t.g.i.f.!

Especially because I don't have to work today! It's a beautiful day to have off, with possible highs in the 70s! Hello shorts and sandals!

Here are some upcoming events in the near and not-so-near future:

- New York International Children's Film Festival: I'm catching Nausicaa, a Miyazaki film, tomorrow morning at the IFC Center.
- Knitting class! Gerald got me a gift certificate for my birthday a while back, so I'm planning on signing up for a class in the next few weeks. If I'm any good, expeect to receive hats and scarves for Christmas!
- Tribeca Film Festival: 4/25 - 5/7. Despite living blocks away, I have yet to set foot in Tribeca. I'm sure I will make it out there for at least one movie.
- Brooklyn Restaraunt Week: 4/3 - 4/11. I couldn't find a link for the restaraunts, but I'm hoping to continue exploring this not-so-far borough.
- Baseball! The season opens on 4/2 and although I'm excited about the games, I'm a bit worried about my fantasy teams. There's just too much to do in NYC to keep track of my fantasy teams!
- The Whitney Biennial 2006: I'm really hoping to check this out soon. Maybe this afternoon?
- Upcoming auctions at Christie's: There's another wine auction on Saturday 4/8, will I have the guts this time to bid?

play ball!

It's that time of year again! The coming of spring means that I will be spending hours every afternoon poring over box scores and baseball news in hopes of winning a fantasy baseball championship! Last night I held two simultaneous drafts, both of which begin at 11:00PM EST, as most of the other managers live in rainy California.

I only lasted about half-way for each draft, selecting 9 of the total 18 players for each team (BaseBallers of the World x 2, baby!). The rest of my team was selected by the autopicker, which is probably as good as my judgement. I have a tendency to be a sentamentalist when it comes to drafting. I never like to take a chance on young, fresh players, trusting instead to old career veterans, who are often past their prime (but have hopefully one good year left!).

So far, I've never won a baseball league, although I'm thinking of joining a public league just to try and add a trophy to my fantasy profile. It's amazing how far fantasy has come along, I still remember Eric Tam crunching away stats on Excel and posting the printed spreadsheets in the hallway.

sew what?

Sew buttons! For some reason that reminds me of the old exchange, which I never found funny:

"You know what?"
"What?"
"Chicken butt!"
"uh, ok..."

But seriously, I need to sew some buttons. Last year, during a trip to China, I picked up a ton of custom-made dress shirts for little over $10 each. I wear these shirts every day to work, and love the fit and comfort. However, the "Made in China" quality results in buttons falling off nearly all of them. Usually it's the little one on the sleeve, but I can tell that some of the primary chest buttons are about to fall off. I've slowly built a collection of buttons here at work. It's not like I don't know how to sew buttons (Devy showed me how last year), it's just that I don't like to. Any takers? Thanks in advance!

- Goodbye Bluths...
- The power of radio to make a difference

they make ya smart

I love beans. Especially baked beans. Matt's mom used to make a mean baked bean. They even sent some to me freshman year of college!

Anyways, can anyone make beans for me? Here's a recipe for you (for me). I'd appreciate it!

i'm #1!

Yes! I'm now the #1 search result for "mike wu blog" on Google, plus the #1 search result for mike wu on Google's Blog Search. Unfortunately I'm still only #6 on Google for just "mike wu", but I'm hoping that someday I can overtake this Mike Wu (plus some guy who appeared as "Chinese Soldier" on Smallville).

In additional NYC news, I had celebrity sighting #2 last night. Upon my way home from Jimmy's wedding Chinatown, I spotted Famke Janssen walking her dog right near my place on Sixth Avenue!

I'm currently reading The Prestige (recommended and borrowed from Chih), which has been good so far. I just finished Fortress of Solitude, which I enjoyed and was neat because it's based in Brooklyn and in Berkeley. It's always fun reading books set in neighborhoods you have a connection to. The last book I read set in Berkeley was Caucasia, which I also highly recommend.

News articles from weeks ago:
- The international legality of torrents (or how those crazy Swedes love their illegal downloading)
- Everyone loves Oxo (and they're located in the Chelsea Market!)
- I love chocolate milk, but I didn't know how good it was for me!

Wedding pictures!

These have been posted on flickr already (photoset here), but here are a few of my favorite:

i'm sick!

I been a while since I last posted, largely because work has been pretty busy, and I've come down with quite the nasty cold. I know I always brag about my fantastic immune system, but i think the combination of traveling, drinking, and staying up late has not helped me get any better. I still believe that most people would be bed-ridden with what I have, and that it's only my amazing antibodies that are keeping me going at work.

Here's what's been going on since the wedding:

- On Saturday night, Tommy had a get-together at his parents' house with family and friends. It was nice to have a more relaxed evening with everyone, and we got to enjoy some awesome mojo potatoes from Shakeys!

- Sunday I arrived in New York at 5:00AM, just enough time to sleep for a couple of hours before work. Of course, the one Sunday I have to work after a cross-country flight is the same Sunday I have to work until nearly midnight. On my way home from work I decide to grab a chicken unda roll, and the only other customer in Kathi Roll is none other than my roommate Chih! If I had arrived just minutes earlier, we could have both saved 50 cents.

- Monday night was the Slice-Gothamist pizza party. I went with Chih, and we had our fill of all-you-can-eat pizza and all-can-drink beer and wine. You can read all about it on Slice or Gothamist, or view pics from the event on Flickr. My favorite pizza at Fornino was their black-truffle pizza. Had I known it was also their most expensive pizza ($35 small/$50 large), I defnitely would have had a few more slices. The highlight, however, was Chef/owner Michael Ayoub's mozzarella-making demonstration. Not only did we watch him make fresh mozzarella from curd, but everyone got to sample the freshly made cheese with sea salt and proscuitto. Best cheese ever. Thanks to Gothamist and Slice for organizing such a great event!

- On Tuesdays I've had to opportunity to practice with my new basketball team (Go Moe's Tavern!). However, yesterday I decided I was feeling way too sick, and that it was probably better for me to rest at home and prepare for Thursday night's game.

Tonight I'm headed to a co-worker's wedding in Chinatown after work. Let's hope I get better soon!

i'm back!

This morning I arrived back in NYC from a much-too-short 40-hour trip to Pasadena. Of course, by morning I mean 5:00 AM, just in time to sleep for a few hours at home and head over to work, where I still am now.

Even in spite of some inclement weather, Tommy and Sanjeet's wedding was the most beautiful event I have ever attended. In addition to the amazing decor, they did a great job with their guest list. It was wonderful catching up with old friends. It was a great precursor to the 10 year reunion (7/14 to all you PHS c/o 96 people reading this!).

Anyways, I'm hoping to wrap stuff up at work soon (or at least by midnight). I'll try to post pics of the wedding soon!

fair warning.. selling!

Yesterday morning, I took off work and headed to Christie's to attempt to win the Plaza bellhop jacket which was not only embroidered with my name, but was a perfect fit! I rushed to get to the Rockefeller Center by 10AM, registered to bid, and then sadly discovered that the estimated price for the lot containing my jacket was $800-$1,200, a little more than what I wanted to play for a used, albeit cool, jacket.

Even though I wasn't planning to bid on my lot, I'm glad I decided to spend some time watching the auction as it was far more exciting than then the wine auction last weekend. The highlight was this painting, which was estimated to sell at $1,000 - $1,500, but sold for $65,000! When the bidding finally closed, there was a huge round of applause from the audience.

Anyways, I'm off to Los Angeles soon for Tommy and Sanjeet's wedding! Have a great weekend all!

four things (but really more like 32 of them)

I was tagged by Bert.

Four jobs I have had:
1. Outback Steakhouse busboy
2. Comics & Comix cashier (my manager was exactly like Comic Book Guy!)
3. Campus textbook store bag-checker
4. Trimble Navigation web-surfing intern

Four things I wished I'd done earlier in life:
1. Wearing contacts to play basketball
2. Yoga
3. Running
4. Eating better

Four places I have lived:
1. Pasadena, CA
2. Berkeley, CA
3. San Francisco, CA
4. New York, NY

Four countries I'd like to visit :
1. Australia
2. India
3. Russia
4. Costa Rica

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Pizza
2. Steak
3. Ribs
4. Oysters

Four sites I visit daily (more like hourly):
1. Gmail
2. My Yahoo!
3. NY Times
4. Flickr

Four software applications I can't live without:
1. Dashboard
2. Safari
3. iCal
4. Internet Explorer (only because I use it at work)

Four things I'll never forget:
1. Saying goodbye to my parents when i started college
2. My first traffic accident
3. Dropping nearly 100 pounds on Big J's face while weightlifting
4. I had a BBQ stain on my white t-shirt, she was killing me in that mini-skirt, skipping rocks on the river by the railroad tracks. She had a suntan line and red lipstick, I worked so hard for that first kiss...

Four bloggers I am passing the torch to:
1. As stated previously, I made a vow never to pass on chain letters. Not that I don't enjoy doing them, or reading others, I just can't bring myself to tag other people.

sunday already!?

Yesterday Leslie and I checked out the wine auction at Christie's. We got an auction catalogue, bidding paddle and prepared to purchase some fine vino, but unfortunately none of the wine was up to our stringent standards. Or maybe I just didn't have the guts to pull the trigger on a $250 case of wine (which actually only comes out to little more than $20/bottle). I think I'm just not a wine guy. However, during our tour of their gallery, I did come across and awesome jacket from their Plaza auction that I am determined to bid on.

The rest of the day went by quickly as we had lunch in Chinatown (I had been craving steamed pork dumplings all week), dropped by my apartment so I could change out of the stuffy collared outfit I wore for Christies, and then headed to Leslie's sister and brother-in-law's place for dinner. Carolyn (I hope I'm spelling that right) and Doug prepared a great dinner, and then we watched "The Corpse Bride," which was much better than I thought it would be. I was so disappointed about "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (which was not bad, but I just had really high expectations), that I was really down on "Corpse Bride" while it was in the theaters.

Nothing planned for tonight, as I'm still not 100% and am hoping to shake my cough before I head back to Los Angeles next week.

- Malcolm Gladwell's blog is awesome. I also highly recommend reading his conversations with Bill Simmons on ESPN.com, part 1 and part 2.
- Good press on my favorite film festival.
- I found my old Dream League stats. Season 1 - note the team leading FG% (do not note anything else). Season 2 - got a little better with the improved team chemistry, but I'm definitely no Calvin Murphy.

goodbye winter, hello spring!

It's a beautiful day to not work! 69 degrees and sunny! I am definitely wearing shorts today as I run my errands - haircut, shoe repair and grocery shopping.

Rave - Jamba Juice is perfect for days like today. It's a bit humid, but there's nothing like a Citrus Squeeze or Mango-a-Go-Go after working out. I was planning on checking out a new lunch spot, but decided to use my lunch money on a refreshing Jamba Juice.

Rant (a.k.a Shake a fist!) #1 - I gave up on looking for my old Master combination lock. I've had it for years, and the combination was pretty much ingrained in my head. Actually it was more visuall ingrained. I could never remember the numbers, but it always came bckk to me easily once I was spinning the mechanism.

Rant (a.k.a Shake a fist!) #2 - Why is it so hard to find an Odwalla in NYC? I've been a little under the weather, and I can't find my usual fix of Odwalla C Monster anywhere!

Rave #2 (so I don't end on a rant) - I love shoe repair. I've had the same favorite pair of work shoes for almost five years, thanks to new heels and soles.

FYI - I had a lot of fun at the Nada Surf concert with my new friend Leslie. Leslie - sorry I made us get there so early! I didn't want to miss the opening band (Rogue Wave), but we ended up there for the openers for the openers.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to check out the wine auction at Christie's. I doubt I'll be bidding on any two-thousand-buck-Chuck.

what's with gmail?

Only a few weeks back, I raved about Gmail's new chat function and how easy to use it was. However, nowadays it seems as though their server is constantly crashing. Shake a fist! How else am I supposed to keep in contact with the outside world?

I just noticed you can turn off the chat feature. Hopefully this will help the email feature work.

Anyways, I recently finished two excellent books. I highly recommend both:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin - a trip to a fantasy world of year-long winter and mono-gendered inhabitants.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth - a trip to a fantasy American future where Lindbergh serves as America's pro-Nazi president in the 1940s.

- big game tonight vs USC. A win guarantees a trip to the tournament! Go Bears!
- Touche! China responds to American human rights report.

just another wednesday

Except that today I'm leaving work early for Brooklyn Law School event (did you know that Geraldo Rivera is a Brooklyn Law alum?), then going to a Nada Surf concert at Webster Hall. It'll be my first live music show in NYC, so I'm pretty excited. Unfortunately I'm pretty disappointed to have to miss my second Dream League game with my new team, Moe's Tavern. Hopefully someday I can actually make it to a game...

Work has been pretty busy today (mainly because I have a meeting at 3:30PM, then I leave at 5:00PM), but here are some interesting articles from the past few days.

- WBC begins with a win for team US
- Noodles are important in China
- You won't catch me posting hidden corporate messages (at least until they start sending me info to post)
- Fat kids are not just a problem in the Midwest
- Someone stands up for free speech in China (the Chinese government!)
- The secret of Trader Joe's success (mentions Pasadena!)
- This really sucks for some HS seniors. I wonder if the SAT errors went the other way as well.
- Will the steroid controversy ever end? IMO, Bonds sohuld just retire.
- That crazy Chinese internet...
- I used to love Snoopy. Mrs. Schulz keeps the legacy going.
- Our lobby has a photo gallery of Gordon Parks' work.
- Go women for saving the environment!
- Today is International Womens Day!

i'm back!

Can you believe it's March already?! It's good to be back home, but now I feel like I have so little time left in NYC, in the event that I get in to a law school out of state. There's still so much left to do and see, and now that spring is near I'll just want to sit outside all day.

Last night I went to Barcade for Tien's birthday and I learned that one of his friends lived in my apartment building, in the unit right below me! Small world! And her husband went to Brooklyn Law School, where I'll be attending a social event tomorrow evening (but he strongly advises against going to any law school)!

- Times article on the old neighborhood
- Neil Gaiman, one of my fave fantasy writers, has a blog
- Cal claims third place! Is Powe really thinking about leaving?

greetings from chicago!

i can't believe it's saturday and i am leaving already. i've had a great trip, visiting northwestern and u of chicago law schools, as well as sightseeing and hanging out with friends. both schools were impressive and touring the campuses, sitting in on a class and speaking with my friends who attended both schools made me very excited (and hopeful) about the possibility of attending law school in chicago.

here are the sightseeing highlights:
- magnificent mile: just like fifth avenue in new york city, excpet longer, with more malls and stores
- shedd aquarium: huge indoor aquarium, with a large dolphin and beluga whale tank, as well as cool exhibits such as a filipino coral reef and the annual flooding cycle in the amazon.
- millenium park: the "bean" is this really cool silver ellipsoid that reflects very clearly the chicago skyline.
- shannon ford walking tour: a great descriptive journey through the tourist highlights of downtown chicago.
- lake michigan: you really can't see the other side!
- giordano's pizza: surprisingly, just as good as zachary's. thanks shannon and bill!

a few chicago downers:
- the "L" train: maybe it was just the construction coming in from evanston, bt the train was excrutiatingly slow at times. a true test of my patience, which has probably been pared down by the fast lifestyle in new york city.
- aggressive sidewalk panhandlers: i honestly think it's worse than new york and san francisco. i think i had gotten used to lazy panhandlers who just sit there with their cup, but here they actually are very proactive about asking for change.
- ucla vs. cal basketball: it sucked.

big thanks to:
Jack - as always, an awesome friend and host. thanks for putting me up (and probably putting up with me) for the past four days. in addition to being considerate and helpful, it was nice to catch up. plus his place was amazingly neat!
Andrew - thanks for going above and beyond to make sure i learned and experienced everything i could about northwestern while i was out here. it was great catching up and hearing about your time at northwestern, as well as your future plans. have a great time in china!
Shannon and Bill - Bill, thanks for taking time out of your day to speak with me about U of Chicago. i found the exchange between you and justin fascinating, and it really fired me up about going back to school. Shannon, thanks for the great walking tour. it's always good to see you, so i'm looking forward to seeing you again in two weeks at tommy's wedding. to both, thanks again for the great dinner!

- go simpsons! (although i did get three of the five freedoms)
- another montreal post by gerald