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There's always something going on here in Berkeley. I just wish the crazies weren't so crazy. The dude holding the sign is about to get beat down by the way. This should be fun.

One of the reasons I REALLY like Berkeley and HATE Los Angeles

If you want to know if an ethnic restaurant is good or not, look at the ratio of ethnic folks eating to the ratio of people not from the ethnic group that the restaurant portends to be from.



In the case of the Thai temple in Berkeley, the ratio is about 1 Thai person for every 86 white pseudo-hippie/poor Cal student looking for something to kick the post-partying hangover. Not good...I should have recognized it, but the chaotic swarms of food-grubbing bodies overcame my personal prime directive of ethnic cuisine.



So how is the food? Awful...just simply awful. I mean I saw Thai people walking around with food from the other places (even snapping into a Slim Jim) rather than consuming temple food. And now, I know better...this stuff is awful. Just awful (can I say it enough?). I guess the all of the non-Thais here just don't care because they don't know any better...but for me (the only Thai guy to actually buy food here), I've had my fill of "trick the white people" temple food.



Sent from my Window Mobile 5 Pocket PC.

If you search for "Academic Calendar" on the UC Berkeley website, you'll get a link that looks promising. When you actually choose the calendar to view, you'll be surprised to see that it contains only a few items like holidays, class start dates, and final exam days. How do you find out the last day to drop or withdrawl or other juicy academic tidbits? You need this rather pimped out 2006-2007 Calendar.

Big ups to the College of Letters and Science's advising department for putting together this mega list of important dates.

There are so many Thai food joints in Berkeley...who knew? There is supposedly a temple around here that has food stalls similar to LA's now-famous Wat Thai of north hollywood. I remember eating there every weekwmd when I was growing up. My folks even had a stall there for couple of years. We made Thai desserts. Running a stall is hard work though...especiallt in the crushing LA heat.



Here's to Northern California's Thai stronghold - Berkeley. (The photo is from Ruen Pai on San Pablo and Monroe...at the foot of the UC Village in Albany).

What a nutty day yesterday...

It started with some news at work. Our team was expanding our charter to now cover MSN Mobile work as well (and that I would be part of that team). Sounds exciting and after all, I LOVE my Windows Mobile 5.0 phone. I knew about the switch the day before as some guys on my team told me of the change and that they'd be going over to MSN Mobile (so I figured I would be as well). After the meeting, I took off for Berkeley.


Hongyun and I had received information the day before that she may be able to get a townhouse instead of an apartment at Berkeley's University Village, but only if we acted quickly. We decided to take the afternoon to go up and see the place that was being offered. Well it was pretty nice. It was in a very quiet corner of the university's apartment village. Also, it was right across from the bus stop that would take Hongyun to school so it was ideal. We were also offered a brand spanking new apartment that was going to open on July 8th, but when we walked over to see it, we were not impressed. I mean it looked nice, but it was an apartment. The townhouse had only one neighbor (the other side was a walkway) whereas in an apartment, you would have a minimum of 3 shared walls. Also the apartment would be closer to the continuing construction of new apartments and we just didn't want to be near the dust and noise of it all.


We called over to the office (which was 3 miles away, at the Berkeley campus) around 4:15pm and decided to make a mad dash to get over there before 5pm. Who knew it would take half an hour to get over to the campus? I mean it's just 3 measly miles. Anyway, we dash into the building, sign our lives away, and hand over the deposit. Boom, we move in on July 8th (actually that's the first day to move in, but we're going to wait until July 15th to move in so as to give us ample time for packing).


Right after signing the rental agreement, we decided to walk over to the campus and look for food. As we were walking, we saw one of those sidewalk elevators open up through metal plates. It was filled with flattened boxes. We asked the girl who was removing them if we could have them and she said it was no problem. She also told us the white boxes were better than the grey ones since they had thicker cardboard. Score! We nabbed a SUV load of boxes. We decided to drive down to the Rockridge area in Oakland. This is a rather swanky neighborhood. We took a stroll and settled on a very busy pizzeria called Zachary's. We waited about 40 minutes for a deep dish hot links pizza and man was it good. No wonder this place had posters all over proclaiming them as the top pizzeria for 17 years running. I mean they were even Zagat rated. Remember, order ahead and take it to go (the place is nice too, but it's hectic).


The drive home was uneventful although traffic filled. I'm not sure what's up with the East Bay, but folks over there sure like to stare at blinking lights. I mean we sit in traffic for about 40 minutes to find out the source of the slowage was an off ramp that was closed with a couple of CHP cars blinking their orange lights.


When we get home, I find out that Bill Gates is quitting Microsoft. Man, first Scoble, now BillG. I'm not sure what to make of it as the company is in such a state of flux recently. I mean the major reorg into 3 silos last year, my personal movement from MSNTV2 to our secret Media Center project and now to MSN Mobile within the last 10 months, Scoble leaving for a Silicon Valley news podcasting startup, and now the big cheese BillG "transitioning" to a part time roll...these are all pretty significant goings on. Coupled with my own personal issues with my dad and Hongyun's family , this has been one crazy quarter. The good news is that the beginning of the 2nd half of the year is upon us. Hongyun has a mere 14 days to get through (albeit with 2 major essays to write) and then we take off for the 4th of July in Los Angeles, Berkeley's orientation on the 6th and 7th, packing the 8th-14th, and finally the big move on the 15th. Away we go.

Berkeley Apartment Hunting
Movin' on Up to the East Side