current selection | gotan project – santa maria
feelin’ | a bit too warm now

i headed back to nj after (post-thanksgiving) work on friday. my parents…being the wholesome family that we are…were not around to pick me up since they were already off at a party of theirs. so fish came and picked me up from the bus stop. he actually convinced me to try out this vegetarian chinese restaurant nearby. so even tho im for the most part a carnivore, i still love me some tofu. the dishes were pretty yum…except the crystal spinach (spinach wrapped in a rice skin). not because it sucked or anything, mind you…we were just trying new dishes and it turned out not to be our bag. we headed to starbucks afterwards for some old-fashioned coffee and chess. fish even got coffee this time around (he usually gets tea). there was an over-abundance of high school seniors/college freshman-back-for-the-holidays doting around, being obnoxiously loud and thoroughly cheeky. fuck, were we like that after freshman year? whatever. i got mauled twice after blitzkrieg-ing two games in a row. oops. the first game was all-out war, with me instigating the blitzkrieg straight up the middle. the second game sneak-attack blitzkrieg was reeeally close to being pulled off. i thought it was rather sneaky…a knight was nonchalantly heading up the left side to fork his rook while an attacking queen and bishop were diverting attention elsewhere. fish has played against me way too long and picked up on it right as he was about to fall for it. argh! anyhoo, as it usually goes, i went poo afterwards and fish deftly manuevered a checkmate when my king was cut off from any supporting pieces.

saturday was my family’s official “thanksgiving hibachi”. screw turkey. when my sis and her bf arrived around 11, we headed off to sakura for hibachi lovin’. after eating too much, we went holiday shopping at willowbrook mall. (ah…memories…) parents+shopping=rock, so i had to milk it for all its worth. i got new shoes, pants, a swish tie, and a pullover…all care-of “the dad“. woo. after getting some smoothies from the food court, we headed off. we swung by the dealership to pick up my sis’ car that was being serviced, so i finally got to see her new rav that was bought with the blood of my celica(!!!) after chilling around the house for a bit, the kids left the house (since my parents were heading to another party that nite anyway). crazy fuckers.

anyhoo, its december 1st. crazy. i like how theres ample snow in the banner, and the whole notion of snow in december in general…even tho ive never really seen much snow in december before. oops.

current selection | pizzicato five – the girl from ipanema
feelin’ | less cold

oh yea. id like to make a shawd-out to alice and her dog pee pee. is that spelled right? pee pee? as in urinate? or is it pi pi…but then someone might misinterpret that as being pronounced “pie pie” or something dorkily mathematical. if that were the case, then id just refer to the dog as pie~squared, which if we just happened to plug in an “r” between the pie and squared, would make her dog the area of a circle. whatever.

anyhoo, alice wants a pic of her dog here, so here you go alice. pee pee.

current selection | bobby darin – beyond the sea
feelin’ | indifferent

ah…working on a friday after thanksgiving. can it get any better than this? it can? of course it can…im fucking working on a friday after thanksgiving! no, im not actually bitter. i would probably be getting fatter in my bed while watching movies (again) if not for the fact that i had to get up in the morning to come to work. its not going to be a particularly exciting day, i can already tell.

wednesdays pre-thanksgiving celebrations started with open bar at derricks party at carnival. actually…before i got there, betty called to let me know that they were still setting up…so we met up and headed to pianos first. after a round of drinks, we made it back to carnival around 10pm and were told that the open bar was no longer “open”. fugaz. after doting around, we decided to head out because it was crowded. we strolled over to swim for drinks and sushi, but found out that swims closed! argh! something about violations or whatever. i feel like i got kicked in the nuts. we then decided instead to just go get crepes at the creperie. everybody got strawberry and nutella…i got sugar and lemon. yum yum. everybody decided to head home after crepeing…so i made my way back to carnival. i chilled there for a while with people i kind of knew…some i got to know…and then headed home around 2pm. i then spent the entirety of thanksgiving day laying in bed watching movies. rock. my thanksgiving starts tonite with a trip back to nj.

current selection | blonde redhead – in particular
feelin’ | wee tired

i cant believe i spelled thanksgiving with an “x” in it. like in the world of futurama, where christmas has evolved into xmas and theres an evil robot santa flying around terrorizing people. kind of. anyway…me, marisol, and her kid bro moses had din at an italian restaurant friday nite b4 we caught a showing of love actually. i dont think ive actually eaten italian in a restaurant in a loooong time, but the stuffed shells were quite good. i couldve also sworn i saw a pic of one of the gambinos on the wall. you do like the pasta…right? um…yea, of course. put the bat down. after din, we caught love actually at the amc e-walk…which rocked. i think over the course of my bitter years, ive developed an inclination towards happy cheeky romance comedies…ick! and with the added bonus of keira knightley, love actually was right up my alley. its a happy happy movie…with a little schmaltz thrown in, but all smartly executed. the body doubles were especially funny. “could you, well…massage her breasts a little too?” “oh yes, right-o.” > continued…

(more…)

current selection | radiohead – blackstar
feelin’ | swell

a reception was held last nite at richard meier’s studios to show the designs for the new milstein hall at cornell university. porus (the chair of the architecture dept) was there to talk about the new designs by barkow leibinger, etc…and there were images of it presented (but no model…pooey). the opening speech lasted 10 minutes (?)…tho most of the time i spent drinking wine and hunting down hors d’ouevres. milton (who works for meier) gave us a tour of their pristine white studios, and we had one of the caterers bring us our own big plate of hors d’ouevres (yum) and 3 bottles of wine. woo. after the reception, me and jackie taxied over to k-town and had sul long tang at gam mee ok. sul long tang seems to taste extra swish when its damn nipply out.

current selection | the beatles – hey jude
feelin’ | cold

we found out yesterday that one of our friends…liz…was going to be heading back to hong kong permanently. nutters. and coincidentally, i was throwing a party this friday (yea…a party. woo!) so in light of this, the original itinerary for my party on friday (drinking….drinking…) has been updated to drinking+having fun b4 she leaves our country this weekend. craaazy.

annas company, chermadong….geesebong(?)…was having a reception/retrospective at the cooper union last nite, so a few of us dropped by. it was pretty surprising seeing their extensive body of work. the nbc logo, pbs, showtime, time warner. cripes…it was all done by them! very coo…did not know. afterwards, nine of us went to yakiniku for some good grillin’. well, half of us were grillin’ anyway. our grill was toasting our short ribs good, while the others, well…their grill was sucking big. it was mildly heating their meat to a lukewarm temperature. we were also discussing the particular details of the party. like how to get liz thoroughly lushed and such. important stuff. most people left after din, so me, betty, dora, and liz hunted down some desserts. we tried out chikalicious on 10th, since a few of us had passed by it before and always thought it looked very swish. we were seated by the long lost brother of milton curry….very uncanny. we ordered two dessert plates for the four of us. they were served in these delicate little portions, all very exquisite. tiny and shrinky-dink (and relatively expensive)…but exquisite and yum. now all we need to do is get milton to come down to the city and have him meet his doppelganger.

current selection | télépopmusik – breathe
feelin’ | updated

my sis had this party once back when we were in high school. im usually pretty fuzzy with any memories over a week old, but i remember this particular one b/c there was this girl there…a friend of my sis’ friend…who was reading peoples palms for fun. her grandmother had apparently taught her some palm reading, so she was doling out readings for shits and giggles. i got mine read, and ive remembered it ever since. ill keep certain details of the reading to myself, for the sake of my none-of-your-damn-business privacy, but the gist of it was that id be rich (eventually…which is a relief, b/c my current self is anticipating this), that id have two chances at marriage (choices are good), and that one of my kids would be very powerful and very screwed up and i wont be able to control him/her. this is great…i get a hellspawn as a kid. so alongside their ability to hopefully spew fire from their mouth, s/he’ll also be a math genius b/c ill torture them with math workbooks like i was when i was in grade school.

anyhoo, all these memories resurfaced b/c i got a nice injury yesterday on my right hand. it was a pretty long gash across my palm…and when i was looking at it, it looked as if my head line got lengthened significantly. yay! an injury increased my contemplativeness tenfold. ive always wondered about the significance of palm reading. ive yet to have one of those moments when i go, “holy shit, the wrinkles in my palms were right!” but ive still been curious nonetheless. so i wonder whether this is how “revisions” are made to your manifested future…little upgrades or whatnot to the lines in your palm. im apparently about to get very philosophical in the future. quite indeed.

current selection | the two towers: se in the background
feelin’ | cushy

ah…lots of movie watching. yay! and even a bit of drinking too. i met jess for din friday nite. yakitori was packed, so we decided that it would be as good a time as any to try out oh! taisho instead. holy shit is it infinitely cleaner! and roomy too. the last time i ate at yakitori, i accidentally placed my bag on the ground in some unidentified liquid puddle. the majority of my mind was hoping it was water…stinkwater at worst. eek. anyhoo…oh! taisho has a liquor license now…so we got one of those giant mugs of frozen calpico and alcohol alongside our yakitori…woo. afterwards, we were going to take in some coffee and chess at 71 irving, but had we had to get my chess board from my apt. by the time we got there tho, jess was in no mood to trek all the way back to irving, so we popped in my sassy girl. her first time…my xxth time…heehee. ill never tire of that movie. and i wonder whether theyve started scouting potential leads for the american version (keira knightley, keira knightley…)

went shopping thru soho saturday afternoon and picked up a coo new long coat from zara. woo! then i came across a copy of the two towers: se and got that too. yea, the special edition, not the theatrical version. why wait til the 18th when i can just get it now?? woo!!! met up with fish at around 6ish at 32nd street b/c we were heading to the imax at lincoln center for matrix revolutions in glorious eyeball-popping imax. we had time to grab food…so we decided to hit up tads steakhouse. wooha…tads. it probably had some…or alot, to do with memories from high school (random tads and grays runs on the weekdays) but shit i luv tads steakhouse. after inhaling our food, we got to the imax a little past 7 (our movie was at 8:45). there were about 30 or so people already in line…over 90 minutes before the movie! everybodys as nuts as we are. we were waiting at the end of the line at one end of the theater lobby when i noticed that the other entrance was empty. so we strolled over and asked whether it would be opened as an entrance too. the manager dude was like, “eventually…yea. well, since the other queue is filled, you can be first in line at this entrance.” we’re like…rock! right before we were allowed in tho, they told us that the other line would be able to go in a minute before us, since theyd been there longer. some people behind us were grumbling, but the ticket guy was like, “dude…theres 600 seats. i dont think you’ll have to worry about finding a good seat.” 600…thats ridiculous. the theater hall was absolutely enormous. i hadnt been in an imax theater since probably junior high…and definitely not for a theatrical movie. we got perfect seats dead center and a ways up in the rows. can i just say how much matrix revolutions rocks in imax? wow.

after the movie, fish headed back to nj and i went to angels share to meet marisol for drinks. she was there with a friend of hers (me and names…we’re not so good together). apparently all our other friends were pulling a granny and heading home. something about it being too cold or whatnot. egad. well…all the more room for us then since we got a really cushy seating area in the back room next to the windows. woo. afterwards, we headed to drinkland for more rounds. fridays are the 80s nite, so no culture club for us…but it was still coo. they were spinning down tempo…mostly chill-out music. no “hey mickey” en español…but what are you gonna do eh?

current selection | roni size – heroes (kruder+dorfmeister remix)
feelin’ | miffed

the two best times to spill things onto your rug and make a generally nasty stain is 01.late late at night right before youre about to head to bed (bonus points for getting shit-faced beforehand)…and 02.early early in the morning while youre fumbling for the snooze button on the alarm and swipe the cup of chocolate milk (emptied…but with the leftover “un-mixed” chocolate) on your night stand. fuck. i spent a good part of this morning scrubbing at my rug trying to determine whether brown chocolate stains on my khaki colored rug would be noticeable. fuck. i couldnt do much in the alotted time of…oh, 10 minutes i had to clean the mess before i had to leave. so today after work i intend to do two things.

01.do my laundry (along with my bedshirts that got splashed also)…and for the first time in a loooong time, separate my colors and whites (rosa parks! rosa parks!). and…

02.systematically take everything out of my room one by one, turn the rug 180 degrees (stain, meet wall), and move everything back into my room. that sounds like too much fun for just one night.

ah…peer pressure. im going out to 2 parties…woot! dressed as a crazy 88.