things went pretty well. my mom's biggest complaint was that he wasn't talkative / social enough, which, if you know him, is really funny. but since there was no drama or joy-luck-club-esque fiasco, i'm quite happy with how things turned out. he even learned to play mah-jong after thanksgiving dinner and won a game! i'm so proud.

for some photos, click-y here.

pre-thanksgiving thoughts.

i am quite proud of myself. while i thought it would be a sleepless weekend spent unsuccessfully trying to get my programming assignment to work, i left the lab by midnight on both saturday and sunday nights, and finished it around 9pm monday, and turned it in a whole 3 hours early! it wasn't working quite perfectly, but the one thing that was questionable was so minute (occasional flickering when using squad interpolation for motion blending) that it really wasn't worth it.

tomorrow is thanksgiving. my flight to manchester is tomorrow morning at 7.45, which means i need to catch a train over to the airport no later than 6am, probably earlier since there will definitely be thanksgiving congestion once i'm there. from there i have to catch a shuttle down to boston. weee... i hate the traveling part of traveling.

this weekend is a much anticipated one for several reasons:

_the last time my whole family was together was over christmas/new year's last year when we all took a trip to spain.

_john+cindy just had a baby boy last week, so i have a new nephew to meet and play with. also, i haven't seen my niece, natalie, in almost a year and she is quite possibly the most adorable and smartest little girl i've ever met in my life.

_probably most pertinent to me, is that theodore will be there to meet my family for the first time. before now, he's only met john, cindy and natalie. now he meets everyone at the same place and time. luckily, baby dylan will probably be the center of attention and that will make it easier to avoid awkward situations. i still remember the first time i told my parents and harv about him. it was during spring break of my freshman year, and we were visiting hawaii. we'd just eaten at a restaurant that a friend had recommended (that charged $12 for a single pan-seared scallop that we split four ways). in no way did i think he would still be a part of my life two and a half years later, much less actually meeting my family. anyway, i can only hope for the best.

_and last but not least, it is rumored that we are having a turducken this year (for those that don't know, that's a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, and no, i'm not kidding). omg, i've never had one before and it sounds TASTY! can't wait for the tryptophan-induced food coma. bring it on!

celebrate!

my nephew has a name! dylan wu pan. quel adorable!

since i have tons of work due on monday, i spent all thursday and friday furiously trying to finish everything other than my computer animation assignment, since i knew i'd need the whole weekend to finish that. friday night was AJ's birthday dinner and celebration. a whole big group of us had dinner at 707 downtown, then headed to pure for making time. soooo much fun! even jason and jared came for the superb little dance party, but now my ears are shot and have been ringing since before i even left the club.

the whole of today was spent in the moore100 computer labs programming. took a break in the afternoon to go watch beowulf (subsidized by our siggraph student chapter) in 3d. first time i've seen something in 3d that didn't give me a headache. i actually kind of liked the movie, but i went in with really low expectations since both brad and danG told me it was a terrible movie. i guess that's the trick.

great and bad news.

great news..! john+cindy had a baby earlier this morning. a baby boy, 7 lbs 1 oz. adorable!! no name yet from what i've heard.

terrible news..! (and completely unrelated):

"Penn’s Division of Public Safety has had a productive partnership with AlliedBarton Security Services since 1996 when the organization, originally known as SpectaGuard Inc., partnered with the Penn Police Department to become the first security company in the country to employ street patrol as a routine part of its operation. Regretfully, on Monday, November 13, 2007, an AlliedBarton Security Officer compromised the integrity of not only DPS and AlliedBarton’s mission, but also the public’s confidence in the many services that the Division provides to the Penn community. After providing a walking escort to a female student, the Officer allegedly indecently exposed himself to the complainant."

again, i really do not feel safe here anymore. this. is. not. a. good. thing. at. all. again, i can't wait to graduate and get out of here.

a bit of housekeeping.

1. i no longer feel safe here in philadelphia. five police officers have been shot in the past three weeks (one fatally). and two days ago a student here was sexually assaulted - she woke up to find the guy on top of her in her apartment. this happened less than a block from campus. i'm a little unnerved by it. and i live about 5 blocks deeper into west philly than she does. i've started jumping every time i hear people outside my door.

2. the teacher for my writing seminar is so annoying. she is insane. doesn't make any sense. treats us like five-year-olds. comes up with these weird ideas.. and it's not just me that thinks this, the entire class rants about her before she arrives to class. every minute in that class drives me to the brink of insanity.

3. confessor, terry goodkind's 11th and concluding novel to the sword of truth series arrived in the mail today (i pre-ordered it awhile back), and i am soooo excited to read it.

4. i got a hand-written letter in the mail today from lucas who is studying abroad in japan for the year. there really is something Romantic (yes, with a capital R) about getting tangible mail from people (other than bills and junk mail).

middle america.

flew to chicago thursday night. theodore took friday off work so we got to spend the day together. we went to wiener circle for lunch (which has the most amazing chicago-style hotdogs), we also checked out a cool aquarium store where he bought some live rock for his new saltwater tank, and watched american gangster (the new denzel washington, russel crowe flick - a really good solid drama).

that night began my twenty-four hour excursion into middle america. after his roommates got home from work, we all headed the two hours out to the small town of rocktonIL - on the illinois/wisconsin border - where brett and kari grew up. we went to the "town-y bars," which was fun, and spent the night at kari's house. saturday morning we drove out to brett's, which was out in farm land, had breakfast there, shot some rifles (i think) at some little gourds (i shot two from 30 yards!! my first time shooting too, hehe), spent the afternoon hiking through a patch of woods that his family owns, and even went to his grandparents' house for a bit. back at brett's later that night they set up a tent and built a bonfire where we sat around, had some beer, and cooked up some brats and turkey dogs. around 10p, theodore and i started back to chicago since i had an early flight sunday morning back to philadelphia. the rest of the guys stayed overnight to camp out.

fantastic weekend.

bars, bulls, bees and brotschuls.

thursday night i met up with liz, erica and feldman at bonner's as usual, but the place was dry so we headed over to the irish pub. nothing eventful, but a good low-key time to be had. stopped in at roosevelt's too after we parted ways because i recognized my bartender friends working. needless to say, i slept like a baby that night.

friday night domi and i headed to old city for a first friday interpretive dance thing-y by headlong, because honea supposedly had won an interpretive dance to be done about him. if you're confused, don't worry, i was too. it never happened because he was late, but we stuck around for over an hour and it was, uhm, interesting. i've never understood interpretive dance and i still don't but, oh well! post said dance experience i headed over to the F.U.E.L gallery (the old real world philadelphia house). it was the last night of the red bull : art of the can exhibit, which was pretty cool. mostly lame, but a few good pieces here and there. there was a pseud0 crazy-drunken party going on and the DJ was one of the guys from the roots.

saturday was uneventful. worked on cis462 homework and also had siggraph work hours. i did however go watch bee movie. given i went in with pretty low expectations, it was actually really good. and the rest of the audience seemed to really like it, kids and adults alike. i mean, they all even applauded at the end, and this is philadelphia!

today i went to bryn mawr in the morning to meet up with lily. we had lunch at cosi with the brotschuls (they drove out last night because amyB has a conference of sorts here until wednesday) and it was so good to see them and the boys. severin is in first grade now and dorian is four years old and running around and talking! most of the rest of the day was spent doing schoolwork, but i managed to stop by south street's chop shop to get a quick haircut. weeee!