Thursday, May 31, 2007

LOL

Since I was looking up stuff on Will Wheaton, I stumbled upon this : LOLtrek…
Link to the entire Star Trek episode “The Trouble With Tribbles” painstakingly redone as a series of still images in the style of LOLcats. It is hilarious and brought back good times. ahh tribbles....

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

PAX update

The official PAX site finally updated with some more info. They have invited Will Wheaton (aka Wesley Crusher of Star Trek TNG) to be the keynote speaker! He has a really funny blog about it on his blogsite about how they were going to give him a Wii for going haha.

The nerdcore band Minibosses will also be there for the Saturday concert. They are quite famous for playing game music.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

back to normal life

As yall know, I spent my memorial day weekend in Big Island, Hawaii. One of the most exotic, otherworldly places I have ever been. It was an absolutely mind blowing experience. A full recap is coming up as soon as I actually get some sleep. I got off the plane at 8 am this morning and came straight to work. *dead*. But here is a taste:
According to National Geographic:
"Mountains are generally measured from sea level, in which case Mount Everest (29,028 feet; 8,848 meters) is king." However, "Hawaii's Mauna Kea, though, rises an astonishing 33,476 feet (10,203 meters) from the depths of the Pacific Ocean floor. Measuring from base to peak, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain on earth."

Even counting from sea level, Mauna Kea is still an astonishing 13,796 feet. (by comparison, our own Mount Rainier runs at a height of 14,410 FT). It houses the world's largest observatory for optical, infrared, and submillimeter astronomy due to the remarkably clear sky up there.

and I was there on Saturday, on the very summit, on the tallest mountain on Earth, bundled up like an eskimo and barely breathing. IT was awesome! :)

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random thought: We were just given ShadowRun xbox and PC version. I wasn't that interested in the xbox version because my thumbing skills suck but I was highly excited about the PC version until I saw the "SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS" (notice not recommendations!)

SYstem Requirement of ShadowRun PC:
OS: Windows Vista
Processor: Dual Core CPU
Memory: 2 GB Ram, 4.5 GB free hard drive space
video card: Nvidia 7800 ATI x1800 (256 Megs or above)

ok. if you don't think that is insane, check out the small print underneath:

"Increased performance will be noticed on more powerful systems"

MORE POWERFULS SYSTEMS??? what is more powerful??? I have to freaking buy a new computer to be able to play my free game *fistshake*

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

wow is taking over the world

well what else is new right? I was just looking at google news and there was a news article on Google's latest tool Google Hot Trends where they list the fastest rising (not the most searched) searches in a day. It is pretty interesting to look at some of their graph of ascension. For example, Stone Phillips was #3 when I wrote this blog, but he is on a steady decline after spending about ONE minute at the top. As I was looking at this list, I noticed this term "ctmod" that didn't come up with any articles relating to it. Then I was looking at blogposts and I realized it is a wow mod term. Then my coworkers came to me and pointed out that the 7 out of the top 25 are Wow related terms. I guess Wow is as hot as ever (or because a new patch came out haha). In testament to its hotness, I saw this video on Kotaku about the origin of WOw character dances, its pretty well done and Tunuk brings back such great memories sigh...

trivia night

Our invited helper this week ditched us at the last minute. So without suspense we were last place again with a whopping 22 points. The announcers recognized our team name(we have a separate name for if it was just the two of us). Even they said we did terrible haha. I tipped over my water glasses in celebration :(

Although to be honest, I think we did alot better than I imagined. We pretty much guessed through the first 4 categories. Got zeros on song lyrics (as usual) and pharmaceuticals (people's knowledge of these is kind of scary actually). The bonus was figuring out the cover band, the song and the original artist from a song snippet. We didn't do that well but it was fun to listen to the music. This is my favorite kind of bonus section. :)

So has everybody seen the StarCraft II announcements? I was watching the Yahoo reports from Korea. That nation is very obsessed with StarCraft I think. The yahoo guy was all astonished at their starcraft tv channel (which I watched when I was layover in Seoul, it is strangely mesmerizing). Anyway, I watched some of the game play video and it looks JUST like StarCraft except with better graphics and some more units so I am a little disappointed. I guess I was hoping for more innovations. But I guess they want to stick to a tried and true formula, and whatever they have now looks good. It looks like it will come out in October. The funny thing was 2 days before the announcement, a guy on our team randomly send out a email to the chat list to ask about whether STarCraft II will be mmorpg, and that sparked a whole discussion around that. Then immediately afterwards they announced it. The funny thing was it was totally out of blue email. We don't usually discuss games on the chat anyway. I guess he had a premonition about the future lol.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

karaoke

I was browsing GameStop last night when I noticed they had a $9.99 used Mic for PS2. I figure it will come in handy for the Veggie party so I bought it. Then, I figure, might as well browse the PS2 game section and see what they have (GameStop is devious). So I ended up buying a used copy of Karaoke Revolution 3. God Bless second hand markets. Tried it last night and I liked it alot. I actually knew about 70% of the songs, unlike KR AI which I only know like 40%. They have alot of modern songs within the last few years, this made the singing much more enjoyable. They only have 4 songs to unlock and I didn't know any of them so that was kind of disappointment. But overall, I thought the songlist was wonderful :)

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

amazing

the word "Cafeteria" is usually synonymous with "bad food". This is still true here in my building also. I usually buy lunch and it is always such a hard decision to choose between "nasty stir fry" and "even nastier roast chicken". Although to be fair, our cafeteria probably has more variety than most. Today though, I walked down the stairs at noon to the cafeteria, browsed the different stations and bypassed the pasta station and went to the deli, except instead of the regular "roast chicken", there was a sign that says "gourmet lunch plate- New York Steak and Snow Crab Legs ". I looked over to the station and sure enough, that is what is there, along with some parsley, and gravy among other things. I was COMPLETELY SPEECHLESS. Apparently even the cook gets bored once in a while, and aspires to be a gourmet chef :). and it was very good too !

Post for Tochi

Yes, the rest of you is not allowed to read it. :) ( I really need yall's email)

Anyway, I saw someone asking about Olympics NP on our mailing list so I compiled a bunch of the responses for you. They are talking about Memorial weekend, you won't have to worry about rain too much.

I go to the coast (La Push, near Forks) just about every Memorial Day weekend. Over the past 12 years, it has ALWAYS rained at least a bit. It’s usually in the 50’s or 60’s during the day, and probably the 40’s at night. Thus we have always stayed in cabins with HEAT. J It is lovely.

The cabins at La Push are “rustic”, but you are right on the beach (“1st beach”) and there is hiking nearby (“2nd beach” and “3rd beach”). Many people go there and camp, but I’m not into it that early in the season (too rainy). Kalaloch is supposed to be nice too, but I’ve never been there.

Given the late date, it could be difficult getting a reservation…good luck!


As a Seattle native who has been watching the weather around here for almost 50 years, Memorial Day weather is: unreliable. Only July and Aug are reliably dry. The rest of the months are risky.

Hurricane Ridge has some nice hikes and you can stay in Port Angeles if it’s wet. And the drive is a bit shorter than the coast. Better make your reservations soon though!That’s a busy weekend! The best places will likely be full.


Most any time of the year I would plan on rain in the Olympics. Just make sure you have a waterproof floor/tarp for your tent. Also most campgrounds require a camping permit. I would actually be surprised if you could still get a permit unless you are planning to go way into the back country. If you plan on just doing day hikes you’ll still need a park pass. We buy an annual pass each year that allows us into both the national parks as well as state parks for under a 100 bucks. I’m not sure what the price will be this year.

As for hiking over a two day period I would recommend Hurricane ridge. It’s very close to Port Angeles, and has a good range of hiking trails. There’s everything from a paved trail at the top to very rugged trails with little or no markings.

Enjoy your trip.

You can call 360-565-3131 for the weather information. The automated message is updated twice a day. Once at 8:30am and second one at 3:00pm.

We stayed in Red Lion Hotel in Port Angeles. It was good and prefer asking the room facing the water. The view is good early in the morning (if there is sun J)

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Trivia Night Saga Continues

Last night Snoopy and I went to Trivia Night again with a new team member J. We had high hopes for J since he knows ALOT of sports trivia. So we thought we were well covered there. The night started pretty normal, the 3 funny guys were back to announce questions. I think they are my favorites out of all the question guys, because of their dry humor. The categories turned out to be quite mundane, nothing BT at all, or so it seemed at first: We first started out with the Year 1989, J was pretty confident since he was in High School that time and therefore should remember stuff. But we were stumped by the name of the ROmanian dictator that was executed that year (Nicolae Ceausescu), and the name of the Captain of Exxon -Valdez (Hazelwood) among other things, and here I thought I know all my communist dictators humph.

The next category was National Parks and we did really well, who knew that Grand Teton was named for the French slang for big nipples -_-!

Did not do so well on Long winded quotes from famous Docs, who remember what the hell the Monroe Doctrine said? Or the Immacipation Proclaimation? ANyway, it all went downhill from there, as we passed through current events, famous quotes (Snoopy really should insist on Benjamin Franklin for everything =P) and Famous movie quotes ( we only got Princess Bride and The Good, THe Bad and the Ugly).

The bonus round was picking out the top10 most powerful women in the world out of the top20 list by Forbes. We actually got 5/10 going for the Rich=Powerful rule. But we missed the Chancellor of Germany and Vice Premier of China. ALl in all, not bad for guessing. Our final was 23 points, which put us about middle way :) and alas, there was almost no Sports questions at all sniff.

The really funny thing was at the end when they were announcing the score from the last to first place, they went by the way of "this team, who did blahblah in the last few weeks, got this score". We were at the point where they were about to announce the 20s, and the guy started out with "this team, who got 23 points..." at this point we were like "yes thats us!!", guy:" did quite well in the previous weeks..." us:"... oh wait, thats not us" LOL, apparently we tied with some other more famous team :)

PSA: I already got fly schedule from one person, coming in at 10:30 am on Thursday, leaving at 7 Am on Tuesday morning. Get tickets soon and see if you can get around that time to save me some gas ;)

Friday, May 11, 2007

Veggie party scheduling

Here is my post about scheduling, we have two proposals so far on the range of times, I say Range as I know people will have varied schedules.

1. Thu, August 23 - Tuesday, August 27, we do stuff, no camping
2. Fri, August 17 - Sunday, August 25, Tochi's plan of camping for 3 days and then hang out in Seattle.

I suppose we better decide soon so people can buy tickets, I am leaning towards #1 as I don't have too much feeling about camping, I mean I think it is fun and stuff but maybe not on the level of Tochi and friends haha. However, if Veggies all want to go camping, I am definitely up for it, it will be adventure as well.

If it is a no on camping, we can always meet up with Tochi (friends?) for the rest of the week and hang out, since I assume the Tochi caravan is a go regardless? :)

put your preference in the comments or yall can email me.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Stuff to do in Seattle

Since the PAX veggie party seems very likely to happen, we should start think about what we want to do besides going to Pax for a day. Trivia Night has already been suggested, as well as Pike Place Market and camping in Olympics National Park. So I thought I would take this chance to list out some of the other attractions that I think are worth visiting while you guys are here. This is divided into Activity types and ranked by my personal like if I've been there. Obviously we can't do all of them and I might have missed some also so feel free to remove or add to the list etc.

Events
PAX- Penny Arcade Expo, the largest gamer convention hosted by the Penny Arcade, it is 3 days of gaming craziness. I figure we only have to go for a day, preferrably Saturday since that is the day with the concerts, or maybe Sunday depends on when the guitar hero tournament happens ;) Duration: 1 day, Cost $25 for one day or $45 for 3 day, Catnip Rank: ***

Trivia at Celtic Bayou : this happens Monday night at 8pm, the famed battleground of Snoopy and I. There seems to be alot of interest in a Veggie victory. So people wanting to join will have to leave on Tuesday. Duration: 2 hours, Cost: food and drink Catnip rank: ***

Museums
Experience Music Project - This is a MUST SEE for all rockstar wanna be's. It is in my opinion the most interesting museum in Seattle. In their own words: "EMP is a one-of-a-kind music museum combining interactive and interpretive exhibits to tell the story of the creative, innovative and rebellious expression that defines American popular music. Featuring a world-class collection of artifacts, unique architecture by Frank O. Gehry, state-of-the-art technology, and exciting interactive presentations, EMP will encourage visitors of all ages and backgrounds to experience the power and joy of music in its many forms. " . Not the mention the building looks like giant messed up guitar. You also get the Science Fiction museum for free. Duration: 2-3 hours, Cost: $15 Catnip Rank: ***

Museum of Flight: This is a pretty good museum if you like airplanes. They have a pretty extensive collection since we are the founding place of Boeing. I was pretty impressed with it. They also have an old Air Force One for you to look inside. I am not very into airplanes so it was not too exciting, but still a good museum. Duration: 2-3 hours, Cost: $14, Catnip Rank: **
Alternative:
Future of Flight Aviation Center & Boeing Tour. this is the museum at the Boeing Headquarters. I have never been there but besides seeing alll the latest in airplane design technology, you get to tour part of the Boeoing plant and see airplanes being assembled. cost: $15 Catnip rank:??

Museum of Glass: I decided not to list the art museum cause I figure there wont' be much interest. But I always wanted to go to this one. the NW has a pretty strong tradition in Glass Blowing and this museum is suppose to have some pretty cool stuff and a live glass blowing workshop. It might be a cool thing to do if there is free time, cost: $10, Catnip Rank: ??

Tours:
Seattle Underground Tour: A hilarious guided walking tour in Downtown Seattle that explains to you the history of Seattle city and some of the major events it has gone through. It walks underneath the city where the old streets used to be. Duration 1 hours, cost: $14, Catnip Rank: **

Seattle Harbor Cruise: this is a boat tour that takes you around Elliott Bay in Downtown Seattle. It is also guided and pretty fun thing to do on a sunny day. It lasts about an hour. cost: $18.61 Catnip rank: ** Alternatively, we can do the Locks tour which is 2.5 hours and about 30 bucks. that one is also pretty interesting.

Wilderness:
Olympics National Park: I have never been so can't really expound on its goodness but I figure it can't be bad, I mean it is a national park. I still suggest if we go, we just do a day trip. camping really is alot of work and takes up alot of time. :) Duration: 1 day, cost: $15 per car. Catnip rank: ??

Mount Rainier: This is another national park, it is about the same distance as to Olympics. Mount Rainier is an active volcano although it really hasn't done anything for years. You can see the peak of this mountain from Seattle city. It has many hiking trails etc. Although the weather would have to be nice, I have been there times when I am the bottom of the mountain and I can't see the freakin mountain at all. Duration: 1 day, cost: $15 per car, Catnip rank: **

Snoqualmie Falls: This has the advantage of being the closest to my house. It is only 15 minutes drive. It also has a nice hike down to the bottom of the fall. The fall is 270 feet tall. Velius has been to this one so I guess it is not as interesting now. Duration: 2 hours, cost: free, Catnip Rank: *

General Attractions:
Space Needle: You know, symbol of Seattle blahblah, I guess if you are a first timer you have to see this. It has a nice rotating restaurant up on top and the elevator is on the outside so you can see the way up. I've been to this place many times already. Another option is to go up at night or at dusk to watch the sunset. that is actually pretty nice. Duration: 1 hour, cost: $15 Catnip Rank: *

Pike Place Market - A kind of flea market in the middle of Seattle Downtown. It has that fish tossing thing Ender was talking about. It is pretty fun place to visit all the random shops and just walk around. Although I've seen them toss fish and it really wasn't that exciting I thought. They basically toss it from one side of the stand to the others. so maybe not get your hopes up too much haha. Duration: 1 hour, cost: free, Catnip Rank: **

Pioneer Square: it is kind of the historical center of Seattle with many old buildings and galleries. It also has a bunch of clubs for night life. A fun place to walk around. The underground tour starts here also. Duration 1 hour, cost: free, Catnip Rank: *

Alki Beach: A beautiful beach strip near Downtown. Good for walks and such. It is 2.5 miles long. it is famous for being the beach where they filmed a part of Sleepless in Seattle. Duration 3 hours, cost: free, Catnip Rank: ??

Wild Waves Enchanted Village: Seems some Veggies are big rollercoaster enthusiasts. Wildwaves is a theme park featuring Timberhawk- largest rollercoaster in Washington made completely out of wood. Duration: 1 day, cost: $35 catnip Rank: ??

Other options:
Vancouver BC: Vancouver is about 3 hours away so a day trip is possible.

chateau ste michelle : Washington's oldest winery. They offer tour and wine tasting. not sure if Veggies are into Wine or not. but it is really close to Seattle. cost: $5 Catnip Rank: ?? Snoopy says only go if you love wine and haven't been to Napa Valley =D

Microsoft: Someone mentioned a tour, I suppose we can walk around the campus lol. But you guys should go visit the company store, I get good discounts.

Ok, here are the major stuff I can think of right now. besides these, there are alot of places to walk since Seattle is surrounded by water so every direction has nice views. This is alot of stuff of course, I suggest one day at PAX, one day for downtown stuff (EMP needle, tours etc) and maybe half a day for a museum or two, and one day for an drive out(either park, wild waves or vancouver), ok discuss away

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

trivia night

After a few weeks hiatus when Snoopy was away, we went back to Trivia Night, this time with one of Snoopy's friend. With his help, we were able to squeeze out of last place by a mere 2 points for a total of 15!!! This week's questions were pretty hard. Although Velius tells me that any "normal" person would know the Godfather, father and cousin of Barry Bonds. Too bad none of us was normal, would have helped in the "Barry Bond is an Asshole" category. We also completely bombed the "60s one hit wonder" category. Did ok in the science category. The bonus round was the incredibly "变态“ question of name the top 20 grossing films of all time ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION!! We somehow missed all disney entries bleh. anyway, at least we weren't last place, much to the disappointment of our new teammate haha.

ETA; top 20 grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation, source: boxofficemojo

Title Studio Adjusted Gross Unadjusted Gross Year^
1 Gone with the Wind MGM 1,329,453,600 $198,676,459 1939^
2 Star Wars Fox $1,172,026,900 $460,998,007 1977^
3 The Sound of Music Fox $937,093,200 $158,671,368 1965
4 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Uni. $933,401,500 $435,110,554 1982^
5 The Ten Commandments Par. $861,980,000 $65,500,000 1956
6 Titanic Par. $844,515,900 $600,788,188 1997
7 Jaws Uni. $842,758,600 $260,000,000 1975
8 Doctor Zhivago MGM $816,811,300 $111,721,910 1965
9 The Exorcist WB $727,541,800 $232,671,011 1973^
10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Dis. $717,220,000 $184,925,486 1937^
11 101 Dalmatians Dis. $657,455,500 $144,880,014 1961^
12 The Empire Strikes Back Fox $646,028,600 $290,475,067 1980^
13 Ben-Hur MGM $644,840,000 $74,000,000 1959
14 Return of the Jedi Fox $618,910,900 $309,306,177 1983^
15 The Sting Uni. $586,560,000 $156,000,000 1973
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark Par. $579,973,400 $242,374,454 1981^
17 Jurassic Park Uni. $567,234,400 $357,067,947 1993
18 The Graduate AVCO $562,688,100 $104,642,560 1967
19 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Fox $558,153,800 $431,088,301 1999
20 Fantasia Dis. $546,426,100 $76,408,097 1941^

Sunday, May 06, 2007

culture day

I went to the Seattle Art Museum yesterday with some friends. They are grand opening after renovations so they gave free tickets to everyone. I didn't even know it was there until yesterday. For a big city Seattle doesn't have alot of museums. I was totally disappointed with the science museum when I went before( Houston's was so much better) so I didn't have high hopes but it actually turned out to be pretty great. The museum is situated right in the middle of downtown Seattle. It was very modern looking and the exhibit halls were pretty big. They had 3 floors with mostly paintings and some sculptures and clothing. I was most impressed with the range of subjects they were able to cover. They had a rather large modern art section (expressionism and abstract expressionism). Stuff that just goes way over my head but was interesting to look at nonetheless. I just wonder how come people think that painting two colored squares is so cool. They had a pretty sizable oil painting exhibit with some gorgeous works, an Asian exhibit filled mostly with japanese art, some very interesting "native" art from Africa, Australia and Americas. I especially liked the seritaph paintings done by BC native Americans. They are really beautiful. I can't find any info on Seritaph on the internet though (how strange is that!) Anyway, it was fun thing to do for a day.

Later in the day, I went to hear my friend's band Peratus play at Waldo's bar. I never heard them before so it was an interesting experience. I guess their music is best described as "Heavy Metal"? Not something I would normally listen to but I can certainly admire the energy of the music and the performance. I actually got there kind of late so I missed my friend playing the Keytar. He is a 80s dude haha. I thought they put up a great show. The last song was so full of energy and passion that people went up and jumped around in front of the stage. Although I realized later, their band was actually pretty mellow considering the band that came up next was Second Coming. SC is actually pretty famous and their lead singer was screaming so much I was afraid he was gonna tear his vocal chord but I suppose he is used to it. Their music was much louder and much more angsty. I can't say I liked the really fast stuff but some of the slower stuff (comparatively speaking) was not bad.

So I started out the day looking at artworks and ended the day with my ears ringing, all in all, not bad :)

ETA: I just realized the reason that I can't find seritaph is that I remembered it wrong, it was actually SeriGraph.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Spiderman 3

Our team went to see Spiderman 3 as a morale event today during the day (yay no work). The theatre was packed with other techy nerd groups that got off work and kids who got off school. we were able to get whole rows together as a group which was always nice. I liked the movie alot. It was well done, the story was pretty complex and it tied up all the loose ends nicely. There was alot of awesome action sequences involving tight flying in cramped spaces and brutal beatings of pretty much everyone. I think they really tried to pay homage to the original comic by introducing lots of symbolism and themes into this movie. The movie was also packed with comic moments to relieve the constant beating up of everyone. you will know what I mean when you see the Jazz bar scene. (groan from everyone) one shining surprise moment was the brief appearance of Bruce Campbell (Autolycus in the Hercules tv series). He is always hilarious. Anyway, I won't give out too much details. The only fault I would say is that the story is almost too complex to fit in 2 and half hours. I feel like they tried to cram too much stuff in. I think it would have made 2 movies easily and with more breathing room for everybody. Would love to hear everyone's opinion of it.

A sight to be seen

Many people may have heard me complain (endlessly)about the terrible weather within the NW winter/spring where cloudy days are followed by rainy days followed by cloudy days in an endless dreary cycle. However, I may not talk about another phenomenon that happens so rare I almost don't think about it anymore. As rare as a beautiful sunny day is around this time, a clear night sky is an even more rare thing. The most crystal blue skies during the day will almost always be followed by nights where a deep veil of clouds hangs unmoving over the city. The darkness is so eternal and stifling that the moon and stars seems more like mythical objects than real things. I think it has been at least 3 months since I've seen a clear night sky. This is why it is such a rare treat when I drove out from my late dinner party tonight and saw the most perfect FULL moon shining brightly in the sky. It is surrounded by the thinnest of clouds that was not able to obscure its light. It was even more beautiful when I drove over the bridge and saw its pale reflection shimmering over the black waters. I was so mesmerized that I almost swerved out of my lane. I was determined to rush home as quickly as possible and take a picture of this sight. Alas, just as I was reaching home, all the while straining my neck to keep the moon in my sight, The ever ominous cloud cover slowly crept in, until the last silver lining flickered and disappeared, and the moment was lost.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Dating Woes

So, I am at an age where basically any random stranger whom I meet seems to register my single-ness and my age and automatically start to set me up with random guys from all walks of life. This has gotten especially ridiculous funny this year to the point of making me speechless. It all started when I was in college, where M promised me she will never try to set me up with anyone as she is very "liberal", being the good innocent person that I was I believed her. So needless to say I suffered a major shock when starting around last year, she started to bring up random guys that she either know at work. or who are relatives of her friends that she thinks I should meet. At first it was just a casual "so, I know this guy that is nice", then it became 'I got this guy's email and phone number, you should reply to him" to "We need to take a better picture of you so we can send to this guy" Notice the increasing level of desperation... Anyway, this was of course all done with my permission as I figure it is better to nod and smile. Besides, it is kind of expected of M. Since in Asian culture, if you don't have a steady bf by the time you are 25, people think you have some weird disease.

So I have done my part in emailing strangers who live across the country, completely pointless if you ask me. I am firm disbeliever of "blind dates" and "online dating" (perhaps I am missing out?). This is all tolerable until recently, when basically almost everybody I know starts to mention random boys to me. Case in point, I met a girl about 2 weeks ago at a wedding reception who happen to work in the next building over. She is Chinese and married (alarm should have sounded). She seems like a nice person and I like talking to her. We have had lunch twice now, when all of a sudden she started asking me about my dating life and what kind of boys I like. This all ended with today when she came to my office and said "btw, I know this boy that wants to date you, what do you say ".. ME: ........ Her enthusiasm can only be described by the fabled mythical being of “媒婆“, whose passion in matchmaking is surpassed only by the layer of powder on her nose. I was completely speechless since I am unaccustomed to such direct questions. So I kinda made random noises and tried to change the subject. It is almost funny the situation that I am in now haha.