Wow. It takes so much more out of me to write a serious blog post than a goofy one.

Fan girl time...

I met Rick Steves!!



I wrote about it more at the other blog.

About a month and a half into the new year and I've accomplished some portions of my new year resolutions. Some of them. At seven books. Been blogging and writing Yelp reviews. Working on the diet part...other than Indian buffets with Yumi and late night trips to In-n-Out on Valentine's Day. Was on Geekbox again. Yup. Good stuff.

My muscles are still in recovery from an intense workout on Thursday evening. Think I may have to tone it down a bit next time I decide to make it out to the gym. Could barely go down stairs on Friday and it hurt (still hurts, actually) to sit down on the couch.

It was a good workout routine, though.

Okay a little over one month into the new year, and I've made some progress on the book front. Even finished one of the Song of Ice and Fire books (Huzzah).

So far I've got:

1. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
2. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
3. A Storm of Swords - George R. R. Martin
4. Marco Polo Didn't Go There - Rolf Potts

Had kind of mixed feelings about the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy, but haven't been disappointed by the rest of the books that I've read so far this year. It's kind of a good mix. Maybe not. Three Sci Fi/Fantasy and one Travel. Hah.

Just about done with Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk, so that would be number five. I know I was obsessed with him in college, but I think I might shut the door on that obsession. This book was kind of different from his others in that it was utterly unreadable. Nevertheless, I'm still trying to decide if I want to read the other books that he's released in the last few years or whether I should just have a literary break up with him. It may take the end of the book to decide this.

I haven't read a Chuck Palahniuk book in forever, but that's what I picked up from the library today. Miggs is doing some sort of book club type thing so I figured I'd give it a shot. We'll see. Kind of want to finish Storm of Swords first. Only a hundred pages left. Sooo close.

So there's a Bay Area Travel show at the Santa Clara Convention Center in a couple of weeks. I'm not really planning on going anywhere soon, but Rick Steves is giving multiple talks at the event, so guess who's going. Glad I put off buying the tickets too because it was the Living Social deal today. Now I need to get a non-ebook copy of Travel as a Political Act so that he can sign it.

I would say that it's been a while since I've been this excited about seeing someone talk, but I just saw Neil Gaiman at WonderCon last year. And then Justice Scalia before that.

Anyway, I'm super excited.

Oh yeah and I got tickets to the Phantom Planet reunion, but it's a midweek show so I have no idea whether I am going to be able to make it to that. I hope I can.

The rain was crazy intense last night. I couldn't even walk a block in SF without getting soaked.

I know I write about this a lot, but whatever. You're still reading this for some reason or another. Anyway, I hit 115 miles in the Eowyn Challenge thing. Not that exciting of a jump considering the last time I posted at it was like a month ago, but the holidays and being sick got in the way, so whatever. If you correspond it with the book, I'm at one of those boring scenes where Frodo sings. So that's what's going on, world.

yay happy birthday to me. I finally was able to drag Chris to the speakeasy style bar in downtown SJ that I've been meaning to go to for a long time. Success!

I've also managed to post to Music & Jjigae two days in a row. Success.

Speaking of success, let's finally roll out those New Years resolutions. Hopefully, I will be successful with these this year:

1. Write more. It can be Yelp. It can be blogging. It needs to be something. I like writing. Of course, I do. I've entered a field where writing is a necessity. I need to do more of it. It's fun and it's a great way for me to let out steam.

2. Find a job. This probably should be number one. It's going to be really sad if I end 2012 without a job, so I'm just going to take succeeding at this one as a given.

3. Lose weight. I was looking at pictures from Italy in 2006. They made me sad, but maybe that's enough to give me the kick in the butt I need.

4. Read 50 books. Yeah, I know. I think this makes my list every year. Whatever. I've gotten the last two books of the Hunger Games Trilogy under my belt so far, so I guess that makes for a good start.

5. Finish the Song of Ice and Fire series. Or at least what Martin's written of the series. Completing both this resolution and #4 might be difficult because it takes me forever to get through these books. We'll see.

6. Save More Money. Seems pretty self-explanatory. Have loans to contend with now, so no more silly expenditures.

7. Play more soccer. Playing soccer with Chris was one of my favorite study breaks this summer. I tried to do some of Chris's pick up games with him, but it was awkward being the only girl playing and being essentially ignored. It's great exercise, though, so I imagine that accomplishing this can help me in accomplishing #3. You see, these are all tied together somehow.

8. Brush up on Italian and Korean. My Korean hasn't diminished over the years, but my Italian sure has. This last trip with Nonny and Nonno was almost embarrassing.

9. Spend more time outside. I was told by my doctor last year that I have crazy low levels of Vitamin D. Of late, I've taken to more walks and jogs and than gym trips, but I still think I'm due for more fresh air in my life. I'm going to try to take my dad hiking once a week (or two weeks depending on his England/Japan schedules).

10. Do more trivia nights. I'm such a trivia geek. I need to unleash that more often and maybe win sometime. I want some of those wine gift bags they give out at the Brit!