Google Voice

Per the request of Wysz and Reid:

I was at work when I noticed a voicemail notification on my phone from Google Voice.  It was from an Unknown number, so I skimmed the transcript to see what the message was about.  Here it is, pasted in full below:

Sophie, What you got. Bob Baker. Yeah, I’m told my the actual total book that you’ve had a few things and sometimes hi can come too late, or come home. I’m glad with thesound was, but I cannot you. I think I’m a little fun. I’ll pop okay house but bye.

I was like, who is Bob Baker and why is he trash talking me?  Then I listened to the voicemail – turns out it was my mom telling me in Chinese that she’d left some chicken soup on the stove for me.  Oh Google Voice.

New Uses for Old Things

Fall makes me want to Martha Stewart my room and make pie.  In my search for new ways to revamp my room, I came across a nifty slideshow entitled “50 All-Time Favorite New Uses for Old Things.”  Most of the ideas are somewhat clever, but some are your usual design magazine suggestions (e.g. this-is-theoretically-cool-but-would-look-wack-in-someone’s-real-house).  There were a couple ideas that made me go “ooh!!” so I thought I’d share them.

Favorite tip #1: “No more worries of camisoles and sundresses slipping off hangers when you wrap the ends with rubber bands.”

Genius.  Usually I just flail helplessly at my shirts and hope they climb back onto the hanger, but this seems promising.

Favorite tip #2: “Make no-mess pancakes with the help of a ketchup bottle: Pour in batter, then squeeze out precise portions.”

This is such a cool idea but it totally weirds me out.  I don’t know why pancake batter in a ketchup bottle seems gross to me.

Favorite tip #3: “Bridge the gap between too-short stems and too-deep vase by sliding on trimmed clear plastic straws.”

I give you… magic flowers that float in thin air!  TA-DAH!!

Favorite tip #4: “Liberally apply cooking spray to both sides of a plastic or metal shovel before clearing away snow, and ice will slide right off instead of building up.”

This is especially handy for those times I shovel snow and then eat it.

Favorite tip #5: “Attach a magnet to the inside of a metal medicine cabinet, and you can promptly pluck tweezers (or nail clippers) when needed.”

This is not a good tip if you have metal hands.

And finally… my least favorite tip: “A Twister game mat makes a spot-on tablecloth for a child’s birthday party: Sticky spills and icing wash right off.”

That’s great and all but… what about all the feet that have been there?  Eeeew.

And the runner-up for least favorite tip: “Rubber bands give little fingers a better grip on a chilly or slippery glass.”

Because slippery glasses kill 4.8 people a year.  True story.

Nerds

Recently I have acquired a new shirt that I lub.

I was wearing it while helping my brother look for sunglasses at one of those overly fancy sunglasses stores (let’s call it Goggle Yurt).  A Goggle Yurt salesman approached, looked at my shirt, and asked, “Is that true?”  I awkwardly laughed. Socially-challenged Goggle Yurt salesman continued to stare at me without smiling and wait for an answer.  Eventually I just looked at Drew, who happened to be trying on giant purple aviators, and just answered, “Yup.”

Drew says he should have just said, “Are you hitting on my girlfriend?  Because I’ll fry you with my photon ray.”

The Little Cats

I’ve been engaging in some spring-cleaning-on-steroids, by which I mean taking everything in my room out, moving around the furniture, and keeping only what’s useful.  Or fluffy.  Or awesome.  I haven’t done this since we moved here (19 years ago), so as you can imagine it’s been quite an endeavor (I’m currently on Day 4 of cleaning).

Anyhoo, here’s one of the gems I came across while cleaning – it’s a story my little brother and I wrote.  Judging by the complicated mathematical computations on the pages preceding it (e.g. 50 + 50 = 100), I’d guess that we were about 5 and 6 years-old respectively.  I’ll reproduce the piece in its full entirety (with the omission of the lovely accompanying illustrations).  You can attribute all the bad spelling and stupid parts to my little brother and all the brilliant and funny parts to me.

The Little Cats

There once was two cats named Pancakes and Candycane.  They loved to go hunting for pancakes, candy canes, and pizzas.  One day they went into a forest and bumped into a hunter that loved cat skin for decoration.  He thought how beautiful thair white and brown fur would look.  Well the cats started to scratch him.  Well lets see if they survive?

They did!  They survived the hunter got so many bruses!  Pancakes and Candycane wanted to go farther in the forest.  They came to a puddle and drank some water but they ran into a bear and got hurt but they were smart and they ran for thair lives.  They felt good when they saw their house.  They ran into their house but it was wierd nobody was home and it looked different oh no!   They are in the hunters house they quickly got out and ran.  did you remember when they got hurt well their ok but the thing is they were hungery very hungery they saw birds flying over them how beautiful it was.  But they had to get home.  It was scary since it was dark and it was getting spooky.  But never worry they kept on lookiing.  They found shelter to sleep in they were covered with leaves and other stuff in the forest.

The next day they met a baby bear named Cupcake he knew a lot of things in the forest.  He knew where food was and where the river was.  They turned into good friends and always had fun.  But the bear that hurted Pancake and Candycane was Big Bear he was mean and cruel.  Then a rabbit named Chocolate came and they all became good friends.

The end

Bad English

Reid: true
Reid: i have trouble reading english
Reid: cuz my native language is 6 year old english

Sophia: hahaha
Sophia: well my mom says if you eat a lot of seaweed it’ll make your hare blacker
Sophia: which is like being asian
Sophia: did i just write hare
Sophia: hahaha
Sophia: *hair
Sophia: okay nevermind

Reid: hahaha

Sophia: english fail

Prunes

(Just for background reference, I caught a cold from my boyfriend who caught it from the country of Singapore.)

I realized this morning on the shuttle that being sick is slowly turning me into an old man.  I find myself doing a bunch of old man stuff: I do an achy shuffle when I walk, I find loud noises and bright lights over-stimulating, I only want to eat bland food, and I find myself unequivocably attracted to prunes.  Okay maybe not the last part about prunes, but all the other stuff is true.  Real old man stuff.  Gimme a couple more days and I’ll start wearing sweater cardigans and newsboy caps (hey wait, that kind of sounds like somebody at work…)

India is Changing Reid

Sophia: oh yeah?? you wanna fight!!

Sophia: oh too scared to come back to california!! yeah you stay in hyderabad!!

Reid: hahahahaha

Reid: i kind of like it here

Reid: the team is SO much better than MTV

Reid: and better loooking

It Runs in the Family

(Talking to my little brother Mikey this morning on gtalk)

Sophia: hellos

Mikey: top of the mornin’ to ya!

Sophia: haha you’re chipper!

Mikey: i thought that would be an appropriate greeting

since you are a leprechaun

the beard is what gave it away

and the conspicuous jingle of your gold-stuffed pockets

Sophia: haha! i am actually a gnome

this beard is fake

and that conspicuous jingle is my penny collection!!

Mikey: lawn gnomes have beards

your logic is flawed!

One-armed Chair

(Sitting in a meeting room – my chair is mysteriously missing an arm rest)

Me: Why does my chair only have one arm?

Jason: They only give you the number you deserve.

Nelson’s Last Words before Hyderbad

Nelson (about his shirt): Yeah, it makes my guns look big.