I tried my hand at making fresh pasta. Unfortunetly, I didn’t have a pasta maker, so I had to do it the old fashioned way. I made the dough and rolled it out thin. I couldn’t roll it out too thin, or I wouldn’t be able to cut it in a reasonable amount of time. So, I had to settle on a thicker style noodle (more on par with Udon).

Let me tell you, don’t make pasta without a pasta maker–it’s too time consuming. I painstakingly cut each and every noodle with a knife. First, I simply placed them into a bowl, which made them get all stuck together, and I had to start over. The second time, I gently placed each noodle on a rack so that they wouldn’t stick together.

In the end, the noodles were too thick to be enjoyable, and they took a long time to cook. I decided it would be best eaten in a soup (Udon style). Everyone should get a chance to cut their own noodles at some point in their life, especially in this day and age of instant and dried noodles.

Some of the buildings in my new neighborhood (Pacific Heights). I find that San Francisco always has an interesting palette of buildings–starkly modern high-rises abutting Victorian style buildings. Personally, I find it a bit disorienting.

The bright colors of San Francisco really is a world away from NYC. From my experiences there, most of the buildings fit into one category. The colors also seem to be less bold and arresting–as if the buildings were built to be quiet and withdrawn.

Tippy just had to get this Cowvac that we saw at Walmart (made by Black and Decker). No, we couldn’t just go and get a normal looking hand vacuum. I mean, the thing looks udderly ridiculous! (Sorry, couldn’t resist).

The vac itself has spots all over it, and the cow supposedly sucks up the dirt and grime into its mouth. The handle in the back is the tail of the cow. What’s even more amazing is the presence of udders on the bottom, and it is this part that hooks into the charger.

I can just imagine the product design team having a brainstorm.

“Hmm, what about handvacs shaped like animals?”

“Yeah, what about a cow! That would drive sales up!”

“Oh, and we can put little cute bovine details on the vacuum too.”

In the end, I find it somewhat surreal that I’m vacuuming with a cow in hand. Tippy claims that it would push us to vacuum more often, just for the sheer fact that we get to handle a cow. Suprisingly, I think she may be right.

It took forever to get down to the highway. It was, to put it lightly, quite annoying.

(Music: “Title and Registration” by Deathcab For Cutie)

I walked around downtown Mountain View by myself the other day. It’s definitely a small and enclosed type of downtown, much like many of the cities in the peninsula bay area.

The last photo shows the ever ubiquitous “Millionare Made Here” sign. Haven’t people figured out that the event that someone else won the lottery at a particular store does not affect the chances of winning the lottery at that store? It even goes against the old saying “lightning never strikes twice”.

This is the view from our living room window. It’s a bit gray this morning (as every morning is in SF). Also, I took a shot of the full moon–it’s the lowest in 18 years.

We finally finished moving into our new place in San Francisco. The apartment is much smaller, but a lot more functional. Yes, we painted the walls again.

Features of the apartment:

• Large, bright windows.
• Great views of the city (9th floor).
• Great neighborhood (pacific heights).
• Last, but not least, I get to hear the city sounds while I’m falling asleep–a fantasy of mine for a while.

Don’t ask me about the cow-shaped hand vacuum cleaner. That will have to wait for another post.

I’ve been busy in the past few days prepping my old apartment. There’s still a lot to do. When we moved in, we decided to paint it green. It’s really very dark green, and now we probably need to put up two coats of white to cover it.

In any case, I’ll be really busy over the next few days. I’ll probably be posting pretty sparsly over the duration. Stay tuned for more substantial material afterwards.

I’m done with my master’s degree! Finally, the grueling task of doing hardcore studies in three quarters is over. Time to reap the benefits and kick back. Well, actually, it’s time to start planning on moving to San Francisco. I guess there won’t be that much kicking back.

So, I’ll kick back just a little.

Update: The music in this clip is “Become One Anything One Time” by the Promise Ring.

We decided to try out Miyake, a sushi restaurant in Palo Alto. This is my first foray into video blogging. Enjoy!