New heights in Classy.

Jeff Gallagher: Hey Cali, how do you feel about a rum and coke?
Cali: Sure!
Jeff Gallagher: How do you feel about drinking it out of a bowl?

And undergrad life post-undergrad continues.

When dependability is no longer dependable.

Kilt Guy wears kilts. Every day Kilt Guy wanders around the office building doing whatever Kilt Guy does while wearing a gray kilt. I have a suspicion that he wears the same kilt, or owns five to ten of the same kilt design, but without fail, Kilt Guy wears a kilt. It's a constant, it's how you know everything is right in the world. You could use Kilt Guy wearing a kilt as undeniable proof that you're correct forever as long as you asserted that Kilt Guy wears a kilt.

Until today, anyway.

Today, Kilt Guy wore jeans. And the world mourned.

Well, not for me, personally, as kilts just aren't my thing. Every day I would think to myself, "Geez, Kilt Guy, ever thought of jeans?" Day after day, week after week, month after month, always the same thought as Kilt Guy wandered about the building unawares of my private war with his garments...and then, low and behold, my mental waring paid off!

And what did I think to myself? "WTF, KILT GUY? TREACHERY IS AFOOT!"

Clearly his unconscious appeasing of my fashion standards also crossed my line of betrayal, so tomorrow we'll see if he returns to the kilt or not.

You would be funny if you lit yourself on fire.

This seems to happen quite a bit to people in service jobs, so I'm just going to lay it out here in my blog, because I can. Because I'm annoyed and uncomfortable, and pissed off that customers think it's some kind of game to see how uncomfortable they can make me since they know I'm not allowed to be less than polite.

MY JOB IS NOT A GAME, and I don't appreciate you treating it as if it's a joke. As if I don't need it to live, so if I blow up at you due to your inappropriate behavior, I will be punished for it and not you. And you think that's so funny.

Your jokes at my expense are not: Cute, clever, interesting, and will never be funny. Ever. They certainly make you an asshole, though.

And it certianly isn't MY FAULT that you now feel uncomfortable and like a jackass when I don't laugh at you MOCKING ME.

There are appropriate ways to interact with people in customer service, insinuating that they are somehow stupid in any way for performing their job, asking them uncomfortable questions, and ridiculing them for taking their job seriously IS NOT appropriate. If you're competent enough to understand what you're doing is rude, and I know you do as you and your little friends are giggling, why don't you understand that it makes you worse then all the stupid customers we get combined? Because we know you know better, and it makes it just that much more frustrating and potentially ruins our day.

Thanks for that, really, I hope you're pleased with yourself. I'm sure you absolutely LOVE IT when someone comes in and makes your work day just that more difficult because they think it's funny.

It's a women's world.

Shape What’s to Come. For You. For Your Community. For the World.

It's a website dedicated to the growth, mentorship, and companionship of women reaching out to the world through creativity and social change. It's created and sponsored by Levi's, so yeah, there's some executive meddling there, but the idea and prospect is just too awesome for me to pass up. I've always wanted to do bigger things, creative things, and make my little imprint in this world and be more involved.

So I'm going to try this and NaNo, and probably whine all about how I fail in here, but that's just how it goes, right?

Step one will be excuted soon, hopefuly not never. I just hope Step Four doesn't take too long.

It was either a falling meteorite or a falling plane.

I'm going to break my habit of not blogging by blogging.

I've never seen a shooting star before. Ever. I've seen many a plane and satellites which I was convinced as a child was proof of a hostile alien takeover in the immanent future (I also believed all mountains were just dinosaurs covered with lots of dirt waiting to be reawakened from their centuries long slumber). Perhaps my friend is proof of some sort of clairvoyance as I found him at my apartment door not long after 10pm demanding I step into the car for an "adventure."

Well, after he used my computer to look up directions for the adventure. Directions we lost ten minutes into the adventure and still haven't been able to locate (he's convinced they're firmly stuck to my rear while I think his pocket ate them). We eventually found ourselves at Cougar Mountain which reminded me quite a bit of my hometown. So much in fact that the minute I stepped out of the car my small town girl instincts took over and asked the city boy if he had brought a flashlight.

City boy then asked me if I had brought a flashlight.

Let me tell you, three years of living in Seattle and using a DS as a reputable light source during power outages and general activity lulls has negated one's need of flashlights. While city boy certainly loves being in nature more than I do and has probably interacted with it more in the last three years than I have, I think it goes without saying that he did not, indeed, bring a flashlight.

Nor a blanket or something to place under our heads while laying across some very comfortable dirt and dry plant life.

So we trekked the dirt road to the top of Cougar Mountain with cell phones and a very dubious flashlight glare from a couple trailing behind us that decided to follow us up (if anything set off my serial killer horror movie alarms, this would be it) until we reached the anti-air zone. Sprawled on our backs becoming friends with the dirt, we watched the night sky, nearly as dark as it is back in my hometown since we were away from Seattle proper. He found a shooting star rather quickly. I found airplanes and more satellites.

Eventually, though, a slow trickle of dying meteors streaked through the skies. I think he was expecting something bigger, and I would have liked seeing a bit more of them myself, but I was satisfied with one. Happily content with two. And exponentially increasing as I began to see more shooting stars than airplanes as the night progressed.

To everyone out there looking up at the sky, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Also, beware of the aliens.

Oops, break.

So today should be day 13 of continuous blogging, but I'm going out of town this weekend to a shoddy computer. I could rectify this by pre-writing all of my entries and just wrestling with the laptop until they post, but I'm going out tonight to celebrate my new job. I can't stress enough how much I need to celebrate.

I know this blog isn't very widely read at all (but to the person linking me from RedvsBlue, ilu, unless you're saying shitty things about me, then I hope you die in a fire), but for those of you who do periodically tune in to see what new asinine thing I'm spewing from my finger tips, know that I'm not dead yet, I'll be back next week.

In the meantime, here is the latest image I drew my friend after I told her I probably won't be able to be her workchat buddy after this month.

And then her little broken cow heart was repackaged into

Big Macs, bringing much joy to the overweight girls and boys.

Toodles!

30 Days: Day 11 - A recent photo of yourself.

Now that I'm 24 and done battling evil and stuff, I've become an American pop idol, Cali Sparkles.

Let's go to the Super Wal*Mart everybody!

Robin Sparkles and I used to be real tight in the past. Trufax. But then she moved to New York and I went to Seattle and we've fallen out of touch. Such is the way of life.

30 Days: Day 9 - A picture you took.

As I've mentioned before, I love taking pictures, so this day is going to be a tad difficult. After mulling through my various photo albums for a bit, I finally settled on this image.

Signed The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade books.

A few months ago Penny Arcade went on a book signing tour across the country, starting in Seattle, of course, in the U District at U Bookstore. I drove over right after work, missing a good portion of their Q&A, but that's okay because I was still in time to wait in line for a while with three very beautiful books.

By the way, if anyone with some power is reading this, I NEED a poster version of the cover, kthnx.

One was for a friend I stilled owed money to from PAX09, and the other for a friend currently stuck in Utah for a few years. Poor dude-- I MEAN. I TOTES BOUGHT THEM BOOKS FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN I'M AWESOME LIKE THAT. BECAUSE I AM AWESOME. Trufax. I don't lie. Only communists lie, and I am not a communist.

30 Days: Day 2 - Favorite Movie

My favorite movie, without a doubt, is The Lion King. Sure, I love Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Spaceballs, Howl's Moving Castle, and Sherk. I absolutely adore Jurassic Park. And I'm sure sometime in the future I will find another movie that has charmed me as much as WALL-E in order to add to my very short list of favorites out the 1000+ movies I've seen, but The Lion King will always be at the top.

 And then God showered light down from the heavens

and consumed all of Africa by Summoning Bigger Lion.

In the sixth month of 1994, Disney released it's 32nd animated feature, and Mufasa said, "This was good." Four years later Disney made a sequel, and Mufasa said, "Oh ell no." But that's less important because we're talking about THE LION KING. They used the opening musical number for their trailer, and people all around the world were peeing their pants because those few minutes were enough to show how awesome this movie was going to be. Forget explaining the plot, advertising Big Name Actors and a Big Name Musician, or combining all the good bits in one spoiler package-- the trailer didn't need that. The art, the music, and how these elements combined was enough to captivate and enthuse my wee little self sixteen years ago.

For those of you who somehow don't know about The Lion King despite it's fame, let me break it down for you. Darth Mufasa promises his entire kingdom of the African Savanna to his son, Simba. Or Kimba. Or Jimba TT if I'm going to go with the bad naming joke. Anyway, Darth M's brother is annoyed and kills him and convinces JTT that it's his fault, so JTT runs away and everyone thinks he's dead. So brother takes over and kills everything. Meanwhile, JTT has become a Man and befriended his dinner, a pig and a weasel cat. Eventually a hot lioness and monkey persuade JTT to return, he defeats his uncle, and then casts curaja with a might roar. It's Disney's version of Hamlet, to put it simply, but without Simba becoming crazypants like his father's younger Star Wars self and murdering everyone.

Most people criticize how closely it resembles Kimba the White Lion, a crappy Janime from 1960, and by closely resembles is that Kimba leaves his home and then returns later to save it. And his name is like "Simba." Oh yeah, totally the same story...if you completely ignore the fact that it involves human interference, environmentalism, and that sort of thing. But I'm talking about the finish product, pre-production of The Lion King was a bit different.

But The Lion King is basically everything I want from a movie, and the fact that it's animated proves the absolute power this film possess. Mufasa's death sparked some controversy, and I attribute that more to the ability the film had to connect to the audience on an emotional level. Manipulative? Perhaps, but that was the intent, the entire purpose of that scene, and we all fell into it without question because we were all so engrossed by this story of animated lions that we forgot they were lions. We forgot they were animated. We forgot it wasn't real, and yet we felt something very real.

Ignoring the sequels, this was properly followed up by the Big Damn Musical on Broadway that I was fortunate enough to see when they did their tour through Seattle last year. The movie is completely deserving, and the musical also deserving of the praise it has received thus far. I highly encourage everyone to see this!

That's Shady! - A brief look at finding employment on Craigslist.

It's kind of a given that postings on Craigslist have a chance of being super sketch, even though the jobs section is frequented by many big name companies. The best listings are ones that actually name their company, or at least what their company does. Unfortunately these types of listings are few as employers tend to give the bare minimum knowing full well that us hungry job seekers will apply for anything that sounds marginally plausible. This has led me to my recent email conversation with such an employer, one that I have completely written off as TRAP!

1. Lack of concrete information in posting. Like I mentioned previously, this particular listing presented what they were looking for and benefits, nothing else. This normally isn't a problem with me because I typically ask for more information about the company once they decide to contact me. Unfortunately whoever was behind this email address was being rather tight lipped about the entire affair.

2. Email address. Which leads me to the email address itself. It's nice when companies provide emails to their HR division, but also completely understandable when they opt for Craigslist address instead. However, what's odd is when I company chooses AOL for emailing purposes. Even better when a quick Google search reveals the same address is used to post listings for positions in Colorado. This really can't be that big of a company if they're using AOL, so what's going on with Colorado?

3. Interviews through Yahoo messenger. Oh yeah, you read that right. They decided that due to the high volume of applications they would be conducting interviews through Yahoo messenger since phone calls take too long. You know, I feel phone interviews are about as impersonal as you can get, but at least you can get a sense of presence and tone through articulation...which is nearly void in electronic communication. Plus, Yahoo messenger? Really?

4. Dictation of interview date. In all interviews I have partaken in, normally the company gives you a time frame in which you can set up an interview with them as not to conflict with your schedule. Instead, I was instructed that I would be interviewed at this date, between these times, and not to contact them any sooner than that.

5. Incomprehensible emails. I imagine interviews through Yahoo messenger will be difficult for them as I found it hard to understand exactly what they were trying to tell me with each progressive email that sequentially dropped important components of communication. Like complete sentences, punctuation, spell checking, and specific grammatical conventions like how to write out time. Eventually this all accumulated in a final email from them, one I'm not even sure how to respond to, or if I should even bother. After I asked if it would be possible to reschedule since the date they had dictated did not work for me at all, I was emailed back with one word: booked. But without the period since this person had lost all comprehension of punctuation a few emails back.

Does that mean they're booked this week and I should ask for a different date? That they've already filled the position? Maybe something was Shepard Book-ed? I'm curious to find out, but I have a feeling the next email I receive from them will contain all of the missing grammar from their previous emails.

The reunion that came five years early.

This past summer my friend that I regularly went out to happy hour with moved to a different state for grad school. Seeing as how we both went to the same high school, naturally we were both in our hometown for Christmas and decided to pick up where we left off by going out for drinks, food, and desert.

We chose a restaurant that, in hindsight, perhaps we shouldn't have. That restaurant that's staffed by all those people you went to high school with that either never left or couldn't make it. We thought it would be funny to see who waited on us since we're mature like that. It turns out we didn't know any of the wait staff, which was fine, and we went back to our drinks and ridiculous conversations. That is, until some of our classmates came walking through the door.

Don't ask me why it's okay to have a classmate for a waiter, but not to simply run into one in a random happenstance. For my own morality I'm going to pretend the explanation is not as cruel as it actually is and say it's because one familiar face is different than a dozen where conversation is forced and trite. At least at a restaurant you have to acknowledge each other with a preset conversation and sometimes the catch up is fun. Outside of that it's uncomfortable politeness where all body language shows is how many ways can I escape from this building?

It took me a while to recognize who they were, and initially wrote them off in favor of my food consumption as I hadn't spoken to either classmates since middle school. I didn't even bother telling my friend that some of our classmates had walked through the door, it was that inconsequential. However, they didn't write me off, as one of them immediately jumped over to our table, pointed both fingers at me in that "HEY THAR" kind of way, and announced their presence by stating my full name. Then turned to my friend and uttered, "And...I don't remember your name..." Smooth.

After confirming our identities and briefly catching up, our classmate noted that several more of our classmates would be pouring through the restaurant doors any minute. I inwardly groaned, and sure enough, my friend and I felt like ducking as our classmates came in droves, refusing to consolidate in one central location, and instead ran back and forth around the restaurant leaving us in the eye of an unwanted yesteryear storm.

I don't begrudge my classmates, even if it did mostly consist of those douchey popular guys that were fortunate to graduate at all; it's been five years since I graduated. It's not that they ever did anything to me. I was certainly unpopular because I didn't care for the popular kids. I did my thing, they did theirs, we didn't cross the streams, and I went through high school as contently as a moody teenager could. But the last thing I wanted to do is chitchat like we were the best of friends and had these great memories of passing each other in the hallways, not mumbling a single word and refusing to make any eye contact at all. I'm feeling a bit wistful just thinking about it.

I do understand that I'm Asian, despite being wholly American, and I'm going to chalk it up to being the token Asian kid in a predominantly white school that allows them to just not forget me like I wish they would. I used to think my high school reunion would be fun. Sitting off to the side with my close friends, drinking as much as we could, discussing our various classmates buzzing around us, certain that they would never notice us. But after this last weekend, I'm certain my life as a undercover agent would be rather fruitless.

All the cool kids are doing it.

My Saturday started out like any normal 23 year old post-grad working a shiny new full time position-- I woke up at 9:30am without an alarm and cursed myself for an hour, at which point I pulled myself out of bed as I had ran out of validations to keep myself in said bed.

It didn't quite dawn on me until a bowl of pho and the entire fourth season of How I Met Your Mother with a few good friends later that my young adult life has snuck up on me, strangling and replacing my college kid life.

Sure, it still has certain semblances of my old life that I put away roughly five months ago. There was the cheap and easy Asian soup of choice, an impromptu drive to Best Buy and purchasing of FFIV (my friends dubbed this a kidnapping with promises of orange Tic Tacs that I never gave them), a trip to sketch Safeway for beer, and an entire season of a favorite show to power through.

Normally this would conclude in a certain amount of college brand alcoholism stretching into the wee hours of the morning. Instead, only one of us attempted said alcoholism while the rest of us exited early, and all of us are ending our very early nights with some sort of gamage.

At some point in the night I mused over our situation. Even more so when it was pointed out it wasn't even 5pm and I speaking as if our Saturday night was over. It seems that life changes so quickly, even though I saw this coming years ago, we all did in the very few fleeting times we tried to imagine adulthood.

It feels like the end of my youth, which is silly because I still have years, and yet I still wonder if it truly isn't too far off to calling it a night at 9pm. How I Met Your Mother is a show about 30somethings rocking a lifestyle many of my friends and I are growing out of. Is that sad or is that life?

His name was Naked Lego Man

I've come to learn that I'm fairly awesome at not blogging. But, putting that aside: Halloween. I don't have much to share, mainly because mine wasn't super exciting, nor do I fully feel like disclosing much more as that would be more personal that I've decided this blog is allowed, but I will share that, yes, there was a guy roaming around the U District in a yellow box.

He looked more like a robot than anything, though he was supposed to be a naked Lego Man. He was often stopped for pictures and at one point he and I boogied our way around Dante's dance floor.

So, yes, he's real. He really does exist. The large amounts of pictures of him on Facebook do not lie.

I have to say, though, Tampax Box Girl and Quail Man Dude, you totally made my night.

As for me? I attached large rabbit ears on a white hoodie and crocheted a string of carrots to wear around my neck. Not the most awesome costume, but damn comfortable, and by the end of the night, while hopping around dismantled Naked Lego Man, that's all that really matters.

Wow, I'm a big kid now.

This last week I've been learning what a Big Kid Job entails: long hours behind a desk pretending to be busy. For my position I'd say that's understandable as my work flow is dependent on the work of others-- I can't do much unless the work is delegated to me from a higher up. That's not to say I don't have any work at all, I'm currently in the middle of writing up documents and manuals from the ground up as one wasn't available to me when I first started (and, by the way, I've never worked for a company like this before, so my manual will be interesting).

In the meantime, I'm snacking on an endless supply of Dum Dums (Banana Split does not taste like a banana split) and toffee covered peanuts while surfing Google News...and maybe some other sites like this one that I shouldn't be looking at right now, but too late. ANYWAY, during my Google news exploits there's the general terrorist alerts, Jon and Kate doing some more stupid stuff, arsonist in the U District, and...oh yeah...Miley Cyrus deleted her Twitter.

...WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

...WHY IS THIS EVEN NEWS?!

I suppose it's hypocritical for me to be blogging about being annoyed that anyone gives a shit about Miley Cyrus and her Twitter since it's giving attention to something not worth attention, but humor me here, why do we care?

In the meantime, I'm going to go back to my toffee peanuts, read Wikipedia, and pretend to be working on a training manual for a position I don't quite know how to run yet.