Sunday, September 25, 2005
This update begins with BLOOD!
This is Wednesday. A few months ago I decided that it is silly and absurd of me to be scared of needles. I used to be scared of them, and then I wasn’t for a while. And then at one point at the dermatologists, they had to draw some blood and I got really woozy afterwards. (I think you were there too, S, you remember?) So then I got scared of needles again. Well I got over that a few months (perhaps a year) ago by donating blood. Sort of a ‘cold-turkey’ approach to fear reduction.
Well the Red Cross rolled around again a few weeks ago (they do blood drives at work) and myself and J(5) (independently, I might add) both decided to give blood. All went well, though I got some sort of super-cool treatment. See, they were looking for blood type B (they were low, presumably) and O, and since I am B+, they hooked me up to a BLOOD CENTERFUGE. A BLOOD FREAKIN’ CENTERFUGE. Ooooooh. It drains your BLOOD, and then spins your BLOOD around so that all the red BLOOD cells go into one bag and all the PLASMA goes into another. And once they’ve done that, the thing clicks over and gives you all your plasma back. It was an oddly fascinating process to watch, though certainly not for the BLOOD-donating squeamish. Well, everything went well and I’m about 440 mL of red BLOOD cells short, presumably.
Course, perhaps I shouldn’t have done it right before I test for my next belt.
Yep! Next belt test is this week, Tuesday and Thursday. I’m perceiving no problems, except for the board break, which is really hard. It’s a flying side kick, and the most difficult part of it is making sure you kick board, and not fingers. Wish me luck.
Oh, and I’m not actually worried about being short on blood. I ran (something like) 4 miles this weekend (I’m trying to build my stamina up to 6) and felt just fine.
Spent much of Friday (my Friday off) with J(5) this weekend. Activities listed under ‘various’. We went to the public library, walked around downtown El Segundo, went to the park and did some rollerblading (hills suck!). Then I came home and procrastinated to the tune of video games!
Saturday, I went Hiking. I’m not traditionally a big fan of hiking, but that’s because the list of things that I am a fan of is really long, and hiking is just a little far down on the list. But J(5) and a bunch of our friends all went.
From left to right (codenames, all): J(5), Me, The Chef, Pythons, Guns, and Bon-Bon down below. I made up most of those names, but Pythons and Guns are their real nicknames, because they have really nice arms (guns…ha ha). They all went on a trip to Italy together a few months ago, and while they were settling on to the plane (plane, now, keep that image in mind), J(5) leans over the back and calls out to one of them. Yeah, that’s right, she yelled ‘Guns’ on a crowded international plane flight. Heh.
It was a pretty nice hike. A lot of vertical climb (it’s a hike up into the relatively uninhabited mountains that separate ‘Los Angeles’ from ‘The Valley’). Well-maintained and very pretty. There was even a little stream and waterfall. My favorite part, though, was finding the empty riverbed with lots and lots of rocks and practicing my rock stacking. Certain parents may remember this little hobby from the beach back home. I have some other pictures that can be sent around at request.
Saturday evening, J(5), The Chef, and Bon-Bon (and a couple others: ‘Pretty’ and ‘Deep’.) all decided to dress up all nice and go salsa dancing at a club where they give beginning lessons. (No boys allowed…cept for Deep, who is a boy, and is married to Pretty and hadn’t seen her for quite a while). It was a not-half bad time, as reported, but J(5) was pretty tired afterwards, so I was called into relax-inducing service. You’ll like this one, parents. J(5) had a headache, so I did that trick that dad does for mom where you just squeeze the head. It was a temporary fix, but it helped her to relax enough that eventually her headache went away. Thanks, guys!
And today, finally got around to homework, did some goofing off, did some running, just another day.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure you can’t tell in the pictures above, but that’s not just a beard I’m sporting, it’s a beard experiment.
I just wanted to try drawing random lines in my beard. It looks kinda intriguing here, but it doesn’t last. When the lines start to grow back in, it just looks like I have a really spotty beard. So I nixed that one today.
Oh, and as I was driving around today, I saw a taxi with spinning hubcaps. A taxi with spinning hubcaps. They were spinning. Hubcaps. Like in the hip-hop videos. Spinning. But on a taxi. I didn't get it.
I was trying to think of a way to end this blog with BLOOD too, but I couldn’t think of any.
-N
This is Wednesday. A few months ago I decided that it is silly and absurd of me to be scared of needles. I used to be scared of them, and then I wasn’t for a while. And then at one point at the dermatologists, they had to draw some blood and I got really woozy afterwards. (I think you were there too, S, you remember?) So then I got scared of needles again. Well I got over that a few months (perhaps a year) ago by donating blood. Sort of a ‘cold-turkey’ approach to fear reduction.
Well the Red Cross rolled around again a few weeks ago (they do blood drives at work) and myself and J(5) (independently, I might add) both decided to give blood. All went well, though I got some sort of super-cool treatment. See, they were looking for blood type B (they were low, presumably) and O, and since I am B+, they hooked me up to a BLOOD CENTERFUGE. A BLOOD FREAKIN’ CENTERFUGE. Ooooooh. It drains your BLOOD, and then spins your BLOOD around so that all the red BLOOD cells go into one bag and all the PLASMA goes into another. And once they’ve done that, the thing clicks over and gives you all your plasma back. It was an oddly fascinating process to watch, though certainly not for the BLOOD-donating squeamish. Well, everything went well and I’m about 440 mL of red BLOOD cells short, presumably.
Course, perhaps I shouldn’t have done it right before I test for my next belt.
Yep! Next belt test is this week, Tuesday and Thursday. I’m perceiving no problems, except for the board break, which is really hard. It’s a flying side kick, and the most difficult part of it is making sure you kick board, and not fingers. Wish me luck.
Oh, and I’m not actually worried about being short on blood. I ran (something like) 4 miles this weekend (I’m trying to build my stamina up to 6) and felt just fine.
Spent much of Friday (my Friday off) with J(5) this weekend. Activities listed under ‘various’. We went to the public library, walked around downtown El Segundo, went to the park and did some rollerblading (hills suck!). Then I came home and procrastinated to the tune of video games!
Saturday, I went Hiking. I’m not traditionally a big fan of hiking, but that’s because the list of things that I am a fan of is really long, and hiking is just a little far down on the list. But J(5) and a bunch of our friends all went.
From left to right (codenames, all): J(5), Me, The Chef, Pythons, Guns, and Bon-Bon down below. I made up most of those names, but Pythons and Guns are their real nicknames, because they have really nice arms (guns…ha ha). They all went on a trip to Italy together a few months ago, and while they were settling on to the plane (plane, now, keep that image in mind), J(5) leans over the back and calls out to one of them. Yeah, that’s right, she yelled ‘Guns’ on a crowded international plane flight. Heh.
It was a pretty nice hike. A lot of vertical climb (it’s a hike up into the relatively uninhabited mountains that separate ‘Los Angeles’ from ‘The Valley’). Well-maintained and very pretty. There was even a little stream and waterfall. My favorite part, though, was finding the empty riverbed with lots and lots of rocks and practicing my rock stacking. Certain parents may remember this little hobby from the beach back home. I have some other pictures that can be sent around at request.
Saturday evening, J(5), The Chef, and Bon-Bon (and a couple others: ‘Pretty’ and ‘Deep’.) all decided to dress up all nice and go salsa dancing at a club where they give beginning lessons. (No boys allowed…cept for Deep, who is a boy, and is married to Pretty and hadn’t seen her for quite a while). It was a not-half bad time, as reported, but J(5) was pretty tired afterwards, so I was called into relax-inducing service. You’ll like this one, parents. J(5) had a headache, so I did that trick that dad does for mom where you just squeeze the head. It was a temporary fix, but it helped her to relax enough that eventually her headache went away. Thanks, guys!
And today, finally got around to homework, did some goofing off, did some running, just another day.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure you can’t tell in the pictures above, but that’s not just a beard I’m sporting, it’s a beard experiment.
I just wanted to try drawing random lines in my beard. It looks kinda intriguing here, but it doesn’t last. When the lines start to grow back in, it just looks like I have a really spotty beard. So I nixed that one today.
Oh, and as I was driving around today, I saw a taxi with spinning hubcaps. A taxi with spinning hubcaps. They were spinning. Hubcaps. Like in the hip-hop videos. Spinning. But on a taxi. I didn't get it.
I was trying to think of a way to end this blog with BLOOD too, but I couldn’t think of any.
-N
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
You want to hear about my weekend? You do? You sure? Okay!
It was a ‘short’ weekend, which is to say it was ‘only’ two days long, and it started on Saturday, like the rest of y’all. So Friday I met up with J(5), The Chef, and a few others for some volleyball-type exercise on the beach. It’s getting later and later in the year, though, and pretty soon the daylight savings time will flip over and we won’t be able to do any volleyball anymore, but it’s fun while it lasts, ya?
After that, J(5) and I went out to a Goth Club called ‘Miss Kitty’s Parlor’. No, J(5) is not really Goth, but she’s like me, she’s got a bit of a Goth streak. It’s fun to role-play every once in a while. Anyway, it was an INCREDIBLE AMMOUNT OF FUN. No lies, the place is pretty freaky. It’s halfway between west Hollywood (home of all the gay bars) and regular bars (home of all the big clubs) and so it’s a pretty nice mix of crazy music and crazy people. I won’t go into the details, because it’s a pretty kinky place, but I had a blast. The music was great, I got to dance with J(5), we even got to chat up a few strangers. J(5) has a distinct ability that I *lack*. She feels comfortable going up to strangers. Once I’m introduced to a stranger, I’m fine, no problem. I can talk, chat, be friendly, make jokes; I’m just like regular. But it’s that first step, that first little notch, that I really can’t get over on my own. J(5) can. It’s great. I gotta learn that. We met some pretty neat people, one of them even gave us a complementary ticket to another club. Unfortunately, J(5) does Hockey on Fridays, so it may be a while before we get to use it, if ever, but it was a tremendously kind gesture for a stranger. Yay clubs!
Oh, and because it’s been asked, ‘J(5)’ comes from the fact that her name begins with the letter ‘J’ and there is also an ‘s’ in her name, which kinda looks like a 5. That’s just the way I make these things up. There’s usually a logical chain in there somewhere, but it can be preeeeety thin at times. That’s why they’re ‘code’-names.
Saturday, J(5) and I decided to get lunch at IHOP, which is a great place to eat every once in a while. So as I was driving from her place to the resaurant, I heard this:
“Scrunchy scruncy grind weird noise scrunchy scrunchy”
We paused and got out of the car and there it was, a flat. Well I’ve never changed a tire on the road before, but my Dad’s lessons in changing snow tires did not go unheeded. We found the spare, worked out how the jack and tire iron worked, and whipped that puppy off, replacing it with the spare and wheeling slowly back to J(5)’s house. Then she drove us to IHOP. Lunch was delicious.
After lunch, I went to Firestone, and they looked at my tire and, being the professionals that they are, they spotted the ENORMOUS FREAKIN’ NAIL in it, patched it up, and sent me on my way.
And Sunday was pretty boring, I watched classes, did some running, stuff, stuff, stuff. Also visited J(5) and watched Pitch Black, which ain’t a half bad movie. I can see why they made a sequel about Riddik.
So far, the work week has been normal. I’ve managed to accomplish things, but, as is standard, I can’t really talk about it. Heh.
Also this week, I’m testing for my next belt! Excitement! Fervor! I’m doing the forms test on Thursday and the sparring test next Tuesday. Wish me luck, the board break for this belt is *hard*.
-N
It was a ‘short’ weekend, which is to say it was ‘only’ two days long, and it started on Saturday, like the rest of y’all. So Friday I met up with J(5), The Chef, and a few others for some volleyball-type exercise on the beach. It’s getting later and later in the year, though, and pretty soon the daylight savings time will flip over and we won’t be able to do any volleyball anymore, but it’s fun while it lasts, ya?
After that, J(5) and I went out to a Goth Club called ‘Miss Kitty’s Parlor’. No, J(5) is not really Goth, but she’s like me, she’s got a bit of a Goth streak. It’s fun to role-play every once in a while. Anyway, it was an INCREDIBLE AMMOUNT OF FUN. No lies, the place is pretty freaky. It’s halfway between west Hollywood (home of all the gay bars) and regular bars (home of all the big clubs) and so it’s a pretty nice mix of crazy music and crazy people. I won’t go into the details, because it’s a pretty kinky place, but I had a blast. The music was great, I got to dance with J(5), we even got to chat up a few strangers. J(5) has a distinct ability that I *lack*. She feels comfortable going up to strangers. Once I’m introduced to a stranger, I’m fine, no problem. I can talk, chat, be friendly, make jokes; I’m just like regular. But it’s that first step, that first little notch, that I really can’t get over on my own. J(5) can. It’s great. I gotta learn that. We met some pretty neat people, one of them even gave us a complementary ticket to another club. Unfortunately, J(5) does Hockey on Fridays, so it may be a while before we get to use it, if ever, but it was a tremendously kind gesture for a stranger. Yay clubs!
Oh, and because it’s been asked, ‘J(5)’ comes from the fact that her name begins with the letter ‘J’ and there is also an ‘s’ in her name, which kinda looks like a 5. That’s just the way I make these things up. There’s usually a logical chain in there somewhere, but it can be preeeeety thin at times. That’s why they’re ‘code’-names.
Saturday, J(5) and I decided to get lunch at IHOP, which is a great place to eat every once in a while. So as I was driving from her place to the resaurant, I heard this:
“Scrunchy scruncy grind weird noise scrunchy scrunchy”
We paused and got out of the car and there it was, a flat. Well I’ve never changed a tire on the road before, but my Dad’s lessons in changing snow tires did not go unheeded. We found the spare, worked out how the jack and tire iron worked, and whipped that puppy off, replacing it with the spare and wheeling slowly back to J(5)’s house. Then she drove us to IHOP. Lunch was delicious.
After lunch, I went to Firestone, and they looked at my tire and, being the professionals that they are, they spotted the ENORMOUS FREAKIN’ NAIL in it, patched it up, and sent me on my way.
And Sunday was pretty boring, I watched classes, did some running, stuff, stuff, stuff. Also visited J(5) and watched Pitch Black, which ain’t a half bad movie. I can see why they made a sequel about Riddik.
So far, the work week has been normal. I’ve managed to accomplish things, but, as is standard, I can’t really talk about it. Heh.
Also this week, I’m testing for my next belt! Excitement! Fervor! I’m doing the forms test on Thursday and the sparring test next Tuesday. Wish me luck, the board break for this belt is *hard*.
-N
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
With any luck, this post will go up with a little bit more, let’s say, rapidity, than some of my last ones.
Well I got some homework done this weekend, but it took some doing. Last work week was pretty short since I had taken the time off for vacation and because of labor day, so Friday rolled around right quick. I went out to Volleyball with workmates, which is always fun. I even got one of the guys on the 10th floor (let’s call him ‘S’) here to come out with us. I’m a uniter. Fun was had by all, and we would have stayed a bit longer, but a parking enforcer came by and looked ready to write everyone tickets, so we scattered like cockroaches. Heh.
The story there is that the first car this guy was going to write up was mine. I saw this, but I figured if he had started, he wasn’t going to stop, and it’s not like a parking ticket is anything cataclysmic. Unfortunate, yes, but I’m sure I’d manage to deal with it somehow. So while everyone else took off to move their cars to leave or feed their meter, I strolled up pretty casually to my car. Well evidently, S made it up to my car pretty fast and had this conversation with the guy:
“Hey, sorry, man, this is my car.” (Yeah, he’s pointing at my car.)
“The meter’s empty.”
“Yeah, I put in some money, but it ran out.”
“Well, okay, just don’t let it run out next time.”
“Okay, thanks.”
At which point S walks over and get in his real car and drives off. Well this stuns and confuses the parking meter guy enough that when I finally walk up to my car, he still hasn’t written anything. So I stroll up and this happens.
“Hey, this your car?”
“Yep.”
“You guys need to put money in the meter you know, or else next time you’re all going to get tickets.”
“All right.”
“This ain’t free parking.”
Then he gets in his car and drives off, ticketing no one. The strangest part about this is that this is the first time most of my friends have ever seen anyone come by to check the meters. And most of them have been coming every Friday for years. Considering that the meters along the beach are incredibly expensive, they’d all be ahead if all they had to do was pay a tiny parking fine. I’d seen a meter-maid once before, but I got to my car at the same time she did, and just drove off. Couple of close calls, but like I said, it’s just a parking ticket.
Well after that fiasco, we all strolled out to the Olive Garden. (Well, all of us that didn’t scatter to the four winds.) Dinner was pretty great and one of the girls, J, even made them come by and sing happy birthday for me and give me cake. Yum.
Okay, seriously, way too many people with names beginning with J. I’m going to have to improve my classification scheme. From now on, the above ‘J’ will be known as J(5).
So J(5) gets me the singing and the cake. There. Not to be confused with any of the other ‘J’ people I know. I’ll assign them names as they come up again. Did I mention before that it was my birthday a while ago? Yeah, it was. I’m 25 now. Not a bad number if you ask me.
Well afterwards, J(5), myself, and another girl...named...‘The Chef’, all went over to J(5)’s house and watched ‘Snatch’. It’s a fun movie. Thus ended Friday.
I spent Saturday procrastinating, aren’t you proud? I played video games, mostly, but I also called up one of the guys from TKD. He’d expressed a desire to meet up with me sometime over the weekend and practice some of our kicks, some counters, go over our form, practice stuff like that. We’ll call him…Mr. Turn.
Mr. Turn and I met up on Sunday morning and practiced some kicks, went over our form, threw some counters, things like that, it was good practice and good fun. With some luck, we’ll make a habit out of it. That’d be neat. Forgot to sunscreen myself, though, and ended up with a bit of a burn on my skull. Nothing epic, though, no worries.
J(5) came along too, mostly to watch.
Background: I met J(5) pretty early on at my Raytheon career. She works here too, and she, myself, and a whole bunch of other people tend to hang out together. Friday volleyball, karaoke, graduation parties, that’s all of them. I believe I saw the phenomenon reported as ‘Urban Tribes’ in an article my grandmother sent me a few years ago. I think it’s a pretty appropriate phrase. If we were more swarthy, I’d call us a gang. :)
Well, I’m not completely dense. I recognize flirting when I see it, (hint: it looks a lot like teasing, and we’re, generally, a pretty flirty group). No one comes along to a park to watch someone work out unless they’re just trying to spend time with them. Well afterwards she wanted to get some food, so we went out to Paneria (sandwich shop near where I live, they make their own bread. Delish.) And then came back to my place to talk video games, relationships, and any number of completely trivial details. It probably qualifies as a ‘date’, though that depends on how you set your threshold for such things. I will say this much, though: I certainly enjoyed her company, and she seems to enjoy mine.
Well after she left, I finally sat down and started working on homework. It was pretty painless, for the most part, though I think I torqued up one of the problems…okay I know I torqued up one of the problems, but I’m not sure I can be convinced to go back and fix it. Senioritis.
And it looks, for once, like it’s going to be a normal week! I’ve been traveling and vacationing so much these past few weeks that just being back to normal is almost a relief.
-N
Well I got some homework done this weekend, but it took some doing. Last work week was pretty short since I had taken the time off for vacation and because of labor day, so Friday rolled around right quick. I went out to Volleyball with workmates, which is always fun. I even got one of the guys on the 10th floor (let’s call him ‘S’) here to come out with us. I’m a uniter. Fun was had by all, and we would have stayed a bit longer, but a parking enforcer came by and looked ready to write everyone tickets, so we scattered like cockroaches. Heh.
The story there is that the first car this guy was going to write up was mine. I saw this, but I figured if he had started, he wasn’t going to stop, and it’s not like a parking ticket is anything cataclysmic. Unfortunate, yes, but I’m sure I’d manage to deal with it somehow. So while everyone else took off to move their cars to leave or feed their meter, I strolled up pretty casually to my car. Well evidently, S made it up to my car pretty fast and had this conversation with the guy:
“Hey, sorry, man, this is my car.” (Yeah, he’s pointing at my car.)
“The meter’s empty.”
“Yeah, I put in some money, but it ran out.”
“Well, okay, just don’t let it run out next time.”
“Okay, thanks.”
At which point S walks over and get in his real car and drives off. Well this stuns and confuses the parking meter guy enough that when I finally walk up to my car, he still hasn’t written anything. So I stroll up and this happens.
“Hey, this your car?”
“Yep.”
“You guys need to put money in the meter you know, or else next time you’re all going to get tickets.”
“All right.”
“This ain’t free parking.”
Then he gets in his car and drives off, ticketing no one. The strangest part about this is that this is the first time most of my friends have ever seen anyone come by to check the meters. And most of them have been coming every Friday for years. Considering that the meters along the beach are incredibly expensive, they’d all be ahead if all they had to do was pay a tiny parking fine. I’d seen a meter-maid once before, but I got to my car at the same time she did, and just drove off. Couple of close calls, but like I said, it’s just a parking ticket.
Well after that fiasco, we all strolled out to the Olive Garden. (Well, all of us that didn’t scatter to the four winds.) Dinner was pretty great and one of the girls, J, even made them come by and sing happy birthday for me and give me cake. Yum.
Okay, seriously, way too many people with names beginning with J. I’m going to have to improve my classification scheme. From now on, the above ‘J’ will be known as J(5).
So J(5) gets me the singing and the cake. There. Not to be confused with any of the other ‘J’ people I know. I’ll assign them names as they come up again. Did I mention before that it was my birthday a while ago? Yeah, it was. I’m 25 now. Not a bad number if you ask me.
Well afterwards, J(5), myself, and another girl...named...‘The Chef’, all went over to J(5)’s house and watched ‘Snatch’. It’s a fun movie. Thus ended Friday.
I spent Saturday procrastinating, aren’t you proud? I played video games, mostly, but I also called up one of the guys from TKD. He’d expressed a desire to meet up with me sometime over the weekend and practice some of our kicks, some counters, go over our form, practice stuff like that. We’ll call him…Mr. Turn.
Mr. Turn and I met up on Sunday morning and practiced some kicks, went over our form, threw some counters, things like that, it was good practice and good fun. With some luck, we’ll make a habit out of it. That’d be neat. Forgot to sunscreen myself, though, and ended up with a bit of a burn on my skull. Nothing epic, though, no worries.
J(5) came along too, mostly to watch.
Background: I met J(5) pretty early on at my Raytheon career. She works here too, and she, myself, and a whole bunch of other people tend to hang out together. Friday volleyball, karaoke, graduation parties, that’s all of them. I believe I saw the phenomenon reported as ‘Urban Tribes’ in an article my grandmother sent me a few years ago. I think it’s a pretty appropriate phrase. If we were more swarthy, I’d call us a gang. :)
Well, I’m not completely dense. I recognize flirting when I see it, (hint: it looks a lot like teasing, and we’re, generally, a pretty flirty group). No one comes along to a park to watch someone work out unless they’re just trying to spend time with them. Well afterwards she wanted to get some food, so we went out to Paneria (sandwich shop near where I live, they make their own bread. Delish.) And then came back to my place to talk video games, relationships, and any number of completely trivial details. It probably qualifies as a ‘date’, though that depends on how you set your threshold for such things. I will say this much, though: I certainly enjoyed her company, and she seems to enjoy mine.
Well after she left, I finally sat down and started working on homework. It was pretty painless, for the most part, though I think I torqued up one of the problems…okay I know I torqued up one of the problems, but I’m not sure I can be convinced to go back and fix it. Senioritis.
And it looks, for once, like it’s going to be a normal week! I’ve been traveling and vacationing so much these past few weeks that just being back to normal is almost a relief.
-N
Monday, September 12, 2005
Wanawow! Weekend in Vegas!
I left work early on Thursday to attempt to beat LA traffic both out of LA and up to LV. During these long weekends a *lot* of Los Angelinians head up to Las Vegas, and you do not want to get caught in that traffic crunch. It’s unpleasant. Well, I made it up to LV without incident and got to see my Aunt. I stay with her essentially every time I’m up in Vegas. It was great to see her, of course, cause she’s awesome, and it was also great to see her CATS! Because I love CATS, even though I can’t quite have one of my own yet. I petted a lot of hair off those guys while I was up there, which unfortunately meant Aunt J had to do some vacuuming. (Man, I never noticed how many people I know whose names begin with the letter J. Heh.)
Friday I was out on my own, so I slept in and then went out to Chinatown! Chinatown in LV isn’t particularly big, but they’ve got some neat Asian markets, and it’s always fun to go into those places and try stuff you’ve never tried before, or even better, stuff that you can’t even read. That’s an adventure. I tried three things. The first I dubbed ‘Lychee Newtons’, because that’s pretty much what they were. They had a strawberry version, too, but I’ve had strawberry Newtons before, and I have no idea what a Lychee fruit tastes like. Turns out it tastes kinda fruity, but that makes sense, cause it’s a fruit. A touch bitter, but just a touch. Neat stuff. Thing two was a random pastry-looking thing I pulled off a shelf. It was called Bibingka. I had no idea what it was at the time, but it looked kinda tasty, and I’m all about adventure! It was a tasty little cake, really, with an inside that was soft and almost cheesy. Three stars! #1 Weird, though, was definitely the drink. I picked up a can of ‘White Gourd Juice’. I didn’t even know you could get juice from white Gourds or any Gourds for that matter. But evidently you can. You know what it tasted like? Gingerbread. Yeah.
After that I strolled down the street and wandered into a place selling fantasy knives, swords, airsoft guns, and the like. I stayed for about an hour-and-a-half, and not for the knives, either.
The guy behind the desk introduced himself as a student of the martial arts and we started chatting about our respective arts and other related stuff. When I say ‘we started talking’, I really mean ‘he started talking’ and ‘I started listening.’ When I told him I do TKD, he asked if it was one of those ‘contract black belt’ things, and I said no. For those of you that don’t know, a contract black belt is essentially something where you walk in and sign a contract that says if you attend a certain number of classes in a certain amount of time, you are *guaranteed* a black belt, sometimes in as little as a year.. It’s absurd, and fairly insulting to those of us that actually work at ours. So I started off thinking this guy might be all right. That turned out to be an incorrect view. Here are some of my favorite lines. They’re not literal quotes, but you get the idea.
“The law is that if you train in a martial art for more than 6 months, your hands are deadly weapons. That’s bull****. Cops told my friend he should have shown more restraint cause he’s a martial artist. But sometimes you can’t turn your back on a guy, cause he’s Philipino and he’ll stab you!” (The guy behind the counter was black.)
“I’m going to Thailand for a month. I’m going to go so crazy. I’ll probably catch some STD, but I don’t care, as long as it’s curable.”
“My female friend was like ‘yeah, that guy’s hot’, and my guy friend was like, ‘yeah, he is’. And I’m just like, ‘Dude, you’ve slept at my house, you’re never coming over again.’ That’s like…uuugh.”
Yeah, raging homophobe, borderline racist, and of questionable drive. If martial arts is about self improvement, he’s still got some work to do. I didn’t say anything, though, I didn’t half to. For the last hour of the conversation I don’t think I said ten words. He was telling me about Thai Chi, and how a lot of the moves are about just stepping to the side and letting your opponent make a fool out of his or herself. I wanted to see if he’d realize that’s what I was doing with our conversation, but he never picked it up. He just kept talking, and I just kept staring at him and smiling every time he said something foolish. He never stopped, just kept talking at me the whole time. He might have been bored, though, no one else came into the shop while I was there.
Friday night, we went out to visit my cousin, who also lives in LV. We had some dinner, played some dice games, and chatted and had a good time. I also got to see my cousin’s house, which is nice and huge and new and awesome and would have cost, I’m sure, about 550,000 in LA. It was much cheaper in LV. That’s why I’m hoping for an earthquake. It’s the only way I’ll be able to afford a house down here. Okay, I’m not really hoping for one, but I am realistic about the housing market down here. It’s foolish.
Saturday, we hit an open-air, public swap-meet. Imagine 500 people coming together and having the cities biggest garage sale, and you’ll have a sense of what it was like. People were selling everything, and a lot of them had permanent booths set up for selling music, or clothes, or hardware, or movies, or pretty much anything else you could imagine. Aunt and Uncle piled up a bunch of their junk, as well as many of my Uncles Collectables (coins, silver strikes, and old hot wheels cars; actually collectable stuff!) and rolled out to the place. They were selling things off; I was looking for cheap deals on neat stuff. I looked at airsoft guns for a while. They make great movie props, but I figured if D and I ever make another movie, I’d rather do more fighting than shooting. Some of the airsoft guns were pretty silly, though. You could pick up a pistol, but it came with a scope, laser sight, flashlight, extended clip, extra handle, bottle opener, knife sharpener, and so many other attachments that it started looking more like a rifle than a pistol.
The one thing I did pick up was a game. When games go out of print before they hit their stride, you get a big demand, but a short supply. There are some niche games out that that you can sell for a really big lot of money. One of them is Gitaroo man. You can buy it on Half.com right now, but only if you’re prepared to pay $125 for it. They were selling a copy at the swap meet for $18. I almost felt bad paying so little for it, but not really. I just know my market.
The swap meet was HOT! I went through about 7 or 8 bottles of water, equivalently, and never once went to the bathroom. Made sure I had plenty of sunscreen and a hat, too. I was sweating, but we were in the desert! It just dried right off of me. Anyway, I came away unscathed.
Saturday evening I took Aunt and Uncle out for dinner. We went to a clam bake place and I had some fantastic clam chowder. My all time favorite clam chowder was some that I had in a restaurant in Pismo Beach, but this was definitely up there. We were going to try and hit up a movie afterwards, but Aunt was feeling a little down, so instead we went home and watched some DVDs. I saw ‘Get Shorty’, which was an excellent movie all around, and ‘Be Cool’, the sequel, which was an okay move, but a pretty darn funny comedy.
Sunday morning was a slow day, but Sunday evening I got to go see T and J (another one!) get married. It was a relatively small ceremony, just a few friends and family, and it was held in a little chapel near the LV courthouse. The kind of place that does weddings every hour, on the hour. Heh. We had a big dinner, then, with everyone at a restaurant at the Belagio, and then had some cake and plenty of socializing up at a big suite at one of the top floors up there. It was awesome-wicked-cool.
Next day, spent the morning relaxing again, and then the afternoon we met at the Belagio Buffet. For those of you that have never experienced this before, wow. The place is huge, there are tons and tons and TONS of different kinds of food, a huge sushi bar, a huge salad bar, more deserts than you can shake a stick at, just food for miles. My recommendation: just take small bits of lots of different things. Try stuff out. That’s pretty much the point.
After that food-fest, we all got into taxis and went down to the Luxor and saw Blue Man! I’d seen it before, but it’s a really fantastic show anytime. After that, we all moseyed back to the Belagio, hung out in the hotel room, watched the fountain from the window, ate gobs of cake (I even got sent home with some) and then all went our separate ways. I woke up in the morning and just drove home (no traffic, again).
And here’s something that didn’t get reported from a few weeks ago. I made Krub! It’s something of a tradition in our family. Food-processed potatoes, salt and flour, wrapped around seasoned pork. It’s pretty bland on its own, but you eat it with butter, which makes it fantastic. I even captured the moment on film.
Siblings of mine may wish to check out my image directory, got some new photos on there from various vacations. I didn’t take any from the wedding itself, because I am a bigger fan of remembering stuff than I am of photos, generally, and because everyone else there was clicking away like madmen and madwomen. Those pictures will be collected together before too long, and so if you’re curious, I can point you in the correct direction.
Not a bad entry. Cheers!
-N
I left work early on Thursday to attempt to beat LA traffic both out of LA and up to LV. During these long weekends a *lot* of Los Angelinians head up to Las Vegas, and you do not want to get caught in that traffic crunch. It’s unpleasant. Well, I made it up to LV without incident and got to see my Aunt. I stay with her essentially every time I’m up in Vegas. It was great to see her, of course, cause she’s awesome, and it was also great to see her CATS! Because I love CATS, even though I can’t quite have one of my own yet. I petted a lot of hair off those guys while I was up there, which unfortunately meant Aunt J had to do some vacuuming. (Man, I never noticed how many people I know whose names begin with the letter J. Heh.)
Friday I was out on my own, so I slept in and then went out to Chinatown! Chinatown in LV isn’t particularly big, but they’ve got some neat Asian markets, and it’s always fun to go into those places and try stuff you’ve never tried before, or even better, stuff that you can’t even read. That’s an adventure. I tried three things. The first I dubbed ‘Lychee Newtons’, because that’s pretty much what they were. They had a strawberry version, too, but I’ve had strawberry Newtons before, and I have no idea what a Lychee fruit tastes like. Turns out it tastes kinda fruity, but that makes sense, cause it’s a fruit. A touch bitter, but just a touch. Neat stuff. Thing two was a random pastry-looking thing I pulled off a shelf. It was called Bibingka. I had no idea what it was at the time, but it looked kinda tasty, and I’m all about adventure! It was a tasty little cake, really, with an inside that was soft and almost cheesy. Three stars! #1 Weird, though, was definitely the drink. I picked up a can of ‘White Gourd Juice’. I didn’t even know you could get juice from white Gourds or any Gourds for that matter. But evidently you can. You know what it tasted like? Gingerbread. Yeah.
After that I strolled down the street and wandered into a place selling fantasy knives, swords, airsoft guns, and the like. I stayed for about an hour-and-a-half, and not for the knives, either.
The guy behind the desk introduced himself as a student of the martial arts and we started chatting about our respective arts and other related stuff. When I say ‘we started talking’, I really mean ‘he started talking’ and ‘I started listening.’ When I told him I do TKD, he asked if it was one of those ‘contract black belt’ things, and I said no. For those of you that don’t know, a contract black belt is essentially something where you walk in and sign a contract that says if you attend a certain number of classes in a certain amount of time, you are *guaranteed* a black belt, sometimes in as little as a year.. It’s absurd, and fairly insulting to those of us that actually work at ours. So I started off thinking this guy might be all right. That turned out to be an incorrect view. Here are some of my favorite lines. They’re not literal quotes, but you get the idea.
“The law is that if you train in a martial art for more than 6 months, your hands are deadly weapons. That’s bull****. Cops told my friend he should have shown more restraint cause he’s a martial artist. But sometimes you can’t turn your back on a guy, cause he’s Philipino and he’ll stab you!” (The guy behind the counter was black.)
“I’m going to Thailand for a month. I’m going to go so crazy. I’ll probably catch some STD, but I don’t care, as long as it’s curable.”
“My female friend was like ‘yeah, that guy’s hot’, and my guy friend was like, ‘yeah, he is’. And I’m just like, ‘Dude, you’ve slept at my house, you’re never coming over again.’ That’s like…uuugh.”
Yeah, raging homophobe, borderline racist, and of questionable drive. If martial arts is about self improvement, he’s still got some work to do. I didn’t say anything, though, I didn’t half to. For the last hour of the conversation I don’t think I said ten words. He was telling me about Thai Chi, and how a lot of the moves are about just stepping to the side and letting your opponent make a fool out of his or herself. I wanted to see if he’d realize that’s what I was doing with our conversation, but he never picked it up. He just kept talking, and I just kept staring at him and smiling every time he said something foolish. He never stopped, just kept talking at me the whole time. He might have been bored, though, no one else came into the shop while I was there.
Friday night, we went out to visit my cousin, who also lives in LV. We had some dinner, played some dice games, and chatted and had a good time. I also got to see my cousin’s house, which is nice and huge and new and awesome and would have cost, I’m sure, about 550,000 in LA. It was much cheaper in LV. That’s why I’m hoping for an earthquake. It’s the only way I’ll be able to afford a house down here. Okay, I’m not really hoping for one, but I am realistic about the housing market down here. It’s foolish.
Saturday, we hit an open-air, public swap-meet. Imagine 500 people coming together and having the cities biggest garage sale, and you’ll have a sense of what it was like. People were selling everything, and a lot of them had permanent booths set up for selling music, or clothes, or hardware, or movies, or pretty much anything else you could imagine. Aunt and Uncle piled up a bunch of their junk, as well as many of my Uncles Collectables (coins, silver strikes, and old hot wheels cars; actually collectable stuff!) and rolled out to the place. They were selling things off; I was looking for cheap deals on neat stuff. I looked at airsoft guns for a while. They make great movie props, but I figured if D and I ever make another movie, I’d rather do more fighting than shooting. Some of the airsoft guns were pretty silly, though. You could pick up a pistol, but it came with a scope, laser sight, flashlight, extended clip, extra handle, bottle opener, knife sharpener, and so many other attachments that it started looking more like a rifle than a pistol.
The one thing I did pick up was a game. When games go out of print before they hit their stride, you get a big demand, but a short supply. There are some niche games out that that you can sell for a really big lot of money. One of them is Gitaroo man. You can buy it on Half.com right now, but only if you’re prepared to pay $125 for it. They were selling a copy at the swap meet for $18. I almost felt bad paying so little for it, but not really. I just know my market.
The swap meet was HOT! I went through about 7 or 8 bottles of water, equivalently, and never once went to the bathroom. Made sure I had plenty of sunscreen and a hat, too. I was sweating, but we were in the desert! It just dried right off of me. Anyway, I came away unscathed.
Saturday evening I took Aunt and Uncle out for dinner. We went to a clam bake place and I had some fantastic clam chowder. My all time favorite clam chowder was some that I had in a restaurant in Pismo Beach, but this was definitely up there. We were going to try and hit up a movie afterwards, but Aunt was feeling a little down, so instead we went home and watched some DVDs. I saw ‘Get Shorty’, which was an excellent movie all around, and ‘Be Cool’, the sequel, which was an okay move, but a pretty darn funny comedy.
Sunday morning was a slow day, but Sunday evening I got to go see T and J (another one!) get married. It was a relatively small ceremony, just a few friends and family, and it was held in a little chapel near the LV courthouse. The kind of place that does weddings every hour, on the hour. Heh. We had a big dinner, then, with everyone at a restaurant at the Belagio, and then had some cake and plenty of socializing up at a big suite at one of the top floors up there. It was awesome-wicked-cool.
Next day, spent the morning relaxing again, and then the afternoon we met at the Belagio Buffet. For those of you that have never experienced this before, wow. The place is huge, there are tons and tons and TONS of different kinds of food, a huge sushi bar, a huge salad bar, more deserts than you can shake a stick at, just food for miles. My recommendation: just take small bits of lots of different things. Try stuff out. That’s pretty much the point.
After that food-fest, we all got into taxis and went down to the Luxor and saw Blue Man! I’d seen it before, but it’s a really fantastic show anytime. After that, we all moseyed back to the Belagio, hung out in the hotel room, watched the fountain from the window, ate gobs of cake (I even got sent home with some) and then all went our separate ways. I woke up in the morning and just drove home (no traffic, again).
And here’s something that didn’t get reported from a few weeks ago. I made Krub! It’s something of a tradition in our family. Food-processed potatoes, salt and flour, wrapped around seasoned pork. It’s pretty bland on its own, but you eat it with butter, which makes it fantastic. I even captured the moment on film.
Siblings of mine may wish to check out my image directory, got some new photos on there from various vacations. I didn’t take any from the wedding itself, because I am a bigger fan of remembering stuff than I am of photos, generally, and because everyone else there was clicking away like madmen and madwomen. Those pictures will be collected together before too long, and so if you’re curious, I can point you in the correct direction.
Not a bad entry. Cheers!
-N
