inside the wonderful world of vee

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!!!

i am not just me. i am much more than me. i am, most importantly, a man-destroying plant.

“Being the primordial malboro, born in antiquity of an elder witch. All malboro alive today are said to descend from the vivian. Upon its head rests a crown, signifying its status as queen among its kind. Over the course of its long life, its body’s youthful hue has faded, now being entirely devoid of color. There are some chroniclers who hold that the witch-mother of the malboros was indeed named ‘Vivian,’ and was no witch at all, but a plant-creature herself.”

thanks to bp for this tidbit of knowledge.

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 have been a huge katamari fan since the first time i laid eyes on the beautiful game but i can safely say that this newest release, “beautiful katamari,” pretty much blows, especially when compared to the second one. +__+ it’s so depressing. i spent $40 on the game, for a console i don’t even have (xbox 360), and beat the entire game in 2 hours (this is including repeats of some levels and periodic .pdf edits for tizag.com in-between). it’s such a disappointing game. the creative aspect seems completely removed from it. i am so unbelievably disappointed. i think i’ve said that a lot so far, but i truly am just disappointed, asshole!

the original creator of this game did not sign on this time which may be partially why it is so fucking bad. whereas the other games have different levels and are creative relatively about each level, this game pretty much uses the same levels every time… you just start out at different sizes to begin with. for example, the initial level, you’re inside a house. a second level puts you in the house and allows you to go outside. a third level allows you to go outside the house and maybe to a different town, and so on. but always the same house, the same town, the same adjacent town — even with a lot of the items in the same fucking place. really fucking weak sauce. and the last level — the level where you roll up the world — is even poorly done graphically and lo-res style. not sure what the deal was.

positive points: “it is now available in hd!” and they don’t keep from telling you this. NO LOAD TIME. which is dope. and a lot more items within view at all times… but why is this bad? it seems it’s just a bunch of items dumped onto the page at once, and not really put in a way that is conducive to rolling. i’m not positive about this but i feel like the other one paid attention to ‘where you started off’ and this one just kind of throws you wherever. GOD IT IS SO UNCREATIVE. OH NO, I’VE TAINTED THE POSITIVE SECTION!!

the multi-player on the other hand is pretty fun, but honestly, it’s hard to fuck up katamari multi-player. and even then they don’t give you a chance to “roll as big as possible” — it’s only “roll as big as you can get while picking up one particular item that they want you to pick up.”

i’m so disappointed. i seriously regret purchasing it, even though i was happy initially because i got the last copy at toys r’ us.

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!)

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.

—

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

december 23rd — first day.
i headed from seattle to las vegas to meet up with my family. got there and went to bellagio hotel to eat a meal with my brother and his girlfriend roxanne while my parents went to this meeting that tried to sell them a timeshare — cause that’s how we got the room in the first place. let me tell you that vegas is a shithole. i am not at all a fan of the place.bellagio cafe meal was subpar and unexciting. i was not impressed. it was expensive, too. afterwards, lord knows what we did, since it was all a blur of walking around on the strip not accomplishing much.

that night we went to go see “mamma mia!” at one of the hotels. it was good. abba. upbeat. very many sexual references. it was goot. not much else to say.

vegas is such a shithole, as i will say again. nothing much to do there but spend money. deja vu. hmm. anyway, its routine goes something like this: gamble, spend money, shop, spend money, rent expensive hotel, spend money, watch shows, spend money, eat expensive and gross meals, spend money, plane tickets, spend money. that sounds about right. the only thing that is kind of worth it is the shows, but even those felt not so exciting this time…

it must be the nature of family vacations that sucks all the joy out of vacationing.
december 24th — second day.
we woke up around noonish and drove half an hour to outlets. spent two hours there. i bought some underpants cause they were cheap and cheap boyshorts are kinda hard to find. also got a skinny tie for lenny (totally cheapo), a pair of crappy nikes so that i can walk around (but they’re so fscking ugly), dippin dots (banana of course), and a t-shirt (which is totally a homage to shrooms!!).

soo… then we left and drove back and waited in line for buffet, but halfway through that line, dad decides he doesn’t want to wait. we’d waited an hour. probably another hour to go. so we leave and go to another restaurant and wait for a half hour, and that line doesn’t move at ALL. so we leave and then go to cafe bellagio (which we went to the previous day), and the line moves faster, except by the time we finished waiting there we’d probably have been in the buffet already. so i was pissed. especially since cafe bellagio or bellagio cafe or whatever the fuck is expensive and NOT GOOD. i got this alaskan salmon burger and it was sick. blahblah.

went to m&m store after that and gameworks a bit to kill time. i pwnz0red in tekken 5. wewt.

then we went back to bellagio to watch “o”. it was good. but not as good as “varekai” which lenny and i saw last year. “o”’s primary thing is that it revolves around water, but there wasn’t really a discernable storyline, and on top of that, the acrobatics were poorer and many times were off sync. the music and costumes were worse too. they also dragged “staged” audience members on stage, which made the whole event livelier, but also cheapened the overall feeling. as with “varekai,” they had clowns do intermissions, but these clowns were not funny. AT ALL. it was pathetic. varekai was sOoOoo much better. i really don’t understand at all why “o” is so famous. on the flipside, though, the stage for “o” was really really fscking cool, but in all honesty, that was all it really had going for it.

after that we went to circus circus for a bit and gambled minimally (slot machines). gambling is lame. money goes away so fast. whatever.

when we got back, i gave parentals my present to them. i painted them some abstract concoction on a wooden block. granted, i’m not the best painter, but if your kid makes something — or if anyone makes something for you — you should appreciate it. at least a little. last year i made the a collage of family photographs and they feigned interest, but i came back a year later and it was just sitting in its frame on the floor, collecting dust. no time to display it — not even to put it on a bookshelf or something. this is the shit my family is like. i am such a black sheep.

but anyway, this year, i handed them their present and i jokingly said, “here’s my crappy present,” and my dad was like (also jokingly i think), “what kind of crappy thing did you make us now?” and i just kind of nudged it forward. they picked it up, brought it in their room, and didn’t say a fucking thing. i told them they sucked. they didn’t seem to notice and/or care.

moving on, though… cause it gets worse.

december 25th — day three.
the day to head back. airport, airport, airport. not much else. after coming back from the airport, we went to fremont to eat at ophelia. beef stew noodles. good, decent, whatever. here’s where it gets bad. conversation:

assholes. seriously, i have no real qualms about saying, “worst parents ever,” cause that’s so fucking fucked up. what the fuck is wrong with us.

the one funny thing about this trip is that my mom would not fucking stop bitching about fucking EVERYTHING. and my dad kept saying in this weird accent and making sure to only use english: “yes, commander!” and “thank you!” dad can be pretty funny. blahr. SO MUCH BITCHING FROM MOM. that must be where i get it from. fucking suck.

KILL ME NOW.

listening to — head automatica, something corporate.

i never get to write anymore. it kind of fucking sucks. the justification is kind of like this: i feel like i’m better (or have more potential) at graphics, and therefore i expend more energy towards that. writing… it just seems like the words i write and the things i think are just recycled unless i am writing a journal entry. but when i’m writing an article or something of that sort… it’s always the same words, the same format, the same lack of inspiration. therefore, i haven’t spent much time on writing. there just isn’t much to say that hasn’t been said, i guess? and with all of the things on the graphics front and the life front that i need to spend time learning, why bother, it seems… but i find that when i don’t write, things feel pretty off. it’s probably the only way that i can truly express myself, whether people read it or not. but i don’t feel comfortable writing in a journal when other people are around, so i just don’t write in it as much anymore. there are a lot more distractions these days — a lot more things to keep me from really sitting down and just writing down each day. it kind of feels just pointless. i don’t know why, though… why wasn’t it pointless before and why is it pointless now? certainly not THAT much has changed, has it?

perhaps it has…

i’ve seen the new darren aronofsky movie, “the fountain,” a couple times in the past month. it’s amazing… to me, anyway. amazing that he can craft such a movie, although there are a lot of haters. ebert and roeper (fuck those bitches) said it was “one of the worst movies of the year,” which, even if you fucking hate the premise, could not be true if you look at just the visuals and the music… the music is amazing. the visuals are unique. maybe some people think the story is a load of bullshit, but whatever. but definitely a lot of people seem to not like it… because afterwards outside of theatres you see people talking about how much they hated it. but mostly i think it’s because they don’t understand it. but who knows.

i’ve also gotten back into music, somewhat. for a while i was definitely burnt out on music — so burnt out that i didn’t really want to listen to it at all. it just all seemed — once again — so fucking pointless. why was i expending this energy to write about bands who barely even care? why do i even care? what the fuck am i getting out of all this?

but i guess lately i have been getting back to basics and trying to re-find myself? could it be? i forget what song it was, but a song came on in a movie or something… i vaguely think it was the decemberists, but i don’t think it was. but either way… the feeling it gave me was a really comforting one… and it just made me think how long it has been since music has given me a feeling like that. for the half a year before the past month or two, i’ve just been robotically listening to music for the most part, with little care or concern of growth. but whatever that song was that came on… reminded me of how much i used to like music. i used to be one of those people that would turn on music the first second i got home — the first second i stepped into a room. that’s the kind of passion for music that got me into creating a magazine in the first place. i don’t know what made me lose that. i’m trying to find out.

but anyway. i’ve been going to a lot of concerts and drum n’ bass shows (well, not a LOT of drum n’ bass shows, but compared to my uh, 1 in the past two years before that, 2 in 2 months is definitely a lot). dieselboy is coming up as well on december 12th. sucks cause all of the concerts i want to go to are at these big ass fucking venues. so it costs a lot of money. but whatever in the fucking hell. it’s okay.

i got a new job at the snowboard connection, helping them do web marketing stuff. i’ll keep my comments minimal for now, but they are definitely pretty um, disorganized. i think i can add a lot of potential growth to their web status, but that all depends, i think…

i’ve also been working at volt doing game testing a bit and they owe me a fuckload of money. i switched my address and i haven’t really gotten anything mailed to me since. they owe me literally four paychecks (personally, i think it’s 5, although they claim otherwise). so… fuck. i also am owed a fuck load of money by lenny and through a bunch of other facets, so… godamnit.

going to las vegas this christmas with my family. that should be interesting. get to watch cirque du soleil’s “o,” so i’m happy about that. asides from that, though, i’m not so sure i really care for vegas. but we’ll see. maybe i’ll become a gambling monster, since i’ve only gambled once and it was really fun (only cause i won $20, though, i think).

blah blah blah.

finishing up a glossy sample issue for potential distributors of redefine. going to send it to the printer tomorrow after lagging for-fucking-ever. i’m really kind of disappointed with myself. but there are only so many hours in a day…

i’ve also been taking a bunch of classes — and by a bunch, i mean two — illustrator and flash classes at seattle central community college. so far, so good. i think they’re definitely helping. the LITTLE knowledge i have gained in both (i am 5 weeks behind in the illustrator class because it’s an online class, and i have only taken 2 classes of the flash class so far) has already been useful. so i can only imagine… it will all be very useful. i want to go back to school, or just take time away from work to study up. funny how before i got a job again i didn’t care to study up on those things. it barely even crossed my mind. but now it just feels so very necessary. teaching yourself is definitely limiting… so i know i have to learn more. i think right now i just know enough to get by. certainly not enough to make a difference. and that’s what i want.

i’ve also come to learn that although people say that women are the chuumps, men are definitely the chumps. it is evident in posa’s relationship with linh, in andy [crossett]’s relationship with vanessa, and in my brother’s relationship with roxanne. there are others as well. so therefore, my theory is flawless.

in other news, the time after college is definitely a strange one. everyone strays. i guess it’s only inevitable that people will continue to stray even more.

i went home a couple weeks ago and went to a lesbian bar with xinlei and her friends. it felt just like a normal bar, really. i had a couple drinks — completely paid for, which was nice… although weird cause i’d never met those people — and drove him kind of drunk. no more doing that. yet another reason not to drink, kids…

last month or so i started playing hardcore diablo 2 with lenny, lewis, alex [bennett], eddie [kang], and the like. it was actually addictively fun… i died a bunch of times and kept remaking, but finally i got a pretty dope crossbow (arbalest) on my assassin (i was an assassin every time… and damn, they are fun to play — i dunno why no one plays them) which kept me alive for a long time since assassin claws themselves suck ass. but yeah unfortunately, i decided to play when i knew i shouldn’t have in a level i had done like 20 times without a fucking problem, and then i died, and i was really godamn sad. and that is probably the most disappointed i’ve ever been in a game. and i refuse to reroll. everyone says that i’ll go back, but i definitely won’t. not for a year or so at least but lenny and i started playing diablo 1 lol and shit the butcher is hella hard. don’t remember him being that hard. but we haven’t played in a while — but it’ll come back soon!

lenny’s mom also got this really cute puppy who’s named taylor. lenny was saying she should name him clark since they have another dog named lewis. she was like, “HAHAHA, lewis and clark! wait, i don’t get it.” lawl, it was funny. she also scared me the other day because i was eating her cooking and she was like, “do you know how to cook that?” and i was like, “no,” and she was like, “don’t be so mean to me!” and i was like, “wtf?” (in my head, of course). and she was like, “don’t be so mean to me! treat me like your mom! if you want to learn how to cook something, tell me. lenny doesn’t love me, posa doesn’t love me, etc.” it was too much -___- that’s one main problem in my book to be honest. i was talking about this to jeanette when i went back a couple weeks ago. i don’t want another fucking asian parent. i already have two and they are ALREADY too much. i want a white family. damnit. or a really fucking cool asian one. but we all know how godamn rare that is. -___-

i really need to back up my journal forum thing. what if it explodes one day? then i’ll be really fucking sad. i need to do that… quick. so much to do, though… so little godamn time.

oh yeah, something i kind of forgot about… “the fountain” made me really kind of depressed. as is this book i’m reading, “paint it black,” by the lady who wrote “white oleander.” man… sigh. i’m such a closet romantic, and i worry that my romantic ideal fails to be matched…

the day i came back from california last week, it was snowing like a fucking bitch. oh and get this. i missed my flight on the way home, so i had to drive back by myself. i parked 3 nights, 9 hours at the airport parking. FUCKING $88!! GODAMNIT FUCKING SHIT MONKEYS ASSHOLES. that’s so much godamn money. it’s not even funny.

anyway, i’m going to TRY to start writing in here more often, but i’m not sure that will happen, especially seeing as to how this entry took me a half hour to write. but it’s pretty long, i guess. it sucks that i had to ban xanga. i’m scared to look at it, but there definitely is stuff on it that i’d like to back up or look at sometime. but maybe not for a while. hopefully xanga doesn’t explode anytime soon.

i need to finish downloading the brand new album from trask, not that i’ve even listened to the songs i do have yet.

btw swimming is good for you too. btw i should probably get a physical. btw i think i should get a mammogram as well. things seem to like to… grow on me.

maybe it’s time to quit. it’s 1:08 am.

btw. on a side note. people are truly fucked up.

btw. on a side note. i need toilet paper.

btw. on a side note. here’s a conversation with tony that just so happens to be below this journal entry i’m writing in notepad, so why not put it? it relates to toilet paper, after all.

what a sick ass, am i right?

btw. i really need to go snowboarding. especially since i didn’t go AT ALL last year. i hope josh [hwang] will go with me a bunch after he comes back from the military for xmas. he keeps telling me how he’s going to ‘rape me’ though. i think i’m scared.

and on that note, it’s sleepy time.

hopefully i don’t have a dream about my teeth falling out tonight. i’ve had three of those in the past, like, two weeks. they’re really fucking realistic feeling. i wake up thinking my teeth really are starting to fall out irl, and let me tell you, IT’S FUCKING FUCKING SCARY. the dream interpreters claim that means that you’ll be overflowing with wealth soon, but i’m not sure that’s proper. i hope it is, though. money would be nice right now.
(xinlei’s response:)
weird that you posted this yesterday and i decided to randomly check your page for the first time in like a year. we are on the same wavelength lady. anyway i think people don’t know what they would do because not everybody is as outspoken as you (or wouldn’t be in certain odd/uncomfortably situations). and that is why you are the bombdiggity lady.

i’m listening to… “like it or not” by madonna (the best track on her new album, if you ask me), her majesty the decemberists by the decemberists.
i’m feeling… alright.somewhere around 3:00 am — starting yesterday, i’ve been making daily lists of shit i need to do. i need some kind of organization system. there’s just too much shit that is too easy to blow off… and when you’re your own boss, motivation is HIGHLY necessary.

anyways. lately lenny and i have been working on our sushimonsters website which is dedicated to sushi… a lot of working on that, actually. that and redefine. you’d think i have a full-time job, only i am broke as shit. in fact — i don’t think i have been this broke in YEARS. seriously. i really am living off paycheck to paycheck… it’s really quite depressing when i think about it. and point is, i’m broke cause i didn’t turn in my time sheet last month, and… yeah. … sad.

went to a job interview last week, and I ACTUALLY GOT CALLED BACK FOR A SECOND INTERVIEW. i have NEVER. i must make a poor impression at interviews, cause people always compliment my portfolio and my resume and stuff, but then… i never get jobs. but i hope this one works out, because it’s for a scrapbooking company — and although i’d never really pay for that shit, shit, i’ll take a potential discount. i LIKE the stuff… it’s just way too expensive for my blood. i haven’t updated my photo album in a long while — something i’ll have to get to doing when i have more time…

i hope i get the job also, though, cause it is 4 days a week in TACOMA (really fucking far…) and the office is in the STICKS. that being said, though, fridays will be worked from home… and that is pimp shit. amongst other things. i need money, being the main one. if i don’t get some money… i really probably am going to stop with redefine. honestly? i don’t give a shit if i work a job and put some money into it. but i need a job. blah. the chance of me surviving off of it… slim to none. but that doesn’t mean i want to stop doing it. particularly if i have the money… money makes the world go round — i’m learning this. but i still want to do what i want to do. no compromises.

i find that i am getting calloused by people… i try to be motivated by good intentions but i mmmmm i don’t know. i suppose things never turn out the way you want them to?

i don’t like the idea of not getting along with people. unfortunate. because in the case i am thinking of, i should not care. in this particular case that comes to mind though… the only one that is my “not getting along with people,” i should say, cause i have never hated anyone else but him… with the exception of ONE other person who i hated because he did some REALLY fucked up shit that i won’t even begin to explain… i didn’t even hate this guy i dated before coming to college who told everyone i had sex with him. whatever. doesn’t even sweat it. but in this case, i hate. but not because i really care. but because i regret. i regret sticking up for him, so many times, when other people said he was a jackass and a terrible person. i regret defending him and saying, hey, give him a chance… he’s really not that bad of a person. i don’t even know HOW many times i took that leap. i said, hey, he’s my friend, chill out, at least don’t talk shit around me, cause he’s my friend. friend my fucking ass. to make it even worse… everyone he is surrounded with, he knew through me. his girlfriend? through me. does it matter to him? i suppose not. maybe he doesn’t even care about the other friendships. i wouldn’t be surprised. but personally, i regret it, although i did meet a few people through him, but for the most part, it is relatively worthless to me. whatever. it’s just uncomfortable when you think you’re being really good to someone and someone returns no such sentiments, i suppose. fuck the sacrifice… i’m getting more and more cynical about people everyday. in the end: i’m glad it’s over, albeit at the risk of the destruction of harmony. but asides from that… it’s alright. just CALLOUSING. i suppose i should consider it a learning process. something along the lines of… hmmm… even if a person is your friend, if the person is an asshole, maybe you should re-think it. note to self: made.

i never really was cynical about people. i have ALWAYS been cynical about THINGS and the outcome of THINGS… but never about people individually. but it’s changing…

today i blew up at lenny a little bit, cause i was annoyed that i had just gotten a ticket and had made a turn when the light was red blahblahblah. was driving down pine or pike or something, and some lady was trying to get in… and lenny was like, did you see her? and i said, yea. but i didn’t FEEL like letting her in. most of the time i do. but i dunno. i didn’t feel like it. and i don’t think that needed an explanation. and my explanation was that i didn’t feel like letting her in. that’s kind of terrible. i didn’t feel like letting her in because i didn’t feel like being nice. i suppose that is something i’ve always done upon feeling bad — withdrawal. it’s natural for most people, but it’s not good. it must be sought out and reprimanded (hahaha).

alright, so onto actual journal stuff, since i never type in this shit anymore… i really should. and i really should back it up too, in case one day it goes kerblunker. cause it’s very possible. yes… note to self. asap.

mmm… i mentioned in the previous post that scm came up one week. didn’t really say much about that then because i didn’t feel like it, so i suppose i will now. there was much videogame playing, and that was the extent of it. brett [pwny] and i did have some good conversation, though. human interactions are so weird. some people it is pretty natural to be comfortable around… and some people it’s difficult no matter what. and some people it’s easy to be around under certain settings, but not under others. i’m not making sense. i don’t know… but uh i guess pwny has a $50,000 modeling program that he managed to download for free? that has nothing to do with anything, but HOLY SHIT MAN.

last week, liz came up from cali to hang out in seattle. mmm. yes. me, her, eva, and lenny went to the woodland park zoo. first time, first time. hmm… it was pretty subpar. a small place, so i suppose it is natural. i did like a couple of things, though: - there was a re-creation of a tribal hut in africa. that was neat… but didn’t really have anything to do with animals. - there were also a bunch of gorillas, and one kept doing somersaults. god, i swear, monkeys are so much like people. there was a “grandma” gorilla who had her tongue out half the time and seriously was just sitting in the corner like a wise sage watching over the other gorillas. WITH A CANE IN HAND. WHAT THE FSCK. seriously kind of freakish how similar they are — gorilla arms are just like human arms. GOD. HOW CAN TRIBAL PEOPLE EAT BUSHMEAT??? that’s all i have to ask. jeezus. - penguins. we were watching them for a LONG ASS TIME (the place was about to close), waiting for them to jump into the water. they kept standing in a line and inching forward (teases) and then they would not jump for like 20 minutes. but then we left to go to the… - nocturnal exhibit. which was pretty fscking cool. man, hedgehogs are SOOOOO CUTE. and bats are cool too — i don’t know why they get all the stigma they get, but they do. didn’t know anteaters were nocturnal, though. good to know. is it? maybe not. but yeah, the nocturnal exhibit was completely dark. and there were these blind cave fish with pure white eyeballs. wewt. damn scary ass blind shit down deep in the unknown!! unfortunately, the place was small, so all of the animals that were there were animals that i pretty much have already seen. but whuteva. bigger zoo next time, hopefully… mmm while liz was still here, i suppose the only other notable thing really was that she (and a little bit of i, but mostly she) beat “mario 3″… that was sweet. on the last day before liz left, she and eva had coffee plans and i tagged along. that was cool. lots of reminiscing. aaah, kind of like being in 1406. i miss it at times. i think i miss it a lot, actually. life was much more… simpler. i suppose. it was just fun times with fun people… party all the time… now i party no times… how lame. life flies by so fast. it’s depressing. but yeah. there was lots of talks of shrooms. for some reason. i suppose cause there were many fond memories of shroomagery… positive or not… but in retrospect, no matter what, it was awesome. but yeah. i miss the late night talks and late night 7-11 trips. so much late night living. thus is the college life… and it is good.

hmmm… yesterday, andy [crossett] and i went to drop off some magazines around greenwood/phinney, and i met up with one of my writers, john [gillanders] at tin hat bar and grill. my writers are so great. but anyway. lots of his friends were there… there was some interesting conversation about band photos. one of the press releases we got from a band called fear of dolls was printed on nice irredescent paper that you might see on a wedding invite. that had a lot of comments. along with their press photo, which was them as babies. i thought it was kind of funny. the album was called lullabies for aborted children. sounds like a fscking winner to me?!!

anyway, we placed the order way early, and the cook ended up putting like… 40,000 slices of bacon on the grill for some reason — before he made our food. the waitress ended up giving us our food for free cause the wait was so long. damn, the lady was so freaking intense. i don’t know how to explain it. she looked like a bitch and talked like a bitch — SORTA — but she was really nice. it’s so strange. not dissing on her… i thought she was cool. but i’ve met few people that intense and nice at the same time is all haha. it was near surreal. got to play some free pinball, cause mondays are free pinball nights. wewt.

today susan [kang] got 15 free meals from winning a raffle, so lenny and i took 2 of the spots. it was at wild fish in belltown. welcome to our first sushi review, wild fish! it was pretty decent food. EXTREMELY CHEAP!! and monica worked there, i guess… so there was a lot of small talk when lenny and i were the only ones left behind, since everyone else literally chowed down their food and ran away or something haha. it was weird O__o

god i want to write about everything for some reason. i’m seriously going to regret this tomorrow. why did i drink black tea before sleeptime? THAT’S what i’m going to regret, actually. GOD.

anyways. after going to wild fish (wewt, free foooood… btw it was sponsored by a financial planning place and they made us fill out some “seminar paperwork” prior to eating, but they didn’t really care about our job, it seemed, and i’m pretty sure they got NOTHING out of us!), lenny and i went around belltown, checked out some other sushi places, and dropped off some magazines. some downtown too. at capitol hill, when we were dropping off mags, i got a ticket. godamnit. after paying for parking ALL DAY i had to get a ticket at the last stop. fucking suck. as if i’m not poor enough. which all leads back to: i hope i get that godamn job.

finishing up reading “wind up bird chronicles” again. i never remember books well when i read them. then i’m going to read a book trask lent me, and then i’m going to read a book of crossett’s. blahblah, the book list seriously never ends. which is excellent. i <3 books. i’m thinking of just starting a random site where i’ll write about books and movies. just for my own humor, i suppose. but it’s harder now to get a big site… i guess i just remember when my old korean music site got really big — cause it was easy then — competition was minimal… nowadays… it’s decidedly harder. i hope we keep that in mind with the sushi thing… it seems so easy, though, which MAY be the problem…

it’s hard being young. no one knows what they’re doing, and everyone thinks money is so easy to come by. money is NOT easy to come by. shitty.

anyway, lenny is moving out of his house, in with posa soon. it is the good and the bad. the good is that he’s moving out. the bad is that it’s into a one bedroom apartment, which means that he will be sleeping in the living room, which means some things lalala. insert: usage of imagination. anyways. lenny really does need to move out, though. his mother is suffocating. i really think she is just very awkward at loving, particularly since she is divorced and all of her family was killed… i don’t think it’s that she is particularly insensitive… perhaps just calloused and feels too sorry for herself? and that does not translate well to lenny, who always does what she asks and didn’t go to wsu like his brothers and instead has to help her with the store, fixing up the house… etc. that’s the sign of a good son. really. yet, she is not satisfied. it’s really, really quite bizarre, and i wonder what goes on in her head. she always tells lewis (their awesome dog which i used to think was kind of ugly but now i think is super cute) that he is the only one she loves more than anyone… never lenny or posa. and she has told me many times how lonely she is and how they will never take care of her or love her. is she asking for a self-fulfilling prophecy? i don’t know. but that’s what’s going to happen if she doesn’t learn to love better… lenny said his brothers said she used to be different, and the change came when she got her tubes tied, cause it has the possibility of changing your personality. so weird. i know she does care about lenny and posa — but i think perhaps she just does not understand how to go about it without being absolutely suffocating. and i feel bad for lenny that he has had to endure such psychosis — but i feel bad for her too… particularly for when lenny moves out; she really WILL be alone. did she bring it upon herself? possibly. many asian parents DON’T understand that you can’t just keep pressuring your kid with nothing else in mind; but at this time, i don’t think considering other people’s opinions over her own really comes to mind. according to lenny, when she gets together with her friends, all she does is shit-talk about them. that’s not right. not for any kid… i’m sure it’s a tough decision. it’s the age-old dilemma, i’m sure, though, for lenny… how far do you consider the feelings of others before deciding that you need to stand up for your own?

random fact of the day: studying for school trains you to fall asleep reading forever. :]

random thought of the day: i thought of this simply because i told lenny this today as we were passing by the construction site of an office building. alex’s dad oversees the building of office buildings. he used to be kind of like a spiritual “hippie” like his mom, but he’s now a businessman. a good one, at that, i presume. but he’s still a hippie or whatever at heart, so once he made it successfully as a businessman, he used his powers a little bit to combine his hippiness with his business-saavy. because he works for a big construction company, he managed to get his company to recycle all of their building parts, even though it’s not that “cheap” of a procedure. but because his company is pretty big, a lot of companies have followed suit with the recycling with their own companies… and all in all, to quote “bruce almighty,” IT’S GOOOOD.”

i’m listening to… emilliana torini, ryan adams, ella fitzgerald.
i’m feeling… meh.

10:12 pm — i am soooo tired =__=

and it’s not from lack of sleep… i just want to go somewhere and not have to worry about anything =) tired of not having the magazine work, tired of not having a job, tired of not having money… oy.

through the past month or so, i have discovered come to hate some people! really, really. it’s not the best thing, but some people are just like fucking intolerable, i swear…

hate is so bad… but i think i finally hate someone!!! for the second time in my life (but i am over the first person because i got an apology… although what he did was far worse… and maybe i’m not 100% over it, but i don’t really have to deal with his existence, so whatever).

the other day i went to sure shot cafe on university way to drop off some magazines, and this old dude stopped me and started ranting about how all people who run indie magazines should band together to create one magazine and make one magazine that has information about everything… like a collective magazine. because magazines are supposed to be a storehouse of knowledge, he said, so therefore they should have everything. he kept going on about how editors of magazines are cocky monkeys, and how everything is about ego, ego, ego. that may be true, but a collective publication would never work out… people have different goals and different aims. a publication like that would never work. he went on about how in the 60s they tried doing collective publications like that but the police stopped it, and how no one will ever do that now… he said a lot about how “america was dying” blahblahblah.

anyways. the past weekend the scm people came up for some lan tourney, la la la. yes. nothing much special there. yes.

we need to go questing… it’s been a while.

blahblah. of all things lately, i’m yearning for some stability. i need something constant… cause nothing really is. i make my own inefficient days… and although i DO do a lot more than a lot of people, it feels so incomplete… i hope i’m one of the people who gets lucky enough to get something out of my own trials and tribulations, rather than out of someone else’s… to be deeming what you want to do for your life is the most underrated shit. i don’t want to be stuck as one of those who gets told what to do.

it’s that feeling that’s coming up again — of overwhelming mediocrity and the lack of being complete. UGHHHHHH. i don’t know how people can sit around and do absolutely NOTHING. as human beings, don’t people feel like there’s a duty to themselves to accomplish something? i don’t know though, maybe if / when you don’t do anything, it’s easier to not be let down, right? why risk it…

i went to a job interview for web design last thursday, and i THOUGHT i did swell, but i haven’t heard back from them yet. i don’t honestly know how long it takes people to make decisions like this, but i really hope i get it. they’re nice people, and i think i can craft websites that are shitloads better than the ones they have now… and i thought the interview was okay… so there’s no reason in my mind that i shouldn’t get it… but i’ve never successfully interviewed for a job yet — every job i’ve had i kind of had ASAP… so… that being said, i don’t know…

i’ve been getting nosebleeds like when i wake up every morning UGH. today i got it for like twenty minutes while taking a shower. it was fscking annoying. and it’s like. only out of one nostril. and it is super runny, like the consistency of water, just spurting out, and then chunking up all over the place when it finally congeals into little livers. UGHHHHHH.

i feel like i should be saying something more worthwhile because i haven’t written anything in here like a month, but nothing is really coming to me. oy vey. too much incompleted stuff to think about to get things to “come to mind,” i guess…

lenny, posa, and i have been working on our sushimonsters.com site. it’s slowly coming along, but the amount of work involved is massive. SO TIRED UGHHHHHH… gotta fight it. one of these days, one of my business ventures will hopefully pay off, and on that day, i’ll be happy.

work isn’t everything, but it is a huge indication of who you are if you want it to be. and i want it to be; i want to make a mark with something worthwhile.