pumpkin carving

Over the weekend, I had a pumpkin carving party at my house. The pumpkins turned out quite well, and were more creative than I had expected.

Here's my pumpkin (I'm thinking of wearing a Hawaiian outfit for Halloween, so it goes with the theme):


Here are the rest of the pumpkins:


From left to right, you can see Bowser, a haunted castle, a pirate ship, a scared face, my tropical island, another scared face, and a Pikachu.

For dinner, in honor of Halloween and our overachieving apple tree, we had pumpkin cake, apple & almond salad, apple pork chops, pumpkin bread pudding, and hot apple cider. Mmm, I love holiday food.

reading list

Last week while I was travelling, I finally managed to read Life of Pi, which I had bought several months ago. Although it was well reviewed, I was initially skeptical of the story; it's about an Indian boy who gets shipwrecked in the Pacific with a bunch of zoo animals. I thought it would be something like Cast Away, about the triumph of the human spirit, blah blah blah...

I was totally wrong. Life of Pi is great read. The protagonist is engaging, the other characters are well drawn, the fantastic elements of the story are believable, and the conclusion is thought-provoking. I'm not going to write a whole review (because I'm lazy and I mostly suck at writing reviews anyway), but in short, it's a good book, and I recommend it.

sugar high

I think I need to take a break from dessert.

Last week I was at the Grace Hopper Conference in Orlando. I staffed a recruiting booth, went to several interesting technical sessions, and met lots of other women in technology. I also ate lots and lots of dessert. From the awards banquet (chocolate mousse) to the conference lunches and dinners (chocolate ganache cake, apple pie, orange cake, cherry pie, and strawberry shortcake) to the sponsor night party (raspberry mousse, fruit tarts, red velvet cake), every conference event provided an abundance of sweets. I almost wondered if someone was catering to stereotypes about women and dessert.

Then, after I got back on Saturday, I went to a friend's birthday party where the theme was...you guessed it...dessert. Faced with a table of gorgeous homemade and store-bought desserts, I must have tried at least ten or twelve of them.

Not pictured: the homemade apple pie and flambeed strawberries and cream, which were still under construction.

Niners nostalgia

The Niners' offense has pretty much sucked beyond belief all season, which has made watching their games tedious as well as agonizing, even though the defense is indisputably much improved.

Last weekend the Niners were on their bye, so I actually did not spend most of Sunday sitting on a couch watching football. Interestingly, I felt strangely guilty while enjoying my non-watching of yet another dropped pass and/or unblocked sack.

I guess my point is that it's not exactly fun to be a Niners' fan right about now, which is why I enjoyed this Sports Guy tidbit (buried in a column about the greatness of this year's Pats) all the more:

During my sophomore year in college, I remember watching the '89 Niners and thinking, "There's no way in hell they can be beaten. You'd need about 35 things to happen." As it turned out, they outscored their opponents by a 442-253 margin in the regular season, lost two games by a total of five points and rolled through their three playoff opponents by the unfathomable score of 126-26. Yeah, the '92 Cowboys were great; so were the '94 Niners and the '98 Broncos. But the '89 Niners were on a different level, and we haven't seen anything like it since.

online shopping resources

Recently I've been considering some major online purchases.

Several of these sites have been helpful for checking up on online stores:
- resellerratings.com
- bizrate.com
- dealtime.com
- pricegrabber.com
- shopzilla.com
- nextag.com

Google Products aggregates reviews from some of these sites.

government power

Just now I heard about yet another Taiwanese flag controversy. Nothing new, really; the Chinese government issued threats, the Chinese participants hurled insults at the Taiwanese winner, and in the end, the organizing body will probably apologize profusely, groveling in fear of China's economic might. In short, a Taiwanese person was again ridiculed and/or punished for having a small scrap of national pride.

What caught my eye was this astute reader comment, submitted by an American living in Taiwan:
The rabid and irrational reaction of young people in the PRC to the concept of “Taiwan” is getting dangerous... for all of us. The manner in which the PRC govt. indoctrinates youth with anti-Taiwan venom reminds me of a pit bull owner who is training it to fight; the dog itself is not inherently bad, but the owner, for its own goals, encourages rabid aggression. No better way to encourage rabid aggression by telling some die hard gamers that if they allow the R.O.C. flag to be seen they will not be allowed to participate in future competitions. Come on, that’s just twisted and manipulative! The 23 million people that live here in Taiwan, living an independent life from the PRC for over 50 years developing democratic institutions and a free press, are living with the threat that one of these days, those kids in the PRC are going to be unleashed on them.

Indoctrination, brainwashing, propaganda; whatever you want to call it, it's scary stuff. I worry about the Chinese government brainwashing its citizens about Taiwan, of course, but I also worry that the US government is trying to tell Americans what to think. Who is it that's been pushing the idea that anyone who opposes the war in Iraq is supporting the terrorists?

body language

Yesterday, I somehow came across this article, which discusses several studies investigating possible connections between body language and likelihood of assault. It concludes that people with assertive body language are less likely to be chosen as targets for assault. One study in particular found that "men tend to select submissive women for exploitation". I found this conclusion especially interesting, since it directly contradicts the theory that women "ask for" sexual assault with provocative dress and/or behavior.

Renaissance Faire

My parents used to take us to the Renaissance Faire when we were kids, back when it was located in Novato. Since it's been relocated to Hollister, I've only been twice; once four years ago, and then again last weekend. I don't remember it being so expensive the last time ($25!) but I guess it's not so bad for a day's worth of entertainment.

As usual, I most enjoyed the food: we had turkey leg, meat pie, and chocolate-covered frozen cheesecake on a stick. Yum! The jousting and various shows were fun to watch, too. I think we mostly spent our time walking around looking at stuff, and playing with primitive weapons (archery, knife/axe throwing).



Of course, Hollister being so close to Gilroy, we had to spend the last 3 hours of the day at the Gilroy outlet stores. I now have a new pair of cross-trainers and a new pair of basketball shoes.

me == geek

I was at a friend's house the other day playing board games, and we ran into a corner case where the rules were unclear, so three of us went to look for an answer online. As my friend read through discussion board posts, I started to get impatient, so I told him, "you can just grep for keywords; it's faster." The other person in the room (who I had just met) turned to me and said, with a look of surprise, "you must be CS." Yes, I'm a geek even when I'm not trying.