Unnecessary Recap

30 April, 2006

American Idol: Kellie Pickler who had never been in bottom three was sent home by America votes last week. My favorites are down to 4 now: Taylor Hicks, Elliott Yamin, Chris Daughtry, Paris Bennett. I wish all those remarkable dudes will be on top 3.


The Apprentice: Lenny, the Russian guy who has been in America for 14 years but didn't know what a jingle was, finally was fired in week 7 when they had a task to renovate a room in a Boys and Girls Club location working together with Ace Hardware. I couldn't believe it when he said jingle is something to ringing (connecting to the song "jingle bells"), meanwhile the task of week 6 was about to create a jingle for Arby's new, all-natural chicken line.

New show in TLC channel: What NOT to Wear: The reality show premise is simple: friends and family members nominate a candidate that they consider poorly dressed and ask the show to make over the "fashion victim". The candidate is given an offer a $5,000.00 budget for a new wardrobe, which they must purchase in New York City boutiques over the course of two days, but only on the condition that they allow Stacy & Clinton/ Wayne (Fashion Police) to critique, and in most cases throw out, their existing wardrobe. A very interesting show!

The Oprah show: I was surprised to find out that number of female teachers reported having secret sex at school with their students. It is absolutely a disturbing new trend. I can't understand why number of mental-sick people are growing up and up. Is it a sign of the end of the world?

Hidden Camera Aware

29 April, 2006

Somebody who claims himself as a paparazzi of the house tried to take pictures of unknown celebrity. He always went after her, from the kitchen to the toilet. He shot with digital camera from any angle or corner of the house. He said he was going to sell the pictures to any media in regard to upgrade this celebrity from being unknown to become well-known. Poor him, none of the pictures are done well. Now he is becoming desperate and frustrated not able to make good money from his pictures. Check out how bad the pictures are.

Something Sweet On Special Day

28 April, 2006

I usually didn't like to eat cheese cake, do not know why. However, I baked a special cheese cake that day for a special person who I know exactly loves cheese cake. Guess what? I like it a lot. Again, don't know because of the strawberry sauce I put onto the cake or it might be the right measurement of ingredients I like to put into the cake. The cheese cake turned out pretty good. The taste? It was superb and perfect! what more can you expect?

Enjoying Busy Weekend

19 April, 2006

Phewhh! The busiest Easter season I've ever been through was just over, here comes another busy season. Yeap it's gardening season of the year. We, the ladies of Art & Environment group worked very hard all past weekend plus Palm Sunday in decorating our church. On Friday of past two weeks, we set up palm arrangements and riverbed area for Palm Sunday. In morning time of last Thursday, we set up white fabric decoration and white flowers for Holy Thursday. Since not much work to do on Friday, I skipped the schedule in taking down the flowers for Good Friday set-up. Then, in the next day, we set out all Easter flowers and fabrics starting early in the morning. In the meanwhile, I had to prepare myself for church choir from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. Although I felt incredibly tired, I really had wonderful time in doing all those church activities. Many people gave great compliments on our work. I am pretty sure no one would deny it that our church looked fabulous, especially on Easter Sunday. Our choir also got a big applause in the end of Easter mass. These all turnouts make me proud of myself, though I was only a little help, not such a big contribution for decorating idea in Art group, nor for singing out loud in the choir group.

I started planting summer flowers yesterday when the temperature ranged 65s-70s in the afternoon. Yeah I feel like early summer is here with the temperature above the average of 60s. Now I am looking forward to see something green from my seedlings appear from the ground.

Shopping Tips My Way

12 April, 2006

Inspired by "saving time at the grocery store" article in Redbook magazine, here I'll give my own tips & tricks how to get shopping efficiently done.

1. Know your store layout
2. Arrange your shopping list by aisle
3. Skip aisles that don't have anything on your list
4. File any coupon you have in aisle order
5. Put heavy items in the bottom and fragile things like eggs and bread on the top (either in the cart or trunk)
6. Organize your items in each bag, for instance frozen-food has to bag separated from produce, and pantry items

Some more advice:
* The best time to do shopping is morning time during weekdays, otherwise you wouldn't get away from the crowd on weekend or in afternoon / evening time when most of working people get spare time for shopping.
* Don't let your table muscle (stomach) empty before going to grocery store unless you might get attempted easily to spend more than you need.

Ugly Mistake

10 April, 2006

I thought the bottom three of last week performance would be Ace, Bucky and Katharine. But noooooo... they were Mandisa, Elliott and Paris. The show became worst of the worst when it announced that Mandisa was voted off. How come? We know she's way more talented than Ace and Bucky. Why should she have gone so soon? Some possible factors I read in internet such as her overweight, overt Christianity, and her wrong chosen-songs over the past two weeks, might have caused her to get voted off. And some people even thought that she was anti-gay. Well, my positive thinking about the reason is people might get bored to have the Idol-to-be (Mandisa) who has singing-character similar to any other famous black female singers for instance Fantasia Barrino (the 3rd Idol), Beyonce Knowles/Destiny's Child, Ashanti, Toni Braxton, Natalie Cole, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, etc. They expect someone different like I do.

Now my favorite lists go down to 5. They are: Taylor Hicks, Kellie Pickler, Chris Daughtry, Elliott Yamin, Paris Bennett

Entertaining Fool or Wicked

09 April, 2006

Brent of The Apprentice 5 was finally kicked off in episode 4. Trump pointed out that Brent couldn't get along with anyone on the team and no one wanted him there. Yeah none of teammates felt comfortable working with him. He was such a trouble maker in the team. Hey, don't you think he is the most entertaining candidate in this competition? Now I miss him a lot.

In real life, I admit that I wouldn't like to have a person like Brent being in my team. You all know why. But this is a reality tv which is not as real at all. Every season they picked mixed characters -good guy, bad guy, eccentric guy- to spice the shows up, bring controversy, add a comic touch, all just for the sake of tv ratings. Remember how we couldn't stand to see Omarosa (season1), Stacie (season 2), Chris (season 3), and Marcus (season 4)? They are all unforgettable now, are they? Means this reality show does work as well as been expected.

Hey, It's Spring Forward!

01 April, 2006

Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins tomorrow at 2 a.m. It means Spring is definitely here. No matter how people try to explain the definition of DST in technical or scientific words, to me it's just a matter of different time when the sun goes down or does rise. For those who always get up early in the morning like I do, you might notice real well that the sun in Spring or Summer shows up earlier than Fall & Winter. On the other hand, the sunset happens quite late in Spring or Summer. It's no surprise to see the sun is still up in the sky at 8 pm or 9 pm particularly in Summer time. I have to admit that I am still amazed how wonderful it is to have the sun longer than 12 hours in the day that I've never had once in my home country. Don't you think it's quite logic to save the lights during the days when the sun up there gives a help in natural way?