Games

Bruce sent me an invitation to play some strange medieval game on Facebook, and it reminded me of one of my favorite Zetho blog entries of all time, dated October 16th, 2006. The hilarity is not in the entry itself, but in the comments. Zetho’s link is on my blogroll, and you can search in his log for the date. Enjoy!

Your primary language of love is physical touch. A hug or a touch on the shoulder can comfort you and show you how much a loved one cares for you. Especially when you’re feeling down, physical touch more than anything else can cheer you up and bring you closer to loved ones.

One of my favorites.

Jason was playing basketball with his friends. He noticed a pain in his foot. He brushed it off as nothing. Over a month later, this is what is still present. PAIN.

And yummy summer treat.

One of my best friends, Reina, threw a party on the R-Side. Here are some pictures that I took when I remembered that I had a camera.

Most of them are of my 2 favorite guys from Escondido.

That wonder of the world, Guitar Hero:

One of my favorite party attendees, and with whom I spent a large portion of the night.

I’m not sure if it’s one word or two, but it’s this great dueling-pianos-type place. Very crowded when we first showed up, and then died for a short period of time during which about half of the place disappeared, and then picked up again until last call. A lot of fun, sort of like Honky-Group-Karaoke.

Here is documentation of the night:

And something appears to be wrong with Justin’s left hand:

These pictures pretty much sum up what every night is like when I visit San Diego. Note that gay men get MUCH more action than women.

Why? Because Justin wanted me to post more pictures and complained that the thumbs were misleading. So FINE - now the thumbs actually link to the bigger picture.

I just posted more pics to “Happy Birthday, BChoi!” Enjoy. Johann would also like to point out that I mastered the art of turning each little picture into a link to lead to the bigger picture, pun intended.

Here is another picture for you all to enjoy:

So Reina invited Jason and me to come out to Thanksmas, hosted by Doug’s college buddies. I don’t have any pictures, unfortunately, so hopefully Cheryl and Athena posted a bunch somewhere. I got pictures of me and Jay and Bella. That’s it. Sorry, Mango. You’re adorable, but we need subjects that stay still enough for me to press a button. Anyway, the house was beautiful, the people were funny, the food was good (I’m still dreaming about the yams and cheesecake), the time was fun, and I got good gifts from the white elephant. Yes, I had to obtain them by stealing, but I’m sure the victims liked what they ended up stealing as well. I do have to add that Jason already broke both snowman Christmas mugs.

Happy Thanksmas!

I really should take a picture of it, but there is a company next door to ours that uses a great deal of freight trucks. About once a week, they feel compelled to make a maze of huge trucks to drive perilously through in order to get into our own driveway. You wind in and out of narrow openings, praying other cars aren’t coming in the opposite direction at the same time. To up the ante, most of the trucks comprising the walls of the maze are still in motion.

12/13/06: Okay, I finally got a picture of it. Mallory is in front of me, trying to navigate as well.

I spent last weekend in San Diego, yes, as I usually do. On Friday night, Jason took me to the Chicken Pie Diner. I didn’t get a chicken pie, but I had a philly cheese steak, a side of mac ‘n cheese, and a root beer float. All right - I admit I didn’t enjoy the cheese steak much. Does it make sense to say they used cheese of a bit too-high quality? I think Philly cheese steaks are best with the cheese melted into a liquid, gooey consistency, which is best achieved with something cheap like Cheez Whiz (no idea how to spell that). I also thought there was too much bread. Anyway, I loved the mac’n cheese and I tasted some of Jason’s chicken pie, which was delicious. The root beer float came with an additional glass of root beer to add once there was enough room in the mug - a stroke of genius. I’d never had that before, and it made so much sense! At Cafe 50’s the other night, I had sloshed out about half of the root beer trying to squash the ice cream into the mug.

That night, Jason introduced me to the Wii. The technology was great: it’s wireless, and the graphics remind me a little of the Nintendo that I used to know, with the cuter, more bubbly graphics. But I confess that I am simply not into video games. I tried most of the games once, and I did have a lot of fun with the baseball one, but I was pretty much done after the initial trial. We played Excite Truck, and let me tell you: if we are ever in a high-speed car chase, if you value your life, you will knock me out and take the wheel. The next night, Kevan brought over a game called Rayman, and we all had a LOT of fun with that one, but I think it was more the company that I enjoyed than the game itself. Or basically, the way the company interacted with the game. I don’t think I would have liked playing the game by myself.

December Nights. I raved about it in the previous post, and it did not disappoint this year. Swedish meatballs with really good grape tomatoes (I usually hate raw tomatoes), empanadas from the House of Colombia (soooo good), paella from House of Spain (Johann said it wasn’t as good as Barcelona’s, but that it was still pretty damn good), and BAKLAVA TO DIE FOR from House of Turkey. They had two kinds: pistacchio and walnut. Both were amazing. I have never had baklava that good in my LIFE. Well, I had it last year, from the same stand.

Sorry for the lack of pics from December Nights, but I completely forgot to pull out the camera. Except for when we were drinking in the International House of Spirits. And yes, I know it looks like I’m sitting, but I’m actually standing as tall as I can. Jason is that much taller than me, and I was standing in some sort of depression in the grass as well.

I missed most of the game, because I was visiting a great aunt who had flown in from Utah to Chula Vista, but Cal came out on top over Stanford (hell yeah!) in the Big Game. I was very impressed and pleased to hear that UCLA beat USC. Which makes our loss to Arizona that much harder to bear. Oh well…

We saw “Casino Royale” on Sunday, and OHMYFUCKINGGODITWASGOOD. I can say that it is the best Bond film I have ever seen. I can’t say that Daniel Craig makes a better Bond than Sean Connery, because man, Sean Connery is the original 007, but what a close 2nd he is. Made Pierce Brosnan look like a joke.

Jason has a bunch of On Demand channels, and we caught “Dumb and Dumber.” It is one of my favorite movies, possibly in the top 10. I say possibly, because I think I’ve been calling a lot of movies my Top 10, and I have no idea if they all fit within 10. That movie is one of the rare gems that really captures Jim Carrey’s talent, not just his comedic, but his dramatic. That scene in the beginning where he turns from Petey the Parrot to say to Lloyd: “You know what I’m sick of? I’m sick of living in this apartment…” I can’t remember what he says, but man, the expression on his face and the desperation in his voice brought a tear to my eye. I was not at all surprised when he shone in “The Truman Show” and “Man on the Moon.” “The Truman Show” is another one of my so-called Top 10.

Dale and Johann recommended a place in Rancho Bernardo to get decent Japanese food, and I forgot the name already, but I believe it was something akin to V Food. We were so hungry that we ordered a meal for 4, and we almost finished it all. The food was tasty (loved the salad best) and very easy on the wallet.

So that was my weekend: food, the Wii, and movies. Now I’ve got to find a bunch of white elephant gifts for some upcoming Christmas parties.

Last Saturday, my high school friends (and BAM) got together (again) for some fun. No, no debauchery, as there was no promiscuity involved. I know, I know, now some of you are glad you didn’t show up. Actually, we didn’t even drink that much, either. Maybe we’re getting old. Most of us met at Cafe Tu Tu Tango, a place at the Block that, despite its location, had delicious tapas and sparkling sangria (mmmm!). Then we wandered around the Block, not aimlessly, however, because Bchoi was determined to get some Starbucks coffee and Sweet Factory gummy eggs. Unfortunately, Sweet Factory had no such thing. They did have pooping Santas and reindeer, though, much to Ju Yon’s and Sarah’s delight. Then it was on to Dave & Buster’s for drunken skeeball, drunken Trivia, and sober House of Dead IV. Bchoi is the president of the United States of Tyranny. Sam is fortunate enough to not know the sorrows of Creed, but unfortunate enough to not know the joys of Mandy Moore.

The only time it occurred to me to take a picture was after we left the Block to go to Cafe Ruba, a hookah cafe in Costa Mesa (? Newport?). We liked grape and peach, but not strawberry. I kept insisting that the guys were imagining things when they said the strawberry one was harsh, smoky, and ash-flavored, but I had to shut up when I took a hit and ended up with ashes in my mouth. Sorry, there are no pictures of that. I do have pictures of the girls playing Bonanza (someday when I’m completely sober, I’m sure the game will make sense to me) and the guys trying to look cool. Did they succeed? You decide.

At the end of the night, during the drive home in Brian’s Circle Audi Courtesy Car, I realized I was feeling sick. I don’t think I can smoke anything anymore without feeling some negative effects, so I may have to end up nixing hookahs from now on as well. Sigh…

So I spent Wednesday night with friends, old and new (BAM), pigging out on Japanese comfort food and assorted alcoholic beverages at Fukada (right across from Verizon Amphitheatre), the Yardhouse (at the Irvine Spectrum), and the Takano residence. Various people appropriated my camera throughout the night, and here are some of the results:

So the verdict on Fukada is that it’s damn good food at a damn good price. It was also a good sign that the place was filled with Japanese people (and their white boyfriends, ahahaha…). I thought ordering the dinner combination platters would mean that each dish would be slightly smaller, since the combination dinners cost about 45 cents more than the single dishes. Nope. When my food arrived, it looked like two dinners: a huge bowl of hot Sansai Udon and a huge bowl of Oyako Don with brown rice. I finished about half of each, and I still had no room for beer at Yardhouse. Thank God for shots.

Jason and Val, Fukada is the same Japanese restaurant where we tried to eat before the Iron Maiden concert. Next time we’ll know to go earlier and not rely on the scraps left over at La Salsa. I will tell people that the manager at La Salsa felt so bad when she saw the expression on my face upon hearing that they were out of tortilla soup and salad that she gave me a 10% discount on my meal. I bet Chipotle wouldn’t do that! Yes, I went there. Wait a second, Scotty doesn’t read my blog…