Busy little bee

I have been neglecting this blog for a good reason.  I have been busy.  Busy with what you ask?  Looking back, I cannot peg it on one thing since so much has happened.  Here's a recap:

Had a great Movember.  My moustache looked a lot better than I thought it would.  However, I was not able to hit the donation amount I wanted. But, that was only part of the reason for Movember.  Other than raising funds, I definitely hope I raised awareness about men's health (even though some of my own life choices are questionable).

Went back to the pompadour.  So far mostly positive reactions from people.  I think I will stick with this for a while...

I am having difficulty remembering the first three and a half weeks of December other than having a wonderful night out with My and Ya in Oakland.  I introduced Nanette to them and they seemed to get along famously.  They all teased me for not eating the fat from the pork belly and being picky about what I ate.  I did not mind at all because I loved that they were getting along.  We all went to a house party afterwards that was hosted by My and Ya's kickball teammates.  Met a few people and ate some questionable pulled pork tacos.  All in all a good night.

More recently, I spent Christmas weekend in Seattle and Portland.  It was quite the adventure.  The trip to Seattle truly felt like a vacation by myself.  I flew out alone and did  not see Anjuli until later that night.  Even then we only spent a few hours together.  We had a few drinks and called it a night without things getting too out of hand which was perfect for me.

The next day I was wandering downtown Seattle on my own.  I know I can take care of myself and I honestly do not mind being on my own.  It turned out to be much needed alone time.  I walked from 11 A.M. until about 5 P.M. with a 30 to 45 minute lunch break.  By my calculations, that would have been at least 12 miles of walking.  It felt good to exercise again even if it was just walking.

I visited Pike's Place again and got to see every inch of it.  It was nice not having any schedule or people pulling me in different directions.  I got to see Seattle at my own pace and on my own schedule.  I visited a lot of the local shops and ate Beecher's famous Mac and Cheese.  To be fair, I am not a fan of mac and cheese to begin with so this was actually not mind blowing for me.  Just another mediocre mac and cheese.  I barely ate 1/3 of it before throwing the rest away.  There goes five dollars I will never see again...  Oh well.

Next stop was the shops.  Saw a lot of interesting stuff but nothing worth buying.  I tried to look for something for everyone but that did not really work out.  I ended up buying things from a collectible store for a game of white elephant with our group.  Nothing special but it seemed wrong to leave Pike's Place empty handed.  I had fish and chips after shopping.  Again nothing special.  Perhaps my expectations were too high.

I finished with Pike's Place around 1:30 or so and started wandering downtown.  I went back to the army surplus store and had a blast just looking around.  The things they sell always fascinates me.  I saw knives, helmets, clothing, first aid kits, goggles, and even bayonets.  Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.  They also had MRE for sale which I thought was cool.  Of course I walked away empty handed.

I visited a bunch of stores like Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack, Macy's, Aldo, and some other local shops.  Nothing worth buying.  I finished up shopping around 5 P.M. and decided to sit in the lobby of a mall just to people watch.  I sat there to rest and ended up people watching for almost an hour.

Anjuli ate at home so I walked down the block from my hotel to a nice little restaurant called Lola.  Had the beef shank with a beer.  Best thing I ate in Seattle.  Including the last trip.

The drive to Portland was fine except for this scary bridge we crossed.  Anjuli had trouble seeing the road so she had to use her high beams every few seconds.  When she did the bridge lit up in a way that cannot be described in words.  Definitely the scariest bridge I have ever come across...

In the interest of saving time, Portland was great.  Highlights included great food and drunken times. Oh yea, I got a 16 year old kid drunk to the point of projectile vomiting.  Yep.  Good times indeed...

-Thundalips

This is war.

Talented man that Jared Leto.

Wednesday was a great day.  The day started with a bunch of errands.  I went to Costco to return some gifts and buy stuff for the house.  Then I went to Best Buy to return some more gifts before returning home.  Nothing special yet.  I made plans with My to have lunch in Oakland.  Since I was going to the Sharks game with Ya, it was easier if I was already in Oakland.  So I bussed and Barted to Oakland where My was supposed to pick me up.  I waited at the West Oakland station for about 15-20 minutes.  During that time I stood at the bus stop while listening to my Ipod.  After a few minutes of waiting, I hear someone behind me say, "Excuse me."  I turn around and reply, "Yes?."  The black lady then says, "I don't mean to be too forward, but I have to say, you have a really nice ass."  I couldn't hep but smile.  I said thanks and she started talking to me and the conversation went something like this:

Black Lady:  Are you waiting for a ride?
Me:  Yea.  My friend is picking me up.  She should be here soon.
Black Lady:  Is she your girlfriend?
Me:  No, just a really good friend.
Black Lady:  Where you guys going?
Me: Meeting up some other friends.
Black Lady:  All guys?
Me:  No, there's going to be some girls.
Black Lady:  Girlfriend?
Me: No I don't have a girlfriend.
Black Lady:  Really?  Handsome guy like you with a nice figure like that and no girlfriend?
Me:  Yep.
Black Lady: You gotta get on that.  I'm 37 and I've only complimented four men in my entire life about their ass and you definitely have a nice ass.
Me: Thanks.

And then we exchanged goodbyes and My picked me up.  What a great compliment to get from a black person.  Black people know great asses and apparently someone likes mine.  Anyways, continuing with the great day.  My picked me up and wanted to take me to a restaurant called Scend's.  When we got there we found parking right in front and we went in and looked around.  Nobody there.  And by nobody I mean patrons.  The owners and workers were standing around and My asked for a table for two.  They told us that they were actually closed for cleaning and they were replacing some kitchen stuff.  I jokingly said, "But I came all the way from San Francisco!"  The lady there told us that the day before an entire family drove up from San Jose when they were closed and she had to turn them away.  We chatted a bit more before we left and we wished them a happy new year on the way out.  We sat in the car in our parking spot thinking of what we should eat.  As we sat there, the owner came out and knocked on the window.  My rolled down the window and the owner asked us if we wanted to have some fried chicken.  She offered to cook something up for us even though the restaurant was closed.  I'm pretty sure she would've made us pay for the food but it was just a really nice gesture.  She said she felt so guilty she didn't want us to leave empty handed.  I don't care what anyone else says, Oakland folks are nice.  I love colored folks.

Somehow we ended up eating pizza and a spot called Lanesplitters.  I ended up eating three slices which was about half of a 19" pizza.  Yes I am fat and yes it was delicious.

Me and Ya drove down to San Jose and picked up Kevin for the Sharks game.  Kevin brought down some beers for us and we drank after we parked.  The game was intense.  First period was a little boring until the final 5-7 minutes or so.  After that the entire game was pretty high-energy.  The Washington Capitals are one of the top ranked teams and have the most electrifying player today.  Alexander Ovechkin.  The Great Eight.



^HD available and recommended.



Two of my favorite goals by Alexander Ovechkin.  The game was incredible.  In the final minutes, one of my favorite D-men, Douglas Murray, and Alexander Ovechkin really got into it.  Ovechkin put three really good hits on Murray in the same shift.  It was an intense ongoing battle between the two.  I've never seen Murray take so many hits.  Murray held his own and fought back and put a few good checks on Ovechkin.  That was definitely the match up of the night.  And what's even better, our section was selected randomly to receive free Chipotle burritos!  The HP Pavillion crew passed out cards to receive a free burrito for everyone in our section.  It was a take-one-pass-it-down-honor-system type of deal.  We all just took one since we wanted to be fair.  To add to that, the Sharks also scored more than four goals which means FREE PIZZA!  Not really.  It's a free personal one topping with any purchase or $5 off any Large or X-Large pizza.  Probably will claim it tomorrow as I only have a few days left to claim it.  The only thing that could've made it better would have been the Chipotle Hat Trick.  If any player scores three goals, everyone gets a free burrito.  Pavelski was one away from having a hat trick.  Oh well.  Sharks won 5-2 in a highly anticipated match featuring two of NHL's best hockey teams this season.  I wish more people were interested in hockey.  There's no one to talk to about this stuff.

After the game, Kevin gave me a ride back to San Francisco.  It was about 11PM and we were looking for something to do.  We made some calls and it turned out that it was Sterling's birthday and people were drinking at Yancy's.  Kevin decided not to go so he dropped me off there.  It was a good night.  Met a stranger and talked to her for a bit while everyone was outside smoking.  She invited me over to another bar cause her friends were there but I respectfully declined since everyone was having fun at Yancy's.  Had some drinks and hung out with the good folks there.  After the bar closed, Gary and I tried to go look for food, but we ended up just going home. 

That was Wednesday.  Great day right?  Thursday was good too.  I scheduled lunch with a friend at 1.  I completely spaced.  I was up at 10 and completely forgot.  I sat around watching TV and playing Gameboy the entire morning.  By 1 o'clock, I decided to go run.  I put on my running shoes and went up to my room to grab my phone.  Five missed calls and three texts messages.  I totally forgot about lunch with my friend and had to call her back to get some more time to get ready.  We ended up at Sai Jai Thai after she said she didn't want BBQ for lunch.  After lunch we went to Zephyr's and just talked until they closed.

The NYE night started off really late.  I was hooked on my mom's Chinese series and completely lost track of time.  By the time the disc was over, it was 10:15.  I called around and plans got changed.  Andy and Kevin decided to do the Polk street crawl instead of Brenda's house party.  I was ready to call it a night and just stay in to play COD: MW2 but I convinced Brian to go.  He picked me up and we went to meet everyone on Polk.  By the time we got into the first (and only) bar on Polk, it was 11:30.  The countdown was disappointing.  Nothing special and we didn't stay at the bar too long.  We decided to bail and go to a house party.  That's where the night really began for me.  Met some good people, had a few drinks, had some food, and had a blast.  Didn't get to bed until 5AM.

Tonight will be my chance to catch up on some rest.



CALL OF DUTYYYYY!!!

Until next time,

Go Sharks.

-Alex Thunderlips

It's a thug story.

It's 8:03AM and I've been up for almost two hours now.  Had trouble sleeping last night and then I heard my mom's cell phone go off just as I was about to fall asleep.  Half awake, I thought I heard her give the phone to my dad saying it was a call for him.  Then a few minutes later I heard my mom walking down the stairs and opening the front door to leave.  I looked out the window and sure enough, she was walking to her car fully dressed.  I wasn't sure where she was going and my phone was too far.  For no particular reason, I thought it was 1:40.  I didn't look at a clock but that's what time I thought it was.  I dozed off for what felt like a few hours and woke up when she came home through the front door.  By that time, the sun was coming up and I went downstairs to ask her where she had gone for so long.  She said she went to McDonald's to get breakfast.  Apparently the call was a wrong number and she didn't pass the phone to my dad, she left the house around 7 to get breakfast, and I was wrong about everything.  And now I'm tired but can't fall back asleep.

My brother came home from Davis on Thursday and he bought the Perfect Push Up thing.  I tried a few out of boredom and curiosity.  It feels cheap and flimsy.  If I was as buff as the guy on the box, the handles would probably collapse under me.  I don't think it works that well.  I've been trying to get back into the rhythm of working out again.  Everyday after work, I do a bunch of lifting for about 1.5 hours.  Of course, I stretch out my reps because I'm always watching TV.  Hopefully I'll trim down a bit soon.  My mom keeps calling me a fatass.  The more I seem to do, the more I feel my body is turning into the same body type as Chuck Liddell.  He has a gut and he looks fat all the time until he flexes and you can see all the lines.  That's where I'm at right now.  This is, of course, before I eat.

Taylor Tickets are on sale soon.  Don't really understand the breakdown of when tickets go on sale but the latest will be October 30.  I joined the T Sweezy website just to see if I could get the code.  I also have an AmEx card so probably will try that too.  No idea how many tickets I'm going to get but so far I think the group going will be me, Anjuli, My, Ya, Erica, and maybe V and my sister if she's back.  Ticket prices range from $25-59.50.  I don't mind paying top dollar for great seats.  Sixty dollars isn't that much anyways.  Not for Taylor.  Also not sure how many I'm buying (if I'm buying for people or separate).  Probably best to get them together to guarantee seats together.  I'll probably aim for 8.  I can always sell them later.  Everyone wants a piece of her.

Onsale to General Public

Start: Fri, 10/30/09 10:00 AM PDT

American Express

Start: Tue, 10/27/09 10:00 AM PDT
End: Thu, 10/29/09 10:00 PM PDT

TaylorSwift.com

Start: Tue, 10/27/09 10:00 AM PDT
End: Thu, 10/29/09 10:00 PM PDT

Kellie Pickler

Start: Thu, 10/29/09 10:00 AM PDT
End: Thu, 10/29/09 10:00 PM PDT

That yellow dot is where I want to sit.  Sixty dollars?  Well worth it. Everyone be on the look out for radio contests and such.  I want backstage passes.  BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!

-Alex Thunderlips

Xxzxcuzx Me

^^The first verse is one of the sickest verses ever written in the history of rap.  Slide show is stupid but there's no music video for it.  Crystal castles is the shit.  Demonoid is still down so most of the music I'll be posting is old stuff since I have nothing new to share. 

Big day tomorrow.  Lunch with My and Ya and Sai Jai Thai.  I know it has a funny name but it... is... delicious.  Hands down, best fried rice I've ever eaten in my entire life.  Haven't been there for 2 or 3 years but I remember it being super delicious.  Then dinner with V at a restaurant of my choice.  Where to go?  Golden arch?  Nah...too classy for her.  Probably slum it up at BK.

For the past week or so, every time Halloween is mentioned I have to remind myself that it's still 12 days away.  I think because we all dressed up for Chad's birthday it feels like Halloween has already passed. 

Sharks beat the Rangers and end their 7 game win streak.  Sharks scored most goals in a game of the season ending it at 7-3 after trailing 0-2.  Eight days left until NBA season begins.  I need an HD TV in my room.  Been looking for one at least 46".  That should be big enough.

-Alex Thunderlips

Beep beep ribby ribby.

^^Looks so much like an Asian Tara Reid.  Absolutely love her style.

Today was...interesting... Spent the first hour at work doing nothing.  Just sat in my area and spaced out.  Then there was a meeting where the team counted bags of cash.  In the lab we keep 9 bags of cash for testing, each containing $1,064 of assorted notes.  We made some stupid jokes and suggestions and I said someone should bring out a deck of cards and we should spend the day playing poker.  There were some other shenanigans but I'll continue.  We had a team lunch at Sultan Indian Buffet.  I respectfully declined since I had already scheduled a lunch with My.  But, that lunch was rescheduled so I spent much of the morning dodging questions about why I wasn't going to the lunch.  Lies on top of lies on top of lies.  It gets hard to keep track of lies sometimes.

After the lunch I met up with the team to go to the Academy of Sciences.  Boy was that a disapointment.  If you haven't gone, the only thing worth seeing is the planetarium.  The people working there are rude too.  During the planetarium show, one of the employees leads off the show with some banter.  During that time, a little girl behind me started crying.  Probably was no more than 1 year old.  Another employee walked all the way up the stairs to confront the crying baby's parents and word for word said the following: "How old is your child?  Didn't I tell you outside you couldn't watch the show with your child?  You can't have kids crying in here.  Didn't I tell you that outside?  Why did you come in?"  What made me feel worse was when I realized the family behind me barely understood a word of English.  They were forced to leave.  When we first got in we were told that if we wanted to leave early we could sit in the top two rows and leave so we don't disturb the others watching the show.  My group only wanted to leave early to catch the last bug show.  When we got up during the show to leave we were told to sit back down.  We were berated with questions why we wanted to leave and told, not asked, to sit back down.  Ridiculous.  The museum was small.  Definitely would not pay to get back in there.  Not much to see.  Not much to do.

Been watching some hilarious stand up lately.  Don't remember this guy's name but he was a Mexican comedian and his bit was mostly about how he was Mexican but could not speak Spanish.  He was saying that in high school he was embarrassed to be cheating off the Asian kid in Spanish class.  Then he told a joke about how he's constantly asked to translate stuff to English.  He said one time he was in a club and a girl asked him what the song was about.  He answered "That guy is complaining about the price of gasolina."  Hilarious.  Stand up is my renewed drug.

Sharks tomorrow!  Put the biscuit in the basket!

-Alex Thunderlips