March 3, 2002

3:23 PM » This page will be on hiatus, pending a re-design and migration to our new domain: goldensushi.net -- stay tuned!  !

March 2, 2002

8:47 AM » This article was published in the San Francisco Examiner on the 27th.  I just received it today in my inbox, courtesy of my friend Pia.  I suppose as a group we (as in we -- Filipino immigrants in the the US) aren't doing too bad.  In Wichita actually, the Filipino community is thriving.  We have large soirées and take every opportunity we get to have a party.  Hosting a party (complete with food and dancing) is the all-time favorite pass-time of Filipino Wichitans.  Brian and I are getting to be the same way.  We love having company over and hosting dinner parties and such.  I'm hoping that we'll be done with our living room in time for the nice weather because I'm really wanting to have people over already..  Of course, I can't because the house is such a mess.

In other news, Spiegel Group continues to lose money.  Revenues continue to decline.  As a result, Spiegel Group (which owns Eddie Bauer also) will be closing 45 of its almost 500 Eddie Bauer retail stores.  The stores affected are the ones which have not been performing well.  Plans to open five new Eddie Bauer retail stores are still in progress.  My thoughts?  If the 45 stores were not performing well, why didn't they get closed years ago?  Anyway, in addition to closing some stores, Spiegel Group will also sell First Consumers National Bank (FCNB -- their credit business) in order to refocus on retail.  From the numbers mentioned in the article, I'm thinking that FCNB is losing money and it's losing money really badly.  It's kind of an infected limb.  You have to amputate it before it gets any worse.  Since it's giving me, a layman and innocent bystander, this impression -- I'm thinking to myself who in their right mind would want to buy this piece of shit company?!  The deal stinks like an overloaded septic tank.

I guess I should worry that I may be in danger of losing my job.  After all, the company continues to lose money.  We are sinking and we're sinking really fast.  There are so many holes to patch, you don't even know where to begin.  That's the impression that I get, anyhow.  Of course, I keep these thoughts to myself at work.  I wouldn't want to cause any more panic than is already there in the hearts of my co-workers.

I'm not a worrier, though.  My mantra: everything will turn out okay in the end.  !

8:29 AM » The end of the vast number of GeoCities hosted weblogs is finally here.  At least, the free hosting anyway.  I got an email from GeoCities about this change in policy the other day.  I guess they're finding out that blogs eat up a whole lot of bandwidth and they're wanting to -- not so much put an end to it but -- reduce the number they house.  They are doing this eliminating the FTP capability of free hosting clients.  Cheap, broke-ass people such as myself.  This takes effect on the 2nd of April, according to the email that I received.  It means I only have a month to think of a strategy.  Since I'm super-duper lazy (can't you tell?) I refuse to relocate this entangled mess of pages.  I'm thinking of just starting fresh.  What about you all?  Got any suggestions for me?  !

March 1, 2002

7:48 PM » It's time again for the famous Friday Five..

1. What's your favorite vacation spot?  I've never really vacationed as a grown-up.  When I was growing up in the Philippines, I used to vacation in my grandmother's village every summer as soon as school let out.  There are some very beautiful secluded location there.  I hope to bring Brian and share them with him someday.  We plan to honeymoon in Belize come August.  I think that will be my favorite vacation spot.

2. Where do you consider to be the biggest hell-hole on earth?  Wichita.  It's boring and the night-life is non-existent.

3. What would be your dream vacation?  Any secluded resort where Brian and I can relax and not worry about other people.  Yes.  We're kind of anti-social.

4. If you could go on a road-trip with anyone, who would it be and why?  Brian doesn't like road-trips!  If I went, I'd have to leave him.  And that's not going to happen.  So I guess, I can kiss my chances of going on a road-trip in this lifetime goodbye.

5. What are your plans for this weekend?  Sunday: nothing.  Monday: Brian has to testify in traffic court for a couple of handicap parking violation tickets that he wrote a while back.  After that, we're going to go over to mom's house and check out her new dining room funiture.  Also to borrow her karaoke microphone.  It's really neat!  It's got hundreds of songs programmed into chips built into the microphone itself.  You don't need any kind of receiver or CDs or anything -- just hook-up the mic to the TV and you're good to go.  Cool, huh?

February 26, 2002

11:38 PM » This is so shitty!  My floating Cadbury fruit & nut pieces are displacing everything!!  Grr!  I guess I'll just put a whole bunch of line breaks or something.


I want the formatting back to normal again!  !

11:24 PM »

Have I told you all how much I love Cadbury chocolates yet?  I love them!  Anyway, did you know they were distributed by Hershey's here in the US?  I didn't know that.  I really am not a big fan of Hershey's chocolate, but I certainly have a new-found respect for them now.  I just hope they don't actually make the chocolate bars themselves..  Yikes! Anyway, Brian was being super sweet last Sunday.  I was getting really ticked off about the Wal-Mart pharmacy, birth control, HMO situation so he bought us a couple of Cadbury chocolate bars to make me feel better.  Nothing cheers me up like good candy!  Ha.  Ha.  He got me the fruit & nut variety, while he got just regular chocolate milk.  It's good, too -- but I like fruit & nut because it's got texture, baby!  I devoured every single morsel of my candy bar in one day.  I didn't realize that he still had half of his bar left -- I found it in the refrigerator while I was in the process of making dinner.. Needless to say, I'm attacking his candy bar right now.  I don't think it will last another ten minutes.  Blogging gives me the munchies.

  !

9:24 PM » This or That Tuesday

Dial-up or cable?  Right now, I'm using dial-up.  I dream of cable, though.  Brian and I are seriously thinking about it.  We both have cellphones, so we can ditch our landline (that's $30-some, right there) and then we can ditch our sucky dial-up connection (that's another $20-some)..  That's an instand $50 we've freed up, which is about what cable runs in this area.  Sigh~~  If we could just take the plunge.

Wal-mart or K-mart?  Wally World, hands down.  They may have a crappy pharmacy, but they've got good stuff.  It's the DVD connection!

Butterfly or dragonfly?  Butterfly.  I love them.  I even have this neat butterfly mirror that goes with my butterfly tin that also goes with my butterfly tea-light holder (it's so cute -- it looks like miniature lamp -- the shade is made of capiz shells)..

Plus or minus?  Plus, because I'm a positive type of person.

Liberal or conservative?  Liberal.  Although, I can be really uptight sometimes.

Do you believe in God or not?  I used to be atheist.  I'm agnostic now.  So, yes.  I do believe..  It may not be God, but I believe that there is a higher power that governs all things.

Sun or moon?  Moon.  The sun shines way too bright sometimes.

Do you exercise regularly or not?  No, because I'm super-duper lazy.  I always tell myself that I'm going to exercise.  Because I really need to.  Because I continue to gain extra weight.  And I can't afford to gain any more because then I won't be able to fit into my wedding gown.  But I never get enough motivation to actually get up and do it.

Coffee or tea?  Coffee.  I'm not much of a tea drinker.  Lipton Brisk is about all the tea I can handle.  Then again, QT French vanilla cappucino is about all the coffee that I really drink.  So I guess my final answer will be: neither.

St. Patrick's Day or Easter?  Easter, because I love chocolates!  Next to Halloween, Easter is the ultimate candy day!  Besides, St. Pat's is when people make these icky green concoctions and try to make you eat or drink them..  Yuck!!

February 25, 2002

10:30 PM » Due to our current broke-ass status, we could not watch our Monday movie.  Yes.  Pathetic, isn't it?  But that's okay.  Who needs money when you've got love?  We went and rented Don't Say a Word instead.  On cold winter days such as these, it's better to stay inside and cuddle on the couch while watching a good movie anyway.

It was pretty good.  I like Brittany Murphy.  Did any of you get a chance to see her Maxim cover?  She looked so hot that I hardly recognized her!  She has come such a long way from Clueless.

Anyway, the movie had this sponge-bath scene between Michael Douglas and his wife (I only know her as Jean Grey from X-Men)..  At the risk of disgusting several people who may happen by this blog entry, I must admit that I found it kind of sexy.  "Now we know why he's married to Catherine Zeta-Jones,"  I commented to Brian.

By the way, here's a cool new (new to me, anyhow) project on the web:  Project Chopsticks.  I came across it through PJZ's Analog Cereal (which has a brand-spankin' new layout, by the way) link-list.  It's run by BWG.  Here are the two chopsticks pictures that we submitted (just for your viewing pleasure)..

I hope they accept our entries.  It's really one of the first web-projects that we've cared to participate in (other than Brownpau's hownowz, which he's dropped -- I think -- because I can't find them on his website anymore).  !

12:34 PM » Jackie is back from her trip to Baguio.  Her account of her trip reminds me so much of the when I went there as a child.  I was about ten or eleven.  There was no festival or anything like that (at least, I don't recall there being one)..  Which is good because we didn't have to fight crowds of locals and tourists and bad traffic.  Actually, back in those days (mid-eighties), there wasn't much traffic in Baguio.  We were able to enjoy Burnham Park and Camp John Hay and other scenic sites in peace.  !

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