Two nights ago, my brother and I went to visit my cousin in Sunnyvale; she had just given birth to a baby boy about a month earlier. His name is Wilbur, and he pretty much slept through the whole three hours we were there. He did eventually wake up at the end to nurse though.

Because my cousin’s husband is a vegetarian (probably more vegan, but I’m not sure), we went out to a Chinese-style vegan restaurant for dinner…which means all the ingredients used to prepare our meal were 100% plant based. Yes. That means no meat. *shock!* Now, a couple years ago, I would have been highly skeptical of a meatless dinner, but I think I’ve been in the Bay Area long enough that I’ve acclimated to the notion of eating only vegetables in a meal…so long as it’s only once in a while.

But what really amazes me is how creative these vegan restaurants get in their preparation and presentation of the food. A lot of times (or at least with the restaurants I’ve tried), the food is really, really good. As in, you-almost-don’t-feel-you’re-missing-out-on-meat good. Sometimes, the dishes even have components that look like real meat. For example, one of the items we ordered was fried rice. When I looked at my plate, I almost did a double take, b/c I could have sworn (not that I swear, but if I did) that there were pieces of chopped ham mixed in. That couldn’t possibly be true, so after a closer look, I verified that it was indeed tofu masquerading as ham. Even so, it sure fooled me for a moment.

Which brings in another question: Why dress plant-based foods up like meat if the point is not to eat meat in the first place (aside from health reasons)?

Long coordination is over. Students’ finals are over. The weather is beautiful. Summer is officially here! Yay!

When I first penned the post title, it reminded me of MC Hammer. But I wasn’t sure how to get something like “Oh. Oh oh. Oh. Stop. Summer Time!” to work. So I didn’t try.

I love how they decided to place graduations a week after finals’ week. That means people will still be around, but they won’t be preoccupied with studying. Which means more people to play with. Awesome!

And the weather. I love the weather. It makes me want to do things like play basketball…with the Berkeley locals in Peoples’ Park. And lounging outside the nearby cafes, enjoying the cool evening breeze. Ah, this is the life.

I always enjoy taking a quick trip down memory lane via my old blog entries. It’s great fun. Sometimes I cringe at the tone or content of the entries; other times I’m quite impressed with the rhetoric. And tonight, when I read some of the comments my friends had written, they reminded me of how our friendships once were and how bad I have been in keeping in touch.

But even more so, one thing I consistently come away with each time I read my old blogs is a burning question: “Why in the world did I ever write in neon green lettering on a black background?” (Sample here.) My goodness. The contrast is jacked up way too high to the point that it hurts to read. And the moment I look away or switch to another page, I begin to see dark flashing spots swirling in my vision.

Since the advent of Facebook, the boundaries that once defined the group of people called “friends” have blurred and/or broadened more considerably. Unless one is the type that dutifully scrutinizes every friend request against a set of stringent criteria, people generally will hit the accept button without too much deliberation.

Personally, I’ll add friend requests if I’ve had some sort of direct interaction with the person. I figure that since I am acquainted with them and Facebook is a social networking tool, I shouldn’t be picking bones with the fact that they don’t exactly fall into my ideal definition of what a “friend” is. Besides, at what point in the stranger/friend continuum does an acquaintance become a friend or a friend transition to being a mere acquaintance?

But suppose you have Facebook “friends” who were acquaintances at the time of the add, but your relationship with them never progressed and you haven’t seen or spoken to them at all in the last six years. Would you conduct a Facebook purge and de-friend them? Now the consideration here is this — what is the point of having a social network clogged with people who are, in effect, strangers to you? Doesn’t that dilute the effectiveness of the networking tool (I’m thinking of the News Feed in particular)? Now it’s one thing if these are ones that you still want to stay connected to for one reason or another (i.e. being able to see what your junior high classmates are doing in life), albeit passively (you stalker). It’s another thing if these are people you will never see or care to see or plan on seeing ever again (Yes, yes. I know the future may never go according to plan, but please follow my drift).

So, would you de-friend? Thumbs up or thumbs down?