Myheritage.com

There's a website that Caye told me about called myheritage.com, and among other things, it tells you which celebrities you (supposedly) look like. You upload a picture of your face, then the site scans it to see which among the celebrities in their database you look like the most. The site suggests uploading several pictures of yourself to see which celebrities come up the most consistently.

Now, this CAN be an ego-boosting exercise, since the celebrities in their database are all goodlooking. So it's very likely that your match will be a lot more gorgeous than you actually are. However, be warned that their face-matching program does not take into account your gender. So, some of your matches might be members of the opposite sex. If you're a woman and you are told that you look like Wesley Snipes, this is not likely to be flattering. So if you have a fragile ego, take heed.

Here is an example of the results that I got. You can safely assume I did not choose the one that said I looked like some dude.

Crazy About Gadgets

I can't believe that my gadget-lust has been reactivated after being dormant for quite some time by Apple's latest offering. When Apple came out with its laptop, the MacBook Pro, I was able to resist buying one for myself (admittedly, the fact that its cost was way beyond my card's credit limit may have played a bigger role in this than any prudence on my part).

But this new iPod Shuffle, which Apple touts as the smallest mp3 player in the world, is making the consumer in me positively salivate with covetousness. It's just so small and sleek, and at $79 (probably a little less with my student discount) for 1 GB of space, enough for 240 songs, it seems like such a bargain. I don't even care what the reviews may be. It just looks so... cool. (OK, I'm shallow.) Well, I COULD use my current iPod shuffle as a flash drive to put my school files in and justify the purchase. After all, if my old shuffle is being used for academic purposes, then I'm left with no choice but to buy the new one, right? RIGHT?

The Dirty Restaurant

Here's a story I forgot to post while on my summer break.

One of my favorite restaurants in Southern California is a Thai restaurant which we fondly refer to as "The Dirty Restaurant". Aidan was the one who baptized the place as such. Since they say children never lie, and most kids also have lower standards of hygiene, you can imagine that it is not the kind of place that the private investigator also known as "The Monk" could abide.

Whenever we eat there, we have to wipe the glass table top with a napkin, which always comes up black with grime and dust. This does not diminish our appetites at all. In fact, we always end up eating more than our stomachs were naturally born to bear. But... I am not here to talk about the food. (If you want to know more about that though, you can check out my food blog.)

One other attraction this restaurant holds for us (that could also be called dirty, in a sense...) is a rather indecent pen holder that the owner/manager of the place uses. As this picture shows, it is a woman lying on her back, and you insert the pen in her (you guessed it!)... crotch. Classy! We've noticed this pen holder for quite some time, and I decided to take a picture of it during my last visit.

There were no other people when we went there for lunch, so that was perfect. I didn't want to be obvious about my mission, because I didn't want the restaurant staff to be offended that I was taking a picture of their prized possession for fun. (I also didn't want them to think I wanted to order a similar pen holder through the Internet with the help of a photo). So I waited for our waitress to go to the kitchen and tell them about the food we ordered, before sneaking to the counter where the pen holder lay. I turned off the flash of my camera, because the light might call their attention to what I was doing.

I managed to take a couple of pictures, but then I realized that there was no pen in the holder. My daring increased as I successfully took more pictures without being spotted. Since I wanted my pictures to communicate exactly what this woman was for, I wanted to take a picture of the holder with a pen in it. So I scrounged around the counter for a pen which would do the trick. "Another lucky break!", I thought, as I found one. So I stuck the pen in the... ummm... holder, to make the photo op perfect.

And that's when my mission went awry. The pen wouldn't go all the way in, and kept falling off. Well, that just wouldn't do for my picture. So, I pushed the pen in harder. This time, the pen DID stay in place. However, this also resulted in the woman moving her head in rapture, and saying (quite loudly for a pen holder) "Ohhhhh.... Feels so good! Do it again!" Apparently, the woman says (moans?) different things when pushed to bear a pen.

Since there were no other people in the restaurant, the woman's pronouncements were heard loud and clear, all the way to the kitchen. The owner (looking just a little peeved) soon enough came out to the counter and took away the pen holder. He probably didn't like us playing with his little toy. We may never get a glimpse of the amazing orgasmic pen holder again. It's a good thing then that I was able to photograph it for posterity.