Summer vacation part deux. beerbeerbeerBEER!!

And then the big day arrived...Beerlympics.

What started as a drunken pipe dream over 2 years ago is now a full fledged yearly tradition. I was a little bit worried that this year wasn't going to go as well as last, but all my fears were quelled when we entered that big beautiful park and it was completely empty and ready to be taken over by our gang of hooligans.

I arrived around noon with Jehan, Lauren and a keg. Shindig and his girlfriend were next to show up. They had with them the silver cup from last year that their team had won. I was so happy that they still had it! Last year Mariza was awesome enough to paint 3 mugs gold silver and bronze for the winning teams.

As more people started pouring in and enjoying our keg of Pabst I began to feel like it was really going to work. I was worried for a second that people were going to bitch out on me because I hadn't really done more than posted a couple Myspace event invites. But the turnout was really great. Old friends like Tai, Babak, Emily, Dana and lots more came through. About 60 throughout the day I think.



We didn't have teams with funny names and rules and score keeping this time around but I think the unplanned aspect of it made it a little less stressful. We just ended up playing rounds and rounds of flip cup which eventually organized itself into a boys vs. girls bragging rights challenge. I'm not ashamed to say that the girls kinda outperformed us that day...



I think it was thanks to the fact that they were CHEATING and had more team members than us!! :)



Anyway, it was fantastic. A real tribute to the undying spirit of alcoholism that my friends and I all share. Pretty much everyone stayed in the park, playing wiffle ball and enjoying Jehan's pork loin sandwiches until the sun went down. I must have personally consumed the equivalent of a 12 pack or more. And as a final farewell to the festivities, a single firework was blasted into the sky, which ended up getting us our only complaint of the day from the parks distant neighbors. Whoops!

Afterwards we went to barclays on college ave. to eat somehow. We were all so tired and smashed drunk we could barely keep our heads up! I don't think that more than 5 words were uttered at that table... :)

Then next few days I thought I would relax a bit but that didn't really happen. I hung out in SF with my friend Yumiko a couple times and did quite a bit of daytime drinking with her. I rested for about half a day after that before heading to the next big drunken adventure... Shabu-Shabu! An amazing all you can eat japanese stew and all you can drink beer and sake experience in Japantown.



They serve you plate after plate of this delicious, super thin beef that you can dunk in the stew for about 10 seconds before eating. I had been hoping to do this again ever since I first went with Robin and Casey almost 4 years ago. It was fairly pricy but worth it. Mariza's friend Sara that I had met at the food fest came and we were kind of overdoing it with the sake bombs! But it was great, Sara and I got to know each other pretty well in the next few days after discovering that we were both big fans of booze and cartoons.

That was a pretty intense night of drinking, lemme tell ya'. Jehan played me a message I left on his phone when I was smashed and I didn't even recognize my own voice!



Highlights of the last couple days there include hanging out with Parisa at her bar near Lake Merritt and, you guessed it, drinking all day! Kenya and Jehan and I enjoyed her kooky martinis and fancy fries. I think Parisa was a little dissapointed that we never had a solo kick it session while I was there.

As my trip drew to a close I finally got to see Billy's amazing new place in Rockridge and a few of us enjoyed some BBQ and a few rounds of Rockband. Is it weird to say that playing Rockband with 4 people on all instruments is so epically fun that it makes me want to cry?? Billy and his girlfriend covered the guitar and bass, with Sara on drums and me singing my little heart out to some Pixies tracks. (Here comes your maaaaa-aaan!!)

On my last night I had to gather the family one last time. We met up at the Missouri lounge. My favorite old haunt, and had a grand time. People who I hadn't gotten to see much showed up. All the guys who abandoned my beerlympics plan to go to Lake Tahoe (jerks!) And others who I just didn't get to see as much as I hoped. As expected, it was bittersweet. Mostly bitter. The dread was creeping up on me. I knew that in 24 hours I would be back in NY and hating life again. Not to sound too overly melodramatic or anything! And anyway, that night turned out to be the best of the trip overall so I can't complain :)

But all in all I'd have to say that this was an even better trip than last winter. I really needed this vacation. And the fact that in just one short year i'll be back in the bay with so much to look forward to will really help me get through this damn school shiiiet. I just hope that this initial homesickness leaves quickly. I wish I could immerse myself in all my amazing NY friends, but i'm so friggin' busy with this 8 to 4 hospital internship everyday that I can barely think!

Wish me luck. Wish yourself luck. Be good to each other. Drink a beer for me, friends!

How I spent my summer vacation... pt. 1

Here we go...my first week home in a nutshell.

I'm writing this not only for any potentially interested readers but mosty so that I can have a written description to look back on and enjoy after i've killed my next bushel of brain cells. Forgive my diary-esque prose style but that's basically all a blog really is isn't it?.

*Ahem* After a grueling 3 hour delay on the tarmac at JFK and a 6 hour flight to SFO I was greeted at 2:30 am by Benjamini monster, my hero. He was in town from LA and couch surfing himself for the week. He swifted me away to the homie Evan's place over by lake merritt. On the way there I could just feel the joy of home washing back over me.

The first morning Evan, Hippy, Brian and I hit up the Triple rock brewery for some 11 am drinks and to watch some soccer game that was actually kind of exciting. Soon after I met up with Some of my special ladies; Parisa, Ali, Mariza, Valentina, Vicki for the Berkeley international food fest. They had closed off some side streets around San pablo and University. It was there that I had some delicious indian ice cream, bought a new pair of hologram money shoes from fashion 4 less and last but not least met Mariza's new friend Sara who was super awesome...

There was a strange feeling like I had simultaneously never left and had been gone for 10 years straight. I felt right back at home but like everything had changed ridiculously.

I visited some of the favorite old spots those first days...the Mallard, where the bartender Robin frantically raced around pouring drinks for people like her life depended on it. Gordo's, sweet gordo's where I was reminded why it's always the first place I have to eat when I get back to the bay. And a couple trips to T-rex for happy hour and delicious ass BBQ.

There's just something so pleasant about a gang of good friends, food and booze. It's just so amazingly relaxing when we're all together and laughing, talking and reminiscing and creating new memories. I can say without a hint of sarcasm that i'm really blessed (in a non-religious way) to have these peeps in my life.

After Evan and a handful of friends bounced up to lake Tahoe to celebrate Evan's birthday up there I was offered a place to stay with a couple of ex-coworkers and roomates of mine, Richard and Andrea. Things have always been cool with me and Rich ever since he was a degenerate little kid hanging out drunk at 7-11 and I was popping acid like tic-tacs. But things were not so peachy with me and Drea once they started dating after meeting at work. Living with them was kind of a huge disaster a few years ago so i've been a little butt-hurt with her ever since.

But to Drea's credit she tried hard to make nice with me offering me a place to stay as long as I needed, making me early morning ramen and just being fun in general. We all went golfing along with Jehan, Ben and Brendan out by the Oakland airport.

I say "we" but mostly Rich, Drea and I were just drunk driving the golf carts, smashing into each other and peeing in the tall grass. So much fun! For some reason golfing has become a new thing for Jehan and Ben. Their trying to bring upper class pleasures like golf and paella back the the proletariat.

Went to a Giants vs. Cubs game that I actually enjoyed also. We got tickets from a scalper and had a few $9 beers. By the middle of week one my spending was already getting out of hand!

When the 4th of July rolled around I was thoroughly blissed out. A little dissapointed that some friends had left town or were so busy with work, but that's sort of what I expected. On the day of the 4th I went to a BBQ at an old coworkers from Trader Joe's place. It was pretty great to see some of the old TJ's freaks. Wacky drunkards like Velvet and Sebastian that seem like their characters straight out of Fear & loathing in las vegas.

That night we kept it fairly chill and a gang of us went up to another old friend, Shabnams house. I saw my old beer drinking partner Emi there for the first time so that was exciting. And Billy was able to kick it too thanks to the 3 day weekend.

We got drunk, made food, played apples to apples, argued, laughed, watched fireworks from all over the bay from her amazing house in the El Cerrito hills.

And at the end of the night when we were all passing out on the floor we were convinced by Brendan to venture out to the old local park to light off all the illegal 'works that Billy had been hoarding for hella years.

It was really spectacular actually and when we ran through the park and blazed off into the night afterwards I felt that old thrill that only comes from the fear of getting pulled over and arrested. Ahhh...that's what home is all about!

Well...that just about covers the first 6 days... excitement abounded. I'll be back with more tales as soon as I can put down my new PSP. I welcome any comments filling me in on any things my drunk ass forgot. (This was like a month ago already!)

I'm up out this piece!

The day has come...time to savor my 2 week vacation away from the dreary, humid hellish state called New York and get the fuck HOME!I finished finals, and had a fun ass last couple days here and in boston. But am I going to write about them?? No.

I'm gonna go pack and get the hell outta' here! No new posts for awhile either i'm sure. Everyone please wish me and my liver the best of luck. It's gonna' be a crazy old summer...

Unbeatable Banzuke

I have a strange, mid-finals calm about me today. It's like the eye of the hurricane. I have my hardest test tomorrow and yet here I am...playing scrabulous and browsing yelp. Whatever though, I feel pretty confident. I almost feel like it would be impossible for me to fail as concieted as that may sound.

I'm also too busy making mix cd's for a couple friends for when I go home on the 28th. In this modern age of 5 million GB portable players it seems almost silly making a tiny little 16 track CD so i'm upgrading to MP3 CD's that can hold 5 or 6 albums. That's the only way to fly.

For Billy i'm including all my latest indie rock favorites like Why? and Thao Nguyen. I'm so bored with hip-hop it's not funny. If anyone can turn me onto some real underground dopeness please let me know!
And for Mariza i'm putting in alot of booty bass mash-ups from the hood internet and perhaps a little hipster hop too.



Yesterday I borrowed Brent's bike and rode with Bay about 2 miles from Prospect park to the new Ikea in Red Hook. It was alot of fun! I hadn't biked like that in years. And weaving through NY traffic was pretty exhilirating. When we got there we stuffed ourselves with 2 hotdogs each, an ice cream cone, soda and cinnamon roll all for $4.00 each!! Amazing. I'm going to bring my next date there :)

On the way back we were caught in the beginning of a monsoon and were soaked as fuck! But even that was epic...soaring through the park with the wind and rain blasting us. The elements against us and our legs pumping towards the next beautiful stretch of greenery ahead of us. It was dope.

And now...after tomorrow's test I will return to Boston for my last weekend before summer break. Leile, I mean Mr. Salty, is playing a show on sunday and he's also promised me some sort of BBQ cook off festival on saturday. I'm juiced!

P.S. - New Yorkers don't seem to know what the term "juiced" means other than a steroid reference. And they certainly don't know "gaffled". It's so weird here...

This time yesterday...

I was getting nackered in Staten Island at an all you can drink sangria brunch to celebrate my aunt's graduation from business school. I ordered the 1 1/4 lb broiled lobster. It was fantastic. And the sangria pitchers never stopped flowing. What better way to get through a fake nice festival with family and acquaintances??

My mom and brother came down from Boston to join the festivities. My brother was busy being the good son and socializing with long forgotten family members while my mom just got drunk and complained loudly about how everyone was just "bullshitting each other with a bunch of stupid small talk". How embarassing....I tried to play the middle ground and just get drunk in peace and quiet.

On the ride home in my aunt's jet black 08' drop top Benz we bumped some Daddy Yankee and let the Verrazano bridge wind blow through our hair while our drunken stuffed carcasses enjoyed the sunset. How luxurious.


Today however, I blew off Casey's swim race and shoe shopping with Bay to sit around the house like a lazy sack of mexican potatoes. I would have felt bad leaving my family alone but I also didn't want to go all the way to the city in a freaking monsoon! And to top it all off, I REALLY need to study for finals.

I've been getting by so far studying only about a half hour per test but now that we're down to the wire I gotta' pick up the pace. I don't want to have to worry about anything while i'm back home for my summer break except Beerlympics training.

*Sigh* Just 2 more weeks and i'm up outta' this damn dirty ape of an island. I can't wait!!

Been awhile

I haven't had a chance to post for a bit. I was deprived of internet service by the evil outsourced vultures at verizon. It took over 2 weeks to resolve a simple reconnection problem. I've also been busy in the real world as well. I was visited by a few friends from back home and I had a great time and completely exhausted every sightseeing oppurtunity the city has to offer.

My home-slice Ben was here to interview for some design jobs in the hopes of moving out here himself. He surprised me on his first day with a duo of tattoos on his wrists. He got 2 circles of seemingly incoherent letters around his carpals. One of the wrists has all the initials of his family and the other is all his close friends (including me!) How cool is that, eh?! I've been immortalized! I was touched by the fact that I was even added.

Also visiting were 2 girls I know from high school, Lauren & Alicia. I have to admit that we haven't really stayed in touch since the old days and I was a little unsure how much we would still have in common, but it was really great having them here and reconnecting. It brought back memories of house parties and drinking 40's on staircases.

Tourist highlights of their week here include:

Pizza at Difara's and burgers at Corner Bistro
Coney Island people watching and a foodie tour through little russia
Daytime drinking and fish & chips at Pacific Standard
Wandering all through NY from prospect park to central park. Taking pictures and chillin'

But I am slightly relieved to have the house to myself again. A little peace and quiet and a day without walking 10 miles are good things. I also have mufuckin' finals to start worrying about so it's about time my sweaty ass buckled down and opened a notebook.

Speaking of sweaty, I think it must have literally been hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk today. It was a disgusting 95 degrees out! But with humidity i'd wager that it definetely was over a hundred. What the fuck, man! It was 70 and rainy like a week ago!! I hate this place and it's defineable seasonal changes. Where's my east bay perpetual 75 degrees at? I miss that like no other.

Aaaanyways, Here's some things i've recently discovered that you should get into...

thehoodinternet.com (the best mash-up architects i've ever heard)
sordomusic.com (a gigantic database of free albums collected from all over the interwebs)

The new Death Cab, Al Green and Santogold albums.






Iron Man. That movie was the equivalent of having your back scratched in just the right spot by your really nice girlfriend. All the while knowing that you're totally about to do it with her. Actually...wait...that's more like what the new Al Green album is like :)

Wow, I think i'm delirious from this blasted HEAT...

Your lesson for today is,
Appreciate and keep in touch with your old friends. Don't get mad when they leave a big pile of body gunk in the shower. They might just get a tattoo of you one day.

Listen to good music and stay out of the sun.
Buy lemonade from kids on the street even if you don't want it.
Call your brother just to say hi.

Spring barfs on my heart

One of my very bestest dear old friends came to visit the other week. He was stopping through Brooklyn on his way to his motherland of ice. It was really great to see him. And kind of cathartic, as I was finally able to hear the story of his tumultous past couple years that included lawsuits, embezzlement and a newfound passion for playing drums. I felt like we hadn't really talked or caught up in a really long time so it was good.

We acted silly all over town and enjoyed the Brooklyn botanic garden's cherry blossom festival among other things, like eating 5 burritos in 3 days and getting lost and staying out all night...


(We weren't nearly as bored as it appears. It's called selective editing, people)

After his departure it was back to business as usual. I have 6 weeks left of my junior year of school and while i'm doing well in the classroom, i'm unfortunately trapped at a pretty lackluster hospital situation where my training isn't really being put to use in the real world. All i've done in the past 2 weeks basically is help lift a 500 pound woman from stretcher to bed, learn how to prepare a barium enema bag and (today) try not to puke as one of the techs x-rayed a postmortem stillborn baby. It looked like a skinned kitten. Good times...

On top of that, I had to fight my way through what I think was a mild case of food poisoning the other day. I chose to eat some clearly undercooked chicken of my own making and proceeded to make the bathroom my home for the next 12 hours. Trying to work in the hospital like that was a nightmare!

*Sigh* I need to escape. I wish I was a drug addict. But noooOOOoooo, instead i'm fleeing to Jersey tomorrow for the weekend. I'll enjoy a potluck with Kuau, his wife and her nerdy med-school friends, play some Wii and maybe take a dip in the pool. Eeeexcellent!, (said in a Mr. Burns fashion of course)

I'm also planning some festivities for my big return home at the end of July. Last year I put together a "Beer'lympics" of sorts, where about 60 of my close, personal friends gathered at a big beautiful park in the Berkeley hills and spent all day playing drinking games in teams. We kept score and had big mugs painted gold, silver and bronze for the winners. It was glorious. I'm trying to recreate this from long distance with the help of my ex-girlfriend. I have a problem, well, not a problem but a tendancy to imagine everyone that I know back home as a member of my big extended family. It's comforting.

Even if they don't all feel the same way about each other. It's always been that way for me, like I don't know what I'd do without them. It sucks when I can't get people excited or organized about what I personally think would be a really fun event and a way for us all to reconnect....but i'm trying my best. I've got some good responses so far. Who could turn down a Beerlympics?!? You'd have to have a heart of steel...and balls of glass!

*Double sigh* I have some other moth clogs in my gut throne but those concerns will have to go onto my other super secret blog that even LESS people know about than this one :) Nah, actually, I think i'll just let them fester into a black ball of anger and confusion until juUUUuuust the right amount of booze pulls it out of me one day...

*Ahem* but on another note!....here's what I made for dinner!

Trader Joe's turkey burgers!


On white bread from 7-11!


With thick, green plant juice that looks like swamp scoopings!


Mmm-Mmm, Gross!!

So this is what love feels like...

It's been so long that I almost forgot! Until I met Thao Nguyen, that is.



Her folksy-indie-alt-pop-rock melts my heart like the proverbial seasonal change from winter to spring. This music is just what I needed to keep me from strangling someone on the bus.



She's playing with her band tonight IN BROOKLYN!! But as usual I can't think of anyone who would be willing to go with me except Bay and Petur, and their otherly engaged this evening. Also, i'm fucking exhausted after a long ass day of school/work. Oh well... she's coming around again in a few months with Rilo Kiley. But by then she'll be all famous and the show will sell out or something.

I mean, how can you not love this next one? It's like a marshmallow sunbeam reflecting off a unicorn's horn and turning into a pot of gold and all your friends are dancing around it and your old dead dog came back to life too! Yay!!

(Skip ahead 5 minutes for the best song ever. I can't tell if she would be totes pretentious in real life or just kooky and fun.)


Here's to discovering new music. Thanks, C.Bay!

//www.thaomusic.com/

It was nothing, really.

Hey, no big whoop...ya' know...I woke up at 6:20 am. Took the bus and subway for an hour to go work at a hospital for 8 hours. Took some x-rays. Worked in the catscan department, studied for some tests...

Then yeah, got home at 5, washed the dishes, took out the trash checked my Myspace, whatevs...

And then I was like shit, yo! ...dinner time! Busted out some beef...

Defrosted that shit. Lightly coated it with olive oil and gently massaged it with some salt and pepper.

Seared it for about 5 minutes, then into the oven for about 15 minutes.

Ba-BLAM!


Shit needed some extra shit tho'...
Poured some red wine, buttermilk, portobello mushrooms & butter into the pan with the seared beef leftovers. Boiled it, let it simmer and stew and reduce. No prob, bob.


Hell naw I didn't forget the potato, son! Fuckin' place your peepers on this ensemble.


Come get you some.

Big city nights

Some porno website declared that Brooklyn was the "naughtiest" city in America based on the amount of pornsite traffic coming out of here. So to celebrate they sent 5 porn stars to hang out in a dive bar in Williamsburg and had a free open bar...

Does that not sound like the absolute greatest thing EVER!!?? Let me answer that for you...yes..yes it does. Who the fuck doesn't want to meet Ava Devine & Mika Tan?!?

(Not that i'm into porn or anything ;)


For some odd reason I could not find one single person to go to this with me! Everyone was either studying, recovering from a bender or just plain lazy. Unforgivable!! I'm not the type of guy who goes to bars to ogle porn stars and get trashed by himself. So with a heavy heart and a tear down my cheek I was forced to go for plan B.

My friend Anna (who I mentioned in my last post) invited me to a party in Tribeca. One thing about her invites is that she usually tells me initially that we're going somewhere with an open bar...and then there is none. Or she'll say that there's no cover charge...and then I pay $15 at the door. That sorta' thing. So when she told me we were going to a party with an open bar and no cover charge I knew to expect the opposite.

I couldn't figure out what the hell kind of event we were at. It was some kind of benefit for a play, I think? They had a silent auction where you could sign up to win things like a tour and backstage passes to the Colbert report and a spa getaway and whatnot. There were performers every now and then also. A really horrible, unfunny yet hot young asian magician/comedian. And then a USO type gay guy singing army songs or some shit. It was just weird man, weird.

I had to get hammered to deal with this oddness. I was talking to Anna's boyfriend most of the time. He's this really hunky half japanese guy. He's some up and coming movie producer. Nice guy. Some other friend of Anna's came with us. I forget her name but somehow we went from discussing her psychology sessions to tango dancing in the middle of the party (I actually know some moves, no fake)

It was okay overall. I did some shmoozing with some other industry types and had my dinner at the free buffet. I almost convinced the gang to go back to Brooklyn for the porn thing. But they decided against it at the last minute (WTF!?) and we ended up just walking to the next bar. A little spot where some friend of theres was working. So at least we got to drink free for a little bit.

One of the bartenders at this next place was so hilariously drunk that I couldn't help but laughing. She was wearing a big Chevy's style sombrero and slurring and spilling drinks. Now that's the kind of girl for me! Reminded me of my ex actually. (Haha! Hi Esther!)

I was pretty drunk at this point and was having some sort of deep conversation with Anna's boyfriend and decided he was awesome. He wanted to hook me up with the bartender but I think I chickened out.

Soon after, the 3 of us pulled the ol' irish goodbye and cabbed it back to union square. I hopped on the subway and into the night I went. The last real night of spring break was over.

I had to overdo it of course. After getting off at my stop I discovered that my local liquor store has 16 ounce Crazy horse cans for 75 cents.

Boo-yah!

Drunk.

Salmon & stuffing

They were filming a movie in the subway as I was coming home from the hospital the other day. It was odd. I was like, "Why is there a train on that side of the track? There's no service on that side!" Then everyone on it poured off all at once looking all perfectly coifed and styled. All the billion dollar cameras and police tape kinda gave it away too.

My friend Anna is in the new Uma Thurman movie and I hope she hasn't let it go to her head, cuz' I haven't talked to her in over a month! Nah, she's probably just busy.

Oh yeah! I saw Steve Buscemi getting off the train about a week ago too. (I didn't realize how much show business news was going to be in this post :) He looked R-e-a-l-l-y old and frail. It kind of ruined my badass Reservoir dogs image of him. Shame.

I'm in the midst of midterms this week and I haven't been able to make it through a day without at least a 2 hour nap. I have "Properties of radiographic exposure" and "Cranium and facial bone positioning" on Friday. I'm feeling slightly confident about them.

My PRE teacher is nuts. He's the head tech at Methodist hospital and he spends half the class yelling, belittling and cussing at us. But he's a freakin' genius and actually really great underneath it all. I was about to try and put a little audio highlight reel of him on this post but i'm not nearly html savvy enough.

After midterms this week I have spring break!! Woo-hoo! No big plans really. I actually have to go in to the hospital to make up a couple class days before they kick my ass out. And then probably back up to Boston to spend some time with the family while my mom is still around. I'm looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing. And hopefully getting my tax return back soon so I can buy some cute new summer outfits. (J/K. Nah, but yeah.)

To keep up the trend of including pictures or videos in my posts, i'm including one of my favorite cinematic love songs from "The Jerk" (an amazing movie) I guess i'm feeling cheesy and I thought i'd continue todays Hollywood theme. Am I crazy for thinking that Bernadette Peters is hot??? NAHH!



It's too funny/awesome when she busts out that horn.

Great news everyone!

Hey, check it out! I failed my math midterm by less than one point! Sweeet! I got a fucking 74.7 because i'm a goddamn GENIUS!!!

....somebody just shoot me in the face please...

Graphical ratio of drunken pie chart

Last weekend 3 of my best friends were in town visiting. Evan from the bay came to surprise his brother and my other 2 friends from Boston and NJ came to see Evan. I proceeded to drink from 3pm to 2am on Saturday. I have approximately 5 memories of that 11 hour period. I think perhaps I shouldn't hit the sizzurp so hard...

My blurry memories include:

1. Meeting Casey for liter beers at Loreley. (3pm)
2. Hella expensive dinner with Kuau, Leile and their girls. (7pm)
3. Meeting up with Evan, Sean, Ami and the gang at the "Fat black pussycat" (9pm)
4. Going to one last after hours bar with Mia and being so drunk I could hardly stand. (2pm)
5. Slipping in and out of consciousness on the subway with Leile and Mary. (???)

I would enjoy being able to look back clearly at some of these good times i'm having and not just wondering how I got home without puking on the subway.

One thing this weekend did remind me of though, is that if I could buy a big ol' mansion in the hills for me and all my friends to live in I would finally be happy.





And if you don't understand this chart, you're a zark!

Sick

I feel like shit. Actually...I feel much better than I did over the weekend. It all started last week when I was having crazy insomnia. Tossing and turning, thoughts running through my head. Getting 1 to 2 hours of sleep a night probably caused the headaches. Then around wednesday came the coughing. Which added to the insomnia and kept me from sleeping at all. Then, finally the weekend came. I was too poor to leave the house so I planned on catching up on some sleep finally. But nooOOOooo. The coughing got worse. I tried to overcome to no avail and ended up feeling like I was perpetually hungover all weekend. Headachy and coughy and too weak to move. Guh...

So finally today I took off from school early, spent 6 of my last 10 bucks on some damn medicine and took a 4 hour nap. I feel a little better. I thought I was going to kill myself if I stayed home all weekend but it actually wasn't too terrible. Here's some of the things that have kept me sane.

(1.) Replaying Final Fantasy 8:


I haven't played a videogame in about 3 years so I thought i'd pick up one of my old favorites. It didn't really keep me as enthralled as it used to. I don't really understand videogame culture. I mean, I understand that their fun and all, but who the fuck has the thousands of dollars and neverending free time to play them nowadays??

(2.) Watching Current TV:
Have you seen this shit?! It's really a revolution in television, I think. The channel was co-founded by Al Gore and they run little mini episodes, Or "Pods" of news and art and culture from aroud the world. It's super informative and interesting and has none of the bias or stupidity of mainstream news. They take little local stories that you would never even hear about and show them to you in a really smart and funny way. Like this look at China trying to improve it's image for the olympics...


(3.) Scrabulous:
Could this be a little more addictive please? Thanks to facebook, I am now a scrabble champion! I find myself simultaneously playing against 5 or 6 strangers from all over the world and having to fight the temptation to cheat online when i'm losing. (Even though my opponents probably do! Those bastards!) When I actually played real life scrabble for the first time in about a year at a chicken and waffles dinner party last weekend I found myself bustin' out 2 letter words and bingos left and right. Amazing how sitting on your ass in front of the computer can translate to real world skills sometime.

But yeah, the real thing that's keeping me going nowadays is my mental clock counting down 3 weeks till' spring break and 3 months till' summer. I wish I could just find a hole to crawl into until then with some booze and a pillow.

Reasons why you shouldn't have surgery

I was at the hospital yesterday working with a tech when we were told to head to the operating room. We have to x-ray periodically in surgeries to make sure screws are being put in the correct place and whatnot. I've only done this once before during an ankle surgery and it's pretty much the reason I want to work in a small, private clinic when I graduate.

We got into our sterile scrubs and headed down. Not knowing what to expect. Before even getting into the room, i'm greeted by really nasty, rude nurses and doctors who all think of us lowly x-ray techs as second class citizens. (Fuck you!) Oh, and being a student i'm definetely lowest on the totem pole. Anyway, we get our sterile scrubs on and head into the operating room.
Turned out it was a "Lumbar fusion" which was being done to repair scoliosis.


Gross. This kids entire back was spread open with you know, some kinda' back spreading pliers. And basically his whole spine was exposed. Bloody and white. From my vantage point I could get a pretty clear shot of the doctors hammering and chiseling and burning and screwing. I had to force myself to look away. Meanwhile the tech i was with is nonchalant as ever telling me about his ability to make any girl that he's with, and I quote, "Squirt their juice like crazy when I'm fuckin' them" *ahem* Yeah, sorry, his words not mine :)

Anyway, on to the real reason I would NEVER have surgery if it was for something non life threatening like scoliosis. The doctors were clowning around too. Cracking jokes and making fun of each other for screwing up. One guy was casually wiping discarded bits of spine onto his scrubs which fell to the floor. They also had their I-pod blasting. Which was fine, I guess. But it happened to be a room full of white doctors in their 40's and they were playing stuff like, Wu-tang's "Shame on a ni**a" and that stupid "My ni**as don't dance, they just pull up their pants" song by that one shitty guy.



And they were shufflin' and shakin' it and singin' along as if there wasn't a risk of ending this little kid's ability to walk and talk laying 1 inch away from their razor sharp tools.

And then the worst part....one of the male nurses busts out a little digital camera, tip-toes over the doctors shoulders and snaps a pic of the whole grisly scene. For some sick, underground myspace for doctors profile pic, no doubt. Ugh. The whole thing just felt really unprofessional and disrespectful. And seeing how they manhandle you when you're unconscious and just keep pumping you with anesthesia was pretty rough. No thanks, yo. Keep ya' spine straight, homey!

St. Pat's in Boston. Day Three

On day three, Casey and I were left to fend for ourself as Leile had to return to work and Kuau and his wife were headed up to Cape Cod to visit other friends. I had been invited to partake in free drinks by my friend Ami at her bar downtown. And being the thirsty little monkeys we are, we quickly headed down to State street in Boston.

It was a beautiful day and our heads were clearing from all the salvia and brewskies. Naturally it was time for a re-clouding. We found Ami's bar and bellied up but sadly I was informed that she had injured herself the night prior and took the day off :( She later told me that she got drunk, fell and hurt her ass bone (or, Coccyx, if you will) So me and Casey went ahead and had a couple overpriced drinks and appetizers before moving on into the cold and sunny coldiness...
We journied around the financial district a bit until Casey couldn't feel her hands anymore. Now you wouldn't expect a glove purchase in Boston in 35 degree weather to be difficult. But after a trip to TJ Maxx, CVS and street vendors we were still hella gloveless and like, "Whuu..?!?"

The lady at TJ Maxx (more like TJ minimum. Hah!) had the nerve to tell us without cracking a smile that the winter clothing season had ended and that there would be NOWHERE to buy gloves anymore....

Reeeeal smart, Boston. It's winter there 8 months out of the year but you'd better fuckin' get ready for it by March 1st! Anyways, long story short, it gave us the chance to wander into Chinatown where there were gloves aplenty. And clean, quiet streets that you wouldn't even dream of finding in SF or NY's C-towns.


After a bit more tourism we headed to the MIT/sciency nerd district to meet Leile at his dreary office job as a professors assistant. Casey had to help him figure out some ridiculous request his boss had given him for a word document with no lines seperating tables or something. *Yawn*
We couldn't get outta' there fast enough. Leile had told me about a secret MIT bar called the "Muddy river" inside one of the classroom halls. Apparently some construction workers and homeless people had taken a liking to the cheap ass beer also and began going there to mingle with the computer programmer crowd. Sounded like fun to me!

It was a nice little place actually. It was super strange walking through this giant old dormitory building to get to it though. We ordered up some pitchers of Bud for $6each and were loving it. That is...until we noticed that some people around us had not just regular old pitchers of Bud....but GREEN pitchers of Bud!! Wtf?! Where was this coming from?! We had asked around the days prior but it seemed that most places had ended this grand tradition for fear of altering the taste of the beer and for the general unhealthiness of drinking that much food coloring. We asked the bartender to hook us up and he said, "Welp. That's not up t'me ya' see. You gotta' ask ol' scrappy over yonder."

Okay, that's not really how he talked. But that's secretly how I wish all bartenders sounded. But anyway, yeah, fuckin' creepy. The food coloring was just coming out of the pocket of some old irish dude sitting at the bar by himself. Leile asked if he could score off of him and he graced us with a couple squirts. Hooray!


By then we were getting hungry and Leile, being the plan master for the day, had found out that one of his favorite bar/restaurant/bowling alleys was doing free "candlepin" bowling at 9. Now...if you've never heard of candlepin bowling, consider yourself lucky. It's a New England bastardization of real bowling. They use super tiny, handheld balls and you basically just huck them at suuuper skinny little pins as hard as you can with no hope of aiming. But it was free and the place sounded fun so we headed off to Jamaica Plains.

Upon arrival, we were met by Ami (sore butt and all) and Leile's GF. We sat down to dinner and a round of "Brubakers" which is a dirty old bottle of beer that is apparently the Boston hipster version of Pabst. The food at this place, (the Milky Way), was really fucking good. It was funny, the rest of the place was a dirty old bar but the dining area was all trendy and fancy looking. We drank, we talked, we laughed, we ate. It was a grand ol' time. A DJ spinning "real vinyl" as his advertisement had touted began playing old Dub 45's when Grifto, the hipster clown prince of Ireland proceeded to lose his mind on the dancefloor!


Hahahaha!! So funny...anyways. We played a few rounds of CP bowling and got properly smashed. I almost got into a fight with a couple townies at the bar when I remarked out loud to them that I was mad at not being able to get irish carbombs anywhere and they retorted with a big shit-eating grin that perhaps it was because of "my attitude". We got into a little back and forth about where I was from and how it was insulting to order carbombs. Oh man, I was steamed. Me and Leile actually went back to look for them after I delivered the beers but they had taken off. Fearing my unholy wrath :)

We a-l-m-o-s-t missed the last train back to Leile's which would have been pure balls. But thankfully we made it home in one piece. One DRUNK piece. But that wasn't the end, goddamnit! We were set on drinking at least one freaking carbomb before leaving this state. So Leilers rounded up some bootleg fixin's and we had our final drink in Boston while laughing in the face of irish history and all the idiots who complained about us calling them carbombers.


Dumbasses. The next morning Casey and I met up with my brother who had just returned from Italy and had some Cuban sandwiches. He saw us off to the Fung-Wah and we rode off into the sunset like Seamus O' Toolahan at the battle of Crossberry, whippin' dynamite at housewives and children with a bottle of whiskey at the ready.

THE END

St. Pat's in Boston. Day Two

Well, seeing as how our gang was already in the hub of drunken irish america, we figured that it would just be criminal not to attend the St. Patrick's day parade and witness the madness firsthand. Some of Ellie's friends were in town for it also so we had to get down there to meet them around noon. We hit the red line and made our way to the Broadway station.



The parade was in the "Southy" neighborhood which is famous for being drunk and white and dangerous; a la "The Departed". We saw the bad signs from the very beginning. The subway was so crowded that we couldn't even reach the platform. We were waiting a minute here, a minute there until we finally packed in, all 6 of us. Hungover and surly. My annoyance level was already high.

We got off and were greeted by total madness. I had never seen a street that crowded. First thing we saw was a horse drawn Budweiser carriage followed closely by a very out of place Star Wars contingency that left everyone scratching their heads. (However, it was by far the neatest thing in the parade.)



We pushed our way through and found a decent vantage point to watch the activities from where we could listen to all the racist honkies call people "faggots" and "chinamen". It felt like whatever historical purpose this holiday ever had was long since lost on the lowest common denominator of society in Boston who just live for loud confrontations and public puking. It made me sad to be half Irish! Thankfully, our group didn't get hit with any of this racist nonsense firsthand, but we definetely heard it around us. Not alot but enough to be noticeable.

We had to escape. We attempted to hide out in a decent looking restaurant/bar sort of away from the crowd, but everywhere you went was charging $10 to $15 just to get inside. Presumably just to avoid getting lynched or beaten on the street. We couldn't find Ellie's friends and assumed it was best just to get the hell out of there. We walked a bit more and then escaped to the least rowdy part of Boston we could possibly think of...

...Harvard! The mecca of trust fund nerds and dudes that we could probably beat up!

We were all starving and grumpy and found a sweet little bar on the outskirts of Harvard square that served up some mean double cheeseburgers and lobster melts. A couple beers and irish coffees later and we were all back on track :) After that we toured around the area a bit more, hitting up the John Harvard bar where Leile's roomate Cheryl and her boyfriend came to meet us. We all got fairly fucked up there over the next few hours. It was grand. A pretty good local microbrewery. Kuau, Leile and I reminisced on the old days and filled everyone in on some of our wackier old stories.

To follow that up we had a delicious (except for the homemade pickles), indian dinner. And shit man, by the end of that, I was properly wasted. Ready for bed time. Leile's girlfriend drove us home thank Zeus, and being the smart guy that I am, upon reaching the comfort of home away from home, I proceeded to just drink, and drink and drink until my cramped little airbed became the most wonderful little slice of heaven imaginable. I was done. We had been up for about 16 hours and had been drinking steadily for about, 12 of those. Good times overall. I'm glad we experienced a classic american shitstorm like the St. Patty's parade in Boston firsthand. We survived and now we know that it just wasn't meant for queers and chi-nee like us.

Oh boy...Day 3 update soon to come!! You can't even wait, can you?!?

St. Pat's in Boston. Day One

The adventure started Saturday afternoon with Casey and I taking a relatively short Fung-Wah bus ride from Manhattan to Boston. For those who don't know, this bus will take you from NY chinatown to Boston chinatown in under 4 hours for only $15!!! Amazing...


I met up with my 2 best friends and their wife and girlfriend at the Park street station.(The oldest subway stop in America by the way) After a nice stroll through the richy rich neighborhood of Newbury we settled down for our first round of drinks and some primo burgers from Charlie's.

We decided to take the first night sort of easy and headed back to Leile's neighborhood in Malden to take in some small town bars. Malden has about 6 bars in walking distance of each other and we hit about 4 of them. I always enjoy getting the hell out of NY and coming to stay here. It feels like i'm out in the country or something. Even downtown Boston stays fairly calm and quiet compared to NY. Subways stop running at midnight. Bars close at 2. And some towns can't even sell beer! Ever! Those things may suck but it's also cleaner, nicer and easier to navigate.

The first and best stop had to be "Pearl street station". An old renovated subway stop that's now a bar with pizza and karaoke. Really bad karaoke! Except for the little old chinese man who Leile claims is famous there for being a real over the top showman and walking through the crowd caressing cheeks and making the ladies swoon. It was really fuckin' funny.


After stumbling back to the house things took a turn for the wacky. I was reminded that one of our friends had brought with him a giant bag of salvia divinorum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum

I had heard about this stuff before and watched youtube videos of teenagers getting completely zonked out on it. I didn't imagine it could be that intense seeing as how it's legal and sold online. My friends who had tried it claimed otherwise. Apparently it's the most intense, hallucinogenic high you'll ever experience for about 5 minutes and then you snap right out of it...

I had to find out for myself :)

And holy fuck...words almost cannot describe the vivid and unnatural feeling of being high on salvia. After taking an initial hit I was sure that I had everything under control. I felt lucid but not really fucked up. So what did my smart ass do? Take another giant hit of course! I proceeded to melt into the floor whereupon I was taken on such an unbelievable mental journey that I can't even fully comprehend it to this moment. I was apparently walked out to the porch by Kuau but in my head I was being dragged by some unseen force through walls and what felt like another fuckin' dimension. It felt like everything around me was staged like a play and that I was seeing beyond it into some reality looking into our own. I recall Kuau asking me if I was okay and leading me by the hand until I ended up back on the couch and s-l-o-w-l-y felt myself returning to normal until I was able to snap back and jump into the conversation.

SO CRAZY!! I've done almost every drug there is at least once in my life and i've NEVER felt anything like this. Thank god the peak of it was only 5 or 10 minutes. I couldn't take a second more. I wasn't the only one affected so strongly. Casey said that it was like, "my body was split in half by a razor and my tongue became the center of my whole weight" or as Leile put it.."my legs were made of paper" as he proceeded to tug on his pant legs furiously. Hahaha! Kuau's wife remarked that, "nowhere that you sit is yours, you're just borrowing the space. My body isn't my own."

To take quotes from Wikipedia, I would most accurately say that the effects were like sensations of motion, or being pulled or twisted by forces. And overlapping realities, such as the perception of being in several locations at once. It was the wildest thing i've ever done and I would highly suggest you try it at least once :)

After coming off of that, Casey and I smashed into a freezing cold airbed and tried to rest up for the next day's parade...I don't think any amount of resting could have prepared us for it...

Day two's blog soon to come.

holyshitholyshitHOLYSHIT!!

OHHHH MAAAN! It's friday (almost)! I'm only one nights sleep, one horrible 6:45 wake-up and 2 poorly studied for tests away from 4 days in Boston with my 2 best friends, their significant others and my most amazingest adventure companion, Casey. (That's alot of numbers!) She just got back from Puerto Rico and is already ready for the next party.

It will be quite the booze fest, lemme' tell ya'. We're planning a day in Jamaica Plains checking out some paddle boats and an arboretum. The St. Patty's parade in Southy, enjoying some of Bostons amazing indian food (for reals), going to my friend Ami's bar and generally being shitty drunk for the entire time :) There's also talk of experimenting with some salvia. ...hmm..i'm not sure though. I think I gave up hallucinogens back in high school...

Anyways, it's needless to say that i'm as happy as an amazingly coordinated brown bear in Japan who just learned how to twirl and twiddle his favorite stick...

...don't expect any updates until I get back ;)

Tuesday

Days go by quick and I don't even notice them. I'm in a daze. Half awake at best. I'm glad I don't notice the days going by. I don't like them...


These tedious, tired days are my mortal enemy. All i'm doing is fighting through them for another year and a half. A year and a half until I get to see what the fuck being an "adult" with a "career" is like. Sure I enjoy a pint or two on the weekends with my chums but the ever present dread of quizzes and labs and half dead patients hangs over my head like some cursed mistletoe, with SATAN just waiting to french kiss me!! (hahah!).

The cold, dark mornings, the never ending need to study. Not studying and then panicking. Falling asleep on the subway. Rain and snow bursting out of nowhere as I walk through Manhattan. Realizing slowly that I might be dyslexic, that I don't know 8th grade math and that my job will one day give me cancer. Ahhhh... soak it all in. I'm going to look back on this fondly someday, that's the crazy part. I'll tell people how I travelled to NY to become a radiographic technologist and of course, to broaden my cultural horizons, and they'll say "ooh! If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!"

And i'll say, "Eh, ya' know...no biggie. That shit was over before I even realized it." And then i'll go pound a 40 from out my fridge which will contain nothing but 40's. (Like the Nothin' but a G' thang video! My dreeeeam!!)