that rosebud girl

my namesake?

cousin rizza sent me this photo a few days ago. i think she took it in osaka, japan.

a geeky aside.

i’m probably pretty behind the ball here, but i was talking to one of our web guys at work last night and noticed he had this wicked rad firefox theme featuring super mario 3. SMB3 is perhaps my favorite nintendo game of all time. seriously.

so now my firefox browser looks like this:

freakin’ sweet.

now i have an urge to play smb3. console classix, here i come!

read a homeboy, will ya?

just found out my homeboy todd — okay, he’s not really my homeboy, he’s more ed’s homeboy — has started a blog about the phillies for the philadelphia inquirer.

go see the zo zone.

todd’s a funny cat. i hope he sprinkles hysterical asides throughout his blog. and no one drops pop culture into a game story like t-zo.

and suddenly, the fightins are well, fightin’. “we’re happy to be 7-11.” um, yeah.

maybe they’ll be at .500 when i watch them in may, yeah?

a berry good time …

pardon the really bad pun.

went to the placer county strawberry festival today with ed. kinda empty when we got there, but then again, it was still pretty early in the day. it wasn’t like last year, when it seemed there were more vendors and more going on. oh, well. it was still a beautiful day and i didn’t mind spending it outdoors in the least.

of course, we had some strawberries …

(mmm, strawberry shortcake!)

and we saw cute animals, like this goat:

the petting zoo was probably the most entertaining thing there. there was a goat who kept baaing … and at one point, this girl points to it and says to her mom, “mom, he’s loud!”

hysterical.

we also had some fried veggies — mushrooms, artichokes and asparagus. who knew fried asparagus could be so yummy?

i heart food very much.

next week, we’re hoping to hit the asparagus festival in stockton. woohoo!

just because …

… cats are cute, aren’t they?

(i needed something to make me smile after a particularly awful day.)

a media point of view.

ok, so i’m a journalist at heart, and many of us at work have talked about the media aspects of the virginia tech shootings.

for an archive of front pages around the world, click here. this is a link to the newseum’s daily front page collection, archived for april 17.

lots of different play around the country. of note:

- san jose mercury news: a different, poignant picture as the dominant art. probably one of my favorite treatments … it really is one of the best-looking papers in the country, hands down.

- lots of black fronts, which were striking. oc post, chicago sun-times — an interesting treatment of the story, also one i liked; phila daily news — not exactly a black cover, but a nice photo with black dominant.

- baltimore sun had the biggest headline i have ever seen.

- nice tabloid-size front at rocky mountain news.

- nice airy treatment from the state of columbia, s.c.

- bakersfield californian also went with something completely different than everyone else, and a more poignant angle. the photo at the top is a good one.

lots of papers had “bloodbath” as a headline, which made me kind of cringe. that’s a personal thing. i associate that word with gory, stupid horror movies, not events of national magnitude. i don’t know. i think the word kind of cheapens the whole thing.

some people have beef with the media, but a story like this proves it can still do it job and do it damn well.

i am proud to be a papergirl on days like this.

more va tech reflection.

As I sit at work and read all these stories about all this tragedy, it saddens me. This is the kind of senselessness that you can’t help but feel a deep sense of loss over.

I have never been to Virginia Tech or known anyone who went to VaTech, and I’ve had only one encounter with a Virginia Tech person in my life.

A few years ago, USC played its football season opener vs. Virginia Tech at FedEx Field in Maryland (the Washington Redskins’ stadium). Living in Delaware at the time, Ed and I jumped at the chance to watch USC on person since we didn’t get to do it all that often back then. A bunch of friends flew out for the game, and we were going to have a blast.

As gametime neared, we were part of the massive throng making its way into the stadium. There were plenty of VaTech fans, of course, seeing as Blacksburg is probably three or four hours away from there. They had their turkey calls and their maroon and orange and were generally a boisterous bunch.

Somewhere in the throng, a VaTech dude — unmistakably Filipino — turns to our group and says, “Oh man, some kababayans!” or something like that. (Kababayan is Filipino for friend.) There was me and Ed and our friend John Austria. The VaTech guy gives Austria a hug and high fives Ed and I.

So we’re joking with the guy, asking him what the hell he’s doing in Blacksburg. He jokes he’s the only brown guy in town. We ask him what a Hokie is and in his slightly drunken state, he’s fairly unable to explain it.

We get up to the stadium turnstile and he goes with his friends and they’re all yelling “Go Hokies” and we all going our own way.

The fans were fervent, the trash talk was thick (especially when USC was down at the half), but USC won the game. After the game, several of them were hooked into Hokies postgame radio and several still had some leftover beers and kept on tailgating.

I’ve never really thought much about those VaTech folks until now.

Also keep in your thoughts those poor kids in that building who never should have to live through a terrible moment like that in college. Never.

oh, relief.

my first year as a tax pro has come to an end. it was an enjoyable ride. lots of fun. and i learned a lot. and i worked with great people.

but now i can actually get some sleep. yay.

a solemn thought.

God bless you, Virginia Tech.

Geez, the world has just gone mad. It’s very disheartening.

me + the cops …

equals yet another ticket. and to think that i just paid the other citation (the reason i have brand spanking new california plates) the other day!

again, though, i walked away without a traffic infraction. however, this was kind of a weird incident.

so i’m sitting in the shoulder of the freeway and i’ve just handed mr. very cordial officer all the stuff he’s asked for. as i watch him write up the ticket in my side view mirror, this random dude just shows up. on the shoulder of the freeway. and i’m thinking, where the hell did this guy come from? i never saw him before i pulled over or anything. he just flat out appeared from thin air!

vagrant freeway walker begins talking to mr. very cordial officer. and it seems like your run of the mill conversation except this guy just happens to be walking along the friggin’ freeway! so they chit chat and i guess mr. very cordial officer must have cited the guy because i see vagrant freeway walker holding a yellow piece of paper. and mr. freeway walker starts, well, walking down the shoulder to the next exit, which wasn’t all that far away.

mr. officer returns to my car, apologizes for the delay, and says he’ll let me pass on the infraction. however, he will cite me for not having the correct address on my license.

um, ok.

i proceed to tell him that i sent a change of address to dmv ages ago but they never sent me anything back. he suggests i mosey on down to the local dmv and get the ticket cleared up. now i have to reserve a large chunk of my life so i can stand in line at the dmv.

i’m glad i didn’t get the ticket, but the whole thing was just bizarre.