lexington and life

Guess what? I've done my monthly tally for the month of April, and I've managed to save a grand total of $15.

Whoopee!

That is income minus expenses = $15.

Well, I suppose that's what happens when you go on a trip to Paris and spend about $30 per day on food. And I took Homer out to Nobu to celebrate his new job.

*Sigh*

Life is expensive. I am eating all of my earnings!

At least, I'm enjoying myself, right?

I received my income tax return already! Hurray! Of course, my withholding for the year was all messed up, so I ended up getting back far more than I should have (if you think in terms of optimizing time value of money, etc. etc.). Translation: I gave the IRS a large interest-free loan for all of 2003.

In any case, project for the weekend, figure out what to do with all this cash. I figure having about 4 months of cash for living expenses should be enough. So what to do, what to do. Which mutual funds should I buy? This is something I've been procrastinating on for the past two months.

Its just that analyzing mutual fund returns and all that, is so dreadfully boring. I can't stand it!
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I met a girl last night who's friend is going on a date with Ben Affleck! Isn't that funny?

Apparently she works for one of the major news networks, and she decided to go up and introduce herself to him (after freaking out over the phone with her friends). And then he suggested they grab a few cocktails before heading over to a social event relating to work on Saturday.

Exciting! Sort of.

Ben's sort of a has-been, isn't he?

Well, in any case... still, a date with a movie star. Wow!

Links from the web:

• Laundry Label Calling President an 'Idiot' a Hit


• "Reality" show where five couples compete to adopt a baby from a 16-year old girl According to Barbara Walters, "This is not one of those scripted 'reality shows' — it is reality."


• Poor pets can get cancer from secondhand smoke Stop torturing the cute little creatures! They love you!


• 1 bedroom in Chelsea sold for $245,000

  325 W. 21st St. Renovated one-bedroom, one-bath prewar co-op, 425 square feet, with exposed brick wall, newly windowed kitchen, newly tiled bath, French doors and N/E exposures. Maintenance $493. Asking price $239,000, on market 37 days. (Broker: Jeremy Swillinger and Toni Haber, Douglas Elliman)

  I'm never gonig to be able to afford something in Manhattan!


• Condo conversions are pricey I guess the no-condo problem in NYC isn't getting any better


• Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America can help you buy an apartment/house And there is no income limit if you're buying a property in the 5 boroughs, but the "maximum price for a single-family home is $325,000." You also have to live in your home-- no absentee-landlords. Hmm maybe I should consider this


• Money matters more than ever in the college admissions game

  The trend means that "smart poor kids," as the educator Terry Hartle bluntly puts it, "go to college at the same rate as stupid rich kids."

  And the divide continues to grow


• Don't flip Google stock, please?
  Google's leaders say
  

  that companies cannot manage for the long term unless investors and analysts have limited say in the way they are run

  Well, I definitely agree with that! Wall Street and a lot of money out there is focused on short term results. I feel like the founders of Google are so idealistic, in a way, it makes me worried that they will get screwed, since there are a lot of sharks out there. I mean, I know they are brilliant computer scientists, but... just because you are booksmart, doesn't mean you're peoplesmart. And there are a lot of dark places inside people

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Over the weekend, I spent $20 on a giant trash can from The Odd Job, a collection of stores where you can get "Name Brands For Less". There's one on the corner of 14th St and Broadway, very convenient. Too convenient.

Umm, yeah.

Have I lost my mind? Why did I buy this stupid trash can? Purchases like these add another nail to the coffin I'm trapped in called the world of investment banking/finance.

Why am I spending good money on a receptacle to hold my kitchen trash?! I mean, garbage is garbage is garbage right? Do I really need a 30-liter metal trash can? How much trash am I generating anyway?

Okay, well, there's a back story to this.

Last September, when I first moved to my apartment in the East Village I went to the Odd Job to buy general household goods.

It was then that I first came across The Trash Can. At $20 though, I hesitated. I still had the dirty white plastic trash can my former roommate left me, and even though it had a gross hand push-down lid (I like to avoid all physical contact with anything remotely related to trash and trash cans), I'd found a way around it by using my foot to open the trash can.

Homer hates the white trash can though, and he encouraged me to buy the steel monstrous one. Umm, if you want a new trash can, honey, why don't you cough up the cash?

Well back at the Odd Job, I hesitated, and decided to come back to the Odd Job at some other point. I'll just buy it later if I really want it, right?!

Well, when I returned the next day to buy it (I decided that, yes, maybe I should indulge myself in a beautiful, large trash can), all of the cans were gone!!!

Foiled in my attempt to buy the penultimate trash can, I slunk home, my tail beneath my legs. I then tried to buy the trash can at Bed, Bath and Beyond (the housewares stores to end all housewares stores, and a complete nightmare to shop in especially in Manhattan), but the very same trash can at BB&B was $50!!! I guess you always want what you can't have.

Fast forward to a rainy weekend in April. I went to the Odd Job to buy cupcake tins for my cupcake baking project (which ended up disastrously, by the way,) I went downstairs to the housewares department. There it was. Waiting slyly for me on the floor-room, The Trash Can.

Suddenly overpowered by a force stronger than my own, I numbly picked up the trash can, marched to the front counter and paid for it with my Citibank Dividend card (1% back, baby). Trash can deprivation simply overwhelmed me I guess.

So now I have this huge trash can in the middle of my bedroom. I haven't taken it out of the bag yet, or even tried to use it, since I am going to return it. If I can find the receipt that is...

Ugh, am I doomed to life of excess and investment banking purgatory?

Links for Today:
Article on the search for the perfect pair of overpriced jeans [NYT] Are you kidding me?
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At any investment bank, there is a publishing department. At my bank they call the department "Presentation Technology" at other banks the department is "Creative Services". Not that they actually produce anything in the department beyond boring bar graphs, text tables and regurgitated bullet points. I suppose for a management presentation, they do get more "creative", but unfortunately, their creativity are limited to the whims and ideas of the masters whom they ultimately serve, our stuffy, power-hungry, money-grubbing corporate clients.

As an Analyst at an investment bank, my duty is to constantly turn and iterate presentations for these precious clients. For example, the a phrase will change from "shareholders" to "holders of shares" back to "shareholders". We will also make graphs bigger, smaller, different colors, different thicknesses and go round and round in circles until we drop from exhaustion or the meeting happens (we run out of time).

As one Associate recently commented, "Time left divided by productivity equals number of turns. Thus if productivity increases, the iterations will only increase to match the speed."

The purpose of Pres. Tech. is to help out with any sort of word processing, graph creating or other task while the Analysts crunch numbers. Usually of course, the investment banking team would prefer that the Analyst create the chart, bold and unbold, underline and un-underline text instead of letting the Analyst use the resources at the Bank. But usually, Analysts desperately try to get Pres. Tech. to do the mindnumbingly boring work.

Therein lies the focal point of today's rant. Since all Analysts try as hard as they can to use Pres. Tech., and since the investment banks' objective is to maximize profit (thus reducing the staff at Creative in New York and outsourcing as much as possible to Mumbai -- think about the $11Bn in fees!! Aren't you hungry for some of that grub?), there is always a backlog at Pres. Tech.. Even if I need two sentences of handwritten text typed up, it will take them at least 3 hours.

So now I am going to conduct the great Presentation Technology Backlog experiment. I am going to call Pres. Tech. 3x a day and ask them how long the backlog is. After a week, I'll chart the results of my experiment. My hypothesis is that the backlog will be longer than 2 hours over 50% of the time.

Those bastards. [Not at Pres. Tech. of course, its out of their control-- its the bank, the institution!]

Does Powerpoint make us stupid? Well, first you have to ask were we already stupid to begin with?

Powerpoint Makes You Dumb A New York Times article from last December discussing how Powerpoint indirectly caused the Columbia space shuttle crash

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• Article from the Chicago Tribune discussing the plight of the working poor

  "So many people way up here," she added, holding her hand up high, "are making astronomical money, and these folks way down here are making it all possible, and they get nothing."
  
  "That's the way of the world," she said, shrugging.

  If you're poor, does it imply that you're stupid, lazy or incompetent? It seems that way sometimes in our capitalist economy. But, the truth is the working poor aren't lazy and they're not incompetent. And for argument's sake, even if they are stupid, lazy and incompetent, does that mean they don't deserve a roof over their heads and hot food on the table? Shouldn't it be a basic human right to have health care, food and shelter? You don't need to have a superstar brain or be extremely ambitious or even be very clever. Do you? Should you?
  
  That's one of the problems with our system and economy today. There is no safety net. People can just fall through the cracks, even if they work very hard. I guess, I just don't understand it. Why are things so unbalanced in America? I live a very comfortable life, do I deserve it more than the working poor? I'm not saying that if you are wealthy you should feel guilty, but why is the system constructed so that this wealth disparity can occur? We live in a meritocracy, right? So the people at the bottom are worth less, both figuratively and literally. Is that the way it should be? I don't know. Maybe its a problem with the system, maybe its a problem with human nature. We are natural collectors and we like to feel secure. So its not shocking that we hoard things, can be selfish where it concerns our own sense of security. Survival of the fittest?

  "Why isn't anybody alarmed? How can this many jobs be replaced by service and minimum-wage jobs?" Stevens asked.

• Google goes public and the rich get richer [NYT]
  Google's IPO is coming, and a lot of new millionaires will be made. I'm happy for the people I know who work for Google, since they are smart, hardworking individuals. And I love the Google service.
  
  But at the same time, it seems weird to me that rich people are just getting richer. While the people mentioned above don't have the same opportunity. Maybe they just don't deserve it? Is it luck? Is it value? What is going on?!
  
  Well, as you can see, I have mixed feelings about both this topic and the topic above.
  


• Interesting headline on Gothamist.com today-- "Perks of Being a Famous and Rich Man or Good-Looking Lady"
  
  I guess for a woman to be special and successful is when she is good looking. Having great beauty will help a woman climb the social ladder and garner prestige, but for a man, being famous and rich are equivalent. Isn't that sort of sad? I guess I should be focusing my time on being more beautiful instead of enriching my mind or earning money. What did Estee Lauder say? (She passed away very recently.)

  "There are no ugly women — only women who don't care or who don't believe they're attractive."

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Usually if I see the same deal on more than one of these sites, its a good deal. I used these sites to get 99 cent rentals at Blockbuster last weekend, a $25 certificate for John's Pizza at the bargain price of $3 and I bought most of my computer components on sale through them. Check it out!

• www.xpbargains.com Lots of Internet and non-Internet deals. Mostly computer components and PDA equipment, but they also have a miscellaneous category


• www.slickdeals.net More selective in number of deals, but usually pretty high quality. Useful for good dvd deals


• got apex I think they must have some sort of deal with Dell, since the top of their daily list is always a couple of "must-have" Dell computers. Oh well, sometimes they have good houseware deals, and they're super enthusiastic. Be sure to check out the quality of the vendor before you buy though (try reseller ratings)


• tech bargains I like this site also. More selective like slickdeals, but not as selective.

Read on the web today:

• The demise of British telephone booths I guess we'll all need to have global cell phones

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What's the point of solving a problem, if you can't communicate the solution in such a way that results in change? Is the problem then truly solved?

To me, I think the answer would be no. You've found a solution, but you haven't been able to apply it and/or convince anyone to apply it. So the problem still exists.

I guess I am thinking about this today, since one of my college professors will be giving a talk in New York. She was very witty and sharp, I very much enjoyed her class. In any case, she was invited to study the tiles on the NASA shuttle to understand what factors might cause a breakdown in the thermal protection system. She did this study in 1986, shortly after the Challenger incident.

Well, recently another shuttle met a terrible end, and it was noted that "some of her warnings of two decades earlier had gone tragically unheeded." (She noted that one reason the tiles fell off more easily than they should have was that the maintenance crew would use their spit in the binding paste to help the tiles bind faster. Of course, this diluted the binder... This was only one of many more observations in a very complex study.)

So although she studied the system and noted areas of improvement, unfortunately since her solutions were not applied, so the problems continued and happened again.

So half the challenge is finding the answer. The other half is persuading others that you've found it.

Read on the web today:

• Article in New York Magazine about the Second Avenue Subway. They're finally going to build it! Maybe its time to buy an apartment around 2nd Ave!


• Build a better spouse trap
  

  According to Molloy, it's never too early to start looking for Mr. Right because "Time is the enemy of women who aren't married by age 28." If you reach that age and you're still single, you need to treat the search "like a job."

  
  Um, what's wrong with being single? Do you necessarily have to get married? If you haven't found the right person by age 28, there is absolutely no reason to panic! In fact, if you haven't found the right partner, it makes sense to take your time and make sure you are happy.


• Internships that don't pay. I think this article points out something very interesting. Only those people who have money can afford to take internships that are unpaid. And a lot of unpaid internships are for glamorous positions at magazines, newspapers, production companies, politicians... Let's face it, if you need money and a place to live, how can you survive at non-paying internship without subsidies (from parents or credit cards?). I'm sure some people do it, but its hard to see how. So then, these internships end up being for the privileged, not for the "ordinary" joes in America. [Thanks to gawker for pointing out this link.]
  

  Most unpaid interns have parents who can underwrite the summer. A survey at a summer intern lunch I attended in Washington in 1998 found that more than 60% of these mostly unpaid interns had parents earning more than $100,000 a year.



• From MAI HOANG, student, Western Kentucky University:

  In an ideal world we as students could work in unpaid internships and that it will all work out in the end because "we pay our dues" and climb our way up. But let's not kid ourselves here. This is not reality. There is just no way I could've worked at an unpaid internship. My parents do not make enough to support me financially.
  
  It is because of paid internships that I could make it through the summer without having to max out on credit cards. Ms. Swartz from Univeristy of Florida said that a paper's reputation drives people to do unpaid internship. I like the New York Times, but if I could only work there on an unpaid internship, I wouldn't take it. Journalism is stressful enough for me, having to find money to feed myself would be even worse.
  
  I have worked at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, both quality newspapers, on paid summer internships. So Swartz's assumption that you must take an unpaid internship to get a chance to work at a well-known newspaper is just not correct.



• From MICHELLE PILECKI:

  In my stint as a magazine editor working with talented interns, I remember well the eager African-American student who had to quit after a few weeks because he couldn't afford the unpaid internship, not to mention the promising candidates we lost because they also couldn't afford to work for free.

  
  
• The hunt for the "elusive" atm. ATMs are everywhere in New York! And they're taking a bite out of your wallet. You know that in France, there are no ATM surcharge fees? I was just in Paris two weeks ago, and my friend informed that I could go to any bank I wanted, and face no fees! Other cool things in Europe-- no charges for incoming calls to cell phones... what's up with America? I guess Corporate America is in charge

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Exclusive and controversial social club
Women could join the Harlem Club, too. But only as associate members. And they had to be 35 or younger, unmarried, childless, college educated and willing to submit a head-to-toe photograph, to prevent unattractive women from making the cut.

"...the club may be snubbing a whole lot of people who may not have college degrees who may be brilliant." - Dr. Gardere, author of "Love Prescription: Ending the War Between Black Men and Women."

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The International Herald Tribune has an article today discussing the large sums of money spent by several large and distinguished foundations for "board meetings" and "site visits". Read the article here.

Conflict-- between pursuing a mission to help the poor and impoverished, but at the same time living a life of luxury. How can you fly first class and stay in expensive hotels if the mission of your organization is to enrich and sustain the lives and liabilities of [the] poor and excluded?

But at the same time, I can in a way understand the desire for creature comforts. Who wouldn't want to live a life free from worries about money and full of beautiful, expensive things? I mean, take a look at the contestants for The Apprentice. Some of the contestants were blatantly searching for the "bling".

And pursuing an agenda of enriching the lives of the poor is a meaningful and valuable mission. I guess it just seems sort of hypocritical and self-serving to proclaim your dedication, but then at the same time flaunt your excesses in a way that puts the authenticity of your goals at jeopardy.

Its as though you should be either one way or the other, either be 100% philanthropic and frugal (if your mission is to save the poor) or be 100% greedy and materialistic. Since its less confusing? At least we know where they stand; what their values are.

How can the two sides of people co-exist to improve the lives of those who need it?

These foundations do great things, and they have changed lives. They have funded numerous causes which directly benefit many lives. Are the people in the foundations criminals for enjoying privileges along the way?
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I've added a weather pixie to the left of my blog. Basically, the character changes outfit according to the weather. So today, weather pixie is wearing a spaghetti-strap dress, since its 70 degrees out in Central Park.

I chose to randomly-generate a the character every time, and so far, I've only gotten girls. I wonder if the website figured out that I'm girl? Let me know if there are any male pixie sightings!

Freesupertravel.com is giving away two nights free in a hotel if you get 5 friends to sign up. This smells sort of like a scam to me, but here's my link if you feel like helping a poor girl in New York escape to Paradise. The guy who sits across from me at work went to a basketball game recently and "won" a free trip to the Bahamas. Then he found out his uncle also happened to win. Smells fishy huh? It turns out he had to attend a free "educational seminar" deep in New Jersey in order to qualify for the prize. And it was "first-come, first-serve". Since the price of getting a car to get to the seminar was probably equivalent to at least a couple nights at the shady hotels they were offering, my friend David decided to pass on the opportunity.

From SearchBlog, a discussion about furl, which I've started using religiously this past month. Since I've started using it so much, it has crossed my mind why one of the major search engines doesn't yet have a similar service. But according to Mike, it doesn't sound like that will remain the case much longer:

Mike started Furl about a year ago to solve a problem he - and a lot of us - had with bookmarks. Namely, bookmarking is a lame, half-assed, unsearchable, flat, linkrotten approach to recalling that which you've seen and care to recall on the web. Now, a lot of folks have made stabs at solving this particular problem, but Mike's got a lot of very cool features built into his beta, and more on the way...read more

Studios cashing in on DVD's

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Andrew and Michelle met pretty much the first week of orientation at Stanford, and their wedding was the first I've attended of my class. Well, happy anniversary!

I am still playing with uploading images to Image Shack , a free image hosting service. The service is really neat, since you don't need to sign up for a user account or anything. All you do is upload your images by clicking on the frog in the upper left corner. Your image needs to be 600 kb or less, which is very generous in my opinion. After you upload the image, you receive a few links for placement on websites or to email to friends. So easy! The image will expires if its not accessed within a year, so obviously this service probably won't work for archiving purposes. But for say ebay auctions or the blog posting of the week, it makes a lot of sense. According to the About page, the site has been up since November of 2003. Since that isn't very long, you do have to wonder about how long the service will last. Well, we should enjoy it while we can..
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Okay, so I am investigating getting more sophisticated with the blogging.

I want to put up a site with images, so I can illustrate my discussion and make it more interesting.

So above you should see a photo of a beautiful, red long-haired tabby. This cutie was up for adoption last year through AZ Rescue, an animal rescue organization. Isn't he beautiful? I found the organization the web when I was doing research on adopting a cat of my very own.

The image looks a tad too big for this site... hmm, I suppose I will have to tweak this.

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Some thoughts for today:
If you could do anything that you want, what would it be?
Second question, why aren't you doing it today?

These are both tough questions. The first one, what do you want? What are your dreams? I honestly don't know what my personal dreams are. I spend so much time thinking of what I have to do, what I'm supposed to do, that I don't spend enough (or any) on what I would do if I could do anything. I know I wouldn't sit around and do nothing. I spent one quarter doing that at Stanford and I was so bored! And so lonely!

The second question sort of follows the first, that is, what is holding us back from pursuing our dreams? Is it because you don't know what your dreams are (like me!) or is it because of fear? Money? Risk? Why don't we pursue our passions?


All these thoughts are running through my head since I spent the weekend lounging in Central Park and reading the book Your Money or Your Life. I loove this book. The author does spend quite a bit of time preaching about giving back to the earth and environmentalism, which can be frustrating, given that the premise of the book is finding your life and dedicating your life to the right things, not saving the environment. If you focus on the main message, I think you will find this book very valuable. I think this book is similar to Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but I feel as though its more actionable. And, the focus isn't on becoming economically rich, but instead rich in life and living a life with meaning. Rich Dad, Poor Dad seems much more superficial in my opinion.

Read this book today! They have it for free at the New York Public Library or any library near you.
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I bought a coffee maker yesterday at Zabar's. Its an Italian stovetop espresso maker -- the Pratika.

I was originally going to buy a french press. I loove the taste of coffe (even though I know coffee makes your teeth turn yellow and all that caffeine creates holes in your brain). But, I'm the only one in my apartment that drinks coffee. And all the automatic coffee makers I'd seen previously made too many cups of coffee. So I was just resigning myself to going to Starbucks or Dean & Deluca. But then I ate brunch at Danal, and they served the coffee in these little french presses-- one for each person. It was soo cool, that I decided I had to get one for myself. I did a little research, and was going to get this one , but I wasn't done researching, so I decided to wait until after my vacation in Paris.


Well in Paris, my friend Pancy had the Italian stovetop espresso maker. It was super cute and easy to use-- just add water, coffee and turn on the stove. And she also told me it was much easier to clean than the french press. Apparently her good friend had a french press and it was sort of a pain to clean. That's what really sold the Italian design for me-- ease of cleaning. I started to imagine myself reaching into the glass carafe to scrape out used coffee, blah! With the stovetop espresso maker, you just dump out the coffee grinds and rinse in hot water. You can use bicarbonate (baking soda) to clean, but no soap! Hehehe. What's that? You mean, I can't even wash it even if I really want to? Yes!! [Note that clicking to enlarge won't work]

Still debating, I went to Zabar last night go buy duck confit for dinner. Duck confit nears the top of my list of favorite foods (along with mashed potatoes, dumplings and hot pot), and when I was in Paris, I ended up eating it only 1x, instead of the 10x I'd planned. Zabar has the duck legs from D'Artagnan for the cheapest of anywhere I'd found in NYC (even at the store itself when it was still open). D'Artagnan is a supplier to a lot of fancy restaurants, and I've actually eaten the very same duck legs out at restaurants in NYC, except for 6x the price of buying them at Zabar. What a rip off! So since I got off early, I decided to brave the rain and get myself some duck legs. [Addendum: D'Artagnan sells the duck legs through amazon.com, and on the website they cost $6.85! I got them at Zabar for $3.99-- $1 less than the marked price at Zabar. Needless to say, Zabar is great!]

Zabar has a great housewares department, so I decided to hop up and take a quick look. It was my first time, but I'd heard raves about it from lots of people. And it truly is amazing!!! Row after row of cool kitchen appliances, and at awesome prices too! Anyway, they had the french press I was going to buy for only $17. $2 less than Amazon and a LOT less than the 30 euros it was selling for in Paris department stores. I looked across the aisle, and they had Italian espresso makers, too!

Since I believe in stocking up while you can, I just couldn't resist the impulse and I decided to buy the espresso maker!! (I had already put 8 duck legs in my basket). Usually I am too lazy to go to the Upper West Side (its not that far, but one transfer at Times Square is enough to put me off). I figured, when else am I going to come back to Zabar? And since prices at Zabar seemed so low, it seemed worth it to me to make the purchase without doing my usual level of due diligence on the Internet.

I then proceeded to buy half a pound of mocha blend (this was my FIRST time buying coffee) and I went home to make myself a cup. So awesome! So delicious and easy and rich. Yummm.

Now I'm afraid I'm going to become a coffee addict. I try not to drink a cup every day, but now that I have it at home and its so easy to make how am I going to keep myself from drinking multiple cups?! Aaaah.

Now I have to get the perfect coffee mug. When I was in Paris, I spent like 90 minutes in the gift shop at the Louvre. They had some pretty neat coffee mugs, with artwork on it (like Monet's poppies, which I love). But, me being cheap (or afraid to spend more money) I didn't buy a mug! The mugs in Paris were so delicate and thin and pretty. I ended up going to Fishs Eddy last night to buy a mug, but it was too thick and not the pretty ones I saw in Paris.

I guess my search for the perfect mug continues...
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Okay, I've decided to start a public blog. I wonder if anyone will ever read it or find it? As of now, I'm not planning to tell people where it is. Maybe I'll change my mind later?

I think blogs are a pretty good idea. Share your insights (or lack of) and keep in touch with old friends more easily. I think this will be fun. And I like the interface on this website. Hmm.. how many people agree that it seems like google is taking over the world? (I'm even planning to sign up for a gmail account.)

Well at least for now, google is still lovable. When the company becomes a mammoth corporate beast, I'm sure we'll all feel differently. Companies like to grow, I guess. I wish the plants in my apartment could grow like that!

Cool site of the day =
furl Pretty cool utility for saving web pages that you come across. I am a total packrat, and I loove to save things (probably since I think they will be useful some day-- that is if I can ever find them again). Note that the service sometimes has problems saving things correctly-- especially if there are frames or characters with accents or whatever. For example, I saved a press release from the Disney website, and I got the top frame twice. Oh well.

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I want a schnoodle. I just saw a photo of one, and they are soooo cute!!!

I think the reason is that I love pets is that they remind me of cute little stuffed animals. I love my cat! She's so cute. Anyway, when I was in Paris, I was in a cool little design store with Pancy and Tien, and I saw the cutest little teddy bear. It had a pocket in its chest for a red heart, isn't that adorable? I told Tien, I would love to have the teddy bear as a live pet. Wow, that would be awesome. [Image courtesy of Jen Chung]

Anyway, they bought me the bear as a gift.. even though I already have a million stuffed animals. Oh well, I guess I just can't resist. But now I want a schnoodle!!
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