blargh blargh blargh blargh blargh blargh blargh blargh blah blah blah bah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
everyone makes a big deal out of ex-girlfriend things which makes me think that i should make a bigger deal out of it, but i know that i shouldn’t… it’s all just very silly.

the other night, troy and i went to jeff’s art opening; after we left, we decided to go to this random place near the gallery that looks interesting; it’s called funhouse. anyway, we really didn’t know what to expect — i seriously thought it was even a strip club or something — and it turned out to have this crazy freaking thing going on (see poster above… seriously. now imagine that on stage… which equals a lot of… costumes… and silly accents… including one guy who had a particularly maybe slightly offensive native american character with a really bad beard or something? super confusing.) anyway, the shit was totally awesome because it was free but it definitely blew my mind that: a) it cost $18 usually; b) the room was seriously full; c) the thing was probably sold out; d) it usually cost $18. where the heck did these people come from? i’m so confused. that being said the whole idea is arts-centric programming, which i can get behind… i just don’t get the humor or interest (especially not $18-worth of interest) of that type. but you know, whatever makes people happy? more power to them? congratulations?

no matter what, though, the place itself was totally amazing and they had one room that was full of clown paintings — a couple velvet ones, a couple intensely creepy ones including one that was slightly looking over his shoulder at you, and he was right next to the tv so you always saw him a little bit out of the corner of your eye, and one that was! the! best! thing! ever! and kind of reminds me of this dan lydersen painting with the flying ronald mcdonald… only it was way more epic and was a clown descending out of a sky like jesus. it was so sos oso sosos os oas o soso amazing. (a quick search for a jesus clown is both a good and a band idea…)

anywhooooooooooooot. yeah, they had a wii in that room and the owner or something of the place told us to play super mario forever, which is basically the hacked version of mario that i’ve embedded below. i mean that exact level. we got as far as 9 seconds in (robby got the furthest; he showed up just as the weird theatre piece was ending) and then gave up because it was too hard then moved onto mario 3, and in general, i was just stoked because i had been thinking — i think literally the day before — that i really wanted to play video games. wooooooooooo. we were definitely there for a couple hours. totally ruled, playing video games, in a bar, in a weird room adorned with all things clown…

anyway, blah blah blah. time to go be mihae’s paper editing slave part like five in the past two days! (but i forgot to call her on her birthday so this is kinda my self-imposed help and punishment cycle…)

other than that, though, she got gifted this shit for her birthday so one of my lucky friends coming up is definitely getting one of these…………………! had some of the whiskey rum and the askinosie dark milk chocolate and goat cheese with cognac figs. so fucking good, all of them, but the dark chocolate one wins, of course (it had tiny pieces, like mint chocolate chip, but finer, and pretty much all i need in life is chocolate). definitely learned recently that 90% chocolate is like, seriously, the only chocolate i can eat that i will be satisfied eating just a little bit of. with even like 86% i just keep eating it, waiting for it to get satisfying or something, and it just never does!! i dunno! it’s weird!

i’m fat, though. diet time, soooooooooooon. but first, cupcake royale tiramisu cupcakes tomorrow, since i’m in seattle, and like i said before, i’m totally obsessed with them :/

geh.

estoy muy confundido. es que…………… que estoy haciendo? hoy fue una fiesta en nuestra casa, fue un potluck y un noche de películas. miramos la película de jean-luc godard — “weekend”. no lo entiendo completamente pero… fue muy divertido y cómico y muchos amigos que no he visto en mucho tiempo vinieron. weeeeeee. tengo dolor de cabeza. ahora, hace… un mes o más, puedo tomar cervezas sin problemas. los me gustan un poquito (si son stouts o newcastles), y es un pequeño interesante a estar borracha porque no me gusta mucho a estar borracha en mucho tiempo (desde los días de la universidad). tengo los habilidades de español como un nivel de una idiota. wooooo.

después del potluck, shawn… hooked up… la computadora al emulator y yo jugué “ninja gaiden” — si, el original. aaah! me gusta mucho!!!!!!!! lo falté mucho!!!!!!!! pero es “self-flagellation” porque es imposible y….. es tan imposible. yo grité mucho mucho mucho porque tengo frustración — GALOREEEEE!

cuando soy borracha, quiero escribir en español. es una cosa. una cosa nueva? si? no sé. vamos a ver.

fue un buen noche.

“i’m mad as hell and i’m not going to take it anymore!”

Cool captured still photo for the Norwegian zombie flick, Dead Snow, above.
Click on the photo to read Hojo‘s review on it.

2:11am – 2:34am
I’m listening to… Nurses’ Apple’s Acre album. Consider me addicted. Going to see them tomorrow night at a house party in Seattle. We’ll see if they live up to the expectations.

Going to try to make this as quick as possible…! Tired. I went to watch “My Suicide” today with Rachel and it was pretty fucking bomb, I must say. It was unlike any film I have ever seen, and that is a fucking feat, man. It was super random and had a hodge-podge of little things… it was like a collage in film form, and as a full-length feature, took two and a half years of editing alone. It is about a boy who says he wants to commit suicide on camera for a school film project, and the repercussions of that. Really, really, good, and kind of interesting that the organization it stemmed from was originally a non-profit group that made PSA’s about stuff like teen suicide. So really, they began this project with the goal of stopping teen suicide, basically. I didn’t really feel like the film made me feel that negatively about suicide, though, but maybe it will make an impact on someone…

In other news, I ate at Serious Pie yesterday in downtown Seattle and fuck, best fucking pizza I ever had. Seriously. I didn’t know pizza could even be that good. Potato and rosemary and cheese. No tomato sauce. MMMMMM. Expensive, though. It was like $14 for one that was like, two Pizza Hut personal pan-sized pizzas or something.

Man, I’m tired. Last night there was an intense Left4Dead game, haha. Nerdy to write about but whatever. Essentially, the teams were me, Gymshoe (James), Takyn (Megan), and pubbie versus Sandmole (Pat), Plumridge (Josh), Loon (Jason), and pubbie. We were wondering if the teams were fair, and so, James switched with Jason… but then James was basically saying, well, that’s not much of a change since Jason and I are pretty much equal (not true), so really, we should split up the girls, because no offense, but the girls shouldn’t be on the same team. Josh and Pat basically said they didn’t agree with his sentiments, and I said that, “I’m pretty sure I could kick your ass.” So we left the teams as they were, with us two girls on one team. It was an intense game (I found myself seriously 2 inches from the screen at one point and my eyes have been way fucked up today), but we won by the skin of our teeth. Four points. Haha. But seriously. It’s like. Take that. Beeyotch. :L In the words of Pat, basically what James was saying was, “Let’s split up the girls… because they’re girls!” It’s kind of nice to be able to hold our own as the females. >P

Anyhow.

One last update.

I went to that movie today with Rachel and when I got back, I realized that I’d locked myself out of the house. Chris had been there when I’d left and Rachel had picked me up, but he was gone when I returned. After prying around the house perimeter forever, trying to find an unlocked door or an unlocked window, I finally resigned to having to borrow a ladder from our neighbor with the trampoline. This neighbor family with the trampoline are reallly cool and relatively young, and they have two kids who pretty much just jump on a trampoline all freaking day every day. I’ve only met them once at a BBQ that Marge, the former lady next door, had before she moved, and everyone in the town came. Trampoline neighbors were friends with Marge, but they are relatively ostracized in the neighborhood because their kids are outside all day, cuss, and I guess they smoke weed. But they’re like cool… and nice… so it’s kind of unfair. When we’d first gone to the BBQ, Marge had warned us that the neighborhood folk might judge Chris, Alex, and I because Chris and I have piercings, but that she had basically told all of them that we were decent human beings. Funny that such sentiments would still hang around in a relatively liberal city like Seattle and a relatively liberal neighborhood like Phinney Ridge. Whatever.

Anyhow. Trampoline neighbors saw me struggling and offered a ladder. They unfolded it and it was like freaking like, 16 feet tall and needless to say, quite unwieldy for me to wield. I caught it on their fence, then caught it on our deck before I could put it up to my bedroom window, the only open window in the house. Thank god I never close that thing, or I would have been sitting outside helplessly for two hours. It was hard to get the screen off, though, and I’m scared of heights, making it just SLIGHTLY nerve-wracking. At one point, the neighbor threw me a really dirty butter knife to use, and it absolutely did the trick (putting the screen back on was actually harder, though). When returning the ladder, I damn near took out the added-on portion of our roof, that is literally just being held up be a freestanding pole. EEK.

First for today: Learning how to take out a window screen! YAY!

drifting.

I’m listening to… Hotel Eden, Infected Mushroom.

It’s hard to update these days. Just kinda drifting through life these days. Updates in life include the following.

The awesome guitar player from The Horrors.

* Cliff wants me to be his art manager. TBD what that entails.

* I went to Sohaila and Joe Vollan’s art openings on Friday… I really liked Sohaila’s new stuff.

* I’ve come up with a tattoo design and am now pondering whether I want to spend money on such things, or if I want to spend money on traveling… always more inclined to lean towards traveling, but you know how it is.

* Left4Dead has been quite different and people don’t usually want to play much anymore.

* New roommate is well, quite different from most people I have associated with since I’ve been to college… and he reminds me very much of my brother at a younger age, with the desire for money, women, and well, not drugs, but still. He is also very… young… in his approach to life and approach to women. Hopefully being in Seattle will help he be less naive? Last week, I took him to an art walk, and there was a DJ man dressed up in drag, and Mike (roommate) was like, “What’s up with that guy?” and I said, “Wow, I understand, but if you said that to anyone else, that would be HIGHLY offensive,” and he didn’t see how it could be offensive. Just interesting.

* Went to see the Horrors and the Kills at Neumo’s on Friday evening, cept Rachel got sick and went to sleep in the car, so I left the Kills early, which is too bad, cause they fucking kicked ass. The Horrors really kicked ass, too. I got a couple pics below of the Horrors. They’re a good looking bunch of lads, and man, can the fucking guitarist play some mean ass shit, for reals. Lots of effect pedals and such, but totally fucking kick ass. I HIGHLY recommend that you go check them out.

* Parents came on Saturday, but I already wrote about that below.

* Swapping between reading Haruki Murakami’s After The Quake, a whole book of Lewis Caroll’s writings (just finished Alice in Wonderland… now onto Through The Looking Glass), and World War Z. All amazing books… all very different… but all separated in small enough segments that I can digest all three at once without much conflict in my brain (or is there)?

* Chris has been having people over for Dungeons and Dragons parties. The game is actually kind of badass, although I don’t personally think I can play because that shit takes so godamn long.

* Chris made an interesting dinner tonight for all the D&D folks, which consisted of Cream of Chicken, Cream of Mushroom, tortillas, green chili, corn… actually really fucking good, although I can’t say it seems all that healthy.

* Me, Chris, and Mahoca watched “Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure” yesterday, and I must say, it was fucking excellent. Stupid, but excellent.

* Oh yes, I’m pretty committed and determined to going to Burning Man this year; I’ve already purchased my tickets to Los Angeles and will definitely make it happen one way or another. Going to apply for low-income tickets… with the deadline being May 30, so I gotta do it tomorrow… because I’m low-income, right now, dammit.

* Infected Mushroom is coming July 3rd, and I am actually using Google Calendar to make fucking damn sure that I don’t miss it this time, since I’ve already missed them a couple times due to absolutely freakish circumstances beyond my control. And so it goes.

* Got caught up on some “Breaking Bad” with Lenny, finally, but we’re still a good five weeks behind. EEEP. That shit is SO GOOD.

* I also like this stupid reality dating show called “Daisy of Love.” Stupidly named, but it’s interesting. Mostly because I like seeing the people that go on the show and how their personalities are. I love reality TV. Not gonna lie. Granted that perhaps much of it IS fabricated, but it’s only fabricated to a degree. People are just so damn interesting.

* I met with one of my new writers, Chris, yesterday, who is a friend of Yair and Hojo’s… so that was cool. We sat in front and in back of each other for a good fifteen minutes, not knowing the other person was the other person (but suspecting).

* Got to try Trophy Cupcakes, which Tammy claimed was much tastier than Cupcake Royale. I’m not quite sure that it was, but it was good, true. That shit is expensive, though, them designer cupcakes. How can they charge that much money for a snagnam cupcake?!!!!

Alright, enough ranting. It’s time to do some more reading and go to bed.

…

Realization: How good I am at video games is directly correlated with how good I’m feeling at the time of playing said video game.

BLARGH.

Blargh, I say, blargh. It’s snowing in Seattle again. Actually, it was hailing pretty damn good after I left the movie theatre today after watching “Watchmen.” Pretty awesome movie — of it, I do approve. I rather approve of the snow as well although it’s not super safe to drive in, and I nearly slid through a red light today but luckily I made a quick decision to do a right turn (and luckily there weren’t any pedestrians crossing the street…).

I do not approve however, of playing Left4Dead while lying on your stomach, which is what I did today, and it ensured total terribleness. Jeebus. I’ve noticed a prime difference between myself and well, most DUDES who play video games. I just want to play the godamn game and perhaps discuss a few minor things, but guys can talk about it for freaking ever, along with all of the tiny little logistics about movement and style of play and crap. I could care less. And I wonder if most women could probably care less… I consider myself a pretty avid gamer, but really… I don’t care. I just want to play and generally be done with it. ~__~ But guys can talk about it for hours. Quite literally. In college I definitely went to many a dinner meeting where all people talked about for hours was games and I wanted to die.

“Watchmen” was mostly awesome — especially the intro — but there were some love scenes and fighting scenes that were absolutely terrible and should have been left out, IMHO. Apparently it was really close to the graphic novel in context and content, though, so I’m going to have to give that there graphic novel a readly dee, because HsuKen and Lewis swear by it, I guess.

Last night was Jennie’s birthday party, and that involved some karaokeing and sitting around at Applebee’s. Kazar ordered two entrees and two appetizers for himself and shared it with Janice and I… and finished it all. I didn’t really eat that much of it, neither. The waitress was quite a hoot and played along nicely as well.

I bought Jennie this animal mask from Archie McPhee’s, which I went to earlier that day, and Janice bought her an UglyDoll. This is the UglyDoll wearing the mask, and drinking alcohol, and holding forks and spoons, and luckily, the eyes fit through the mask’s eye holes and the tongue fits through the mask’s mouth area. NICE!

I’ve noticed that when I hang out with certain groups of people, like with Chol and Josh, I get like, too much attention. I don’t know if it’s cause I haven’t seen them in forever or what, but I don’t know… it all makes me feel kind of weird and that people are watching me if I’m just doing normal things, or I feel awkward and pressured to act other ways sometimes because people are watching. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s uncomfortable sometimes being the target of attention. I should rather like to not be, so that I wouldn’t get used to such a thing. I also find that other people always greet me with, “So, how have you been?” and I answer all awkwardly cause I think that’s a hard question to answer, and I’ll be like, “Oh, good, unemployed,” or something, and I’ll never think of asking about the other person because small talk is just not something I’m used to doing, and then I think back and feel rude for not asking how the other person was doing, because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?! It’s rude just to answer for yourself! But I’d much rather talk about something more serious, but you can’t always jump right into that with people you don’t really know that well. HMM. YES. SOLUTIONS?!

The other day, our upstairs hallway light in our house went out, and the next day, although I don’t think anyone had been home to change it (although someone must’ve been), it came back on! And my camera, which had been dead when I went to Los Angeles, magically got its battery charged somehow even though I hadn’t used it at all. And since it magically recharged itself, I’ve used it to take like three or four videos! Weird!

a terrible fucking day.

Today was by all accounts fucking terrible. Like seriously, terrible.

Let’s just say that Americorps is RETARDED and will not let me take any freelance gigs or make ANY semblance of money on top of their job, which pays me less than minimum wage at $949 a MONTH. It’s ridiculous. I can live off of that, plus food stamps, but I can’t save. And that’s not at all legit. Their reasoning? “The program was originally created so that Americorps VISTA members can understand the poverty of the people of the under-privileged communities they are trying to serve. WHAT THE FUCK. That’s UNBELIEVABLE. Like, as if everyone isn’t making enough of a sacrifice to put in a 40 hour a week job for like zero money and everything? I feel absolutely terrible to be telling the lady, my manager lady, that I potentially cannot do the job because I HAVE my own company, I do have freelance gigs already lined up, up the wazoo, etc. I would love to do both and to do freelance work on top of it, but it seems like they are giving me no choice. The regional state-wide lady today told me, “I just wanted to tell you [that you can't take freelance work] because the federal government WILL come after you.”

And initially, I was like, “Oh, it’s okay, I have my own business, but it doesn’t make money,” but that’s actually a lie, because I do make NEGLIGIBLE amounts of money, and if that is to disqualify me, or I’m supposed to give up Redefine to work a shit for crap job, I can’t do it. I feel terrible because my manager lady is very nice and has made many allowances for me (or proposed allowances), such as working part-time from home initially and being able to start a slight bit later if I want to go to Peru, but what the heck am I supposed to do?!!!! I see no other choice, honestly. And it sucks to have to be put in a position where I have to pick due to some stupid, outdated, ridiculously ridiculous rule that shouldn’t even exist in the first place unless Americorps is solely looking to hire big fat fucking losers, and I’ve been stressed out all day about it, and on top of that, I bought my plane ticket to Peru for March 25th to April 13th (and it would actually arrive the morning of April 14th), because the manager lady told me this morning that the dates of the orientation were the 15th to the 16th, and so I booked it, and later talked to another lady to discover that that information is in fact wrong, and the training is actually from the 13th to the 16th. So I checked with Vayama.com, who I bought my ticket through, to see if I might be able to exchange my ticket for a slightly later date, but that is absolutely not a possibility for any of the nearby dates before the 13th. So, there it is folks, I have a ticket to Peru, and even if I took the Nazi Americorps job, I’d be missing a day of training, which I’m not even sure they’d allow, and today is just a cluster motherfucking fuck of a day. For real.

And what’s worse is playing Left4Dead to relieve the day’s stress and being told what to do by people that are generally worse players than me. And either way, even if they’re better, it’s lame to tell someone, “Oh, you should have done this, instead,” in a game that has 10,000 potential hypothetical routes to take, and who knows what you would have done, and jesus, everyone make mistakes, and pay attention to your own shit and be better at your own shit and stop worrying about what other people need to do better, unless you really are WAY better of a player. MOORG.

And you know what the worst part is? The worst part is that I felt like I was completely in the right, yet, I apologized for being snappy. I read recently in an educational book that studied elementary school students that young girls are always apologizing for being strong, or being opinionated, and that young boys never do, and I can’t help but wonder, “Is that why I’m apologizing?” Part of it is that I’m just a big giant softie, but I wonder how much of it is because I feel like I don’t have a right to feel like that? Like I’m not entitled to get angry at someone else because there’s no way I’m better because I’m a girl? In fact, that’s how it really feels like most of the time with videogames. I don’t actually feel like I get much credit, and I feel like it is because I’m a girl. In Counterstrike, for example, I didn’t really demand credit, because I didn’t think I was all that good. Not the case in Left4Dead, though, as I feel like I’m pretty good in that, and better than most people, and consistently rank on the top of the charts on both teams. Not today, though, as my heart wasn’t in it and I was half cutting paper and half playing, and pissed anyway, but frankly does it all boil down to my being a girl that I don’t get credit? I wonder. It’s not that anyone’s saying I’m bad, I think, cause I’m not, but they’re certainly not saying good (other than Alex and Eddie, but they are homies).

During my Americorps and Peru woes today, Alex was saying I need to think things out more before I do them, because he is an extreme thinker, and I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum, and I kinda would have agreed before, but not necessarily wholeheartedly, but after today, fuck, yeah, I need to think through my actions more cause I’m a logical person generally, and especially when issues concern other people, but when things get exciting and I want to do something immediately because I have a good idea or want to have some peace of mind by completing a task, I end up not thinking it through, and today it all became glaringly apparent and really ultimately just kind of insane-making, and if I had just waited a day, or a few hours, things probably would have been a lot neater, a lot cleaner, a lot better, or maybe even a week, for even more goodness. But no. I’m dumb. The end.

And apparently, when I’m pissed off and riled up, I don’t like to use periods, because this whole entry so far has had like, around 30 periods, and that’s pretty few, considering this is the length of like, 100 sentences! Haha.

On a positive note, here is a painfully hilarious and painfully painful conversation with Rachel, like seriously.

***

rachel (12:14:15 AM): wow
rachel (12:14:59 AM): what time is it in canadia
vee (12:15:05 AM): wtf
vee (12:15:09 AM): canada is as wide as the united states
rachel (12:15:14 AM): haha
vee (12:15:15 AM): actually probably wider
rachel (12:15:20 AM): oh
rachel (12:15:26 AM): so
rachel (12:15:34 AM): same time
rachel (12:15:41 AM): I was just making sure
vee (12:15:47 AM): … -_-
rachel (12:16:08 AM): its weird how a diff country can have same time zone
vee (12:16:22 AM): WTF
rachel (12:16:23 AM): or something
vee (12:16:27 AM): i0t’s not weird at all
vee (12:16:32 AM): WTF
rachel (12:16:32 AM): fine
vee (12:16:36 AM): every country
rachel (12:16:41 AM): haha
vee (12:16:41 AM): that shares the same vertical axis
vee (12:16:43 AM): has the same time zone
vee (12:16:45 AM): om g
vee (12:16:47 AM): are you high or something
rachel (12:16:47 AM): huh
rachel (12:16:57 AM): haha
vee (12:16:59 AM): the west coast of the united states
vee (12:17:01 AM): has the same time zone
vee (12:17:03 AM): as for example
vee (12:17:04 AM): peru
rachel (12:17:04 AM): maybe
vee (12:17:05 AM): or chile
vee (12:17:08 AM): because if you go vertically down the map
vee (12:17:09 AM): its the same
rachel (12:17:15 AM): nuts
vee (12:17:20 AM): all vertically similar time zones share the same time
rachel (12:17:32 AM): that’s crazy shit
rachel (12:17:58 AM): forget this conversation happened
vee (12:18:00 AM): u must b high
vee (12:18:01 AM): lol no
vee (12:18:04 AM): going in my blof
vee (12:18:05 AM): blog
rachel (12:18:08 AM): I think my brain stopped working
rachel (12:18:13 AM): please don’t or ill end you
vee (12:18:17 AM): too bad
rachel (12:18:28 AM): I’m never IMing u again
vee (12:18:37 AM): lol
rachel (12:18:48 AM): u r a bully
vee (12:18:54 AM): lol
rachel (12:19:30 AM): boo
rachel (12:19:46 AM): I honestly don’t have a brain

NOTE AS OF MAY 2009: Actually, *I* am the loser. While Peru is pretty vertically-oriented compared to the west coast of the United States, it is not directly lined up as I had thought. Trujillo, on the west coast of Peru, is two hours ahead of the west coast of the United States. My mistake. Looks like I’m the idiot.

sometimes, life feels legitimately good.

Like right now!

I was a bit skeptical about hanging around in the Bay Area for an extra three days, but since my parents seemed like they really wanted me to hang around and paid for the additional $60 Southwest Airlines ticket for me to return to Seattle on Monday morning instead of Friday morning, I just said, OK. And you know what? I’m surprisingly glad I did hang around. As a result of hanging around, I have managed to accomplish the following (instead of sitting at home on my ass, even though sitting at home on my ass also probably would have meant playing some muthafuckin’ Left4Dead!!!):

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23RD, 2008

DOING JACK SHIT!
Yeah! Arrive in SF. I don’t know what the fuck I did today. What the fuck did I do? Probably NOTHING.

***

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH, 2008

DOING JACK SHIT!
Yeah! Arrive in SF. I don’t know what the fuck I did today. What the fuck did I do? Probably NOTHING.

***

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25TH, 2008

MEETING UP WITH ALLEN MA!
Since I had a car this day as my dad was out of town, I drove into San Francisco to eat dinner with Allen Ma. But he had a deadline, as he works at a cellphone game company, so I had to wait like an hour and a half before he actually got off work. I attempted to pay for meters but holy shit. 25 cents for FIVE MINUTES. Can you believe that?!!! CAN YOU REALLY?!!! It’s positively insane! I ended up going to Border’s and spending a little bit of money buying Christmas presents and crap. BLARGHHHH!!!

EATING AT THE FANCIEST SUSHI KAITEN RESTAURANT EVER!
We went to Japantown for sushi when he was off work and there are a million sushi restaurants there, but we finally decided on Isobune. Isobune is the finest kaiten restaurant dining experience I’ve experienced. Wow. ~__~ Great sentence. It’s sushi boats, but they’re like… really good cuts of fish. For good reason, I suppose, because you’re paying regular restaurant prices. Not cheap restaurant prices, either. The minimum plate I think was $2.25? Maybe? Not cheap at all. But delicious. I had ama ebi and some other crap and they were all delicious. The king crab nigiri cost I think $8.00!?!! Holy.

PLAYING FUN IPHONE GAMES!
We went back to Allen’s apartment and I pretty much played his phone games for an hour. The games his company makes for iPhone, that is. I forget the names. But they were fooking amazing. Really fun ~__~ Makes me want to have an iPhone… almost.

GOING TO A DRAG SHOW!
I picked Jeanette up from the Oakland airport when it was time, and we headed over to the Stud in San Francisco to see their weekly Tuesday night drag show. It was awesome! Let me recall the acts. They were ALL trannies btw, in various stages of transexualness, but Allen and Jeanette would scarcely believe it. LOL. Here they were in order-ish.

1) Larger guy in woman’s business suit type attire. Funny but pretty boring. Good personality, though, and looking at his jolly ass face made me jolly.
2) Host, who I loved. Goth/industrial type styled crossdressing dude who was pretty much hot as a man and as a woman. Right up my alley. Some corny jokes, but amusing enough. Sang, pretty well, but melancholy.
3) One that totally looked like a woman, who Allen and Jeanette still maintain was a woman, but that makes ZERO sense. Also doubled up as a host. She did a silent act, with a chair and a cigarette. Good facial expressions.
4) My favorite, a dude dressed up as a woman with this long rainbowish dress and long hair in two brown buns on the top of the head. Really messy. Really dude-ish. Did this really awesome lipsync that was perfectly synced with the music and was about snakes or something. At some point pulled out a box of dog food and chomped it down, spraying food and lipsyncing… IT WAS SO AWESOME. I wished Jeanette had gotten a video of it it was so so so great. But unfortunately not. I am sad about this. It was seriously so great.
5) Another one that totally looked like a woman, tall and black, with a really good female-ish voice. Really fucking hot. I am a fan. REALLY hot.
6) Another crossdressing dude. Lipsyncing act. I don’t really remember this part, unfortunately.
7) Fully surgerized guest who Jeanette and Allen thought was a woman. Totally was a man, though, and a really hot man. Lipsynced and danced around for a really long mixtape session. Got kinda boring, but she was pretty fucking hot. Woulda been a hot man as well.

When in San Francisco!

***

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27TH, 2008

EATING HOT POT WITH THE PARENTALS!
That’s about it, really. Roxanne and Phil came over. We ate hot pot. We watched a weird ass super artsy Chinese movie. Very artsy but made ABSOLUTELY no sense. Haha.

***

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH, 2008

GOING BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING? HELLZ YEARER! FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, IT WAS EXCITING!
I woke up at 9:00am and went shopping with my mother on Black Friday and receive $115~ worth of free clothing. I was certainly prepared to pay for the stuff (and I would have bought less stuff), but my mom was like, “When you go shopping with me, I’ll pay for it!” and I said, “HAIL YEAH!” Of the aforementioned $115~ of clothing is: 1) A pair of black corduroy-ish black pants for $19.99; 2) A pair of grey and black leopard print pants for $19.99; 3) A grey and black zebra-print (I really like patterns) zip-up sweater — I mean literal knit sweater — with hood, by Fox, with neon yellow trim that is pretty much my new favorite article of clothing ever for $49.99; 4) A super warm quilted Hurley plaid purple and grey hoodie, like a Matix Asher hoodie, that I had really wanted to purchase before when it was $65.00, which I deemed to be too expensive, but now it was on sale for just $30.00!!!!; and 5) A dark green and black plaid mini skirt from H&M that I have wanted for a while for $19.99 (this I paid for myself).

During this excursion, I discovered that, WOW, MALL FASHION HAS FINALLY ALIGNED WITH MY TASTES IN CLOTHING! I had actually previously thought it a terrible thing that my tastes in clothing NEVER aligned with mall fashion, cause there was never any way for me to find clothing I actually liked. But now that it actually lines up, the dilemma, as stated by Alex, is this: maybe before I had my unique fashion style going on, at the cost of not being able to find clothes I like in most stores… but now I just look like everyone else. Shit. Dilemmas.

MEETING NEW PEOPLE, SEEING OLD PEOPLE, AND LISTENING TO BANDS IN SAN FRANCISCO!
On Friday evening, I picked up Xinlei and Isabel from Xinlei’s house so we could go to San Francisco. I left the house at 8:00pm, and my parents were amazingly receptive and non-questioning of this behavior. It’s like shit! They finally see me as a somewhat grown up. Well, maybe a little bit only. But still! Holy shit! I haven’t seen Isabel since high school, literally, and we were never really close in high school anyway (maybe just a couple sentences), so that was most interesting fo sho. We drove, and got slightly lost, but thankfully Xinlei’s phone’s GPS saved us, and we got to this dive bar in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District called the Hemlock Tavern. A really good dive bar, in fact, and quite populated with humans, AND WITH A FREE JUKEBOX!!!!! Unfortunately, I did not get to make use of this free jukebox Failure!! Mr. Allen Ma met us there. Hoorah.

Our primary reason for going to the Hemlock was to see Mr. Jesse Dienner’s band, Room For A Ghost, play. It was a double perk for me, as I have never met Jesse, despite the fact that he has written for me for REDEFINE for probably more than a year now. Apparently he was going to attempt to greet Nick (see below)’s girlfriend with a British accent, and he would have done the same to me, but he didn’t know that I was going til it was quite obviously too late! His band was actually really REALLY good, though, and the way they worked their song transitions into one another made the show definitely more cohesive and epic. It was good. I had the feeling like I had when I was watching Battles. Maybe I don’t see bands like this enough, but I was fully captivated by their live show. Absolutely. The recordings I’m not sure about yet, but the live show definitely had me HOOKED, which is a great sign considering it was the first time I’d ever heard them. It was also REALLY obvious that all of them were amazingly good musicians, and Jesse had really freaking good stage presence. Haha. Interesting movements haha.

Anyway, I also met Nick Hubbard’s girlfriend there, if only briefly! I guess I could have maybe eventually done this in Seattle as he and she live there, but maybe not. It was just interesting seeing him in California considering, well, I usually only see him in Seattle?!

As for the two other bands who played with Jesse’s band… they were interesting. The second band, Aunt Dracula, according to my notes, had a song that reminded me of “galloping cowboys” — although with a spastic, kind of retardedly strange vocalist. I hated the music, but rather enjoyed the performance because it was so bizarro world. It was amazing to me that there were four guys who saw eye-to-eye on that kind of strange, strange, hard to fathom music.

The third band, Her Three Eyes, was initially my bag of chips, at least in the way that it reminds me of Neon Blonde and Duchess Says. I had high expectations for them, and all that, but they quickly turned to shit throughout their set. It was a downwards spiral. By the middle of the first song, I was thoroughly all bout it. By the last song, I could hardly stand them. Redundancy galore, both in vocals and in music. BORING. Even despite the fact that the type of music they play should NEVER be considered BORING. UNFORTUNATE-O!!

One of Jesse’s friends who was there, named Josh Hug (literally, his last name is hug), turned out to be quite similar to me in terms of liking to do weird people interaction type stuff, so I told him to join me in my “Talk To Us” project, and then we made time to DO SO!!!! He said the coolest thing he and his friend had done was to challenge random groups of strangers to play TABOO! (one of the best board games ever), and I guess that worked out well well well and he had done it three times but only been rejected once every time before finding a group of 2-4 that was willing to play with them. Coolio.

EATING AT MEL’S DINER AND NEARLY DYING DUE TO FOGGINESS!
After the show, Isabel, Xinlei, Allen, and briefly Josh went to Mel’s Diner, where stuff was REALLY WEIRDLY PRICED! Their menu had like prices like $1.66 and $3.28, etc. etc. Initially Xinlei thought that maybe it was cause shit included tax in it, but it turned out it didn’t, so we were all very confused as to why that was. The conclusion was that it was done on purpose to confuse consumers into purchasing more expensive things. YEAH. The food was American diner food. AKA lamesauce. Oh well. Isabel paid $7.00 for a fucking grilled cheese sandwich and a couple of fries. Haha!

The trip back with Xinlei and Isabel was interesting, with Isabel giving a monologue about true love. I found it to be a bit idealistic, but I’m cynical when it comes to that whole love thing (cynical and still somewhat a believer), so I was rendered pretty speechless. Not to mention it was late. And REALLY fucking foggy. Like REALLY foggy. At some points we could NOT see more than like, thirty feet in front of us. Or less. I’d say less. Practically like ten. It was crazy!!! Luckily we all made it home okay. And pretty much once I got into Livermore city limits — and I’m not exaggerating really — the fog cleared up magically, 100-freaking-%.

***

(On a side note, it’s currently 2:05am on Sunday night, November 30th, and Kyle Parsons just called me. He’s one of my writers from Southern California who’s this like total scene / MySpace kid kinda. Very amusing, though, because for some reason he always calls me when he’s drunk and relates these random ass stories to me. Haha.)

(Lately, I’ve been talking on the phone a lot more, too, and man, I miss it. I like talking on the phone quite a bit. I’d forgotten.)

(I’m going to finish this post tomorrow. More later. )

***

Hey, I’m finishing this post, like a week later, but that’s okay, right?!

***

I’m listening to… These Arms Are Snakes’ Easter album. Their show is next Friday. Hollllllllar.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH, 2008

BEING STRANDED WITHOUT A CAR IN LIVE-NO-MORE!
I woke up this morning without a vehicle because my dad’s vehicle had been taken to the Lexus dealership to be fix0red and my mom was driving him somewhere or they went somewhere and they had to use the CRV that I usually drive. Oh wells. Jesse and Josh texted me early in the morning and I was like, “Whoa, I like need to go and do stuff with them but I don’t have a car,” and then I remembered that Xinlei was going to the city for the day and wondered, was she still going? Could she take me? Turned out she was going to laze out and was no longer going to go, but she agreed to pick me up in my backassbackwards house location anyway and she brought me to the BART station, like a good ol’ sugar mommy. So I got to the BART station and continued to pass the fuck out until I arrived in Oakland (with the exception of the time between one transfer because Pleasanton BART only goes to San Francisco and not Berkeley or Oakland). I was supposed to meet Josh in Berkeley, formerly known as Berzerkeley, but decided to meet him in Oakland’s 12th Street exit instead because…

RIDING A MUTHAFUCKIN MOPED FOR THA FIRST MUTHAFUCKIN TIME, YO!
I was going to ride on Josh’s muthafuckin moped! After I hopped on and declined to wear the helmet that covered the entire face — because it felt claustrophobic — and instead going for the one that a soldier might wear, although not quite, it’s just that it’s half the head, we took off! Initially, it was a little scary and I was holding on for almost dear life. Well, I mean, not that extreme, but both hands were definitely feeling the need to hold onto something. But that soon passed and over time 25mph no longer felt like 80mph and moving on with life felt easier. I mean it probably woulda been faster had I just taken the BART to Berkeley, but I thought, hey, why not, this is my chance to ride a moped. Of course, after I hopped on the moped, Josh casually remarked that he didn’t have his license, nor insurance, oh BOY! Sounds great! That made things so much more funner!!!

As we were riding down Telegraph, we passed a candy store, and this Asian boy outside was waving around a sign that said, “FREE CHOCOLATES” and he was occasionally quietly yelling (yes, quietly yelling, seriously) “free chocolates”. We passed him and decided to bust a U, which turned out to be an ultra long U-busting as it was actually three right turns around a city block, and then, six speedbumps later, we fell into the arms of the McDonald’s parking lot which was next door to the chocolate place. We hopped off, locked up, and headed into the land of free chocolates. Josh was first, and he asked the Asian kid what the password was to get free chocolates, and the kid said something which I forget. He opened the door to go inside the shop, but he didn’t hold the door for me, and had the dude who was coming out of the shop not caught it for me, evidently it would have slammed into my face! The black lady working in the chocolate shop was none too fond of this, and when Josh said the “password” to her, she was like, “What the fuck?” because to anyone who had not heard his conversation with the Asian kid, it wouldn’t have made any sense. She then continued to rebuke him for not holding the door open for me (I’m not sure if it was because I am a woman or because people should just hold doors open for one another, but I assume the former). He didn’t understand the argument, though, and proceeded to talk to her about how he thought that the door was a good door and that it seemed like the type that would stay open on its hinge rather than the type that would close immediately. He in fact said, “good door,” in those exact words, I believe. The lady then told me I should move to Seattle, where people, I assume, are gentlemen. I said, “Fancy that, I live in Seattle!” Well, maybe I didn’t say, “Fancy that,” but if I didn’t, I should have. But after being rebuked, we talked about the awesome wallpaper the place had, that the lady pointed out wasn’t actually wallpaper, but paint with sand blasted vintage Victorian designs. The wall was original, from the 1930s, and evidently the place had originally been a ice cream parlor. A confectionery, for all these years! Fantasmic! That being said, I can’t remember for the life of me the name of the place, and with those free places, it’s always scary because you feel bad for not buying anything even though you’re taking their candy… especially when you know the place is just a small mom and pop shop, or something similar to that… :[

On a side note, I am feeling quite humorous and I quite enjoy this current rambling style. D:

TALKING TO RANDOM HUMAN BEINGS AT THE ENTRANCE OF UC BERKELEY!
Last time I did "Talk To Us" in Berkeley, I was with Mr. Aaron Bruner, and a lot of the questions we got were, "How do you know each other?" We did not get it this time. In fact, this time was quite unlike any other time I've done "Talk To Us," I think primarily because Josh himself talks a lot and therefore the people we talked to talked LESS. I don't know. It was interesting because usually there's an equal amount of give and take, it seems, but not this time. Usually there is also at least a couple really interesting folk, but this time there was maybe one that was more interesting, but everyone else was... I wouldn't say run-of-the-mill but certainly not SUPER interesting. :/ But more about the "Talk To Us" session in a later post. I need to put up my social experimentation website ASA-FUCKING-P! I am slacking on writing up my "Talk To Us" sessions. Writing just seems to take too much time lately, even though I type tons of words per minute. Godamnit.

MEETING UP WITH NICK AND GRETA AND JESSE!
So Nick, Greta, and Jesse went to breakfast/lunch that morning and then went to Amoeba records, where Nick and Greta purchased probably a million records. Then they met up with us at the entrance of the UC Berkeley Campus and hung out for a wee bit, but then they had to move on to bigger and maybe better things, like unloading band equipment at a coffee shop, yay?!

EATING REALLY CHEAP INDIAN FOOD THAT WAS PRETTY DELICIOUS!
Josh suggested we eat at this one Indian restaurant that was on Telegraph not too far away. We walked there and he walked his moped on the sidewalk, receiving a couple of weird glances from jackasses, but for the most part, it was a-OK. By the time we got there, Jesse, who was the only one meeting us for dinner, had not yet finished unloading. He stopped by, picked us up, and brought us to the coffee shop where his bandmate Mike worked and where they practiced. They practiced in a grungy old basement with mold spores, yay! Making rock n' roll HAPPEN, sons! Mike knew my name for some reason. He was like, "Vi... vian...?" and I was like, "M... att? Wait... Mike?" Oops! Not like I'd met him, though. Helped unload equipment and then we went off to get Indian food! I ordered some Palak Paneer, mmm! For $4.99!!! So cheaps! Although the naan to go with it was $1.00 or something. But still a good godamn deal.

PLAYING TABOO WITH A RANDOM STRANGER!
As we were eating, I asked Josh if he'd brought Taboo like he said he would the previous night, because he likes challenging random people to play Taboo. He said, "I did!" and proceeded to bust it out, and we saw this girl on the table behind me / across from Jesse and Josh, and invited her over to our table, yarr. She was eating by herself. Her name was... Lisa? Crap, I forget. She was youngish, I think a Sophomore in college, religious but not religious. She had a class ring from her Catholic high school which looked dope, it was this Victorian looking ring of the purple sacred heart or whatever. Much better looking than those godamn ugly ass football ring type shits. She said she wanted to move to some Mennonite community at some point or something? She currently lives on a hippie farm? Interesting. She didn't come off as a hippie whatsoever, but she wanted to live in yurts and things in case of an apocalypse. Interesting. It's funny, cause everyone kept talking about themselves, and they would say what they did for a living, and I'd say what I did for a living, and I'd always forget to bring up REDEFINE, and Jesse and Josh would always be like, "What about REDEFINE? That's the most interesting first impression type thing you could say," and I'm like. Hmm, good point, why have I not thought of this?!

Anyway, we ate dinner and shot the shit and then decided to finally play Taboo. Josh and Lisa? were on the same team and Jesse and I were on the same team. It's funny, playing Taboo, cause it really gives you a good idea of how people's brains work. Well I mean, at least a little. People just describe things so differently. Jesse and I worked together pretty well I think, and towards the end we would average 4-5 points per round consistently, I think, even though initial rounds were kinda mediocre. I think I am quite pro at Taboo actually, or at least I was that evening... at least for the describing part, not for the guessing part. I suck at that. Josh and Lisa? were interesting because they would describe things in such a roundabout fashion. Guess brains just have to sync up or something. I don't know. I was looking at Lisa?'s cards and some of them I could come up with ways to describe stuff really easily and she would use words and thought directions that I'd never even thought of, or she'd be at a loss for words. QUE INTERESANTE. Anyway. I'm rambling.

Josh then received a phone call from some friends who wanted to play some game where you have blank New Yorker cartoons and you have to fill in the captions and a judge judges who came up with the best captions. He and Lisa? went. On his moped. Without his license. Without his insurance. At least there were helmets (turns out the one I wore was found... somewhere).

BEING DRIVEN HOME BY JESSE AND CHECKING OUT HIS PAD!
Mr. Jesse offered to drive me home and I did not refuse because otherwise it woulda been a bitch anyway. There was Poker Night going on at my brother's house and I was carless, so someone -- my brother or Roxanne -- woulda have had to pick me up anyway. I stopped by his place because he had to pick up some stuff before we headed back. He has a NICE ass apartment. I was extremely impressed. He lives by himself and there's a million things to look at and it's spotless and every room has "alternative lighting" which he just rigged up... either you can use the regular lighting or use like, red lights, or blue lights... he has a basketweave Victorian kissing chair, which is kinda shaped like an S, where the two seats face opposite directions so both people can turn to their lefts and kiss each other. Also a buncha interesting posters and a fancy office space and fancy bedroom with red velvet curtain things. Wow, what a home. Jealous! It's like $1,200 a month or something, though. Holy crap. He also pulled out some mixtapes from really old when he pretended to be a radio DJ and spoke in between every song hahaha. Unfortunately, I didn't get to listen to them, but it sounds amazing.

Anyway, Jesse and I talked about a lotta crap on the way back, largely related to music. It's funny cause the other night Isabel and him found out they have the same taste in music and like the same bands and she was quite quite stoked on that shit! Jesse and I have quite divergent tastes I believe so we will be mailing each other care packages with music and seeing how the shit matches up. I'm interested in seeing. Haha. I think we will hate each other's music. Or at least just find it mediocre. Oh well. Nice of him to drive me, though. I also found out he does part-time promotions for Live 105.5 -- WHAT DA FECK? And that he's met all these famous people like Franz Ferdinand dudes and Nada Surf dudes and a buncha other dudes... and that he drove Moby around for a day. Da feck? Good times. My writers or bust.

PWNING NOOBS AT POKER!
So there were 10 people at my brother's for Poker Night, and I hadn't realized it, but they had totally been waiting for me to start and I was an hour+ late! Oh wells!!! Whatever! It was long long long games and not that humorous asides from the hands themselves. But there were allowed two buy-ins, with third place getting their money back, second place getting 20% of the remaining pot, and first place getting 80% of the remaining pot. I made it to the last three godamnit, but got in third place. SADFACE. But better than other things. At least there were no bigot ass dudes this time who got mad cause a girl was beating them (like happened at Lewis' apartment one time). I would have liked to win some money, though, but at least I didn't lose any money, I guess, and I didn't buy in either! I got some lucky breaks, but man. There was one hand I folded on when I should have played because I would have gotten a Full House, but I folded because I was playing conservative even though I was chip leader. After I lost that hand, I felt my luck shift, and I was thinking, "I fucked it up. I'm not going to win another hand." And I was right. I don't think I won another hand and from there I got into third. BOO URNS. By then it was much too long anyway. I don't even want to play the last three places. It was me, Robert, and some other dude who looked Viet but turned out to be Chinese. I beat his Chinese girlfriend to get into the top three. HOLLAR! Everyone else was talking mad shite the whole time, primarily to Robert, but they lost way early. Haha. Noobs.

CONNING ABEROO INTO DRIVING ME HOME!
My brother and Roxanne were feeling too lazy to drive me home even though I was stranded, so I told my brother to ask Abe if Abe would drive me home. He conceded and we chatted, yarr. Abe is my game-playing buddy even though I guess he is my brother's friend first and foremost. He is Diablo master. But now he's playing Lord of the Rings Online and I guess addicted to it. LAME!!! I like Abe... we just can't talk about anything exceedingly opinionated (at least as far as politics and ethics goes) because we differ quite a bit. But as far as regular conversation, we get along quite well. He is the only cop I really know, though! HOLLAR. Enuf.

***

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30th, 2008

MEETING JEANETTE, SHERRY, AND TIN-WIN FOR A JOLLY GOOD TIME!
We met up at Regal, of course, because we humans in the Tri-Valley area are lame as shite. Shot the shit. Went to Best Buy. Went to Barnes N Noble. Sherry, Tin-Win, and I had plans to meet Phil [N] for lunch, but Jeanette and Tin-Win were hungry, so we went to eat dim sum. Ran into Fontaine and Bonnie and her parents there. Fontaine’s mom thought I was there with my parents and was like, “Your mom didn’t go to church?” and I was like, “She did,” and she was like, “You didn’t go to church?” and I was like, “No,” and her dad was like, “Want to join us?” and I was like, “My friends are over there,” and then he said okay, and then I fleeeeeeeeeeeed. Continued to eat some dim sum, which I pretty much hate, but everyone else likes for some godforsaken reason. Then we went to Old Navy, and ran into Stephanie Gray. Last time I saw her, she was like… 4″ tall. Now she’s like. 6″ tall and beautiful and a woman. And it’s like. WTF. I FEEL OLD. WTF. YOU’RE GORGEOUS. Jeanette and I were like :0 (Sherry and Tin-Win see her sometimes).

TALKING TO PHIL [N] IS THE SAME OL SAME OL!
Then Phil [N] showed up and we decided to go to Fuddrucker’s because well, bitches didn’t want to eat a meal at a fancier place since we’d just eaten. I picked at Sherry’s salad the whole time and we also put some almonds into her fork towards the end of the meal so that all three of the holes between the prongs were filled halfway with almonds. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! Like, really awesome. Um, yeah. Phil [N] is the same ol awesomeness and his girlfriend sounds hilarious based off the stories he told about her. There were only three, but still. Twas nice to see him and to see that he is still the same good guy as before!

BEING SLIGHTED BY MY PARENTS!
So every time I go home, I try to eat meals at home as much as possible since that’s pretty much the only bonding time my parents and I share, pathetic as that sounds. But then they pull this shit. I came home at like 5:00pm and said I was going to nap FOR A LITTLE WHILE. And I wake up half an hour later and they’ve already eaten without me! WHAT THE FUCK! They always do that kinda shit. I’ll make a special effort to come home or say I’ll almost be home for dinner and they’ll have already eaten. Bastards.

And thus pretty much concludes me trip to the Bay Area. ZZZ!

synchronicity, of our city.

I’m listening to… Andy Combs and the Moth’s MySpace and Leftover Cuties’ MySpace! Both are amazing bands!!

(in a conversation to alex:)
vee: weird man
vee: im reading this book called paint it black
vee: named after a rollling stones song
vee: (they quote it on the inside pages)
vee: and i just turned on my last.fm radio
vee: and typed in the beatles
vee: and the first song that came up was rolling stones’ “paint it black”

That has nothing really to do with anything, but these moments of random synchronized weirdness are always cool. This morning I took the bus to the airport and it was actually surprisingly painless and CHEAP too, as it only cost $1.50 for the whole ride! The only downside was that my flight was at 9:30am so I had to wake up at 6:30am to ride the bus or whatever. Well… good thing I played Left4Dead the previous eve because I probably would have hit the snooze button forever but when I woke up I started playing Left4Dead in my head. Kinda like after you play Tetris you end up playing Tetris in your head and building up blocks? It’s kinda like daydreaming and kind of like sleeping. Well, Left4Dead kept me awake this morning and definitely made sure I didn’t miss my flight! Unfortunately, I got to the airport at like 8:30am and it took me like 15 minutes to get in which is all fine and kosher, but the flight ended up being delayed an hour because they had to replace a part of the plane. This is literally the third United flight in a row I’ve taken where the flight was delayed 1+ hours and a part had to be replaced on the plane. WTF? Time to complain and hope they give me things.

As far as Cali goes, as anticipated, the initial touchdown resulted in bitching at me from my mother. Of course, of course. Everything else has been exceedingly boring and lonely. I am. Quite. Ready. To. Leave. I should have just left Seattle later in the week and stayed for this upcoming weekend or something. Cause this sucks. I’m leaving Friday morning to go back to Seattle. They’re trying to get me to stay for longer but I’m saying no no no no thanks. MEEP! Today’s Sunday? It feels like a Fun Day. Not really.

So some people kind of marvel at the fact that I seem like I’m doing fine post-break-up and what not. To be quite honest, I am quite forlorn about the whole thing but definitely carrying on better about it than I thought I would I suppose. I feel terrible about the whole aftermath of the whole thing, though, bah. Hopefully friendship can progress without too much awkwardness. ~__~

On another random note, I bought my SxSW ticket — March 18th, 2009 to March 23rd, 2009. I hate planning that far ahead but SxSW is actually worth it, I suppose. And… the thing is that plane tickets are at an all-time fucking low right now. It’s crazay! $255 round-trip including taxes from Seattle to Austin. Last year I think I paid close to $500 (granted, the ticket was purchased a few months later than now… but not THAT much later).

Also must share a few photos from the HEALTH show, for I am quite proud of them!

tokyo, japan.

So, we stayed the night in Hiroshima at the same hostel and then checked out in the morning to head back to Tokyo. YAY! Not much time in Tokyo, so we had to make the most of it.

The shinkasen trip back was like 3 and a half hours or something. We prepared by getting a lunchbox in Kyoto, since we had to go there to pick up our luggage anyway.

SushiMonster scared of shinkasen!! Seriously, though, the first time I rode the shinkansen it definitely felt uncomfortable. The feeling went away after riding it for the second or third time, though.

My lunchbox! Lunchboxes are definitely the way to go as far as variety goes. MMM! Too much of it was sweet, though. I was a little disappointed by that.

Lenny’s lunchbox!

SushiMonster likes this fake tamago thing!

The Tokyo portion of our trip was no doubt the BEST portion simply because there was so much going on, with so much of it going on by CHANCE.

We just went to Akihabara right away and walked around. Went to an arcade where some dude was playing this CRAZY game where there’s like a million things on the screen at once and you pretty much just have to dodge the flying shit. He totally must play that game a lot, because he could maneuver past every little bead and only died once. Tons of people were entranced by him.

I also came to conclude it must suck to be a woman in Japan, because in the arcade, there was ONE other woman, and she was there with her boyfriend. It is absolutely not culturally acceptable for a woman to really play video games, other than maybe some music games (the playful kind with taiko drums or something, not even like guitar hero) or those stupid ridiculous UFO games which I STILL don’t understand the allure of. They are a trip, those UFO machines. They seem so completely and utterly pointless and have such stupid prizes you think that there couldn’t possibly be anyone stupid enough to pay money over and over again to play. But there are people who do. TONS OF THEM! WTH.

We also checked out an old videogame store, which had an old console we used to have at our house. Hollar!

There were also penguins in this window… :/

This waffle covered chocolate ice cream bar Lenny bought from one of the ice cream vending machines. DELICIOUS!!

We spent FOREVER in Don Quixote. At least Don Quixote always results in some interesting photos, even if it’s boring after floor 3.

Takoyaki hat, courtesy of Don Quixote. Actually, I think they spell it Don Quijote.

Hitler Halloween costume. I shit you not.

I also suggested we eat at Yoshinoya since Lenny hadn’t had it before and I needed to show off the cheapness that is yakiniku in Japan. I was the only woman in there, again. I also suspect that’s not fully acceptable, either. WHATEVER. They were all lonely singular men, in there by themselves. Pretty pathetic.

Then we went back to our hostel in Asakusabashi. There was this totally sketchy playground with like two of those springy horse rides or whatever and a bathroom that was open. I totally saw an old dude pissing… like TWICE. He was pissing twice, in full view of anyone passing by because that’s how the bathroom was designed. It was pretty fucking sick, I must tell you. Sick in a bad way.

Anyway, at the hostel, there was an amusing lady manning the front table when we first checked in earlier in the afternoon. Hehe. She had a funny voice. Lenny liked to impersonate her. I can’t describe what it was like, though, cept really high pitched, friendly, and scratchy. Haha.

The next morning, we got up, and it was SUNDAY!! Sunday meant the day that supposedly, one could rent bikes to bike around the Imperial Palace with. Free bikes? SIGN US UP! Turns out it wasn’t as exciting as one might think, though, and the bikes were limited to a ‘track’ that was set aside for people. The Imperial Palace is also kind of a lame place that is completely not worth going to. You can’t even go in!!!

Before we got there, though, there was this antique garage sale in Ginza we passed when we were walking along. Weird. Didn’t know Japanese people were into antiques. Yeah, yeah, I like to generalize.

Bikes for rent! Guess we totally shoulda tried a tandem bike. DAMN!

“Booya. I need a haircut.”

After riding around the lame Imperial Palace and realizing there wasn’t much to do, we went to the Global Festa, which was this festival with some foods from represented countries (mostly African), and a lot of non-profit organizations. Cute event. Very cute.

See kid in orange on the right? Kid in orange was terribly scared of man and/or woman in robot suit. How can one be scared of that? Who knows!

Well, we didn’t really know what was going on at the event since mostly everything was in Japanese and pretty much everyone was trying to promote some non-profit cause like stopping world hunger and helping education in third world countries and blahblahblah. I settled on some food from I-forget-what-African-country. It was like this beef, potato, and carrot or something stew with couscous. Pretty delicious. Lenny got some samosas from Ghana. Mmm, food. He also got some beer which he thought was disgusting but felt obligated to finish anyway since he paid $5 USD for it. It was also expired. Haha!

After that, we headed on over to Harajuku, for the most interesting part of our entire trip!! We had only planned on going to see the dressed up women, but there turned out to be SO MUCH going on in Harajuku that day that we were extremely, extremely amused.

First up, at the Shibuya stop: weird man dancing with flag. YAY!

Then as we were walking down from the train station stop to the Hibiya Park where all the stuff in Harajuku goes down, we passed a SEAFOOD festival. Needless to say, Lenny was in lorv. There was a crab grilling area but the line was super long, so we didn’t try to go there… we would go back, we said.

Then there was some kinda taichi conference or something…

And across the street from the taichi conference, we heard the bustle of music. What is it? What was it?! ROCK MUSIC? OUTDOOR CONCERTS? SIGN US UP!!

The first thing we saw… greasers!!! TOKYO ROCKABILLY CLUB? WHAT THE FUCK?!!

There they had their boomboxes and they were dancing up a fucking storm. Poses, limber moves… some of these guys were fucking old, too! But one thing’s for sure: ALL OF THEM HAD FUCKING FABULOUS HAIR.

SUPERSTAR!

SUPERSTAR!

What else? Rice Riot was an AWESOME electro pop band.

These girls um, played these drums? It was pretty… but not that entertaining.

I forget the name of this band at the moment… Primal something… will update with their name later… but they had these fucking girls in the palm of their hands!!!

“We are robots!”

Headbanging women? YES!

White girl in maid outfit? YES!!!

Have to look up the name of this band too, but their guitarists were REALLY good… very reminiscent of old Incubus like during “Hilikus!” But the vocalist was just okay, unfortunately.

TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE girl band with a vocalist who wasn’t even REALLY singing. I mean, check it out. They have no amps. Their guitars are not plugged in. I FELT like something was amiss when we first walked by, and I said that, but when we walked by again, it became obvious. They weren’t REALLY playing their instruments at all. PATHETIC. I mean, REALLY pathetic.

When we finally finished looking at all the music, we finally headed over to check out the famous Harajuku girls. We were met by THREE!! OR MAYBE FOUR?!! BUT LAMENESS!! There was only one that was actually posing.

Went shopping for a bit. I bought a cool scarf and a cool pair of pantyhose. Lenny bought two fitted shirts and a tie! Good shopping, but lots of people!! And it started raining a little bit.

We then decided to go back to the seafood festival, but poopingly enough, most of the booths had closed and the crab Lenny wanted to eat was gone, gone, gone :[

We decided to go back to check out some more bands. Very good band, Stereo Lynch!! The drummer was AWESOME. Reminded Lenny of Lingo, I guess.

R&B group from America. Los Angeles area, to be exact. They were just OK.

Think we went home right after that… maybe ate some meals along the way. Twas a long day, twas.

—

The next morning, we thought about getting up at 4:30am to go see the Tsukiji Fish Market fish auctions, but then got lazy. That’s way too early. We woke up at like 8:00am instead and bummed around Tsukiji. It took a while to get there. It always does. More tuna than one could ever REALLY want to see…

Tank full of FUGU!!

They don’t REALLY take that kindly to tourists. Whatever, though.

I was slightly in love with these trays of blood and guts. Call me a sicko!

Check out that grain!

This guy was carving up the head of the tuna, and we saw him pick off a piece and eat it as he was cutting it. Haha!

Mmmm, bin of miscellaneous tuna parts. I’m fascinated.

More. Seriously, is there something wrong with me?

Let’s not forget that we had to try one of the dozens of sushi restaurants along the outskirts of the Tsukiji Fish Market. We didn’t want to wait, so we picked a small bar type restaurant with three old people working. It was a very small menu selection, and very very expensive for being so basic. I had wanted to take Lenny to a place like we went to last year, where there was HELLA selection, but this place catered only to tourists and ONLY had the basics. :/ Above is what I ordered… crab, scallop, and cucumber rolls.

Lenny ordered two very delicious toro, ama ebi, and salmon. Evidently the toro and ama ebi were amazing but the salmon was just okay, since that’s a Pacific Northwest thing anyway.

Knives on sale!

After that, we went back to the hostel to check out because it was still like 10:00am or something absurd. And then we were deciding between going to Asakusa to look at temples or to the Science Museum on Odaiba that I thought Lenny would REALLY like. Unfortunately, Odaiba is ass far from everything. So it took a while to get over there. It was worth it, though, and it cost only $5 to get in (it actually cost more than that to actually physically get there because we had to take the subway and then a new line that only services Odaiba).

Just some pretty ceiling decorations.

ASIMO, the famous Honda robot, happened to be there that day!

Giant cool glowing globe thing, plus walkway!

“A working model of the internet.” Kinda interesting.

Virtual videogame horseriding?!

Cool motion sensor thing, where the fish would be able to detect the pillows and would bounce offa them. COOOL.

Just another view of the globe.

An astronaut’s bedchamber.

An astronaut’s toilet.

Evidently all the components that make up the human body.

Toy that let people try performing surgery on their own. :0

Regular cup of noodle styrofoam cup versus styrofoam cup of noodle cup that has been brought into a submarine!!

Cool ass exhibit. Through the mirror, a face would appear in that blue circular thing, but when you just turned around and looked at the blue circular thing on its own, there was no face… just water. A total trip. AMAZING.

And this post is not done yet, but I’ll finish it later. Must go to bed now.

Lots to say about catching the flight back to Seattle, and about the crazy ass Chinese people on the plane. This photo is a partial note of what’s to come as far as crazy Chinese peoples go.

This guy was to Lenny’s right, and he seriously had his feet propped up on the TABLE while he was sleeping. How crazily unsanitary, man!!! And that is seriously only the beginning. CHINESE PEOPLE. THEY ARE INSANE!!!