I also spent my extra day of the year very well, I think, at Disneyland’s One More Disney Day. Twenty-four hours straight of Disneyland! Woo! March 1st I spent in front of the tv, trying to recuperate.

Hopefully this won’t be my post of the month, because I do have ideas for blog entries, I just lack the time to formulate my thoughts and type them up here!

I asked Mum about trying a water boiler one last time, but she was adamant: “I already gave them my money; I don’t want to give them any more.” We’ve been living the old fashioned way ever since: boiling water kettle on the range.

However, today Mum confided to me, “Our gas bill is up to a hundred dollars now.” We aren’t sure if it’s worth the money, saving on electricity to run the hot water pot, if the gas bill is going so high.

I’ve been considering buying an electric water kettle, but wasn’t sure how accepting Mum would be. I think she’ll be more willing now that I heard about our gas bill. The electric kettle would only be used once or twice in the morning and once in the afternoon. Not too huge a drain on our electricity. And no hanging around to make sure the stove is turned off before the kettle screams!

The other day my mom commented how her new coffee she’d bought tasted weird. She added more instant coffee and creamer and managed to finish her coffee.

Later, my green tea that I’d made had a funny taste as well, some sort of sickly sweet taste. Since I had another drink I set it aside, planning to ask my mom what was wrong with it.

Then I got a message from my mom, don’t drink my tea, there’s oil in the water boiler!

At home she explained that she’d found a film of oil on top of the water when she went to refill the pot. She cleaned it three times and there was still oil, which was coming up from underneath the area that stored water. Searching online, she found that these water boilers use oil to heat the water. (Although I can’t replicate her results, and wonder if she confused the electric pot with the home water heater tank.)

This was our second water boiler; our first was made by Panasonic and that one just up and quit on us after a year or two. We generally don’t buy Panasonic anymore. But this Zojirushi oil problem has me worried. The pot lasted us a little over a year, and the 1-year limited warranty of course has run out. I don’t know that the warranty would have covered our problem anyway. This is Zojirushi! Says right on the pot, “Made in Japan”!! It’s not supposed to bust in such an odd manner.

My mom has given up on the water boilers, but they are one of my favorite things! I love being able to make my little oyunomi of ocha at any time of the day, frequently or infrequently! The water kettle cools down too quickly for my tastes. (Need to reheat after only 20 minutes? Inconceivable!) People on Amazon write that their pots last up to 10 years, so maybe I can convince my mom that the third time’s a charm…

I was, in all honesty, about to click the link when that little voice in my head said check the link, which I did. It went to response.nortonfromsymantec.com/servlet/ and a jumble of characters. The sent-from e-mail address was norton at nortonfromsymantec.com. All the text in the footer was convincing, little footnotes, copyright notices, the mailing address for Symantec. But all the links led to the same site, nortonfromsymantec.com.

I’d never heard of nor been contacted before by this site so I looked it up on Yahoo! but didn’t get much in the way of information. I got the Symantec website and bunches of other sites hawking the Norton program download along with registration keys.

Finally I thought to check the Norton support forum to see what others said about it. There’s one topic, “Email from Norton”, where the site
is mentioned, and someone from Norton confirmed that it’s a Symantec-owned website, and the e-mail was sent from the company.

But yeesh! Why does Symantec have to do it that way? Anyone who’s savvy enough will question an e-mail and a website like that! Why can’t they just go through symantec.com or norton.com to offer the upgrade, which is what I ended up doing, because I still don’t fully trust that nortonfromsymantec.com.

Although it is awfully nice of Symantec to offer this upgrade. I bought Norton Anti-Virus 2009, and they offered me a free upgrade to NAV 2011! They just need to rethink the execution of it. After all, I’d bought NAV 2002 and they never offered a free upgrade in all those years.

You know what I just realized, while rereading that old entry? It’s suiting that I found my last coin, a quarter, while cleaning my grandparents’ house. :3 So in an indirect way, my collection has come full circle!

1. What is your favorite drink of all time? Does it hold a special memory to you or is it just because it tastes good?
I don’t think I could pick a favorite of all time, because my favorite changes from time to time. I remember when it was lemonade, cranberry juice, root beer (specifically A&W or Mug, not any other), sarsaparilla (omigosh love ya, Virgina City, and Knott’s!)… But ocha (aka green tea) is a good failsafe, I’ve been drinking that for years.

2. Tea or coffee or hot cocoa?
I guess I already answered this in the previous question, but I can stand to write more. *grin* I’m not a big fan of coffee. I don’t like the bitterness, but my mom has had me taste some really good coffee (yes, I do refer to McDonald’s here, points to McD’s!) and if I really need a caffeine boost I’m willing to drink it. With creams and sugars, of course.

Hot cocoa, I’ve mostly had the Nestle instant variety. Lately I don’t like how sweet it is, and I keep mixing in Ghiradelli’s cocoa powder or Hershey’s cocoa powder. But in general if I’m out somewhere and need a hot drink this is my first option. (Unless this place offers green tea, then of course I choose that.)

As for tea… I’ve tried peach-flavored black tea (my first non-green tea) and really didn’t like it; orange tea, thought it was a bit too sweet but it was drinkable; and black tea, not as bad as the peach-flavored tea would have me think, it was much more like green tea than I expected. I’ve never had sweet tea, but as a kid I drank Lipton’s instant iced tea.

My mom served us kids the iced tea for our ochazuke (or chachagohan, for a more cutesy, kiddy term ^_^), but eventually we asked her for the “hot tea” that we thought tasted better: genmaicha. She told us if we liked it better then she would make it for us, even if it did take longer to make than the “instant tea.”

Thus, the tea of my childhood became genmai cha. This is considered a poor variety of green tea, though. Right now I like bancha, a better variety, but still not the best. I’ve had matcha and sencha, but they’re more expensive than bancha.

3. Best summer time drink?
Cold ocha, or for a special treat, Ito En’s Oi Ocha! ^_^-b

4. Worst soda brand ever?
:o I don’t know that I can come up with an answer for that. I definitely won’t drink Mountain Dew though. And I prefer Coke to Pepsi, although that is not saying that I like Coke. My favorite soda is Dr. Pepper, or Dr. Pepper Cherry.

5. Water: flavored, bottled, carbonated, or regular old tap?
None of the above? I think that’s just semantics though. I don’t like to drink water that comes in those little bottles at the grocery market, since it’s so bad for the environment, but I’m okay with Sparklett’s. (Arrowhead has a weird taste…) I don’t like the taste of tap water, because I’m a spoiled urbanized child, used to filtered water. And that is what my choice is.

questions from Friday Five

But now, since I have the time, I decided to use the rose-scented Herbal Essence conditioner that I’ve had since high school. Despite its age, it works well!

This change of heart was brought about by a Garnier Fructis coupon, over a year ago. I needed more shampoo, and Target had this shampoo for cheap! I bought it, liked the softening effect it had on my hair, but still preferred how clean my hair was after using Herbal Essence’s clarifying shampoo. (Don’t worry, my hair is coarse, it could take shampoo stripping it of everything it’s got.)

So I stuck with Herbal Essence, but after I graduated I came back home and still had the Garnier Fructis shampoo left over. I’d switch back and forth between the two, slowly using up the Garnier Fructis shampoo. Being in the mode of use up products sitting around, I decided to use my old Herbal Essence conditioner in that ancient soft pink, opaque bottle. Voila! Amazingly soft and silky hair, just like in all the hair commercials! (Um, commercials selling hair-related products, not selling hair.)

But then another dilemma popped up. My hair was now ever so smooth and shiny, but I had, over the years, grown used to it being poufy and slightly frizzy! I had to adjust to liking my hair even in its new calm and flat form, which I eventually did, accepting that looking like others’ standard of beauty was not a bad thing.

Now I just need to grow my hair longer and buy rollers, and I will be a complete girly girl!

2. Do you record your dreams in your blog or a journal?
Already answered. :3 Yes, I’ve been writing down dreams since the mid 90s; I thought I had a few really interesting dreams and considered turning them into stories. That never happened though. Mid to late 90s I physically wrote them down in a notebook, then I transferred over to an online log in 2002 or so.

3. Do you think dreams are messages our bodies are trying to tell us? If so, are you real big on trying to interpret all the details?
I believe some dreams can be messages, but I don’t interpret every single dream I have, much less every little thing that happens in a dream. I don’t think dreams are literal, or strictly symbolic. Mostly I pay attention to the feelings in dreams, and any patterns that come up over time.

4. Do you remember your first nightmare?
The earliest nightmare I can remember having is recorded in my dreamlog, but I don’t know if that was my first nightmare.

5. Have you ever had a recurring dream? If you did, what was it and what do you think it meant?
I don’t think I have recurring dreams in that the same exact thing happens. I’ll have dreams where I think, ‘This happened before’ or ‘I saw this before,’ but when I wake up I can’t remember the dream (or real life experience) that made me think that. I know I dream about malls a lot (hee), and airplanes crashing, but I’ve never dreamed the same exact dream.

1. What one food most reminds you of your childood?
Is Japanese food an acceptable answer? If not, then probably udon. Or maybe homemade chow mein with scrambled egg strips in it, that was how Bachan made it. :3

2. How old were you when you learned how to ride a bicycle?
I was nine years old (or maybe ten, it was during the summer anyway) and I taught myself! Without a scratch. I even remember my bike, it had a teal paint scheme and pink handlebars and seat and white wheels.

3. How old were you when you stopped believing in Santa Claus?
Eight years old, third grade, I remember some classmate was talking to other kids at his table saying he saw his mom doing Santa one night. Er I mean doing Santa’s job.

4. What was your favorite television show/cartoon when you were little?
First answer that comes to mind is Ren & Stimpy. :P I could also say Rugrats or The Simpsons (that one has lasting power, wow), but R&S was the first I thought of. That might have been the first show my brothers and I would watch regularly on TV in its scheduled slot (Snick!), rather than whatever we had on VHS.

5. What is the youngest age you remember being and do you have a specific memory of when you were that age?
Preschool age, three or four, and a memory from preschool: the teacher and his aide had just put us down on the carpet for our nap and drawn the curtains so the room was dark. The aide asked the teacher if he’d like a Coke, she was going to grab a Coke. I thought, ‘Lucky, they get to have soda whenever they want.’ :P I’m an adult now too but I can’t have soda whenever I want! I have to remember all the sugar and carbonation and, depending on the soda, the caffeine that’s in those things. Ugh.

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