I haven't updated this in quite a while but I just had the coolest chat with a bus driver that I really wanted to write about.
It was about 8:50pm at the bus stop on Q and Connecticut. I was sitting in the shelter/overhang area next to one of the bus drivers on her lunch break. She was a tall black woman probably in her early thirties and we just sorta started talking. I really like talking with strangers but I really need to be in the right mood to do it and I guess today was one of those days. She sorta made it easier cause these British tourists were asking her how to get to Georgetown and then what would be a good place to meet somebody. She turned and asked me, and being a person who's been to georgetown twice I had no idea so I said "iunno, wisonsin and M?" which is a relatively major intersection. She agreed and the brits were on there way.
Once you sort of have an opening with someone it's much easier to start a conversation so I noted that I never really go to Georgetown because i'd have to ride my bike there and I'm too lazy to do that. Then from there we had a conversation going and she explained to me how the DC bus system is run really well and that people who need to get their lunch break are dispatched relief drivers and that as a result no one ever misses their lunch. Then I was able to ask her about if buses were slower in the summer and she told me they definetely were because of all the toursits, either asking for directions, or even just the amount of jaywalking builds up. Not to mention the delays from the presidential/diplomatic convoys which freeze Connecticut Avenue regularly. She told me that when a bus passes you it's probably cause a bus behind them caught up and that when the buses run on time the schedule makes it so less standing crowds form.
I think by this point we were cool and she ended up telling me that she used to be a dean at a college and got laid off so she was driving buses. She'd majored in English as an undergrad and had two masters degrees in organizational management and some other business admin related field. She used to teach classes at her school in VA and was in the process of studying for her PhD in organizational management. She lamented that people treated bus drivers like they were dumb and lacked education without knowing the whole story.
I told her that her story was super indicative of 2010. Well educated folks, working to get even more well educated, stuck working random jobs to make ends meet and that she should really consider writing a book or something about her experiences. She got kind of excited and started saying how there were a lot of parralels with her education and her current work because "management is getting people to do what you want for your goals" and that as a bus driver she still has to do this with her passengers. I said something like "yeah you have to be, ok you have to get off the bus... cause it's the end of the line" and she found it hilarious and said now she really does want to start writing about it. I really hope she does and I'm gonna keep an eye out for it.
Woo talking to strangers!
Friday, June 4, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
I should update this more
I'm in a coffee shop in greenwhich village and i haven't been able to use the bathroom because the toilet was clogged and the girl working here was like i can't fix it cause i'm the only one here. So i plunged it for her and after wards realized they were out of toilet paper. Now i have to go somewhere else and i'm not even done with my coffee. FML
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Random Encounters of the Last Few Days
So in the last 4 days these random things have happened to me.
Chilling at a crosswalk with my ipod on and this sorta crazy looking homeless dude starts talkin to me. He mumbled (in a friendly way for a while) and then told me I should power my ipod with a potato. So on one hand it's true that potatoes can make electricity I wonder how many it would take for this to really work. Anyways he was nice.
Walking back from a bar me and two of my house mates say this shorter latino dude down accross the street carrying a big knife. He started to threaten us. It was awkward so we started running and saw a cop and told him what was up. I'm sad it made me take a detour from doing to Don Juan's for some drunk munchie pupusas but at least i didn't get stabbed.
Waiting for Mable and Gloria on 16th and U I was standing in a bus stop for shelter (this was during Snowpocalypse II) and there was this dude in like a german airforce flight suit. We chatted for a while over some ciggarettes he offered me and discussed his previous deployment as a Marine in Iraq and the difficulty of securing the Afghan/Pakistani border. We were in agreement that predator drones would not win the war. He was cool. His name was fred and he was on his way to law school eventually but was just looking for a bar.
Walking around last night I saw some kids throwing ice blocks at cars. They totally broke a cabbie's windshield. The cab driver was furious. When i went to CVS it looked like the cops had caught them but at the same time I thought the kids who did it were wearing all black so iunno.
Just now, at the starbucks I'm sitting in, a guy comes up to me and hes like if you let me use your computer for 10 mintues i'll give you 20 bucks. I was like what are yuo gonna do? and he was like check my email to get some numbers. So I told him i'd do it if he let me type. So he dropped 20 on my laptop and I was like ok lets do this. I was sorta worried he was like a terrorist or something but when we logged on to his hotmail it was all facebook and amazon updates. Anyways we found an email with some phone numbers and it took like 5 minutes and then he left. Easiest 20 I ever made.
Chilling at a crosswalk with my ipod on and this sorta crazy looking homeless dude starts talkin to me. He mumbled (in a friendly way for a while) and then told me I should power my ipod with a potato. So on one hand it's true that potatoes can make electricity I wonder how many it would take for this to really work. Anyways he was nice.
Walking back from a bar me and two of my house mates say this shorter latino dude down accross the street carrying a big knife. He started to threaten us. It was awkward so we started running and saw a cop and told him what was up. I'm sad it made me take a detour from doing to Don Juan's for some drunk munchie pupusas but at least i didn't get stabbed.
Waiting for Mable and Gloria on 16th and U I was standing in a bus stop for shelter (this was during Snowpocalypse II) and there was this dude in like a german airforce flight suit. We chatted for a while over some ciggarettes he offered me and discussed his previous deployment as a Marine in Iraq and the difficulty of securing the Afghan/Pakistani border. We were in agreement that predator drones would not win the war. He was cool. His name was fred and he was on his way to law school eventually but was just looking for a bar.
Walking around last night I saw some kids throwing ice blocks at cars. They totally broke a cabbie's windshield. The cab driver was furious. When i went to CVS it looked like the cops had caught them but at the same time I thought the kids who did it were wearing all black so iunno.
Just now, at the starbucks I'm sitting in, a guy comes up to me and hes like if you let me use your computer for 10 mintues i'll give you 20 bucks. I was like what are yuo gonna do? and he was like check my email to get some numbers. So I told him i'd do it if he let me type. So he dropped 20 on my laptop and I was like ok lets do this. I was sorta worried he was like a terrorist or something but when we logged on to his hotmail it was all facebook and amazon updates. Anyways we found an email with some phone numbers and it took like 5 minutes and then he left. Easiest 20 I ever made.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
merry fishmas! SNOWPOCALYPSE II
I must apologize i've gotten really terrible at updating this, which i'm sure is sort of the way all blogs go. a big part of it is i think my daily life is getting more routine and mundane so there's less and less where i'm like AWESOME I NEED TO BLOG ABOUT THIS. anyways let's see what i can remember from the past week or is it two weeks now?
lesse
monday i had lunch with the girl from the cap event and we were supposed to meet at 1 at union station food court but i got confused and went at noon. excellent. On the plus side i found another taco bell in dc! i've got half a mind to go there during my lunch breaks since the ride is only like 8 minutes but it feels sort of silly to pay the 2 buck fare for the bell. As I was waiting for her I walked around the food court and felt like Don Fannuci from the Godfather part 2 cause everyone was offering me samples of food. For some reason no matter what the food stall it was always bbq chicken?
i think tuesday i went to watch gtown play university of southern florida at verizon center. random i know, but scott (ignats friend) had tix for $4 and that's pretty good four dollar entertainment. it was a big upset too not that i really care. the gtown crowd was really lackluster but their mascot jack, the bulldog, did wear a fetching rugby polo. one of my coworkers is a gtown alum and a pretty hardcore fan and she told me the story of the hoyas and their cheer hoya saxa which means "what stones!" like "what stones our defense are, not allowing a single yard!" what makes it extra geeky is that it's not just latin or greek, it's both.
This weekend was also SNOWPOCALYPSE II which was pretty rad. ESPECIALLY CAUSE I HAVE A 3 DAY FUCKING WEEKEND! but on a more annoying note when i went to buy groceries on thursday (mind you this is only a 2 day storm) fucking everyone panics and stocks up like it's the end of the world. This means no produce, no meat, and waiting at least an hour in line. It's not like when they're snow out you can't go anywhere. Fucking redic. really. mcdonalds is open, so is your beloved chipotle, now stop over reacting and buy a sensible amount. It doesn't help that the cashiers at grocery stores, or stores in general are all at least 4 times slower than in CA. This really makes me wish everyone just did everything on commission. incentive to work faster cause i swear they make a point of not trying and just chatting with their friends like you haven't been waiting for over an hour.
FRIDAY - it started snowing at like 12 so i got to leave work early! man seh! i went to this place called "so's your mom" which is a deli which used to be owned by some new yorker but now by what appears to be a semi fobby korean family. The girl that works there is pretty cute so i might try to eat there more. i'm just sayin. I also felt like it was finally time to buy some booze. I went to this liquor store on the way back to my place since in DC you can't buy liquor in grocery stores. I saw these two very obvious 15 year olds with 1 fake id between the two of them buy a handle of sky, a 5th of smirnoff, and some cranberry juice. I even commented ot the dude working there after they left that there was no way those kids were 21. he said the ID was good so i guess there it goes. Anyways I was feeling mcnulty-y so i wanted to get some Jameson. And i did. and it came with 2 free tumblers. i rule. That night Cynthia from ucla/seng and mables friend had a party. it was like 90's themed and they played all the songs that made me wish i was older in middle school. Those songs were way more fun to dance to. they were still club bangers but they felt like they had more soul. perhaps too much because the speakers got blown out. Either way they had a half keg, some spiced cider, and gratuitous bottles of beer. The wind going there and back was insane. literally had an umbrelly completely horizontal cause thats how the snow was blowing. straight man vs wild.
Saturday was also just madness. The district was pretty much completely covered in snow and there were enourmous snowball fights going on at meridian hill/malcolm x park and dupont circle. Early in the morning I realized that all 3 of our toilets were out of TP so I suited up and made my first brief foray into the madness. Luckily I survived and made it back with 6 rolls. Pete, one of my housemates, let me borrow his spare boots for the trek into the great arctic wilderness. As we ventured out you would see all sorts of cool stuff. The sort of hilly street near my house had a guy skiing on it. That's pretty cool. DCSKI should be like a thing ppl do (maybe SKIDC is better?) I think in cities where it snows a lot people don't all go outside and play but this was essentially record setting snow for DC (twice this winter!) and was really like an awesome public event. Like literally just tons of people walking around outside. It was pretty cool since the snow really flattened out the difference between the sidewalk and the road which is sort of symbolic of how these two spaces are designated for different things (vehicles v ppl) but since this line was covered in ice everyone just walked in the street. The occasional car would go by but this felt really old school in that the road was for pedestrians and the odd vehicle which i guess would have been a horse drawn carriage back in the day.
It really speaks to the isolating effect of cars. You dont' really see the people in your community, you just drive your enclosed metal shell, listening to your own music, and doing your best not to make eye contact with others cause it's awkward.
Meridian Hill/Malcolm X park was pretty sweet. Lots of dogs, people playing football, making snowmen, and at the end there was at least a 400 person snowball fight ongoing. The steps at the end of the park had iced over and people were sledding/skiing/ snowboarding down them. It was pretty amazing, there were lines and people cheering. Def some empty beer cans cause this was essentially the snowpocalypse and the rule of law had been weakened. Pete and I did see this one guy just slide down like 6 steps without losing his footing, while talking on the phone, as if nothing happened. It was amazing. we wondered if he'd been practicing it all day waiting for someone to be around to see him.
There was also this awesome dog that was really into digging and rubbing herself on this one patch of snow. Like it was cute and awesome cause when dogs dig they get really into it and she was just rolling in it in such a omgimsohappyway. I'm pretty sure it was yellow snow though because you could see the color difference and dogs do that kinda shit. I didn't want to tell the owner cause she was too amused and my worry whethere thats normal dog behavior or if her dog was just deviant and in to rolling in pissy snow.
dupont circle was even crazier. There was an estimated 3-4k people there and they were engaging in like old school snowball warfare. dupont circle has 3 rings, the inner one is the park area with the fountain, then there's one lane, a sidewalk, and another lane. On the northern edge/connecticut ave you had those three rings with the two inside being the most intense. People were just yelling and throwing snowballs at each other. It was largely the two outer rings vs the inner one. Once in a while someone woudl just scream and charge and it would lead to a battle in the lane until they'd had enough and would go back to their lines to throw. I bet this is what neadrathal warfare was like. Before language all you could do was yell. I bet this is what it looked like when one tribe tried to take over anothers camp. Lots of yelling and throwing and disorginazation. Cars would drive through and everyone would just go nuts and throw hella snowballs at them. This looked like it shocked some people while you could tell others were driving through for that reason exactly. Neither fire trucks nor police cars were spared. It was like innocuous civil unrest. One SUV had these dudes that were opening their windows and egging people on. One other angry asian dude opened his window and this girl pegged him. He got mad and got out to retaliate but she was really owning him and like dodged, pegged him back, and when he got back in his car threw and even bigger piece of snow that got throw the window. It was awkward cause you could tell this man felt like his pride and maniless were being super challenged but he was just getting owned and couldn't assert his dominance. There was also this accord driving by and had a hardcore looking cholo dude in there. After his car got snowballed he rolled down his window slowly, revealing the teardrop tattoos under his eye and made a slow look around of "who the fuck was that?" i was pretty scared cause i was only 5 ft away and he looked like he meant bidness.
Pete and I met up with Valerie and then Alex and went to Z-Burger in Tenleytown which was quite a trek but they were doing a promotion where if there was more than a foot of snow burgers were only a dollar. Sadly pete and val paid full price cause this didn't apply to the veggie burgers. They wer dank and shit and tasted almost like in and out. Afterwards we went back to the house and watched the BBC documentary clever monkeys which was pretty badass then the men who stare at goats which sucked.
God this is long.
Yesterday was superbowl sunday!!! WHO DAT? WHO DAY? WHO DAT SAY DEY GON BEAT DEM SAINTS?! America's underdog won!!! I dont' understand how so many ucla girls can love reggie bush. He's the fucking enemy. He went to u$c and i'll never cheer for him. I still wanted the saints to win so i was happy. We went to Scott's friend's house and I ate insane amounts of chips and wings. The superbowl for me is cheeto day. I fucking love cheetos but rarely eat them. On the superbowl I go all out. Cheetos, nachoes, bean dip, cheese dip, and salsa. That and beer. Lots and lots of beer. Good folks there but there was def a diff group dynamic to hanigng out with a group of middle/upper middle class white kids who aren't hipsters. I'm gonna write an entry on it in a bit but this one has gone on too long.
WHO DAT?
lesse
monday i had lunch with the girl from the cap event and we were supposed to meet at 1 at union station food court but i got confused and went at noon. excellent. On the plus side i found another taco bell in dc! i've got half a mind to go there during my lunch breaks since the ride is only like 8 minutes but it feels sort of silly to pay the 2 buck fare for the bell. As I was waiting for her I walked around the food court and felt like Don Fannuci from the Godfather part 2 cause everyone was offering me samples of food. For some reason no matter what the food stall it was always bbq chicken?
i think tuesday i went to watch gtown play university of southern florida at verizon center. random i know, but scott (ignats friend) had tix for $4 and that's pretty good four dollar entertainment. it was a big upset too not that i really care. the gtown crowd was really lackluster but their mascot jack, the bulldog, did wear a fetching rugby polo. one of my coworkers is a gtown alum and a pretty hardcore fan and she told me the story of the hoyas and their cheer hoya saxa which means "what stones!" like "what stones our defense are, not allowing a single yard!" what makes it extra geeky is that it's not just latin or greek, it's both.
This weekend was also SNOWPOCALYPSE II which was pretty rad. ESPECIALLY CAUSE I HAVE A 3 DAY FUCKING WEEKEND! but on a more annoying note when i went to buy groceries on thursday (mind you this is only a 2 day storm) fucking everyone panics and stocks up like it's the end of the world. This means no produce, no meat, and waiting at least an hour in line. It's not like when they're snow out you can't go anywhere. Fucking redic. really. mcdonalds is open, so is your beloved chipotle, now stop over reacting and buy a sensible amount. It doesn't help that the cashiers at grocery stores, or stores in general are all at least 4 times slower than in CA. This really makes me wish everyone just did everything on commission. incentive to work faster cause i swear they make a point of not trying and just chatting with their friends like you haven't been waiting for over an hour.
FRIDAY - it started snowing at like 12 so i got to leave work early! man seh! i went to this place called "so's your mom" which is a deli which used to be owned by some new yorker but now by what appears to be a semi fobby korean family. The girl that works there is pretty cute so i might try to eat there more. i'm just sayin. I also felt like it was finally time to buy some booze. I went to this liquor store on the way back to my place since in DC you can't buy liquor in grocery stores. I saw these two very obvious 15 year olds with 1 fake id between the two of them buy a handle of sky, a 5th of smirnoff, and some cranberry juice. I even commented ot the dude working there after they left that there was no way those kids were 21. he said the ID was good so i guess there it goes. Anyways I was feeling mcnulty-y so i wanted to get some Jameson. And i did. and it came with 2 free tumblers. i rule. That night Cynthia from ucla/seng and mables friend had a party. it was like 90's themed and they played all the songs that made me wish i was older in middle school. Those songs were way more fun to dance to. they were still club bangers but they felt like they had more soul. perhaps too much because the speakers got blown out. Either way they had a half keg, some spiced cider, and gratuitous bottles of beer. The wind going there and back was insane. literally had an umbrelly completely horizontal cause thats how the snow was blowing. straight man vs wild.
Saturday was also just madness. The district was pretty much completely covered in snow and there were enourmous snowball fights going on at meridian hill/malcolm x park and dupont circle. Early in the morning I realized that all 3 of our toilets were out of TP so I suited up and made my first brief foray into the madness. Luckily I survived and made it back with 6 rolls. Pete, one of my housemates, let me borrow his spare boots for the trek into the great arctic wilderness. As we ventured out you would see all sorts of cool stuff. The sort of hilly street near my house had a guy skiing on it. That's pretty cool. DCSKI should be like a thing ppl do (maybe SKIDC is better?) I think in cities where it snows a lot people don't all go outside and play but this was essentially record setting snow for DC (twice this winter!) and was really like an awesome public event. Like literally just tons of people walking around outside. It was pretty cool since the snow really flattened out the difference between the sidewalk and the road which is sort of symbolic of how these two spaces are designated for different things (vehicles v ppl) but since this line was covered in ice everyone just walked in the street. The occasional car would go by but this felt really old school in that the road was for pedestrians and the odd vehicle which i guess would have been a horse drawn carriage back in the day.
It really speaks to the isolating effect of cars. You dont' really see the people in your community, you just drive your enclosed metal shell, listening to your own music, and doing your best not to make eye contact with others cause it's awkward.
Meridian Hill/Malcolm X park was pretty sweet. Lots of dogs, people playing football, making snowmen, and at the end there was at least a 400 person snowball fight ongoing. The steps at the end of the park had iced over and people were sledding/skiing/ snowboarding down them. It was pretty amazing, there were lines and people cheering. Def some empty beer cans cause this was essentially the snowpocalypse and the rule of law had been weakened. Pete and I did see this one guy just slide down like 6 steps without losing his footing, while talking on the phone, as if nothing happened. It was amazing. we wondered if he'd been practicing it all day waiting for someone to be around to see him.
There was also this awesome dog that was really into digging and rubbing herself on this one patch of snow. Like it was cute and awesome cause when dogs dig they get really into it and she was just rolling in it in such a omgimsohappyway. I'm pretty sure it was yellow snow though because you could see the color difference and dogs do that kinda shit. I didn't want to tell the owner cause she was too amused and my worry whethere thats normal dog behavior or if her dog was just deviant and in to rolling in pissy snow.
dupont circle was even crazier. There was an estimated 3-4k people there and they were engaging in like old school snowball warfare. dupont circle has 3 rings, the inner one is the park area with the fountain, then there's one lane, a sidewalk, and another lane. On the northern edge/connecticut ave you had those three rings with the two inside being the most intense. People were just yelling and throwing snowballs at each other. It was largely the two outer rings vs the inner one. Once in a while someone woudl just scream and charge and it would lead to a battle in the lane until they'd had enough and would go back to their lines to throw. I bet this is what neadrathal warfare was like. Before language all you could do was yell. I bet this is what it looked like when one tribe tried to take over anothers camp. Lots of yelling and throwing and disorginazation. Cars would drive through and everyone would just go nuts and throw hella snowballs at them. This looked like it shocked some people while you could tell others were driving through for that reason exactly. Neither fire trucks nor police cars were spared. It was like innocuous civil unrest. One SUV had these dudes that were opening their windows and egging people on. One other angry asian dude opened his window and this girl pegged him. He got mad and got out to retaliate but she was really owning him and like dodged, pegged him back, and when he got back in his car threw and even bigger piece of snow that got throw the window. It was awkward cause you could tell this man felt like his pride and maniless were being super challenged but he was just getting owned and couldn't assert his dominance. There was also this accord driving by and had a hardcore looking cholo dude in there. After his car got snowballed he rolled down his window slowly, revealing the teardrop tattoos under his eye and made a slow look around of "who the fuck was that?" i was pretty scared cause i was only 5 ft away and he looked like he meant bidness.
Pete and I met up with Valerie and then Alex and went to Z-Burger in Tenleytown which was quite a trek but they were doing a promotion where if there was more than a foot of snow burgers were only a dollar. Sadly pete and val paid full price cause this didn't apply to the veggie burgers. They wer dank and shit and tasted almost like in and out. Afterwards we went back to the house and watched the BBC documentary clever monkeys which was pretty badass then the men who stare at goats which sucked.
God this is long.
Yesterday was superbowl sunday!!! WHO DAT? WHO DAY? WHO DAT SAY DEY GON BEAT DEM SAINTS?! America's underdog won!!! I dont' understand how so many ucla girls can love reggie bush. He's the fucking enemy. He went to u$c and i'll never cheer for him. I still wanted the saints to win so i was happy. We went to Scott's friend's house and I ate insane amounts of chips and wings. The superbowl for me is cheeto day. I fucking love cheetos but rarely eat them. On the superbowl I go all out. Cheetos, nachoes, bean dip, cheese dip, and salsa. That and beer. Lots and lots of beer. Good folks there but there was def a diff group dynamic to hanigng out with a group of middle/upper middle class white kids who aren't hipsters. I'm gonna write an entry on it in a bit but this one has gone on too long.
WHO DAT?
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Goobelygook
Yes yes ya'll gonna continue with the blog ya'll...
hmm I'm not exactly sure where i left off so if i forget something it may simply not be worth remembering. Let's see:
The greek deli makes crazy ass beef stroganoff. One "small order" is easily two meals MADNESS. It was amazing. I want some right now.
There's these tents that sell food across from the safeway here. It's mostly Salvadoran food cause the empanadas and tacos i had sort of sucked but the pupusas were awesome. I think i ordered the gringo ass options. I saw everyone else got the chicharron and yuca so i guess i'll get that next time.
So I finally got to hang out with the girl i met a month ago at the center for american progress thing. It was chill, she drove me around MD which is her home area. The geography of everything is just so diff. Like it's all brick and the houses are far apart. University of Maryland is really spread out. Not UCSC spread out but here you can see it all where Santa Cruz is sort of islands in a forest so it's not as noticable. We ate at a Fuddruckers cause she was suprised I'd never been to one. She's pretty cool, sorta goofy, sings a lot and appreciated R Kelly's masterpiece "Real Talk." Afterwards we went to this bar/restaurant to meet some of her friends. They weren't there yet so we were kicking it and she told me how her dad was like some super badass back in El Salvador and had some really cool nicknames that I'm forgetting. One of her friends did come and he was sort of standoffish at first but after I threw in some sort of funny jokes he seemed to come around. The DJ played a lot of 80's including "Nothing but Flowers" by the Talking Heads. Great Song. The beer there was ok, they tried to reproduce a lot of western beers but couldn't really nail it.
We got a new legal intern at work so I'm no longer alone in the hallway. He's cool. we're def less productive as a tandem cause we talk too much.
Saturday night I hung out with CatMan's friend Arlene. First we went to the Heights and I got the gumbo which was way better than the chum they fed me, andy and wayne. Afterwards I went home to shower cause I'd just gone to the gym. Arlene told me to text her when I was done getting manpretty which I thought was funny. I met back up with her and we went to her friends house. They were def super hipsterish but nice people. One of them, named Aurora or something totally lives in the apt behind my house and apparently went to Paly. We hung out there and polished off a bottle of jameson jimmy mcnulty style (not really, we used pepsi). They had a cat who's pretty skittish. I was able to pet him a few times but he was overall not down for the petting. We went from there to this super hipster party. Let me stop and say that it's been a while since a real Hipster party for me. between the ucla radio stuff and a few scattered ucsc ones I've kind of been to a lot of these now. They can be characterized by a few things in my mind: 1. obviously lots of hipsters 2. a crowded as talking room. 3. semi empty dance floor. 4. Music is never top 40 but is usually a mix between popular hip hop, michael jackson, 90's r&b and maybe a few actual hipster songs. I think since everyone hates on everyone else's music the safe choices end up being the ones everyone their age listens too, whether it's as a "isn't this ironic we like this too" mood or more direct enjoyment. They did have a keg tho and i still like people even if they're hipsters if they're good people. They wouldn't play anything besides slow carribean dance music tho so it got sort of old. On the way home I stopped at this place called Don Juans. Another Salvadoran(while saying it's also Mexican place). For $7 I got a combo with a chicken burrito, pupusa and enchilada. Kinda madness. I chatted with the kid who worked there for a while and then went home ate it and watched commando.
commando deserves it's own paragraph really. shit is 25 years old. Straight up 1985 release. This was way before anyone ever imagined that Arnold (john matrix [really it was matrix wtf]) could ever be governor. All his lines are terrible and there is zero character development. His villian is just some random guy who was apparently a former member of arnold's unit and holds a grudge for some reason. Arnold shoots like 60 ppl, all while shooting from the hip with various fully automatic weapons. It's crazy how much more we demand from our action movies now. There just has to be way more complex cinematography and at least an attempt at character development to really make it today.
Sunday was chill. One of the guys who lives here's parents were in town from houston. They bought us Dominos which, btw the commercials are not lying about, it is waaay better (still not like great but it's totally edible) and boxed wine. They also made root beer floats which I was unable to partake in. We played Wario Ware with his parents which was pretty funny. After they left we got pretty buzzed and watched the emperor's new groove. not a bad movie, it's got the guy who does Brock from the venture bros, john goodman, and david spade. The football games were pretty nuts too.
I had to use the eggs i had left over cause they were gonna go bad so I made a scramble. It was orignally intended to be an omlette but when you use half an onion, 4 pieces of brocolli, and two pieces of turkey balogna, 3 eggs aren't enough. It came out really good and reminded me of the Hobo Omlette at Teddy's Cafe in West LA. Sigh. Halcyon days to be sure.
Did anyone notice how long the mass effect 2 commercial was? it was like a fucking minute long. swear. they muse have spent hella money on that spot. I know it's not the superbowl but this has to be one of the most watched games of the year anyways.
I finally uploaded all the dc/nyc pics. Dogs in Sweaters in New York was a big success!
This entry is getting way too long but 1 more event! I went to a Yelp Elite event today on U st. It was pretty cool. Open bar, oysters, beef puffs, creamy cheese eggrolls, hummus, and belly dancer. It was pretty awkward being by myself at first. I eventually just went up to a table and introduced myself and said I didn't know anyone here. The girl I was standing next to pretended to fain. I sorta just stared the first time, then she was like"you were supposed to catch me" so she did it again and I awkwardly caught her. It was awkward. She introduced me to some other folks then dissapeared. I met two ppl who were like consultants for software architecture, which to me sounds pretty fancy but they insisted it wasn't. They funny thing about yelp event is you know you can talk to all the strangers about food cause they're gonna be into it, otherwise they wouldn't be there. I met these other two girls, one of whom was going to LA for a friends wedding and I got excited and told her to check out some places. I had to write my name on her hand so she could friend me on yelp and get the downlow. It was funny cause her friend totally whispered to someone in that "I think he can't see me whispering" way that girls do. One of the girls that works for yelp is a UCSC senior and doing UCDC which was super random. We're going to hang out at some point which should be chill. Woo yelp in a new town
anyways i leave you with this vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lbtR-Vm6nQ&feature=player_embedded
hmm I'm not exactly sure where i left off so if i forget something it may simply not be worth remembering. Let's see:
The greek deli makes crazy ass beef stroganoff. One "small order" is easily two meals MADNESS. It was amazing. I want some right now.
There's these tents that sell food across from the safeway here. It's mostly Salvadoran food cause the empanadas and tacos i had sort of sucked but the pupusas were awesome. I think i ordered the gringo ass options. I saw everyone else got the chicharron and yuca so i guess i'll get that next time.
So I finally got to hang out with the girl i met a month ago at the center for american progress thing. It was chill, she drove me around MD which is her home area. The geography of everything is just so diff. Like it's all brick and the houses are far apart. University of Maryland is really spread out. Not UCSC spread out but here you can see it all where Santa Cruz is sort of islands in a forest so it's not as noticable. We ate at a Fuddruckers cause she was suprised I'd never been to one. She's pretty cool, sorta goofy, sings a lot and appreciated R Kelly's masterpiece "Real Talk." Afterwards we went to this bar/restaurant to meet some of her friends. They weren't there yet so we were kicking it and she told me how her dad was like some super badass back in El Salvador and had some really cool nicknames that I'm forgetting. One of her friends did come and he was sort of standoffish at first but after I threw in some sort of funny jokes he seemed to come around. The DJ played a lot of 80's including "Nothing but Flowers" by the Talking Heads. Great Song. The beer there was ok, they tried to reproduce a lot of western beers but couldn't really nail it.
We got a new legal intern at work so I'm no longer alone in the hallway. He's cool. we're def less productive as a tandem cause we talk too much.
Saturday night I hung out with CatMan's friend Arlene. First we went to the Heights and I got the gumbo which was way better than the chum they fed me, andy and wayne. Afterwards I went home to shower cause I'd just gone to the gym. Arlene told me to text her when I was done getting manpretty which I thought was funny. I met back up with her and we went to her friends house. They were def super hipsterish but nice people. One of them, named Aurora or something totally lives in the apt behind my house and apparently went to Paly. We hung out there and polished off a bottle of jameson jimmy mcnulty style (not really, we used pepsi). They had a cat who's pretty skittish. I was able to pet him a few times but he was overall not down for the petting. We went from there to this super hipster party. Let me stop and say that it's been a while since a real Hipster party for me. between the ucla radio stuff and a few scattered ucsc ones I've kind of been to a lot of these now. They can be characterized by a few things in my mind: 1. obviously lots of hipsters 2. a crowded as talking room. 3. semi empty dance floor. 4. Music is never top 40 but is usually a mix between popular hip hop, michael jackson, 90's r&b and maybe a few actual hipster songs. I think since everyone hates on everyone else's music the safe choices end up being the ones everyone their age listens too, whether it's as a "isn't this ironic we like this too" mood or more direct enjoyment. They did have a keg tho and i still like people even if they're hipsters if they're good people. They wouldn't play anything besides slow carribean dance music tho so it got sort of old. On the way home I stopped at this place called Don Juans. Another Salvadoran(while saying it's also Mexican place). For $7 I got a combo with a chicken burrito, pupusa and enchilada. Kinda madness. I chatted with the kid who worked there for a while and then went home ate it and watched commando.
commando deserves it's own paragraph really. shit is 25 years old. Straight up 1985 release. This was way before anyone ever imagined that Arnold (john matrix [really it was matrix wtf]) could ever be governor. All his lines are terrible and there is zero character development. His villian is just some random guy who was apparently a former member of arnold's unit and holds a grudge for some reason. Arnold shoots like 60 ppl, all while shooting from the hip with various fully automatic weapons. It's crazy how much more we demand from our action movies now. There just has to be way more complex cinematography and at least an attempt at character development to really make it today.
Sunday was chill. One of the guys who lives here's parents were in town from houston. They bought us Dominos which, btw the commercials are not lying about, it is waaay better (still not like great but it's totally edible) and boxed wine. They also made root beer floats which I was unable to partake in. We played Wario Ware with his parents which was pretty funny. After they left we got pretty buzzed and watched the emperor's new groove. not a bad movie, it's got the guy who does Brock from the venture bros, john goodman, and david spade. The football games were pretty nuts too.
I had to use the eggs i had left over cause they were gonna go bad so I made a scramble. It was orignally intended to be an omlette but when you use half an onion, 4 pieces of brocolli, and two pieces of turkey balogna, 3 eggs aren't enough. It came out really good and reminded me of the Hobo Omlette at Teddy's Cafe in West LA. Sigh. Halcyon days to be sure.
Did anyone notice how long the mass effect 2 commercial was? it was like a fucking minute long. swear. they muse have spent hella money on that spot. I know it's not the superbowl but this has to be one of the most watched games of the year anyways.
I finally uploaded all the dc/nyc pics. Dogs in Sweaters in New York was a big success!
This entry is getting way too long but 1 more event! I went to a Yelp Elite event today on U st. It was pretty cool. Open bar, oysters, beef puffs, creamy cheese eggrolls, hummus, and belly dancer. It was pretty awkward being by myself at first. I eventually just went up to a table and introduced myself and said I didn't know anyone here. The girl I was standing next to pretended to fain. I sorta just stared the first time, then she was like"you were supposed to catch me" so she did it again and I awkwardly caught her. It was awkward. She introduced me to some other folks then dissapeared. I met two ppl who were like consultants for software architecture, which to me sounds pretty fancy but they insisted it wasn't. They funny thing about yelp event is you know you can talk to all the strangers about food cause they're gonna be into it, otherwise they wouldn't be there. I met these other two girls, one of whom was going to LA for a friends wedding and I got excited and told her to check out some places. I had to write my name on her hand so she could friend me on yelp and get the downlow. It was funny cause her friend totally whispered to someone in that "I think he can't see me whispering" way that girls do. One of the girls that works for yelp is a UCSC senior and doing UCDC which was super random. We're going to hang out at some point which should be chill. Woo yelp in a new town
anyways i leave you with this vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lbtR-Vm6nQ&feature=player_embedded
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Boys are Back in Town (for the first time ever? can they really be back then? no)
This weekend I was graced with Weezy, Andy, and Caleb. Wayne is one of my friends from my UCSC days, Andy is part of the OG crew known at the G-Unit, and Caleb is 1/2 of the dynamic native duo of ucla.
On a crazy note this is the first time i've seen Caleb since he was in ICU after breaking his femur, shoulder, wrist, skull(?), and just generally broken up since he was pushed down those stairs and found by the police in westwood. Last time I saw him it had only been like 4 days since the incident and he was pretty heavily medicated. Good to see him out and about now.
So in no particular order this weekend consisted of:
National Treasure 1/2. To commemorate our love of Nick Cage's awesome "acting" and being in DC, we watched Cage steal the Declaration of Independence, find the templar treasure, kidnap POTUS (pres of US), and find the hidden city of gold. Sadly part two didn't really have much of Cage being ridiculous.
Air and Space Museum. The space stuff is super cool. I'd love to be an astronaut but I would def crap my pants during lift off and reentry. No joke. But to be weightless and just do that would be so incredibly cool. I would trade a kidney possibly for the chance. I like looking at the space suits and comparing the differences between the Russian and US ones. The museum's treatment of Gagarin is pretty good, I expected more flag thumping but they really just treated it as another awesome human achievement. It's awesome that the smithsonians are free.
Football. lots of playoff football. and beer. and bar food. really too much. We didn't drink that much when we went out cause me and andy were sick but still over the course of the weekend kind of a lot. We went to a variety of bars and the best was Ben's next door which is next door (shocking!) to the famous Ben's Chili Bowl. Good vibe there, good beer, nice staff. Ben's CHili Bowl was pretty solid too. Nothing revolutionary but really there's nothing wrong with it. It's all quality but when you stick to a classic recipe these days it just won't cut it with the standards of modern cuisine.
We took some very silly pictures too at the washington monument. look out for them on fb!
Not gonna lie, the room got pretty stuffy with everyone.
Anyways now it's back on the grind but I'm somewhat inspired from the retreat last week. My inner competitiveness wants me to outshine my peers at the other affiliates so let's see if I can really step it up.
On a crazy note this is the first time i've seen Caleb since he was in ICU after breaking his femur, shoulder, wrist, skull(?), and just generally broken up since he was pushed down those stairs and found by the police in westwood. Last time I saw him it had only been like 4 days since the incident and he was pretty heavily medicated. Good to see him out and about now.
So in no particular order this weekend consisted of:
National Treasure 1/2. To commemorate our love of Nick Cage's awesome "acting" and being in DC, we watched Cage steal the Declaration of Independence, find the templar treasure, kidnap POTUS (pres of US), and find the hidden city of gold. Sadly part two didn't really have much of Cage being ridiculous.
Air and Space Museum. The space stuff is super cool. I'd love to be an astronaut but I would def crap my pants during lift off and reentry. No joke. But to be weightless and just do that would be so incredibly cool. I would trade a kidney possibly for the chance. I like looking at the space suits and comparing the differences between the Russian and US ones. The museum's treatment of Gagarin is pretty good, I expected more flag thumping but they really just treated it as another awesome human achievement. It's awesome that the smithsonians are free.
Football. lots of playoff football. and beer. and bar food. really too much. We didn't drink that much when we went out cause me and andy were sick but still over the course of the weekend kind of a lot. We went to a variety of bars and the best was Ben's next door which is next door (shocking!) to the famous Ben's Chili Bowl. Good vibe there, good beer, nice staff. Ben's CHili Bowl was pretty solid too. Nothing revolutionary but really there's nothing wrong with it. It's all quality but when you stick to a classic recipe these days it just won't cut it with the standards of modern cuisine.
We took some very silly pictures too at the washington monument. look out for them on fb!
Not gonna lie, the room got pretty stuffy with everyone.
Anyways now it's back on the grind but I'm somewhat inspired from the retreat last week. My inner competitiveness wants me to outshine my peers at the other affiliates so let's see if I can really step it up.
The Right Amount of Mayo
Ready for some truth? Some knowledge?
We like mayo. more than we'd like to admit. It's the most direct way of adding creaminess and richness to food short of straight up butter. Basically mayo adds fat which is why mayo adds tastiness.
But the thing with mayo is when we make ourselves sandwiches we never use enough to really make the sandwich as good as we can. At least taste-wise. I think there's a latent desire to eat healthy, perhaps subconsciously understanding that this is bad for you, maybe because it's so instinctively good for you. You might even put more than you think you should but it still won't be as much as the restaurant or the deli.
The truth is the real amount of mayo they put is a pretty horrific amount, more than you think you could ever want. But when you eat it, despite it being so rich and creamy as to be a little gross, you love it. It's better than you could have done cause you'd never let yourself have that much mayo.
The right amount of mayo is just a bit more than what you want.
We like mayo. more than we'd like to admit. It's the most direct way of adding creaminess and richness to food short of straight up butter. Basically mayo adds fat which is why mayo adds tastiness.
But the thing with mayo is when we make ourselves sandwiches we never use enough to really make the sandwich as good as we can. At least taste-wise. I think there's a latent desire to eat healthy, perhaps subconsciously understanding that this is bad for you, maybe because it's so instinctively good for you. You might even put more than you think you should but it still won't be as much as the restaurant or the deli.
The truth is the real amount of mayo they put is a pretty horrific amount, more than you think you could ever want. But when you eat it, despite it being so rich and creamy as to be a little gross, you love it. It's better than you could have done cause you'd never let yourself have that much mayo.
The right amount of mayo is just a bit more than what you want.
Monday, January 18, 2010
home is where the comfy bed is
sorry to those of you who read this since i've been slow on the updating bidness..
anyways! i got to go home this week! WOOO!!! The east coast really makes me feel significantly more homesick than LA did. Part of it is not having one of my best friends from home as a roommate but really it's just different out here, plus no car, no hdtv, no video games, no tkd/shorinji and my crappy dc bed really make home seem so appealing.
The place where I work (the Asian American Justice Center) has yearly retreats with it's affiliates in SF (ALC), LA (APALC), and Chicago (AAI). For those of you that have done organizing you know that retreat is really just code for 2 day meeting. And that it was. But really it was awesome. I got to go home tuesday morning, have the day to chill with friends and fam, go to tae kwon do, and then do the retreat things from 8:30-5ish on wed and thurs. This meant I got to sleep at home which was fucking awesome because i'm pretty sick of twin beds, shitty comforters, and crappy pillows. Every minute of sleep i got in my own bed felt like it was worth 3 minutes on my DC one. At home we watched some movies, Old Boy on blu-ray, the princess bride, and a failed attempt at seeing avatar which was sold out despite being a 10pm showing on a thursday after it'd already been out for like 2 weeks...
The retreat was cool. It was really nice meeting the folks I work with but only hear on conference calls. Everyone was pretty nice and we mostly talked about things that didn't really pertain to me. I got to facilitate one of the activities which was neat cause I felt like it was really something that let me use the skills i gained in college. We were also given pretty good food. It was interesting seeing how the different offices have different cultures and specialties. At AAJC we don't do direct service and the other offices do a lot. I sort of wish I got to do more of that kind of stuff but AAJC is good experience. Maybe after a little while I can try to move to one of the diff affiliates so i get a more rounded view of the API legal scene. Awkwardly i think i met the person who got the job in sf i wanted. o well, turns out i knew her, she's cool and stuff so w/e.
During one of the lunch breaks we went to the ferry building which has all these cool little shops and had a couple of oysters. I also got the chance to try this place that my dad told me about which is only open on thursdays at lunch called 4505 meats and had this awesome thing called the zilla dog. it was basically a hot dog with hot sauce, kimchee and chicarrones. Yea. It was awesome.
In other news virgin airlines is pretty sweet. wifi and power outlets. chipotle in dulles has breakfast burritos that arent' very good. i miss my bed.
Weezy and Andy are over this weekend, i'll write about it later but its late so yeaaa
anyways! i got to go home this week! WOOO!!! The east coast really makes me feel significantly more homesick than LA did. Part of it is not having one of my best friends from home as a roommate but really it's just different out here, plus no car, no hdtv, no video games, no tkd/shorinji and my crappy dc bed really make home seem so appealing.
The place where I work (the Asian American Justice Center) has yearly retreats with it's affiliates in SF (ALC), LA (APALC), and Chicago (AAI). For those of you that have done organizing you know that retreat is really just code for 2 day meeting. And that it was. But really it was awesome. I got to go home tuesday morning, have the day to chill with friends and fam, go to tae kwon do, and then do the retreat things from 8:30-5ish on wed and thurs. This meant I got to sleep at home which was fucking awesome because i'm pretty sick of twin beds, shitty comforters, and crappy pillows. Every minute of sleep i got in my own bed felt like it was worth 3 minutes on my DC one. At home we watched some movies, Old Boy on blu-ray, the princess bride, and a failed attempt at seeing avatar which was sold out despite being a 10pm showing on a thursday after it'd already been out for like 2 weeks...
The retreat was cool. It was really nice meeting the folks I work with but only hear on conference calls. Everyone was pretty nice and we mostly talked about things that didn't really pertain to me. I got to facilitate one of the activities which was neat cause I felt like it was really something that let me use the skills i gained in college. We were also given pretty good food. It was interesting seeing how the different offices have different cultures and specialties. At AAJC we don't do direct service and the other offices do a lot. I sort of wish I got to do more of that kind of stuff but AAJC is good experience. Maybe after a little while I can try to move to one of the diff affiliates so i get a more rounded view of the API legal scene. Awkwardly i think i met the person who got the job in sf i wanted. o well, turns out i knew her, she's cool and stuff so w/e.
During one of the lunch breaks we went to the ferry building which has all these cool little shops and had a couple of oysters. I also got the chance to try this place that my dad told me about which is only open on thursdays at lunch called 4505 meats and had this awesome thing called the zilla dog. it was basically a hot dog with hot sauce, kimchee and chicarrones. Yea. It was awesome.
In other news virgin airlines is pretty sweet. wifi and power outlets. chipotle in dulles has breakfast burritos that arent' very good. i miss my bed.
Weezy and Andy are over this weekend, i'll write about it later but its late so yeaaa
Sunday, January 10, 2010
I call shenanigans on the taco bell commercial
I'm calling shenanigans on the taco bell commercial with the guy looking for the "inside deal" on some burrito. When was the last time you saw a group of pretty young white girls working at a taco bell? fucking never is the answer. I'm just sayin...
In other news...
Friday i went out at night with Sarah for her roomie's bday and met scott who is one of ignat's friends. I drunkenly got his number from tori before I left. Raaaandom. It was chill very collegy/top40/etc. Somehow despite being sober on the way home I yakked in the morning... But during my hangover i watched invictus, had pupusas, chorizo and eggs, and the such. I watched the cartoon movie 9 at night which was mad meh status. Invictus wasn't bad but some of the music choice was terrible.
Today I went to watch the Wizards play the Hornets at Verizon Center with Scott and Mable. It was pretty cool, boring first half but it got good in the 2nd. In other news it was a chance for me to wear my ridiculous CP3 mardi gras jersey and I wasn't actually the only person there wearing one. A lot of CP3 fans in general. They had to take down all the gilbert stuff and the team store doesn't even sell his jersey any more. A lot of the folks wearing his jersey had duct tape over his name. No love for gil? I chatted with one of the girls working in the team store and we both felt it wasn't a big deal but i guess David Stern disagrees with us.
The biggest sad thing of the weekend was going to the one legit looking chinese restaurant I've seen in DC. It was terrible. Worst XLB ever. sigh...
In other news...
Friday i went out at night with Sarah for her roomie's bday and met scott who is one of ignat's friends. I drunkenly got his number from tori before I left. Raaaandom. It was chill very collegy/top40/etc. Somehow despite being sober on the way home I yakked in the morning... But during my hangover i watched invictus, had pupusas, chorizo and eggs, and the such. I watched the cartoon movie 9 at night which was mad meh status. Invictus wasn't bad but some of the music choice was terrible.
Today I went to watch the Wizards play the Hornets at Verizon Center with Scott and Mable. It was pretty cool, boring first half but it got good in the 2nd. In other news it was a chance for me to wear my ridiculous CP3 mardi gras jersey and I wasn't actually the only person there wearing one. A lot of CP3 fans in general. They had to take down all the gilbert stuff and the team store doesn't even sell his jersey any more. A lot of the folks wearing his jersey had duct tape over his name. No love for gil? I chatted with one of the girls working in the team store and we both felt it wasn't a big deal but i guess David Stern disagrees with us.
The biggest sad thing of the weekend was going to the one legit looking chinese restaurant I've seen in DC. It was terrible. Worst XLB ever. sigh...
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Ready for a long rambly entry?!
haven't updated this in a while but here we go:
Last night in NYC there was a dinner at Thuy's sisters house. Her roomate Carol is a straight master chef. She made ribs, giant meatballs with shrimp in them, and this awesome shrimpy yellow ricey thing. Dinner was off the hook. I also got my first fix of call of duty in a while. Carol is a pretty legit gamer and has a 360 and an ps3. I'm positive she'd own me in MW2 and from her description gears of war too. It was a really chill night. Susan has a cool dog named butter who was quite the plump pup after staying with a friend. Friends usually overfeed dogs they're taking care of because it's more fun. Butter is actually the mom of Jael which is Thuy and Van's dog. The ride back to DC and the first day were pretty uneventful. It felt good to sleep on a bed again after 2 weeks on a couch.
-------------
Now for some less chronological stuff.
You know that John Derulo Imogen heap song? the message is pretty funny if you listen to it. Basically he says "I'm sorry for cheating on you but I'm gonna be rich one day so don't leave me. How romantic. Anyways I like the idea of him being in a house and having the roof cave in and him panic and yell "I cheated on you!"
I love getting haircuts from Mexican barbers. Compared to the places I'd been getting my hair cut, they always take hella time lining you up and making all the fades straight and even. I really like the attention to detail. I got my hair cut on columbia rd at Victors hair salon. The man himself cut my hair and did the whole straight blade and like rubbing alcohol thing. That's def gonna be my DC spot.
Tried to make chicken and broccoli the other day. Massive fail. Soggy broc. Overdone and flavorless chicken. BBQ sauce to the rescue. Sweet Baby Ray's makes it ok!
After my 5 meals a day pace in NYC I came back and joined a gym. On the plus side they're new years promotions so i get January free. I'm gonna try to be hardcore and wake up at 6:30 and go in the morning. My rationale is the following: when I come home from work I'm tired and lazy, esp after I cook. If I were to go before cooking I'd be too hungry. Shit's always packed at that time too. Supposedly your metabolism is higher when you work out earlier in the day. (according to Dennis) I like shooting around and there's always people playing full court at night. I joined monday. went tuesday night, wed morning, thurs morning, maybe tomm morning. Might take it off tho because I'm pretty sore everywhere.
I went to a Brazilian place with Mable, Seng, and Yan. Got my fejoada on. I should learn to make that.
Yesterday was super sports day! WARRIORS WON. UCLA WON. FAKERS LOST. U$C LOST.
It really doesn't get any better than that.
On woot.com I bought these ridiculous tripod flashlights. Kinda cool. Kinda too much. Woot is truly the site of impulse shopping. It's cheap and forgetable and when it comes you're like "why the hell did I buy this... oh well it's only $10?" It's the closest thing you can do to buying yourself a surprise present
I was listening to THE FINAL COUNTDOWN on the bus today and it's such a ridiculous song. Especially for the bus where everyone is trying their best to look at the least boring and at worst slightly hostile. I kinda wished they could all hear it but on the other hand the contrast might have been funnier. Something about the bus in motion even feels sort of spaceship like. We're heading to venus!
Just got my Arrested Development on. It's still just as funny.
I'm super sad because I finished the Wire. It was just so good you wanted it to never end.
I was at work for 10 hours today trying to get package of 100 folders for a conference ready so we can mail it to florida tomorrow. woooo
BTW I'm going home on tuesady! The annual affiliate retreat (two day long meeting) between my office, apalc, alc, and aai is in SF! So Tuesday morning I'm flying home. Got the whole day, then retreat from 8-5 on wed and thurs but the nights are mine! I'm actually pretty excited as I'm more homesick than I thought I'd be, I'm def further away and not with as food friends as say LA or SC. Not to rag on my friends here but it's not the homeboys.
Finally early front runner for video of the year is andy roddick at a zoo with koala's having intense tree sex behind him. When VH1 does their "I love 2010" show this will be on there.
Last night in NYC there was a dinner at Thuy's sisters house. Her roomate Carol is a straight master chef. She made ribs, giant meatballs with shrimp in them, and this awesome shrimpy yellow ricey thing. Dinner was off the hook. I also got my first fix of call of duty in a while. Carol is a pretty legit gamer and has a 360 and an ps3. I'm positive she'd own me in MW2 and from her description gears of war too. It was a really chill night. Susan has a cool dog named butter who was quite the plump pup after staying with a friend. Friends usually overfeed dogs they're taking care of because it's more fun. Butter is actually the mom of Jael which is Thuy and Van's dog. The ride back to DC and the first day were pretty uneventful. It felt good to sleep on a bed again after 2 weeks on a couch.
-------------
Now for some less chronological stuff.
You know that John Derulo Imogen heap song? the message is pretty funny if you listen to it. Basically he says "I'm sorry for cheating on you but I'm gonna be rich one day so don't leave me. How romantic. Anyways I like the idea of him being in a house and having the roof cave in and him panic and yell "I cheated on you!"
I love getting haircuts from Mexican barbers. Compared to the places I'd been getting my hair cut, they always take hella time lining you up and making all the fades straight and even. I really like the attention to detail. I got my hair cut on columbia rd at Victors hair salon. The man himself cut my hair and did the whole straight blade and like rubbing alcohol thing. That's def gonna be my DC spot.
Tried to make chicken and broccoli the other day. Massive fail. Soggy broc. Overdone and flavorless chicken. BBQ sauce to the rescue. Sweet Baby Ray's makes it ok!
After my 5 meals a day pace in NYC I came back and joined a gym. On the plus side they're new years promotions so i get January free. I'm gonna try to be hardcore and wake up at 6:30 and go in the morning. My rationale is the following: when I come home from work I'm tired and lazy, esp after I cook. If I were to go before cooking I'd be too hungry. Shit's always packed at that time too. Supposedly your metabolism is higher when you work out earlier in the day. (according to Dennis) I like shooting around and there's always people playing full court at night. I joined monday. went tuesday night, wed morning, thurs morning, maybe tomm morning. Might take it off tho because I'm pretty sore everywhere.
I went to a Brazilian place with Mable, Seng, and Yan. Got my fejoada on. I should learn to make that.
Yesterday was super sports day! WARRIORS WON. UCLA WON. FAKERS LOST. U$C LOST.
It really doesn't get any better than that.
On woot.com I bought these ridiculous tripod flashlights. Kinda cool. Kinda too much. Woot is truly the site of impulse shopping. It's cheap and forgetable and when it comes you're like "why the hell did I buy this... oh well it's only $10?" It's the closest thing you can do to buying yourself a surprise present
I was listening to THE FINAL COUNTDOWN on the bus today and it's such a ridiculous song. Especially for the bus where everyone is trying their best to look at the least boring and at worst slightly hostile. I kinda wished they could all hear it but on the other hand the contrast might have been funnier. Something about the bus in motion even feels sort of spaceship like. We're heading to venus!
Just got my Arrested Development on. It's still just as funny.
I'm super sad because I finished the Wire. It was just so good you wanted it to never end.
I was at work for 10 hours today trying to get package of 100 folders for a conference ready so we can mail it to florida tomorrow. woooo
BTW I'm going home on tuesady! The annual affiliate retreat (two day long meeting) between my office, apalc, alc, and aai is in SF! So Tuesday morning I'm flying home. Got the whole day, then retreat from 8-5 on wed and thurs but the nights are mine! I'm actually pretty excited as I'm more homesick than I thought I'd be, I'm def further away and not with as food friends as say LA or SC. Not to rag on my friends here but it's not the homeboys.
Finally early front runner for video of the year is andy roddick at a zoo with koala's having intense tree sex behind him. When VH1 does their "I love 2010" show this will be on there.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
10 years ago I was 12 - musings and retrospections on the decade of my adolsence and the cusp of young adulthood
10 Years ago I was 12 years old and a 7th grader at Bowditch middle school in Foster City answering a question about what I was gonna do on Y2K (remember calling it that?) I told the yearbook people that I was going to go looting. I'm still pretty proud of that smartass comment but they censored me and wrote that I planned on "running to the bank." Kinda lacks the edge of the looting broken glass everywhere people pissing in the streets like they just don't care but it got printed anyways.
10 years ago I had just started Tae Kwon Do, my favorite bands were Limp Bizkit, Korn and Metallica. Rap rock/nu-metal was the shit and I was too cool to listen to hip hop. Besides Outkast, whose Stankonia album was my guilty hidden pleasure. Around that time I had green hair, BFD and Not So Silent Night were the highlights of the year and girls were terrifying. My dog Emma was barely out of her puppy years and my Grandpa was still alive.
10 years later I had started the experiment of "finding myself." First in high school when I stopped listening to the radio and went on a hardcore classic rock binge. I started to love doing tech crew at the theatre (rail FTW), and Tae Kwon Do essentially dominated my life. Despite my complete sobriety my long hair and constant sleeping in class made people think I smoked a ton and was sort of a punk? During this time I started to do student government, first mostly because I thought running was fun. I got the chance to make ridiculous posters like "in the land of the whopper, the misha is king" and I would make 40 and they'd all be different and equally ridiculous. It sucks I can't remember more of them. I got the chance to grow and make friendships that I expect to last the duration of my life. From the G-Unit to my teammates ate TKD this really sort of laid the foundation for me. Somehow I ended up being SB Treasurer and some other stuff and I also discovered that I love cars.
"Finding Myself" pt 2 was college, 2 years at UCSC, 2 years at UCLA. It seems too soon to really reflect on it but this was the time for partying. A lot. And traveling, more than I thought I would by this age. Making new friends that I also suspect will be with me for the long run, mostly from ucsc but there's def some LA folks there too. From Wednesday night MESH parties, to my stint in the fraternity world, to the crackin 120 Mountain View days to the 645 Midvale best backyard of your life times college was awesome. From Thailand, Hong Kong, most of Western Europe, to Japan, to Hawai'i, to Shanghai I really got to see a lot. I started to get passionate about history and figuring out the context to our modern lives and what social justice meant. From David Henry Anthony III's lectures on privelege and sacrifice to the 30 plus gray hairs from my tenure as APC Director big shit was poppin.
Here I am today. 22. Interning in DC, lying on a friends couch in NYC, thinking about the places I'll go with my head full of brains and my Jordan XI Space Jams full of feet and I can't help but feel excited for the next ten years.
Ten years from now I will be 32. Hopefully healthy. Possibly Married. Possibly with kids (twins named GreatestEver and ElFuego). Hopefully with several pugs. Hopefully some sort of amazing lawyer who has found a way to reconcile his desires for material pleasures and his beliefs in social justice. But really it's hard to say. If you asked me ten years ago what I'd be doing when I was 22 I'd tell you to shove it and throw out some monty python quote. I might still do that today. But at least my arsenal of quotes is populated my more simpsons and arrested development and for that I am grateful. I'm fairly satisfied with the last decade. Not to say that I don't have regrets, long hair, not going for it, etc but I'm still pretty happy with the last decade. Hopefully when 2020 (barbara walters voice!) rolls around I'll be able to stay the same.
The Avatar Post
Ok first off let's make something clear, it is ok to enjoy a movie and still have issues with it. Just because you enjoyed the movie doesn't mean you should ignore what was, in my opinion, problematic with some of the underlying themes. I personally really enjoyed the film despite my issues with the "going native" undertone to the whole thing and would definitely recommend it to all of my friends. In I-Max, in 3D.
What I liked:
The movie is extremely immersive, the theatre I was in had the AC broken so it was 80 degrees but I was so lost in the movie I didn't care once it got underway. The storytelling for a big hollywood movie is top notch and Cameron deserves accolades for it. The characters were pretty good basic archetype characters that didn't have too much depth to make it difficult to imagine yourself as the main character. The 3D aspects of the film were really well done. A lot of the time 3D just adds tackiness to a movie but in Avatar they didn't overdo it and it really helped draw you in.
What I thought was overhyped:
The world design which everyone raves about wasn't as impressive to me since I was essentially weaned on fantasy, sci-fi, and manga where this sort of "damn that's a creative new world! thing is a prerequisite. Maybe I haven't seen it in awesome 3D before, I had a good imagination before TV whittled it away and I used to be able to imagine shit like this all day errday. I think when people are talking about how this is going to change movies forever I think what it's really doing is catching movies up to what decent authors have been building for years. Flying mountains were in fucking Sonic the Hedgehog for god's sake.
What I have Issues With:
The main characters main arc involves not only "going native" but being the chosen one and leading the natives to victory, eventually fully discarding his human body for that of the natives. Along the way he get's their princess, who was already betrothed, and is at the same time able to connect with the land in a way that the West has longed for since Judeo-Christian religions told them that it was to pagany and that some vengeful god wasn't down with feeling one with the earth. Once again, as in so many stories before this, (pocahantas, last samurai) a white man (who despite america's change to a more minority majority country is still the defualt blank slate i can project myself on to him character) comes to live with the natives, realizes what his culture has lost in it's materialism and modernity and decides to throw away his old life in favor of a newer more spiritually fulfilling society. So I ask, why even have Sully? Why not just let us watch the natives and come to this conclusion ourselves? Why do the natives always need outside assistance to be saved? Is it too much to have a film where they save themselves? Certainly sully's effort is appreciated but he is, within 3 months better than all the natives at everything. He is also able to get the girl who was previously engaged to the next chief in line. Why can't it be a female human who gets with a male native? Cause that would still make people uncomfortable.
Avatar is still a great movie. Go see it if you haven't already. I liked it so much I'm probably gonna buy it and if I can get myself to a real Imax and not the shoddy impersonation of the one I saw it on tonight I might even go see it again. But just because I had a grand ol' time doesn't mean I'm totally cool with everything. And you don't have to be either.
What I liked:
The movie is extremely immersive, the theatre I was in had the AC broken so it was 80 degrees but I was so lost in the movie I didn't care once it got underway. The storytelling for a big hollywood movie is top notch and Cameron deserves accolades for it. The characters were pretty good basic archetype characters that didn't have too much depth to make it difficult to imagine yourself as the main character. The 3D aspects of the film were really well done. A lot of the time 3D just adds tackiness to a movie but in Avatar they didn't overdo it and it really helped draw you in.
What I thought was overhyped:
The world design which everyone raves about wasn't as impressive to me since I was essentially weaned on fantasy, sci-fi, and manga where this sort of "damn that's a creative new world! thing is a prerequisite. Maybe I haven't seen it in awesome 3D before, I had a good imagination before TV whittled it away and I used to be able to imagine shit like this all day errday. I think when people are talking about how this is going to change movies forever I think what it's really doing is catching movies up to what decent authors have been building for years. Flying mountains were in fucking Sonic the Hedgehog for god's sake.
What I have Issues With:
The main characters main arc involves not only "going native" but being the chosen one and leading the natives to victory, eventually fully discarding his human body for that of the natives. Along the way he get's their princess, who was already betrothed, and is at the same time able to connect with the land in a way that the West has longed for since Judeo-Christian religions told them that it was to pagany and that some vengeful god wasn't down with feeling one with the earth. Once again, as in so many stories before this, (pocahantas, last samurai) a white man (who despite america's change to a more minority majority country is still the defualt blank slate i can project myself on to him character) comes to live with the natives, realizes what his culture has lost in it's materialism and modernity and decides to throw away his old life in favor of a newer more spiritually fulfilling society. So I ask, why even have Sully? Why not just let us watch the natives and come to this conclusion ourselves? Why do the natives always need outside assistance to be saved? Is it too much to have a film where they save themselves? Certainly sully's effort is appreciated but he is, within 3 months better than all the natives at everything. He is also able to get the girl who was previously engaged to the next chief in line. Why can't it be a female human who gets with a male native? Cause that would still make people uncomfortable.
Avatar is still a great movie. Go see it if you haven't already. I liked it so much I'm probably gonna buy it and if I can get myself to a real Imax and not the shoddy impersonation of the one I saw it on tonight I might even go see it again. But just because I had a grand ol' time doesn't mean I'm totally cool with everything. And you don't have to be either.
new yeared
picking up from before!
went to go meet poochie at st marks area. It's where Oh! Taisho was and sort of reminded me of adams morgan in dc. We went to this korean place that did the bonchon fried chicken so we got some of that, some soondooboo (sp?) and a "korean ocean pancake" It was all hella good. Poochie is hella a waitress, bartender, and intern right now which is pretty heavy metal. We parted ways and I sort of planned to try to meet up after the movie but it got out at 3...
From there I met up with Karri, Sophia, and Robert and we hung a bit at some irish pub downtown which was sort of w/e, I had a glass of old speckeled hen which the bartender was shockingly incapable of pouring. After we left I walked to the theater and on my way totally saw a dude playing bagpipes on the corner of 34th and 6th. Random.
I got to the theatre an hour early and there was still a long ass line. What made it even better was their AC must have been broken because it was literally 80 degrees. I checked. I got some people to hold my spot in line while I tried to get some popped corn. They somehow had 2 people working a sell out crowd and they were in fact perhaps the two least competent people they employ judging by the pace. When I finally got to the movie the heat was still pretty stifling and the popcorn was largely too salty to eat. I had maybe 20% of it... I'm gonna give Avatar it's own separate entry so that'll be next. Anyways the ride back and the overall experience of watching a movie on your own is pretty lonely I must say and I don't really want to do it again. And one of the best things about movies it talking about them on the way home. Ipods don't replace good conversation with friends. I'm glad I saw it in 3D though, shit was mad immersive.
went to go meet poochie at st marks area. It's where Oh! Taisho was and sort of reminded me of adams morgan in dc. We went to this korean place that did the bonchon fried chicken so we got some of that, some soondooboo (sp?) and a "korean ocean pancake" It was all hella good. Poochie is hella a waitress, bartender, and intern right now which is pretty heavy metal. We parted ways and I sort of planned to try to meet up after the movie but it got out at 3...
From there I met up with Karri, Sophia, and Robert and we hung a bit at some irish pub downtown which was sort of w/e, I had a glass of old speckeled hen which the bartender was shockingly incapable of pouring. After we left I walked to the theater and on my way totally saw a dude playing bagpipes on the corner of 34th and 6th. Random.
I got to the theatre an hour early and there was still a long ass line. What made it even better was their AC must have been broken because it was literally 80 degrees. I checked. I got some people to hold my spot in line while I tried to get some popped corn. They somehow had 2 people working a sell out crowd and they were in fact perhaps the two least competent people they employ judging by the pace. When I finally got to the movie the heat was still pretty stifling and the popcorn was largely too salty to eat. I had maybe 20% of it... I'm gonna give Avatar it's own separate entry so that'll be next. Anyways the ride back and the overall experience of watching a movie on your own is pretty lonely I must say and I don't really want to do it again. And one of the best things about movies it talking about them on the way home. Ipods don't replace good conversation with friends. I'm glad I saw it in 3D though, shit was mad immersive.
Friday, January 1, 2010
New Yrss
woke up late feeling like the couch I've been living on was about as comfortable as I've been since I've left home. Me and Karri went to go meet up with Sophia from our Hawai'i program and her husband Rob.
We went to among what is probably the shishier places in nyc at Jean George in the Trump builing. It's one of the few Michelin 3 star restaurants in the states. I think the only one on the west coast is the French Laundry if that means anything to you. Anyways it's 3/3 stars for them so it should be pretty damn good, and it was. They had a $29 two course winter thing so it wasn't like mind-bogglingly expensive. If you're curious about the food peep my yelp review here (http://www.yelp.com/biz/jean-georges-new-york#hrid:Eg790-CMNQBa0kk5QhnmaA/src:self) I was also the only person there wearing a shirt without a collar. I had my "the city" hoodie on so it was sorta awk but u gotta represent!
After lunch we went to walk around Central Park which I actually haven't done yet. Central Park is pretty awesome. It's absolutely huge and has like a variety of ponds and a mini lake or two. One of which is named after Jackie O, random. Rob works for apple as an engineer so he wanted to check out the mac store here which is like the biggest in the world or something. It's on 5th ave and has a cool class cylindrical elevator too. The new imacs a pretty fucking sweet and he got me a deal on the new mighty mouse which I'd check out. I'm pretty happy with it so far. There's no scroll wheel you just move ur finger on it and it scrolls up down left right. Pretty cool.
Later that night I went to meet up with team VSU at Susan's apt in Harlem. Susan is Thuy and Van's older sister and it's kinda funny because they all look like sisters and say a lot of the same stuff in the same way. they told me to come at 6 and i got there at 6:30 making me still the first one there by like an hour. They made fried rolls, spring rolls, and curry and I ate entirely too much. I got a pretty good buzz going which I was sadly unable to recapture for the rest of the night.
The journey to the club in brooklyn was sort of epic. It's pretty far from harlem and the streets in brooklyn aren't all salted like the ones in downtown manhattan so it was pretty slippery. Thuy actually fell and the battery cover popped of Layhannara's camera. I think Van found it and I was able to reattach it and it worked just fine after.
The club - Here's my yelp review:
OH HOW YOU SUCK. LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.
1. YOU HAVE 4 TOILETS. If you have over 100 patrons and 4 toilets the bath breaks down pretty quickly. Not to mention they're not divided into men's and women's toilets so I'm basically wasting my NYE to girls doing makeup because that's what takes so damn long most of the time.
2. YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH RACKS FOR COATCHECK. When half of your customers have to throw their coats into the giant pile, hoping beyond hope that their black wool coat, which looks just like everyone else's black wool coat will come back to them you are a poorly run business.
3. YOUR BOUNCERS SUCK. If I wait 25 minutes in line only to be told I'm not in line when the person in front of me was just served makes no sense. Do you not want my money? That's fine with me. BTW if you're the owner and you're reading this figure out who the bouncer was on the right side of the bar around 12;30 and fire him because he's costing you money. Money I would gladly spend because I'm at a club but am being prevented from doing so due to the prick you hired.
4. YOUR DJ SUCKS. Notice all those people sitting? Yea that's not what's up.
From what I heard the cops that showed up were their because apparently they don't have a liquor license. I Sincerely hope this is true and that the Old American Can Factory will survive only in our memories of it's crappiness.
----------
I had more fun than that review would indicate but i'll blame that on the a-a-a-a-alcohol. It was kinda funny this asian girl from la was in front of me while we were in line for the bathroom. She was cute and clearly quite the drunk and was sort of trying to dance with me in line but I had to pee way too much and wasn't really having it. Anyways the impunity with which people were lighting up at the club was pretty redic too.
Aferwards we tried to find some other bar to go too but even at 2:30 they still wanted us to pay cover so we ended up having some pretty bad pizza and headed home. I had to transfer trains so I did half the journey on my own and I was afraid I'd fall asleep since it was already 4am and I was pooped, luckily I made it back but it was pretty touch and go.
Today was more chill. So far I've woken up at noon, had a slice of ridiculously huge pizza (i couldn't even finish it) and I just sorta went for a couple hour walk in central park. I'm gonna meet my friend Jen from ucsc, Poochie, for dinner and I'm watching avatar in 3d imax at midnight possibly myself haha. Buuut i need to see it before i go back to dc cause we got no imax there.
We went to among what is probably the shishier places in nyc at Jean George in the Trump builing. It's one of the few Michelin 3 star restaurants in the states. I think the only one on the west coast is the French Laundry if that means anything to you. Anyways it's 3/3 stars for them so it should be pretty damn good, and it was. They had a $29 two course winter thing so it wasn't like mind-bogglingly expensive. If you're curious about the food peep my yelp review here (http://www.yelp.com/biz/jean-georges-new-york#hrid:Eg790-CMNQBa0kk5QhnmaA/src:self) I was also the only person there wearing a shirt without a collar. I had my "the city" hoodie on so it was sorta awk but u gotta represent!
After lunch we went to walk around Central Park which I actually haven't done yet. Central Park is pretty awesome. It's absolutely huge and has like a variety of ponds and a mini lake or two. One of which is named after Jackie O, random. Rob works for apple as an engineer so he wanted to check out the mac store here which is like the biggest in the world or something. It's on 5th ave and has a cool class cylindrical elevator too. The new imacs a pretty fucking sweet and he got me a deal on the new mighty mouse which I'd check out. I'm pretty happy with it so far. There's no scroll wheel you just move ur finger on it and it scrolls up down left right. Pretty cool.
Later that night I went to meet up with team VSU at Susan's apt in Harlem. Susan is Thuy and Van's older sister and it's kinda funny because they all look like sisters and say a lot of the same stuff in the same way. they told me to come at 6 and i got there at 6:30 making me still the first one there by like an hour. They made fried rolls, spring rolls, and curry and I ate entirely too much. I got a pretty good buzz going which I was sadly unable to recapture for the rest of the night.
The journey to the club in brooklyn was sort of epic. It's pretty far from harlem and the streets in brooklyn aren't all salted like the ones in downtown manhattan so it was pretty slippery. Thuy actually fell and the battery cover popped of Layhannara's camera. I think Van found it and I was able to reattach it and it worked just fine after.
The club - Here's my yelp review:
OH HOW YOU SUCK. LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.
1. YOU HAVE 4 TOILETS. If you have over 100 patrons and 4 toilets the bath breaks down pretty quickly. Not to mention they're not divided into men's and women's toilets so I'm basically wasting my NYE to girls doing makeup because that's what takes so damn long most of the time.
2. YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH RACKS FOR COATCHECK. When half of your customers have to throw their coats into the giant pile, hoping beyond hope that their black wool coat, which looks just like everyone else's black wool coat will come back to them you are a poorly run business.
3. YOUR BOUNCERS SUCK. If I wait 25 minutes in line only to be told I'm not in line when the person in front of me was just served makes no sense. Do you not want my money? That's fine with me. BTW if you're the owner and you're reading this figure out who the bouncer was on the right side of the bar around 12;30 and fire him because he's costing you money. Money I would gladly spend because I'm at a club but am being prevented from doing so due to the prick you hired.
4. YOUR DJ SUCKS. Notice all those people sitting? Yea that's not what's up.
From what I heard the cops that showed up were their because apparently they don't have a liquor license. I Sincerely hope this is true and that the Old American Can Factory will survive only in our memories of it's crappiness.
----------
I had more fun than that review would indicate but i'll blame that on the a-a-a-a-alcohol. It was kinda funny this asian girl from la was in front of me while we were in line for the bathroom. She was cute and clearly quite the drunk and was sort of trying to dance with me in line but I had to pee way too much and wasn't really having it. Anyways the impunity with which people were lighting up at the club was pretty redic too.
Aferwards we tried to find some other bar to go too but even at 2:30 they still wanted us to pay cover so we ended up having some pretty bad pizza and headed home. I had to transfer trains so I did half the journey on my own and I was afraid I'd fall asleep since it was already 4am and I was pooped, luckily I made it back but it was pretty touch and go.
Today was more chill. So far I've woken up at noon, had a slice of ridiculously huge pizza (i couldn't even finish it) and I just sorta went for a couple hour walk in central park. I'm gonna meet my friend Jen from ucsc, Poochie, for dinner and I'm watching avatar in 3d imax at midnight possibly myself haha. Buuut i need to see it before i go back to dc cause we got no imax there.
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