the collapse of our economy

the chilling number of home foreclosures, the fall of lehman brothers, and now wamu??
wow.

according to npr, it is the the biggest bank to fail in the history of united states. you don't need to be worried about your account because business will be back as usual on monday. but just... wow!

"The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized WaMu on Thursday, and then sold the thrift's banking assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion."

and i just received an email from uber, another blog hosting website:

"Thank You. Goodbye. Uber will be turned off on Monday.

Thank You.

That's the first thing that we wanted to say. We have some bad news. The crisis in the economy has claimed Uber as its latest victim. Our investors have decided to stop supporting Uber and we have closed the doors. We would like to thank them too; it’s no fault of theirs that this happened. On the contrary, without their unflinching support we would never have made it this far, and they have stood by us and tried desperately to help us realize our dreams.

The site will be inactive as of Monday September 29, 2008.

We, the former Uber staff, are very disappointed in this outcome and feel bad that we can’t continue this journey we started with you. Uber was an art project in the form of a for-profit corporation whose mission was to change the way the Internet was built. We felt and still feel that everyone needs a voice in this new medium, not just the big media giants. We tried to build a site that let people of eve ry skill level, every style, and every generation express themselves and meet fellow individuals.

After two years of refining Uber, listening to your feedback and working at breakneck speed to try and make a product that accomplished this goal, we were unfortunately cut short right as we got on a roll. But we’re not quitters. The team behind Uber will undoubtedly reform in a new way and bring another set of ideas to you and will have had the benefit of the wonderful experience we had here to aid us on our way... "

i was so sad to read this. uber provided a blog service that was on another level. it provided room for personal portfolios, which was my favorite part. and it's funny to me because i thought uber was doing well. underground celebrities such as cory kennedy, and awesome writers like rose apodaca blog on it. lisa ling had an uber too !! and i'm sure they brought in a lot of hits. it's where all the cool artistic people blogged. but i guess it didn't get much publicity and failed to spread wide =(

i assume blogger will never have to shut down since it's owned by google. yep.
*sigh* what's happening to our economyy and when will this end??

omg annie

i've been a fan of anne hathway since princess diaries and now she's HUGEEE!

i think it started with all the promotions for the movie get smart. now she's the face of lancome's fragrance magnifique!! even more intriguing is her making cover of W. wow!! i'm so sad my subscription to w ended like... last year. nowadays i'm so broke, i don't want to pay $5 for a magazine. here's the cover:



isn't she amazing?? ugh. the hair, the makeup... she can pull it off. i wish i was as half as graceful as she is.

that 3-digit number we all hate

... weight.

although i haven't weighed myself in ages (because my scale is broken), i still 'watch my weight' by not eating after 9 if i can help it, reading my food labels and drinking lots of water. i realize that exercise is an important factor which is missing from my routine but i can't help it. i hate exercise.

well i happened to run into this picture on a blog a couple weeks back and i'm finally posting it:


her name is jessica stroup. you might recognize her from the new 90210, she plays silver. everyone on that superficial show is skinny even to LA standards and i was very sad when i saw this picture. the picture on the left is probably how she was normally. what did she have to do to lose that much weight? probably develop an eating disorder. people always say 'what are we showing our kids through hollywood tv?' and many research links eating disorders to the media. right now, it's telling us: if you want to be anything near cool, become underweight.

it is so unfortunate. i'm not saying lets all be sedentary like myself. but rather: lets not go to the extremes to be skinny. what's it all worth?

hair

eyes, lips, nose: they all define how a person looks. but hair makes the biggest statement. hair style shows a lot about a person. if your hair is always messy, you might be a messy person. short hair may suggest confidence. if you have homely hair, you're a person who plays it safe. if your hair is always in a tight bun like cindy mccains, you might have a stick up your ass.

well i got a haircut today and it is quite a drastic change for me. my mom got her hair cut a couple days ago at a new salon and i really liked her hair so i decided to pay a visit. my hair was already above my shoulders but it was really thick and blunt in the back. so i told sunny, the stylist, that i want to grow out my hair but i want to 'clean up' the back part. that's all i told her.

a few snips later, i realized she was like.... really cutting my hair. she was going so fast. i started to panic with worries like: omg am i gonna look like a fob? a lesbian? a man??? but it wasn't going too bad so i didn't say anything. as she came closer to finish, i saw myself in the mirror and i looked so different... i have heavier bangs but not messy. my hair's less thick overall so it doesn't look all built up. it's hard to describe the rest but- i like it.


i went to work a few hours after getting my hair done and one of my old coworkers came in. he said 'hey you got your hair cut, huh?' and i said 'yea! i got it done today!'

and then he said 'oh did you do it yourself?'



-_____________x

dead. line.

6:54 second issue of the mountaineer is in the works.
i don't have any more editing to do but i must stay here just in case...
i had yama bowl like 30 minutes ago. everyone else is waiting for subway. i'll keep updating.

8:40... only?!?!

i thought it was at least 10pm. i'm so tired. i'm done but i'm here just in case...

i'm repeating myself, aren't i....

10:30 done. been done. i get to go home now. mmmaaannnnyyy are still staying....

shoes

are SO expensive! $40 for a pair of chucks?

or am i getting cheap?
my pair of sandals i wear right now are tearing apart and i disparately need new ones. i just can't find the ones that i can afford... eeps.

so today was like another day, another wrong google weather forecast kinda day. it was off by like 10 degrees. i'm so disappointed. i had some eye-candy at school to cheer me up though.

this one eye-candy was wearing red vans, the kind i like, and had an extremely adorable butt. lord knows i love a cute butt...

anyhoo, i was sitting in my speech class when i thought of a new goal. you know, just like one of those goals you set yourself. it sounds really obvious but i want to stop looking for happiness in superficial things. i feel so materialistic at times, i just want to be able to look at things on a deeper level.

first, i can start off by looking at trashy blogs like perezhilton....

CCJD

i have had disgustingly many blogs.

you name it: xanga, uber, vox, blogger, livejournal... i have made at least one blog on each of these websites but xanga is the one that i was persistent with. i eventually grew out of my xanga and stopped.

i've been meaning to start blogging again for a long time, but i never got around to it. i needed an extra push, an inspiration. and i got that inspiration today.

i was at community college journalism day at usc, which is known for their annenberg schoool for communication & journalism, and i took a 1-hr session on blog writing and how to get your blog read. the guest speakers were the blog editor for la times, tony pierce and brad friedman from bradblog.com. they were kind of amazing. tony's personal blog is in technorati's top 300 blogs, which led him to work for LAist, etc. brad friedman is an expert at political reporting, more specially election stuff.

two things that stood out to me from the session was
1. write about stuff you want to write about, something that you're passionate about.
2. have multiple writers on your blog. offer different views, get more hits.

the only thing is...
1. quiet sadly, i don't know what i want to write about
2. besides carmichael, i don't know who else wants to blog

haha.
i'll figure it out...