itherese Leung’s blog

This blog receives tens of spam comments every day and I spam each of them manually. Basically I identify them by the senders and content of the comments.

Currently, when someone leave a comment on my blog, the comment does not appear at once. The system will then send me a notification and I will look at the comment and approve/disapprove/spam it. There is an exception when the sender has commented before and the comment has been approved, in this case, the system remembers the sender and all further comments by that sender are automatically approved and displayed at once.

Today, I found that someone (or robot) left me a comment like this:

I discovered your homepage by coincidence.
Very interesting posts and well written.
I will put your site on my blogroll.

The sender is someone I do not recognize (both name and email address). From the content, apparently, this person (or robot, again) is a stranger, so it is natural that I don’t recognize him/her/it. I had to decide what to do with this comment and sender. Since the sender uses an email address of a strange host (something like “financial4u.com”) and the content generally apply to any blog on any post, I decided to spam it (if I approve it, next time any comment from this sender will be posted to my blog right away). Is it really a spam? I do not know. I only took the safer approach.

I do welcome random visitors, but not spam. I am not willing to block all comments from whom I do not know, nor to allow only some author to comment. So, if you are true people who really want to comment but not distributing junks, please follow a little bit guidelines when commenting:

1. Use a valid email address (which will be invisible to everyone but me)
2. Use a name that I can recognize, when possible. However, I still allow non-infringing nicknames for keeping anonymous.
3. Relate the content. Basically, if you do not want me to wrongly distinguish you as spam, show me that you are not.

Easy, isn’t it?

If you have any suggestion on the guidelines or distinguishing spam, please feel free to leave me comments.

I know it is a little but crazy… yes, I had frozen yogurt for 3 days in a row. On Thursday, I went to YoCup in San Francisco by myself. On Friday, I went to Yogurt Bar, also in the City, with my boss. Today after dinner with Eric, we went to Blush in Dublin again. Having frozen yogurt from different places three days in a row, I can really tell the differences.

Last time I went to YoCup with Helen, we tried the blueberry flavor and we liked it, so this time I did the same. I topped the small cup with mochis. The yogurt still tasted good, however, this time I found some undissolved blue powder in the yogurt. I would not expect that the blueberry flavor was from fresh blueberries, but seeing the powder in the cup was not impressing. It was $3.75, no tax.

In a boring Friday afternoon at work, a frozen yogurt was a delight. My boss wanted a yogurt, how would I be able to resist it? Yogurt Bar has reduces its price recently. I got a small original with mochi on it. The mochis were kind of stuck together, seemed that they had melted before. The yogurt was the iciest among the three places, but it was not a fair comparison becasue this was original (no flavor) while the others that I compared with were flavored. It was $3.45, not sure about tax (because it was my company’s treat hehee).

My stomach did not feel good today. After a light dinner in Dublin, Eric suggested to get yogurt. I was not sure if I should have it because cold things would probably make my stomach feel worse. But, again, I could not say ‘No’ to my favorite treat. I would not regret, though. We got a combination of Blush flavor and blueberry flavor. We did not get any topping this time, so we could really taste the yogurt. The yogurt was fabulous. It was the best among three, it was very creamy. It was the creamiest ‘tart’ style yogurt that I have tried. It was close to my imaginary ‘tart and creamy’ yogurt. It was more expensive, but it worth the premium. Next time I will try the original. I wonder if it would also be creamy, but I do not expect that, as original is usually more icy. We got medium without topping with $4.5. Small flavored is $3.5 while original is only $2.5. There is something worth mentioning about this place. When you get into a self-seated cafe (or fast food place or whatever cafeteria) , you expect to pay the same whether or not you eat at the table in the store. But in here, they charge tax if you eat-in but the tax is exempted for take-away. This is also different from other yogurt places since other similar yogurt places do not charge tax at all. They did not ask us last time but charged us tax automatically.

Eric and I had frozen yogurt tonight at Blush (the yogurt place at Dublin which I mentioned about a few posts ago). Sweet! He actually liked it. I am so happy.

They are doing a promotion of getting a free small 2-toppings with purchase of a $20 gift card. Therefore we got a gift card and I got a small Blush flavor with mochi and kitkat toppings for free, and another mango flavor without topping. As I said before, the price was pretty high. $3.5 for plain small flavor and $1 for each topping. I have not seen this price in the City. This is Dublin though, sigh. Eric was willing to get more gift certificate because I liked the yogurt, but I actually won’t come here very often because of its price. Once a while is great. Okay, let me quit talking about money. The yogurt was actually good. It was tart but not too icy. The blush flavor was a combination of dragon fruit and pomegranate. It tasted really good, Eric and I both loved it. The mango was so-so. I would not say they were generous on the toppings, although they had a lot of choices. The Kitkat was kitkat, not much to say.  Mochi was chewy, it went good with the yogurt.

The best part was, still, having my beloved boyfriend enjoy the sweets with me.

P.S. I have just known for a couple days that the word ‘tart’, which I have read a lot of times on Yelp describing the frozen yogurt, means the sourly taste of the yogurt that I like. However it also means the icy texture (although there is still distinction between too icy and not very icy) that cannot coexist with the ice-cream-like creamy texture like those from Costco. They are different kinds of frozen yogurt. I wonder if there is any frozen yogurt with the original yogurt sourly taste AND creamy like ice-cream. Is that possible?

From time to time, I make mistakes at work. Although everyone make mistakes, most of the mistakes I made were because of my carelessness. This is a big flaw of mine. I know this. I hate this. I need to improve this. I need to find some effective ways.

My dear friend, Helen, has got a new job in the City! CONGRATULATIONS!!! I am so happy for her career advancement!!

Eric is shooting a video for his company tomorrow about “Successful Life Insurance Specialist”.

I am proud of him. Good luck, babe!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/blush-dublin

This fro-yo wave.. has come to Dublin!

I just found out that there is a new frozen yogurt place in Dublin, and it is expanding to Walnut Creek and Fremont (according to their website, http://www.blushyogurt.com). The reviews are pretty good, and the pictures look good, too. I have to try it out next time I go to Dublin. From the reviews, the price is at the high end. $2.75 for a small sized original and $3.50 for flavor (why!??) is pricier than those in the City. The fact is, it is Dublin, what otherwise can I expect. Anyhow, I will at least give it a try to see if it worth the extra bucks.

For most affordable and good frozen yogurt on East Bay, my vote is still on Costco.

I am craving for fro-yo again.. didn’t I just had it yesterday?

I love my boyfriend, Eric. He is smart and clever, and he has a good attitude.

Today he told me that he had to finish reading a book by tomorrow because somebody is going to talk about it tomorrow. He is not a book guy, but rather a web guy. He can hardly open a book and keep up. That book was about a financial system (that helps people growing wealth). I said let’s research on the Net. Then I went on the Internet and read on the topic, and he read the book. While I was reading, I felt uncomfortable about the system as it was like a scam. At the same time, I was afraid that Eric would be dwelled into the ’scam’ (I could not really identify it as a scam, since I did not fully understand the system, I just felt uncomfortable), since he was reading a book promoting the system. However, after he read the book, he could actually identify the pros and cons of the system, and the messages behind those illustrations. He is smart and clever.

He did not certify it good or bad before knowing what it was about. Although he does not like reading books, he did it because he was willing to learn. He has an open mind and a good attitude.

I am lucky because God gave me him.

I visited yoCup with my dear friend today after her job interview in the City. It was at 101 Spear St., SF. The girl behind the counter asked us if it was the first time we went there, while we were, she gave both of us a sample of each flavor. There were 3 flavors: original, mango and blueberry. The original has a very strong yogurt sourly taste and I loved it. The blueberry flavor was good too so we got the original and blueberry swirl. The mango flavor was just okay. Usually I do not like to put toppings on the frozen yogurt since they would cover the taste of the yogurt. However, one topping was already included in the basic price so I picked strawberry. My friend chose blueberry. The strawberries were a little bit too sour. The blueberries were sweet. After all, I would still prefer no topping at all. The yogurt was more creamy than Penguino and Yogurt Bar, but was still in the watery side. I like the real creamy, like ice cream, ones, which may be another kind of frozen yogurt. I have got the creamy ones from Cafe Ambrosia, Muffins Muffins, and Costco (yes, it’s Costco). Hope you know what the difference I am talking about.

Overall, the nice thing of this yogurt place is the tasty yogurt. The bad thing is the mandatory topping. It doesn’t have an option for plain yogurt which could have charged $0.95 less.

Official website: http://www.yocupyogurt.com

Today is a good day.

My friend is coming over to the City for a job interview tomorrow. She said we could get some frozen yogurt after the interview. Since then, again, I started thinking about frozen yogurt. After lunch at the office, I went out for a little walk. Usually I do not bring my wallet, to make sure I do not buy anything. But today, I did bring it with me. I walked a long way to the popular frozen yogurt place, just to see how far the place is and the parking fee around the area. I did not intend to get one since very likely we will get it tomorrow. It once again proved that I should never bring my wallet along when I go for a walk. Every time I walk by a frozen yogurt place (I’ve walked by at least 4), I was tempted to go in. I said to myself ‘No, I am going to get it tomorrow!’ or ‘I have just finished a big lunch, can’t eat anymore!’. It took a very long way to get back to the office.

After I went back to the office, I found that my boss and coworker have not been back yet. I sat for a while, working something minor, and thinking should I go to get the yogurt. After couple minutes, they came back. My boss put a full cup of frozen yogurt with strawberry and blueberry and chocolate chips toppings on my desk. OH MAN! I could not believe that! I was craving for it! It was actually my coworker, Zoe’s, treat. She got it from a place which just opened today called YogurtBar. THANKS THANKS THANKS!!! It just brightened my day! The yogurt was green tea flavor. It has the sour taste of yogurt which I like. However, it would be better if it was more creamy.

What a good day is this! Thank God!