Picking up from the starbucks I was at 5 hours ago...
Dinner with Edlyn was cool. Good catching up with her and the such. She was a poli sci/classics major at Wellesley and is now doing investment banking to spite an ex who said she could never do it. Excellent. Haha but yea she isn't feeling the industry too much and it seems she's on call all day errday so I can see why. We were at this Italian place with fancy panini's. I got the goat cheese one which might have been a mistake since my love for goat cheese, despite my initial excitement is usually sated after a few bites and after that the pungency is a bit too real. Anyways good catching up talking about the good ol days. On an amusing note despite my lack of career ambitions in high school, which in the SMHS honors track was tantamount to heresy, Edlyn and her mother still thought I'd make something of myself so there's a nice vote of confidence.
Afterwards I was just going to go to Karri's but I figured I out to try the famous chicken and rice cart on 53rd and 6th and continue my travels. After getting reasonably lost I eventually found it and the line was at least 60ft long so either it must be good or we got 60ft of suckers here. And I ain't no sucka!!! I got in line and started chatting with the two dudes in front of me. They were two black guys from North Jersey named Steve and Amir and we talked for like an hour straight. They drove all the way from jersey just for this cart so I was pretty excited. Steve was still a student and Amir was a history teacher. Amir, who was Muslim, told me that there were actually a lot of Muslims in Jersey and that the jersey shore show was def a misrepresentation. I knew that had to be true but it's always good to hear confirmation. Among other topics were Amir, recently divorced, told me to get married since we were commiserating about coming home from work and still having to prepare food. We talked about the R Kelly tape, I told them the Marcy peeing story and we discussed other matters lavatorial. Steve who used to do maintenance somewhere had some pretty bad horror stories of how bad public restrooms get. It's pretty amazing how many interesting people I've met completely randomly in NYC so far. I feel damn near Mr Jensen status just talking to random people. I think what I've gotten better at is understanding what i want people to know and not know about me and not tell stories that might make other people uncomfortable.
The food was fucking amazing. Chicken, lamb, rice, and yogurt sauce were worth the hour long wait and subsequent being cold eating. If you're in NYC go there. Bundle up as much as you have to it'll be worth it. I bought a plate for Karri and headed back. On the train back I randomly ran into Thuy and co who I had just gotten off the phone with. It's midnight and they might go back out. Now that I've sat down I think I'm done for the night. Still of all the trains in NYC running into people you know still shows how small of a world it is. Sort of like seeing Yoko. Madness.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Groundhogs day on Fulton St in Brooklyn
Slow day today but I'm getting sort of tired so mehhh. Samf left today and I kept Karri's keys for the day but will be meeting up with Edlyn who you might know went to school with my from 1st to 12th grade which is madness so I had to go to Brooklyn to drop off the keys.
After doing so I walked down fulton st. which I guess is one of the main shopping streets in Brooklyn. It's pretty weird but the whole street basically has the same 5 stores on repeat. For like 5 blocks. There's at least 6 foot lockers/action (it's really the same store) fast food, mom and pop shops that sell sneakers and jewelry, video games stores, and jacket/urban streetwear shops. And every block has 1-3 of everything I just mentioned. It feels like straight up groundhogs day walking down the street because it just repeats itself over and over. I guess there must be enough of a market for it but I really don't see how like half the amount of these shops wouldn't suffice. How could you possibly need 6 foot lockers on the same street in like 4 blocks. Really one would work, after all your customers can presumably walk if they're buying so many damn shoes. In another note I want to buy shoes but lack of money/difficulty of getting them back to DC and eventually CA makes it a bad idea.
I did pic up a cool t-shirt today at the house of hoops in harlem tho! it's a picture of jordan and it says 23 feet high and rising with flowers made of shoes. If you're a De La Soul fan you'll get it, if not don't worry about it.
After doing so I walked down fulton st. which I guess is one of the main shopping streets in Brooklyn. It's pretty weird but the whole street basically has the same 5 stores on repeat. For like 5 blocks. There's at least 6 foot lockers/action (it's really the same store) fast food, mom and pop shops that sell sneakers and jewelry, video games stores, and jacket/urban streetwear shops. And every block has 1-3 of everything I just mentioned. It feels like straight up groundhogs day walking down the street because it just repeats itself over and over. I guess there must be enough of a market for it but I really don't see how like half the amount of these shops wouldn't suffice. How could you possibly need 6 foot lockers on the same street in like 4 blocks. Really one would work, after all your customers can presumably walk if they're buying so many damn shoes. In another note I want to buy shoes but lack of money/difficulty of getting them back to DC and eventually CA makes it a bad idea.
I did pic up a cool t-shirt today at the house of hoops in harlem tho! it's a picture of jordan and it says 23 feet high and rising with flowers made of shoes. If you're a De La Soul fan you'll get it, if not don't worry about it.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
I may actually be getting tired of eating?! no but i need to eat lighter foods nyc is getting heavy!
It was fucking really cold today. High of 20, low of 16, and I was outside for entirely too much of it. Woke up nice and late since I wasn't in any real rush to go out. Ended up leaving at 1pm to go meet Thuy, Van, Layhanz, and Nancy at Joe's Shanghai in ctown. Got there a bit early and burned some time first in a duane reade (CVS) where I bought my first issue of GQ. It's a combination of maybe wanting to grow up and Rihanna being incredibly hot. After that I went to quickly's and had some chicken while waiting. I gave this awk teenage guy an extra chair so he could sit with the girls he was awkwardly lingering around. He didn't say thanks or anything which I'm not gonna lie, pissed me off but w/e.
On an unrelated note one of the pockets in my coat already tore! i don't know if i wanna bother going back to BCF to return it since the line was like an hour long... but still on the first day?
Anyways the girls eventually came and we had hella XLB which the restaurant did quite well. It was good catching up with them. Thuy and Van's sis lives in harlem like 20 blocks from me which is neat. While we were waiting outside this random old white guy came in and asked me in good enough chinese how long the line was. I sort of stared at him for a while, answered in chinese, then told him in english that I can speak english too but he went on in chinese. Sort of annoying since i'm not sure if he was assuming i couldn't speak english or if he was just proud he could speak chinese relatively well. I probably should have Samuel L Jackson style kicked him in the chest and yelled "English motherfucker! do you speak it?!"
Moving on, we parted ways after eating and I went to go seek a sports bare to watch the eaglebank bowl which ucla was playing in. I got pretty lost which in 18 degree weather is no leisurly detour. First i ended up in this pub but I couldn't get audio since they wanted to play music for the other patrons. At halftime I walked to another actual sports bar about half a mile away that was super divey and cold but they had lots of tv's, blasted the audio feed and a good beer selection. I shot the shit with the bartender and UCLA won. GO BRUINS. After the game I figured I should go give carnegie deli a try since sam and karri clearly weren't that interested in it. On my way i stopped at one of the many unrelated to each other ray's pizzas and had a slice. It had roasted chicken and pepperoni and sounded much better than it tasted. Not up to nyc pizza standards in my opinion. After that I got to a subway and then walked the final half mile to my destination.
Carnegie deli is pretty famous, not as good as katz's despite being name dropped in the Adam Sandler Hanukah song. I ordered a potato pancake which was meh and a "woody alan" which was this monstrous half pastrami half corned beef sandwich. It was literally like 7 inches tall. utter madness. I didn't get through much of it before tapping out. As I was finishing a man and his daughter sat next to me. It's pretty crowded so you're pretty much just put at tables with strangers. She was cute so when the dad left to go to the atm I tried to chat with her a bit. It wasn't hard starting a convo, i learned that her dad lived in nyc and she was from conn and i got to surprise her saying I wanted to come here to celebrate my jewish roots and the such. Anyways her dad came before I could do anything else and the waiter had already brought my food wrapped up with the check so i had to bow out gracefully and leave. lolz.
Watched the warriors fight the lakers till the end. I think a huge part of why everyone hates kobe is he's such a damn trump card. No matter what is going on he's good enough to take over a game and just will it into submission. What hurts the most is LA is really a terrible sports town. Not to rag on some of my friends, ie Cat, Ryan, who are real and great fans but most ppl in LA just like winning having their name out there. Staples center is about being seen not love of the game. And who the fuck boos you're own team while throwing shit on the court? Fakers fans did it after the celtics xmas day loss and after the warriors were up 10 after the 1st quarter. Where's the support for the team that just one you a championship. That's why angelinos call it the lake show, because for them it might as well be jersey shore. It's all about love and appreciation for the game and I would argue the vast majority of LA sports fans don't really love the game. LA doesn't deserve Kobe and the lakers who are really the best team in the league right now and everyone in the country knows it. That, I believe is one of the main reasons everyone hates the lakers, they just help amplify the hyper image conscious status obsessed culture that Hollywood breeds. I enjoyed my time in LA and a lot of my best friends are from there but the LA that is represented in the phrase lake show is what makes me know I could never settle down there.
On an unrelated note one of the pockets in my coat already tore! i don't know if i wanna bother going back to BCF to return it since the line was like an hour long... but still on the first day?
Anyways the girls eventually came and we had hella XLB which the restaurant did quite well. It was good catching up with them. Thuy and Van's sis lives in harlem like 20 blocks from me which is neat. While we were waiting outside this random old white guy came in and asked me in good enough chinese how long the line was. I sort of stared at him for a while, answered in chinese, then told him in english that I can speak english too but he went on in chinese. Sort of annoying since i'm not sure if he was assuming i couldn't speak english or if he was just proud he could speak chinese relatively well. I probably should have Samuel L Jackson style kicked him in the chest and yelled "English motherfucker! do you speak it?!"
Moving on, we parted ways after eating and I went to go seek a sports bare to watch the eaglebank bowl which ucla was playing in. I got pretty lost which in 18 degree weather is no leisurly detour. First i ended up in this pub but I couldn't get audio since they wanted to play music for the other patrons. At halftime I walked to another actual sports bar about half a mile away that was super divey and cold but they had lots of tv's, blasted the audio feed and a good beer selection. I shot the shit with the bartender and UCLA won. GO BRUINS. After the game I figured I should go give carnegie deli a try since sam and karri clearly weren't that interested in it. On my way i stopped at one of the many unrelated to each other ray's pizzas and had a slice. It had roasted chicken and pepperoni and sounded much better than it tasted. Not up to nyc pizza standards in my opinion. After that I got to a subway and then walked the final half mile to my destination.
Carnegie deli is pretty famous, not as good as katz's despite being name dropped in the Adam Sandler Hanukah song. I ordered a potato pancake which was meh and a "woody alan" which was this monstrous half pastrami half corned beef sandwich. It was literally like 7 inches tall. utter madness. I didn't get through much of it before tapping out. As I was finishing a man and his daughter sat next to me. It's pretty crowded so you're pretty much just put at tables with strangers. She was cute so when the dad left to go to the atm I tried to chat with her a bit. It wasn't hard starting a convo, i learned that her dad lived in nyc and she was from conn and i got to surprise her saying I wanted to come here to celebrate my jewish roots and the such. Anyways her dad came before I could do anything else and the waiter had already brought my food wrapped up with the check so i had to bow out gracefully and leave. lolz.
Watched the warriors fight the lakers till the end. I think a huge part of why everyone hates kobe is he's such a damn trump card. No matter what is going on he's good enough to take over a game and just will it into submission. What hurts the most is LA is really a terrible sports town. Not to rag on some of my friends, ie Cat, Ryan, who are real and great fans but most ppl in LA just like winning having their name out there. Staples center is about being seen not love of the game. And who the fuck boos you're own team while throwing shit on the court? Fakers fans did it after the celtics xmas day loss and after the warriors were up 10 after the 1st quarter. Where's the support for the team that just one you a championship. That's why angelinos call it the lake show, because for them it might as well be jersey shore. It's all about love and appreciation for the game and I would argue the vast majority of LA sports fans don't really love the game. LA doesn't deserve Kobe and the lakers who are really the best team in the league right now and everyone in the country knows it. That, I believe is one of the main reasons everyone hates the lakers, they just help amplify the hyper image conscious status obsessed culture that Hollywood breeds. I enjoyed my time in LA and a lot of my best friends are from there but the LA that is represented in the phrase lake show is what makes me know I could never settle down there.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wintertime Madness
Today was more less absolute madness. Sort of.
Disclaimer: if this blog seems more incoherent than usual i came back from a bar semi-recently and am less than articulate at the moment.
1st Sam and I went to this cathedral which was actually within like half a mile of here and it's supposedly the largest cathedral in the world. Bigger than notre dame, or the one in mardid, or w/e. It was pretty cool and really coould comapre ot either fo them in terms of crazy spectacle ness.
After tha we went too Greenwich village and ate at Joe's Pizza again. It was still pretty bomb and lef to some walking around Greenwich village. We got to washinton square park and I was def hit up to buy some bud from a random guy. Wooo. The park had a bunch of dogs too including a lady with 3 dachshunds. Awesome. They were barking at some other dog and it was basically 3 angry sausages.
Afterwards we went to check out the public library here. We saw this outdoor market which seemed worth wandering through. There was this sweet tent that sold beanies that were animal themed. Sam got a porpoise and shark one and I made many puns with the word porpoise. The library itself was awesome and made me miss school and the feeling of being scholarly. There was a Guttenberg bible there that was printed in 1455 which was supposed to be one of the oldest extant western texts around. Madness.
Afterwards Sam went to go meet up with Karri to go to Serendipity which wasn't really something I was all that interested in so i figured I'd go find the burlington coat factory to get myself a nice coat. The directions I found were for the corperate office. Wop. So I took a totally sweet detour. On the plus side i stumbled upon this place called go go curry whihc was a japanese curry joint with a gorilla as the mascot. I stopped for some katsu curry which was a bit salty but otherwise good and went on my way. A solid 40 minutes later I made it to BCF and got myself a coat. After that I went to the NBA store which on one hand was really cool and on the other hand had no warriors stuff because they suck so much. (they did just beat both the suns and the celtics!) Anyways I ended up getting this pretty cool Chris Paul Mardi Gras Jersey. (http://www.hornetsnestonline.com/product.php?productid=16674&cat=0&page=1)
I went to go to meet Sam and Karri afterwards but they were at this Japanese Restaurant which they didn't want me to show up to for whatever reason. I went and met them and they left so I went to the sushi bar myself. This was a pretty expensive place with all the waitresses in kimono and they were apparently the first restaurant in the US to serve fugu. I got an order of ten zaru (cold soba noodles and tempura) as well as some sushi. It was mad expensive but the butteriness of my one order of toro was incredible. They also brought dashi at the end for me to mix with the zaru soba sauce which was a pretty cool touch.
So here's the crazy part. I was sitting next to this random older man who looked a bit like the old man in Jurassic Park and he basically just started talking to me. He ended up being this big time architecht and the "H" in http://www.shca.com/ He told me about his company which has offices all over the world including NYC, London, Paris, Istambul, and Shanghai. He told me his library has over 3000 books, that he was a syracuse grad, and that his favorite project was always the one he's building next. BTW HE DESIGNED THE RESTAURANT WE WERE IN. That's crazy. the staff, already attentive was def making sure he was taken care of even more. We spoke on a variety of topics including the new book on google that i'd heard about on NPR, which btw his friend was the author of, as well as the over all job climate and the 5 recessions he'd weathered. He spoke to his daughters, one a business woman married to an ABC and the other biologist. He also talked about how he always tried to hire local talent at his offices and that he did little of the details today but was still something of a clearing house for all the projects. BTW His most famous project was restoring the statue of fucking liberty. DAMN.
We talked about how with design, and art in general you're essentially putting your ego out to be critiqued and that nobody, no matter their skill is truly successful unless they can defend and sell their ideas. he also noted that though they hired local talent most clients didn't actually want him to design stuff fitting the local aesthetic but rather wanted something that symbolized their modernity and readiness to work in the world.
At the end when we left he introduced me to the owner of the restaurant who must have assumed we were friends and gave me his business card. Mr. Hayden said I'd be going to law school in ny and that i'd eat there a lot. I wish I had a card to give back but it was still a pretty awesome experience.
Finally I met the girls back at karri's apt but she doesn't get cable so I went to a neighborhood bar to watch monday night football. Neat place, epic game, and when it went into overtime the bar tender gave me a free glass of stella. After the game I went to Karri's and ate leftover bbq while watching the Warriors beat the celtics. Today was a good day.
Disclaimer: if this blog seems more incoherent than usual i came back from a bar semi-recently and am less than articulate at the moment.
1st Sam and I went to this cathedral which was actually within like half a mile of here and it's supposedly the largest cathedral in the world. Bigger than notre dame, or the one in mardid, or w/e. It was pretty cool and really coould comapre ot either fo them in terms of crazy spectacle ness.
After tha we went too Greenwich village and ate at Joe's Pizza again. It was still pretty bomb and lef to some walking around Greenwich village. We got to washinton square park and I was def hit up to buy some bud from a random guy. Wooo. The park had a bunch of dogs too including a lady with 3 dachshunds. Awesome. They were barking at some other dog and it was basically 3 angry sausages.
Afterwards we went to check out the public library here. We saw this outdoor market which seemed worth wandering through. There was this sweet tent that sold beanies that were animal themed. Sam got a porpoise and shark one and I made many puns with the word porpoise. The library itself was awesome and made me miss school and the feeling of being scholarly. There was a Guttenberg bible there that was printed in 1455 which was supposed to be one of the oldest extant western texts around. Madness.
Afterwards Sam went to go meet up with Karri to go to Serendipity which wasn't really something I was all that interested in so i figured I'd go find the burlington coat factory to get myself a nice coat. The directions I found were for the corperate office. Wop. So I took a totally sweet detour. On the plus side i stumbled upon this place called go go curry whihc was a japanese curry joint with a gorilla as the mascot. I stopped for some katsu curry which was a bit salty but otherwise good and went on my way. A solid 40 minutes later I made it to BCF and got myself a coat. After that I went to the NBA store which on one hand was really cool and on the other hand had no warriors stuff because they suck so much. (they did just beat both the suns and the celtics!) Anyways I ended up getting this pretty cool Chris Paul Mardi Gras Jersey. (http://www.hornetsnestonline.com/product.php?productid=16674&cat=0&page=1)
I went to go to meet Sam and Karri afterwards but they were at this Japanese Restaurant which they didn't want me to show up to for whatever reason. I went and met them and they left so I went to the sushi bar myself. This was a pretty expensive place with all the waitresses in kimono and they were apparently the first restaurant in the US to serve fugu. I got an order of ten zaru (cold soba noodles and tempura) as well as some sushi. It was mad expensive but the butteriness of my one order of toro was incredible. They also brought dashi at the end for me to mix with the zaru soba sauce which was a pretty cool touch.
So here's the crazy part. I was sitting next to this random older man who looked a bit like the old man in Jurassic Park and he basically just started talking to me. He ended up being this big time architecht and the "H" in http://www.shca.com/ He told me about his company which has offices all over the world including NYC, London, Paris, Istambul, and Shanghai. He told me his library has over 3000 books, that he was a syracuse grad, and that his favorite project was always the one he's building next. BTW HE DESIGNED THE RESTAURANT WE WERE IN. That's crazy. the staff, already attentive was def making sure he was taken care of even more. We spoke on a variety of topics including the new book on google that i'd heard about on NPR, which btw his friend was the author of, as well as the over all job climate and the 5 recessions he'd weathered. He spoke to his daughters, one a business woman married to an ABC and the other biologist. He also talked about how he always tried to hire local talent at his offices and that he did little of the details today but was still something of a clearing house for all the projects. BTW His most famous project was restoring the statue of fucking liberty. DAMN.
We talked about how with design, and art in general you're essentially putting your ego out to be critiqued and that nobody, no matter their skill is truly successful unless they can defend and sell their ideas. he also noted that though they hired local talent most clients didn't actually want him to design stuff fitting the local aesthetic but rather wanted something that symbolized their modernity and readiness to work in the world.
At the end when we left he introduced me to the owner of the restaurant who must have assumed we were friends and gave me his business card. Mr. Hayden said I'd be going to law school in ny and that i'd eat there a lot. I wish I had a card to give back but it was still a pretty awesome experience.
Finally I met the girls back at karri's apt but she doesn't get cable so I went to a neighborhood bar to watch monday night football. Neat place, epic game, and when it went into overtime the bar tender gave me a free glass of stella. After the game I went to Karri's and ate leftover bbq while watching the Warriors beat the celtics. Today was a good day.
The Cheese Stands Alone
I'm not really sure where I left off but I'll try to do a recap:
X-Mas with Christina's Family! If you didn't know Christina's mom invited me to their xmas dinner in MD which was super nice of them but also sorta awk cause Christina was actually in Pasedena with her Dad. Woooo so i hung out with her mom, bro, stepdad, and stepdads mom. It was cool tho, I've met her brother Hansel (HANSEL SO HOT RIGHT NOWwillferrelvoice) before so it wasn't like total strangers. They made some pretty bomb ass food including a rack of ribs tied in a circle with stuffing in the middle and the such. We also played some marvel vs capcom 2 and watched some basketball. On an amusing note, the stepdads mom thought Sonia, which is Christina's mom's name was a Korean name. How silly.
Anyways there wasn't much to do in DC with everyone being gone, I did manage to get my new mattress in (YAYYYY) and I figured w/e and got a bus ticket back to NYC.
Upon arriving I went to go meet up with Karri and Sam at some tapas bar. It sorta sucked tho because it was raining pretty good and I didn't have an umbrella. I must have looked fairly hoboish because I had a backpack, hoodie, pea coat, and big duffel bag over my shoulder as I trudged through the rain. Anyways the tapas place was ok, pretty pricey but they gave unlimited bread and the oysters made for great dipping. Because the girls were being girls and refusing to eat a lot of things I had to do some dump trucking which involved more goat cheese than i'm really down for. I like goat cheese but it has to be one of those limited quantities type foods.
Afterwards they wanted to walk to the empire state building which I told them was stupid since it was raining and we wouldn't be able to see anything. They wanted to go anyways so off we went, them with umbrellas and me being soaked for about a mile till we got there, they told us it was closed due to rain, and we walked to the metro after. This was one of those "I told you so moments" where the only person who really lost out was me because I was sopping wet. Excellent.
Yesterday luckily it did not rain so we were able to hit the road and do some stuff. We woke up pretty early to go check out the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Long as lines and people buying their shit in advance meant that we couldn't even go in the statue only walk the grounds around it. Less than ideal but it was still pretty cool. Afterwards we went to Ellis Island which was pretty cool with their immigration museum and all but once we went in to their movie theater all three of us fell asleep through the whole thing. A combination of the woman who does the intro sucking, us waking up too early, and the warmth of the room knocked us out. After we woke up we were then too lazy to see the rest of the museum (we'd seen like 1/3 maybe) so we ended up leaving to manhattan to go get lunch.
We finally made our way to Lombardi's pizza which was supposed to be the 1st pizzaria in the US. We waited 40 minutes while i conversed with random middle aged women from Phoenix and North Carolina (cougar hunting?) until we were finally seated. The food was pretty good, not mind blowing and perhaps not worth the wait but it was still good. They whole damn place has a hot two bathrooms so it takes for ever and when I was waiting a waitress came in and went in to change into her work clothes which took literally 15 minutes. Awesome. Afterwards we went to this place called rice to riches that sells 7 dollar things of rice pudding. It wasn't bad but rice pudding by nature can only be so good. The decor was clearly meant for the faux girl power ness and was the visual equivalent of that "you're hot and you're cold" song on repeat.
After that we doddled for a while before going to soho so the girls could shop. Me being not much of a shopper and simply not slim fit enough for soho (my shoulders don't even fit most of the coats..." meant it was a pretty w/e experience for me. Afterwards there was some contention about where we wanted to eat where It got pretty annoying because I would suggest somewhere like shake shack or carnegie deli but the girls, feeling too guilty over their pizza lunch would just remain silent. Then when we finally settled on the second momofuku location where since you had the option of smaller portions they were more down for. In the end they ate a bunch of cookies so the final calorie/fat count probably would not have been any lower and the places I wanted to go. But it gave them the illusion of eating less. Oh girls and the mind games you play with yourselves...
After that we made our way to the Empire State Building where Karri had to leave to go finish some stuff before work today. Sam and I went up which took the better part of two hours. They ingenously split it into a bunch of small lines so you always have this feeling of progress despite it actually taking forever. Once we were finally up the view was fucking amazing. Since it had rained the day before it was super clear and really in the end totally worth it. I busted out my ipod and listened to empire state of mind and new york, new york. I know that's silly but who says my life can't have a soundtrack.
So that pretty much brings me to today. Lets see what happens. Besides that I got some sort of sad news on FB that I wont' go into. All I can say is I coulda been a contender ::punches the air""
X-Mas with Christina's Family! If you didn't know Christina's mom invited me to their xmas dinner in MD which was super nice of them but also sorta awk cause Christina was actually in Pasedena with her Dad. Woooo so i hung out with her mom, bro, stepdad, and stepdads mom. It was cool tho, I've met her brother Hansel (HANSEL SO HOT RIGHT NOWwillferrelvoice) before so it wasn't like total strangers. They made some pretty bomb ass food including a rack of ribs tied in a circle with stuffing in the middle and the such. We also played some marvel vs capcom 2 and watched some basketball. On an amusing note, the stepdads mom thought Sonia, which is Christina's mom's name was a Korean name. How silly.
Anyways there wasn't much to do in DC with everyone being gone, I did manage to get my new mattress in (YAYYYY) and I figured w/e and got a bus ticket back to NYC.
Upon arriving I went to go meet up with Karri and Sam at some tapas bar. It sorta sucked tho because it was raining pretty good and I didn't have an umbrella. I must have looked fairly hoboish because I had a backpack, hoodie, pea coat, and big duffel bag over my shoulder as I trudged through the rain. Anyways the tapas place was ok, pretty pricey but they gave unlimited bread and the oysters made for great dipping. Because the girls were being girls and refusing to eat a lot of things I had to do some dump trucking which involved more goat cheese than i'm really down for. I like goat cheese but it has to be one of those limited quantities type foods.
Afterwards they wanted to walk to the empire state building which I told them was stupid since it was raining and we wouldn't be able to see anything. They wanted to go anyways so off we went, them with umbrellas and me being soaked for about a mile till we got there, they told us it was closed due to rain, and we walked to the metro after. This was one of those "I told you so moments" where the only person who really lost out was me because I was sopping wet. Excellent.
Yesterday luckily it did not rain so we were able to hit the road and do some stuff. We woke up pretty early to go check out the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Long as lines and people buying their shit in advance meant that we couldn't even go in the statue only walk the grounds around it. Less than ideal but it was still pretty cool. Afterwards we went to Ellis Island which was pretty cool with their immigration museum and all but once we went in to their movie theater all three of us fell asleep through the whole thing. A combination of the woman who does the intro sucking, us waking up too early, and the warmth of the room knocked us out. After we woke up we were then too lazy to see the rest of the museum (we'd seen like 1/3 maybe) so we ended up leaving to manhattan to go get lunch.
We finally made our way to Lombardi's pizza which was supposed to be the 1st pizzaria in the US. We waited 40 minutes while i conversed with random middle aged women from Phoenix and North Carolina (cougar hunting?) until we were finally seated. The food was pretty good, not mind blowing and perhaps not worth the wait but it was still good. They whole damn place has a hot two bathrooms so it takes for ever and when I was waiting a waitress came in and went in to change into her work clothes which took literally 15 minutes. Awesome. Afterwards we went to this place called rice to riches that sells 7 dollar things of rice pudding. It wasn't bad but rice pudding by nature can only be so good. The decor was clearly meant for the faux girl power ness and was the visual equivalent of that "you're hot and you're cold" song on repeat.
After that we doddled for a while before going to soho so the girls could shop. Me being not much of a shopper and simply not slim fit enough for soho (my shoulders don't even fit most of the coats..." meant it was a pretty w/e experience for me. Afterwards there was some contention about where we wanted to eat where It got pretty annoying because I would suggest somewhere like shake shack or carnegie deli but the girls, feeling too guilty over their pizza lunch would just remain silent. Then when we finally settled on the second momofuku location where since you had the option of smaller portions they were more down for. In the end they ate a bunch of cookies so the final calorie/fat count probably would not have been any lower and the places I wanted to go. But it gave them the illusion of eating less. Oh girls and the mind games you play with yourselves...
After that we made our way to the Empire State Building where Karri had to leave to go finish some stuff before work today. Sam and I went up which took the better part of two hours. They ingenously split it into a bunch of small lines so you always have this feeling of progress despite it actually taking forever. Once we were finally up the view was fucking amazing. Since it had rained the day before it was super clear and really in the end totally worth it. I busted out my ipod and listened to empire state of mind and new york, new york. I know that's silly but who says my life can't have a soundtrack.
So that pretty much brings me to today. Lets see what happens. Besides that I got some sort of sad news on FB that I wont' go into. All I can say is I coulda been a contender ::punches the air""
Thursday, December 24, 2009
omtegoz too much to write...
So much food...
Yesterday night Karri and I went to this place called the Momofuku Noodle Bar which is this sorta trendy bigdealinNYC type places that I honestly expected to sort of suck. The yelp reviews all raved about really awesome steamed pork buns and to someone who grew up eating pork buns and the like couldn't really imagine any pork bun being really that good. I mean they can be good but to be like a leading attraction? Also when i got in there no one working was Asian which I hate to say is a pretty standard barometer for how good Asian food is supposed to be. Well I was proved wrong and they were legit as fuck. Had some crazy pickles where they used pears, the ramen was pretty good, the pork buns weren't so much buns but folded dough with bork belly in them(and they were really awesome) and their hamachi kama was probably the best I've ever had. Afterwards were were pretty beat and had to go pick up Samf at the airport at 6 am so I passed out pretty easily at midnight.
Waking up to pick up sam at JFK was pretty hardcore. Totally woke up at 4:45 and took the 6 to the airport. On an amusing note the 6 goes from the Bronx to JFK and in J-Lo's breakout album "On the 6" it references that subway line. Let's be real, she is Jenny from the block. Def slept like the whole way there. Anyways JFK sucks, you get out of the subway and basically pay another $5 to take the JFK airtrain... then when you leave, you have to pay $5 again. So it basically costs you $10 to go get someone at the airport on top of the $2.25 that the subway costs. In an amusing note I bet I was one of the first people in the country to see the breaking news that the Senate passed a health care bill. Makes me wonder if they went all night or showed up at 6 to vote.
When we got back to Karri's we were all pretty beat, Sam included since she took a redeye flight. So we all ended up napping till 12:30. I had like 5 totally bizarre dreams since it was all REM sleep. Not the most restful but better than nothing. Our first stop of the day was literally named "The Hummus Place" and as you can imagine their main deal was hummus. They were owned by some israelis that were pretty nice. When we got in there was three of us and they asked a couple at a three person table to move. The guy was cool with it but the girl was fairly indignant but i was like YEA WATEVA. Anyways I bet they were slightly annoyed because the three of us split a lunch special of mushroom hummus and fallafels. We added on an order of the labone yogurt that i really like and I also had some turkish coffee which was bombtastic.
Next stop was the brooklyn bridge. It's a pretty good bridge, no Golden Gate mind you but it might be tied with the bay bridge in my bridge power rankings. We took some fairly silly photos that i'll post this weekend. We also got to explore parts of (b)Crooklyn. I already feel more like Jay-Z. At least a little. The sign at the end of the bridge says "how sweet it is, welcome to Brooklyn" which is pretty tight. The borough of Brooklyn feels a lot more like SF in that it's big but not as fast. Like you can kinda stroll around there. If i ever do manage to make it into a ny law school i think i'd want to live in manhattan my first year but maybe 2nd or 3rd go to brooklyn.
Afterwards we attempted to go to Lombardi's PIzzaria which is supposed to be the first pizzaria ever in the world. They were closed. I cried. Inky binky bonky.
Instead we went to this awesome izakaya called Oh! Taisho. The food wasn't necc better than some of the places I've had in LA or say Izakaya Mai in san mateo but the atmosphere really felt like the izakayas i japan. Izakaya mai feels too family and most of the LA ones are too shi shi. Izakayas in japan are all about getting trashed and eating a lot. Oh! Taisho really lets you do that. We ate entirely too much and I got a solid buzz going so wooooo. Our saba shioyaki didn't really come till way too late and we ended up taking it to go. I actually told them to cancel it but w/e, we took it with us and I asked karri to put it in her purse. This ended up making all her stuff smell like fish. Whoops!
Afterwards we went to the Momofuku milk bar because girls like dessert. I'm not huge on it but they owed me some stuff since I sneakily paid for Oh! Taisho so we went. They got a slice of carrot cake, some coffee milk, some steamed pork buns for sam, a cookie and some cornflake flavored soft serve. I'm not huge on carrot cake, the coffee milk was hella good but was sorta rich for me. The cookie was good and the soft serve, despite sounding really weird was pretty good. If i went back I'd probably just get that.
Finally despite being stupid full we still went to this oyster bar in union station. luckily it was a two mile walk and we burned some time at a street market to let the food move it's way through us. Union station is crazy looking. Really old school fancy. In my dogs with sweaters quest i met a fantastic pug named pilgrim wearing a fine coat who was so excited to have his picture taken he wagged and howled and put is front legs on my knee while snorting gleefully. The oyster bar was super packed and we were so full we only had 3 oysters each and really just barely. The oysters were from long island (meh) oregon (decent - from a place called kumamoto so some JA fishers?), and these fucking amazing oysters from maine. I could have eaten 10. Well really three because I was so full but 10 otherwise.
Finally we made it back to karri's and watched up. and now my achilles tendons hurt like hell from all the walking.
Tomorrow it's the morning bus at 7:30 outta penn station to DC to have an x-mas meal with my friend Christina's mom and brother (she's in Pas with her dad...) so it'll be sorta awk but I can dig it. New mattress on sat! then I'm deciding between staying in DC till the bowl game or coming back to NYC to kick it more with Karri and Sam. Thuy and co. are also coming in on sat so I might end up in NYC by saturday night haha.
In new yoooork conrete jungle where dreams are made offfff. (i want to live here fairly badly)
Yesterday night Karri and I went to this place called the Momofuku Noodle Bar which is this sorta trendy bigdealinNYC type places that I honestly expected to sort of suck. The yelp reviews all raved about really awesome steamed pork buns and to someone who grew up eating pork buns and the like couldn't really imagine any pork bun being really that good. I mean they can be good but to be like a leading attraction? Also when i got in there no one working was Asian which I hate to say is a pretty standard barometer for how good Asian food is supposed to be. Well I was proved wrong and they were legit as fuck. Had some crazy pickles where they used pears, the ramen was pretty good, the pork buns weren't so much buns but folded dough with bork belly in them(and they were really awesome) and their hamachi kama was probably the best I've ever had. Afterwards were were pretty beat and had to go pick up Samf at the airport at 6 am so I passed out pretty easily at midnight.
Waking up to pick up sam at JFK was pretty hardcore. Totally woke up at 4:45 and took the 6 to the airport. On an amusing note the 6 goes from the Bronx to JFK and in J-Lo's breakout album "On the 6" it references that subway line. Let's be real, she is Jenny from the block. Def slept like the whole way there. Anyways JFK sucks, you get out of the subway and basically pay another $5 to take the JFK airtrain... then when you leave, you have to pay $5 again. So it basically costs you $10 to go get someone at the airport on top of the $2.25 that the subway costs. In an amusing note I bet I was one of the first people in the country to see the breaking news that the Senate passed a health care bill. Makes me wonder if they went all night or showed up at 6 to vote.
When we got back to Karri's we were all pretty beat, Sam included since she took a redeye flight. So we all ended up napping till 12:30. I had like 5 totally bizarre dreams since it was all REM sleep. Not the most restful but better than nothing. Our first stop of the day was literally named "The Hummus Place" and as you can imagine their main deal was hummus. They were owned by some israelis that were pretty nice. When we got in there was three of us and they asked a couple at a three person table to move. The guy was cool with it but the girl was fairly indignant but i was like YEA WATEVA. Anyways I bet they were slightly annoyed because the three of us split a lunch special of mushroom hummus and fallafels. We added on an order of the labone yogurt that i really like and I also had some turkish coffee which was bombtastic.
Next stop was the brooklyn bridge. It's a pretty good bridge, no Golden Gate mind you but it might be tied with the bay bridge in my bridge power rankings. We took some fairly silly photos that i'll post this weekend. We also got to explore parts of (b)Crooklyn. I already feel more like Jay-Z. At least a little. The sign at the end of the bridge says "how sweet it is, welcome to Brooklyn" which is pretty tight. The borough of Brooklyn feels a lot more like SF in that it's big but not as fast. Like you can kinda stroll around there. If i ever do manage to make it into a ny law school i think i'd want to live in manhattan my first year but maybe 2nd or 3rd go to brooklyn.
Afterwards we attempted to go to Lombardi's PIzzaria which is supposed to be the first pizzaria ever in the world. They were closed. I cried. Inky binky bonky.
Instead we went to this awesome izakaya called Oh! Taisho. The food wasn't necc better than some of the places I've had in LA or say Izakaya Mai in san mateo but the atmosphere really felt like the izakayas i japan. Izakaya mai feels too family and most of the LA ones are too shi shi. Izakayas in japan are all about getting trashed and eating a lot. Oh! Taisho really lets you do that. We ate entirely too much and I got a solid buzz going so wooooo. Our saba shioyaki didn't really come till way too late and we ended up taking it to go. I actually told them to cancel it but w/e, we took it with us and I asked karri to put it in her purse. This ended up making all her stuff smell like fish. Whoops!
Afterwards we went to the Momofuku milk bar because girls like dessert. I'm not huge on it but they owed me some stuff since I sneakily paid for Oh! Taisho so we went. They got a slice of carrot cake, some coffee milk, some steamed pork buns for sam, a cookie and some cornflake flavored soft serve. I'm not huge on carrot cake, the coffee milk was hella good but was sorta rich for me. The cookie was good and the soft serve, despite sounding really weird was pretty good. If i went back I'd probably just get that.
Finally despite being stupid full we still went to this oyster bar in union station. luckily it was a two mile walk and we burned some time at a street market to let the food move it's way through us. Union station is crazy looking. Really old school fancy. In my dogs with sweaters quest i met a fantastic pug named pilgrim wearing a fine coat who was so excited to have his picture taken he wagged and howled and put is front legs on my knee while snorting gleefully. The oyster bar was super packed and we were so full we only had 3 oysters each and really just barely. The oysters were from long island (meh) oregon (decent - from a place called kumamoto so some JA fishers?), and these fucking amazing oysters from maine. I could have eaten 10. Well really three because I was so full but 10 otherwise.
Finally we made it back to karri's and watched up. and now my achilles tendons hurt like hell from all the walking.
Tomorrow it's the morning bus at 7:30 outta penn station to DC to have an x-mas meal with my friend Christina's mom and brother (she's in Pas with her dad...) so it'll be sorta awk but I can dig it. New mattress on sat! then I'm deciding between staying in DC till the bowl game or coming back to NYC to kick it more with Karri and Sam. Thuy and co. are also coming in on sat so I might end up in NYC by saturday night haha.
In new yoooork conrete jungle where dreams are made offfff. (i want to live here fairly badly)
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Space Jammin' bagel slammin, hot dog crammin
So first off i'm writing from Rudy's Pizzaria on the edge of little italy and chinatown (is it me or do those two always border each other?) I stopped cause I was tired from the cold and wanted to use the comp and lo and behold i'm able to steal internet from one of the neighbors!
Anyways camping out for the space jams sucked. It really sucked. 22-26 degree weather with a pretty solid wind blowing through. For two hours. Oh boy. I guess what really grinds my goat (is that even an expression? probably not) is that they sold them online. I probably didn't even have to camp. But i did. I suffered. And now i've got a pair. It was nuts though because there was this mom out there with her teenage son who had her wait most of it while he was inside somewhere warmer. My mom would never do that. She would probably smack me for suggesting it. Then tell my I was crazy for camping and then paying that much. I told her i'd hold her spot if she wanted to wait out part of it inside the bank next to us but she declined. I told her that her kid better get her the best xmas present ever haha.
Today I started off the day going to the famous H&H bagel shop which is supposed to be the best ever. They don't do shit like cut/toast/ add shit to your bagel for you, you gotta buy the stuff and go somewhere to do it yourself since there aren't even tables. Honestly the bagel was pretty good but i didn't see what the big deal was. I went to the starbucks across the street, got some orang juice and made my bagels. I bought two since the minimum size for lox and cream cheese was about right for two bagels. I ate one and put the other in my bag for later.
After that I went to Grays papaya dog where you get a hot dog and a small cup of papaya juice for $2.75!!! Their sign outside even says recession specials! After that I walked over to Soho to reaffirm my unwillingness to pay a lot of money for fashion I don't really understand. I went to the billionaire boys club/ice cream shirt where the girl working was super cute. Didn't buy anything. Went to the bape store where the only thing i really liked was a $225 dollar jacket. damn. After that I sort of wandered soho, ended up in this pizza joint to kill time and am on my way to katz's deli. The pizza wasn't very good and I'm sad I gave up prime stomach real estate to it.
On another note, i've decided my quest for this break will be to get as many pics of dogs in sweaters. So far 5 ppl have been cool with it and one guy was like no cause i don't want it posted. Iunno what his problem is...
dog sweaters
Anyways camping out for the space jams sucked. It really sucked. 22-26 degree weather with a pretty solid wind blowing through. For two hours. Oh boy. I guess what really grinds my goat (is that even an expression? probably not) is that they sold them online. I probably didn't even have to camp. But i did. I suffered. And now i've got a pair. It was nuts though because there was this mom out there with her teenage son who had her wait most of it while he was inside somewhere warmer. My mom would never do that. She would probably smack me for suggesting it. Then tell my I was crazy for camping and then paying that much. I told her i'd hold her spot if she wanted to wait out part of it inside the bank next to us but she declined. I told her that her kid better get her the best xmas present ever haha.
Today I started off the day going to the famous H&H bagel shop which is supposed to be the best ever. They don't do shit like cut/toast/ add shit to your bagel for you, you gotta buy the stuff and go somewhere to do it yourself since there aren't even tables. Honestly the bagel was pretty good but i didn't see what the big deal was. I went to the starbucks across the street, got some orang juice and made my bagels. I bought two since the minimum size for lox and cream cheese was about right for two bagels. I ate one and put the other in my bag for later.
After that I went to Grays papaya dog where you get a hot dog and a small cup of papaya juice for $2.75!!! Their sign outside even says recession specials! After that I walked over to Soho to reaffirm my unwillingness to pay a lot of money for fashion I don't really understand. I went to the billionaire boys club/ice cream shirt where the girl working was super cute. Didn't buy anything. Went to the bape store where the only thing i really liked was a $225 dollar jacket. damn. After that I sort of wandered soho, ended up in this pizza joint to kill time and am on my way to katz's deli. The pizza wasn't very good and I'm sad I gave up prime stomach real estate to it.
On another note, i've decided my quest for this break will be to get as many pics of dogs in sweaters. So far 5 ppl have been cool with it and one guy was like no cause i don't want it posted. Iunno what his problem is...
dog sweaters
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
NYC Chinatown, home away from home
NYC has a real chinatown. None of that DC, 4 blocks of white folks, bed baths and beyonds, and sports bars. Chinatown in nyc is full of chinese people and chinese businesses. In the way that in DC i think i'm at least 40 miles from a roast duck in NYC there's at least 100 in chinatown at any one time and it does my heart well. It makes me happy to hear mandarin, which a surprisingly large amount of people there spoke. In LA there were just so many chinese people that even if i didn't go to SGV for over a month i knew it was there whenever i needed it to be. DC feels isolating in that respect.
Anyways I was gonna go to Lombardi's pizza for a slice. It's supposed to be the 1st pizzaria maybe ever, like in the entire history of the world. You'd think it'd be in italy but maybe pizza in the way we think of it is essentially an american thing in the way that what most ppl think is chow mein which was invented in SF. But alas it's not sold by the slice so i'll be back.
I actually wandered into chinatown on accident and just sort of strolled marveling at all the things i'd missed. Like quickly's. Roast ducks everywhere, Chinese people, lolz. But in all honesty it felt really good. I made plans to meet up with Karri at this place called the NY great noodle house which seems like it'd be a total guai lo place but they have duck tongue by the pound so despite the complexion of some of the patrons they know what's up. Though i did get more suspicious when a young white kid told me it was the best chinese food in dc. not to make assumptions but i question his qualifications and breadth of experience to make that call. Anyways Karri said she'd meet me at 6:30 but ended up not really being able to get there till 7:50 ish. So around 7 when i wasn't sure if she was coming I ordered some frog porridge to go. (legit cause it has frog btw) and started to go look for a quickly's that would let me eat inside After 10 minutes Karri called me saying she got held up at work but that she could meet me there. I wasn't sure how long it would take so i went back and watied outside for about 50 min and in my boredom I ate my porridge. It was pretty damn cold out but the porridge, which i filled with prodigeous amounts of pepper (how i like it!) kept me more less warm. I felt sorta hardcore standing in 30 degree weather eating porridge, which wasn't that easy cause i had to hold the bowl the whole time. I def looked at least semi-vagrant but i'm still wearing jordans so i figure ppl didn't tihnk i was totally homeless. Anyways i felt like a fuckin triad spitting the frog bones into the trashcan on the corner.
Eventually Karri did show so I ate a bowl of noodles also. They used egg wrappers for the wontons so they were a strange yellow but were overall pretty decent, though not the best i've had by a longshot. I've been craving duck since i left home so it really made my day to have some. I might buy one and take it to dc with me. Haven't decided yet because it would be pretty bad for me to eat a whole duck. But hey ducks are rare bidness in the district.
So in other news the Jordan XI Space Jams come out tonight. If you know me you know I like shoes but with jordans i'm really only into IVs and XIs so the space jams are my fav XI's. Luckily in NYC there's a lot of places that carry them. First I went to a footlocker where the line was mad disorganized. I knew there was a footaction on the next block (i swear they're the same store) so I got a guy to hold my place so i could check it out. I got his phone number and went to the foot action where you just got a number and didn't have to wait out till 11pm for the midnight release. This was clearly the better option since you dont' have to wait as long and your spot in line is guranteed as opposed to the disorganized line at footlocker where sneaky/scary ppl could easily cut you. Now i'm chilling in borders across the street till 11 then I'll only have to wait an hour. Well met Foot Action, well met.
Anyways I was gonna go to Lombardi's pizza for a slice. It's supposed to be the 1st pizzaria maybe ever, like in the entire history of the world. You'd think it'd be in italy but maybe pizza in the way we think of it is essentially an american thing in the way that what most ppl think is chow mein which was invented in SF. But alas it's not sold by the slice so i'll be back.
I actually wandered into chinatown on accident and just sort of strolled marveling at all the things i'd missed. Like quickly's. Roast ducks everywhere, Chinese people, lolz. But in all honesty it felt really good. I made plans to meet up with Karri at this place called the NY great noodle house which seems like it'd be a total guai lo place but they have duck tongue by the pound so despite the complexion of some of the patrons they know what's up. Though i did get more suspicious when a young white kid told me it was the best chinese food in dc. not to make assumptions but i question his qualifications and breadth of experience to make that call. Anyways Karri said she'd meet me at 6:30 but ended up not really being able to get there till 7:50 ish. So around 7 when i wasn't sure if she was coming I ordered some frog porridge to go. (legit cause it has frog btw) and started to go look for a quickly's that would let me eat inside After 10 minutes Karri called me saying she got held up at work but that she could meet me there. I wasn't sure how long it would take so i went back and watied outside for about 50 min and in my boredom I ate my porridge. It was pretty damn cold out but the porridge, which i filled with prodigeous amounts of pepper (how i like it!) kept me more less warm. I felt sorta hardcore standing in 30 degree weather eating porridge, which wasn't that easy cause i had to hold the bowl the whole time. I def looked at least semi-vagrant but i'm still wearing jordans so i figure ppl didn't tihnk i was totally homeless. Anyways i felt like a fuckin triad spitting the frog bones into the trashcan on the corner.
Eventually Karri did show so I ate a bowl of noodles also. They used egg wrappers for the wontons so they were a strange yellow but were overall pretty decent, though not the best i've had by a longshot. I've been craving duck since i left home so it really made my day to have some. I might buy one and take it to dc with me. Haven't decided yet because it would be pretty bad for me to eat a whole duck. But hey ducks are rare bidness in the district.
So in other news the Jordan XI Space Jams come out tonight. If you know me you know I like shoes but with jordans i'm really only into IVs and XIs so the space jams are my fav XI's. Luckily in NYC there's a lot of places that carry them. First I went to a footlocker where the line was mad disorganized. I knew there was a footaction on the next block (i swear they're the same store) so I got a guy to hold my place so i could check it out. I got his phone number and went to the foot action where you just got a number and didn't have to wait out till 11pm for the midnight release. This was clearly the better option since you dont' have to wait as long and your spot in line is guranteed as opposed to the disorganized line at footlocker where sneaky/scary ppl could easily cut you. Now i'm chilling in borders across the street till 11 then I'll only have to wait an hour. Well met Foot Action, well met.
30 Rock it out
It's not colder than DC but it sure is noticeably windier. Boo.
Anyways woke up today and went to go check out Harlem. Saw the apollo theatre and had WHITE CASTLE for lunch. It was pretty good. Not mind-blowing but so cheap that for what you pay it's solid. They have a house of hoops there too which had some really cool stuff. I need to not be buying shit though cause it's gonna be a real hassle when I do make my triumphant return out west. Harlem seems like such an alive place despite being tuesday.
After that I figured I'd go check out Rockfeller center. Got my ass on the subway and rode over. It's pretty cool, they have an entire store titled "the NBC experience" where they sell stuff for the office, 30 rock, house, SNL etc. If u want something from there holla at me and maybe i'll get you an xmas present. I took a picture by the 30 Rockefeller Center sign for my 30 rock nerdiness. That show really grows on you. The ice skating in the middle is smaller than i pictured. I think there's a another big rink somewhere.
From there I walked to Times Square which was pretty close. I've never really felt small-town before but nyc really is insanely enormous. Times square is full of tourists and the sensory overload there is pretty real. There's several screens that are multiple stories high and tons of ppl trying to sell you tickets to shit. I figured there wasn't much there for me so I figured Greenwich Village would be my next destination. I don't know what's there but I've heard of it so I figured it would be a good next step. I got of on Houston St (which they pronounce Howston for some reason) saw this place called Joe's Pizza which was apparently in spiderman so i had a slice. pretty tasty, sauces tasted more like they do in italy. After that saw a place called papaya dog that Dennis told me about so i got a hot dog and a cup of papaya juice. also good and cheap. I'm liable to gain a tremendous amount of weight in this city. No joke.
Soon i'll be off to explore more of this side of town. I somehow ended up by NYU and figure I should explore the area.
wooooo!!!!!
Anyways woke up today and went to go check out Harlem. Saw the apollo theatre and had WHITE CASTLE for lunch. It was pretty good. Not mind-blowing but so cheap that for what you pay it's solid. They have a house of hoops there too which had some really cool stuff. I need to not be buying shit though cause it's gonna be a real hassle when I do make my triumphant return out west. Harlem seems like such an alive place despite being tuesday.
After that I figured I'd go check out Rockfeller center. Got my ass on the subway and rode over. It's pretty cool, they have an entire store titled "the NBC experience" where they sell stuff for the office, 30 rock, house, SNL etc. If u want something from there holla at me and maybe i'll get you an xmas present. I took a picture by the 30 Rockefeller Center sign for my 30 rock nerdiness. That show really grows on you. The ice skating in the middle is smaller than i pictured. I think there's a another big rink somewhere.
From there I walked to Times Square which was pretty close. I've never really felt small-town before but nyc really is insanely enormous. Times square is full of tourists and the sensory overload there is pretty real. There's several screens that are multiple stories high and tons of ppl trying to sell you tickets to shit. I figured there wasn't much there for me so I figured Greenwich Village would be my next destination. I don't know what's there but I've heard of it so I figured it would be a good next step. I got of on Houston St (which they pronounce Howston for some reason) saw this place called Joe's Pizza which was apparently in spiderman so i had a slice. pretty tasty, sauces tasted more like they do in italy. After that saw a place called papaya dog that Dennis told me about so i got a hot dog and a cup of papaya juice. also good and cheap. I'm liable to gain a tremendous amount of weight in this city. No joke.
Soon i'll be off to explore more of this side of town. I somehow ended up by NYU and figure I should explore the area.
wooooo!!!!!
Monday, December 21, 2009
EMPIRESTATEOFMIND
I'm in New York, apparently some sort of concrete jungle where dreams are made of?
but first some news from the district:
Had over Mable, Seng (who had to leave), Meagan, Tara, and Sarah for dinner. Made steaks, chicken suprise, green beans, and broccoli. Everything seemed pretty edible. I mean ppl finished all of it so it couldn't be that bad right? We watched anchorman after and due to the way i get excited with that movie i pretty much had a bottle of wine to myself...
Anyways. Showed up for work today on time at 9:30 am and did some stuff and at 10:30 one of the ppl there came and was like why are you here? we're off today. Since the feds got the day off due to the snow apparently non profits run of their schedule so i got a day off too. I finally got me a mattress and a tuna gyro and was talking to my mom on the phone and she was like you should go to nyc since u have so much time off.
I thought about it and couldn't think of a good reason not to go so I talked to my friend Karri who's other two roomates were out of town so she said I could totally crash at her place. And here I am. I took the boltbus which took about 4 hours but has power outlets and slow internet so I really just watched the wire the whole time.
nyc is pretty nuts. I've never felt that small-town before but here you feel it. this city is fucking huge and it's full of so many people it's kind of nuts. DC feels like FC in comparison. I got off the bus by penn station and walked into a pizza shop got myself a slice (it was pretty damn good) walked out and got a hot dog (not very good) and went to the take the subway to Columbia University where Karri lives. The subway here is way more rickity than the DC metro. It squeaks. It's dirty. It's confusing. But hey, it got me here!
Karri lives in columbia grad student housing so its a full on apt, her roomates are from cairo and have lots of really cool posters and blown up photos they took around. Karri is way into baking, no joke tonight we made 24 cupcakes that look like cookie monster (marshmallow/m&m eyes, oreo mouth, blue sprinkles and shit), some pound cake, and banana bread. It's 2 and she's still baking. I had to go to the market at 11:15 to get some more eggs and sugar and not only was the market open, it was super nice, had leffe, and the deli was still open too! Got myself a sandwich, ate half of it and also copped some Jordan IV's of CL. The guy drove here from queens and i got them for 90 which is pretty good.
So far this city is pretty cool, lets hope the next few days are similarly awesome.
new yooooork concrete jungle where dreams are maaaaadeeee ooofffffff!!!!
but first some news from the district:
Had over Mable, Seng (who had to leave), Meagan, Tara, and Sarah for dinner. Made steaks, chicken suprise, green beans, and broccoli. Everything seemed pretty edible. I mean ppl finished all of it so it couldn't be that bad right? We watched anchorman after and due to the way i get excited with that movie i pretty much had a bottle of wine to myself...
Anyways. Showed up for work today on time at 9:30 am and did some stuff and at 10:30 one of the ppl there came and was like why are you here? we're off today. Since the feds got the day off due to the snow apparently non profits run of their schedule so i got a day off too. I finally got me a mattress and a tuna gyro and was talking to my mom on the phone and she was like you should go to nyc since u have so much time off.
I thought about it and couldn't think of a good reason not to go so I talked to my friend Karri who's other two roomates were out of town so she said I could totally crash at her place. And here I am. I took the boltbus which took about 4 hours but has power outlets and slow internet so I really just watched the wire the whole time.
nyc is pretty nuts. I've never felt that small-town before but here you feel it. this city is fucking huge and it's full of so many people it's kind of nuts. DC feels like FC in comparison. I got off the bus by penn station and walked into a pizza shop got myself a slice (it was pretty damn good) walked out and got a hot dog (not very good) and went to the take the subway to Columbia University where Karri lives. The subway here is way more rickity than the DC metro. It squeaks. It's dirty. It's confusing. But hey, it got me here!
Karri lives in columbia grad student housing so its a full on apt, her roomates are from cairo and have lots of really cool posters and blown up photos they took around. Karri is way into baking, no joke tonight we made 24 cupcakes that look like cookie monster (marshmallow/m&m eyes, oreo mouth, blue sprinkles and shit), some pound cake, and banana bread. It's 2 and she's still baking. I had to go to the market at 11:15 to get some more eggs and sugar and not only was the market open, it was super nice, had leffe, and the deli was still open too! Got myself a sandwich, ate half of it and also copped some Jordan IV's of CL. The guy drove here from queens and i got them for 90 which is pretty good.
So far this city is pretty cool, lets hope the next few days are similarly awesome.
new yooooork concrete jungle where dreams are maaaaadeeee ooofffffff!!!!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
AWWWWW YEA PICS
pre DC - SF BABY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spnsprt/sets/72157623041365074/
DC ILLING
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spnsprt/sets/72157622916730345/
BOOM
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spnsprt/sets/72157623041365074/
DC ILLING
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spnsprt/sets/72157622916730345/
BOOM
Roughing it. sort of
so i cooked a bunch of food today and watch anchorman (GOAT- greatest of all time) and got sorta drunk so when i went back to my room to drop off my laptop i locked myself out of my own room for no reason.
I was basically gathering fire wood and setting alarms at two hour intervals so i could continuously set alarms so I would stay warm. luckily he let me in but still i would have been improperly clothed for work and the such.
fuckin a. roughin it.
I was basically gathering fire wood and setting alarms at two hour intervals so i could continuously set alarms so I would stay warm. luckily he let me in but still i would have been improperly clothed for work and the such.
fuckin a. roughin it.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT'S SNOWING
So starting last night to tonight the DC area experienced a record setting snow storm where like 20" of snow fell in about a day. So a translation of that would be IT'S FUCKING NUTS OUTSIDE. As someone who's never lived around real snow it's been pretty cool. Like there's all these little things like you can't really walk around if ppl's footsteps or cars haven't sort of cleared the path. Otherwise the snow is up to your knees and my jeans and dunks aren't really all-weather. The snow also forces you to walk with really good posture because you can't really push off it with your feet you instead essentially have to step straight up. It really works your calves and posture since you're sort of marching around.
I had to walk to Mable's house which is a little over a mile away and I got sort of lost and had to go through a street that hadn't been driven through in hours so it was pretty insane. You sort of wading really. Straight Man vs. Wild shit really. I'm Bear fucking Gryllis. You also realize how fucking hardcore pea coats are. They look badass, keep you warmer than you'd think, and they're pretty damn waterproof too. A peacoat and hoodie are totally sufficient for the weather. They also try suprisingly quickly. Straight up battle armor.
Another funny thing about these big ass snow storms is everyone mostly walks in the middle of the road since there's barely any cars out and the tire tracks are the easiest places to walk in the whole city right now. But it really makes DC look like a city of vagrants or like there was some sort of zombie apocalypse/nuclear fallout/mad max road warrior shit. It's really sort of surreal and awesome.
Anyways enough about snow and on to some updates:
Yesterday after work I met up with Dro's friend Suhad who is super nice. We went to this bar that has a thing called the ham and cheeseburger. Basically a cheeseburger with ham on top of it. Super strange. I had a bleu cheese burger that was good and fine conversation was had by all. I hope i get to chill with her more because she seems really cool and the such.
Later in the evening I met up with Mable and co at a house party. It was pretty cool but I ended up waiting in the snow for a while outside because i wasn't sure if they'd arrived yet and you can't really show up to a party unless your friends are there if the host doesn't know you. There were these three sisters there from NYC that were funny cause all they did was hate on each other. In another cool note, when it's snowing and you leave the keg outside you don't need ice in the bucket cause it's colder than your fridge outside.
Today was a neat slow day, I pretty much woke up at noon, watched the wire, took some photos, got my marinade on, at at mables, chilled there, then came back and took more pictures for another hour. The marinade i looked up online sounds pretty good but i sort of didn't pay attention to how many servings it made so apparently I have enough for 20 steaks. Awesome cause I have four. Mable and Seng are great chefs so dinner there is always great. They made cookies and brownies and shit too. Makes me feel like more of an adult eating meals cooked by your friends. Iunno why cause we sort of cook at home but we don't all sit to eat it together it's more of a standing around or playing video games or something. We played some games after like this sort of charades type one where it was team UCLA vs Trinity. Me, Mable, Seng, Chalita and Cynthia were all from ucla and amusingly also all APC affiliated.
Some quick random hits:
Dro and I were talking and came up with this fucking amazing idea. You know post secret? I'm gonna start one called Pug Secret where it's all gonna be stuff pugs would confess to. Here's what I got so far:
"Sometimes I wish I were a collie." "I can't believe I ate the whole slice of pizza when nobody's looking." "I don't like it when people try to straighten my tail, I know it looks funny so leave me alone." I think the site may be worth paying for the domain name.
Next week I only have work on monday then I'm off until the 4th of January. I'm not going home though so I might try to go to NYC or Boston or something so if you're there and will let me crash at your place I'll feed you!!! Christina's mom and brother invited me over for x-mas lunch which is super nice of them. I'm pretty excited for it.
BTW THEY ARE SHOWING THE ROOM IN DC ON JAN 22 WHO WANTS TO GO I WILL BE THERE IT'S TEARING ME APPPAAARTTTT
I had to walk to Mable's house which is a little over a mile away and I got sort of lost and had to go through a street that hadn't been driven through in hours so it was pretty insane. You sort of wading really. Straight Man vs. Wild shit really. I'm Bear fucking Gryllis. You also realize how fucking hardcore pea coats are. They look badass, keep you warmer than you'd think, and they're pretty damn waterproof too. A peacoat and hoodie are totally sufficient for the weather. They also try suprisingly quickly. Straight up battle armor.
Another funny thing about these big ass snow storms is everyone mostly walks in the middle of the road since there's barely any cars out and the tire tracks are the easiest places to walk in the whole city right now. But it really makes DC look like a city of vagrants or like there was some sort of zombie apocalypse/nuclear fallout/mad max road warrior shit. It's really sort of surreal and awesome.
Anyways enough about snow and on to some updates:
Yesterday after work I met up with Dro's friend Suhad who is super nice. We went to this bar that has a thing called the ham and cheeseburger. Basically a cheeseburger with ham on top of it. Super strange. I had a bleu cheese burger that was good and fine conversation was had by all. I hope i get to chill with her more because she seems really cool and the such.
Later in the evening I met up with Mable and co at a house party. It was pretty cool but I ended up waiting in the snow for a while outside because i wasn't sure if they'd arrived yet and you can't really show up to a party unless your friends are there if the host doesn't know you. There were these three sisters there from NYC that were funny cause all they did was hate on each other. In another cool note, when it's snowing and you leave the keg outside you don't need ice in the bucket cause it's colder than your fridge outside.
Today was a neat slow day, I pretty much woke up at noon, watched the wire, took some photos, got my marinade on, at at mables, chilled there, then came back and took more pictures for another hour. The marinade i looked up online sounds pretty good but i sort of didn't pay attention to how many servings it made so apparently I have enough for 20 steaks. Awesome cause I have four. Mable and Seng are great chefs so dinner there is always great. They made cookies and brownies and shit too. Makes me feel like more of an adult eating meals cooked by your friends. Iunno why cause we sort of cook at home but we don't all sit to eat it together it's more of a standing around or playing video games or something. We played some games after like this sort of charades type one where it was team UCLA vs Trinity. Me, Mable, Seng, Chalita and Cynthia were all from ucla and amusingly also all APC affiliated.
Some quick random hits:
Dro and I were talking and came up with this fucking amazing idea. You know post secret? I'm gonna start one called Pug Secret where it's all gonna be stuff pugs would confess to. Here's what I got so far:
"Sometimes I wish I were a collie." "I can't believe I ate the whole slice of pizza when nobody's looking." "I don't like it when people try to straighten my tail, I know it looks funny so leave me alone." I think the site may be worth paying for the domain name.
Next week I only have work on monday then I'm off until the 4th of January. I'm not going home though so I might try to go to NYC or Boston or something so if you're there and will let me crash at your place I'll feed you!!! Christina's mom and brother invited me over for x-mas lunch which is super nice of them. I'm pretty excited for it.
BTW THEY ARE SHOWING THE ROOM IN DC ON JAN 22 WHO WANTS TO GO I WILL BE THERE IT'S TEARING ME APPPAAARTTTT
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Hopefully they'll menage before i hit my garage
Chyea chyea chyea ain't no love in the heart of the cityyyy ain't no love in the heart of the townnnn
Heart of the City is straight up my favorite Jay-Z song I think. Some of the rhymes and just the beat is so damn good. If you haven't heard the song it samples "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" by Bobby "Blue" Band. Shit is fiyahhh
Anyways on to some updates.
Yesterday for work I got to go to this thing at the Center for American Progress where they had Sect of Labor Hilda Solis and Sect of Commerce Gary Locke do a talk about how immigration is legit and how comprehensive immigration reform is the shit. It was pretty cool. I've met Locke once at an API policy summit thing in sac. Pretty cool he was the first asian american governor. CAP also has mad money so they had amazing sandwiches. I had part of a roast beef croisantwich, a salmon sandwich, and I managed to take a chicken one with me for later. What can I say, everyday i'm hustlin. Well not really but I'm trying to save some cash so whatcha say? I met a cute girl there, got to chat with her a bit and walked with her to the metro. I got her email rather than her number so it's hardly ideal but it could be worse. Thats DC for ya.
I got off work early so I figured I'd check out the futon store i always saw on the bus going to work. Turns out it was out of business but I was a qtr of the way home so I figured I'd walk. It was cold but it's not like i had shit else to do and I wanted to check out some of the restaurants along the way. Stopped by this place called Granja de Oro which had Peruvian roasted chicken and it was legittt. paid $5.50 for a qtr chicken, some salad and some yucca fries. I wasn't huge on the yucca fries, i guess it's an acquired taste and I figured it'd leave me some room for dinner pt 2. I am clearly a slovenly man for having two dinners. fuck you man don't judge me.
As I continued my walk around the area I checked out 18th street which is the Adams Morgan bar street. There was a legit looking kebab place and what was, according to my ethiopian cab driver the best ethiopian place in dc, called merkat or something? iunno i'm def gonna check it out cause my cabbie was tight. We talked about Haila Sellase and Michael Jordan. That's wassup. There was also a Louisiana style joint too that looked good, esp for breakfast or brunch.
Anyways back on to columbia rd I went to check out the three mexican places that i'd been scoping out from the bus. Mixtec was like 12 bucks a person. They also have a campaign to make tortas popular here. how funny, we in cali have always known the glory of the torta. EL Super Taco in LA called it the toasted sandwich on the grilled. That isn't necc wrong but I wouldn't say it's right either. There were two other places called Super Taco and Combinacion which had Salvadoran food too. I went to Combinacion to get some pupusas as sort of a small ish dinner part two. The waitress def spoke no english and I'm too embarrassed to even attempt spanish so we sorta did a pointing thing for a while before the guy who owned the joint came out and was like u want two pupusas right? It was pretty good, spicier than I'm used to but it makes you feel alive. and thirsty. On the tv there looked like the best mexican soap opera ever. It was totally the normal crap but about luchadores. How great is that?
Today was another day of the grind at work. Nothing too exciting but w/e. Three ppl are leaving so we had a going away thing at Mai Tai. Drinking with the office ppl is weird. We got there sorta late so there was that everyone is done we're getting started. And I def still drink with the abandon of a college student. Glass of beer in 3-4 swigs I guess isn't the norm past a certain age. Not to say that my coworkers are old but i'm the youngest by at least 5-6 years. Afterwards me, one of my bosses, the communications lady and the intern i replaced went to a diff bar.
This next bar was considered, according to Nicole (the comm lady), a senate bar. meaning that the senate side staffers all go there. It was called Johnny on the Halfshell. Apparently they had a midnight vote so there was actually a senator from NJ killing time at the bar. Nicole said that the diff between Senate and House bars is largely age. Since senators are there longer they tend to have adult staffs while the house is so big that they have armies of interns around my age. Apparently there are pretty partisan bars too, so some are known as gop or dem bars, though nicole said that whichever group is in the majority still sort of dominates the bar scene as well. Makes sense since if you lose a bunch of seats your interns lose jobs.
Anyways was too tired and broke to go out with Mable and Co so I went home for a somewhat early night.
I'm gonna meet up with Suhad, one of Dro's friends tomorrow so that should be cool. Besides it's friday! and not just any friday, CASUAL FRIDAY
i want a fucking torta cubana too
Heart of the City is straight up my favorite Jay-Z song I think. Some of the rhymes and just the beat is so damn good. If you haven't heard the song it samples "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" by Bobby "Blue" Band. Shit is fiyahhh
Anyways on to some updates.
Yesterday for work I got to go to this thing at the Center for American Progress where they had Sect of Labor Hilda Solis and Sect of Commerce Gary Locke do a talk about how immigration is legit and how comprehensive immigration reform is the shit. It was pretty cool. I've met Locke once at an API policy summit thing in sac. Pretty cool he was the first asian american governor. CAP also has mad money so they had amazing sandwiches. I had part of a roast beef croisantwich, a salmon sandwich, and I managed to take a chicken one with me for later. What can I say, everyday i'm hustlin. Well not really but I'm trying to save some cash so whatcha say? I met a cute girl there, got to chat with her a bit and walked with her to the metro. I got her email rather than her number so it's hardly ideal but it could be worse. Thats DC for ya.
I got off work early so I figured I'd check out the futon store i always saw on the bus going to work. Turns out it was out of business but I was a qtr of the way home so I figured I'd walk. It was cold but it's not like i had shit else to do and I wanted to check out some of the restaurants along the way. Stopped by this place called Granja de Oro which had Peruvian roasted chicken and it was legittt. paid $5.50 for a qtr chicken, some salad and some yucca fries. I wasn't huge on the yucca fries, i guess it's an acquired taste and I figured it'd leave me some room for dinner pt 2. I am clearly a slovenly man for having two dinners. fuck you man don't judge me.
As I continued my walk around the area I checked out 18th street which is the Adams Morgan bar street. There was a legit looking kebab place and what was, according to my ethiopian cab driver the best ethiopian place in dc, called merkat or something? iunno i'm def gonna check it out cause my cabbie was tight. We talked about Haila Sellase and Michael Jordan. That's wassup. There was also a Louisiana style joint too that looked good, esp for breakfast or brunch.
Anyways back on to columbia rd I went to check out the three mexican places that i'd been scoping out from the bus. Mixtec was like 12 bucks a person. They also have a campaign to make tortas popular here. how funny, we in cali have always known the glory of the torta. EL Super Taco in LA called it the toasted sandwich on the grilled. That isn't necc wrong but I wouldn't say it's right either. There were two other places called Super Taco and Combinacion which had Salvadoran food too. I went to Combinacion to get some pupusas as sort of a small ish dinner part two. The waitress def spoke no english and I'm too embarrassed to even attempt spanish so we sorta did a pointing thing for a while before the guy who owned the joint came out and was like u want two pupusas right? It was pretty good, spicier than I'm used to but it makes you feel alive. and thirsty. On the tv there looked like the best mexican soap opera ever. It was totally the normal crap but about luchadores. How great is that?
Today was another day of the grind at work. Nothing too exciting but w/e. Three ppl are leaving so we had a going away thing at Mai Tai. Drinking with the office ppl is weird. We got there sorta late so there was that everyone is done we're getting started. And I def still drink with the abandon of a college student. Glass of beer in 3-4 swigs I guess isn't the norm past a certain age. Not to say that my coworkers are old but i'm the youngest by at least 5-6 years. Afterwards me, one of my bosses, the communications lady and the intern i replaced went to a diff bar.
This next bar was considered, according to Nicole (the comm lady), a senate bar. meaning that the senate side staffers all go there. It was called Johnny on the Halfshell. Apparently they had a midnight vote so there was actually a senator from NJ killing time at the bar. Nicole said that the diff between Senate and House bars is largely age. Since senators are there longer they tend to have adult staffs while the house is so big that they have armies of interns around my age. Apparently there are pretty partisan bars too, so some are known as gop or dem bars, though nicole said that whichever group is in the majority still sort of dominates the bar scene as well. Makes sense since if you lose a bunch of seats your interns lose jobs.
Anyways was too tired and broke to go out with Mable and Co so I went home for a somewhat early night.
I'm gonna meet up with Suhad, one of Dro's friends tomorrow so that should be cool. Besides it's friday! and not just any friday, CASUAL FRIDAY
i want a fucking torta cubana too
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Few more things
Working a white collar job is weird because I don't wear normal clothes that much, pretty much just on weekends so my laundry looks so different from before. One the plus side i feel like i look pretty clean in my grown man shirt, slacks, and pea coat.
People in DC fucking love chipotle. they just opened one in my neighborhood and it's always packed. the one by my work is always packed. all the other ones i've seen are always packed. given the sad state of DC mexican food it's not that much of a surprise but it's still sort of wacky.
Also the one of the quieter guys in the house sent out an angry ass email cussing us out for not doing the dishes. straight up this guy reminds me of the couch dude in half baked so it was pretty weird.
People in DC fucking love chipotle. they just opened one in my neighborhood and it's always packed. the one by my work is always packed. all the other ones i've seen are always packed. given the sad state of DC mexican food it's not that much of a surprise but it's still sort of wacky.
Also the one of the quieter guys in the house sent out an angry ass email cussing us out for not doing the dishes. straight up this guy reminds me of the couch dude in half baked so it was pretty weird.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Whoops neglecting the blog for a few days
Awww yeaaaa So if there's anyone actually reading this I apologize for the last few days of absence so get ready for some football!!! er updates!!!
Thursday!
9500 Liberty Ave - good documentary about immigration that I went to go see with Mable, Meagan and Lara. It was about a county in Virginia that was experiencing a high influx of Latino residents, documented or otherwise, and were blaming every single social ill ever on them. Lots of xenophobia and just really ridiculous accusations like that zapatistas were going to take over the county and crap. Also featured some very heroic individuals who fought to overturn an ordinance that essentially completely allowed racial profiling. I used to really enjoy watching ignorant ass people hate on immigrants. If used to give me so much fire. My inability to relate with them just made me hungry to do work. Strangely enough I now no longer enjoy it as much. I think now that I'm older I realize how much work there really is to do to create the sort of change I think society deserves and seeing these wackos (plus birthers plus Glenn Beck plus tea parties) really just makes me realize the insane magnitude of work this sort of change will require. I believe in really changing the way people think. Though we like to think that Obama's election has heralded in a new more progressive America, he only won 53% of the popular vote. 47% of the country still said no to change and hope. This is hardly a mandate from the masses and is why moving this country forward has been such a deadlock in congress. Seeing the morons in 9500 Liberty Ave scared shitless of Latinos for no reason just makes me tired because I know those are people who just never might change and that I'm going to have to try with them anyways. But really that's an inconceivable amount of work.
Anyways on to funner things! After the movie we got to meet the folks who made it, the main person was a Korean woman from LA who said I looked familiar. It might be the whole mixed thing cause I get that a lot but LA API artsy types all go to Tuesday Nights at the Cafe so it totally might have been there. There was an after party at this club called Lima. It sucked pretty hard because the music was so whack but there is some silver lining there.
On the way to the club some guy was trying to spit game at the girls and was like "how you doing?" they ignored him but I turned to him and told him that I was doing alright. His expression showed how unamused he was by it. I wasn't really trying to make fun of him either, that's just sort of my first reaction.
On the way out I was standing with Meagan and waiting for Lara and this older guy walks by and assumes were together and is like "Damn! you da man! I wanna be you when I grow up!" He was at least in his mid thirties so that made it pretty funny.
king of kebab - all u can eat indian for 9 bucks. but it's so bland. I didn't know tandoori chicken despite still being red can taste like literally nothing. Same with the curry. How do you even make bland curry?
The "well dressed burrito" - my coworkers raved about it. It was the worst burrito I've ever had. I was so mad that despite being full after I had a hot dog from a cart just to get the taste out of my mouth. read my review here because If i think about it again I'm just going to get pissed off. (http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-well-dressed-burrito-washington#hrid:nF1fZmFEAI7WVnjaix3RMA/src:self)
Catman called me out on it but I feel a bit of that America is In the Heart young man on the road romaticism about my house in DC just because so many people live here it makes it seem like this romantic journey of youth. Now that I've been working for a week that has fast faded since I now realize how much of your day a full time job soaks up. It's incredibly depressing that this may be life until old age... or depending on JET and law school and travelling maybe not ;)
Anyways pretty cool weekend Cat Manabat from ucla days was visiting her friend Arlene who lives mad close so we chilled a good deal this weekend. We met up at this place called Busboys and Poets which one one hand is sort of a cool restaurant, it's got good food, a bookstore with "progressive" books and good beer. On the other hand it came off as pretty pretentious too. Gandhi was on the menu and there were poems by langston hughes on the inside of it. There was also a light bar that spit out statistics on the war in Iraq. All that stuff in a way is cool but it also commodifies things that are greater than a trendy business and in a sort of self assured preachy way. I can't hate on it too much because my food was good and there were interesting books in the bookstore but that's not a business that is going to engage anyone who isn't already behind all that stuff. It's easy to run a business that only focuses on niche appeal. Running a joint with broader appeal that can actually change the way someone feels about something is the real challenge.
Anyways afterwards we went to Chinatown to this super BRO bar called rocket bar to meet up with two more of Cat's friends, one visiting and one that lives in VA, both went to UCLA (go bruins) and did some good drinking. They played the most random music. Songs similar to the "i don't wanna wait for this life to be over" one from the old WB teen shows and shit. They also had hard cider on tap which was pretty cool. In the bathroom a guy def asked/announced "so who's getting laid tonight?" everyone just grumbled. Tough scene at the bro er Rocket Bar.
After that we went to this place that has "Party Bowling" where you can eat bar food, drink, watch sports and bowl. They even have vip packages that are all you can drink/bowl for two hours and come with a ton of food. Bizarroville to be sure. After that we went to the third and final bar of the night, Bar Louie where I had some more great beer (dead guy on tap) and they are apparently the bar that the UCLA DC Alumni use during their meets!
Next day we all went to the Natural and US History Museums. The Smithonian is fucking tight cause it's free. I saw that actual Star Spangled Banner there which was pretty tight. It's enormous, like 30' by 30'. There was also 'bring history alive' thing where they reenacted a lunch counter sit in to let some real white guilt flow.
Later that night we went to a super hipster club. I'm just gonna paste in my yelp review of it:
I like hipster clubs because all the kids that are "too cool" to listen to pop music, chase women, and bump and grind like the rest of society are shown to enjoy essentially the same things even if they're pretending that it's ironic that they like the same music as people they consider below them.
Anyways the dj was cool and they have legitimately good beer there. Delerium and Leffe are fantastic beers and finding Leffe on tap is alwas a challenge.
Oh hipsters you so silly
Anyways the dj was cool and they have legitimately good beer there. Delerium and Leffe are fantastic beers and finding Leffe on tap is alwas a challenge.
Oh hipsters you so silly
Basically yea. Leffe on tap!
Sunday we went monumenting and saw the Jefferson, Lincoln, and WWII memorials. The Lincoln and Jefferson ones are great, good austere and thought provoking. the WWII one is ok, one of my coworkers described it as sort of facist looking, and compared to the Linc and TJ ones I'd have to agree though the thought didn't cross my mind when I was there. The Korean War memorial really does chill you a bit. The expressions of fear and trepidation on the faces of the statues is as real as it gets. Compared to the WWII one which sort of glorifies and aggrandizes war the Korean War Memorial really sort of checks that.
For dinner we went to this place called afterword and feasted. Something about gnawing on the bones of lambchops is immensely satisfying. I also love crabcake and wish it were cheaper.
The bookstore had some cool looking history books. I really want to learn more about south/central america, the middle east and india because those are all places I didn't really study in school. It's so hard to find a good history book though because so many really push and agenda. Thats what I miss about school. Most professors were pretty good about choosing books that didn't at least overtly push an agenda. Or if it did they taught you to see through it in class. I might just email some profs for recommendations on what i should be reading.
We also went to this jazz club after that was byob and were classy and listened to some jazz. I'm probably not classy enough though because though I was enjoying it I was sorta falling asleep. I like jazz but not enough to just sit and listen to it. Part of it was the whole day of walking plus food coma plus wine but I'm not going to make too many excuses for myself.
Monday: back on the grind and boy did I make some rookie mistakes, like not BCCing ppl, forgetting attachments and the like. I expect a lot more from myself in terms of being detail oriented and though my bosses were cool I was pretty ashamed of my work on monday.
I went to this "do you really wanna be a lawyer" panel at GW. DC is an intense town. People here are aggressive and driven by the handful rather than the rare border sociopath you encounter at home. Not a single attendee was a lost undergrad. I was prob one of the youngest there and the news I got wasn't awesomely reassuring. Apparently if you don't go to Yale, Harvard, Columbia, or Stanford your law school experience isn't nearly as academic as it is technical. I'd like to think of myself as somewhat of a scholar and that if I don't go to one of those schools my legal education won't really be as academic as I'm really hoping. Their main point was only go to LS if you wanna be a lawyer, don't go if you just wanna work in gov't or be a politician. That let a lot of people down but as good as Senator Tsukerman sounds I can't say it's the phrase that is driving me.
At night I made some chicken using random stuff and it actually came out pretty good. I used chicken, ginger, onions, red onions, soy sauce, cooking wine, pepper, and paprika. I got quite a few comments about how good it smelled. Much better than my attempted encebollado!
Tuesday: Did better at work for the most part, still a few stupid mistakes but I got a lot done today and am feeling a bit better about it all. I've been trying to really work hard, get there first, leave late, take 20-25 minute lunches. I've earned my spot in places before and I'm going to do it again. It's sort of tough tho from being used to being the top dog in my work to being the bottom of the ladder. My opinions are still listened to but when we do conference calls and I see so many parallels with my experience it's annoying to know that I can't really participate in the same way. I might be young but when it comes to working with people I really do think I know what I'm talking about. It'll come tho, just gotta work hard and earn my voice.
I'm realizing how different the 9-5 life is. On one hand it's sort of nice because when I was a student, though i wasn't in class that much (i didn't skip, class just doesn't take that much out of your day) i was still busy as shit with apc. Like all day errday until at least midnight. But so much of it is unsupervised and on your own schedule. Here there is a period of time where I can't go anywhere else just gotta work. And it's sorta cool cause some of the work I do is similar and it's nice having a set period of the day to work on it it's still not the same at all. No going to the gym in the middle of the day or waking up at 10 everyday. It really makes you value the weekends in a way that you couldn't in high school since you couldn't really go out then. But that's growing up. And at least I get to do a job that really conforms to my values, not that many people can really say that.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
First Day at work: I can dig it!+The Pollo Encebollado Adventure!
W00t first day at work dwagggg! I woke up hella early and had breakfast which I guess I should start doing now that I'm a grown man. Took the bus to work, which drops me off like 30 ft from the door and takes like 8 minutes. That is some convenience. Anyways I got there super early because when ever I have a first day of something it's generally how I roll. Thanks to the tour de force film Drumline I know that you're late if you're on time, you're on time if you're 5 minuter early. Yea I just dropped some drumline knowledge on you. Feel the power. Anyways burned some time at starbucks, their tea sucks, but I got to read some more of on the road which is starting to sort of suck me in in the way that that books of that era really were able to romanticize the vagabond life.
First day was good, basically one of the interns was leaving the day I was starting so she transitioned me. There was a ton of stuff to learn but it's all interesting in that it relates to comprehensive immigration reform which is something I'm all about. They took my to lunch at this peruvian Chicken joint called Nando's which was pretty good. Spicy and teh suchez. Anyways they want me to be like a consultant and streamline their outreach since I'm supposed to be the grassroots organizer while they're the lawyers. It should be something I can do so I'm pretty excited. I don't know if they were supposed to tell me but they said I could basically stay as long as I wanted, so I guess it's like I sort of have a real job? Maybe they'll take that back if I start fucking up but I'm pretty down for it either way. They even gave me a fancy wine bottle opener which was their holiday party gift. It's missing the foil cutter but hey, it was a gift!
Got home and took my first stab at pollo encebollado and it was a stab. I bought all these chicken legs because they're cheaper and thought it would be better to take the meat off the bones. It proved to be much more of a task than I'd anticipated.
EPIC PART: IF YOU READ ANY OF THIS ENTRY READ THIS
Weezy sent me "Hearts on Fire" from the Rocky IV soundtrack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPbLzu83Ato&feature=fvst) and I was chopping onions and since I'm a weeny I was totally crying. To hearts on fire. Yea. EPIC. picture it. Have a hearty laugh on my behalf.
Anyways the chicken came out ok but it wasn't anything super great. I think the way I had it in the restaurant was totally different but the way I made it looked like the google images pictures so iunno.
yeaaaa
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
some kinda somethingful
The new house is tight, hella crazy posters and stuff and I've met almost everyone here now. Folks are from all over the place. One Bay guy from San Leandro, 3 guys from Washington/Oregon, 1 from Miami, 1 from Houston, and I forget the rest. The house kinda reminds me of those old timey Mississippi river boats that people used to gamble on. There's a fireplace where one of the guys, John, burns cedar sticks which makes the house smell like BBQ. I'm the only person on my floor so I'm pretty much the only person it seems that uses the bathroom which seems good but on the other hand it is by far the coldest and not wanted to let the heat out is making me keep the door closed which feels sorta anti-social but this isn't freshman year so it's really not the same sorta issue I guess.
My bed has these two foam pads as mattresses which really sort of suck. they are by far my biggest complaint with the place. Yesterday they had a mad lean to the right. I switched up which one was on top and now there's sort of a canyon in the middle. Tomorrow I'm gonna take one of them off and see how that is. I tried it today and you can totally feel the wood under but that might be preferable in the end.
I wasn't sure whether it was cool to leave my room heater on all night. Luckily due to the power of facebook folks told me it was the norm in colder environs. My mom always told me it would catch on fire but I'm nearly positive that was a lie to get me to save electricity. Oh mom... I don't know how well that heater works but my room is a warm enough 60-63, though not the balmy 70-75 I prefer. Probably not worth buying my own heater unless winter gets way colder.
I'm super stoked for my neighborhood which is pleasantly called Mt. Pleasant. It looks like a predominantly latino neighborhood cause if you walk down 16th it's all Mexican and Salvadoran restaurants. If you know me you know how excited I am to eat at all 12 of them. I'm going to make a concerted effort to cook more but with so many delicious looking places I don't know how well that's really going to go.
I went to get a haircut today on that street. Luckily my barber understood almost no English and I'm too embarrassed to even attempt my gringo ass middle school Spanish. I told her tomorrow was my first day at work and asked her what she thought would look good. She said something to the effect of "no dice" which I think means I don't understand what you are saying. So she showed me a big poster of angry looking latino and black men sporting various fades. I chose #10 (1 on the sides 2-3 on the top) and off we were. She really spent a while getting it all even and lining it up including using a straight blade like my buddy down on Venice in LA. I have this dilemma, I personally like my hair long enough to gel the front but it's so cold that I want to wear beanies. If i have gel in then i can't really wear a beanie. What to do? Does my vanity outweigh my dislike of being cold? Only time will tell.
I'm trying to buy a cheap bike right now (max $120) and went to see the first one today. It was at the end of the metro line in Greenbelt Maryland. Awesome. I get there at 2:30 thinking I'll grab a bite to eat before I was supposed to check out the first one at 3:30. Turns out there is literally nothing walkable in Greenbelt. And it was 40 out. Excellent. I started to read On The Road which would have been enjoyable if it wasn't so damn cold and I wasn't so damn hungry. Anyways one of the ppl with one of the bikes I was interested in happened to live near by so he brought his bike which was chill. Turns out the original guy I went to meet basically stood me though and I left fed up with the cold at 4 I WAS THERE FOR 1.5 HOURS!!! He called me when I was already back at Columbia Heights but I wasn't down to pay the far to go back out to meet him. BOoooooo
Mable invited me to go with her and some friends to this Korean fried chicken place called Bonchon but her friends bailed so her and Seng cooked everyone dinner instead which was insanely nice of them. They made fried tofu, tofu and bok choy (i miss bok choy), and Beef fried rice. All three dishes were awesome. We had wine with dinner which really makes me feel like a college graduate. Seems like adults drink wine with meals. I'm still a beer connoisseur which I guess is more of a guy thing? Def doesn't seem as classy. The two girls from friday were there as well as Mable's other roomate Seng who went to UCLA and did APC also. Super randomly there was a girl from the party on saturday who was there. She was the only other Asian person at the party and I didn't talk to her cause she looked sorta angry that night. Turns out she also went to UCLA. Small world. Go Bruins. We watched this show called salon takeover or something like that where this angry brit or ausie goes to dysfunctional salons, yells at everyone, then remodels it. Meh.
I'm debating wether to sign up for a zip car. I wanna check out parts of VA and MD cause there's Asian markets and com tam out there. As well as probably some sort of legit dim sum which dc has none of. It's $75 to sign up then 10 bucks an hour or 70 a day after that but there's no monthly fee. It also includes gas which is pretty cool. I don't know how much I would use it but I like driving too much to not do it for 4 months.
It's kinda weird here but I'm usually ultra polite to people who work at restaurants and stores, or really just strangers in general. A lot of the folks here look at me like I'm crazy when I'm nice to them or try to make some conversation. At home when I asked folks if they were having a long day and when they got off they usually enjoyed the company. Here people kind of just stare at me. My have a good one parting remark is often unreciprocated. Sorta weird.
It's my first day at work tomorrow! Gonna get my grown man on!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
yeaaaa got a place!!!!
Wooooo I got a place and won't be homeless tomorrow!!!
It's in Columbia Heights ish and is a giant 12 person group house type deal thats almost more of a hostel/dorm/frathouse enviroment in that theres 1 kitchen, 12 rooms, no one has a private bathroom, and all that. But the house is nuts. This older dude Ron owns it and he makes art out of old tv's and computers and theres tons of posters on like every available surface. It's pretty nutty. I'm moving in tomorrow so I'll post some pics. That pic is from the CL ad
One of the ppl at one of the houses I almost lived in was cool and told me she watriessed at a bar in Dupont that has $2 high lifes on sunday. Madness. There's a trivia night there tomorrow too that I might hit up.
Also checked out this place in Dupont before I found out i got the big house. The dude who showed it was this friendly but hardcore seeming colombian guy. The residents there talked to me for a while and seemed really cool. It'd be legit if I could find some way to contact them to chill since they seemed like good ppl.
Last thing I forgot to mention but what's crazy about the time change is that you can go to a bar and watch sports till 1:30 at night. When I was at tom tom i could see the tv so when we were dancing and the such if the song wasn't my style i could sorta just bob and watch the game. That's pretty cool i think.
Just as cold but at least it's not snowing!
Some quick things I forgot to mention:
I met a pug in Dupont, and as you know I love my puggy wuggies so I stopped to pet him. His name was Mazel as in Mazeltov. That's a pretty great name of a pug.
I watched an episode of Ugly Betty with Mables. That show is pretty entertaining. It's weird because Betty is so different from her "sister" who is supposed to be a "saucy latina woman" of sorts. My cousin works on that show as a production assistant and she's been telling me to watch it.
Anyways, yesterday at this bagel shop i was eating lunch at I saw this random dude in a UCLA hat. So I was like "Hey, did you go to ucla?" and he told me he did then gave me his card cause he said he knew it was rough being in a new town. He invited me to a party that I ended up going to last night. Getting there was a pain tho. DC is divided into four areas, NW, NE, SW, SE. 3rd and H street in NW is diff than 3rd and H street in NE. I went to the address at NW which is a soid 20 minute walk from the one in NE. I called the guy and we did the whole, you can't be at the corner cause I'm at the corner thing. I even yelled MARCO twice to no avail.
After we figured it out I walked there and went to the party which was pretty chill. It was interesting cause when you're in California everyone is from California too but the ppl I talked to were from Pittsburgh, Cincinatti, North Penn, Arkansas and Chicago. Nice folks. Very college feel but everyone is dressed better. Played some flip cup like a champ and tried to teach them my cool runnings start of chant: "Feel the rythym! Feel the Ride! C'mon everybody it's flip cup time!!!"
It didn't really catch on.
Anyways some quick hits -
Texans all think their Mexican food is better.
Chicagans are into meat.
There are apparently a lot of Desi folks in Arkansas.
They played the Danger Zone song from Top Gun.
Now for something completely different!
Found a pretty good Salvadoran place called Glorias. I'm positive this isn't the first Salvadoran place called Gloria's I've been to. Had some pupusas and they had a tv show on with my homeboy Vicente Fernandez on. Pretty sweet stuff.
The place with supposedly the best tacos in DC still aren't very good. Sigh.
Finally on to the housing hunt. It's a pain in the ass. I've walked so much. It's cold. Pretty much everyone has been nice though so it really could be a lot worse. I went back to one of the houses I checked out yesterday to meet the roomie that wasn't home then. She was pretty cool, from the OC and though she just started playing fantasy football she was clearly the real deal about it. They had a pretty cool cat named Asian Jack Bauer. Don't ask me why.
Another really cool place today too down in Shaw. It was another group house where everyone was prob late twenties and really cool. The woman who owns it is vietnamese and apparently her parents come almost every weekend to work on the house then make a big as banquet status dinner. I'd be pretty stoked to live there.
So at noon tomm when I check out of the Sheraton I'm homeless so wish me luck!
I met a pug in Dupont, and as you know I love my puggy wuggies so I stopped to pet him. His name was Mazel as in Mazeltov. That's a pretty great name of a pug.
I watched an episode of Ugly Betty with Mables. That show is pretty entertaining. It's weird because Betty is so different from her "sister" who is supposed to be a "saucy latina woman" of sorts. My cousin works on that show as a production assistant and she's been telling me to watch it.
Anyways, yesterday at this bagel shop i was eating lunch at I saw this random dude in a UCLA hat. So I was like "Hey, did you go to ucla?" and he told me he did then gave me his card cause he said he knew it was rough being in a new town. He invited me to a party that I ended up going to last night. Getting there was a pain tho. DC is divided into four areas, NW, NE, SW, SE. 3rd and H street in NW is diff than 3rd and H street in NE. I went to the address at NW which is a soid 20 minute walk from the one in NE. I called the guy and we did the whole, you can't be at the corner cause I'm at the corner thing. I even yelled MARCO twice to no avail.
After we figured it out I walked there and went to the party which was pretty chill. It was interesting cause when you're in California everyone is from California too but the ppl I talked to were from Pittsburgh, Cincinatti, North Penn, Arkansas and Chicago. Nice folks. Very college feel but everyone is dressed better. Played some flip cup like a champ and tried to teach them my cool runnings start of chant: "Feel the rythym! Feel the Ride! C'mon everybody it's flip cup time!!!"
It didn't really catch on.
Anyways some quick hits -
Texans all think their Mexican food is better.
Chicagans are into meat.
There are apparently a lot of Desi folks in Arkansas.
They played the Danger Zone song from Top Gun.
Now for something completely different!
Found a pretty good Salvadoran place called Glorias. I'm positive this isn't the first Salvadoran place called Gloria's I've been to. Had some pupusas and they had a tv show on with my homeboy Vicente Fernandez on. Pretty sweet stuff.
The place with supposedly the best tacos in DC still aren't very good. Sigh.
Finally on to the housing hunt. It's a pain in the ass. I've walked so much. It's cold. Pretty much everyone has been nice though so it really could be a lot worse. I went back to one of the houses I checked out yesterday to meet the roomie that wasn't home then. She was pretty cool, from the OC and though she just started playing fantasy football she was clearly the real deal about it. They had a pretty cool cat named Asian Jack Bauer. Don't ask me why.
Another really cool place today too down in Shaw. It was another group house where everyone was prob late twenties and really cool. The woman who owns it is vietnamese and apparently her parents come almost every weekend to work on the house then make a big as banquet status dinner. I'd be pretty stoked to live there.
So at noon tomm when I check out of the Sheraton I'm homeless so wish me luck!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Snowwwwwowwwwowwoooowwwooow
Last Night:
Met up with Mablerrrssss!!! we went to this thai place (http://www.yelp.com/biz/thai-chef-sushi-bar-restuarant-washington - u can read my review there!) it was quite the tasty. Afterwards we went to her place, met up with some of her friends who were all really nice and hit up the bars.
We went to this place called tom tom on 18th street in Adams Morgan which is the closest thing to a party street i've ever been on since La Rambla in Barcelona. The bar we went to, Tom Tom, was chill. They play more east coast bad boys stuff here. On an interesting note they also played tell me when to go by E40 and quite a bit of reggaeton. YOU NEVER ESCAPE REGGAETON
The guy in the bathroom who hands you the towels and stuff was from Togo in West Africa. Since my bladder isn't that big I had to use the bathroom like 5 times so i really got to talk to him quite a bit. Nice guy, you could tell he missed home a lot.
Afterwards we hit up Amsterdam Fallafel (http://www.yelp.com/biz/amsterdam-falafelshop-washington - read my yelp review there for the deal on it) and had fallafels and fries. Like amsterdam you can have mayo on your fries there. It's not bad, i'm not sure if their "dutch mayo" was really different but i told myself it was to feel less grossed out by the idea of mayo and fries. They also have this thign here called jumbo slice where the slice of pizza is so big it comes on two paper plates. The crust side of the slice was atleast a foot long. Madness. I'm totally going there next time.
The metro here is fucking awesome. Mabalays friend Yuan dropped me off at the station at like 2:45 and i still caught a train home. Thats wassup.
Today:
Epic Madness because it snowed. My delicate bay/la/santacruz life has illprepared me for snow. I've decided I like it more than rain though because you don't get nearly as wet. You still get wet but the clumps are bigger and less numerous than raindrops so i feel like less of them hit you. It's also a lot cooler looking. Like against a street light it's straight picturesque.
Apt hunting has been pretty tiring. One place in van ness was nice, 900 and sorta sterile and unfurnished. the neighborhood seems really safe and boring. I also checked out a place I really liked in Shaw, the folks were all around my age and stuff and I really would have wanted to move in there but they gave it to someone else. FIE. anyways it was awkward because me and one of the other prospective tenants showed up at the same time. There was def some tension and awkwardness because we both wanted the place but you got to do as Sjax says and make love to pressure. Apparently i didn't make love to it well enough cause i didn't get the place. Teh Lolz.
One of the other places near union station was cool. Big ass house but it was def a guy house. sorta run down and dirty. woooo. the neighborhood looks too empty also/there isn't a grocery store near by. Finally the last place i went to was west of columbia heights. the guy there was really nice and gave me a good breakdown of the diff neighborhoods. Him and his gf, a taiwanese woman with two cute kids would be in the basement. The kids tho stay at their dads place cause apparently you don't wanna be in the DC public schools. It's a nice house but I would feel sorta weird coming home trashed. Anyways I'm about to go check out another place, hopefully this is the one cause i don't really have anywhere to sleep tomorrow as of right now...
woooooooo
in an amusing note, i bought a compass from target because whenever i walk out of a metro i'm really confused.
Met up with Mablerrrssss!!! we went to this thai place (http://www.yelp.com/biz/thai-chef-sushi-bar-restuarant-washington - u can read my review there!) it was quite the tasty. Afterwards we went to her place, met up with some of her friends who were all really nice and hit up the bars.
We went to this place called tom tom on 18th street in Adams Morgan which is the closest thing to a party street i've ever been on since La Rambla in Barcelona. The bar we went to, Tom Tom, was chill. They play more east coast bad boys stuff here. On an interesting note they also played tell me when to go by E40 and quite a bit of reggaeton. YOU NEVER ESCAPE REGGAETON
The guy in the bathroom who hands you the towels and stuff was from Togo in West Africa. Since my bladder isn't that big I had to use the bathroom like 5 times so i really got to talk to him quite a bit. Nice guy, you could tell he missed home a lot.
Afterwards we hit up Amsterdam Fallafel (http://www.yelp.com/biz/amsterdam-falafelshop-washington - read my yelp review there for the deal on it) and had fallafels and fries. Like amsterdam you can have mayo on your fries there. It's not bad, i'm not sure if their "dutch mayo" was really different but i told myself it was to feel less grossed out by the idea of mayo and fries. They also have this thign here called jumbo slice where the slice of pizza is so big it comes on two paper plates. The crust side of the slice was atleast a foot long. Madness. I'm totally going there next time.
The metro here is fucking awesome. Mabalays friend Yuan dropped me off at the station at like 2:45 and i still caught a train home. Thats wassup.
Today:
Epic Madness because it snowed. My delicate bay/la/santacruz life has illprepared me for snow. I've decided I like it more than rain though because you don't get nearly as wet. You still get wet but the clumps are bigger and less numerous than raindrops so i feel like less of them hit you. It's also a lot cooler looking. Like against a street light it's straight picturesque.
Apt hunting has been pretty tiring. One place in van ness was nice, 900 and sorta sterile and unfurnished. the neighborhood seems really safe and boring. I also checked out a place I really liked in Shaw, the folks were all around my age and stuff and I really would have wanted to move in there but they gave it to someone else. FIE. anyways it was awkward because me and one of the other prospective tenants showed up at the same time. There was def some tension and awkwardness because we both wanted the place but you got to do as Sjax says and make love to pressure. Apparently i didn't make love to it well enough cause i didn't get the place. Teh Lolz.
One of the other places near union station was cool. Big ass house but it was def a guy house. sorta run down and dirty. woooo. the neighborhood looks too empty also/there isn't a grocery store near by. Finally the last place i went to was west of columbia heights. the guy there was really nice and gave me a good breakdown of the diff neighborhoods. Him and his gf, a taiwanese woman with two cute kids would be in the basement. The kids tho stay at their dads place cause apparently you don't wanna be in the DC public schools. It's a nice house but I would feel sorta weird coming home trashed. Anyways I'm about to go check out another place, hopefully this is the one cause i don't really have anywhere to sleep tomorrow as of right now...
woooooooo
in an amusing note, i bought a compass from target because whenever i walk out of a metro i'm really confused.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Day 2. (Sean Connery Voice) And the Hunt Ish On
Awww yeaa second day in DC (really the first full day if you wanna be picky) and the hunt for an apartment has started.
First off, the metro seems legit as fuck. Getting around has been way chill. I just need to figure out how to get a pass or something.
So on to the hunt!
1st place: In Columbia Heights which I read was an "area in transition" ie in the process of being gentrified. It's more less really nice with random sketchy looking houses and stuff. So the place I go to is more of the latter variety. I talked to the guy on the phone and he already sounded sorta crazy. I show up and I am correct. Picture a cross between Snoop and Willie Nelson. He was this little pale guy with cornrows and an American flag bandanna who said he had lived in the house for 62 years and that his family had owned it since 1927. The guy mumbled a lot and the room was unusual looking to say the least. The bed was white and gold and pink. On the plus side the room had a fridge, sink, microwave, and he said the last guy stole the foreman grill but that he'd get me another one if i moved in. I can't imagine sharing a place with just that guy. I feel like i'd hear the deliverance theme in the background or something. Bizzaro.
2nd place: Petworth, also a community "in transition". I walked there which took the better part of half and hour. On the way I saw a lot of taquerias and other stuff like that. There was a statue that looked like the king of the universe in the katamari damacy games too. Lotta West Indian food in the area also. There's at least 6 places that serve jerk chicken within a mile of the place. Anyways I get there and the lady who runs it is pretty young. It's a group house with this sorta bizarre mix of victorian trappings and just normal stuff. The lady was an interior designer so I would assume thats why. The decorations and stuff struck me as very southern/east coast in that anyone who did interior design in california wouldn't have those sort of couches with the wooden backs and swoopy (http://www.uship.com/listing/show_listingImage.aspx?maxwidth=270&maxheight=210&filename=/static/955a887c-0c9f-4669-8.jpg) and the such. Anyways she was really nice and the place was only 600 bucks and not too far from stuff to do. The room was mad small but of the two places I've seen it is clearly infinitely preferable to the Snoop Nelson house.
Talking to one of my friends who did the UCDC thing I realized the sad reality that if I wanted to live somewhere not terribly sketch the $600-800 range doesn't appear to have much to offer. It seems like if I wanna live downtown ish/Dupont/Adams Morgan or w/e it's gonna be at least a G a month. So essentially my entire stipend! woooooooo....
In any event some quick hits and pics
1. This will be the first time I've lived in a city with more black folks than asian folks. nothing wrong or right with that but I went to Chinatown today to see what was up and saw a whopping 4 asian people. In four blocks or walking only 1 chinese restaurant didn't look like it was intended for the gwailo so I might either eat there a lot or really miss Chinese food. Chinatown here didn't even smell like Chinatown and there was a Texas Chinese BBQ place whatever that means...
2. Beer for lunch! in my depression over lack of Chinese food/people I stopped at a bar which boasted a wide beer selection. 2 Beers in I was pretty buzzed and ended up skipping lunch. Now that is healthy.
3. DC xmas street fair had a fallafel hut staffed by 3 Chinese ladies and an Egyptian man. Sadly their fallafel sandwhich was not very good.
4. Thai restaurants in DC have silly ass names. I've passed one called the Thaitanic and one called Thaiphoon. Awesome.
5. A lot of local DC restaurants (or at least i think they're local) look like Chain stores. Think Panera/Chipotle/Corner Bakery. Not necc bad but just looking at them from the outside I don't expect much really.
Anyways about about to grab some dinner with Mablerrs so stay tuned for more heart pounding action. And pictures!
First off, the metro seems legit as fuck. Getting around has been way chill. I just need to figure out how to get a pass or something.
So on to the hunt!
1st place: In Columbia Heights which I read was an "area in transition" ie in the process of being gentrified. It's more less really nice with random sketchy looking houses and stuff. So the place I go to is more of the latter variety. I talked to the guy on the phone and he already sounded sorta crazy. I show up and I am correct. Picture a cross between Snoop and Willie Nelson. He was this little pale guy with cornrows and an American flag bandanna who said he had lived in the house for 62 years and that his family had owned it since 1927. The guy mumbled a lot and the room was unusual looking to say the least. The bed was white and gold and pink. On the plus side the room had a fridge, sink, microwave, and he said the last guy stole the foreman grill but that he'd get me another one if i moved in. I can't imagine sharing a place with just that guy. I feel like i'd hear the deliverance theme in the background or something. Bizzaro.
2nd place: Petworth, also a community "in transition". I walked there which took the better part of half and hour. On the way I saw a lot of taquerias and other stuff like that. There was a statue that looked like the king of the universe in the katamari damacy games too. Lotta West Indian food in the area also. There's at least 6 places that serve jerk chicken within a mile of the place. Anyways I get there and the lady who runs it is pretty young. It's a group house with this sorta bizarre mix of victorian trappings and just normal stuff. The lady was an interior designer so I would assume thats why. The decorations and stuff struck me as very southern/east coast in that anyone who did interior design in california wouldn't have those sort of couches with the wooden backs and swoopy (http://www.uship.com/listing/show_listingImage.aspx?maxwidth=270&maxheight=210&filename=/static/955a887c-0c9f-4669-8.jpg) and the such. Anyways she was really nice and the place was only 600 bucks and not too far from stuff to do. The room was mad small but of the two places I've seen it is clearly infinitely preferable to the Snoop Nelson house.
Talking to one of my friends who did the UCDC thing I realized the sad reality that if I wanted to live somewhere not terribly sketch the $600-800 range doesn't appear to have much to offer. It seems like if I wanna live downtown ish/Dupont/Adams Morgan or w/e it's gonna be at least a G a month. So essentially my entire stipend! woooooooo....
In any event some quick hits and pics
1. This will be the first time I've lived in a city with more black folks than asian folks. nothing wrong or right with that but I went to Chinatown today to see what was up and saw a whopping 4 asian people. In four blocks or walking only 1 chinese restaurant didn't look like it was intended for the gwailo so I might either eat there a lot or really miss Chinese food. Chinatown here didn't even smell like Chinatown and there was a Texas Chinese BBQ place whatever that means...
2. Beer for lunch! in my depression over lack of Chinese food/people I stopped at a bar which boasted a wide beer selection. 2 Beers in I was pretty buzzed and ended up skipping lunch. Now that is healthy.
3. DC xmas street fair had a fallafel hut staffed by 3 Chinese ladies and an Egyptian man. Sadly their fallafel sandwhich was not very good.
4. Thai restaurants in DC have silly ass names. I've passed one called the Thaitanic and one called Thaiphoon. Awesome.
5. A lot of local DC restaurants (or at least i think they're local) look like Chain stores. Think Panera/Chipotle/Corner Bakery. Not necc bad but just looking at them from the outside I don't expect much really.
Anyways about about to grab some dinner with Mablerrs so stay tuned for more heart pounding action. And pictures!
Thursday, December 3, 2009
leavingonajetplane/1st Nighttt
Hollaaaaa!!! Are you ready for the first post on the soon to be tour de force and btw only exclusive blog about Misha's DC days? Well you better be cause here it comes, duh duh duhhhh!!!!
Quick thoughts on the flight: What the fuck is up with the whole United Airlines doesn't give you food anymore? 6 bucks for plane food? no dice. It was pretty cool that they showed up though. The dog, Doug, really cracks me up because if your dog could talk that is totally what they would say.
Anyways on to DC.
Dulles airport is fucking far from DC, the cab ride (no shuttle... damn crystal city Sheraton) took atleast half an hour and cost me like 60 bucks. How much do you tip normally for a cab? I don't really know the whole scale for it all since I don't regurlarly cab it places, especially sober. Anyways the cab driver was this Ethiopian guy. He was pretty chill we chatted for about half the ride since he was on the phone for the first half. I told him I took an Ethiopian history class and he told me that though he has family there he's only been back once in 21 years and won't go back again till the government gets less corrupt. He was saying how if you wanna be honest you'll either starve, get arrested or be forced to leave the country. He clearly chose the latter. He told me I should live in a basement to save money. I've literally only seen once basement my whole life so that is a surprisingly intriguinig idea. We were comisserating about the economy and he told me that he used to have a professional job but he got laid off and now has to support his family and play his mortgage driving cabs. Sign of the times.
Sheraton hotel si chill, it's weird having a hotel room to myself. I figure in the professional world this is sorta the norm but I can see the appeal of hotel bars when you're by yourself. Other weird news but since there is the time change or 3 hours ahead sports are super late here. it's 11:15 and the 3rd quarter in the oregon game and the 2nd quarter of the warriors game. Which I am watching on my slingbox. w00t web 2.0
Down the street from my hotel theres hella restaurants like two blocks away. I ate at the Kabob Place (http://www.yelp.com/biz/kabob-palace-arlington - read my review on yelp!) It's a pakistani kabob/curry ish joint. Pretty good. The place is 24 hours and was pretty packed even at 10pm. I was sitting at a table myself and offered some guy to sit with me. He was pakistani in his 40's and we bullshitted over food. He told me how he used to live in DC but had to move to North Carolina. I didn't ask why but the guy was chill. He told me how he came here on a student visa and owns his own business now. Go American Dream and all that. So far everyone here has been mad nice.
Stopped at a SevEl on the way back where 16oz Heinekens were 2 for $3. So I bought two. Now I gotta watch this game, settle a bit and respond to the responses I got on the housing search. Wish me luck cause I need to find a place by sunday!!!
This is a bizarre first night. It just feels so much like my first few days of freshman year where i didn't really know anyone and I was in a room, albeit comfortable, by myself. It's not that I don't know anyone in DC but I don't have my crew here and it's just bizzarely parrallel to those days 4 years ago at Merrill.
Anyways stay tuned for the illest blog about Misha in DC there is. DC illing!
Quick thoughts on the flight: What the fuck is up with the whole United Airlines doesn't give you food anymore? 6 bucks for plane food? no dice. It was pretty cool that they showed up though. The dog, Doug, really cracks me up because if your dog could talk that is totally what they would say.
Anyways on to DC.
Dulles airport is fucking far from DC, the cab ride (no shuttle... damn crystal city Sheraton) took atleast half an hour and cost me like 60 bucks. How much do you tip normally for a cab? I don't really know the whole scale for it all since I don't regurlarly cab it places, especially sober. Anyways the cab driver was this Ethiopian guy. He was pretty chill we chatted for about half the ride since he was on the phone for the first half. I told him I took an Ethiopian history class and he told me that though he has family there he's only been back once in 21 years and won't go back again till the government gets less corrupt. He was saying how if you wanna be honest you'll either starve, get arrested or be forced to leave the country. He clearly chose the latter. He told me I should live in a basement to save money. I've literally only seen once basement my whole life so that is a surprisingly intriguinig idea. We were comisserating about the economy and he told me that he used to have a professional job but he got laid off and now has to support his family and play his mortgage driving cabs. Sign of the times.
Sheraton hotel si chill, it's weird having a hotel room to myself. I figure in the professional world this is sorta the norm but I can see the appeal of hotel bars when you're by yourself. Other weird news but since there is the time change or 3 hours ahead sports are super late here. it's 11:15 and the 3rd quarter in the oregon game and the 2nd quarter of the warriors game. Which I am watching on my slingbox. w00t web 2.0
Down the street from my hotel theres hella restaurants like two blocks away. I ate at the Kabob Place (http://www.yelp.com/biz/kabob-palace-arlington - read my review on yelp!) It's a pakistani kabob/curry ish joint. Pretty good. The place is 24 hours and was pretty packed even at 10pm. I was sitting at a table myself and offered some guy to sit with me. He was pakistani in his 40's and we bullshitted over food. He told me how he used to live in DC but had to move to North Carolina. I didn't ask why but the guy was chill. He told me how he came here on a student visa and owns his own business now. Go American Dream and all that. So far everyone here has been mad nice.
Stopped at a SevEl on the way back where 16oz Heinekens were 2 for $3. So I bought two. Now I gotta watch this game, settle a bit and respond to the responses I got on the housing search. Wish me luck cause I need to find a place by sunday!!!
This is a bizarre first night. It just feels so much like my first few days of freshman year where i didn't really know anyone and I was in a room, albeit comfortable, by myself. It's not that I don't know anyone in DC but I don't have my crew here and it's just bizzarely parrallel to those days 4 years ago at Merrill.
Anyways stay tuned for the illest blog about Misha in DC there is. DC illing!
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