Maps

Doh, can it be? Yahoo! Maps has features I was looking for that Google doesn't. The new Yahoo! Maps has a drag feature that looks interestingly similar to Google's. Although it's not as clean and fast and elegant, it wins in area of functionality for a broad spectrum of users. Ah, the endless tug-of-war between Yahoo! and Google.

What I was looking for was a good map API, and what I didn't expect to find was the new multi-stop direction finder, and what I forgot it had was the easy put-it-together URLs to get what you want. It also has real time traffic info, and browse for local businesses and things.

More investigating...

Purple Corn

We celebrated Ramon's birthday at a Peruvian restaurant in San Mateo, Macchu Picchu. The drink he recommended was very interesting, chicha morada, purple corn drink. It is refreshing. Googling tells me that the purple corn pigments have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, blood-flowing, cholesterol-lowering effects. I felt really awake after dinner, and as I was driving home, my mind was racing about ideas for starting businesses. Maybe it's a drug in the form of a soft drink.

My roommate wants to import/export dance/dress shoes from Argentina. I want to "save the world." Eliminate pollution and waste, make public transportation actually usable, make everything organic, make societal behavioral changes.

But I kind of like taking naps and baths too much.

Change

People often say you can't change a person or a person can't change, fundamentally, or it takes a long long time. I don't know. It seems like it's hard to change when you try, and change happens when you don't notice it.

Hehe, thinking back, five to seven years ago, I was so spontaneous and my punctuality was so bad (and my eyebrows so bushy), that a significant other couldn't stand it. I wouldn't think of what I was doing until the moment or maybe the day of. Now what's my problem? I no longer understand spontaneity? I must have changed just recently, in the last year or two, when I realized my spontaneous decisions and actions weren't working so well all the time. Well, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The puzzling thing is how I went from one extreme to the other. Thesis, antithesis, and what's the third one? Well, now that I realize I've been to both ends, maybe I can learn to make good of both, at the same time.

As for lateness, I've gone from the former 30 minute average to more like 5-10 minutes and often on time too! This is something that's nearly impossible to change in people, it seems.

And I thought I'd never give in to social pressure and give up my feminist statements (mostly of the hairy sort, haha).

Well well, I hope this means I'm capable of always learning, understanding, improving, and changing.

The Good Things

Concentrate on the good things....

Birthday Wish

My birthday wish was a selfish wish, I think the first time I made a selfish one. Ugh. Perhaps with good intentions. But still thinking about myself first. If a person has to feel good before doing good, is it all right then to act selfishly first? Going home today, my mom reminds me that people who truly care and give to others get the most in return.

It's like the people who spend their time and efforts trying to retire, most often spend their whole lives needing to work for a living. Whereas the people who work because it's their passion, have more money than they could ever need, yet keep on working.

It's always the opposite. I told my friend that one has to be happy single before being able to find a happy relationship. Wow, if that's the case, then one would have the best of both worlds. Happy and happy. Double happiness, hehe. On the other hand, fear of singlehood tends to lead to a needy relationship, which is lacking and thus, you have the opposite.

So, I forgot some of this over the last few months. Fear and worry, I guess, is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Finding myself again. Remember to concentrate on the good things....

But if that's the lowest of my low, in my whole lifetime, then I guess I'm doing quite well.

***

I tried to convince my girlfriend that there are enough good men out there. Fear of not finding one shouldn't dictate one's decisions. My coworker told me that when her husband first started to court her, after one day at work when he overheard her talking to a friend saying she wanted to eat cake, every day after that she found a piece of cake on her desk, and she didn't know who it was from.

Spell

Something seems to have broken the spell. The downward spiral takes on a new trajectory.

Three months of innocent bliss. Three months of nasty spell. What's the next season?

***

I went to check out some tai chi lessons on Monday before dance rehearsal. I happened unexpectedly on a class of old women at Paly. Hah. The one by the same teacher at Cubberley has young people in it, but it's at the same time as dance rehearsal. So, I'm going to check out another class at Steppin' Out. And I guess check out the dancing afterwards too.

But anyway, another step towards doing the things I thought about planning to do for years.

Shh

Next time I should try not talking at all.

Legs

Imagine a table with legs that grow. I was feeling like a wobbly table, actually a falling over table, because some legs were much longer or shorter than others. So I was thinking, if I need to be a flat table, steady and secure, but the only offering is one leg, or two legs, or three, what's better... no legs or an incomplete or uneven set? Say I can't stand (no pun intended) to be wobbly or falling over, then maybe I have to go with no legs or no table at all. But okay, always have to think outside the box and try to make every situation good. Maybe I'm used to tables having four legs and prefer them that way, but I guess you can make a table with only one leg. It would probably have to be a small round one... and I still think a table with two or three legs would be weird. But however many legs the table has, if they're uneven lengths, it'll be wobbly.

Uh Oh

Blogger is reaching a limit of usability. The lack of categories is a handicap after anyone has more than a few entries. Search is not a be all and end all. Sometimes you don't know what you're searching for. Then what good is it? Even GMail has labels.

If I stopped using Blogger, that would be a first stopping of using a Google product! Impending doom... just kidding. Friendster Blogs actually has a lot of functionality. It looks like it's based on Moveable Type. Actually I've seen some good blogs on Moveable Type.

Anyway, the reason for this post was really to bookmark this site:
http://www.pastagarofalo.it/en/

The best pasta! I found it, although I couldn't decipher the cursive script on the package. It turns out it is "Garofalo".