Internet Brands Holiday

So these are a bit overdue. The company holiday party was on Thursday, December 17. But anyway...

Meet Santa and Elf of the Web Development Team, a.k.a. Rachel and me.

And check out what I won for Best Elf.

So our CEO said at our "Town Hall" meeting that there was a chance to win a Kindle, but he was mistaken. Instead, they had a Sony Reader. I wanted it, but, alas, I did not get it. They had a bunch of prizes for first place in certain categories, including a digital camera, Sony Reader, IPod, beach cruiser bicycles, etc. They raffled off the prizes to the first place winners, and, well, I ended up with the bicycle. Womp womp. The bicycle happens to be too big for me and too impractical, since I will most likely never ride it. I did, however, enjoy riding it around my section on the 11th floor. ;) Hehe. Good thing is, I believe HR will be giving me the gift receipt so I can get credit for it at Target (where they bought it).

Thanks to Kenan for the bicycle photo and Stas for the santa/elf photo.

Blast from the Past

Meet little me. Here are a couple photos of me from years back. I found them in my parents' room on top of their dresser.

Hong Kong, circa 1988-89

Hong Kong, circa 1990

Oh, little me. I wish I could meet her.

2009 U.S. Table Tennis National Championships

I just got back from Las Vegas, Nevada, where I went to watch the 2009 U.S. Table Tennis National Championships. My aunt and uncle from Hong Kong are here visiting, so they joined my parents and me, along with my grandfather from Northern California, on our short Friday-Sunday Las Vegas trip. We stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton, which is right by the Las Vegas Convention Center, where the nationals took place!

My dad and I went to watch the matches while my relatives and my mom did other things (oh, you know, slots, gamble, shopping, etc.). We saw some awesome matches. Gao Jun took the gold for women's singles (no surprise there). Ariel Hsing (only 14 years old!) took the silver. Michael Landers (only 15 years old!) took the gold for men's singles, and Samson Dubina took silver. There was a huge fiasco with the men's quarterfinalists boycotting due to their dissatisfaction with the amount of prize money being given, which was apparently significantly less than that given in previous years. Nevertheless, the show must go on, and the 2 of the 8 who didn't boycott (Landers and Dubina) played their final match.

Here's a shot of one of the women's singles semi-final matches: Gao Jun vs. Anne Deng (who is only 15 years old!). The other semi-final match was with Jasna Rather (formerly Jasna Reed) vs. Ariel Hsing.

During the nationals and the open, multiple table tennis equipment companies have booths to sell merchandise. Here are some little kids playing with a tiny table at the Joola booth. :)

Every time I attend some sort of table tennis tournament, I always get inspired to play more table tennis and to improve. Watching such high-level players is especially inspirational and encouraging.

Anyway, thanks to my dad's amazing hook-ups, I got these babies for only $29 (retail $47.99)!

I've been in need of new table tennis shoes, and I've had my eye on these 808s for a while now. To top it off, they're Cal/UC Berkeley colors!

Welcome to 909 N. Sepulveda Ave.

Welcome to 909 N. Sepulveda Ave. in El Segundo, California. Home of CarsDirect.com.

I've always thought these giant address numbers outside the building were awesome, and I had always wanted to take a photo with it. So here it is, and here I am, in all our glory. Me + the 909, thanks to Jeremy. Except I don't think I'm happy with how I look in this picture. I believe I will be taking another one some time. :)

On another note, my team is telling me to enter the "best elf" contest at our company holiday party, which will be taking place this Thursday. You win an Amazon Kindle! I think I'll do it!

Fun with Josephine, Work, and Random Jargon

Monday, after work, I headed over to Irvine to hang out with my cousin, Josephine. She attends UC Irvine (she's a senior!), but she's originally from San Jose. We ate dinner at Guppy's at Diamond Jamboree, where I had a delicious bowl of kimchi noodles with pork.

After dinner, we took some pictures at Stickipicki.

Here they are for your viewing pleasure.

(FYI, all pics enlarge when you click on them.)

On the way to work yesterday, I spotted this awesome car with an "All you need is love." sticker on the back. I just had to take a picture of it, so I attempted to do so with my phone. You will definitely have to enlarge this photo to see the sticker.

My co-worker, Jeremy, and I have the same fat asian cat! His is white and mine is purple. While waiting for something or other to load (or perhaps I was just getting restless from work), I let our cats have a little play time and decided to take a few pictures.