Locating Business Cards is Hard Work

So with my newfound hobby of collecting business cards from places I’ve been (good or bad), I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re actually pretty hard to find.

Are business cards out of style now? Has everyone forgotten about the tangible-ness of a business card and switched on over to the Internet marketing world? I’ve seen more posters around stores telling me to “like” them on Facebook but have had a hard time locating business cards.

It’s become a little disappointing.

Today I went to Tuna Town of HB with my buddies Mochi Doughnut and Devil. Needless to say, it took some scouting around before I’d realized that their business cards were kept behind the desk. I had to ask the concierge if I could have one. Why aren’t they just set out for my pleasure? It’s not as though it’s a networking conference in which etiquette in exchanging business cards is taking place…

By the way, Tuna Town sucks. Don’t even bother with that place. More on that in another post though.

I think so far, the only shops I’ve had 100% luck in finding cards is at small Vietnamese establishments around town. I’ve yet to come I to one that has let me down. They’re always right there by the registers if I need them.

I was surprised to find that most of the mom and pop shops around Costa Mesa and such only resulted in disappointment. I thought for sure these fine establishments would have them. But alas, I was incorrect. Particularly the small restaurants such as Lil Pickle. I would definitely have started collecting the menus as well, only they would take up way more storage space than the happiness that is the 2×3.5″ business card.

February Roundup (Picture heavy!)

Oh the times have escaped me. Just a collection of things from February that I didn’t get a chance to blog about. So very quick and dirty:

This was my first time at Mochilato in Irvine with a few lovely ladies. Very good! This one in particular was the one that had everything thrown together.

It also came with 4 servings of Mochilato- mochi with gelato filling. Insanely delicious.

I was really into making Puri this month. These were the lovely ladies who accompanied me to Mochilato.

Some sort of handroll. Crunchy spider or something? This was my first time at Kula in Irvine, a rotating sushi restaurant. Good stuff.

An outing to the “Camp” in Costa Mesa yielded this cool parking lot in which every stall had a different saying. Originally we had parked in one that said “Paddle your own canoe” but as soon as we got out, we scouted the available lots until we agreed on this one and reparked. Yep. Meesho and I are just that awesome.

My mom told me this was my dinner one night… Right after telling me that she’d just done the groceries.

Also at the “Camp.” we found these seed bombs. Apparently, you throw these around and hope that a plant (or weed?) grows.

The stairs at the “Camp” were pretty cool. Motivational.

Plant reproductive system. I didn’t know my iPod could take such awesome pictures through the microscope oculars. Heck, I didn’t even know it was possible.

Burger King of Costa Mesa was too cheap to fix thee ketchup machine. So they had squirt bottles set out.

My Burger King toy.

I’d never seen one of these signs written in Viet, I I had to take a picture.

The condiment line up at The Hat of Brea. They even had ranch and thousand island!

My bestie at The Hat.

Our obnoxiously large order of chili cheese fries. They were the size of those 4-cup cup holders. Came with a side of diced tomatoes and pickles as well. I didn’t think pickles would go together with chili cheese fries, but man they were good!

4Imprint’s alternative to Levenger’s slim wallet writer. I love it! And it was free via their request a sample thing. And of course, the note card was from VistaPrint.

I was really in the mood to colour one day.

This was on the placemat at Jack-In-The-Box.

Teehee! A cool ice cream scoop from Sur La Table at South Coast.

Dookeys from Paper Source at South Coast.

Jake is coming to the OC!

The snails we races in Biology lab. The one on the left is Speedy.

This was at the top of the stairs at school. O_o

Pretty nice. Ready to mail without fumbling or wondering how much for postage.

That’s it for February.

HC Tet Party 2011

I got the opportunity to host my first HC event last night, and with one of my best friends as well!

As with all HC events, we started with opening prayer, moved on to some light snacks and mingling, played a group activity, and mingled the rest of the night.

Our activity was hilarious! We had originally planned a night if Minute to Win It, but because a lot of our supplies went missing, we opted for Pictionary Telephone. The drawings and responses we got were awesome! It was a tie between all 3 teams, with Team 3 winning after our Tie-Breaker, Pikachu.

Next up, we chuc-ed each other. At first I was really nervous, not ever having chuc-ed anyone close to my age before. I’d only ever memorized the little schpiel when I was little for super formal occasions. But the Alumni did a great job of just conversing and giving me new year blessings. It was really great getting to know everyone.

After that, so that the Alumni could get some stuff back, we played Bau Cua and card games. it was really fun watching everybody get so into it. It was then that I handed out my goody bags! I’ve been working on them since I’d quit my job and had all the free time in the world to do as I pleased.

The goody bags were made out of lunch sacks, printed Domo mouths, and colored in eyeballs. I’d also made a notepad using our group’s logo and a small water bottle with a personalized label that I’d drawn up in GIMP.

I also got this really cool sticker maker from Xyron at Michaels. I used then to make “sticki pickies” (I think that’s how you spell it; I’d never done it before).

But anyway, using the Photobooth app on my iPod, we took “photobooth” pictures. As everyone was playing games, I went ahead and printed our shots on photo paper. Some of them I left as regular photo strips and the rest were run through the sticker maker.

I specifically for the Xyron 150. It only creates stickers out of items up to a width of 1.5″, but that’s good enough for my purposes. If anything I can always grab another Xyron for fairly cheap. The refills are affordable at Michaels too, when you’ve their 40-50% off coupons. I believe the refills for the 150 runs for about $5.00 before tax and discount. So about $3 for 20 feet if stickers is pretty good. That’s almost 40 photo strips that I can do! Not bad at all.

Tet Parade 2011

Biked out to see the annual Tet parade with my dad this morning. Pretty cool, I guess. there were plenty of mayors from neighboring cities as well as martial arts academies. This was the first time that I’d seen my own academy in the parade. Previous years, they’d opted out.

Some Dragon/Lion dancers.

A local martial arts group.

Lee’s Sandwiches. My dad thought the 17-wheeler was ridiculous; should have only kept the 3 little green cars in the parade. The honking they kept doing was obnoxious as well.

Some people gave out some red envelopes.

Inside was a year of the cat magnet.

My old middle school’s school band.

Mayors and other men of neighboring cities.

I don’t know what float this was. But it looked nice and colorful.

La Quinta’s high school band.

Local gay and lesbian group. I didn’t even know we had one.

The aftermath? My street is full of cars and I’m stuck at home. Good thing I like biking.

Silent Retreat

I’d gone on a silent retreat with Hat Cai this weekend and experienced a spiritual high as I have never experienced before.

I had originally gone thinking that it’d be a great opportunity to just get away from life and the burdens of society. I was at a point in life where nothing made sense and all of my decisions seemed to take me deeper into depression. Granted, the local seminar with Frank Keefer made me feel a little better about myself, I was still missing something; inner peace.

Coming into retreat that first day, I thought that the silence was enough to quell my thoughts. But I think that it just gave me more reason to think about my problems. It wasn’t until I started getting the hang of prayer that God answered my call. Cha Quan told me that this was God’s way of telling me that He knows the burdens of my daily life has consumed me and was trying to tell me that He is there to share those burdens and console me.

I don’t think I’d ever felt such relaxation and peace of mind. I don’t think I’d ever even just bursted into tears like that.

Later on during retreat I cried a lot more. During Reconciliation mass, after confession, such relief swept over my body. Such bliss. I cried. Again I cried as we each tossed out stones into the night, symbolizing that our sins have been cast away. And once more I cried while washing a dear friend’s feet, asking her for forgiveness of any time I felt I had been a “bad” friend. We’ve never had any fights or anything of the like, but I’d always felt that she’d done so much for me yet I’ve never reciprocated that love. I’d always felt that she was the better friend.

Coming home, I still felt at peace. How long I will last, only time can tell. But I do hope that I can keep that light within me and experience that feeling of bliss whenever life brings me down.

I think the two songs from retreat that sums it up for me would be:

• Before the Morning – Josh Wilson; “Would you dare, would you dare, to believe/ that you still have a reason to sing/ ’cause the pain that you’ve been feeling/ can’t compare to the joy that’s coming.”
• Thank You – The Katinas; “Here I am with all I have/ Raise my hands to worship You/ I wanna say thank you oh thank you/ For everything, for who You are/ You cover me, You touch my heart/ I wanna say thank you.”

Target Finds and Mashed Potato Smiles

Ah… once again, I woke up at about 5:30am to a bunch of arguments next door (or maybe just very loud talking) and had been trying very hard to go back to sleep.  3 hours later, I’m here, sitting at the computer trying to keep myself from going insane from waking up and going to bed to a bunch of arguing.

Yesterday between Chem finals and work, I decided to go to Target to pick up a drink; I was really craving mineral water for some reason.  Here’s what I stumbled upon during my Target adventure:

According to Webster’s dictionary, the term rainbow (as an adjective) is defined as “having MANY colours,” and the word many is defined as “consisting of or amounting to a large but indefinite number.”  I do believe that this “rainbow” that the Keebler elves are referring to only consists of 3 distinct colours, and of only one shade.  That’s sad.    I’d want ROY G. BIV in my rainbow cookies.  For those who don’t know ROY G. BIV from elementary school, it’s an acronym for Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet.

It’s December.  Not October.    Get with the program.  While I understand that it’s not perished and is still drinkable, I think that should have been in their pile of “Clearance” items within the first two weeks of November.  It would have been nice to pick those up on Clearance though; those things cost a sh!t load for what they are.

8 fluid ounces x 6 cans per pack = 48 ounces

These things cost about $3.00 per 6-pack, which comes out to be $0.06 per ounce.

Take a 2-litre bottle (about 68 ounces) of the same stuff that costs at most, $1.50 and it’ll come out to be $0.02 per ounce.

Along the same aisle, I happened upon this stuff.  What is it?  Looks kinda cool.  Non-Alcoholic malt beverage is all I got from it.  I like the packaging; very simple, yet eye catching.  Maybe a bit old-timey as well.

That night, I had a dinner consisting of mashed potato smilies and grape Kool-Aid.  I wasn’t all that hungry and didn’t want anything more than quick finger food and a sweet drink.  So out to the freezer I went.  I was actually pretty lazy too so I asked my brother to accompany me out into the kitchen to toast up them smilies.

The Bag

Before According to my brother, “They look like aliens.”

After

Close Up

  That would be my meal.  The awesome Jack with my Kool-Aid and some mashed potato smilies with a bit of Ketchup.  Good stuff.  It was kind of like buttery french fries… I think.  It’s a little hard to explain.  But it was good. 

99 Cent Store Finds

Went to the 99 cent store earlier today to get some cheap Christmas decorations. You’ve got to love the random findings there.

Looks like I’ve got myself a high end 99 cent store. Looks like 99.99 cents to me. More than 99 cents but less than a dollar. (Mind you, if you’re thinking it should be 99 dollars and 99 cents, you’d be wrong. That would be 9,999 cents.)

Sometimes, when you walk around the store, something just catches you eye. In this case, I saw some baby sized poinsettias sitting smack in the middle of the aisle. But what came afterward got me thinking…

It reads, “Care Instructions. 1. Unsleeve plant. 2. If soil is dry, water plant.” Apparently, plants don’t need sunshine and such anymore. Great instructions by the way… If you only plan on keeping the thing for less than a week…

Night Out With The Girls

Sushi, Target, and Tangled. What more could a girl ask for?

That would be a typical night out with my girlfriends; dinner, some time to catch up, rent or go out for a movie, and some more time to catch up.

First stop that night was Gesshin for a light sushi dinner. It was fairly good. I think I’ve had better, but at least I was with my bestest buddies.

We ordered:

Sashimi Salad I think I loved this dish the best. The dressing was a simple (I’m assuming) ginger and sesame type dressing. Very light and refreshing. The only thin that bothered me was that the lighter colored fish that they had in there was oddly mushy and didn’t taste all that fresh.

Volcano Roll I love me a Volcano roll any day. But this one was a little much for me. Too heavy with the sauce. And I didn’t like their frying technique either; more oil than I would have liked. But that’s just me.

(not shown)
Spicy Tuna Crunch Roll This was not worthy for pictures. I actually had to ask if this was the spicy tuna. Normally, spicy tuna would be chopped up, no? This was more like a paste.

Overall, the food there was edible, but could be better. If I came back, it’d have to be because somebody invited me. I wouldn’t go out of my way for the food.

The service, however, was outstanding, as was the decor. The waitresses were always happy, came by to take out our plates as soon as they were empty, and refilled our drinks without being asked and always before they were even empty. The decor was simple but aesthetically pleasing. nice and relaxing atmosphere.

We also found this little bit of happiness in their menu:

Yep. That’s right.

Next up, we decided to kill some time before our movie. We headed out to the Target, which happened to be in the dame plaza, and just walked around for a bit. This random outing, I learned that Nabisco had added a new item to their Ritz line of products.

I’d kind of like to try them. Seems interesting. And it kind of reminds me of the commercial where those lab scientists were trying to fit a pretzel into an M&M. I actually never got a chance to try those either. Maybe I wasn’t meant to try pretzel products.

And then I found this little guy:

The little munchkin was so cute. I loved his teeny tiny arms! Admittedly, that goofy smile and the fact that he’d be munching on your feet isn’t the happiest of thoughts, but it was just kind of cute.

Either I Have a Dirty Mind Or…

Maybe I just have a dirty mind, but it seems that kids’ toys these days have some weird “coincidental” similarities as adult toys.

I happened upon this particular toy, called Sing-A-Ma-Jigs, at a local Target while holiday shopping with my best friend. I don’t know what was going on with this toy’s creators, but really? Not only the creators, but the company who allowed it to hit shelves.

It seems that all these toys can do is say, “O” and their mouths look similar to those found on Japan’s doll things. I don’t recall what they’re called, but I remember seeing them in a documentary of some guy who really loves his girl-doll-thing.

But I don’t know. Just me or some twisted coincidence?