Revisting Clerks

First off, hoorah! to Kevin Smith for ditching further projects like Jersey Girl and going back to grass roots. I've been dying to see another one Smith's classic Jersey slapstick comedy and have to say Clerks II completes my sateity for clever, filthy, dirty Jersey humor! I almost pissed myself when they showed the typical Randal Grave's, played by Jeff Anderson, heated debates over Lord of the Rings. Very similar to the debate he had with one of the customers in Clerks I, discussing about the time frame in which it took to build the death star in Star Wars. I feel this movie does justice for Kevin Smith line of films and is worth watching, just make sure to leave the kids at home!

New Room A Couple Doors Down

Sadly, I'm stuck living at home for the time being and wish to move to warmer climate. Southern Cali would be ideal for me; however anywhere that doesn't require long johns or under armour is ideal. To find some comfort and privacy, I've decided to move a couple of rooms down to the other side of the house. Basically I've gotten as far as possible from my parents, they are in one corner of the house and I am in the opposite corner. Costed me a whopping $1600 to move to the new room! Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!

Here are some pics of the new room. Still got to add some decor to the room, but I'm feeling a bit lazy and will complete this project later. Click on picture to enlarge photo.

Networking Frustrations

So this weekend was mainly spent on trying to network ethernet cables up and through the walls into to the overhead attic. It seemed like it was going to be an easy task, but after encountering the first box that had to be removed, discovered that this would not be the case. Bright lights shooting out of one of the fuse boxes, my friend and I jump away from the box. So here lies problem number two, which ended up blowing out the light in the room (going to have to call out an electrician to repair that).

I was praying that the other room would be easier, but let's face it things in life are never what they seem. Turns out that the wall we were trying to drop the wire down, had insulation padding all along the wall which made it appear next to impossible. My friend brought this fishing rod type of a tool to guide the wire down along the wall, but it ended up getting stuck.

Next day, went to Home Depot bright and early to pick up a drill bit. Two hours later I was home free, routing the wiring through the wall. I was even able to get the jammed fishing rod tool out of the wall. Big thanks to DC for helping me with this crazy project! Well tomorrow will be the official move into the new room, woo hoo!

IT Crowd

Complete 180 degrees my life has turned from never watching the tube to watching practically every show that comes out. There is warrant for this drastic change, mainly due to 5 shows: Everybody Hates Chris, The Office, My Name Is Earl, Lost season 2, 24 season 5, and the newcomer of them all The IT Crowd (recommended by DC, thanks man).

I got to give props to The IT Crowd, they really deliver the milk-squirting-out-of-nostrils type of laugh. Chris O' Dowd plays a character named Roy, who is one of the IT "drudgeons" that work in the basement. I recently watched a black comedy called Festival, that starred Mr. O'Dowd as a struggling comedian competing to win at the annual Edinburgh Fringe festival. He played the role well by delivering his usual outstanding dramatized comedic performance.

Moss, who is Roy's sidekick in The IT Crowd is played by Richard Ayoade, who also had a small role in the movie Festival, as one of the judges at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. With the use of his social ineptness and Roy's cynical wittiness, they make a great team ("The A Team", for those of you who's watched the first episode) on this new hit sitcom!

Naked Bodies!

Yea that title probably got your attention! Well it's true, the Bodies exhibit down by South Street Seaport in downtown New York does have human bodies on display completely clothless. Not only are they clothless, but skinless. Their complete innards including arteries, nerves, muscles, fat, bones, and organs are on display. These are real people who have donated their body to be on display. It was an interesting exhibit, however felt like I was stuck in another anatomy and physiology class. Interesting fact: a woman's brain is 0.5% larger than their male counterpart. Maybe this is why women always feel they're right on every matter/issue possible in the universe! I enjoyed the arteries exhibit the most, arteries were stained with dye and suspended in a jar on display in a dark room.


FINALLY A SNOWSTORM!
Well I'm not a big fan of snow, but I figure if it's going to be cold and winter like, then it might as well snow. To the right are pics of the snow on Saturday evening and man did we get it this time, with a whopping 2 feet of snow. So I got up the following morning to plow my lengthy driveway. I started the snowblow machine and get through about couple strips done behind my car, then all I hear next is gluh gluh shh. The snowblower ran outta gas and too lazy to refill it, I decided to kick and run over the remaining snow that blocked me from venturing out onto the swirvy roads.

I drove up to the city to drop a friend off that needed to be back in Boston to make it in time for an 8AM class on Monday. It wasn't too bad driving into the city, since many people were staying off the roads. Unfortunately, Greyhound felt this way as well and suspended all buses heading up to Boston until 8AM the following morning. Luckily for my friend, she was able to catch a bus in Chinatown. Guess which bus line this was? That's right, the FUNG WAH! Props to Fung Wah for working in tough conditions.

Later that evening, after dropping off my friend, made an executive decision to go play in this snow by hitting the slopes at mountain creek. Suprisingly it was not as powdery as I thought the mountains would be after receiving a hefty amount of snow. However, it was good to get the BIG 2 hours of downhill runs in no less!

Taken For Granted: Boston

Awoken by a pothole on my way to Boston, in the low priced Fung Wah Chinatown bus, I see the John Hancock and Prudential tower in the distant horizon as the sun is setting down for a rest. I really never thought of how much I missed Boston, until returning last week for a visit. It was really great to see old roomates and friends that I have not spoken to in ages, and wished my stay could've been longer as I was not ready to leave Boston.

Why was this the case? Several Reasons:
Food - Anna's Taqueria (tried Chipotle the other day but going to side with Anna's in terms of cost and taste), Maggiano's, Roddee, and the list goes on (yes I contribute to obesity epidemic in America)
Landscape/Buildings - Boston appeared to be a downscaled version of NYC and thought it didn't compare. However, after being home for sometime now and comparing it to recent visit of Boston, it was amazing to see that the buildings in Boston were warmer with a more inviting atmosphere, saturated with history compared to NYC's typical ginormous industrial skyscrapers.
Things-to-Do - visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (nothing too exciting here, except for some Rembrandt and a beautiful courtyard filled with many wild orchids)

Don't you hate it when you can't take pictures in a museum or take a piece of that museum home with you in the form of kilobytes or megabytes, and then you just want to put that camera to use by whipping that camera out and taking pics of the first thing you see after stepping outside of the museum?! This was the case after visiting this museum. So I rushed out of the museum and started shooting up the environment with my digi cam. Well these are pics I took, with my trigger happy camera index finger. Exciting, eh!?

WARNING: The following contains images of mass abundance so if you have a fear of this please skip over the images.

Resume: To Send or Not to Send

It's about that time to look for a job as sitting around, waking up at noon and hitting walls throughout the day to find stuff to do has become overated. At first you think today is a great day and I will step outside to take a look at the foliage but seconds become minutes and minutes turn to hours as dawn turns to dusk. The colors of the day blend in with the dark starry night, and you ask yourself where has the day gone. Soon you see your pals signing online (so and so has just signed on) after returning from work, and the guilt of not working sinks in further after this fact.

However there is one other soul that has a similar predicament, and to no surprise is online during the 9 to 5'er. A couple of weeks ago we met at borders to get our resumes in order to submit; however, it's been a dead heat, neck and neck race to see who can hold out from submitting their resume dead last. But with a surmounting pressure of credit card debts resembling that of current US war debts, constant nagging from various parties, and the threat of boredom, we are slowly being pushed into the work force.

Here is a scoreboard of current results: J (other jobless friend) scoring in with a whopping 1 resume sent to M (me) zilch! To be continued...



Update: Yes, I got that first resume out woo hoo! Unfortunately my friend here sent out one resume to a company and that company was forward her resume to 5 other companies. Rather than disqualify my friend from the race, being the good friend that I am, I decided to deduct the difference of what she had previously (being 1 resume sent) from the 5 that were sent out, leaving her with -4 resumes.

Sad Day In Tennis

I couldn't believe it after opening my email to find that Roger Federer (numero uno champee-yon in thee world) had lost in a five setter in the Tennis Master Cup finals, 6-7 (4), 6-7 (11), 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 (3), to the Argentinean, David Nalbandian. Nalbandian is one of the few world players to have a winning record against Federer, however Federer has won that last 3 meetings in the past, but just fell short of a victory. It was a shame that Federer was only one game shy from matching one of tennis' greats, John McEnroe, for the best winning percentage in a season, but damn 81-4 is not too shabby, not at all, considering my winning percentage is the reverse of that (my 4 wins probably coming from playing beginners).

Former Punk Rocker: Amy Rigby

I had the pleasure of listening to former punk rocker Amy Rigby at a small cozy independent music CD shop just off 81st street toward the westside. Immediately she had the crowd of 30+ captivated with her sharp witty humor and the voice that made you feel that everything was going to be alright! "What is the difference between a drummer and a pizza? A pizza feeds a family of four!" as the crowd laughed to tears with her 5 minute comedic act.
Her latest release 'Little Fugitive', which I was fortunate enough to get autographed by her, is a wonderful album that describes the tribulations of her past to present. But what really compelled me to go listen to her, was the song dedicated to the late Joey Ramone (1951-2001), the vocalist for the Ramones, titled 'Dancing with Joey Ramone'. And to no surprise this is my favorite track in the album, because I think it is safe to say that when you picture a true punk crowd pleaser rocker, there is no one greater than Mister Joey Ramone! It's just a shame I was a bit too young to really appreciate or see the group perform live.
Unfortunately, I forgot to ask to take a picture with her, but to the right is a picture included in her recent album, Little Fugitive.