I saw Peter Facinelli (from "Six Feet Under" and "Can't Hardly Wait") today.
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I was walking to a subway stop a few weeks ago after a night out on the town and I noticed a belt placed on top of a fire hydrant. At the time, I thought "how odd" and took a photo of it. It wasn't until I got home later and transfered the photo to my computer that I realized that there was so much more to it than just a belt.
At my second job today, I was hanging out with my coworkers when this dude walks in looking indentical to the main actor from "My Name is Earl." He wasn't, but turns out--thanks to the confirmation of my music fanatic coworker, he was actually the drummer from the Killers. So yea. Go Killers drummer dude.
Amused by the "-1" floor.
Some more sightseeing around the area.
Ate lunch by the water; A delicious meal of burgers, nachos and fries with Coke.
We then got our culture on by checking out some famous fort.
Goldilocks, let down your long hair!
Woa.
These medieval knights were shocked to see an Asian dude on their shores.
Charge!!
The bikers in the back were probably thinking, "Obnoxious Americanos!"
Jumping makes any cultural sightseeing more fun.
It happens occasionally.
Like when I visit forts...forts of loveeee.
Some hip area of Lisbon.
Rory demonstrating his favorite scene from the Karate Kid. Right after this photo was taken, he slipped and that pole went right up his ass.
After walking around a bit, we mellowed out at some really hip local outside cafe that *I* found. Credit due and taken.
Cafe action.
Ooooh, artsy.
The lower level of the outside cafe.
Seven hours later, after dinner (with copious amounts of bottles of wine), we went pubbing.
R doing what he does best when drunk--annoying people.
Day 1, Part 2 So once we finally checked into our hotel rooms...five hours after we had first arrived there...everyone took a nap for a couple hours. And then me and my hotel roommate got up to explore the area some more.
People make fun of how Asians slaughter the English language--you can see examples of this at websites like Engrish. But Asians aren't the only ones. We were extremely puzzled at the meaning of this graffiti. It made about as much sense as the t-shirt I'm wearing in the photo.
Some heavily tagged underground passage. A couple people on the trip commented that the tagging and graffiti in Portugal wasn't very good...but to be honest, I don't think most of the tags I see around NYC is "good" either. Even by NYC standards though, we were all pretty surprised at the amount of graffiti up around Lisbon.
Waves crashing against the seawall. Pretty.
I thought this fisherman had caught something and he noticed me taking a photo. He shook his head in the universal sign of "no." He had caught something, but instead of fish, he hooked himself some random sea trash.
I met up with the rest of the fellas at the casino! Supposedly this place was Europe's largest casino, so I was definitely very intrigued at seeing the goodness that awaited inside. Note the very pretty park leading to the casino--in the U.S., that'd be a big parking lot. If there's anything I learned from my previous relationship, then that is, I learned I loved to gamble at casinos. Visiting this place was at the top of my list and I got a couple others stoked to check it out as well. The casino inside was really small--compared to the few I've been to in the U.S. Also, there were no craps tables which is what most of us played.
These two guys really did well at the casino. One of them had never gambled before--and walked away with an additional 150 Euros in his pocket while the other one converted his 70 Euros into 500 Euros--all at roulette. Needless to say, the casino rookie, previously skeptical, is now hooked. Myself? I tried blackjack for the first time and ended up doubling up my money in 15 minutes. Not too shabby either. Needles to say, this craps veteran and blackjack rookie, is now hooked on blackjack. Most of us all ended up winners and enjoyed a celebratory drink or two or three or more at the casino bar. We also got the "in" on the hot club to go to that night from one of the cocktail waitresses.
Craig shows the love back at the hotel.
It's really bizarre, but at every restaurant we went to, at some point a waiter would walk through the place and try to sell roses to the customers. The guy above who won 500 plus Euros at the casino decided to be the big winner by buying roses for all the ladies in the restaurant--and apparently a couple guys as well.
After dinner, we all headed over to a pub with all the Brits, natch. A few of the Brits decided to get into an arm wrestling match, which led to...
...a freakin' arm wrestling tournament. UK vs. USA.
Alexis doing his best to represent for the US.
And then Alexis and Rory went at it. Their version of talking trash to one another was to talk about how hot the other's mom was. And in case you're wondering, yes, I did destroy ALL the dudes in the photos above--with my left arm.
Okay. This photo was probably snapped....about six hours after the arm wrestling extravaganza above. About eleven of us, including the guys above, decided to finally head over to the club..."Coconuts" near the hotel. Along the way, we met some...interesting people. Anyway, once we got to the club, which had no line and honestly, looked rather lame, we got the big brush off from the bouncer. In retrospect, I guess most clubs would have a problem with eleven dudes showing up, but they immediately felt threatened because suddenly more and more bouncers started showing up outside. We were all more calm than they were--and we tried to patiently explain that there were girls from our trip who were already inside and more were coming later, but they didn't really seem to listen to us. And more bouncers started congregating in front of us and finally one of them came over and started pushing some of us, and that just pissed everyone off. One Brit wanted to bum rush the entrance. The next morning, he saw us and said, "Oy, I realized today that there were probably three bouncers for each one of us...maybe it wasn't such a good idea to attack them. Thanks mates. Cheers." And then he went and had himself some fish and chips. So after we all finally drunkenly left the club, while yelling insults at the club, we then tried to go into another lounge--but none of us wanted to pay the cover there. So we made our way to the next bar, which was a pub, but they were closing down for the night. Finally, me and Alexis made our way back to the previous lounge and had a few drinks. More people ended up there, but after awhile, I was bored and walked back to the hotel where I proceeded to wake people up on my floor, including Pam--which as you see in the photo above, is a bit sleepy.
I also got Hector up. "Come on Hector! You gotta RALLY!" Which he did. And then we all went and chilled out in some Brit's room.
Rory appeared out of nowhere and joined our impromptu party as well. He later had no recollection of this photo being taken or where he was at the time.
And that concludes the first day of a long day of a short trip.
So I'm back after a crazy and frenetic 48 hours in Portugal this weekend. I hardly slept--a few hours on Friday and Saturday night was about it. But first, one bit of exciting news: Since I finally purchased a mattress, my Internet access in my apartment has improved slightly. It's amazing what a bit of elevation, thanks to the mattress and box spring, can do for increasing the signal strength of my anonymous neighbor's generous non-password blocked (the new cockblock?) openness with his or her wireless network. So now I consistently get...prepare to be blown away...one to two bars of WiFi. You know what this means? Less time spent with old unread books from school and more random peregrinations through the Internet Wild Wild West--and back to my obsessive reading of Salon, Slate and others.
Speaking of Slate, I thoroughly enjoyed their entirely unnecessary hammering of the actor Zach Braff: the guy who really proves that it's not always about looks with the ladies (Being a star of a major network sitcom and writing and directing a hit movie helps generally). You can't get more blunt than their title for the article, "Why I Hate Zach Braffs."
I'm moderately neutral with a side of benefit of doubt with Zach. I always thought he was hilarious on Scrubs when it first started airing and thought him to be that likeable actor who seemed like your best mate. And then I saw an appearance on Conan and thought, "Wow. He really sounds like a pompous jackass."
Anyway, the article linked to a YouTube posted creation (see below) that remixes a scene from Braff's film (in every sense of the word) Garden State. And I found it goddamn hilarrrious. Aside from how the Slate author uses that YouTube link to prove a certain point, the video is interesting to me because it embodies my humor and interests exactly: feigned intellectual "indie-ness" mixed well with the vulgar, uncouth and mildly retarded.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRH4gG5LmZ0]
Anyway, back to my new mattress: I actually did NOT purchase it off Craigslist. I figure at this point in my life I don't need to be using someone else's well-worn, used mattress. Although after factoring in how the hell I would ship some whore's (male or female) mattress from their apartment to mine, I was approaching the price of a new mattress anyway....so....I'll gladly pay an extra 100 bucks for a bed where I know how every broken spring in it occurred--probably after I accidentally drop a heavy bowling ball on it. Hah. I said ball.
Anyway, here's a censored PG recap of my trip this past weekend to Portugal with lots of pictures--and entirely way too many artsy fartsy photos.
Day 1
Hectorious taking a little nap on the shuttle ride to Newark--My first Newark airport experience.
Mmmm, beautiful New Jersey.
At the airport bar: Rory demonstrating his friend's coke jaw.
Rory is STOKED and AMPED to go to Portugal!
Twenty minutes later.
At approximately 4:30 am, this was served to us for breakfast. When I first saw the flight attendants preparing food, I got excited for some egg and cheese sandwich action (I have a sadomasochistic relationship with airplane food). Instead I got some cold bread with a slice of cheese and a thin piece of turkey slice slapped in between...and a milky way bar. I had one bite of the sandwich and put it away. The milky way bar on the other hand was absolutely delectable!
NOT happy about the Portuguese airplane food.
Jumping for joy at getting out of that damn airplane and getting to our beach front hotel.
We arrived at the hotel at 7 am--perfect for a romantic walk to see the sunrise...the Portuguese sunrise.
A boat...a Portuguese boat.
These fellas look like they are about to rob a casino or some shit. We all dumped our bags at the hotel, since check in wouldn't be for another four hours, and decided explore the area.
We found a cafe with signs suggesting that they sell egg sandwiches, which we were all craving. "Egg?" "No" replied the cafe clerk. So we all just drank coffee and tea instead.
Alexis enjoying his motorcycle, maybe a little too much.
A window...a Portuguese window.
With a few more hours to kill, we decided to walk along the boardwalk, where I took me some pretty pictures.
More beach action.
Group picture.
Tony is chilly in the morning. Note the big building advertising in the background--it's advertising Europe's largest casino supposedly. Foreshadowing...
Not quite sure what those colorful thingys were.
I feel like this should be the backdrop to those posters you can buy with inspirational messages written on them.
Man enjoying the morning air...a Portuguese man.
A shot from the Truman Show.
I can't believe I had this much energy so early in the morning after a long flight.
Looking for clams. Heh heh heh.
Okay, that's it for now. We eventually walked back to the hotel, checked in and took a nap.
Part 2 of Day 1 to come.
Nothing too terribly exciting to report from my weekend. I've been fighting a cold--bad cough--that I picked up from running around and dodging celebrities during Fashion Week. I started my weekend job this past Saturday and Sunday at the retail in Soho for extra cash. It's actually pretty great with decent hours that let me sleep for an extra hour or two and the store closes early enough that I can get my party-on if I choose. I can't sleep in until 2 pm anymore, but that's all right. The extra cash makes it worthwhile (and I really shouldn't be lounging around in bed past 11 on a Sunday, right?). Speaking of cash, I actually found out that the pay is a lot more than I was expecting--it's no finance money, but it'll pay for groceries and the occasional t-shirt. Oh, and I also earned a nice chunk of beer money, thanks to the commission. As my friend from high school, Sam pointed out--the things we gots to do to pay rent in NYC.
My coworkers are all chilled out and groovy; after work on Saturday, we went to a hip hotel nearby for a couple drinks. There, we spied Stifler from American Pie walk by. The next morning, as I stood waiting outside for the manager to arrive to open the store, the door bouncer and I saw Stifler again. He stood outside with his luggage waiting for his car to arrive.
The other exciting news is that my mattress is suppose to arrive tomorrow!! Shweet, eh? Now the girls can stop complaining about the set up I have right now (who knew three pillows could be so comfortable?).
Due to my busy work life--and lack of net connectivity--I was SHOCKED to walk into the Apple Store on Sunday to see that NEW iPods had arrived. This was an unprecedented moment in my life. I've generally always been one of the first to know about these sort of things. The new shuffle is very appealing to me.
I'm headed out to Lisbon, Portugal this Thursday afternoon. I'm stoked and fighting my cough like hell--I'm trying to drown it in OJ.
Things to do before I leave:
- Laundry
- Pay my ticket to the NYPD (bastards)
- Double and triple check my passport
Later kids--I have to go home to feed my roommate's naughty puppy.
These photos were from last weekend (I think).
Kickin' it with my boys (and the guys I would call if I ever broke my arm without having health insurance).
Winer takes the Blue Steele to an X-TREME level.
Kenny showing off "his" baller TV. Uh, his roommate's TV rather.
Judy working a glue gun like it's never been worked befo!
Me and Cy.
Censored.
Censored.
Censored (but note Cy proudly rocking his Smirnoff Ice).
Friends of friends.
Lionel aka the Birthday Boy getting his mask dance on.
Cake!
So my new permanent apartment is fantastic minuses a few annoyances--the biggest being the lack of internet. We're surrounded by roughly 5 WiFi networks, but unfortunately they are all password protected, minus one and that single one only provides me with one bar of service at most, if at all. My roommate and I are too poor and cheap to pay for our service at this point. We're just hoping a new tenant moves in next to us and sets up a wifi connection that we can leach off of. Blogging from work is a big no-no (and frankly, I'm too busy to do so anyway), so that combined with my limited internet access at home explains the paucity of updates on this wordpress blog o' mine.
I managed an event at Fashion Week last night--access badge and the whole bit. I was crazy busy ("legit work" as a friend put it), but I REALLY enjoyed it and I'm excited at what this means for my future employment. I finished working around 10 and then met up with a few friends. I had fun, but was too exhausted from a long day of work and literally running around at Bryant Park to wild out too much. I still didn't get home until 4 am.
I'm aware that my frequency of blogging--or rather, lack thereof, has been disappointing to some of you. A few have expressed their displeasure quite vocally. My primary excuse is that after a long day of work, I lack either the time or the energy for my previous average of 5 new entries a day--That's not to say I'm not thinking about ya'll. I got much love for my readers. As a peace offering, I present this video clip of a Japanese game show featuring contestants who have to say a tongue twister. If they fuck up...well, they get smacked in the nuts.
This was from last Saturday (I think)--shit, the days run together now. A Monday is a Thursday and then becomes a Tuesday before reverting back to a Monday.
Cyrus finally had his housewarming party. Lauren here digs into the food in a hearty way.
Peter avoids the all-seeing (and incriminating) eye of the camera. Here's the scoop on Pete. Amazing singer, gifted musician, friend....who I hadn't seen, until that night at Cy's, since graduation. For the past four years or so, he's been in Cameroon doing "good work."
Rather than killing his partying ways, Africa only enhanced it! For those that want to party and wild out--Go to Africa! Like Liberia, they can form their own country. Call it Alcoholeria. Or Drunkeria.
Me and Kenny (doing his best Miami Vice impression). Pete commented to me about how surprised he was by Kenny's wardrobe choices. "The last time I remember seeing Kenny, he was sporting some baggy jeans and a baseball hat. Now look at him!" Quick, someone call the Sartorialist!
While some of us were...
smoking the hookah...
(Pass it, motherfucker!)
...some were doing shots. Anyone that knows me knows how much I hate tequila shots.
Lionel (behind mask) and his friend doing something that was hilarious at the time, but I have no recollection of exactly-what.
Kenny--no longer trapped in the closet. R.Kelly still is though.
Friends of friends and some friends of friends of friends.
Dude describing how large something is.
IN UNRELATED NEWS
I had a run in with the NYPD doing their job enforcing uh...table manners. I briefly thought about whether I could have out run them. It would have been a good foot race.
Half day tomorrow at work. I'd be stoked and looking to get hammered as quickly as possible--except I'll be spending my weekend most likely looking at apartments.
Um, I say this as heterosexually as possible: JT's SexyBack is the hotness. Actually, it's not so much his singing, but rather the beat. Christ, that is a million dollar beat.
First, for the mindless: The woman with two vaginas has a blog! Although, who doesn't nowadays? Now for the cerebral: Harper's assembled a quartet of experts to discuss the potentiality of a coup d'etat in this country (not likely is the general agreement), which evolves into a fascinating take on the military's ever-evolving role in American society today.
KOHN: I've raised this point before with military audiences: Do you really think you can control New York City without the cooperation of 40,000 New York police officers? And what about Idaho, with all those militia groups? Do you think you can control Idaho? I'm not even going to talk about Texas.
BACEVICH: And this comes back to the federal system. As Edward pointed out, even if you seized Washington, Americans are willing to acknowledge that Washington is the seat of political authority only to a limited extent. The coup plotters could sit in the Capitol, but up in Boston we're going to ask, “What's this got to do with us?”
[...]
BACEVICH: Yes, all militaries are conservative. But since 1980 our military has become conservative in a more explicitly ideological sense. And that allegiance has been returned in spades by the conservative side in the culture war, which sees soldiers as virtuous representatives of how the country ought to be.
This final point scared the crap out of me:
KOHN: One of the great pillars in our history that has prevented military intervention in politics has been the military's nonpartisan attitude. That's why General George Marshall's generation of officers essentially declined to vote at all, as did generations before them. In fact, for the first time in over a century we now have an officer corps that does identify overwhelmingly with one political party. And that is corrosive.
I just finished reading Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Even more astounding than the brilliance of the novel, is the fact that she wrote this when she was 26-years-old.
I find that only a few contemporary writers can tackle a story that is epic in depth, as well as tell its story in multiple narrative voices and perspectives without drowning in its own greatness or narcissism, and Zadie Smith is one of those select few authors. And I'm even more impressed with her freshman effort since it tackles issues of race, diaspora, and family without making it a Big Important Novel About Race. This book is even more impressive, again, because she published "White Teeth" when only 26.
I'm currently 26. What have I done so far?
Let's see. Hmmm.
1. Attended two decent universities (one of them, which a drunk gal once told me and Cyrus was "one of the bestttt colleges in the....worrrld). Did not flunk out. Even got A's in some courses.
2. Cook pretty great scrambled eggs (in my humble opinion).
3. 50 to 0 win--Correction: 50 to 0 ASS WHUPPIN provided by yours truly against Cyrus and Mike in Halo 2 multiplayer. Submit, bitches!
4. Watched 12 hours of TV in one sitting.
5. Won a camera for having the best attendance (definitely not while in college).
6. Gained two feet of air while snowboarding (unintentionally...and off trail).
7. Led a group of 15 elementary school kids up the most difficult trail on Flattop Mountain (accidentally--"we" got on the wrong trail). Only three, that I can recollect, cried during the climb.
8. Vomited three times in one flight.
Wow. I really haven't done much with my life. Maybe one of my friends reading this will write me and tell me that a few years ago, after a great conversation with them, I somehow unknowingly stopped them from committing suicide later that same night, because they realized after talking to me that there's still more life to experience. Actually, I think that was a story from one of those Chicken Soup (Chicken Shit?) for the Souls. Don't lie and act like you don't even know, ya'll have read at least one of them.
As soon as I'm settling into the city I love, people seem to be disappearin' on me. Exhibit A: Kzar. Actually, I'm very excited for him as he closes one door in his life and opens another. Before he left, he and I had ourselves some fantastic food at famous--correction, world famous Peter Luger steakhouse.
Events initially seem to conspire against us as the subway we planned on taking decided to stop in the middle of a tunnel. Running late for the reservation, we jumped out at the next stop to catch a cab. And that shit wasn't cooperating either. Every cab was taken. After walking up a couple blocks, we saw an available cab. As we ran to it, some whore jumped in and took it from us. And then we immediately saw yet another cab across the street that was open. Like idiots, we sprinted across the street towards it. And another mothafuckin' whore took that mothafuckin' cab as well!! We finally scored a cab and before we knew it, we were enjoying a cold one:
Beeah.
On the suggestion of a couple people, we skeptically ordered the tomatoes and onions. Um, right--it was AMAZING. As our octogenarian waiter told us, the more of the sauce you pour over the tomatoes and onions, the more delicious it is. He's right!!
Pre-cut! My lazy self loves it!
Perfectly cooked medium rare beef.
The waiter said that to get to the meat on the bone, I had to get into it with my hands. Just following the elder's advice, ya'll.
Gotta pour the grease to give it that extra delicious Peter Luger flava. Flava flavvvvvv!
Chokeeeee.
Again, we followed the waiter's advice and got with the pecan pie (seen here with their famous schlag or whatchamacallit). Soooo good.
Coins.
The subway ride home afterwards was brutal. Took me about two hours because of the shitty late night subways.
This photo was brought to you by the color yellow.
Walking man.
Good luck Kzar! See ya in a bit.
Okay, they aren't exactly prostituting her out--the magazine is really looking for guys to go on a date with a 29 year old woman who happens also to be a virgin. I don't know if posting that casting call on Craigslist is the best way to go.
Go on a blind date for a national women's magazine! - 29 Reply to: pers-194468047@craigslist.org Date: 2006-08-15, 1:30PM EDTHey everyone!
A national women's magazine is looking for guys between the ages of 26 and 33 in the NYC metro area to go on a blind date with Sarah, a 29-year-old virgin. The group of potential guys will be posted on our website, and readers will choose the lucky guy Sarah goes out with.
Send me an email ASAP if interested, and I'll send you a little questionaire about yourself to fill out.
I had lots and lots of free wings tonight. Thanks to Pat for the invite.
This month is the month of Kzar, as it well should be. Last week was his birthday party and this past weekend we had a going away party for him. I wish him the best of luck in Man Francisco!
Subway ride into Manhattan.
Biggie Stardust in the house, ya'll.
Absolute Subway.
We first chilled out in Tribeca for a bit. I forgot the name, but these drinks--beer poured over spicy chile--kicked ass.
"Uh, dude, you have salt all over your chin."
And then we went to another nearby to play some pool and drink a couple pitchers.
Truly civilized people drink out of pitchers, apparently.
I'm doing my best impression of a pucker fish.
Doing my part to contribute to the city's sanitary conditions. We then began walking east to head to the party at The Magician.
Hey! That's my name!
Jumping to contribute to the city's cultural atmosphere.
Jump!
At the Magician, we met up with Cristina and Munira and their uh, friends.
After a few drinks at the Magician, we walked next door to La Caverna. Cy, Kzar and Kenny are having a raucous discussion about something--of no significance, no doubt.
Check out how ghetto Kzar's camera is--rubber band keeping it together. Haha.
The two Laurens showing how much they'll miss Kzar.
Kzar showing Cristina how much he'll miss her.
"Uh, should we dance?"
"Yes!"
"Whaaaa?"
"Whaaaa?"
A thumb's up and a drink for Munira.
Kenny and Munira attempting to give the camera the sexy.
Kzar and Kenny pondering whether they should hit the hookah.
Uh, clearly Kzar wants to! Haha.
Kzar is hitting that pipe HARD.
Whisper whisper whisper.
Kzar tries to psych up his about-to-pass-out roommate by getting him to arm wrestle.
Lauren attempts to do her most gangstaness.
After dancin' the night away, we left to get some grub.
Kenny told us he drove and we thought, "Great! Shot gun!" Alas, as we walked and walked, Kenny suddenly stopped and muttered, "Um...I'm not...quite sure where I exactly parked the car." Doh!
Kzar looks to his Treo for answers to where the car might be located.
Cy looks to his biceps for answers to where the car might be located.
We finally found the car (it was parked just a block away) and ate in K-Town.
The End.
On Saturday afternoon , I was on the R train going from Brooklyn to Union Square. In the subway car I was in, I noticed a trio of young Spanish tourists. One of them was taking photographs of New Yorkers in the car. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but he was taking pictures in a way that was very annoying to not just myself, but everyone else in the subway car. Finally, a kid came over from one end of the car and stood across the tourist photographer. He then took out his camera phone and began taking photos of the tourist who sat pretending to be unaware. I then tried to take out my camera to take a picture of the local kid taking a photo of the tourist photographer--sort of like a Western gun standoff, except instead of a gun, we have cameras. Alas, I couldn't get my camera out in time.
After a night of partying, there's nothing like chilling out on a roof the next day. I spent all afternoon today on a rooftop in Brooklyn with a great view of everything from the Statue of Liberty to the Empire State Building. I took some photos, listened to some music and read a bit.
Plant.
Pat reading.
Neighbors.
Pat giving a big "fuck you" to the condo being built across the way.
Screws.
Screws 2.
Gates!
I don't know.
Rustic red.
Rustic red 2.
Framed Manhattan.
Yay, soft focus.
Hello? Is anyone out there?
Buddy Cianci enjoying Brooklyn as well.
Buddy.
Shadows.