Christmas in Maryland

Hi everyone! I've been meaning to give an update a while ago, but I kept forgetting. Anyway, I'm back with some things to share. First of all, Nick and I are in Maryland right now staying at his parents place for Christmas. We arrived on Wednesday, and have been enjoying a nice, restful stay...so far. The rest of the family arrives today, so the house is going to feel a bit crowded, and everyone will probably be helping out with the cooking duties and such. I haven't been asked to make anything, and that's probably a good thing 'cuz I don't think I'd handle the time crunch and the stress all that well. And besides, Nick's mom has already ordered a ton of desserts, so why add another?

Yesterday, we went and saw "memiors of a geisha," which was better than any of us thought it would be considering the various negative reviews. None of us have read the book, so we were surprised as the story unfolded, which probably added to the positive experience we had. I was impressed with Zhang Ziyi's English considering that she started learning it about two years ago, and Gong Li plays a very scary character. According to a Time magazine article, during the filming of the movie, one of the children wouldn't stop crying after she looked at her because she had the look of ice (or something like that). Anyway, we liked the movie and that was all that really mattered.

Two weekends ago was the Google holiday party, which was held in the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood. It was fun...crowded...but fun. We got to watch two silent movies with a live piano player. Then there was a montage of movie parodies featuring Google employees, and that was highly amusing. And finally, we had the high school photos of various Googlers, but mine didn't make it on there for some reason. And then there were the door prizes: an iHome, iPod video, PSP, and finally, an XBox 360. Neither Nick nor I won any of the four prizes, but that's OK, everyone got a bottle of champagne to take home with them. All in all, it was a great evening.

And that's all that I can think of to say right now. To those of you in Seattle, we'll be seeing you shortly (we arrive on Tuesday).

Jerry Liu