living my favorite book

Patiently waiting for my connecting flight in philly back to new york.

I tried, but I ended up surrendering to what turned out to be an utterly disgusting mushroom and swiss burger. Washed down that horrible taste with the rest of my watered-down soda while shaking my head in disappointment. I can still taste the semi-cooked mushrooms. Philadelphia = the philly cheesesteak. What was I thinking??

Made my way to the restroom. Took care of business, headed over to the sink, never noticing the other three women in the room with me until the heaviness of their prolonged stares caused me to slowly lift my eyes, meet their priceless expressions through the mirror, and realize that

There was a boy in the girl's bathroom, and that was friggin me.

Bradley Chalkers would have been proud. You Louis Sachar fans know what I'm talkin about.

simple things

A homemade dinner, board games and a nerf gun war can easily top most Saturday nights, no matter how old you are.

Thanks for having us over, cindy and paul!

into the wild

I've been on quite a movie binge recently.

Happiness is real only when shared. --Chris Supertramp, Into the Wild

This movie solidified my convictions about going to Alaska even more. One day!

p.s. There are very few things that taste better than cold pizza at 2am.

blah.

Went to the Cal-UCLA game on Sat. Don't really feel like talking about it except that immediately after the game, I got a slew of phone calls and text messages from people I talked trash to for weeks now. That was really jacked up.

National championship hopes down the drain. Still doesn't change the fact that Cal is still the best team in the Pac-10, although our record doesn't show it. Sigh.

From PostSecret... this one made me laugh because it's so innocent.

As a child on my aunt and uncle's farm, I fed a chicken nugget to a chicken. I still feel guilty about it.

Hahah. I would too.

because it's friday

This is what happens when you put Star Wars, a trumpet, a dance routine and a deaf ear all in the mix:



Oh yea! Plus a winning attitude.

second the best

I had to take a screenshot of the latest NCAA polls just to enjoy Cal's highest ranking since 1951. And to also commemorate one of the biggest, if not the biggest, upsets in college football history.. USC losing at home to the 41 pt. underdog, Stanfuuurd. Oh, and UCLA losing to Notre Dame. Lots of newsflashes this weekend.

mahalo, come again

Back from my "business trip" to Kauai. ;) Hahah. Some random thoughts/observations I had throughout the week:

• I won't dare describe the sunsets.
  
• Hawaiians are the nicest people you'll ever meet.
• Kauai is the wettest place on earth. It's fun running for cover when the sun's out shining so brightly only moments before.
  
• There are roosters and chickens everywhere. Strutting around the roads, on people's lawns, even in the dense forests. They're like the pigeons of Hawaii.
• Hawaiians end their sentences with an inquisitive "yeah?" a lot of the time.
  
• People wear Hawaiian shirts to work. And their typical work day ends around 4pm.
  
• I befriended a nice owner of a souvenir shop who turned out to be korean. When asked about my marital status, she got angry when I told her that I still unmarried. She gave me a fifty percent discount off of everything, and she also threw in a shell necklace for free. Connections!
  
• The sushi is really bad. Their cooked fish delicacies are excellent.
• It's really fun saying "mahalo" to people. I absent-mindedly said it on a couple occasions when I should have said "aloha," but Hawaiians are probably used to ignorant tourists by now.
  
• A rainbow's end really exists! Optical illusion, light refraction.. call it what you want, but it was twenty feet away from me. This wasn't like the time in third grade when I thought I found a four-leaf clover.
• I found a product called "Donkey Balls" at the local market. I really regret not buying it.
  

funkdefied

I went to a weekend getaway in san diego with paul, roach and butch. I think I spent most of my time playing around with GarageBand on paul's macbook. Here's a love song I composed for him. I'm calling it, Ode to Funk:



So fun. Time to really consider getting a macbook. And a harmonica.

random

I noticed that my vacuum cleaner hums in the key of F#.

human tetris

run that by me again?

Understand the following sentence? Yea, sentence. Take the time to wrap your minds around this beauty:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

*equivalent to: Bison from upstate New York who are intimidated by other bison in their community also happen to intimidate other bison in their community.


So cool!

a blonde moment

I opened up a new pair of contacts today. It was way overdue, since I have biweekly disposable contacts but I manage to stretch them out to a month or longer. I routinely popped one into each eye, then hurried out the door to church.

Throughout the entire day, I noticed that I was experiencing blurred vision in my left eye. I've tried using rewetting drops and readjusting the position of the contact with my finger, in hopes of ridding whatever it was that was clouding my vision, but to no avail. I even tried yawning constantly, thinking that my natural tears would have a better vantage point of flushing out the problem. No luck.

The day is now ending. I just took out my contacts earlier than usual because the blurriness was giving me a headache. Out came two contacts from my left eye, the old one and the new one. I must have made the decision to crack open the new case in midst of putting on my contacts.

A sad "d'oh" from my mouth soon followed.

montreal

Good times. Beautiful shot. But paul is nowhere to be seen. Wait a minute.. there he is! How many of him are there?!

*answer: five

Yes, I know. I didn't have that much else to do.

hello february

I get so much pleasure from figuring out riffs.

San Diego is an awesome town. Feeding paul's addiction to video games was not. Neither was his covert operation with andy on the macbook via vidchat.

Weekends exist so that you can eat mexican food at 3am.

I'm a type of person who when hearing a good song for the first time, replays it over and over until it's beaten and dead. I've been listening to Switchfoot's "Yesterdays" for the past three hours. And I'm still not done.

Life goes on. It's a gangsta's paradise.

new york

Had a fun weekend in ny before I headed down to nj for business. Thanks mr. ku for housing me and for sacrificing yourself to sleep upon on a makeshift bubble-wrap mattress for two straight nights. Here's some moments.

One of the courses at the Otto. I can now proudly say that I've tried and tasted oyster and anchovy pizza, although I simply couldn't finish it. The TMNT would be sorely disappointed.

Washington Park. We waited for over a half an hour watching these street performers go through their song-and-dance just to see their final act, but it's hard to say if it was worth the wait. The guy in the red shirt on the far right actually jumps over the five people who are lined up in the middle.

What me and giancarlo had at Pamba's steakhouse that night. Sadly, this turned out to be one steak that kicked my ass. A huge red apple encased in a glass box hangs outside the 24/7 Apple store. Gorgeous.

Me, billy, andy at a diner. It's friggin 7am. We would proceed to wake up at 3pm the following day.

Me and andy slept on the air mattress while billy, being the rugged beast that he is, slept upon strips of bubble wrap.

Ground Zero.

Somewhere in the financial district.

Katz's Deli. Omg. This place is incredible for their pastrami sandwiches.

Outside of Katz's. And.. we definitely got our quarter's worth out of that horse. Yes, the bar was crowded at the time.

You're a good town new york. However, you ruined my sleeping schedule for the next two weeks.

dc

Flew to VA this past weekend for work. Tabbed it as a future vacation hotspot, check. One plane with maintenance problems later, I found myself stranded at washington dulles at midnight waiting for the 6am flight to LAX. It didn't take long to make the decision to either ride it out at the airport or go on a spontaneous date with an arabian cab driver around the city.

The White House was, disappointingly, a lot smaller than the White House I had ingrained in my head.

The backside of the Lincoln Memorial. Due to construction roadblocks, it was impossible to go around the front to see lincoln resting in his chair. Sigh.

Incredible. Mark foley once worked here. Turn around and see this in the distance:

It's not on fire. It kinda reminds me of the famous green beacon from The Great Gatsby.

Up close. The Campanile can't even compare.

Tired security guard takes picture of bemused asian boy at three in the morning.

Well, the night was too short. I have to definitely come back... future vacation hotspot #2, check.

johnny b. good

Take a wild guess who we came to see. Although I must say that I have a new-found appreciation for sheryl's rock-and-roll voice after hearing it in a non-"soak up the sun" context. It's a shame that such a pretty voice was wasted on a horrible song.

The view from our seats. Or should I say, from our patch of grass. Sorry guys, the VIP room failed to follow through. Shut up paul.

I'm pretty sure he was playing Why Georgia here. I could be wrong though. Here's the set list.

I know for a fact that john was playing Gravity here.. which is easily one of the best songs he's ever written. Since the outro line goes, "keep me where the light is," they added a nice touch by showering beams of white light onto the audience whenever that part was sung.

andy & ester + butch & roy = double date. Or one regular date plus two lonely but unashamed men.

Lastly, please remember to love people of all shades and colors. The End.

new toy

So, I've been playing around with my new Bushnell telescope since I got it a couple weeks ago. Granted, it's pretty rudimentary compared to most, but a telescope was something that I've been wanting for a long time.

It sure beats squinting at the moon while trying to find the Sea of Tranquility. And if you haven't seen it yet, the moon magnified is reason enough to take your breath away.

But besides the Bears, the Summer Triangle and a couple other hard-to-miss celestial objects/constellations, the retarded light pollution (& can't forget the air pollution) blanks out most of the sky. Sometimes, I wish I just lived in the countryside. But still have high-speed internet access, of course.

This should serve me well for the time being until my desire for this can no longer be contained. Only $200k. One day!

ursa major

A close brush with death this past weekend was a stark reminder of my own fragile humanity. Other than that, the escape to big bear couldn't have come at a better time. I never knew how homemade spicy tuna rolls can be so dang delicious. Thanks for the weekend comrades!

On a serious note, I now made it my life-long mission to find a suitable girl for the man who saved my life - joe song.

What do you say irene?

floridurrr

Dang, d.wade is a hero here. Unfortunately, so is shaq. Still, all this just strengthens my pride and loyalty to my LOS ANGELES LAKERS.

I <3 LA!!