Crossing into the new year

Get it?! I'm so clever sometimes. This is the last post in 2008- it's been a great year and i'm thrilled i got to share it with so many wonderful and loving friends. I wish you all well in 2009 and hope i can provide some entertainment from this blog. Thanks for reading!

Netflix is so awesome!

Bunny and i have been watching movies on the netflix instant watch player, and it is fantastic. So easy and well done- worth the cost of netflix on it's own, but i like the idea of getting dvds with my subscription too :)

Grilled cheese with a twist

Marie and i returned to San Francisco today. Tonight Bunny and I made grilled cheese on my mickey mouse sammich maker.

He nearly ate us defending this toy

Bowling is a league sport on sundays. At least that's how i've come to understand seeing as both alleys in valencia wouldn't rent us a lane because of leagues. Twinkie tried to defend this little toy to the point where he almost took our hands off just for touching it. Also, today i bought my first blu-ray movie, Wall-E! I'm super excited to watch it with Bunny. I also got a netflix account so i can rent movies :) And tomorrow Marie and I head back to the bay for the new year- i can't wait!

Disney adventures part 1

As we got off the freeway at the disney exit, the transmission on the van blew-awesome.

The epitome of terrible movies

Mystery science theater 3000 celebrated it's 20th anniversary with these 4 works of the worst filmmaking possibly ever. Not a single movie has a redeeming quality save for the commentary spoken over them by the mst3k crew. Tonight we finished the last of them and by golly they were as awful as expected. I did otherwise have a nice day. I bought a blu-ray drive for my pc to watch those new-fangled high def movies YAY!

Happy holidays! (3 of more)

The view as we awoke this morning.

Happy holidays! (2 of more)

The aftermath of gifting.

Happy holidays! (1 of more)

Twinkie yawning in his new cashmere sweater courtesy of Bunny and me. He was tuckered out from all the gift unwrapping.

The tree of plenty

This is the living room tree that we put the gifts under. It's nice and talk and takes forever to set up since the branches are all assembled individually. Both trees are artificial by the way. Merry christmas eve, but I should get to bed soon so santa can come ;)

Christmas tree number 1

Yes, 1 because there are 2 in this house, 3 including the one on the lawn. At any rate, this is in the family room and makes the den look warm and festive :) Today Eman, Teenie and her friend Mandy went bowling since we had some free passes. We played two games and I came in first for the 1st and third on the 2nd. Eman had the highest score of 121- apparently wii bowling is not an effective training tool. Afterwards Eman and i watched another mystery science theater 3000 movie and as always it was a groaner of a film. I got gushers from walmart- i love those things. Did some shopping with dad too, it was fun. Tomorrow is Christmas eve, but i've got all my shopping done- i think.

Spreading christmas cheer

That tree on the front lawn plays music and changes colors. The santa balloon is new this year. Every year my house gets crazier and more extravagant. Credit to my dad for keeping the spirit of the season alive even if as we kids get older and tend to not readily assist as much. I still really appreciate the hard work that goes into decorating the house so every year feels as festive as it did when i was 6 :)

DiGiorno's got nothing on this pie

Had homemade pizza at Eman's house tonight-it was awesome!

I heard it through the Grapevine

Left for santa clarita at 6am with Marie this morning. I fell asleep in my awesome hoodie for a chunk of the time but when we got to the grapevine all this snow awaited us. It's quite pretty and was pretty weird to drive through considering the surrounding areas are pretty warm right now. The valley is the same as always, but I'll probably be spending most of my time at home anyway. Oh, and morkie = maltese yorkie = super cute

Love my new scarf

This is my other present from Bunny, my super soft cashmere scarf. It's super classy and will keep me nice and warm. I had to clean the whole apartment tonight and now it STARKLES! Leaving for SCV at 6 tomorrow morning- this should be fun :-S

Do not open before Christmas

Got my presents from Bunny tonight; a cashmere Calvin Klein scarf and this awesome Burton sleeper hoodie- this thing has EVERYTHING but the kitchen sink: face cover, eye mask, ear plugs, pockets galore, fuzzy warm lining, armpit vents, and last but not least, a toothbrush. I love it :) The scarf is really warm and soft and beautiful and goes with everything i own- it's perfect. I'm super happy and i'm done with finals so the semester is Over! Now i get 2 weeks of vacation before work starts up again.

Not quite like the commercials: the Domino's Oven Baked Sammich

Tasty but visually disappointing

Studying is super awesome.

I feel like those guys in those shows and movies writing crazy stuff all over the board- except nothing here is that complex. I got an A- in combinatorics which is pretty darn awesome and i'm super happy about that. Tomorrow is history of math, which i'm decidedly less excited about. Wish me luck

Christmas time is surely upon us

Traveling up the spiral escalators of the westfield downtown, this spectacle shone over Marie and my head. It was enthralling enough that we proceeded to try and walk UP the down escalator- mesmerizing. Tonight Bunny and I exchanged some of our Christmas gifts- she got me a really awesome hoodie designed for traveling, complete with eye mask, toothbrush and ear plugs! I gave her a bowl in the same shape as the vase i got her for her birthday and my mom and dad gave her a dark pearl necklace and a jewelry tree that looks like a dress :) And my paper is finally done and just needs a little editing woohoo!

The world is ending!

Working on my paper and while the rain was pouring the sky fell down in the form of hail. It's been so cold lately, maybe it'll snow in SanFrancisco for real o.0 At any rate, this paper is ridiculous and taking soo long. At least I still have tomorrow, and the sky didn't really fall, what a waste of a Sunday if it had.

Because i have nothing else...

This is to tease Eman :) also, happy birthday mom! Working on this ethics paper is horrible- i can't get into it enough. It'll be done tomorrow though. Also- puzzle quest= battle bejeweled which is pretty fun.

Pudding and my keyboard

So i discovered single serving instant pudding mix-best intention ever. Tastes better than snack packs but i don't have to make a whole batch. And my keyboard is the first of several planned mods for the wind. The fn and ctrl buttons are swapped on the wind- with this mod and a custom bios it's prefect like it should be. Had my first final today- combinatorics. I think i did well enough to get an A, will update.

Too awesome for a still

This is our Christmas tree. It beats all other trees ever. No contest- it changes color!

Decking the Halls

Bunny and I did this last night for that je ne sais quoi at the apartment. I think it's quite beautiful if I do say so myself. Last day of classes was today- this project has survived the whole semester. Finals start on Friday.

Happy birthday Bunny!

The Aalto vase by Alvar Aalto designed in 1936. First shown at the Paris world exhibition in 1937. Now in the permanent collection of Bunny California.

100 memories

Tonight marks the 100th post on JohnRoscigno.com it's been a great ride and I hope it continues for a long time. Thanks to all my friends and family for helpin with this little project all semester. Behind me are all of the photos taken for the blog along with the one next to my head- the number 100 made of 100 pennies on a grid of 100 dimes. Thanks again everyone.

After cake is gone, we must have cookies.

Tasty treats are awesome. I got bored and baked cookies for dessert. So basically today was awesome because I didn't have to grade papers & math homework went quickly. I can't help but be excited about tomorrow - Bunny's birthday present will finally get here (after the mix up from CSN) and it'll also be my 100th post here. Check back tomorrow :)

Poodles around a baby.

No idea. It was at SFMoMA. I went with Bunny but the museum was decidedly less interesting this visit. Weird exhibits bother me. Although there was a great one with light & photography & microscopes & x-rays & astronomy. Yeah, lots of stuff like that. I really liked the x-ray of the Chameleon & the foot in the shoe (the shoe had tons of little nails in it...they don't make shoes like that anymore) :p Afterwards Bunny & I wandered around the mall looking for the hoodie I want for Christmas - The Burton Sleeper Hoodie - didn't find it in a store but tracked it down online - Excited for Christmas :)

Time for some tasty treats.

Celebrating with Bunny with some wonderful cake and mousse from Schubert's Bakery on clement street. The green cake is called Swedish Princess Cake and the mousses are mango and white chocolate raspberry. Super yummy!

When you're too cheap to buy loose leaf paper...

I had to write a journal for french class & I don't have any loose leaf paper. People in that class think I"m weird because I don't have any - but I have my reasons. Math homework looks really messy on a sheet of loose-leaf paper; There are tons of pictures and formulas and stuff that just get muddled when I'm writing on lines - So I started writing on white paper about a year ago. The only problem is when I need to write for a non-math class. Oh well, printable paper works just as well :)

Fossils

Without being too silly, my small (incomplete) collection of fossils- including my fossil :P titanium watch! The most interesting piece in this group is th shark tooth on the right that was found on a hiking trip i took in montana with my dad when i was 13. By far the coolest thing i have ever found on the ground. The tooth next to it on the left is HALF of a shark tooth that actually still has the enamel on it.

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas

Just some pre-holiday fun. I had a dream to string up lights in the hallway but Marie said no. Oh well.

The plan

To get ubuntu linux running on this sdhc card. I want to get the os running on a bootable sd card so that i can pop it in and have linux whenever i want :) It was working off the card, but i couldn't boot windows without the card in. Off to other methods. Other than that, i'm super excited that i'm listed as an administrator on usf's energy saving project.

Foggy drive to the bay

Super fog in the valley. It ate up all the cars around us. We got back in the city around 4.30 yesterday afternoon - I didn't unpack everything yet though - yay for tomorrow night! On the way we saw an amber alert sign with the text "CHP Pace, Do not pass". It was really weird, but then Marie and I saw what was up - there was a SUPER thick fog in the valley that cut off visibility about 2 cars ahead of us. The CHP was pacing people so they didn't crash into each other. Then, we saw a big semi-truck with SPIKED RIMS! If that wasn't enough, the name on the door read "DragonWolf". Epic.

Best ice cream sammich ever!

Instead of birthday cake for my mom's super early birthday party, we got ice cream turkeys. Kinda awesome. They were super cute and really tasty (being ice cream and cookie and frosting). This afternoon my dad, Teenie, Joe, and I went to the new local black light miniature golf course in SCV. It was quite a bit nicer than the Putting Edge, but amazingly STILL had the problem of bad parents not watching their kids playing on the hole directly behind us. The drive back to Azusa was nice, little traffic, and Joe was left with a boat-load of left-overs and books to finish up the semester with (and the $2 he found in the parking lot...lucky).

Family together time with love and stuff

Thanks Joe for being the photographer that helped make our portraits funner. We had a blast at our portrait session this afternoon. The photographer was crazy fun and i think the pictures will be great. My mom scheduled these and we almost called it off - but what an interesting experience. I really hope the pictures look as good as the ones Joe snapped for us - it was fun to dress up. Not seen on the blog: my photoshoot lying on my dad's corvette :p

BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL!

Playing with our food at ihop. So Eman, Joe, and I got up at like, 2:30am today to go sit in front of Staples (in 30 degree weather or so it seemed). Low and behold, we ended up not getting anything - the item Eman wanted was actually an online only item and I decided against anything on sale (I couldv'e had my pick of the lot if I wanted). At any rate, Eman's first experience at iHop was totally worth it - especially when Ms. Pac Man appeared out of our food - we should have sold it on ebay.

Thanksgiving is weird.

A giant bird next to an odd bird. What a flighty holiday. Just kidding, my sister is hilarious. I forewent the traditional holiday spread photo in favor of this, a true representation of what fun it is to be with family. The food was SOOOOO GOOD! I almost broke my rule of 1 picture per day to show the awesome dinner spread, but this is sufficient. That turkey was ENORMOUS! 23 pounds! I had a wing, and sweet potatoes (with marshmallows), peas, turnips, cranberry sauce, gravy, fresh baked bread... I'm so full right now I could burst!

Grumpy old man

Twinkie doesn't like cameras apparently. It took 15 photos to get a decent one. I jinxed it! It took 8 HOURS to get home tonight. I'm super tired and it's really nice to be back home and see my parents and Teenie. Tomorrow morning bright and early I'm heading out to pick up Joe from Azusa so he can spend the holiday with us. It should be a good time with lots of tasty food. I'm already digging into the pumpkin bread :)

Cream cheese 'n chocolate

Got some brownies for dessert- sweet. The test wasn't too horrible - and it's nice to be spending time with Bunny before the weekend - I'm going to miss her. We picked up these brownies to snack on tonight and got some microwave-burritos for dinner (guilty pleasure). Should be a nice relaxing evening, have to pack a little bit for tomorrow though. And mentally prepare for the 8 hour journey.

History of mathematics is a blast!

Sorry for the blurry picture, blame the waitress at the restaurant. Had a pizza party hosted by Tristan and his family for our class. It was a pretty good time - basically all the people I know on campus since they're all in my math classes. Too bad tomorrow I have a combinatorics test (ugh!). Not really looking forward to it at all. But I did really well on the last one so maybe it won't be so bad. Also, tomorrow is the last day of school before Thanksgiving holiday, AWESOME!

They're so comfy!

Got these on friday as mentioned. They've pretty much been on my feet all weekend nonstop. They're sheepskin and I honestly can't stop wearing them. I don't normally wear slippers or anything like that and I'm really impressed by these. They're super soft and even though my feet were kind of overheating in them the first day I wore them, I got used to it and now they just keep my feet comfortable. I plan on wearing them in the car when Marie and I head down to SCV for Thanksgiving. Today was a study day - All french for my test on Monday.

Yes that bottle is clear. No, i have no idea what it tastes like.

This is a bottle of Black Lemonade soda. I have no idea what it'll taste like but it looked so ridiculous I had to buy it. For the past few years, I've been buying the Jones Soda Holiday Packs and trying them with my friends. These are HORRIBLE tasting. Last year was something like; Turkey dinner, Buttered Roll, Brussels Sprouts (or peas), Antacid, and Sweet Potato. Seriously. And they taste SO MUCH WORSE than anything you could ever imagine with that flavor. And they're sodas. Well, this year I got potentially better tasting sodas: Black Lemonade, Blood Red Cola, Bawls "G33k B33r" Root Beer, and a bottle of Birch Beer. Now I just need to hold off drinking them for a few more days :)

Plouf!

Tonight Bunny and I had a nice date at the french restaurant Plouf downtown. Super Yummy! Then shoe pavillon was having a going out of business sale and i got a pair of ugg style slippers! Super Comfy! Seriously, these things are great - super soft inside and I'll be happy to wear them around the house (just never outside).

I won this case and it's awesome!

Won this case from www.gadgetmix.com a couple weeks ago. It got here today and i'm super happy. :) It fits my Wind really well and looks amazing. The best part is the leather-wrapped palm rest to protect the plastic from those nasty stains that appear over time. I'll get used to typing on it (because now the palm rest is a little thicker than the keyboard) but so far I'm really enjoying it.

It's a woot-off!

I don't buy much (or anything) but they sure are fun :) What's a woot-off? www.woot.com is a website that sells one item every day for a discounted price. During a woot-off, they sell a continuous stream of items of all sorts refreshing with a new item whenever a current item sells out. It's fun to see all the wacky and random stuff they sell (like Bacon-Salt, honestly). Today I didn't do much of anything, I watched some Star Trek: The Next Generation and some Top Chef; I really like that show, although it usually takes about half the season before I like any of the contestants (cheftestants according to them).

I haz a cheezburger!

Got my ethics paper back tonight, B+/A-, which isn't bad I'd have preferred a solid A. Swedlow liked my String Theory argument though, which is pretty cool I guess. Bunny and I presented our topics tonight (Pacifism & Humanitarian Intervention). The class had a really great discussion and I think we did well on the project. Tonight I had a huuuuuuuuge hankering for a cheeseburger, so I got some patties and made one up for myself; SUPER YUMMY!

Cute triptych by john fitzgerald in starbucks

I was grabbing an Iced Peppermint Twist Mocha (Iced, not blended) from Starbucks and saw this cute picture on the wall...I really like it, even though I'm not entirely sure what it's representing. The little face is cute and the peace sign is a nice touch. Then I worked on the Pacifism article Bunny and I have to present tomorrow for ethics.

The most boring part of the weekend.

Grading papers is really time consuming. Too bad it's a job :p I really don't like grading this stuff, but it's a little bit interesting as the topics are broader than my regular math courses. Today I got a haircut for our family portrait next week - should be an interesting experience (I don't even remember that last time we did something like that, if we ever did. It's not super short, but it's a good length and looks neat and clean. Another quiet day, I did some math homework with Naod and Georgina on campus - it wasn't a very productive session.

Courtesy of Teenie

These are the fires in so.cal. seen from the back yard. Very quiet Saturday, nothing big really - lots of staying in and hanging out. Bunny and I spent some time in the park working on our ethics project: Pacifism and Humanitarian Intervention. Interesting topic with a really deep core. Teenie sent me this picture (Super Guest Photographer!) of the fires down in Southern California. This is from my backyard - which is crazy close apparently. Best wishes for all those affected by the Sylmar fire. Tomorrow is haircut day!

Off to the yacht!

Tonight Marie had a yacht party to go to celebrate several people's birthdays. She looked super nice in her new dress. Bunny and I stayed in and watched Field of Dreams on hd-dvd... I still love that player even though it's hard to get new movies for it. It's alright though, one day I'll get my PS3 and then I'll have a blu-ray player and access to all the movies that come out on high def :) Not sure what the plans for the weekend are, but I need a haircut.