I woke up this morning with an incredible headache. Maybe it has something to do with all the cleaning around the apartment I did yesterday. Another reason to not clean, right?

Yesterday was hardcore cleaning day. I haven't had a chance to really clean the apartment in a while since I've been busy for the past couple of weekends. I've either been travelling, in lab or wherever. So then I took the opportunity to fix the place up and do a couple of other things I've been putting off since it's been a mess since the end of classes last semester.

I finally got around to changing the oil in my car. I've been meaning to do it but it's just been too cold to get under the car to get it done. It was kinda tough since I only had the OEM car jack to hoist the car. I also went gangbusters on the bathroom. I changed the shower curtains and sprayed the whole place down with cleaner. I had to change the curtains because my old bubbly shower curtain dried out somehow. Now I have fish with googly eyes. Now the problem is that these eyes tend to look downwards. It's a little daunting when you're on the can. The little fishies are watching you, judging you, studying you. Well, that's enough about my shower curtain, I believe.

I believe the headache is from having to smell Lysol fumes all night. So perhaps, I used a stronger than reccommended concentration when I mopped my floors. Ugh.

My cleaning day was interrupted by dinner at a place called Mission for some good Mexican food. Yeah, the food was good but a little pricey. Brandon got a free margarita when the server spilled a candle on his hand. Shoot, I'd dump the entire candle over myself for a pitcher of sangria. Heh.

The bathroom still smells like fresh shower curtain. Mmm, carcinogenic.


Today is the Lunar New Year. Year of the dog, my type of year. Woo hah. And it's also Ron's birthday. So Happy Birthday, dood.


For the rest of the week, I've pretty much been drinking. I last updated on Monday night. I probably should've been studying for my test on genetics on Tuesday. I aced genetics at UW, so I figured this shouldn't be so bad. Yeah, maybe I should've studied even though there hasn't been much difference in detail so far between UW's 400 level genetics course and SUNY's 600 level course. I skimmed over my notes for about an hour before taking the exam. There was this one question that was pissing me off the entire time but I had a last minute revelation on it's answer after I completed the rest of the exam. Overall, it wasn't that bad, but I believe I could've done better if I had actually studied. I guess I'll find out how I did once I get the exam back.


After the exam, I went to Faegan's with Christian, Jeff, AD, Amber, Jess and Justin. I'm going to finish the beer tour, dammit. Jeff and I have the lead in the beer tour with 15 beers. AD and Christian are trailing us. We were doing fine until we hit the Brooklyn Seasonal. It's a dark beer and it tastes like ass. I mean, this was vile and gag inducing. Then another beer we had that night was also a dark one. After finishing off the fifth beer on the tour, I was so sick. But not as sick as AD, ha! My head was spinning as I tried to go to sleep so I can get ready for my presentation the next morning in Virology. heh.


On Thursday, Christian, Jeff and I went out to Darwin's for beer. Later on in the evening, Christine showed up with a couple of her sorority pals. I don't know why, but she stole my cell phone and disappeared for a while. I got my phone back and there's a picture of an ass. I don't know who's ass, but it's definitely human. And I don't think it's hers so I'll just have to delete it as a precautionaly measure. Just in case it's man ass. Yeah, I don't need that on my phone.

After Darwin's we went to Christine's sorority house (ΑΧΩ) and Christian raided the kitchen. It was funny. He kept demanding steak and Christine kept apologizing that there was no steak. This kept going on and on. I had to ask him to stop because It was starting to look like she was seriously sorry for not having steak. Good times. Well, I was stranded there until 4am. I wanted to get back earlier because I had a class the next day at 9am.

So I missed my class on Friday. I woke up at a point where if I rushed out, I would've made it ten minutes late. And if I wanted to properly get ready, I woule've been too late to even bother showing up. I got ready and went straight to lab.

At the end of the day was the Microbiology department Happy Hour. The theme was 'Chinese New Year'. Good food, good fun. One thing I noticed was when the leftovers were being taken away the cart all the food was on said 'Virology'. Great. I assume this was the same cart that brought the food to the Happy Hour. So yeah, the food was wheeled in on the herpes cart. Yum.

Upon request by Brandy, I rounded up the troops to drink at Darwin's. Jess, Melissa, Meg, Matt, Brandon, Shannon, Amber and Pavi showed up. We drank, shared stories. Good times. On the way out, five police cruisers and an ambulance showed up. We checked it out. Turned out there was a hardcore fight on the street and they were playing cleanup. Yay. We all left fairly early. 10:30?!?! Now that's sad. My excuse was that I was tired from the night before. I don't know about everybody else. C'mon, Friday night. WTF?

I was listening through the Pussy Cat Dolls CD and their track selection is rather amusing. They have 'Stickwitu', 'Tainted Love', 'How Many Times, How Many Lies', then 'I Don't Need a Man' on the CD. Must've been a crazy night figuring out what to put on the album.


music: Pussy Cat Dolls - Beep

Great, I'm getting lazy again. Well, maybe not lazy but really, really distracted. I guess I have a lot to post, but I say that every time.


I forgot some stuff from my Christmas break post. I thought I had everything, but I left a couple of things out that I wanted to throw in there.

When I drove to Redmond to close my insurance claim, I remember getting a little lost on the way to and back from the Safeco Campus. On my way there, I drove past it and ended up in Microsoft's campus. D'oh. Then on my way back, I missed the ramp to WA-520W and decided to turn around in the next parking lot. Lo and behold, the parking lot I turned around in was for Nintendo USA headquarters. Sweeet. It's strange how Microsoft and NOA are neighbors divided by 520. I wonder if they throw water balloons at each other.

Over New Years, I was texting Shalom, one of my buddies from UW Japanese class, and this is how it went down:
S: Happy New Year! crunked yet? hehe
R: I transcended crunkness last night. You should've been there. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
S: So you're a jedi now? haha. Happy new Year
R: Well, if Jedi's like to get wasted and dance like there's no tomorrow, then I suppose so.

Good stuff.


Alright, onto some more current matters.

On sunday the 8^TH, I decided to plan a little something instead of staying home all day. I proposed a makehift movie night @ Amber's to watch Office Space. I didn't know that Lumbergh was supposed to die in the fire at the end of the movie. It was the deleted scenes that pointed this out. I'm kinda glad they cut that part out because the rest of the movie is a light-hearted comedic satire and death is a little too serious for the ending for the movie. Yeah, he died.

We never got to finish the movie. In the middle of the movie, Amber, AD and I decided to go out and grab something to eat. By this time, it was already 11pm and since there's no Tchotchke's around, we decided to hit up IHOP for some late night breakfast goodness. So we drove across town and ten miles later, we saw the place was closed. Frustrated, we put together a contingency plan to go to Denny's instead.

Dude, there was this incredibly fat guy in the restaurant. I mean, I can handle fat people, but this guy was, like, circus fat. I was taking a peek down his direction every once in a while because I just couldn't stop. It was fascinating. Well, he looked like he was stuck in the freakin' booth. He was trapped between the back of the seat and the edge of the table. It was grosstastic. And the next thing he did was fall asleep. He fell asleep in the booth, trapped between the table and the seat. I think he tired himself out trying to get out. Oh man, the things I don't want to be when I get older. I dropped off Amber and AD and weny home. It was late and I have a 9am class. Woo hah.

I didn't do much for the rest of the week. Just classes and lab. I was catching up with things at home from my vacation to Washington. That and I was planning and saving up for the next roadtrip to Washington DC. Yeah, I truly am a whore for Jhoana.

I was also shopping around for tickets to Japan. I was seeing $700, $800, $700 again, then one day $650 showed up on Expedia. I just had to spring for it. I'm going to Japan because I told Chan that I would visit him while he was still there. Stupid promises. Well, a man is only as good as his word. Ain't that right, Rus? haha. So yeah, I bit the bullet and picked up my ticket. I'm also planning to visit Isaia, Nikki, Tina, Kristi and Star. Good stuff.

On Friday right after lab, I started my drive down to Washington DC. I told her that I was going to visit her before the Summer and this was the only three day weekend I'm going to get before Spring Break. Good as my word, right?

I called her up the day before since I didn't realize this weekend was going to be the long one. I would've sworn that MLK day was on the week after. Shows how much I've been paying attention to the calendar.

So then I get directions from her and plan my way through NY, PA, and MD to get to DC. I started after dusk, so it was dark outside the entire way to Washington DC. Armed with a Rockstar and two toasted tuna bagels, I hit the highway. Driving for 370 miles at night on Friday the 13^TH, what could possibly go wrong? Pennsylvania never ends. That's because from New York to Harrisburg, the highway goes southeastish, then from Harrisburg to Maryland, the highway goes southwestish. I just wanted to go straight through the state, dammet. It feels like you've been driving forever then you see a sign on the interstate that reads, "Midstate Mall next right". Holy crap, foreverness.

Just before I got halfway through Pennsylvania, I ran into some really thick fog. It was intense. My visibility couldn't be further than 30 feet most of the time. There were some signs posted at regular intervals along the highway. I squinted in to get a better look at them. They read "FOG AREA". Uh, duh. So I was still speeding along at around 70mph towards DC. I was passing cars crawling along at 30mph with their emergency blinkers on. I was just aiming my car to go between the reflectors I was seeing on the road. As soon as I'd pass one reflector, I would see the other one. If it weren't for the reflectors, I'd probably be crawling along like the other cars in the slow lane. Now why do they call them 'fog lights' when they don't help at all in the fog?

Sadly, one toasted tuna bagel and the rockstar didn't make it to Washington DC with me. Oh well. I drove into the city at around 1am. I met up with Jhoana at a bar called Panache, where some kind of Filipino function was happening. I was so beat after the six and a half hour trip I didnt' feel like partying and I didn't want to buffer Jhoana's thunder, so I sunk into the corner of the bar waiting for my sore ass to recover.


By the time I got to the bar, Jhoana had already prefunked, funked and whatever comes next after that. Therefore, she was rather funky in particular that evening. She was feeling soo bad that I wasn't getting into the festivities and she wasn't ignoring me like I was asking her to. Six and a half hours, c'mon. After a while, we headed back towards her apartment in the Dupont area. Her apartment number is 404. I'm a nerd, so I notice these things. I passed out quickly as soon as I hit her couch. I must've been really tired.

We woke up bright and early to the sound of sirens and strobing lights. I believe they swung around at eight in the morning. A quick peek out the window revealed three firetrucks, one a ladder truck, two ambulances and several police cars closing the streets. A crowd started to gather around the scene and their collective attention was focused on the building next door to us. We couldn't see what the hell was going on since the window was just facing towards the front of the building. I sat there wondering what the hell was going on. Was the adjacent building on fire? Because if it was, I'd like to know. We learned to ignore them and had a couple more hours of sleep. We woke up again and got ready to go. By this time it was already two in the afternoon. Leaving the building and heading towards the Metro tunnels, a couple of fire trucks and police cruisers were still hanging around... SIX hours later!! Now, I'm really curious what happened next door. The building looked fine from the outside, I guess I'll never know.

It was the end of Restaurant Week at Washington DC and we went to a place called 'Corduroy' for a three-course lunch. Good stuff. We found Jhoana's friend, Caren, already there and waiting for us. The most suspicious item on the menu was the "Filipino-Style EggRolls". Jhoana and I were like "Whoa! That's freakin' lumpia. like $7 lumpia." She ordered it. I tried it and yeah, it was authentic. The owner's wife is Filipina, or so the server mentioned.


The food was good and so was the service. I wonder how much this all would've been if it wasn't resaurant week. $12 lumpia? Perhaps. They should be at least more expensive than mozarella sticks or chicken wings, rip-offs they are. It'll make me think twice before stealing a fresh one from mom's 'just fried' basket. I had bisque then salmon then creme brule. It was all good.


After lunch, Jhoana and I started a search for a sports bar to watch the Seahawks and Redskins playoff game. We parted ways with Caren. With a tip from our server, we started down the road for ESPN Zone. It was real windy on the way there. Once we got there, we saw a sign just inside the doorway reading "Due crowding issues, we are imposing a minimum $10 food/drink purchase per customer per hour." Freakin' hell. We walked across the street to a bar called "Harry's" and managed to score a table for the both of us. Since we just had lunch, we were only interested in beer. A pitcher of monkeypiss cost us $11. Oh well, we were probably kicking out real customers for the bar. Real customers that would take a look at what the menu has to offer. Oh well, first come, first sat.

Once the game was starting and the players were making their way onto the field, one guy, which I'm not sure if he was being sarcastic, hooted out for the 'hawks. We heard one of the guys sitting at the table right next to us saying "I"m gonna kill him." under his breath. Jhoana and I then realized we might just get stabbed tonight. But I gotta say, football is a lot more exciting when you're watching it with a friend, surrounded by haters in hostile territory and your team is winning. It was incredible.

I knew the guys back home were having a little party back home to watch the game. I touched base with them several times, to make sure what kind of situation we're in. I drove down to Washington DC, met up with Jhoana and watched Seattle whup Washington DC's ass in a large sports bar. I kept messing around saying stuff like "Guys, what happened? Everybody went home and they changed the channels in third quarter." Ha, good stuff.

R: Jhoana.
J: Yeah?
R: So if I get out of the ER first, I'll grab my car and pick you up, ok?
J: ...

What's up with the fans, though? Whenever a Seahawk player would get injured (and there were four, including Alexander) the lot of them would scream and yell as if it were a Godsend. Dirty.

One hilarious thing we noticed about the table behind was that somebody didn't know where Seattle was and somebody else was trying to explain where, albeit poorly.

1: Hey, where's Seattle anyway?
2: It's in the northwest or something.
1: Where?
2: Man, do you know how the Unites States looks like?

Then guy #2 tried to draw out a map with his finger on the menu. That took me back to high school Japanese class when Dougmo would 'zip' a pretend map from the air and outline "Hon-shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" then point out "Sapporo, Sapporo, Sapporo." It's more than just a beer, buddy. Good times.

Two pitchers of beer and twenty points later, we staggerd down the street back towards Jhoana's apartment. I noticed several overturned newspaper vending machines and other minor vandalized properties along the street.


After emerging from the subway, we hit Safeway before making it back to the apartment. The mision was to gather ingredients for Curry Rice, er.. Kaa-re raiiii-su! I don't think we needed to buy anything besides the meat since we used all of her old vegetables to make the curry. heh.

Somehow she got me doing the cooking. I'm not sure how it happened. It just did. Well the curry turned out good. We made half the package, six servings. We destroyed it that night while watching Zoolander. Well, there was a little left for the morning. We passed out around midnight.

It was a good day for Jhoana. Restaurant week, Seahawks won, curry rice, and new boots arriving in the mail. yay!


We slept in. We slept in bad. I remember passing out around midnight but we woke up in the afternoon. That's a lot of sleep. I guess I was a lot more tired than I thought with driving all evening then waking up early thanks to the sirens. I'm not sure what Jhoana's excuse is. heh. Well, she was a little bit drunk on Friday night. That might've been it. After a modest curry breakfast, we ran out to do some touristy stuff around the capital. We boarded the Metro and emerged at the National Mall.


The first thing that hits your eye is the very HUGE and very PHALLIC Washington pen- uh, Monument.



There were a bunch of museums scattered about. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time to tour them since we slept in so bad.



Isn't it just awesome?



The Capital Building was across the lawn.



So glorious, it is!



Ha, it's the White House. It looks a lot smaller in person. Jhoana and I were looking for the snipers on the rooftop.



Ye-yea!



Fellow tourists.



The World War II memorial.



My lovely tour guide who kept reading out the information right off the buildings.



The fountain was empty in the WWII memorial. The sign reads "No Wading", so stay off that puddle to the left.



One for each state.



The reflection pool to the Lincoln Memorial. The pool was really filthy. All the detritus collected in the corner. Yummers.



The Lincoln Memorial.



The view of the Washington Memorial off the Lincoln Memorial's steps.



Lincoln's undergoing renovation. Maybe he'll emerge one day as "Buddy Lincoln". That'd be great.



The dude was huge.



But not as huge as Washington. Know what I mean, eh?, eh? Ah, forget it.



The Vietnam War Memorial.



That's a lot of names. A lot of people died to result in an embarassing stalemate. That's pretty sad. Well, Jhoana and I started talking about being the last guy on the wall. Like where the memorial tapers off on the rightmost end. It would be the most remembered name just for being the last one. We were amazed to find out who it was.



If you can't read it, the last name on the wall is "Jessie C. Alba". Whoa. I'll remember that. If I ever hear on Jeopardy "I am the last name on the Vietnam War Memorial." And I'll scream at the TV "Who is Jessica Alba, I mean Jessie C. Alba". I'm ready for that one.



The Jefferson memorial was too far a walk away, so meh.



Penis! The guards didn't appreciate me playing the penis game around the Washington Monument. But dammit, I gave it the best I had. I just couldn't stop taking pictures of it. I was drawn to it somehow. Jhoana then mentioned that you could go inside it. I passed on that offer.

So we took the Metro back to Dupont Circle to attend church. St. Matthew's cathedral. And no, I didn't burst into flames as soon as I stepped inside. It was different. The preist seemed to be very modern. His homily included emails and google searches. Interesting, it was.

After mass, Jhoana and I went to dinner for more, guess what. More curry. Even though I swore it off during breakfast, I couldn't stop. It's good stuff.

We were in a hurry, or at least Jhoana was. We had a deadline to get back to her apartment. Why? Because it was the fifth season premiere of 24. I watched it with her. I had no choice. 24 is televised crack. So the first taste is free and I'll have to pay for the rest. Great.

Since I got to DC, I've been trying to contact Shalom. I was hoping she wasn't busy that weekend, but then she told me that she would be flying out of Seattle about the time I'll be needing to drive back to Syracuse on Monday. Cruds. Oh well.

Jhoana threw on the Kubrick movie Dr. Strangelove into the DVD player before falling asleep. I stayed up for the entire movie. It's a strange movie. It's a satire on military insubordination to misuse nuclear weaponry. I passed out right after I switched off the TV and DVD player.

On Monday, we picked up my car that I haven't seen in forever and sped off to a mall in Maryland. The purpose was to return those boots that made her so happy merely two nights ago. We didn't stick around the mall for too long. I wanted to be on my way back to Syracuse by 4pm, so I'd get back around 10 at night. While she was waiting in line for a purchase, we started singing "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" after mentioning 'Orange Mocha Frappuchinos'. Yeah, the line was boring. Thought we'd kick it up a notch.

Next was lunch. I didn't want to drive for six hours without eating beforehand. We tried a Thai restaurant called 'Neisha'. I gotta have Phad Thai if it's Thai food. Whenever I get something else, I always end up saying "I should've gotten Phad Thai" as I leave. Good stuff. Syracuse needs more Asian restaurants. I'm deprived.

Next was Best Buy. I ended up buying the first season of 24. Yep, now it's time to pay. We ran across the street to buy a grounded adapter for Jhoana's phone and then stopped by Starbucks. I picked up a Mocha Frappuchino for the road, heh. I dropped her off at her apartment and we said out goodbyes and I was off on my journey. Right on time, 4pm. Thanks sooooo much, Jhoana. DC was fun!!

Google maps says the trip should take eight hours. I turned it into six hours. There was no fog in Pennsylvania so it was 80mph all the way. As soon as I got home, I popped in the first DVD of 24 and went to bed after four episodes. Televised crack. Bed at 2am with class the next day. Ugh.

Over the next three days, I finished the entire first season of 24. That's 24 hour-length episodes in four days. This is seriously crack. Friday was my day off from 24. I went out that evening with Christian, Jeff and Will to Darwin's. Christian dumped his beer on the floor and thought I did it. He was soooo drunk.

In an attempt to spread the love, I brought the first season of 24 to Amber's for a little viewing party on Saturday. She's hooked. On my way back I picked up the second season of 24. I stayed up until 7am watching the second season saturday night. Yeah, I'm insane. The series is insane as well.

I just finished watching the second season today. So I went through two seasons of 24 within one week. Ugh... so drained. So Jack Bauer can escape impossible situations, captors, and whatever. His weakness is the common seatbelt. I thought that was weak sauce. And what makes me sad is that when Bauer is done saving the world in 24 hours and it's time to go home, he's not going to step into a Volkswagon Beetle. Aww.

I have a new saying: WWJBD?

I wouldn't take action on that since everybody within a 500 yard radius would be dead whenever my internet is out. He's like a ninja with guns.


I have a Genetics Exam tomorrow. I'm not sweating too much over this. Maybe I'm taking this too lightly.

My UW webspace is finally gone. The same goes for my SPAM magnet inbox. Stupid crap.


I've been feeling quite miserable lately. I miss my friends back in Washington a lot. Maybe it's because I recently got to visit everybody over Christmas and then Jhoana over MLK weekend. It's like getting a small taste of how things used to be before being whisked away back to reality. I don't think I'll ever get along with anybody here as well as the friends I have in Washington. I grew up with those friends. They're like family to me. I guess it's lonliness starting to set in and I have a lot to think about. Oh well.

I have to admit that I knew what I was getting into when I decided to move out here. I have nobody to blame but myself for being miserable. That's why this sucks, I'm going to have to deal with it myself. I'm know I'm capable for a lot of things. Others know what I've been able to do. One thing I'm not known for is quitting. I'm not a quitter and I'm not about to start now. So no matter how lonely I get, no matter how miserable I get, no matter how much I miss my friends, no matter how bad I want to move back, I'm not going to quit. No, not at this point. I'll trudge along, for my sake, for everyone's sake, for those counting on me, for those believing in me. I'm representing Seattle, UW, my friends, and my family. It's time to roll up my sleeves and show the world what I can do. All go, no quit.


music: wham! - Wake Me Up before You Go-Go

aww richard! how come it took me this long to find this post?!? i'll truly whore myself to you too. er, i mean. you know. that was soooo much fun, and i'm so thankful that you came down to see me. i'll have to come up there sometimes and try the italian food. :D
-jhomama - 060130 - 1704EST



YAY!! Mutual whores we are.

DC was fun and I believe it was luck that ended up having me catch you between illnesses. I would suck if I drove down 6 hours to see you dying for three days or so.

I had fun, you had fun, we had fun. Watching the Playoff game at the sports bar was intense. Haha.

Let's go to NYC!!
-rich - 060201 - 2206EST



I would just like to congratulate you, Richard, for joining the church of Bauer. We all meet every Monday evening to watch the fifth day. It's great. Be sure to let out a DAMMIT or SON OF A BITCH whenever you're angry. That always makes me feel better.
-Lee - 060203 - 0103EST
http://rockcalypso.net


24 is my crack. CRACK!! dammit!!
-rich - 060211 - 1854EST

Holy crap, where do I start? So much ground to cover and where to begin... I even have stuff from before I went to Seattle. Oh geez... This may take a while.

051221 Wednesday - Big, scary exam. It wasn't too bad, it was just that I'm not really interested in the material it covered. Studying for it was utter drudgery. Painful, if you will. I'm a microbiologist, the exam was on neurobiology. It's quite a ways out of my area of interest. However, I am feeling a tug away from traditional microbiology.

I know I swore off Immunology as my worst enemy last year but now I'm taking a fond interest on the subject. Perhaps it was because I was hopelessly immersed in lectures and papers and diagrams to enjoy any of it last year. It has become a lot more interesting now that I'm immersed into the research of the subject. My last lab studied adaptive immunity through T-cell differentiation. Specifically, thymic atrophy upon exposure to estrogen. The lab I'm in right now is studying innate immunity through allograft rejection in mice. Interesting stuff. It seems to me that immunology is the way to go especially for its clinical relevance. Oh well, two cents.

So after the test and spending some time in the lab, I ran home to start on my prototype culinary concoction: the Chinese, Japanese, Italian fusion dish. It's not as complicated as I'm making it sound. Well, it was Chicken breast coated in Panko and Italian Herbs and baked. That was put over spaghetti and marinara sauce. Then over that were bits of fried garlic and fresh lemon luice. So it was pretty much an Italian dish with a little bit of Japanese (Panko) and Chinese (fried garlic) flair.

In retrospect, I should've used a pasta that doesn't tangle so bad. Maybe penne would've been better. I also burned the garlic a bit. It probably would taste better if it was roasted to 'Gardetto's' crispness. Oh well. It still tasted good according to the classmates.

I also got to the potluck an hour late. Amber's place has become the party zone because everybody's too scared to go into the Valley to hang out or something. I brought Christian along but he took an extra hour since he decided to priortize work over hanging out. What's up with that? Yeah, so that's where that hour went.

I was giving him shit the whole time on the way there. "Dude, this was my chance to break into the circle. You done and messed it up. The hell, man?!?! I thought we were cool." Haha. Then I got a call from Amber on Brandy's phone (which confused the hell out of me) to yell at me for my tardiness. Ha. I assume they were anticipating my arrival since I was showing up with all the alcohol. Yeah, that's right. My 'lonely shelf' gets around.

Anyway, onto the pictures.

Enjoying the fresh shipment of booze.


Yeah, Christian made me late. Not cool.


The food at the potluck was good. Although, there was a heavy overrepresentation of pastas. They're cheap, that's why. Oh yeah, and right there is the object of my downfall. Oh Bacardi 151, why must you hate me so?!?!


And by the way, don't hide from the camera.


It only makes things worse.


I forget why I took this picture. Did she fall down or something? I think she fell down. Yeah, she fell down.


AD was awesome. He brought a pie to the potluck. That pie started something I'd like to call 'pie drama'. He had no idea what he bought. Well, this was after a couple of beers.

Hey, do we have to bake this? I don't know. What's in the pie I don't know!!! At least he didn't try to tell us he made the thing.


Social corner.


Trying to hide from the camera. Oh well, the night already claimed one victim.














So after this, Brandy left. She started a chain reaction since everybody else decided to leave at the same time. Yeah, I know who's the popular one. Before I knew it, it was just me, Amber, AD and Christian left. I remember destroying one of Amber's shot glasses before leaving. She didn't believe 151 was flammable, so I put a little bit in a shot glass and lit it on fire. The shot glass got real hot and cracked horizontally breaking the thing in two. Oops. We got out of there right after that.

051222 Thursday - Class was moved to Tuesday, the 20th, so there was no class today. I just finished up a couple of things in lab since it was my last day of rotation there. I took Brandy to the airport, vacation-proofed the apartment and packed for Washington. Fun.

051223 Friday - I got Jeff to pick me up and take me to the airport at 6am. That's an ungodly time to be up and out. We thought getting there an hour early would be good enough, but the line was stupid long. It wasn't moving either. I would've been royally boned if it weren't for an employee running down the line asking if anybody's flying to Philadelphia. Oh yeah, that was me. I got on the plane to Philadelphia. That was smooth. However, things changed in Philadelphia.

It was retarded. We all boarded the plane and just sat there. The captain said over the PA that there was just one guy on the tarmac fueling all the planes. Then once that guy was done refueling the plane, he runs off and comes back with a luggage truck. Then he starts loading the luggage onto the plane all by himself. What's up with that? Messed up is what. Talk about understaffed. We ended up being an hour and a half late to Chicago O'Hare. I missed my connection to Denver and subsequently, my connection to Seattle.

At Chicago, I convinced the guys at the counter to put me on the waiting list for Seattle bound flights since that was my ultimate destination. It took me eight hours to get out of Chicago. It was stupid. There were three flights to Seattle that I didn't make and the gates they were departing from were on alternating sides of the freaking airport. Yeah, O'Hare is a huge bitch. Running between gates with all my luggage, down the hall, down the stairs, through the tunnel, up the stairs, down the hall, wait to not hear my name called, lather, rinse, repeat. Stupid shit.

At least I made a friend while I was waiting for a flight out. I met Robyn, spelled with a 'y'. She made sure I spelled her name right. Not sure why. Maybe she really hates birds or something. She was in the same situation as me. Her connection to Chicago was late for a scarier reason. Turned out that one of the engines on her plane was 'leaking' prior to takeoff. What was it leaking? I'm not sure. They didn't really tell her what it was. But they kept the passengers on the plane for two or so hours as they repaired the engine on the tarmac. I asked her if it was just an engineer with a roll of duct tape fixing the engine. She didn't know.

So after eight hours of waiting, I finally got onto a Seattle-bound plane. My parents picked me up around midnight. I was originally supposed to land at 4:30pm. Stupid crap.

We drove back to Bremerton and Que told me that she was hanging out at Shari's. I decided to meet up with her, despite my overwhelming fatigue. There's nothing else to do in Bremerton late at night besides bowling, Shari's, the casino or hanging out at someone's house. I was so tired, I don't remember much. I do remember being out until 3am and I've been up since 5am EST. That's a lot of awakeness. I got back to my parents' house and retired for a couple of hours.

051224 Saturday - Christmas Eve. I woke up early despite my efforts to get more sleep. My circadian rhythm was still on eastern time. I was up and out of bed at 9am. Since my parents were having extended family over in the afternoon, I decided to run around Bremerton to visit a couple of friends. First stop was Ron's house at 11am. I woke his ass up. I guess Christmas Eve starts late for most people. After a little bit, I drove past Kazar's and didn't see any cars so I skipped ahead and dropped by Ben's. We caught up on some of the latest happenings and watched some football on his big-ass TV. Me wantee.

After another drive-by of Kazar's I got home and waited for everybody to arrive. Eventually Emma, David, Veronica, Denise and Ross showed up. Good stuff. We ate dinner, I had a couple of beers with Dave, fun stuff. I also got a call from Japan and talked with Chan, Isaia, Shelley and Tina. Gawd, I miss those guys. However, I'm planning on spending Spring break in Japan. That should be fun. After everybody started heading for home, I went to midnight mass with my mom, dad, and Dianne. Then more family showed up after that. It was a long day and I was spent. And as usual, nobody could really figure out what I wanted for Christmas so I mostly got money for presents.

051225 Sunday - Christmas Eve is for family and Christmas day is for the homies. I left in the afternoon for an auntie party at Kazar's. There was a lot of food but my mom wouldn't let me leave her house without stuffing myself full of food. Later on, we went to Ron's and decided to watch King Kong. So Kazar, CarLo, Ron, Jill and I ran to the theater to watch it.

I think the movie would've been better if we weren't being so immature about it. Oh man, but that was fun. In the part of the movie where the girl climbs into King Kong's hand, it would've been funny if he rubbed the girl all over his ginormous monkey junk. Yeah, shit like that. Haha.

I promised my sister that I'd teach her how to drive stick after the movie so I went back to my parents' to pick her up. So the car I was borrowing from my parents was a 1997 BMW with a manual transmission. I haven't driven stick in a long time and I forgot how much fun it was. Seriously, the next car I'm getting will be a manual. Anyway, I drove her out to the Costco parking lot and let her at it. She was getting a hang of it pretty fast, being her first time driving manual. She was learning quickly... too quickly perhaps. I decided to kick the difficulty up a notch. Her final test was to start on a hill in second gear without rolling backwards or stalling. This requires precise clutch control, feeling the engine for adequate power, giving enough gas to not rev high or stalling the engine and quick movement of the right foot from the brake to gas pedal before the car can stall or roll backwards. And she did it. I was surprised. Strong with the force, she is. She was confident enough with her newfound skillz to drive back from the parking lot back home. she stalled once forgetting to hit the clutch on a stop. I also made her stop and start again on that hell hill on Fairgrounds road... because I'm mean.

After returning home, I gave the guys a call to meet up with them. Turns out they were hanging out in a bar called 'Manette' next to the bridge of the same name on the east side. I've never been to a Bremerton bar before. It was kinda sad in there. So reunited with Matt, Sky, CarLo, Ron and Kazar, I downed a couple of pints and shared some stories. On the way home, Matt and I were driving when I got a call from Ron.

Rich: What's up?
Ron: Where the hell are you guys?
Rich: Where the hell are you?
Ron: Still at the bar.
Rich: Oh shit!

So I pull into some driveway and Matt follows suit.

Matt: Why are we pulled over?
Rich: Is Ron in your car?
M: No, I thought he was in your car.
R: He's not in my car.
M: What, we left his has at the bar?!?!

As the car erupts in uncontrollable laughter. So we go back to pick him up and return to Ron's house to continue drinking. Good times. I got home pretty late. Merry Christmas.

051226 Monday - I drove out to Seattle to meet everybody at the Southcenter Mall. However, I think they change the name of the mall to 'Westfield' or something stupid like that. All the signs referring it to 'Southcenter' are all gone except the old exit ramp signs. I like 'Southcenter' better.

I ran into CarloR and Shannon and had lunch with them. CarloR picked up my tab despite my protests. Thanks, dood. I haven't had a good Ivar's breadbowl in a long time. During lunch, Ron, Sky, Jen and Frank showed up and then we went over to Guitar Center. Ron was in the market for an electric guitar. Parting with $700 of his cash, he walked out of the store with the latest Ibanez, a case, and an amp.

I then ran off to Skeeet to meet up with the guys there. Brian, Ben and Rus were home. We hung out for a bit but I had to go to the Ivar's Salmon House for happy hour to meet up with Christina. Rus was already heading there with his own Christina. Oh yeah. I was meeting up with Christina to talk about her trip to Europe over the summer. Now I want to visit Europe. Sounded like a lot of fun. I had more Ivar's chowder. It's good stuff. I drove back to Bremerton after that.

051227 Tuesday - I carpooled with my sister back to Seattle. She had to work and I rolled around in her car while she was out to work. I got to roll in her Altezza for the evening (Lexus IS300). It was nice. I was supposed to meet with Gina for lunch but that didn't happen. It started snowing at the passes so she went straight to Spokane instead of stopping by in Seattle. Geez... I met up with Kyoko for dinner when she got off work. we went to Kiku's, a place I really miss. Unfortunately, she was sleepy from playing Animal Crossing DS all night. Whut tha hella?

My sister got off work and I picked her up. We went to the happy hour at Eastlake Bar and Grill. I haven't had a chance before to go to happy hour with my sister before since she turned 21 after I moved to NY. Good food, bad mixed drinks. At least the drinks we had. Oh well.

We returned back to her place and cleaned out her old car, the Volvo. I decided that I should take it back to my parents' house in Bremerton since it was just parallel parked on the side of the street since she got her new car. It was so different driving the Volvo around. The only cars I've driven in a while have been my 2002 Beetle, the 1997 BMW and my sister's 2002 Lexus IS300. The handling and acceleration on the 1985 Volvo were considerably different from what I've been driving. The rear defroster and the reverse lights were also not working. It was a fun trip back to Bremeton. I went straight to sleep when I got back since I needed to be in Redmond early the next morning.

051228 Wednesday - I got up early and drove the BMW out to Redmond to settle my insurance claim with Safeco from that accident last year in March. It's been a while and gladly, they caught me while I was in Washington. I got a check for a cool $2500. Now that's some spending money. Actually, I should use it to finally pay off the rest of my move to NY and my plane ticket to Seattle. The rest is going into savings. I also got my paycheck. That's the awesome thing about being salaried, you can take a vacation and not worry about a smaller paycheck when you get back. Sweetness!

I drove to the ol' workplace, ISB to catch up with the former coworkers. Chuck, Cynthia and Chris settled to have lunch on Friday since they were already set for lunch that day. Then I went out with Aron and grabbed some Dick's for some burgers and fries. Good stuff. After lunch, I picked up two bubble teas from Ambrosia and drove back to Bremerton. I met up with Que at Starbucks. I had a Chai Latte and we chatted about a little bit of everything.

Afterwards, I met up with CarLo, Ron, Kazar and Sky. We decided to bug Matt since he had five teeth pulled the day before. On the way there, I picked up a Mango Rum, some vodka, and some soda. We also picked up Knira and Jhoana. In Safeway Sky picked up some veal-flavored baby food for Matt. It was hilarious. Jhoana bought some beer and sky threw in his purchase with her. So we were at the register and buying two cases of beer and a jar of baby food. Sounds like a party. I decided to have some fun with the cashier and took Jhoana's arm and said "Shit, we have to feed the kid again." The cashier was clearly fighting his laughter.

We got to Matt's and he flipped us off after seeing the baby food and straw we provided for him. Good times.

CarLo and Jhoana with their girly Stella beers.


It was weak sauce.


"Smile for me, daddy. / Let me see yo grill!" Uh, what's left of it.


Sky and Jhoana.


Knira.


Sky's talented.


Kazar feigning disgust.


Booby attack!


Mango Rum and Sprite. Good stuff.


Vodka, vodka, juice, juice, rum, soda, soda.


My mission to everybody was to drink until I'm hot.


Matt's XBOX360.


If I had one, I would've sold it on eBay for a ho-jillion dollars.


It's hard to hold your drink and play videogames so we put it away shortly.


We forgot Matt's pain medication couldn't be taken with alcohol so we were starting to feel bad for him. But then we drank some more and forgot about that too.


Booby counter-attack.


The rum ran out fast so it was screwdrivers all around.


Matt whipped out the breaded Jalapeno salmon sticks or whatever they're called.


Ron was a superstar that night. You'll see.


Throw some ice on that grill.


Not sure what CarLo said, but it must've been funny.


Ron got bit by the 'dance bug' a little early.


Successful bathroom trip.


Sky's got a nice ass... apparently. Hell, I wouldn't know. Moving on.


Start: Kelly Clarkson dance fever.


"Here I am, once again."


"I'm torn into pieces..."



Figure 1: Side effects of too much Kelly Clarkson
"Huh?"


Something funny.


More Kelly Clarkson madness.


Apparently, that was a bad picture.


"Giggidy!"


Hot shit.


"Oh, eww."


Feeling drunk.


Matt, Jhoana, Sky and CarLo.


Knira, Matt, Jhoana and Sky.


Drunken smiles.


Jhomama pose #1.


Jhomama pose #2.


Jhomama pose #3.


And Ron is outta here. Hey, you can't rape the willing.


I'm a whore for Jhoana and Knira.


Ooh yeah.


"Oh damn."


Jhoana, Sky and Matt.


Kazar and CarLo.


Jhoana, Sky, Knira and Matt.


Me and Jhoana.


Fighting sleep.


Me and Jhoana, east side bitches.


Oh yeah, that's hot.


Yay!


And Knira runs off.


Smiles.


Smug.


Ron's crotch.


Taking advantage.


So,.. fuzzy.


Macaroni salad.


Toothpicks.


Hardcore, yo!


We're hot stuff, that's right.


Picture review.


Picture taking.


Ooh yeah.


Not sure what's going on, but ok.


Knira reviews the pictures.


The awkward two minutes after.


Beer.


Fishing for cocktail weeners.


Hanging out was fun. Rosalie was supposed to hang out too but she was 'tired' and wanted to sleep early. Whatever, she missed out.

Kazar parked his car along the street and somebody hit his car. Stupid drunks... in cars... hitting other cars... His car wasn't damaged that bad, it was pretty much cosmetic, but that sucks. I'm not sure why he didn't park in the driveway. Yeah, that sucks. I dropped off Jhoana at home and I went home myself.

051229 Thursday - I went to the airport with my mom to pick up my grandma since she was coming back from the Philippines that day. Her flight was delayed and I didn't get back to Bremerton until the afternoon. CarLo and Knira ran off to Seattle, Ron and Kazar were working. I decided it was a good day to bug Rosalie. so I did and caught her donning scrubwear. I didn't really care, but she seemed to be embarrassed. It's not like she's impressing or anything. heh. After a while, I decided to pick up some 'supplies' for a wine and cheese party and wait for Ron to get off work to have it at his place. I picked up a Merlot, Pinot Blanc/Grigot, an assorted cheese platter and some crackers. I would've bought liquor but I was too late to go out and grab some. They were all closed already. Oh well.

Ron was still feeling sick from last night's alcohol so he swore off alcohol (which always ends up being temporary). That means more for Rosalie, Kazar and myself. Ha!

Cheese for Rosalie.


It's Ron checking out Ron on the computer. I might as well share my pictures while I'm there.


Ooh, cheese.


Cheese, crackers and wine. For a couple of hours we were pretending to be social elite.


Order of cheese popularity: Pepper Jack, Colby Jack, Cheddar, then Swiss.


This is Myspace, bitches.


I'm a whore for Rosalie too.


Tempting sparkling wine.



We didn't drink all that much. The lessons learned yesterday at Matt's were still fresh in our heads. The night ended relatively early at 1am.

051230 Friday - I drove out to Seattle in the morning to meet up with Chuck, Cynthia and Chris for lunch. Traffic slowed my efforts to progress and I got there late. We went to Sushi Land for lunch. I miss that place too. I stuffed my gullet to the brim with sushi. Oh good stuff. Wegman's has sushi.. but that's Wegman's sushi. Yeah. After lunch, I met up with Thao. She's awesome, I miss her. She's so busy, I was glad to catch her while I was in Washington. We only had an hour to hang out, but it was worth it.

Afterwards, I met up with CarLo and Knira and we were supposed to meet with Sky, Jen, Frank and Jamie for dinner. They were already seated at a restaurant called 'Teapot'. So we drove all around Capital Hill looking for the place. So we found the street it was on and parked. As we approached the restaurant, we got a better look at the sign. "Tea Pot Vegetarian Restaurant." Shit. We went inside and found them at their table. You know what, you don't bring Filipinos to a Vegetarian restaurant. We'll starve. Can you think of one Filipino dish without meat? Yeah, me neither.

We heard Thanh Thanh was over at Ivar's Salmon House, so we went over to meet up with her. She was sitting with a couple of her friends. I'm not sure who they were, but it sounded like they were all from the UW Business school, Thanh Thanh's class.

Yay! Thanh Thanh!!


Thanh Thanh and Knira.


TT, Knira and Carlo.


TT and me.


Me and my TT



After happy hour CarLo, Knira, TT and I went to the new club Venom in belltown. I didn't know I was going to go clubbing that night. all I had was my sweater and my clothes for New Years which I didn't want to wear to two clubs in a row. I went out in the sweater. Freakin' $15 cover charge. I had a rum and coke and a Red Bull and Vodka. I also kept my sweater on the whole time. I'm hot, oh yeah. Man, I was sooo underdressed for the place. Ugh. Well, Nina was there. I wanted to meet up with her, I didn't think I was going to but I did and that was cool. Kinra's hawt on the dance floor. I was truly intimidated, like scared for my life even. The club was alright, it shut down early in my opinion. 1:30am, whut tha hella? For $15, you'd expect it to stay open longer than that.

I dropped off TT then CarLo and I hung out at Knira's for a little bit. I stayed the night at CarLo's after playing a couple rounds of Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo. Old skool!

051231 Saturday - New Years Eve! My circadian rhythm was still on Eastern Time and I woke up at 9am. I knew CarLo wouldn't be up for another five hours, so I had to entertain myself. I found the March of the Penguins DVD in his room and I threw it on the TV. Interesting documentary. Like half of them die to make 20 penguins. Yeah, they might want to double check their math. Crazy penguin math.

After the movie, Carlo and I met up with Kazar and Knira in the U Village to have 'breakfast' at a place called Mom's. Breakfast is 'breakfast' because it was three in the afternoon at this point. Mmm, country fried steak and eggs. After that, CarLo and I ran off for some 'prefunk' equipment. We picked up a vodka, spiced rum, orange juice and sodas. The usual. It was back to Knira's for prefunkage. CarLo and I picked up Ron on the way there. Rolanne was there with Knira. Eventually, Kazar, Marco, Steve and Jessica showed up. I prefunked with my screwdriver of death. I accidentally poured four shots of vodka into my orange juice. It was gross but I finished it. Ron also made Jell-O shots that melted on his way to Seattle. After resolidifying them in the fridge we killed them. They tasted awful, since he made them too strong. I forget how many I ended up taking. Soon after, we picked up Christina and we ran off towards the War Room on Capital Hill for New Years crunkage.

So I'm having trouble keeping track of who was all at the club. There's us, CarLo, Knira, Rolanne, Ron, Kazar, Steve, Jessica, Christina and Marco. I remember CarloR, Shannon, Thanh Thanh, Nina, Christina, Sky, Jen, Frank, Matt and Jamie. New Years was intense. I didn't take pictures since I don't think my huge-ass SLR really belongs in a club. However Rolanne did have her camera on her and she took a bunch of pictures.

They're all here.

Yeah, I would like to defend myself against this evidence picture set.

Jessica, CarLo, Ron, Me, Kazar, Steve and Marco prefunking.

This is what happens with a 'screwdriver of death' in your system.

Christina, Rolanne and Knira.

Christina's manwich

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be in this picture.

Christine, Nina and Me.

Oh yeah, this is my game face. It's also the reason to why I'm still single.

That's me, Christine and Sky in the background with Rolanne and Knira in the foreground. Christine looks bored. She's probably yawning in this picture.

Yeah there's more. Alot more. Probably too much.

I remember a couple of things from that night. I had a lot to drink at the club. I remember a Long Island, Red Bull and Vodka, and a Jagerbomb. Anything else, I don't remember. Steve got kicked out of the club. I'm not sure when it happened but he was in the car when I got back to it. When we got back to Knira's, Kazar couldn't (didn't want to) get out of his car so he spent most of the night in his car. We stopped by QFC and got some food to cool down with. I bought a pair of pizzas that didn't turn out so great out of the oven. They weren't cooked yet. Oh well. CarLo left early and all my stuff was at his place. I went to Skeeet with Marco and Ron. We both took over the couches.

060101 Sunday - New Years Day. I woke up early again. Stupid circadian rhythm. We turned on the Seahawks game and watched them lose the season closer. Boo. Well, the rest of the season was kickass. Ron and I had to wait for CarLo to wake up before I could get my stuff (which included the car keys) from his place to return to Bremerton. On the way back, we stopped by Uwajimaya. I didn't buy anything, although I was eyeing a couple of Japanese cookbooks. Ron was looking for something, I forget what it was. Anyway, we drove around back to Bremerton. I got home and proceeded to do nothing. I finally got on the internet since coming to Seattle. I've been running around a lot and I didn't really have any chances to check my email and whatever.

I just stayed home and watched a ton of music videos and random junk on iFILM and Google Videos. Before passing out, I remember talking to Rosalie for an hour and a half on the phone. Ms. 'I'm not a phone person' girl.

060102 Monday - I didn't do much on this day either since I didn't really have a car. I just did a little shopping at Fred Meyer, Best Buy and Target. I picked up Office Space from Best Buy since it was just $10. It was one of those movies I've been meaning to pick up for the longest time but I never got around to doing it. I also bought a Memory Stick DUO reader for USB. I bought it so I could steal Jhoana's pictures from when we got drunk at Matt's place. So I paid her a little visit before she had to ship off to Washington DC. I came back home and packed up my stuff so I can fly out myself.

060103 Tuesday - It must have been a big travel day. Jhoana leaves for Washington DC this day. Sky leaves for Hawaii. I leave for Syracuse. I'm not sure but I think Frank and Jen flew out on the third as well.

My sister dropped me off at the airport. She needed to get back to Seattle anyway since her classes @ UW started that day. My itinerary was just as crazy as going from Syracuse to Seattle minus one flight. I was to fly from Seattle to Denver, Denver to Chicago, and Chicago to Syracuse. Things were smooth until Chicago when the computers went down and they lost my plane. Yeah, this was the announcement: "Flight 7888 for Syracuse, we lost your plane. Once we find it, we'll announce it and the gate it'll be at."

What the hell, man? We ended up being delayed two hours. And many thanks to Brandy who picked me up from the airport at 1:30 in the morning with my first class of the semester 7.5 hours away.

And that was my 2005 holiday.

I didn't get a chance to sleep in until last night. So since I flew out from Syracuse I've been running on 4-6 hours of sleep each night. But this is how I like it. I didn't want to miss a thing. Oh man, I slept for 12 hours last night.

I'm also in friend withdrawl. I already miss everybody. Love yous guys, you really kick ass. I hope every time I visit would be just as awesome. Take care!


music: Black Eyed Peas - Bebot

Yeah, Japanese movie theater patrons are hella quiet. Me, Tina, and Shelley are always cracking up at the movies. Kong was pretty entertaining. Yes, that would've been funny had Kong rubbed that girl all over his junk.

No food princess?

You have quite the memory.
-Chan - 060108 - 0454EST



When a giant monkey takes a girl and rubs her all over his junk, that's true love.

I didn't see food princess on both visits to the Salmon House. That makes me a sad panda.

How was your New Years?
-rich - 060108 - 1341EST



this is quite the funniest- love the animation.
-jhomama - 060108 - 1529EST
http://yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com
i have one N in my name

Oops, I knew that... I was young and careless...

fixing...

And that animation was real time. It probably didn't feel that way since when you're rocking out, time slows down or something. It was intense.
-rich - 060108 - 1634EST



Yeah, that pic is awesome. Your photoshop skills have gotten better since the Ygona pic.
-Chan - 060109 - 0335EST