pres.umptuo.us

aprilmayjun3: man i hate lunch meetings
aprilmayjun3: i just want to get out of the office
aprilmayjun3: i love jelly beans tho =)

minutes later…

aprilmayjun3: omg my stomach hurts
aprilmayjun3: i shouldn’t have eaten those jelly beans

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and welcome to 2007.

The apartment is pretty much done at this point. I feel kinda empty having been occupied with apartment furnishing and decor matters for so long that I don’t really know what to do with all my free time now. I find myself looking for random stuff to buy that I don’t really need to fill that void. I love how I just have that innate consumer behavior.

The biggest hurdle of moving out has been finding cheap food. Fast food’s always an option but it’s so bleh. I’ve been making a map of places to eat in the Irvine area using CommunityWalk based on personal knowledge and a couple of OC foodblogs I frequent (Monster Munching and Chubbypanda). If anyone has any recommendations I’m open to it.

I tried the carne asada fries at Taco Spot in Eagle Rock, located across from Oinkster. They paled in comparison to the ones from Alerto’s. I’ve still yet to find a decent place in LA for carne asada fries.

I made a New Year’s resolution to read at least two books a month. It should probably be more writing related, but I gotta start somewhere.

• Two Phrases That Destroyed American Culture. I really hate people at restaurants who act like their lives have just been ruined because of a mistake in their order.

  Thursday December 14, 2006

• Fuwarinka Functional Candy and Gum. These sound so strange that they must work!

  Monday October 30, 2006

The News

Pluto is no longer a planet. Honestly I’m sure nobody really cared, but this line in the article drew my attention:

However, the first definition of a planet approved after a heated debate among some 2,500 scientists and astronomers drew a clear distinction between Pluto and the other eight planets.

I would have loved to be in the room with all those astronomers debating heatedly over the status of Pluto as a planet. I imagine some would be holding their astrolabes and telescopes, shouting “Not a planet!” and someone else would interject with, “Copernicus would never stand for this!” Those crazy astronomers.

The Music

I’m loving the Magnetic Fields right now. I’d link to some music samples, unfortunately I can’t seem to find any. Just trust me that they’re good.

Regina Spektor has a funky way of singing that grows on me. Audrey said she sounds like a retarded person singing. Oddly enough that’s very accurate.

It’s a shame Asia was a one-hit wonder with “Heat of the Moment.” I would have enjoyed more of their cheesy rock.

The Food

Richard stumbled upon an Alberto’s in Temple City which we checked out yesterday. To our surprise they served the hard-to-find Carne Asada Fries. Not quite as good as the ones we’ve had at Alerto’s in Fountain Valley, but a good enough LA alternative. Anyone else know of places in LA that serve Carne Asada fries?

I drank coffee for the first time in a long time the other morning. And by coffee I mean straight coffee, not a latte or a cappuccino or a frappuccino or a mussolinoccino. And it made me poop.

Does anyone know what part of the coffee it is that induces the pooping? I drink soda all the time so I’m doubting it’s the caffeine, unless it’s the concentration of caffeine that’s doing it. In any case, I believe I shall get another cup of coffee in the morning just to make sure it’s the coffee making me poop.

And yes, I prefer the word “poop” to “poo”. “Poo” just sounds incomplete to me. Gotta finish it.

• Pimp My Snack. An instructional website on how to make the crazy candy you’ve always wanted to eat? Sweet!

  Friday April 21, 2006

Asking For it

I left the Thai Restaurant with a big brown paper takeout bag with a “Thai Dishes” menu stapled to the side, and realized that since it’s noon on a weekday and I’m dressed in a t-shirt and jeans that anyone who saw me probably figured I was delivering Thai Food. I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to feel about that. I guess I do fit the part, though.

I Heart Commas

MyBodyIs4Sale: you want to watch inside man?
valloq: what are we watching inside, man?
MyBodyIs4Sale: actually i think you already saw it
valloq: lol
valloq: I guess you didn’t get my pun

• The Great Taco Hunt. I’ve been going to Carnitas Michoacan for a long time now. But where’s El Tepeyac on here?

  Friday March 31, 2006

• How to pour Ketchup (Catsup). Full technical explanation. It all makes sense now…

  Tuesday March 28, 2006

• Eagle Rock: the new Silver Lake?. The little town I grew up in is getting hip.

  Wednesday March 22, 2006

I ate Korean BBQ at Manna in K-Town this Friday with a good sized posse from Eagle Rock. $14.99 for all you can eat, although their meat choices are a bit slim. Three different cuts of beef and one cut of pork that resembled a giant slab of bacon. No chicken, unfortunately. It’s a very young crowd that goes there, and a lot of fun if you go with a lot of people.

Our fun for the night came when we noticed a sign saying we’d be charged for any leftovers. We started freaking out about what to do, and tried hiding the beef underneath our salads and kimchi and even thought of tossing it into the nearby bushes (the restaurant is outdoors). I finally got suckered into stuffing a napkin full of beef in my pocket and smuggling it into the bathroom for disposal. Mission accomplished, and when I came back out, the check was already calculated and all our beef-hiding efforts were unnecessary.

On my way back from work Friday and the whole night thereafter, I noticed my car was pulling to the right and wasn’t quite handling like I was used to. The dead giveaway though was how my car scraped even harder on the bump on my driveway than usual. Sure enough, I check it Saturday morning and the rear right tire is totally flat.

We jack the car up, take the tire off, and remove an extra-long screw that got embeddd in the rubber. Luckily it was almost dead center in the tread, so we used one of those little tire repair kits, pump it back up with air, and good as new. Lucky I didn’t have to go out and get a new tire.

I’d best be bloggin’ before the natives get restless. I stopped by Best Buy this past weekend to get the Iron Giant SE DVD. Those bastards didn’t even have it up in front with all the new releases. I ended up digging through the “Family” section, and even then it was hidden behind some other lousy family movie. $15 as the msrp isn’t bad though, and after a viewing with Richard, Tommy and Nathan, it’s slowly inching its way towards being an essential.

On my past couple of visits to Best Buy, I’ve been playing Katamari Damacy on the demo booths, and that game is a load of fun if you haven’t tried it yet. You control a little alien prince who pushes around his katamari ball which sticks to everything, and overtime it builds up mass and grows bigger and bigger. It’s one of those games that’s so simple yet addicting that it makes me want to get a PS2 just to play it.

Speaking of games, Half-Life 2 is everything it was hyped up to be. The physics are seriously insane, yet aren’t so complex that they ruin the gameplay. I must have spent a good 30 minutes just stacking up barrels with the gravity gun.

Highlights of the weekend: Jennie eating a rootbeer float in front of Foster’s Freeze, her hand shaking from the cold weather and saying, “This is so good, I’m gonna eat one everyday.” Then Nathan, walking out of a 7-Eleven with a big furry hat holding a Slurpee. Cold desserts in the winter rule.

A late happy 22nd birthday wish to Jennie, even though I already said an early happy birthday on Monday, but I’ll give her another one anyway since she thinks she’s extra special and gets a week-long birthday celebration. We celebrated last night by going to Casa Bianca for their great thin-crust pizza, spicy penne, garlic bread and mozarella sticks. Oh, and I got an orange cream soda. Orange cream soda rocks.

I forgot to mention that after the Norah concert I got hungry and ended up going to my wonderful cousin Jennie’s, where she made me a delish ham & egg sandwich. I then owned it up at Spider Solitaire (Two suits!). Thanks Jen, and early happy birthday even though we celebrated it tonight and you plan on having a week-long celebration cause you’re selfish like that.

I thought I’d offer a tip my dad passed on to me a while back that has proven to be fairly handy. Here’s what you do anytime you’re at a fast food restaurant and order french fries or anything else that needs ketchup: ask them for an extra coffee or drink lid. Pour your ketchup into the lid and voila, you now have something to hold your ketchup for dipping. Much cleaner than pouring it into the paper bag or the plastic tray.

Bad part is all the funny looks I get from people when I ask for the lid. “You want what? A lid?”

Thanks to Pat for the heads up on this one. It looks like Dairy Queen is offering free cones today as well, yay! Alright, so today, hit up Dairy Queen first for the free cone, then over to Ghiradelli if time permits.

Ooh, I almost forgot. A while back, Ghiradelli was giving out those coupons for a free sundae. I just got an e-mail from them the other day in accordance with my upcoming birthday for a “Buy one sundae, get one free” coupon. Free stuff rules. Okay, well not free…50% off stuff rules.

I have returned from a fun-filled weekend up in the Bay Area. We left late on Friday in two cars and didn’t arrive at our Uncle/Aunt’s house in Los Altos until around 1 in the morning.

Woke up the next day at around 8, left the house at 9:30, and made it into San Francisco and found parking by Haight street at about 10:30. Luckily for us though, none of the stores were open until 11. All of us (6 of us cousins) walked around the streets until then, and then slowly went into all of the clothing stores looking for clothes and shoes. Nathan kept screaming for his lovely Diesel jeans that he never found, and I splurged on some Onitsuka Tigers, as did Ivy-league bound Audrey, and thinks-she’s-black-but-is-really-half-white Laura got a blouse and slippers.

We then took a trip over to Little Tokyo for crepes at Sophie’s Crepes, which Jennie had been hyping up during the whole goddamn trip and kept telling us were the best crepes ever. They use some special mixture and you can actually watch them make it in the store window, plus you can get their gelato ice cream inside the crepes. Really good stuff.

Then we did the touristy stuff - drive up Lombard, drive through Little Italy and then along the wharf. Lots of new stuff seemed to be by the wharf since the last time I went, which must have been a few years ago. The streets were packed and a lot of new developments were going up on Fisherman’s Wharf.

Last we headed over to Castro just out of curiosity, and lo and behold, right on the first block of the famed Castro disctrict, we see Nathan’s Diesel store. I couldn’t stop cracking up for a good five minutes. He didn’t even want to pull over to go in when he was already wearing Diesel’s. Nothing like having his favorite brand associated with an area of San Francisco named after Cuba’s famous dictator. Oh yeah, and something to do with the homosexuals in that area too. =P

That was pretty much the fun part of our trip. I’d go into way more detail, but it’s just a bunch of stupid inside jokes. I’ll post more later if anything else pops into my head.