Hot Chocolate

WARNING: This could be a pretty gross entry

A couple of months ago, I brought home a can of whip cream and my roommate asked me what it was for. I replied with "hot chocolate," and she responded with, "what's a hot chocolate?" The interesting is that my roommate and I have a very humorous relationship and she was expecting some kind of explanation similar to a Dirty Sanchez or Cleveland Steamer. But alas, it was literally for hot chocolate. Since then, it's been a running joke for those who have heard the story.

About a week ago, I challenged Andrea to come up with the dirty definition of a hot chocolate. To paraphrase her genius answer, it includes the passing of diarrhea from one butthole to another butthole. Completely grossed out, but incredibly impressed, I was absolutely sure that this could never happen.

A few days ago, I found evidence that it has already happened and is documented online. I will not post the link because it's something that a lot of people shouldn't see, especially those with weak stomachs. But, if you are curious, you may want to do a search for scat.

Net net, gross.

STAYCATION

staycation (noun): Staying at home during your vacation instead of traveling to a pleasure destination. This can be caused by high gas prices, or just a shortage of money.

Day 3 just ended of my staycation week. So far it's been great. I'm taking all of the money I would have spent on a vacation somewhere else, and enjoying it with local activities. Yesterday included golf and the Lakers vs. Bulls game. Today was Disneyland. Tomorrow might be Wicked. Friday is a poker party. Saturday is Disneyland again. And Sunday is brunch.

Good times.

Side note, I haven't shaved all week to see how far my facial hair would come along. Figuratively speaking, if my facial hair were to be compared to some other guys regular hair, I would be the equivalent to someone with inverse culdesacs. I'll let you figure that one out.

We're part of history!

I remember when I was in grade school, I would read things like the attack on Pearl Harbor and how we'll remember it as the day of infamy. The women's suffrage movement that allowed them to vote. And even towards the latter part of our history books, the Vietnam War.

It's nuts how within the last decade, we've experienced things that will definitely make it into history books and that kids will ask us what we were doing when these things happened. We'll be able to look back and say where we were when 9/11 happened, when gay marriage became legal, and most notably, when the United States elected its first President of color.

It's awesome how we are a part of history.

On a side note, a lot of the things that we thought we would have in the future are coming up today. Will.I.Am was being interviewed via hologram on CNN tonight. And it looked just like what we envisioned in Star Wars when the Jedi's or the Sith Lord would communicate to someone else via hologram. These are really exciting times.

On a side side note. I came to the conclusion that helmets are not the most flattering accessory.

Don't let it happen to you!

Evidently, the future of this country may lay in your hands. Don't let what "happened to me", happen to you.




In lighter news, check out this International Teaser Trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince! It's awesome!

One of those guys

I've officially become one of those guys this week. You know when you're making a right turn into a parking lot or at a cross section, and you see the biker on your right side, who you kind of have to wait for before you make the turn, and it frustrates you because even though they're going pretty fast, they're actually going kind of slow in relation to your car. I have become that biker.

Today was my first day biking to work. I live a shade under 7 miles away and it took about 34 minutes on side streets to get here. There were a couple of interesting things on the way in...

• I definitely need to get a helmet. I think karma is going to get me back big time after almost hitting two pedestrians (one biker, one skater) last week
• I was inches away from road kill
• On Riverside, in between the Studio Lot and Sonora/Victory, it smells like horse shit because everyone there owns a horse and it's right next to the Equestrian Center
• This could be pretty scary riding back after work in the dark

"Wha-wha-wha-wha-whats your fantasy!"

I think this might be the busiest sports season that I've had in my life. I'm currently in 1 NFL Fantasy league, 2 NBA Fantasy leagues and spearheading the football pool in the office.

It's amazing how many people play fantasy sports. I think this year, one of my leagues is going to have a live draft party (like Knocked Up, where Paul Rudd's wife thinks that he's cheating on her, but he's actually sneaking out to his Fantasy Baseball parties).

TV Programming

This is the first year that I've watched both the Presidential debate and the Vice Presidential debate. I think that I (and maybe the rest of generation Y) have reached that age where we can really understand what's going on with our country, and how important it is for us to choose the right leader. I was somewhat "in the know" in college, but never really understand the gravity of the situation. Now that I'm out of school and working in the "real world", things like taxes, plans for the economy, health care, the war, etc. directly affect the way that I'm going to live. This is definitely a sign of "growing up" and I think what reassures it is that I went from listening to Big Boy in the morning to listening to NPR on the way to work. Nuts.

On the lighter side of TV programming, I think the usual line up is what's in store for this fall -






I'm also thinking of catching -

- 30 Rock
- Mad Men
- Entourage
- Fringe

On a side note, I've been watching a lot of TV online. There's a great site that has SNL, The Office and Family Guy episodes on it - http://www.hulu.com/. I haven't been up to date with Family guy, but I watched a few episodes online, and it's still one of my favorite cartoons. Here's a sample from one of the episodes from Season 6 titled "Love Blactually."

Love her (or him) to death...

Every now and then, I'll hear phrases in the office that have a totally different meaning than they would outside of the office. One specific example is "love her to death." Usually when I hear this in the social setting, people often refer to what they like about a person, or something that the person does, that they love. It's also usually used very superficially because I don't think that people that genuinely like someone ever says they love them to death.

However, in the office, I've interpreted "love her to death" as, "I can definitely tolerate and even somewhat like this person on the personal side, but I can not stand working with them." In almost all of the cases that I've heard this phrase used in the office, there is always the inevitable but that proceeds it.


*note all hers can be substituted for hims

Peep this, if you've ever been a victim of 419 fraud

Back in 2003, I was trying to sell my extra guitar speakers online and a fellow from Nigeria who "owned a music shop" was interested in buying my speakers. It was basically a scam more popularly known as the 419 scam, that I fell for.

If you have 30 minutes and 11 seconds, check out this clip from This American Life. It talks about internet vigilantes that get back at scammers -



If that doesn't work, the audio file is here.

Good find, Arthur.

Top 5 Zombie Movies of the New Millenium

In addition to yesterday's post about Braindead, the Top 5 Zombie Movies of the New Millenium are (in no particular order) -

• Dawn of the Dead
• Shaun of the Dead
• 28 Days Later
• Resident Evil Trilogy (that's kind of cheating)
• Fido
• Diary of the Dead (runner up)
  
  

And if you're interested in preparing yourself for a Zombie outbreak, I would recommend two books, both by Max Brooks -

The Peter Jackson that you might not have known...

Before The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, the highly acclaimed director, Peter Jackson, directed a movie that was truly ahead of its time. Before Elijah Wood became frodo, and before Jack Black captured a giant gorillla, there was a Sumatran rat monkey that was the catalyst to 1992's...

Filled with everything from a priest mastered in the martial arts to the undead humping to a giant naked mother zombie, Braindead can be described as Night of the Living Dead meets Alien meets Psycho meets Thriller. This was one of the goriest movies I've ever seen. It has entire rib cages being ripped from bodies, heads with the spinal cords still attached, the use of a lawnmower as a weapon and of course, a love story to tie it all together. What's really crazy is that I don't think there were any guns in the whole movie. All of the zombie killing was used with conventional weapons. In addition, the leading lady was a woman of color which is just as amazing!

Deer in headlights

I haven't done a ton of research during politics this year, but I thought this was really entertaining.




My favorite comment on this was -

FOR FUCK'S SAKE?!?!?! How the fuck are people supporting this nonsense?!
I can just imagine a notecard in her pocket.
Side A: Terrorists
Side B: Hell bent on destroying America

For the full article, click here

Art

I have a lot of wall space in my office and I've recently been looking into getting art to fill this space. Instead of buying art from famous artists that have died or that are "big" right now, I've decided to invest in pieces that were done by some of my artist friends. So far I have two pieces in my office -





Hinderaker Hall
Mark Gabriel
2004













X-Men
Eric Tan
2008












I'm looking to add more pieces from my friends that include -





The Battle of Bangkok
Rich Tuzon/Eric Tan
2005







It's Okay to be Different
Kelvin Nguyen
2008


and one from this guy.

Support your local artist.

It's Electric!

I'm having my murse (not a male nurse) cleaned right now, and have had to transport all of my essential belongings in my pockets. It wasn't until recently that I've realized that I carry way too many electronics. I came to this conclusion when I had my mobile devices in my pockets, and was thinking of buying a camcorder. The contents of my murse which require a battery are -

• cellular phone


• blackberry


• digital camera


• nintendo DS


• iPod touch


• bluetooth

This coupled with the numerous electronics we deal with on a daily basis is a recipe for the black shakes. I'm wondering if getting an iPhone could conceivably cut this list in half...

good for you

A while back, me and Staggs went to the HaHa Cafe in North Hollywood, and there was this really good comic there who did a really good set that included relationships, sex, people showering together, etc. He also did a really short joke on how when people say "good for you." In short, he said that when people say "good for you", it's just like saying "fuck you. i don't care." I totally agree with that, especially when the "good for you" is accompanied by a smug look on the face.

Top 5: Breakfasts

I was pretty hungry on the way to work this morning and was inspired to do - Top 5: Breakfasts. It was interesting that all of my top choices included eggs. It made me wonder if that is because eggs have become synonomous with breakfast, and we are engrained with that combination since birth. Without further adieu, the top 5 (in no particular order) -

Corned beef hash with eggs and garlic fried rice

In my opinion, the best way to have this is with the eggs on top of the corned beef, over easy. Then you pop that yolk and let it run all over the corned beef. The odd thing is that I prefer canned corned beef versus the real deal.

Steak and eggs with hash browns

I'm not too picky with the kind of steak that is used in this meal. T-Bone, NY Strip...whatever works. But you do have to either get the eggs over easy or sunny side up, so that you can poke the yoke and let that sucker drip all over the steak. And it goes really well with either a steak sauce or good ol' red rooster hot sauce.

Crab Benedict

The first time I had one of these was in Santa Barbara and they did something that was like a crab cake benedict. The second time I had one was in Toluca Lake and Chez Nous and they used dungeness crab and piled it over a croissant. Both ways were really good, and it's probably the perfect Sunday Brunch choice.

Longsilog, eggs and garlic fried rice

You can get this at places like Max's of Manila or Lucky Chances Casino and Restaurant, and it's good, but it never has that same taste as when your folks cook it. This is probably one of the worst things to eat (health wise) because the longanisa bathes it it's own oil and you have to either get the eggs over easy or over medium. I would say over easy if you don't have the salsa to go with it, but over medium if you do. And you have to have a side of vinegar to dip the longanisa in. Definitely.

Spam, eggs and rice

This is classic if you were brought up in a working class family. I remember my dad used to make this (and still does) and it would be awesome on Saturday mornings. I still find myself making this, but has anyone noticed that the price of Spam has gone up quite a bit? Sometimes I have to opt for the Champ when I'm in a budget crunch. Nonetheless, this one pretty much stands the test of time. I figure I'll be cooking this for my nephews sometime soon.

I just noticed that after writing this, my breakfasts consists of meat, eggs and rice. Interesting.

Fun stuff about China

I was in China last month for a business trip and have some fun tid bits that can be interesting or at the very least, some things you can bring up when shmoozing with co-workers.


Firstly, the Great Wall of China is unreal! It's a crazy feeling to just stand on a piece of history that has really stood the test of time. Just to think that hundreds of years ago, there were battles fought on this wall, and a bunch of people died defending it or attacking it. It's nuts. When we first got there, I thought we were going to hike up to the wall, but our guide told us it would take at least 2 hours. So instead, you take a lift (like a ski lift) up to the top.


From there you're free to walk up and down the wall and take pictures, and all of that jazz. Now walking up and down the wall is no stroll in the park. Since it follows the ridges of the mountains, it's like hiking up and down rolling hills. I thought I was going to pass out from heat exhaustion. I've never sweat so much in my life. I think we only walked up about a mile or two and walked back. You can't tell in this picture, but my shirt is pretty much drenched. The wall itself is about 4,000 miles long and is the only man-made structure that you can see from space.


Instead of hiking back down the mountain after an exhausting two hours of walking the wall, the Chinese have come up with a clever way to get back down. You can either a) take the same lift down, that you took up or b) tobaggan down! I did the latter which was really fun, but could have been funner if you were allowed to go really fast. Unfortunately, I have zero tobagganing pics.


Another awesome thing to see in China is Forbidden City. It is right across the street from Tianmen Square. Forbidden City is where a lot of the royal families built their temples, houses, gardens, etc. This place is huge! I started taking a lot of pictures, but figured that when I looked back at them, I wouldn't remember were I was since they all look very similar. I think that I heard that none of the peasant people were allowed in the Forbidden City, and it was restricted to just royalty and their servants. That's a big place for just those folks. Here's a picture of the moat that surrounds and protects the city. Again, this was during a really hot and humid day in China, and my shirt is drenched in sweat. But you can't complain because all of that sweating has to be good for the baby bump. Oh and if you ever go to China and you pick up one of the maps from the hotel, the scale is really odd. On the map, Forbidden City looked so close to where we were staying, but it ended up being like a 30 minute walk!


Other than that, there was Olympic fever everywhere, seeing as we were there right before the Olympics started. One of our guides said that they made all of the people and businesses around the Bird's Nest vacate for the weeks that the Olympics were in town because they didn't want that extra traffic to be there during that time.


A few last notes. A lot of the people that I encountered who spoke good English there had hidden agendas. They might try to get you to come to an "event" that their "university" is throwing, or they might want to give you "English/Chinese lessons". Be weary of these people. I was naive and thought that people in China were just that nice. And definitely try the Beijing duck (also known as Peking duck). You can either put it in this English muffin type bread, or wrap it up in a this thing that looks like a tortilla, but it's made out of egg roll wrapping. Oh, and if you're thinking of watching a movie, it's a totally different experience. The ushers there seat you, and you don't have to worry about following along, because most of the movies are subtitled in Enlgish. How awesome is that?!?!? We watched Red Cliff which can be described as Kingdom of Heaven meets Lord of the Rings.



Next up: Japan

The Top 5

There was an episode of Friends where Ross and Rachel made a top five list of celebrities that it would be okay to hook up with. I constantly have a revolving lists of celebs, but I think I have a pretty solid five so far. I wouldn't go as far as to laminate my list, but I would go as far as to blog about it. The winners are (in no particluar order)...

Vanessa Hudgens

She's pretty cute, and she's half filipina. She's local and from the press that's come out so far, she might want to get nasty.

Jennifer Love Hewitt
She's probably fallen off of a lot of guys' "to-do" list, but I'm keeping her on mine. She's received a lot of heat lately about getting fat. I don't agree, and I'm cool with her getting a little thicker. She has a great rack and a great personality to match. And she's very local. I've actually seen her in Hollywood, and I think she shops at the Best Buy in Burbank.

Rashida Jones

I think seeing Rashida Jones in her corporate yuppie wear from The Office is pretty hot. She played a really great role in the show. Besides the fact that she is also a model/musician, you may not know that she also graduated from Harvard and practices Hinduism. So not only does she play roles that I think are really cool, but she's also a smart hot girl with musical talent that can probably beat me in any debate or discussion, and sing me songs afterwards as a peace offering.

Kim Kardashian

I mean, let's state the obvious. The booty is glorious. Her hooters aren't bad either. I think she's somewhat local as well. She's made the list, strictly for the booty.

For more info, watch the video of her and Ray J.

Ramiel Malubay

This is the American Idol girl from Season 7. She's Filipina, she's cute, and for the time being, she's local. She sings really well, and I'm a fan of her asymmetrical hair. There's been some news that there are photos of her grabbing her friends' boobs. Who hasn't done that?? Anyways, she sings really well, and she's got a body karate.