Part Deux

Here are the remaining pics from my celebrity-house-stalking and Catalina Island weekend.
This is Hilary Duff's home.

Jennifer Aniston's home. I don't particularly care for the style of the roof or the green color. I think it is UGLY. But hey, I can only say so much since I can't afford 1/4th of the ugliness.
Tom Anderson's new home. He's the millionaire founder of MySpace. You know..he's everyone's friend. Almost like Elmo...

Does this home look familiar? No? What-did you not grow up watching tv? This is the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air home!!

I'm on the pedalboat here. And I know you can't see the pedalboat, but believe me, J-Unit and I were on it. And you see how close to the water I am? I'm heavy. I'm quite amazed the boat didn't sink.

Los Angeles

J-Unit visited last weekend. I wanted to go on the movie star's home tour. I understand that the general consensus is that stuff like this is cheesy. Well, I can't really refute that. But...instead of you having to fork over $32 to go on the tour, I'm going to post some of the pics from the tour. The ones I don't put up on here are simply the result of us not having the intellectual capacity or foresight to write down the names of all the celebrity homes we snapped pics of.
Reese Witherspoon's house (although I am Asian, and like to take pictures, I am not good at it. This is not one of those instances where practice makes perfect. In my defense, however, the bus was moving...)

Paris Hilton's house

Dr. Phil's house. Isn't this house gorgeous? Dr. Phil owns this house. Here's what he did with his career (follow these steps and maybe one day you too will own a nice ass mansion)
1) Have disciplinary sanctions imposed on you for unethical and inappropriate behavior by the Board of Examiners of Psychologists.
2) Fail to complete conditions imposed by said Board, and not have a license to practice psychology.
3) Enter the weight-loss business with the "Shape Up" brand that does not stimulate weight loss.
4) Pull said weight loss products off the market so the FTC does not further investigate in your shananigans.
5) Engage in the "Britney Spears intervention"

Simon Cowell's mansion in progress.

We also went to Catalina since I've never been. The island is absolutely gorgeous. Look at all the yachts. J-Unit is going to own one one day. We decided that she would work on getting a yacht and I'd work on getting mansion. Ask me in 10 years how far I've progressed on this dream--it'll be amazing feat if I can keep the same address for more than a year...

We took a tour of the Casino. Back then a casino was a social gathering place. Imagine my initial disappointment when I realized there would be no blackjack, slots, or craps. Nonetheless, the Casino is an awesome place.

This is the theater. There's a ton of amazing facts about the theater. Sadly, I don't remember any of them. Oh-the gold stars on the ceiling are actually real gold-not gold colored paint. Also, this is the only place in the world with its original organ (bottom right). Did that make sense? Probably not. Moving on...

This is one of the walls of the theaters. Although it is incredibly beautiful, sitting in the theater, I felt like I was in hell it was so red. Instead of frightening me, though, I just fell asleep in the middle of the presentation.

I have a bunch more pictures (I am, afterall, Asian), but I am tired and no longer want to upload pics, so they'll have to come out at a later date. I do, however, want to address something that happened last night that absolutely pissed me off and reminded me how asinine and uncaring some people can be.

I went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night (it was hilarious and I highly recommend it-there are even schlong shots for those interested...) and sat in the row above the handicapped section. The handicap section is not really a section, per say, but one seat marked handicap, and four seats next to it. Those four seats were taken. Before the movie starts, a girl in crutches approaches with her friend and an usher. The usher asks the guy (I will call him Douche Bag, or DB, for short) to move so the girl and her friend can sit there. DB and his friends get up, but don't want to move. Their reason? Only that one particular seat was marked handicap, the other four weren't, so they shouldn't have to move. Oh fabulous. Are you shitting me?

I realize that there probably weren't four empty seats available together anywhere else in the theater, but I don't understand why DB was such a DB and the four of them couldn't split up into twos, and just have two people move. So the girl in crutches sat there and her friend had to sit somewhere else. What an absolute ass. We would have moved, but we were five and six seats into our row, and there was no way she would have made it to our seats with crutches. So while I'm not one to wish ill on others, I sincerely hope DB breaks his leg, pulls a tendon, gets blessed with five ingrown toenails simulanteously-anything to put him in crutches, and then waltz into a situation where others don't give a damn about his condition.

There's a Disease With My Name on It

As part of the process of getting myself ready for b school, I have to show proof of immunization. I have no clue how to read the immunization form. There's numbers and subscripts all over the chart that I can't decipher. The bad thing is that the numbers are 0, 1, 2, and 3. Really, it doesn't go higher than that. Looking at my past immunization history (which is disjointed and a bit on the chaotic side, with part of it in Chinese), it seems that some doctor or clinic missed something along the way.

The first shot I needed was TD. Or DT. Whatever. Its the tetanus-diphtheria shot. No biggie since it only runs for 10 years and the last shot I got was back in 1992. I'm ok with that. But...I needed 2 measles, 2 mumps, and 1 rubella shot, or two MMRs-which is the wicked trifecta. Somehow, I am missing one mumps shot. I have no idea how that one happened, since the shots are usually given together. According to the clinic, most people get their first MMR shot after their first birthday, and then another one basically whenever. I have the 'whenever' one back in 1992, but I don't have the one after my first birthday. How my undergraduate school (UT) and my law school (Santa Clara) accepted me without one of the shots is beyond me. Oh wait. Measles, mumps, and rubella aren't all that prevalent in the United States.

Will someone please tell my b school that? The MMR shot alone costs $125. The tetanus shot $50. And then an administrative fee of $25 (folding one sheet of paper in half and writing my name on it with the two shots I received). All together? $200 bucks. The MMR vaccine is what they call a 'live' vaccine. Which means that a few days after my shot I should expect to be a bit sick. 200 fucking dollars. And I could probably go to some third world country and get a dose of MMR just by breathing the air.

My Story

Work knows I will bid them farewell in a month or so. They've known from the get go that I applied to b school. The other day I got a request from someone in marketing for my 'bio' to put on an RFP (request for production). There's a million things in the world I would rather do (stab my eyes with an ice pick) than write about myself. So I emailed my coworker back and told her that I'm leaving in a few weeks, so I'd rather not do one.

She emailed me back saying that the RFP is for April 2008, so I kinda can't get out of writing one.

Fabulous. However, I did see the bios of other coworkers. The difference is that I have not been working for a long enough time. Everyone else has put in 5 years here, 10 years there, blah blah blah. Me? I've been in compliance for under 3 years.

Here's what I got so far:

"Legalmisfit is the Compliance Associate for XYZ and likes meat on a stick."

Oh What an Experience!

This past weekend was Experience Weekend at UNC. Basically its a time to check out the school, the potential classmates, the professors and much more. Its also a time for the school to woo any students on the fence about attending.

Although the weather was utter crap and my brain was functioning at 8%, I had a blast and fell in love with UNC. Its a fantastic institution, and my classmates are fun, smart, and overall great people. I can see myself spending the next two years here and loving it.

Even watching UNC get clobbered in the Final Four was fun. It was brutal, and I have never heard the crowd go so crazy when UNC was behind by 12 points, but hey, it was fun.

My flight out to RDU stopped in Phoenix. I was hungry enough (and smart enough) to get off the plane and hunt for food (the Phoenix to RDU route was 5 hours). I wasn't smart enough to put away my ID and...duh--there it goes. I spazzed for about a good hour until I realized that because I never clean out my wallet, I had my expired driver's license. Score!!!

My hotel was just a hotel. Ok-it wasn't anything fabulous, but for the price, it was good. I went downstairs to the lobby and reported that I had no hair dryer in my room. And yes, I looked in the bathroom, the closet area, and all dresser drawers. Couldn't find it. Later that night, I realized it was one of those that are built into the bathroom wall. 1.5 feet from where I applied make up. Maybe my brain was actually functioning at 3.5% instead of 8.

A Different Kind of Prosperous

There are plenty of people out there that think I'm going to be rich. One day. I don't agree or disagree. I will say that I'm nearly 30, own a 5 year old car, own a ton of stuffed animals. What I don't own is a home. Maybe I'm on the road less traveled to my millions...

Sometimes fortune cookies give great fortunes (You are well liked by many people). Sometimes I get command cookies (Make your bed every morning). And other times, they're just shit fortunes all the way around. Two days ago my fortune read, "Your wealth will be great health."

Like I said, sometimes its just shit fortunes all the way around. I have to admit, I'd rather be 'wealthy' with evidence of a fatty bank account (or offshore Swiss bank account), and not by simply...still being alive. I have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and probably a whole host of other bad things (I'm too lazy to sit there and read every item on the list at the doc's office so in one fell swoop its all 'N/A'). These are my health problems and I am ok with it. Part of it is my diet. Part of it is genes, but I accept that. What I can't accept is being broke the rest of my life.

Needless to say I didn't eat the fortune cookie. That's the only way I know to reject it.

Leaving on a Midnight Train to Georgia

The thought of driving coast to coast is not a pretty one. So yesterday I decided to price out how much it would cost to have my car transported. In one fell swoop I don't want to put so many miles on my car, and risk flat tires and other mishaps (I've gotten more flat tires than I care to remember).

I gave two websites my info for quotes. Remember, this was yesterday. As of 4 minutes ago, I've gotten 29 emails from various companies offering to move my car. 29!!! And that's not even including the phone calls I've received. Am I everybody's last hope? Why the fuck won't they leave me alone? Even car salesmen aren't nearly this bad! But I can tell you one company which will definitely not be getting my business: the one that addressed me as MR. In conclusion, moving companies are fast moving up my 'shit list' ladder. They way they're going, they're going to out-pace the ABA in terms of the number of unwanted emails. Now that's saying something.

Now I'm scared shitless. I haven't started packing, although I've entertained the notion on more than one occasion. I still have to sell my bed and table, and donate clothes that I bought when I had an apparent lapse in eyesight. I have two months before I move. In between now and then I will:

-spend a weekend in North Carolina
-spend a weekend in Vegas
-spend a weekend in Texas
-spend half a week in DC

Of course I have to fit in packing in between all these cross country jaunts. You say it can't be done? I second that...