theperfect.mismatch

Oh how great it is to step back in time and feel like you're a kid again. Maritess & I spent yesterday at the greatest place on earth, DISNEYLAND! I was SO excited because it's been quite some time since I was at a Disney park (Okay it was only two years ago but still!)
The weather was absolutely amazing that day. Not a damn cloud in the sky which made some kick ass weather for hitting rides and living it up, eight year old style! Granted we were some of the oldest people on line for many of the attractions (with the exception of parents naturally). I have no shame in spending my day in Mickey's playground.
I know that many of you that read this are probably on myspace and have seen some people with their Buzz Lightyear Blaster shooting ride picture as their profile image. Well yes I too am now a member of that crew. This was the first ride for the day. Let me tell you, Maritess kicked my butt! Her shot is on point kiddos - don't mess around with her. After that awesome ride we hittup a churro stand then headed for Space Mountain. Such a cool ride! I got really into the ride and was screaming like a fool and apparantly the guy in front of us got a kick out of me screaming like a total idiot (okay I won't lie to you guys. I was scared like a HELL!).
Screaming like an idiot got me all hyped up and needed something a little more laxed to calm me down. Maritess wanted to check out Innoventions so we headed there and made an attempt to talk to Stich. Stich wasn't able to talk today (sadface) but we found some interest in the Health U. portion of this attraction. There were a bunch of cool things related to health (mostly obesity and smoking). One of the trippiest things they had there was a computer that aged your face 40 years (eeeep!). Basically the thing told me that my forehead is going to become huge (wtf?). Maritess' looked crazy. I'll try to upload that video onto the intrawebs for the world to see.
Now that we were freaked out about getting old (especially me with my big ass forehead) we went to a more calming, soothing ride that reminded us of our distant past; It's A Small World. The ride is still the same as I remember it way back when but different in the sense that everything is newer. God do I miss being a kid!
By this time our tummies were rumbling but we stopped by Toon Town to take a few quick random pictures... very random. The best part of Toon Town was being able to meet Mickey Mouse. Now there were seriously were the oldest ones there looking to see Mickey. I always remember Mickey as being hella tall but boy have the tables turned!





Waiting to see Mickey.

MICKEY!
By this time yesterday my tummy was rumbling for some French Fries =). Maritess had said the best French Fries she has ever had was at a Wagon booth that sold them. I don't know whats so special about them but they seriously were the bomb. They were hot, crispy, and salty (so salty that you'd need to buy a drink). So yeah I thought we'd spoil lunch with these fries but we were so hungry it actually just became a mini appetizer for lunch. Lunch ended up being like a five course meal because we were famished. I was actually suprised with how tasty the food was there at Disney.
Now I was thinking to myself how perfect this day was. The awesome practically non-existant lines made the day incredibly efficent. We were able to ride almost every big ride there. Haunted Mansion and Thunder Mountain were both really cool rides. Haunted Mansion was FREAKY (especially since Maritess told me to look where all the scary things would pop out!). One of the best rides in the park was Indiana Jones. At first I thought it was like driving in NYC but boy was I wrong! I won't spoil the suprise for all of ya'll that decide to check it out.
The day was winding down and we've pretty much rode all the rides with the exception of Matterhorn bobsleds. That was an intense ride where you're in a bobsled going down a Swiss themed mountain. Exciting! Finally we finished the day with our rematch of Astro Blasters. I thought I'd be able to beat Maritess but BOY was I WRONG! I'll let the picture do all the talking XP.


The day was over and we headed for Circuit City to get a wifi router so that us intraweb dweebs here at the house can finally have are fix.

Overall, I had an absolutely AWESOME day at Disneyland. Big thanks to Maritess for taking me to the park. I seriously had such a great time there and it was awesome to spend some much needed QT with her.

Could it be any better? ... nope! It was that great! =) Awesome, Awesome day!

more awesome pics: mmm frenchfries

Today I was lucky enough to have Rae Marie come on down from Chino to scoop me in La Mirada and take me on an awesome driving tour of Orange County. Getting ready this morning for today’s adventure, I got a text on my phone asking if I liked “Soul Food.” I’ve never really had much soul food besides that of what they serve at Popeyes, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Kennedy’s Fried Chicken (The ghetto NY knockoff of KFC) so I sure was in for an adventure. She picked me up around lunch time as we hit the road in search of Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles down in Long Beach.

Long Beach is a really cool city. It looks like it has been recently developed and the main street is pretty fancy with all it trendy restaurants. I was really irritated because on the way there I shot a bunch of pictures and realized that I didn’t have a CF card in my camera about 15 shots down the road (sadface). Luckily Rae Marie was able to find a Walmart and I was able to “Rent” a card. In the end, CF card rental cost me like $0.48 cents! Not too bad.

“Raemarie: I thought it was funny that u were takin a bunch of pix without it tho”

Roscoe’s has awesome fried chicken. Probably the best fried chicken I’ve ever had…ever. It was kind of interesting that they had fried chicken with a combination of waffles. First time I’ve ever had. If you want my recommendation, hittup the chicken and skip on the waffles because the chicken is the jumpoff!

Once lunch was finished, we got gas around the corner and I managed to get my finger stuck in the pump (freakin’ jersey has spoiled me with never having to pump gas ever. Unfortunately that’s supposed to change [sadface]).

From there we hopped onto the Pacific Coast Highway after confirming directions with a friend we were off on a coastal adventure. PCH is one of the most amazing highways to drive on. The rolling hills, amazing coast line, awesome friend to enjoy the ride with what more could anyone ask for? … A Porsche 997TT =) (okay most people would say j/k but I really want one).

Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Balboa Beach, and Laguna Beach were all the beaches I was able to see / drive by. Newport and Balboa were hands down the nicest of the beaches but I think Laguna was the most unique / had the most character. It was pretty ghetto to see oil rigs right off from the beach at Seal & Huntington. But forreal, for anyone who comes out to California, do yourself a favor and start at Long Beach and then just drive south on PCH. Trust me on that one (It’s definitely the fire sauce).

During our adventure, we stopped at Huntington Beach, Newport / Balboa, and Laguna. At Newport Beach we were taking some pictures out on the beach just where the water breaks against the sand. It was soooo funny as I was walking along and we were taking pictures of my footprints in the sand then all of a sudden a huge wave came and started coming after me. Rae Marie found this hilarious and just started shooting and I have this picture of me running away from the water... haha! We walked around for a bit more and then hunted for a bathroom that literally smelled like rotten eggs and shit put together. It was THE nastiest combination of smells put together. It was an unfriendly reminder of the weird smells you’ll encounter in Manhattan. GROSS!! After that nasty smell of ass, we decided to hit the road again in search of Laguna Beach.

Laguna Beach I thought had the most character of all the beaches we saw. It was nothing like the other beaches as they’re the “stereotypical” beach. When you get to Laguna, it’s a beach perched in between two cliffs in the city. Upon the cliffs was a hotel and houses on the other side with the beach between the two. It was so unique how the beach falls between these two cliffs and how everyone flocks to this beach just to chill. It had a really relaxed atmosphere were you’ll see people sitting on the benches, playing chess, volleyball, basketball, sitting on rock’s talking. Definitely a HUGE change of pace of what goes on back home.

Around Laguna Beach, there were these huge pieces of rocks that come out from the beach where people could sit on. Of course I was walking around on them like they were nothing thinking that there was no way that I would bust my ass on these things. Ha… Running up atop one of the rocks I had admired the view of how everything looks. Amazing I’d say. Rae Marie was so kind to snap a few pictures of me on the rocks. On the way out though one kind gentleman had offered to snap a few pictures of both Rae Marie & I so we figured what the heck. The second he busted out the technical phototalk on us I knew he was a photographer. It was pretty cool to have a photographer setup a shoot of both Rae & I as he snapped a bunch of pictures of us sitting on the rocks.

If you read earlier, you’d hear me ramble on about how much of a hotshot I was walking on those rocks. Well guess what, on my way out I busted my ass on the rocks and fell all over the place. The only battlescar I managed to get was only a scratch on my hand. Let me tell you though, hours later the damn thing still hurts like a hell!

Later that day after my fall on the rocks at Laguna Beach (rocks + water = DANGEROUS!) we headed to Irvine to this Boba Café called Tapioca Express. It was CRAZY how many choices they had for all the different types of bubble tea you could get. It was so good man let me tell you. I haven’t had bubble tea in a mad long time! Along with bubble tea we had some spicy crispy chicken.. mmm soo good. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it! Soon after we had arrived Rae’s friend May showed up to join us as we sat on the couch and shot the shits for an hour as we waited for traffic to die down.

Unfortunately Tapioca Express was the last stop for our great Orange County adventure. It was time to bring me back to the house as I didn’t want to show up back home too late.

Thank you SO MUCH Rae Marie! I really appreciate everything you did for me that day and taking the time out to show me a great time here. Whenever you’re in NY just give me a call and I’d be down to do some tourist things with you. =)

Plan for tomorrow: Disneyland. Good night everyone.

Still bored or wondering what the California beach scene is like? click bitches

Moving sucks… period. Having to move all your shit and you live in a city sucks BIG time! Sunday morning we all woke up and filled up on a hearty Filipino breffus once again as we packed out shit and hauled it into Richie’s truck, dragged out asses back to Maritess’ apartment so we can get all her stuff out of there and back to LA. The whole process didn’t take THAT long, it was just mad confusing as to what’s going where. There was plenty of man power to expedite the move but none the less, moving sucks.

After loading up the cars, we headed to Maritess’ new place where she’ll be staying for the summer, dropped that stuff off and then hightailed back to the apartment to pick up our stuff.

On the way back, we got a bit lost heading out of the city but finally found the “freeway.” One thing that sucked was that we were starving and we all had a huge craving for Carl Jr.’s (most especially since I’ve never had it). We tried for soooo long to find one but we gave into our appetites and just had In N’ Out. Of course you gotta have it animal style… w00t!

The drive back from SF to LA was pretty blah considering that it rained 60% of the way there. I was pretty amazed at how the mountains roll along side you, mini dust tornados form and dust storms occur. The coolest thing was seeing tumbleweed. DEFINITELY something we don’t see back home.

Overall the drive back was a lot better than I had expected it to be. Driving across America is one of the best ways to see everything and it makes you realize how fucking large this country is!

Random quote of the trip: “I want a Mexican Taco”… BWAHAHHahhaha

More Pictures: go here fool!

The next morning, it was nice to get some much needed R&R day. We were all at their Auntie Irma’s crib out in San Jose. It’s an absolutely gorgeous area in California. Rolling hills, awesome weather: definitely an awesome place to live / grow up. Their uncle had cooked us a kick ass Filipino breffus consisting of fried egg, pan de sal, and Vienna sausage. Yum!

The rest of the morning was spent looking at pictures. Everyone all crowded around the computer as they all were yelling and screaming at each other. It was funny because we would constantly have to repeat what we’d say because everyone was having difficulty understanding each other. However it gets better. One of the auntie’s was looking at the pictures and then says in a Filipino accent, “You have a lot of good looking guys at your school, too bad they’re al paggots!” BWAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHHAHAHA!

Okay so yeah after we say See No Evil. The movie okay. Not great neither amazing but it was actually pretty funny for a horror movie. I’ll let ya’ll see it and not drop you with any spoilers.

On the way back to the house, Richie thought it was cool to see who can get back to the house faster. Yeah he can’t handle the Honda Pilot! Steven smoked him! Chyahhhh. So as soon as we got back, my favorite past time begun and we all began pounding beers. It was a good time. We were all playing basketball and joking around… good times good times. I couldn’t however keep up with all the parents as they were pounding beers and doing the karaoke thing till LATE that night. I’m seriously a lightweight and damn proud of it.

A lighter note, the whole “Hyphy” scene in norcal is CRAZY!....

Flixes continued

Congratulations Class of 2006! Friday marked the biggest reason for my trip out West. I had the opportunity to watch Maritess walk at her college graduation. She had taken up Visual Arts with a focus in Graphic Design.

The day began by waking up and getting dressed for their graduation. Soon after breakfast (in fact very soon after), Maritess’ family showed up. I spent most of the day hanging with Richie & Steven. Richie is Maritess’ brother and Steven is their cousin. When I first saw Steven, I noticed he was carrying a pretty big camera bag and realized he too was dSLR statusing with me. He had the Nikon D50. I was pretty impressed with the images from that camera, especially considering the quality of the stock lens.

After saying hi and asking how everyone was doing we began walking to the Church as seats were first come first serve. Even though the Church was only two blocks away, it seemed like it took forever as it was uphill (just like everything else is in SF). Finally after walking we re-grouped with everyone and stood on line to get our seats in the Church. Everything seemed to be great up until the fact that Mother Nature decided to throw some drops our way. When we finally met with Maritess’ mom and her auntie’s we found them all huddled around an umbrella with their scarves over their head (Taliban Style!) all hunched under one umbrella held by some random guy. It turns out the nice guy beside them also here for his sister’s graduation was nice enough to hold the umbrella over their heads from the rain. It was funny how this guy held the umbrella up for everyone. Steven was calling her their “PUH” just like P. Diddy has (Personal Umbrella Holder).

So the ceremony was nice. The speeches by the valedictorian and some other speaker were okay… not that interesting really. To make it worse, the woman announcing everyone’s name couldn’t speak English. Everyone had no idea when to scream / take pictures / go crazy. Anyway we made do with what we had and tried the best we could.
As everyone walked out of the church, we all took a MILLION pictures. In fact some of the people walking past us were calling us Paparazzi. Ahaha that’s right!
We all were then photo’d out, closed up shop and walked back to the car as we all hopped in to head to Caesar’s down in North Beach. It was funny as many of us thought that Caesar’s was a Chinese Restaurant when it was in fact an Italian Restaurant. It was nice to finally sit down and eat as we were all starving. A bunch of Maritess’ friends had joined us along with JC. For those who don’t know JC brought Maritess to the airport and were there to pick me up from my flight (Thanks again!).



Lunch went by and after driving around and taking care of some much needed logistics, we found ourselves at Rohan; even Richie! It was an asian themed lounge / bar / restaurant off Geary. The drinks were flowing and were pretty good with an asian theme to it (naturally!). However after some time it began time to take the drive back to San Jose.

The hour drive to San Jose went by quick with an unfortunate encounter with a nasty McDonald’s manager. So yeah, I can see how she’s a nasty lady as she’s about forty years old and is only a McDonalds manager ha... sucks doesn’t it.

Later that night we played poker and drank Heiniken Light. It really is light! It’s pretty good actually so if you ever get a chance, pick it up!

pixxies continues here...
steven's
mine

WHAT?!

illit3r4t3 (7:03:56 PM): WWW.TOURETTESGUY.COM

This is SO AWESOME!
doitbitches

Here's a link to some images from USF's Graduation. Congratulations!

Not photoshopped, not edited, not kidding!

Here's one video worth the six minutes of your time.

Beat Box!

Mentos + Coke

Take their advice: use DIET soda!

Play-Doh Cologne

Everything started off with breffus at the Fruitful Grounds. It's a swank little coffee shop that serves just about everything which is two blocks from Maritess' apartment and a block from her school (University of San Francisco). They have really good breakfast food. I had a breakfast burrito which was pretty damn good let me tell ya!

Well what's visiting San Francisco without having a day of "normal" San Francisco weather. This morning, mother-nature greeted us with the what is the usual weather for this area. We were spoiled the day before with the weather where it was in my opinion absolutely beautiful.

So after breakfast, we headed over to catch the bus out on one of the main roads in San Francisco. Let me tell you, at first the whole bus system was pretty damn overwhelming but I think I'm starting to get used to it. Thank god for Maritess that she was able to lead me around the city and my trusty map reading skills since she can't read "map." With the two of us combined, it was a pretty efficient team effort to navigate the city.

The price of bus fare is typical of any city but (In comparison to NY prices) as I was able to get from one side of town to the other and back on only $1.50!!! =) Transfers are awesome and they're good for as many rides until the time runs out (or until a bus driver decides to check to see if the transfer has expired yet). I managed to make it all the way to Golden Gate Bridge and back on one fare which was pretty dope as none of the bus drivers checked my pass.

After figuring out which buses to take we were soon on our way. Hopping on one bus then transferring to the next and so on we finally found ourselves at the base of the bridge. At some point I started to miss the NYC subway's as they don't have an underground system as diffuse as New York's but once you got used to the MUNI here it was cool.

So as the bus took us through the city headed for the Golden Gate, we finally had arrived there. It's pretty amazing to look at the bridge and to think about how many people died to make this bridge. It's pretty magnificent piece of work I'd say. Looking under the bridge you can see how fast the current below is moving which would probably explain a great amount of the deaths.

We snapped a few pics on one end just before getting on and then began the 1.7 mile hike into Marin County. Along the way you'd see several telephone booths with connected to a Crisis Counseling hot-line since SO many people commit suicide off this bridge, throwing themselves into the water down below.
I thought it was kind of funny at first because it isn't that often in NY that people try to kill themselves by jumping off any of the major bridges but apparently its a big problem here. They have surveillance cameras that regularly watch for people doing whatever.

It was quite a walk with some pretty amazing views of both the city and Sausalito. There were so many great opportunites for some amazing pictures.
The fog (fast moving clouds) added to the prety unique effect of how everything looked. It's kind of funny to see how the fog only goes over the city and not anywhere else.

When we finally reached the other end, the sun was out and shining. We walked over to the other welcome center where we had some opportunities to take a well deserved break. Also took a few more pictures overlooking the city of SF and the bridge. Exhausted, we began he walk back across the Golden Gate to catch the bus and head back into the city. It was nice and warm on the Marin County side of the bridge but SOO cold on the SF side.

Later that day, Maritess' friend Dyanne picked us up and we went to a presentation in Oakland. It was pretty cool to get out of SF for a bit and look at it from the outside / drive past Oakland on the freeway. I was able to take a quick peek into the Oakland A's stadium and also see some of George Lucas' inspiration for Star Wars (The machine's they use for loading / unloading cargo ships was his inspiration for one of the Star Wars' things... not sure which one exactly).

After the presentation we both met up with Maritess' friend Brad at a lounge called Canvas Gallery. It was this really artsy place across from Golden Gate Park. It was pretty cool how they decorated the picture; including the picture of the woman killing a kitten.

After a long day, it was finally nice to lay my head down on the pillow. The next day (today) is just a day for R&R while Maritess packed for home.

For more pictures from yesterday check em' here: GGB Pics

So several years back, I learned that my cousin Richie's band (Hail Social) was getting signed to a label. Things have been doing really well for them as their CD dropped within the last year. Their name is starting to be more familiar up and down the East Coast. I've heard in Philly that they're on the radio all the time and their CD is available in music stores everywhere.

Besides having a CD, what else does every band need? ... A music video! Thanks to my cousin Laurence for hooking me up with the link. Check out their video here:
Hail Social - Hands Are Tied

Now everyone go out and buy their CD... and no I won't send it to ya =)

Hail Social - "Hail Social"

So this morning, I left at about 515am on my journey from home to San Francisco. I had a two-half hour layover in Chicago. I thought that my flight was going to be delayed departing but it left just on time. Infact I ended up arriving 30 minutes ahead of schedule! The best thing was as soon as I got to the baggage claim, my bags were placed on an earlier flight and was waiting right there for me.

So I waited for Maritess & her cousin JC to pick me up (THANKS SO MUCH!). Afterwards we high-tailed out of there and hit up a local In-N-Out. I had it for the first time, complete with animal style fries. It was like real food vs the growth-hormone infested crap they serve at McD's.

Maritess and I had gotten dropped off at her apartment as JC had class (damn shame she didn't come play with us).

I dropped my bags and I was off. We took the local bus to get around SF. Let me tell you that my $2 fare got me a long way! Between transfers, through all the different bus lines we finally found ourselves on the other side of Lombard Street. Yes thats right, the RIDICULOUSLY steep side of it.

So yeah, six days later we finally made it ot the top and was greeted with this:

More pictures

This thing is WILD. Here is an exception to have a V8 with these ridiculous gas prices.

Heres a video courtesy of the DubAudiGruppe.

BlackPeopleLoveUs.com

It's illegal in 17 states!

lapdance

Cute biker chick



Biker chick 9 feet later


^^ no longer cute biker chick ^^