inside the wonderful world of vee

i’m watching the travel china. it’s china week. china is a fucking fascinating place, so this is GREAT. i <3 china week. i also love love love monkeys. most people know this. this monkey, shown on the travel channel’s “wild america,” is one freaky ass bitch. sorry monkey. you just are.

(yunnan snub-nosed monkey. that’s right. he has no fucking nose.)

speaking of monkeys… random story:
jenny, my ex-co-worker… her husband and his friends had a monkey!!! four of them had one. before the monkey, it was two people each in two rooms. after the monkey, it was monkey in one room and four people in the other room. AWESOME.

this show is blowing my mind, and here are some of the reasons why:
1) bamboo can grow up to three feet a day. WTF.
2) every, oh i don’t know, million years or so a bamboo jungle will flower, and when they flower, that entire forest will die. WTF.
3) there are crabs in the forest. WTF.
4) chinese villagers use a dead grasshopper on a stick to lure a hornet, and then tie a feather to the hornet, and then the villagers follow the hornet to its nest, and then they burn the nest and eat the dead grubs. WTF.
5) chinese fishermen use birds (i think herrings) to fish for them, by tying a loose noose around the birds’ necks so that the fish can’t swallow, and then remove the fish the birds have caught from the birds’ mouthes. WTF.

in other random news… GOJI BERRY?
you know that new fad that is “goji berry”?!!!!!!!!!!! i have just come to the realization that goji berry is GO JI ZI. HOLY SHITE. GROSS.

went to yellowstone over july 4th weekend. oh man. i also forgot to write about a “talk to us” session at the gay pride fest… that’s a first. it is now nearly in the unknowns of my mind. +__+ lanerd and i left at like… 3am on thursday morning. long long long. here’s a map of where we went:

friday, july 4th, 2008.

the sun says hello during the drive over to tanmona.

three hours into the drive……………….. or something like that. we tried to scrape off one side of the car and leave the other one covered with bugs, but at some point the number of bugs per side maxed out… it was like they were bumping off the old ones or something. :[ darn. was hoping it’d be like a pancake of bug. haha. yes. those are bugs. not dirt.

driving through small highways in oregon yields awesome fucking things. this hurr is just some quarry or something of some kind. it gets better. there was an ABANDONED factory… and one of the coolest abandoned houses i’ve EVER seen. i was trying to find a way off the freeway to get to the abandoned factory but could not. the abandoned house was like, made of rock, falling apart, and definitely old time. it was the only house for what musta been… 20 miles? and it was literally right next to the freeway. dunno what it was doing there, but it was DOPE.

these were all over the freaking place. guess a lotta people die due to drunk-driving.

good ol’ snake river.

in boise, met up with spastik and we went to eat pizzarrr! boise is a quaint little place. very nicely laid out (very straight blocks… none of that confusing windy shit… i guess maybe cause it’s kinda small/new?)

that evening we caught the last bit of fireworks in west yellowstone. it’s really cool there because there’s a lot of open sky and all of the houses are really low to the ground, so you can pretty much see the fireworks from ANYWHERE. we just pulled into some random neighborhood street and saw a bunch of gloriousness.

saturday, july 5th, 2008.

map of inside yellowstone!

once inside yellowstone (shit, i almost wrote yosemite), the first pool of warm water we saw! on the way from madison to norris.

this guy was just chillin by the side of the road. he was totally walking on the shoulder, too, making sure to not walk in the road. crazy!

moooooo. on the way from norris to canyon, i believe. we got pretty lucky as far as seeing animals goes.

moooooo x 3.

i told him to pose like that. really, i did.

hi cuddly wuddlyyyyy!

“the grand canyon of yellowstone” in… canyon.

x2.

whooaa trippeehhh!

random indian lady, walking amongst the grasses and chatting with them, on the way to roosevelt from canyon.

penis rock at mammoth hot springs. actually, it looks like it has a face. DOESN’T IT?!!!

mammoth hot springs used to be beautiful? now it’s… dead?

a small pocket of life in mammoth hot springs. literally, life. the hot springs breed warm waters that harbor bacterias.

more shady stuff. :[

sooo dead…

mooo teddy bear!!!! whenever bears appeared, rangers would come out of nowhere, like they always knew where the bears were. do they have tracking devices on the bears?!! do they?!!!

a big tanmona (or in this case, wyoming) open sky. on the way from canyon to fishing bridge.

horsey ridings! unfortunately, we couldn’t take the camera ON the actual horse. fortunately, there wasn’t that much to take a picture of anyways. we were in the “canyon” section of yellowstone so i figured we’d be walking along the canyon with our horses. no. we didn’t. the most canyon we saw was when they’re like, “see that little ledge in the distance? that’s the upper falls! yay!” WTF. i feelz gipped.

by the way, the way horses poop is UNREAL. basically it opens up… like… a black void of doom or something… and the poop, which is like, our poop but all stacked up on each other like a stack of bullets or something, comes tumbling out… and then the black void of doom closes back up… aaah!!!

a sea of dead trees. it looked sweet. from canyon to roosevelt.

an acute wall. lol.

at sunset at the painted pots, the mosquitos nearly ate us alive. nearly. it was terrible. after not showering for two days, they liked us even moreso. (we will rub oil on our torsoes.) to be honest, it could have been worse, though. from madison junction to old faithful.

went a bit overkill with these photos. it was so damn pretty, though. and they used to be prettier! they’re all dried up now, too.

smoke attackkkkk!!!

what’d i say? overkill.

check out the mini moon — upper left hand corner!!

more mini moon… i lubs mini moon.

that evening we slept in the car. i failed to bring a sleeping bag on this trip (which was perhaps the most idiotic thing ever). it was FREEEEEZIIIIING.

sunday, july 6th, 2008.

old faithful. zzzz. i don’t see what’s the big deal. okay, it’s a little cool, but not cool enough that like, the whole park is built around old faithful. i mean literally. the old faithful area is a little fucking TOWN. there’s like a freeway overpass. shops. hotels. wtf.

sweet sweet custom bike outside of the gift chop.

ennis. we ate hurr.

water tower of ennis.

virginia city!

gas pump detail

old train tracks in nevada city. i lubs ghost towns. nearly ran out of gas on the way here. lulul.

these are totally slightly overexposed, btw.

mmm i like old shit. literally. this thing on the right? port-o-potty. minus the portable part.

the new meets the old.

they lubs fourth of july here.

nearly the first bit of greenery, tbh.

a nice, relatively rich guy’s house in virginia city.

a room full of different coin-operated machines, mostly of the musical variety. this huge thing right here was traded from france during ww2? maybe? in exchange for FOOD. LOL.

yummy or gross? imma tell you now — pretty gross.

mini moon again, but now, in spokane.

more later maybe.

gee, i don’t know, maybe the fact that it’s a twenty foot python has something to do with it…?

hello, my name is chakazulu chakrabarti.

my name has caused the following things to be said:
“are you indian?”
“i love that show” (not that i know what “chaka zulu” the tv show even is)

chaka is my default name, usually followed by zulu or khan. i dunno, i just like the way it sounds, i guess.

anyway, onto the photos — oh, this is good stuff.

i’m sorry — i went a little photo happy. there’s just a lot of shit to look at, unfortunately. or fortunately? i’m not sure. is there something i didn’t touch on? let me know before i uninstall this game. i don’t even want to give myself the chance of liking it. more online attention? not useful unless i’m trying to promote something. which i have thought about but maybe as a last resort. through playing for five or six hours i have engaged in no useful conversation but maybe one that was… somewhat entertaining. but not really.

first off… i can see the appeal in: 1) occasionally seeing what is new and has been made; 2) having sex if you’re lonely rofls; 3) building stuff; 4) making money off the game; 5) fighting or roleplaying somehow.

all other reasons are moot as far as i can tell.

i do think everyone should try out this game, though, just to see what it is that people make because it is pretty endlessly fascinating.

sexcapades - bdsm channel

call me a pervert but in my mind, *of course* sexual deviancy would be the most fun place to explore. and the easiest, as well, since there is an entire section dedicated to adult and other things are a lot more vague (ie: arts & culture… like wtfs?). naturally, in real life, sex is probably one of the things people most obviously deviate at the most… along with violence, but violence is not nearly as interesting. at least, i don’t think so.

so, in second life, when you right-click on an object, it gives you some options. generally, there is “sit here” as the default object, but people can specify other things. this object’s “sit here” defaulted to “pee”… see that yellow shit? it’s pee.

some water jet squirter thing. had to be naked for full effect. btw, isn’t my chick hot? all my clothes made without spending money! sure, the jacket / shirt kind of looks like an alien mold is on her, but i like it. looks neat.

metal spikes on the chair are, well, spiking her, i guess.

she’s a trophy! this was in the bdsm place for some reason too.

this is a good one. see that cup down there? it’s for a “cum martini”. or something.

um, yeah.

if you’re not scared, you need to look closer.

um, yeah. this had to be screen-shotted just cause i never really got multiple people before this. lol.

fighting arenas

you can’t much tell here and the fighting seems rather unrefined, but these giant bugs are things that you can fight. they fight back, too. i didn’t see anyone fighting these, though. i only saw some guy fighting a rat and the rat hit him back quite a bit.

this guy was a mage. yeah. if you right clicked on him, you could see his mana level and stuff. interesting.

nightlife

rave on?

they’re definitely dancing. girl in the front had some moves. HOLLA.

see what’s in her hair? well maybe not. but they’re lizards, on either side of her shoulder, breathing fire out. that’s pretty bomb, i must admit.

amusement parks and zoos

this is a “skydiving pod”. i’m surprised it was free, but yeah. i chose some really high altitude, like 4000, and it took FOREVER to fall. so long that i just gave up and went somewhere else. took way too long. i didn’t even stick around for the parachute to come out! i guess 4000 was a really high distance or something.

arcades! the donkey kong machine… sort of worked. well, kind of. the right-click option made this URL pop up on another website where you could ‘play it while your person was standing at the arcade machine’. i should have tried skee ball, actually. i’m not sure why i didn’t O_O

bumper cars!

i managed to get myself permanently stuck in cannonball mode, regardless of whether i was flying or sitting. OWNAGE.

getting stuck was all due to this place. i dived into the pool, on cannonball mode.

slide! WHEE!

ferris wheel. of ghetto variety. it looks okay but operates like shit.

aminals

this tiger was rideable. i was riding on it at first, and then i got off because i thought the other animals (ie, the dinosaur and the elephant) would also be rideable. they were not. they didn’t move. i came back to the tiger but another guy had jacked it from me. he was hovering around me the whole time, waiting for me to get off the tiger! and i jumped on the tiger with him but he kept running against a tree, i presume, to tell me get off without saying anything. lol.

i’m riding a duckypoo, yes i am.

i is at the bottom of the lake

aliens

i told him… “you’re hawt.” hahaha. and he said, “hello,” and then walked away. his tentacles moved by themselves! HOW THE HECK!

apparently robots are aliens… now?

landscapes

greek-inspired.

greek-inspired park.

winter wonderland park?

some island.

i guess they throw concerts here. none going on when i was here, though. i don’t know how concerts in this game work…

korealand; one of the most popular channels on the whole game. see that building in the background? that’s what buildings look like when they aren’t fully-loaded yet.

japanese place.

so i’ll talk about this later, but this lady, anshe chung, was in the documentary i watched about “second life” on friday night. she and her husband own one million dollars of US money in holdings in this game. errr!?! doesn’t sound like a smart business move to me, but what do i know? they employ chinese workers. farmers!

alexanderplatz in berlin. this is trippy. why? because i was just there. why even more? this place is fucking real. it’s weird. admit. aforementioned lady, anshe, and her husband live in germany (even though she is chinese). since they are all powerful and shit, they got a bunch of people in germany playing. it shows in the game. i looked up a few other cities and didn’t see many complete creations or anything. germany did have some, though. apparently more germans play than americans. that’s funny.

kadewe is the second largest department store in europe and first largest in germany or something. we visited it when we were in berlin. did it look like this? yes. but what is even scarier…

… is this. holy fuck. they got the christmas decorations down and everything. i saw this yesterday but i went back today and the christmas decorations were gone. what the fuck ass? are you wondering how realistic this is? well, wonder no more. here it is for your ass. i really think this is freakish.

upstairs at kadewe. how romantic.

jewelry at kadewe. sims need bling too.

satan-land. i guess that’s supposed to be blood or something.

again.

wedding chapel.

medieval land. the guy on the left looks pretty neat. people congregate around these campfires and camps. it’s weird. it’s not like you’re doing anything really. i don’t get this game at all. lol.

inside some store, sitting on a giant shoe. this shoe apparently is “lockable” — note the lock on the top. i don’t know what that means. i should have asked but i didn’t because she was busy trying to make a sale. lol.

china?

see what i mean about people congregating? this is a camp in china land. i mean, what are those people who are standing around even doing?

this is atlantic city.

eating sushi in japanland!

upon first arriving in japanland, this is where they put me. how rude.

toontown

toontown was so cool it gets its own label. i was looking for more stuff like this but didn’t know what to search for. hmm, mario would be a good one. i’ll have to try that later.

fashion styles

blang, blang, bang, bang.

people sitting at this table were playing the japanese game “go” (like othello).

hrm. why didn’t i press those buttons? i’m not sure.

wedding planner. she’s on a ladder, which is how i got this angle.

the first item i got upon touching down in this world: a my little pony! YEE-HAW!

i’m writing this and it’s january 2008. oh well, need to recap it SOMETIME. even if it is a little late ^__~

sunday, november 18th, 2007
took the fucking AGO-NIZ-FUCK-ING flight to taipei and it was well, agonizing. i stayed a day later and left a day later than i was originally supposed to (which was friday), because i was sponsoring artifakt event the night before and yair was playing a show! well, people really liked his performance, so yay. the show itself was alright, some decent art, some okay. but yeah.

first evening i got there and daddy couldn’t go anywhere cause his leg was injured (from playing the wii), so mom, phil, roxanne, and i went over to the night market. had to take a taxi as it was too far to walk to. ate niu rou mian (beef noodle stew) but it was kinda gross. meh. it wasn’t gross. just okay.

some taiwanese fashion. long shit with leggings is all the rage there right now.

monday, november 19th, 2007


mom and dad had to visit the doctor, so phil, roxanne, and i got up early and just went to walk around. lotta shit was closed. we went to taipei 101 (the current tallest building, although soon to be not… why do people find the need to build as tall as possible anyway? it’s so freaking weird)… but it wasn’t open yet. so we walked around, in search of food. we bought some stuff at the convenience store. pretty much we are lucky i can read a bit of chinese — at least enough to get a basic idea of foods — so i got us picked out some onigiri stuff. that was really hard to open. and ooOoooOooOo green tea milk, you are so yummy. <3 finding food in foreign countries — it’s seriously the funnest part >_> spicy chicken onigiri up there. it was actually really good.

taipei 101. oh yeah, taipei 101?? you think you’re cool because you reach into the clouds? PFFT. inside, it’s pretty much just a mall for rich people. you know, the usual.

common sights in the taiwan, with taxis and all that jazz. women riding mopeds with high heels. okay, so it’s not THAT common but it’s not uncommon either.

slightly more uncommon sights. man with ladder while riding moped. what a pimp. and a naked mannequin.

magazine in bookstore in taipei 101 that’s dedicated to all things “BLANG BLANG” — i would have bought it but it cost ten fucking bucks. no thanks. i guess they figure those who want to bling will be willing to pay money for a guide on how to bling. as lenny pointed out, though, unfortunately they have the wrong idea — sticking rhinestones onto everything does not equal bling. bling = diamonds and jewels and shit. you got the wrong idea, AZNZ.

after we were done with 101 we took a free shuttle to… where? i don’t remember. hahahahahdoaishdads. the train station. oh yeah. the subway. that’s where we went. taipei’s subway system is still small and new, but they copied practically everything from japan. unlike americans, though, taiwanese people listen to signs on the ground and shit.

since we didn’t have much to do, we took the train station to “taipei da che zhang” (main station) and walked around. there was massive shopping there, which is why we went. because the truth pretty much is like this: there ain’t shit to do in taiwan except for shop. it’s pretty much… what’d i just say? the truth. >_> this little cutie was from one of those vending machines where you pay money to operate a claw and then you can win it. thing is… THIS SHIT COSTS $4 PER PLAY. what the fuck? we didn’t want to pay the money, so we haven’t yet decided whether it is “play until you win” or “$4 for one play and if you don’t get it, you’re a chump.” i guess the world may never know. because who plays that shit? there were a lot of those machines, to be sure, but i must say — never saw anyone playing any of them. hahaha. this is also copied from japan, their little arcade places. of course.

at night, we walked to nai nai’s place. lotta construction going on. my grandma is like 95. she’s funny. on a later date when we were at her house, she kept showing me to her little display cabinet where there were pictures of many people — including me!! and there was a photo of me, her, and this other boy who liked me. she said, “that’s you! that boy kept trying to get closer to you but you told him to go away!” then i would sit down, and five minutes later, she would be like, “mei mei ah, your photo is in this cabinet!” this happened three times… haha. >_> within the span of like, fifteen minutes. har har har. oh nai nai. she doesn’t cook for herself anymore since she fell… it’s messed up how falling at an old age (grandma used to always wear high heels) fucks up old people so hardcore. >_> it’s sad. but yeah, now she has a live-in servant who is from singapore. nai nai taught her how to cook for her and she cooks instead. i miss nai nai’s niu rou mian. i don’t think i’ll ever get to eat it again. T__T awww nai nai why are you so old! my mom knows how to make it but it isn’t the same at all. T__T sad.

i should also mention that my alcoholic uncle went crazy too. he used to be a REALLY nice guy but was just a fuck up and would get drunk all the time. well his liver is completely shot now but what’s worse is that his mind is shot. T__T he doesn’t even recognize my dad anymore. it’s pretty fucked up. i guess he has pulled out knives and threatened to kill people before. anyway, he lived with my grandma and my brother / mom / dad / roxanne got there before me so they saw him, but yeah, he didn’t recognize any of them. so they committed him to a mental institution. so that’s that. i didn’t see him. it’s a shame, because he’s a nice guy.

around grandma’s place are a lot of really small food stands and stuff — but unlike the night market, these are places people go to on a daily basis just when they’re leaving to and from work and shit. very convenient. this above is zou tou fu (stinky tofu). i don’t like the shit. but my momma does. my momma likes everything. as you will soon find out. it’s actually rather traumatizing. as you will soon find out.

dad, grandma, and phil. we are making our way to a restaurant!! that had EXTREMELY small dishes (i’m talking… mmm… the size of a coffee saucer plate thing) but they were really good, and probably the only real eating of vegetable i had the whole time i was there. so that was definitely a plus.

here’s what is not a plus. around grandma’s house, my mom bought some la mian xian (spicy noodle… thingies) because she didn’t know we were going out to eat dinner. not a fatty to waste foods, she, of course, brought the food into the restaurant like a fucking savage. it was pretty damn savage as she was scarfin gthe shit down in front of the waitresses. >_> in the latter pic is grandma with my auntie and uncle. the uncle came to america to live with us a while, and he still now insists on speaking english to us whenever he gets the chance to. his english isn’t bad but he does have an accent, and he’s just kind of goofy in general (we compare him to droopy), so him speaking english like droopy = funny.

apparently, when i was younger, this mall used to have a top floor that was all rides and arcades for little kids. i used to come here with my dad every day after he went to work or something. ahhh, good memories in taiwan. good memories indeed. i only lived there for a year around preschool age, but it doesn’t matter!

tuesday, november 20th, 2007

subway station. lots of boring time to spare, so yeah.

my timeline is actually kinda screwy so i don’t know if this is right, but whatever. the general gist is enough — a day by day play isn’t THAT important, is it?!!!!!!OIJ!OIJI!JOIAJSDOIAS! so, my mom booked us a trip via some tour train or something to go to hualian, which is in like, southeast taiwan. which is somewhat exciting because this was our first time outside of taipei in taiwan!!! porko rosssssso!

when we got there, some pony driver guy picked us up for the ride. not a tour guide — just a driver. but he kinda was weird and had a bad attitude. but err. doesn’t that sky look fake?!!!

first stop — a wonton place. supposedly famous — they had pictures of a former president eating there. i mean, it was okay. nothing to write home about though. or maybe it is. i don’t know. i never was much for wontons. but compared to most wontons they were pretty good. so okay, i change my mind, i guess they were good.

drive-by photo of a funeral. woooooo!

for the unacquainted, welcome to the world of the squatter.

so this guy dropped us off at all of these random, not particularly exciting places the first day because we didn’t have an itinerary for him and it was already the early afternoon. dad and brother and roxanne didn’t enjoy it at all but i didn’t really care — i think anything is pretty much a lot more interesting when you have a camera… even the most ‘boring’ of places. anyway, this place was a place that was formerly occupied by the japanese and they cut trees down there… blahblahblah. evidently the former logging caused all of the current rivers to dry out really easily, because when it rains, there aren’t as many old trees to soak up the water… instead, all the little, newly planted trees barely soak up any water, causing rivers to rage big, but for a short time… as opposed to being around year-round.

this was another random-ass place, but while we were there, some professor was there with his elementary school class. kids in taiwan pretty much take field trips all fucking day. no matter what day of the week it was or where we were, there were kids out on field trips. the other alternative is that even during weekdays people in business outfits are playing hooky or taking their work breaks to go SHOPPING. it’s ridiculous. apparently it hasn’t changed since my parents were growing up there, either. taiwan has a lot of streetside vendors which sell cheap wares, and apparently since the beginning of time people would pass by and say, “oh no, it’s so cheap! i have to have it!” even though they didn’t. this hasn’t changed. all taiwanese people do is fucking buy shit. it’s ridonkulous. i mean… do they really waste more than americans? i actually find that hard to believe. i’d say they probably are up there also. except they don’t have the big houses. but as far as buying trash goes — i think they are pretty high up there. also, none of their streetside restaurants use rewashable silverware or plates or bowls. they all fucking use disposable shit. it’s atrocious.

anyway, i went off on a tangent. that picture above is some weird bug larvae or mold — we couldn’t figure out what it was. :/

at another random place we stopped off at to eat “famous ice cream” (which was disgusting), you could feed koi. i don’t really care much for koi, but you must admit — their mouths are pretty dope there.

this is our bombass last stop of the day, which we probably should have spent MORE time at. it was a farm / zoo. i really wanted to ride a bike but i was not aware that they rented bikes until later. so i was a little bitter. instead, we rented this car which my dad drove around since he was injured. at first i had no idea what that place was but it soon revealed itself to be a crazy ass haven for birds of all types… and it made me very happy to see a MANDARIN DUCK IN PERSON!!!! i’d been waiting for that moment, for all my life! well not really. but yeah… my dad was also driving in the wrong lane in the wrong direction for a very long time. lol.

monkey island excited me on paper, but it was actually pretty weak sauce. sigh!!!!

there was a dairy farm. we were allowed to walk inside. erm, scary?! poor poor cow cows :[ here you are, a more intimate look at a cow being milked than you probably wanted!

this place was really fucking weird. pretty much this rich guy didn’t know what he wanted to do with his money, so he bought a bunch of shit. at least it’s cool shit, though. but still. there are a lot more pics i have of the bird collection that i didn’t upload to picasa, but he had soooooo many birds. it was insane. didn’t get a good chance to view any of them enough because we were in a rush and shit, so that kinda sucked. but it is what it is!

that night we stayed at this hotel. phil kept bitching about how ghetto it was going to be because it was in the city and not this super expensive one that was up on a hill (i told mom to get the city one because what’s the point? a view only lasts so long). anyway. he was bitching and moaning and when we finally got there, the place was fine. maybe even nice. a little bit unconventional, but i liked it. anyway, they had these windows that pulled open and were really high off the ground so you had to climb on bed to climb out of it, but all of the patios were connected. so i tried to scare my mom by going over to their window and being like, “BOO!” but she wasn’t scared at all. she was just like… “what are you doing there?”

took a series of long-exposure shots from outside that window on that balcony. this is maybe? the best of them.

that night we went to yet another night market. this place supposedly had famous… xiao long bao (small dragon buns HAHHAAAHHAHAAUSD)… seems like everything is famous. bizarro. they were pretty good but not as good as crab xiao long bao i’ve had — and other things. they were just okay. again, i don’t like xiao long bao, though, so yeah.

a thing full of intestines and shit. i asked the lady for permission. haha.

quantity of heat — 60c
fattiness — 25g
power — 86k
fibrin — 16n
DOGIPEE HOT DOG STORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i mean really, wtf?

wednesday, november 21st, 2007



the next day, we went to taroko national park. yeah. apparently chinese people don’t like to hike, because there weren’t really any trails at all. haha. all there was was this paved (like, for cars to drive on, only cars weren’t allowed to drive on it) road for people to walk on. which is kinda weaksauce. all the campsites (all one of them, i think) were also closed because of the time of year. the weather in taiwan at this time of year is so bizarre. it’s like… hot but cold at the same time. it’s a sticky cold that brings heat in its humidity. never knew how to dress because if i wore a jacket i’d get hot in a few seconds and if not, i’d be cold. blech.

there was a lot of construction going on, which nearly resulted in a crisis. generally they would only let one side of the traffic on the construction road at a time, but they messed up once and let both go at the same time. and there was a bus involved. so therefore, it was messy. so ghetto. they would only let a certain amount of people every hour, so if you missed the cut off point, you had to wait another hour. lol.

apparently, falling rocks are a huge problem here this area is known for these white, marble rocks. lots of quarrying and such >_>

this thing was on a long set of stairs. no one squished it… yay? i don’t know if it was dead or alive. i reckon dead, because roxanne got the same exact picture almost (which i thought was really interesting, because that means she’s looking around on the ground, like i do too!), and she went up those stairs way ahead of me. so… it was probably sitting there dead (or alive) for a while. i reckon dead.

this guy is definitely dead. i actually rather like taking pics of dead things. they just look so… interesting.

one stream is gray and the other is blue! together they make gray!!!! YAY!

low-hanging clouds.

we then went to this beach. this xiang chang (sausage) vendor had a cool sign. i thought his xiang chang tasted like charcoal, though, so i gave it to mcdoggy. then i tried to take a photo of myself with mcdoggy, and failed miserably.

almost as great as YAHO– wait, they probably got sued. same font and everything.

at the subway station, they featured some artwork made by fourth to seventh graders which warned about the dangers of the subway / train. ahhahahahraohrahrar. this is fucking great.

thursday, november 22nd, 2007



went to this… place. that was an old city… yeah. this was after taking the quick train (2 hours instead of 3 hours) back to taipei. the train was very rickety, and in it, they had a squatter bathroom. it was the first time using a squatter actually MADE SENSE. had it been a regular toilet, it would have been gross and i would have probably touched the communal nasty toilet seat. but since it was a squatter — and a clean one at that — it was perfect for the bumpy ride! insanity. anyway, this is the next day. we got the guy who picked my parents up from the airport to drive us around. mostly just little shops in this area — nothing too exciting to me but whatever. i got to sit in the middle of the road and be scary and stalk people with my camera

some kids i stalked.

then we moved onto the next place. yet again, i have no idea what this place is. eh, i’ll find out and add it in later. lots of antiques and junk. yeahhh.

garden, in honor of a former chinese president. errr. yeah. errr taiwanese president. i have no idea. it was pretty boring.

then we went to another street market. this one had awesome foods. unfortunately, i did not get to eat as much of it as i would have liked T__T

what we did eat though was this. i don’t even know. it was like, strawberry mian xian in a tofu pocket. pretty interesting tasting. not good, but not really disgusting either. but definitely everyone just ate a bite and was done with it. lol. i think this area of taipei was where my dad went to college. i can’t be sure, though.

i bought one of these for lenny and one of these for sherry >_> they’re so cute haha.

then we went to this harbor place. i don’t know where any of these places are, lol. they’re all within taipei, though.

then we went to another market. and my parents went INSANE and bought a fuckload of this black sesame and peanut candy. i mean, the shit is really good but not THAT good. they went insane. two big bags. and now i still have a bunch (and it’s two months later)… and probably will never finish it!!!!

friday, november 23rd, 2007

went to ximending, the top freaking shopping center in taipei, that’s for sure. some breakdancers — who i later talked to and found out were from MATHAR RUSSIA — were there… breakdancing. cameraman got me on camera!!

one girl, three guys. the girl sucked. she did this butt shaking mood every time. she couldn’t even breakdance. couldn’t pop… eh. she just seemed out of place and repetitive. i was not the only one who thought this. as far as the breakers go — one guy was really good… the other two guys were pretty mediocre. guy pictured above in the pose is *not* the good one.

phil had wanted to go to this restaurant but we didn’t know where it was. it’s a chain store, but we just happened to stumble upon it. the seats in the restaurant are toilets. the table are sheets of glass over old sinks. showers hang from the walls. your food comes to you in toilet-shaped thingies. yeap. the food? it was just okay. my crappy chinese failed us here, because i misread some things for other things, unfortunately.

candies shaped in pad-like packaging. i think they are marshmellows. i’m not sure. haven’t opened. queer aid, phil bought for aberoo.

i didn’t expect to find much graffiti in taipei but there was a lot around ximending… and a lot of it was really quality stuff. here’s one.

masturbation bear in the two story stationary store that i used to go to every time i went back to taipei. i even had a birthday discount card which worked around your birthday, but my mom forgot to bring it T__T

roxanne and her face mask! those things make it very hard to breathe — as cool as they look. >_>

you might know what a buddhist monk looks like… this is what taoist monks look like!

this toothpaste was in our hotel. larry king is a whitemen. i started using this toothpaste when we first got there but then i saw that it was made in china and got scared and no longer used it, cause that’s scary. i wanted abe lincoln instead of larry king (he was in this book at the hotel), but roxanne said that was inappropriate. she said using bush would be inappropriate too, but larry king is somehow okay. i don’t really understand.

home!

this past weekend (friday the 26th) was supposed to be freak night 11 with infected mushroom, mstrkrft, dieselboy, and dj bailey, amongst others. IT GOT CANCELLED ON THE DAY OF. how does some shit like that even happen? i’m not sure. some people said the venue cancelled. some people say the city of seattle caused the venue to cancel. who knows what really happened. if you know, tell me.

but that sucks because this is the third time i’ve wanted to see infected mushroom and could not. BLARGH. did i already mention this? i feel deja vu-ish… i feel bad for the people who drove all the way up from portland, though, assuming that something must happen… massives don’t get cancelled! some shit did happen at element with headliners like dieselboy and rank one and mstrkrft, but element is tiny…

my octopus pumpkin i carved last week was starting to mold. the mold was light green and coming out and looked like soap sude ^_^ at least it wasn’t too squishy to pick up. that would have been gross! uber gross!

i need to get my new website domain up but there are other things that need to be done first. arggh! blarghh! so much to do *brain explode*.

by the way, dick’s is this fast food joint in washington and it is gross. in-n-out pwns its fucking bones through the roof.

hmm, watched “ricki-oh” yesterday because i think that movie is right up lenny’s alley. and it was, for he was amused. that movie is so fucking absurd. if you like gore, you should watch it. funny gore, that is. but very, very gory. LOL. god.

on friday night, instead of freak night, lenny and i bummed around and hung out and went to go see david sedaris. $40 tickets (per person). it was entertaining, somewhat, but some parts of his reading were boring. and it’s fucking highway robbery, charging that much for a READING. it’s not like he’s a stand-up comedian coming up with new ideas. he’s just reading. not worth the money, even though it was my first time at benaroya hall (not really as impressive on the inside as it looks on the outside). so in conclusion… sorry, david sedaris — i love your books, but i’m never going to pay $40 to see you read some shit to me ever again. not even $30. not even $20. maybe $15. you shouldn’t be allowed to charge that much anyway. that shit was sold out. give me a break. damn you david!

er anyway, afterwards we went to scarecrow and got some movies, including “tekkonkinkreet” which was well, amazing. AMAZING. amazing. i couldn’t shut up about it the whole time i was watching it, which was probably pretty annoying, but what can i say? it was some good shit. the animation style and use of cg were amazing. the director was a first-time director, but i must say, he had a really good vision of what he wanted the movie to be like. i have no complaints. it was a great movie.

on saturday, posa, linh, lenny, and i went to nw trek in tacoma, which is this outdoor err… safari type thing only their animals are kind of lame. only animals like bison (the most exciting), two types of deer, moose, elk, mountain goats, etc. (aka non-threatening animals) were present. other animals were present in the park, but not in the “observe them in their natural habitat!” type fashion. did get to see a wolverine for the first time, though, and those things are pretty damn weird. not what i thought they’d be like at all. foxes are so cute. so are wolves. i want a wolf! or a dog that looks like a wolf more like. cuuuute. point defiance was more exciting than this one, though. but, i’m saving up all my film of all these animals and i will soon be able to put together some kind of uber animal video or SOMETHING. i dunno. but i sure to go to a lot of zoos. might as well make something of it!?

cynthia was up here from portland, so me, lenny, cynthia, alex, jennifer [villaruz], and robin dressed up half-assedly (only jenn and robin had real costumes) and went to en restaurant in belltown. i hate belltown, by the way. anyway, alex was dressed as a ninja so i decided to half-assedly join him as well. i had a hoodie on and i put one of jenn’s shirts (black) over it, and then took alex’s weird orange striped handkerchief and put it over my face to be a “no face ninja”… when asked, we were going to say we were from an unknown manga called “kuma no _____” (i forget the last word)… which, translated in english, would mean “bear’s penis.” however, the restaurant was pretty empty and once there i immediately did not care for any kind of dressing up, so i stopped wearing the no-face.

there was this guy outside named rodney who was a beggar but sang for the seattle men’s chorus as well. anyway, he kept singing songs to different groups of people and initially he was singing to randoms, then cynthia and lenny, and then i heard about it and decided to go outside and listen to him. he dedicated some song to me. and sang it. he was a preetty good singer. not the best but definitely had a lot of control over his voice. evidently he asked me for a dollar, and later alex when he came out to join me, but didn’t ask cynthia and lenny. weird. i asked him a few questions, though, and i asked him how long he’d been doing it — he said he was 47? and had been doing it for 30 years? and i asked if it’s something he’d always wanted to do and he said he had no choice — his grandmother was the head of some choir of a church and required them (him and his 12 siblings) to participate… so all of them sung and played instruments (rodney played piano). if they didn’t do it, grandma would beat them. LOL. oh so christian-like you are, grandmama! later he was singing, “all the world needs now… is love, sweet love,” and gave us a hug and i totally like kissed his bald head because it was perfect height to my mouth lol >_<

later that night alex, lenny, and i went to taqueria del riconsito and got food to go, and found out that reading the spanish newspaper isn’t difficult at all! the question, now, was whether it wasn’t difficult because they use simple vocab, or because our spanish was so good. i think the former is probably the reason, although i’d prefer the latter! we got back to lenny’s place, though, and he proceeded to puke a few times (in addition to the times at the restaurant) and went to go pass out. then he woke up and made me make sure he had flushed. which, of course, he hadn’t, and it was gross?!!

alex and i watched “cable guy” though, cause it was free on comcast on-demand “free movies” (my new best friend when i go over). i’d never seen that movie before but there were some really very funny parts. WOOOO.

apparently the whole wide world thinks that baby porcupines and baby hedgehogs are the same thing — possibly, they even think adult hedgehogs and adult porcupines are the same thing. i’m not sure. i stumbled across this problem when:

i did a search for “baby porcupine” in google image search.

i was told that this was a baby porcupine… hm, maybe, but they kind of look like hedgehogs.

out of suspicion:
i then did a search for a “baby hedgehog” in google image search.

dammit, that same little buster is popping up again!

well, this is a real baby porcupine (click him to enter the rainsong sanctuary):

they got the hedgehog right, though. get it straight, people of the internet. hedgehogs and porcupines are NOT one and the same, even though they ARE both spiny (and pretty cute… although i’d say porcupines moreso when young and hedgehogs moreso when old).

currently watching… some weird mystery show on the hallmark channel. “murder she wrote” is on next, heh.

thursday, august 16th, 2007
got my magazines back today — only 35 of them, but they look ama-freaking-zing!!!!!!! on the downside, though, i have to print more asap… blargh!

this past week lenny and i played like 13 hours of “guild 2″ because we finally got the shit working. and it was most exciting. that game is micro-management death, though, but it seems hard as hell to program (not that i know anything about programming) but everyone in the game has their own artificial a.i. and every computer character that you don’t control still interacts with one another. basically the point is your family has to win via violence, politics, or economic means and wipe out all the other families. werd.

we’ve also finally been playing a little bit of “company of heroes,” which is, of course, always great!

—

friday, august 17th, 2007
after work, went with hsuhan and rachel to what was supposed to be the mf doom show. he actually was replaced by redman, though… i don’t know why! sean cee was spinning that night. they had the most annoying announcer who kept interrupting everyone. bleh. redman was a lot better than anticipated. the show was “sneaker pimps,” sponsored by k-swiss, and basically they get a bunch of shoes painted by artists and stuff. parskid was there painting a giant shoe. like, it was huge! it sucked because i brought my camera but i forgot to bring a memory card with it, so i didn’t get to get any shots of it. bleh. was going to for magazine purposes but i guess i ended up paying $18 just for the entertainment. the MC was a fucking idiot and sucked ass. he kept calling parskid “mars one” HAHHAHAHA and sean cee “c - something” (who is actually sean’s friend from texas). what an idiot. after the set, redman sat on stage smoking a blunt. hah. rachel got her shoe signed by him and i gave him my business card and told him to check the mag. i doubt if he will. but we’ll see. all these hoes were scribbling their numbers on his hand. like he’s going to call your ass. haha. he’s funny though — he was high as fuck and at one point he put a towel on his head AND put on a hoodie and looked ridiculous. he also had this fat gold chain which he kept taking off and people would get all excited thinking he was going to throw it out, but really he’d just flip it over and put it back on. again and again. HAHAHAHAHA. most funny.

afterwards we went to purple dot, which was alright… i think they switched a chef or something because shit doesn’t taste the same lately… but i’m not sure.

—

saturday, august 18th, 2007
lenny and i were supposed to wake up and go to fort casey but as usually we got up too late. bleh. i woke up at eight am too because aeryn came over because he had to get a tape recorder before warped tour, but still, tried to take a short nap and get up again and it just didn’t happen. i don’t know why i need to sleep so much these days. it’s weird.

—

sunday, august 19th, 2007
again was going to go to fort casey but the weather was bad when we woke up in the morning so we decided not to go. instead, there was a fucking poop nightmare at lenny’s mom’s house. omfg. lewis and taylor ran upstairs and i guess taylor was in the middle of pooping and decide to give a shake (the kind a dog does after being wet) and poop went flying all over the carpet, wall, clothes, backpacks, bedsheets, everything, everything, everything!!!!! … everything!! and it wasn’t the dry kind of poop — it was like the consistency of dog food. it was gross. disgusting. had to wash a load of clothes after that, heh, and get the carpet cleaned, and windex the walls… then i gave taylor a bath and it’s the first time i’ve given a dog a bath but i got soaking wet because he kept trying to escape. that bitch. and then somehow in that process i got poop all over my pants. blarghhhhh!!!!!! but i didn’t know it yet. so i went downstairs and all i could smell was poop for some reason. bleh! lenny let lewis outside and then as lewie was coming in i saw his ass and it was covered with poopy! covered!!! so we’re like AAAHHH! and lenny took lewis to get a bath. i was like, “no wonder i smelled poop!” and then i put some clothes in the laundry and then looked at my pants halfway thru the laundry being done and finally saw that i had poop on my pants. and again i was like, “no wonder i smelled poop!” it was a nightmare. stupid dumb dogs. taylor is such an idiot. he was like running around in circles after i gave him a bath, chasing his own tail and barking at it, and then smelled lenny’s mom’s clothes and just peed on it. not a moment of thought. so bizarre. i don’t understand at all. then later i was eating pizza and watching “survivorman” and all i could do was get dog hair on my pizza and in my mouth. i’m not even sure how that happens — i never even put down the fucking pizza, i was holding it the whole time. bleaghhhh!! no doggies for me for a little bit lol. at least not long-haired ones. or idiots. sick.

(poop shown is about … 1/4 of the poop that was splattered across the room… and splattered is probably the best description for it too!)

i forgot but last weekend we went to derek’s house in anacortes and they caught like, 20 crabs. and we ate them. and they were REALLY good. it was fucked up seeing them be killed, but i was more traumatized last year than i was this year. guess i am getting immune?!

okay — here’s my so-cal journal entry, finally.

friday, july 27th
get to so-cal after work. got two hours of sleep before due to magazine design. w00! go crazy!!! jeanette and lindsay pick me up from the airport. great fun, great fun. we head on over to the omni hotel in san diego… jeanette’s friend kayla works for warner brothers and as a result, had a space there and all that jazz. free housing?! how can we resist?! so we get ready to go out.

“300″ party. yeah yeah. by the time we got there it was kinda late and no one was really around anymore… there was some dope ass food, though. if you’re wondering what it was for, it was for the “300″ dvd release. evidently clive owen (the main dude in “sin city”, during the prositute town section) and jessica alba were there, and clive owen was in the elevator with kayla at some point, talking to her. nyes. anyway, did i mention the food was good? yeah, it was quite good. that’s all we did really, so let me mention it again. the food was good.

apparently, like, people in LA like to pose on red carpets after they’re used.

me trying to hide from a picture and failing. this was at some rooftop bar. uh yeah. i just have to say — so-cal people, at least in this area? not my style. prior to the bar, though, it was even worse. we met up with their very friendly, quite possibly gay friend who was really excited to talk to me about seattle because he had just come up for ultimate frisbee or something… i liked him, though. very friendly. but yeah, before the bar we went to a club — a hip-hop / top 40s type club, and i’m not very comfortable in clubs unless they’re playing electronic music, so needless to say, i was uncomfortable.

that night we went home, and kayla had drunk quite a bit, i guess, and she was yakmaster flex. there was a lot of being woken up via her yakking in the toilet.

saturday, july 28th
got up in the morning time and went to comic con! holla! jeanette borrowed kayla’s pass and came with me for like, two hours. and evidently that was about all she could handle. i got a press pass… or else i wouldn’t have been there.

ugly dolls!!!!! they were sooooo nice feeling. man, i want a costume like that. i kept trying to run after them to take a photo with them. FAILURE. they couldn’t see except out of the little hole in the front of their body, so they didn’t know if anyone was in front of them or behind them. they kept crushing me later on because they were walking sideways and didn’t know i was in front of them… haha. but anyway, i was chasing after them and hugging them from behind for a while. it was great. love me an uglydoll!!!

did you know grimace used to have 4 arms? i didn’t!

can’t have a nerd convention without jabba.

can’t have a nerd convention without batman in lego form.

can’t have a nerd convention without an ass shot of spidey.

played a bunch of puzzlefigther here, but unfortunately, only terrible people kept challenging me. like, they would play me 5x and lose every time. and you’re supposed to leave after losing one round, BUT THEY WOULDN’T. one guy had literally never played before and still made me play with him 5x. it was pain. i also missed mega man dressed up, which sucked, even though i was there the same time mega man was :( :( did get to talk to some artists, though, and i’ll need to email some of them to follow up!! hmm, also bought a bunch of shit… let’s see… what else, that’s about it, i guess. jennifer [yee] was working at the wizkids! booth and i hung out with her for a little bit but she seemed quite very busy.

lunch/dinner at fred’s mexican cafe. it was decently good, even though they put coleslaw in their tacos. i have to admit i kind of liked it, though.

so kayla got sunburned really bad, because they were at the pool while i was finishing up at comic con. anyway, pool… that’s what people do in so-cal too!

this guy draws these pimp ass chalk drawings that don’t look 3d unless you look at them from a certain angle. famous guy. if you don’t know him already, you kind of suck.

jeanette wanted to go to the mall to buy some present for her friend’s birthday. we didn’t find a present, but my shoes were killing me, so i bought a pair of flip-flops. ugh, waste of money. but necessary at the time. i was literally dying. anyway, we had this really funny transaction with the guy at the counter. i was getting flip-flops and he started talking to jeanette, asking if we’d gone to comic con. she said i did, ran a magazine. blahblah, so i handed him a business card as i was being rung out. and i gave him my credit card too, but it took him a while to ring it up because we were all distracted. and then i noticed this freaking belt buckle that looked like a wad of bills (see below).

blang blang belt buckle. anyway, we got sidetracked taking pics of that belt buckle, so like, i nearly forgot to get back my credit card from the dude at the register. lol, as i was outside, changing shoes to my new flip-flops, i noticed i never got a receipt. i went in to get it, and he gave it to me. luckily no one had gone after me!!! anyway, two seconds later, he came out and realized that i hadn’t even signed the merchant copy. oops! worst credit card transaction ever!!!

on the way back, i saw this homeless guy. his sign intruiged me, so i asked him about it. he rambled a bunch of shit i honestly did not understand. essentially it went something like, the government screwed him a bunch of times — he had three houses and liquidated them but the government never gave him the money for them… and that he had to go to china and then couldn’t come back so he had to apply for refugee status. and then he said he learned some shit about being a pilot and knew how to hack into government things and he tried to use that to blackmail the government but it didn’t work. i don’t understand. and did not wholly believe at first (even though he talked very coherently and seemed like he knew what he was talking about… that was the only reason i had doubts — he was very well-spoken), but then he pulled out this note from china, which was all wrinkled and inside his passport… which basically said, yeah, he really had applied for refugee status in china. everything else i’m honestly not sure about because he used massive tech talk mumbo jumbo, but yeah.

the scene outside of comic con.

gasLAMP district. i kept thinking it was gastown like vancouver or gasworks or something. whatever the hell. this is the area our hotel / comic con / the bars we went to were.

bondi bar. well, i’m not a fan of expensive shit ($10 for 4 fucking tempura shrimp. they were good, and all, but what the fuck man?) — but this place LOOKED cool, at the very least.

well, we were pretty freaking amazed by kayla’s ability to hold a camera and take a picture of her touching her sunburn immediately right after it. really, that’s some coordination!

oh yeah, so some guy came over and wanted to recruit us to join their table because his friend (but not really his friend, as he had known the guy for only three hours… not to mention he was talking a lot of shit about the dude) had just flown in from nyc, and was single, and didn’t think that southern california girls were good because they were all superficial and stuff etc. anyway, this guy was really funny. eventually he brought over his friend (and he left), who i thought was interesting in a completely platonic way… and yeah, but lindsay and kayla thought he was annoying and had attitude i guess. which is weird cause he seemed perfectly normal to me… ALTHOUGH HE WOULDN’T DRAW IN MY BOOK. so that was kind of lame.

princess leia drawing in my book.

sunday, july 29th

so, this is some fucked up mexican food if i’ve ever seen it. it’s french fries, avocado, salsa, chicken (really good chicken), and cheese. FRENCH FRIES? californians are so weird, man. a “california burrito” is a burrito with french fries in it. the heck? anyway, it was kinda good at first but then got to be too much. eh, and it’s not mexican enough for my tastes, homie. i’m hella mexican, check the spanish text in my blog, yo.

the restaurant. roberto’s!

entrance to wild animal park!

merekats. however you spell that…

cool looking roach. this is a little smaller than life-size. as long as it doesn’t touch me, it’s cool. rainforest animal.

gorilla catching food. man, gorillas and monkeys are so cool. i honestly feel quite bad watching them in captivity because they’re so much like people…

hair shot of jeanette, i don’t know, i like it.

for those of you unfamiliar with the san diego wild animal park (actually, it’s in escondido, california) — it has this pre-built habitat for animals and they don’t pay much attention to them and kind of let them roam around on their own. tickets were $30. which allows you to ride this tram thing around the perimeter of this “habitat” they’ve built. now, for another $30 you can ride these busses which get you right up next to the animals — practically touching them — but yeah, that was too much money. but cool idea.

jeanette and i?!

white rhinos — two of twelve (at most) left in the world. pretty crazy to know that there are only that few left in the world and you are looking at them… they are going extinct due to poaching.

the ultimate in meow mix.

i can’t resist taking picture of this kind of crap. it’s just so pretty.

the best trees ever, i think. i think it’s a painted eucalyptus. cause if it is… best tree ever.

i wanted to climb that tree but it was covered with spider webs :/

anyway, after going to the wild animal park, jeanette and i went to irvine (LAMENESS) and met up with claire, jeremy, and phil [wu] for dinner. we went to an izakaya restaurant. it was actually pretty good although the salmon onigiri i got had like, barely any salmon. that kind of sucked.

afterwards, jeanette went back to la and we went out to newport beach for some bar-time. it was a sunday night so lots of things were closed, unfortunately.

jeremy and fil bought me shots of grey goose and petron. grey goose was decent. this is what the petron tasted like. this was at… i forget the name of the bar and i’m too lazy to look it up right now.

this was at the “barn bar” — there was sawdust on the ground, so it smelled like a barn. vibe was cooler, though.

this guy kissed me like, five times that night. slightly disturbing, but mostly funny. i kept saying, “no, no me gusta!” and he would be like, “okay, okay, no me gusta,” and he’d leave for 2 seconds and then come back right away. -__-

here are some videos of me being harassed by old mexican dude! his name is ambrosio!!! he said his friend was a wrong “canciones de mexicano” — he literally spoke to me in all spanish, i’m kind of proud of myself that i understood… 90% of it. anyway, videos courtesy of jeremy’s AMAZING cellphone that freaking takes videos as well as my camera, wtf!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUAO_3MB7n8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T_24_ClViI

group pic. woo. at fil and jeremy’s.

passed out at claire’s place later that night… they had these two really fat ass cats.

monday, july 30th
the next morning, woke up and went to eat at some sushi restaurant with my cs clan!! actually, though, there was no sushi-eating for the sushi restaurant was packed. we went to some chain called bj’s instead, and split 3 pizzas. the artichoke and spinach pizza was the best, although kinda salty, but still… everyone was freaking out about it being gross (before we ordered), but i thought it was good! after we ordered they didn’t think it was AS gross. let’s see… who was there… it was me, claire, joe [tran], mike [tran], aaron, tim, eddie, jason, and yuki [sawa]. werd.

we split this giant cookie thing with ice cream on it. ugh, made me not feel so good. richest chocolate cookie i’ve ever had. and i like rich.

teh group.

afterwards claire and i went to the tar pits… they were lame, asides from this little patch in the ground that you could play with.

the actual tar pits. i wish they weren’t fenced off, but they needed to be. there was this one tiny section, the size of a well or so, that they didn’t fence off on purpose. people threw a ton of trash in there. lack of respect, i tell you.

so afterwards, we went to the lacma (los angeles museum of contemporary art). this was the shit that was the major feature. granted, half of the museum was closed due to renovation, but this was some weak shit. this is actually one of the cooler pieces. i didn’t get one of the better ones because my camera couldn’t take it for some reason. but yeah. i don’t get it…

this is like the freaking hugest elevator ever. the size of my living room, literally. i wish this pic did it justice but it doesn’t.

these are images from the japanese art wing. the art wasn’t great, but the building was.

so these little trinkets used to go on bags, kinda like a drawstring, for people when they were wearing kimonos, since kimonos don’t have pockets. there were a lot — i should have taken more photos — but there were ones of animals and stuff. the one i took are primarily of people… not sure why… the last one is one claire liked. it’s actually a frog with its tadpole, although they kind of look like people.

after that, claire drove me to the airport, and jeanette got mad at me because i was trying to follow mapquest directions and not her directions. she was quite offended. lol. claire’s driving was quite very terrifying. i feared for my life, i definitely did. but i got back safely. hoorah.

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at comic-con i decided to keep sketches. here is my sketchbook from comic con.