took my mom out for a day at the Disneyland Resort (DLR) for her (free) birthday! it was quite a great trip.

didn't start at DLR though, we went to my sister's to pick up her and char. then to tustin to pick up kimi. then to john wayne airport in the OC. my mom and i finally got to DLR at around 1pm.

we parked at Downtown Disney to see if we can try to leave after midnight and get away with "free" parking. trekked on over to DLR and used her birthday voucher, got her birthday pin, and upgraded her birthday ticket to a parkhopper ($25). but i must add, we had the most unenthusiastic lady at our ticket booth.

( Click Here to read the rest of the day. Caution: Long. )

we were at Disneyland for 11 hours. 3 shows took a total of about 4 hours, so that means we rode 10 rides in 6 hours. amazing! word of advice: don't be intimidated by "long" line waits, cuz it's really not that bad, and you end up just riding a couple rides cuz you keep walking around looking for a short line..

what is up with my non-updating-ness?

last weekend, july 24-26: a little chunk of bMod headed for a weekend in Vegas. can we say HOT? and HUMID? but all-in-all a very laid back and chill experience. yes, Vegas CAN be relaxing. i felt bad for Mike because he was paying a grip for his friend that came along, so he couldn't get himself much to enjoy the trip. i tried to be the nice guy and surprise-bought him a beer from the bar. totally forgot he doesn't drink beer. fail on me. but i got to conquer the bachelorette hot dog at Serendipity. it was really good, especially with the bacon, nacho cheese, and chili. but i got owned after finishing it. had that full feeling that wouldn't go away. but still a good weekend. and we bumped into christian, jaypeg, d, gerald, and kat while there!


can't really grasp the size of it from this picture, but look for the knife and compare

within the week, i was doing graphical work for JayVee Studios.. and doing a lot of driving to pick up and deliver the graphic prints..

friday night, i randomly decided to meet up with rj, neil p, jasmine, texas, and hannah to go to geronaga's moving out party. it was quite random and very.. yeah. made it fun for what it's worth, but we didn't stay too long.

yesterday, i met up with gigz, his brother jay, his little cousin j-boy, kwaku, and cynthia for some coldstone ice cream. by the way, i like the cotton candy ice cream a lot, but the cotton candy taste only lasts for a little bit then starts to taste like vanilla (which i still like, so win-win). we headed back to gigz' house for a bit, then went to buffalo wild wings for dinner. car ride back to gigz' = wild karaoke session from jay. haha. got back to gigz' and literally chilled in the backyard for a couple hours talking about the most random things. i haven't laughed that much in a while, and what surprises me is that 1. i was with a group of people i don't normally hang out with, 2. no alcohol was needed to have a great night -- just good people and good conversation. "... there's CAKE?!" bahhahah

and hey look -- today, august 2nd, is Friendship Day. happy friendship day to all my friends! and if you're not my friend.. sucks to be you!

blogfail. havent been posting. ah well. the week in quick pics!

so after attending michael jackson's memorial last week, i didn't notice how epic an event it was until i got home and saw all the news coverage and buzz surrounding the incredible event. but considering the epicness of last week, i still had myself quite a week this week.

last saturday, i had much troubles finding my way to vegas for all the festivities. vegasfail. but alas, it was party weekend back at home anyway! started out at neil's residence for his family and friends party. occasion? NOTHING! his family just threw a party to have a party. stocked up on lechon and massive amounts of lumpia. beer pong then ensued. neil and i remained undefeated for the entire duration of the party. we were running low on pong fluids, so kwaku and jay made a quick run. and strolled across the street with a brand new 36-pack as seen in the above picture. as neil's party started to wind down, a handful of us headed out to jasmine's housewarming all the way in riverside. more pong games ensued. as well as dramatics. but all is well as the night ended with bam and thai at denny's. highlight of the night: neil peig finally finding out his drinking limits. ha!


left to right: bert, myself, jay (neil's little but bigger and older looking brother), danny, neil
on wednesday, i met up with bert to then meet up with neil, danny, jay and jenise at disneyland. neil was taking his family and little cousin's out to their first trip to disneyland. bert, jenise, and i tagged along with the grecia's for the duration of our visit. i knew it was going to be hot. so i came in cargo shorts and any white t-shirt i had. turns out all the other guys had that same mindset. we all wore the same thing -- unplanned. since there were 12 of us in the group including neil's family, we split up in half for splash mountain and had an entire boat each. neil started splashing some water into our own boat which started an all-out fend-for-yourself splashing war on our boat. i'm surprised Disneyland didn't stop the ride and tell us to stop reaching out of the boat and grabbing water. we were completely drenched minutes after the ride had barely left the boarding area. we looked as if we jumped into a pool fully clothed. good thing i decided to put my phone and camera in jenise's purse beforehand. bert and i had to leave the festivities early since he was going out with someone later that night. but that person ended up flaking on him and we could've stayed with the fam at Disneyland. ah well.

yesterday. neil and i decided to continue our Disneyland adventures on our way to the bMod beach day. plus, it was Disneyland's 54th birthday and who would want to miss that?? we were only there for a few hours since we parked at the free downtown disney parking. but we were able to ride on Indiana Jones and Space Mountain which both had pretty long lines. Big Thunder Mtn is the only mountain i haven't been on since i got my annual pass. that needs to be on my to-do list for future visits. we attempted this time, but the ride got stuck as we were about to enter the boarding area.

when our parking time limit was almost up, we left and headed to the beach to meet up with the rest of bMod. had some awesome libations to keep us busy as well as hotdogs and good people. randomness all over the place, and a quick bonding game to end the night around the bonfire. good times with the team. headed home and slept quite early.

went on a quick disneyland trip on monday. went with neil and met up with jowena, later met with bert, and even later met up with cesar.

long story short: we met up, tower of terror, toy story mania, mickey's fun wheel, 4th of july fireworks show, pirates, run through the kiddie rides in fantasyland.

by the way, since when did the Whinny the Pooh ride turn into a gigantron E party?



afterwards, met up with cesar andrew pat eric chloe steve and kevin for his birthday gathering at The Lost Bar at the Disneyland Hotel.. just chilled there till about 1:XXam. got home a little after 2am.. and i had to wake up in a couple hours to get to The Staples Center to attend Michael Jackson's Memorial. yes. i was selected to attend :) but that's getting an entry for itself.

guest choreographer BK stopped by bMod's practice last night to teach a workshop. to my delight, he taught his segment from my ultimate favorite set ever, Common Ground's Vegas set. sick piece. had myself a dancegasm. watch their set HERE. and watch it in high quality. if your Internet connection doesn't allow for it... why are on you even on the Internet? weirdo.


alex brittany and myself. jowena got pwn3d by tinkerbell.
finally buckled down and got myself a Disneyland Annual Pass! It's a deluxe so i have blockout dates throughout some of the year.. boo :( but still awesome at the same time. most of the blockout dates are major holidays and most saturdays.. when i probably would just complain about the huge crowds that are there. went with alex brittany and jowena this past Tuesday. even though it was a lot hotter than i'd want it to be, still had a blast in the 3 hours i was there (had to leave early for bMod practice). managed to ride the Matterhorn, then to CA Adventure to ride Mickey's Fun Wheel on the swinging gondola's *finally!* last time i went (which was only about once or twice in the last 10 years), the group i was with was too scared to ride it. toy story mania was closed, sadly. convinced jowena to ride a roller coaster with a loop for the first time ever in her life with CA Screamin. she did it! got herself a well-deserved ice cream afterwards, watched the pixar parade, then jowena and i headed to practice. alex and britt stayed a bit before heading out to visit.

bMod pool party later on today???

it seems that i forgot to blog about father's day. it went surprisingly well. after not seeing my dad in what seems like forever, i met up at my sister's place in chino hills. we headed out to best buy to look at netbooks and got him an hp mini 1030. then went to target to find him a card. fail on that. the card section was literally tore up. the only ones left were the not-so-funny-but-trying-to-be-funny ones, butt ugly ones, and ones in spanish. so we figured writing a small note on the wrapping paper for the mini would be good enough. and well enough, he loved the present.

headed out to RA Sushi at the chino hills shoppes. the happy hour there is awesome. half off appetizers and $5 large beer + sake. we only spent about $50 for all the food we got, and we were pretty incredibly full. all buzzed, we headed back to my sister's where we decided to walk a trail that leads up to a tall hill in chino hills overseeing chino hills, diamond bar, and pomona. it was quite nice (and) cold up there. headed back, played with our laptops, and finally headed our separate ways. day well spent.

---

anyways, why does it seem like the annual passholders for disneyland have died down with the disneyland visiting? i'm not gonna want to get a pass if the annual pass craze dies after a month like it seems..

i had myself a very full weekend.. let's go backwards..

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sunday. after lunch, it was a pretty uneventful day until i get a call from jaysarmie with an invite to watch the game at her place along with cesar andrew and shelly. i get there a little late, at the end of first quarter when lakers were losing, but once i sat down and started watching they started picking up with the lead that carried them throughout the rest of the game. it was a good win for the lakers, but i wish it had that edge-of-your-seat suspense like it did at game 4. chips, beer, limoncho, and churros kept us all company for the game. we all headed our separate ways shortly after. right when i get home, my mom's packing stuff in the car get ready to leave for my sister's place in chino hills. perfect timing. i tag along. we get to my sister's and check out her new couch that kobe loves to sleep on. watch happy feet in hd, have some pizza, then head home. a relaxing sunday!

saturday. come to think of it, i think i just bummed it out at home..


friday. my first murder mystery dinner experience! for jean and rommel's birthdays. it was held at the El Cid restaurant in Los Angeles / Silverlake. Rommel, Kyleen, and I were the first ones there out of our group, so we started mingling with the other dinner-goers. the first person we met was Mandy, some girl from Louisiana.. we then got to meet and talk to a bunch of interesting people. this is already when the murder-mystery started as we are meeting with fellow dinner-goers.. but we're not entirely sure if they are really just there for the dinner or if they're actors in the program. but it started getting pretty obvious since some of the people we were meeting were a bit more animated than the average person eating at a dinner. except for "Steve," who was an actor, but acted in a way that was so low-key that he could have been just another person like all of us. but he was extra creepy.. had that serial killer look/attitude and loved disneyland of all things. anyway, the security guard was the first to die, followed by our friend steve, then mandy was poisoned. the experience wasn't as interactive as we'd have liked, but it was still a great show to watch, not to mention hilarious. the magician/host was a crazy comic who learned just about everyone's names (there were almost 100 people there) and made jokes just about anyone in the room.


thursday. i made it a point to hang out with alex tonight. it was his last day at the dorms and was going back home to san diego for the summer. after a bunch of planning mishaps, we finally settled that alex, jowena, and myself would go to wingstop in rancho cucamonga. i know a bunch of bmod was planning to go to level3 that night, but c'mon this is my little brother we're talking about. there was a huge backorder on wings because of the game so we had to sit at a table and wait for 40 minutes before we could order. so we just sat and talked for a bit. i knew alex was supposed to stay for half of the summer for classes and to look for a house to live in for the rest of the year. but with summer quarter cancelled by calpoly, i asked him what his plans were for the fall regarding housing. he then had a very flushed look on his face. that's when it hit me. he wasn't coming back to calpoly. housing and tuition are taking a big hit on the wallet, and with the lower quantity of classes offered for the rest of the year, his parents decided it would be best for alex to finish up school back home in sd. hiding my sadness with the situation, i proceeded to force myself to enjoy the rest of the night. wouldn't want to have alex leave on a sad note. after dinner and about an hour in the parking lot, jowena and alex gave their last goodbyes. i then took alex to cvs to get him his favorite beer, Blue Moon, and get back to the dorms, get our drink on, and help pack the rest of his stuff in his car. we drank, watched daft punk's interstella, and finally packed his car like a tetris puzzle. it was time for him to leave for riverside before he headed back to sd. we bid our last goodbyes.. and i headed home. i've never done well with goodbyes. and this was worse considering it had literally come out of nowhere. was not ready for that goodbye at all. after rk and elise, alex is the third of those i've come to call a 'best friend' move to or back to san diego. gonna miss my lil bro.

---

even with this fairly full weekend, i've been getting this feeling of detachment. like i don't belong. or like i'm slowly drifting away. i think i know what it means..

i was browsing through my really old photos, and found this picture i took back in 2006.. around when i first got my pentax. since then i've found that it was hard to catch the cla building on such a clear and blue-skied day. and when i did, i didn't have my camera with me.


Classrooms Laboratories and Administration Building

i had forgotten to greet all the mother's out there a Happy Mother's Day! i don't think i even did so on twitter! Mo'Day fail on me! so here's a Happy Belated Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!

Regarding the mother in my life: she's only THE BEST and we had a very relaxing Mother's Day. traditionally, we always took my mom out for brunch after mass or dinner in the evening. we decided to do it a little differently this year. after mass at st. paul the apostle (where nick rosales from bMod OMG! claims he saw me), instead of taking her out anywhere, we decided to keep her at my sister's while we cooked for her. on the menu: bacon+sausage+vegetable fritatta, biscuits, cookies, ice cream, and mimosas. bummed it out for the rest of the day. jamie and my mom went out for a walk on a trail somewhere while i kept kobe and solid snake company. headed home not too late so we wouldn't keep jamie up for work the next day.

most of the day i was semi-stressing out because i didn't know where my keys were. i blame it on the fact that i didn't have to use my keys at all for the past few days: getting picked up by alex, staying at his dorm, riding with jay after the performance on friday, and getting a ride home from carissa after the board meeting.. i paid almost no attention to my keys. and when i got home, my mom was outside watering the lawn so i didn't even need to look for them when i got home. it wasn't until Sunday when i realized i didn't have them. but i was sure they were at either of the following four locations: Alex's Car, Jay's Car, Carissa's Car, or Jackie's Apartment. but then throughout the course of the day, each of them informed me that they looked and it was nowhere to be found. i start to worry and even emailed the event coordinator for Friday's performance to inform me of any Lost & Found items were turned in. then about 5 minutes after sending the email, i look at the jacket i wore on Friday and my keys were buried in it. fail on me!

time is dwindling.. i want to, but i know i shouldn't. it has consumed me for years and i can't let it continue.

i haven't made any insightful posts in a while. every thing's been updates on what i've been doing on a day-to-day basis. my thoughts are currently pretty scrambled and once i get it all sorted it, i promise to have a more meaningful entry.

fusion x was this past sunday.

bmod had a pretty good performance, but for me.. the event itself wasn't too enjoyable. i dont know.. the whole atmosphere backstage felt like it lost all sense of the dance community, especially in comparison to last year. it's not saying too much since last year was my first fusion experience.. but that experience just felt so much better. the dance teams backstage were mingling like no other. i felt like we were all there just to have fun and dance. but this time, it was lacking in so many ways, but at the same time in such a way that i can't put my finger on what was missing.. i thought it was a personal issue, but after talking to some people about the event as a whole, they agreed that something was missing from fusion this year. but i have to put some recognition on our runner, Angelica. she was so welcoming and friendly and our entire team loved her! one of the best runners we've had at any event!

much love and congrats to COMMON GROUND for placing third!! so proud of them! their set was amazing!!

aside from the weird/awkward/something-missing-but-i-cant-put-my-finger-on-it experience at fusion, the road trip down to san diego as a whole was awesome! after saturday night's practice, we all got our stuff together/ready and finally headed out to SD. our car consisted of: alex (driver), brittany, nick, jay, albert, jowena, karl, and myself. had a blast with my Catchphrase game that took up a good hour of the ride there. finally got to alex's house. once everyone arrived, we got settled and all fell asleep. the entire house was a huge hotel room pretty much. woke up to an awesome breakfast compliments of the manucal parents! loved their hospitality! finally headed out to fusion after a few group pics in front of the house.


in front of the manucal residence

oh yeah, i also got attacked by alex's maltese. :( :( :( sadness major. it sucks because the night we got there, Charlie loved me. would not leave my lap, and kept hopping on me to lay on. then the day after, i try to pet him and he bites the hell out of my hand. and alex is amazed because charlie never bites anyone!! and up to now, three days after, i can still feel a bruise-like pain where i was bit. bah.. alex and i are now even, because when alex visited me while i house-sat my sister's place, he got bit by kobe.. haha.

after fusion, we all headed to rigoberto's which turned out to be a huge fail because everyone and their mom was there and we didn't feel like waiting, ended up going to roberto's to eat, then finally heading back to pomona. alex almost falling asleep multiple times on the road.

a couple more pictures from fusion/ucsd:


alex and i at fusion doing our looking into the distance/sky emo pose


a sign in the UCSD parking structure. check out the dude's legs!! ahhaha

* * *
monday, the first day for what seems like a long time that bmod didn't have practice! alex was bored, so i picked him up and we headed to best buy for some random somewhat-shopping. i bought a cooling pad for my laptop. at first i thought it didn't work very well.. but that was because it was almost 90 degrees in my room.. but under normal laptop usage, i think it might work pretty well. a full-fledged review on the product in a later entry.

anyways, after best buy alex is hungry, so we go to in&out. i get something simple: fries and a milkshake. but he ate the world with a burger and fries.. and a few minutes later another TWO orders of fries. bro's a monster.

we then met up with kat, neil, and paul.. and head out to buffalo wild wings to end the night.

* * *
so can the hot weather stop already?! it's like spring just got skipped and the world went straight into summer! not enjoying it at all. but hope is nigh! today's high is supposed to be 79! which is almost 20 degrees cooler than these past two days. then the rest of the week (and even next week) will be in the lower 70's again.

random.. but as i typed this entry, my Time Warner Cable cut out and reconnected at least three times.. that's unacceptable! good thing i'm ditching this crappy internet service on thursday and replacing it with verizon FIOS. the deal we're getting isn't too much faster than what i have now, but it's still faster nonetheless, as well as cheaper, and hopefully a lot more reliable than TWC. goodbye TWC!!

the world is in an imbalance right now. a lot of bad things are happening to people close to me.. hopefully this bad spell passes soon...

happy easter everyone! if you're religious, then celebrate the rebirth of Christ! if you're not, then celebrate the weirdness of America randomly conjuring up a bunny that somehow lays eggs... ?

i had myself a very great day yesterday! started out waking up a little earlier than i wanted.. but in good reason. my dad's birthday is this coming monday and we decided to have lunch during the weekend. we took advantage of his free burger from red robin. all four of us headed out to my sister's in chino hills, then to red robin. i had myself the whiskey river bbq burger. finished my fries, and was too full to even request a refill on fries. we headed to yogurtland afterward. and to my delight, they had restocked on peanut butter yogurt! so peanut butter/chocolate yogurt + cap'n crunch.

chill back at my sisters' for a little bit.. then off i was to go home home and change, then head out to joe's sushi for jay and jessi's birthdays. joe's always makes for a great time. didn't do all-you-can-eat this time though.. i figured: i usually only eat 2-3 rolls worth when i get all-you-can-eat.. and on the menu, there's a three roll combo of my favorite rolls: california, spicy tuna, and the great crunch roll.. for only 13bucks! compare that to the 22 for all-you-can-eat!


me, rj, texas, anthony, and gino

after joe's and random picture craziness, we all start to head out to jasmine's for the bday bash! chill party, some randoms that were too drunk, some people that were too scary for our taste.. and you cant have a good party without the cops breaking it up..

with the party ended, a bunch of us headed up the hills of walnut and enjoyed each others' company with a view of the city. chilled there and took pictures before finally heading home.


hannah, rj, neil, and myself


texas, kim, and myself

as for Easter today, it's pretty relaxing. jamie came over and the three of us had a hefty lunch. a big slab of ham, bunch of bbq ribs, potatoes, rice, etc.

haha this picture looks fake...


hooookah.. flavor: chocolate strawberry.. it's ok...
rooted movement had a random no-occasion barbecue on wednesday. nice to chill with rm crew/21xl with some carne asada, polish sausage, hookah and beer.

bMod beach day is today.. soo... why am i not at the beach? i had to drop my mom off at the airport because she's taking a trip to San Francisco, which was around the time most people would be leaving to go to the beach. in turn, i made plans with some people to go late. so i shall be heading out there later on in the afternoon.

had random dreams that i actually remember for the past two nights. two nights ago, i had a dream that i had pink eye. but a really bad case. so bad that parts of my eyelid were deteriorating and peeling/falling off. pretty disgusting. then last night, i had a dream that i decided to park on south campus again for some odd reason, and after practice, my car was broken into again but this time, both my front and back passenger windows were broken. that's all. nothing too crazy..

so someone i know has a bruised sternum. ouch. but as he described this small injury, he ended it with "life is poopy." wow. if a bruised sternum is enough to constitute someone's life as poopy, then i must have a really sucky life.

so with my mom gone to norcal, i'm by myself at home this entire weekend.. anyone down to chill/drink/hookah/watch movies? we can watch Chocolat (or not..) or El Orfanato!! :D lemme know!

my mouth hurts. i've been eating sour skittles like nothing. haha.

i house-sat for my sister this weekend while she was at mammoth. got to spend some quality time with kobe, solid snake, and some good friends.

saturday night, alex got back from san diego and rounded some people together for a quick bite for some buffalo wild wings with him and brittany. i got my long awaited mango habanero fix. later, a few met us up: nick, jackie, april, and eric. after eating, i headed back to my sister's and ended the night there.

wake up sunday just in time to make myself a pizza and hash browns. head over to ma's house for a team meeting. off to in&out afterwards. then practice after that. after an early-ended practice, alex, jowena, and kat come with me to my sister's to keep me company, and so that they could study. they all meet kobe, who loved them. but they were allergic and i had to trap him in jamie's room. during a study break, i put on Planet Earth: Ice Worlds for them to be fascinated by. they left around 3am.

monday morning, i just bummed it out with solid snake. defeated Laughing Octopus before i packed up and left.

anyways, gg just finished downloading. woot. new drama tonight!

peekaboo! how creepy paparrazo do i look.. meh..

so bMod had a performance at the 2nd annual dance community awards this past saturday. it went great! i haven't felt that kind of a rush in while. thank you to the great hospitality of v.ent dance team. it was nice sharing the stage with mavyn and abdc's team millennia. after watching our performance video numerous times and noting all the many changes we could make to get our set better and stronger, i could tell the team is getting hungrier. only good can come out of that.

CHECK OUT THE PERFORMANCE HERE!

speaking of bMod, the barkada modern website was recently hacked into. that website is like my baby. the hacking culprits didn't do too much to the website though; all they really did was change the main page to a plain white html page with text reading something like "owned by -=M.O.B.=-" all i had to do was log in, get the files back in order, and change the account password. and everything was back to normal..

until the next day, when our website was suspended do to misuse and overuse. i contacted HostPC and inquired about the issue at hand. they told me that every website under the server that bMod's website was hosted on was hacked into and all the websites (probably thousands) had to be shut down. i just had to request a ticket to get our website moved to a different server. i chose New York because they would have lesser natural disasters than Texas and Florida (our website has experienced downtime when Florida was hit with hurricanes). a few hours later, our website was up and running, but rewinded back to February because it was the last backup that HostPC made of the website. so nothing important was really lost, except the shoutbox had a bunch of 'happy valentine's day' messages.. haha.

anyways that whole thing probably made no sense to many of you.. so here's to something that DOES make sense:

on my way to chad's house to get an XP install disc to repair jay's computer, i was driving on the freeway and my air conditioner was blasting (it was randomly hot that hour). and as i'm driving on the freeway, something flies out of my a/c vent towards me. my first reaction is.. "BEE!!!" so i'm trying to keep control of the car while darting around and contorting my body in weird ways trying to get away or find the bee that flew at me. and when i get a chance to look down, i notice that whatever-it-was landed on my shirt. and then i noticed it was just a piece of foam.

fail.

kbye.

let's hope that another day as frustrating as today never happens again. ever. there was good.. but the little annoyances of today added up to the point that i barely even consider it a good day.

started on some important video editing at 3 (!!) in the morning.. but adobe premiere is VERY sensitive to *.mpg videos with a single glitch or dropped frame in it (i choose mpg cuz it renders the fastest on-the-fly) .. so i was having a hell of a time trying to import a video into premiere for editing.. come 6am.. i finally gave up and went to sleep.

wake up super late.. past noon.. and go straight to more video fail. after numerous hours and attempts, i finally thought of this: what if i convert the original HD *.mov to a non-HD *.wmv, THEN into the *.mpg that premiere for some reason likes... this HAS to work.. but then the final and triple-converted *.mpg file still had those same dropped frames.. FAIL.

so, i took the HD *.mov turned non-HD *.wmv again.. and imported the *.wmv into premiere.. it worked fine of course, but the *.wmv just lags like crap while editing.. so i had the bright idea of exporting the *.wmv out of premiere into an *.mpg rather than using a video converter. few minutes later, i have a fully working *.mpg that premiere actually likes! i was able to finally get on with video editing. granted, the file i needed was converted at least three times so the quality took quite a step back, but whatever. it was the only way i could get it to work. but alas, all my video editing is almost finished! man, all that crap gave me a headache though...

my sister calls and asks if i can visit her house since she wasn't going to be home till late so i can feed kobe. i'm fine with that. plus there were plans of some friends going out to chill later on so it would help if i was already out of the house. get to my sisters', feed kobe, play a little bit of metal gear solid 4. then all plans started to crash down. we had stuff we wanted to do, but had no place to do it; was kinda left confused and hanging till 8pm because of circumstances, people (person..) not answering calls after confirming to go out and not telling anyone they weren't going anymore -- i'm super annoyed. that's the last time i arrange my day around other people's plans. end up getting some food at alberto's and chilling a little bit at the campus village. good food and good people.. but i'd have been fine just staying home or at my sisters the whole night. when plans are made and dont fall through, it just makes me feel like the night is wasted.

and to end the night i'm left with a little paper prize on my windshield. if anyone knows a 'kalem' from parking services, give him a nice 'i hate you' hug for me. and tell him how much i appreciate losers who have no friends on campus so they have to find a job where they can get back at the world even though it's their own fault that they have no friends and are socially retarded.

in all honesty, nothing today was even that horrible.. but added up, it just frustrates the hell out of me.

to start off.. here's one of those questionnaires that have you answer with your songs on random..

( music questionnaire )

my valentine's day was splendid. spent the entire day at my sister's in Chino Hills. it was my mom, my dad, jamie, bintu, and myself.. and kobe. my sister cooked brunch!! i had myself a sausage omelet, hash browns, and banana walnut pancakes. rest of the day we just bummed it inside.. with wine and beer. we all watched Taken, had dippin' dots, watched some of the NBA All Star games, watched Body of Lies (bored me to sleep..), drank some more, finally started playing Metal Gear Solid 4, but we took off shortly after.

anyways, the host server for the barkadamodern.com domain seems to be down.. hopefully they're working on getting it running as soon as possible!

as i type, i'm listening to harry gregson-williams' score for the movie drama (that i've never seen) "the magic of marciano".. i believe it to be one of his most underrated scores. it has a beautiful recurring melody that is heard throughout almost every cue, and is written in a way that it sounds beautiful and haunting at the same time. not necessarily scary, but haunting.. and haunting enough that one would feel some sort of apprehension when listening to it.. no idea what the actual movie is about, but from the score.. the story it tells in itself is powerful and a bit sad.

i had a strange experience the other day.. i was home alone on my laptop minding my own business, then all of a sudden i just feel weird, almost claustrophic.. like something was closing in on me. then i smell a scent of a cologne.. as if someone had walked passed me. i recognized the smell.. but couldn't put my finger on who it reminded me of.. i was spooked for a bit afterwards. usually when someone experiences that sort of thing, it's usually a scent of someone who had recently passed, like an old relative or something.. but the scent i smelled was familiar, like of someone i know currently. but then i brushed it off and got ready to go to Lust..

really liked the crowd at Lust this past Saturday! loved how it was a very mixed crowd, and a lot of girls.. making it easier for me to take pictures. i hate when the crowd is a bunch of guys who are "too cool" for the camera. a good handful of bmod was also there making the night interesting as always. all-in-all a very good night and turnout. headed to denny's afterwards and ended the night shortly after.

then the next day i woke up sick.. yayyyy boo...

random movie review: BOLT. i thoroughly enjoyed this film. i was kindof afraid of watching it because it wasn't a pixar film. and compared to disney's previous attempts at computer animation films i was not expecting much. i thought Chicken Little was horrible. i felt Meet the Robinsons was trying way to hard and it was just too busy. but disney got level-headed with Bolt. they went back to their storytelling roots and took some smarts from Pixar. and while i wouldn't put it up there right next to a pixar movie, it's pretty close. a little dog who thinks he's a superhero; that makes for a pretty enjoyable movie.

actually kinda made me miss kobe. it's been a little different not having the little guy walking around lightening the mood. i mean, as a pet, he just walks around without a care in the world.. and he was always a reminder to me especially when i was stressed out, to lighten up a bit. but i visited jamie's for lunch on tuesday, and was surprised to see that she leaves the balcony doors open for kobe to freely walk in and out. so he now has his first taste of being outside, ahha

i had wingstop with alex and jay for the first time on monday. i enjoyed it but, and i'm not saying that wingstop isn't good, it made me crave buffalo wild wings even more.. or at least the mango habanero sauce. we then went to CeFiore for some frozen yogurt. chocolate and peanut butter yogurt plus waffle cone pieces equals awesome. but i ate too many wings and alex had to finish my yogurt. took a random trip into CVS and looked at everything, anything, and nothing at the same time.

the same of us plus kat attended a barkada birthday gathering at dc on wednesday after a fun dinner at bj's. finally bought my ading a drink since he turned 21 in december! no more irish carbombs for me at bj's though.. things are freakin' expensive. proceeded to more fun at the house.

anyways, the ball is in your court. why should i even attempt to pursue when the last time i did, i was utterly and obviously ignored? this is not mine to settle.

i'm excited to welcome kyleen back! she has decided to dance with bMod again!! i'm eager to see how that goes.

tomorrow.. err today, is the grand re-opening of The Rooted Movement crew's event at Locust Lounge now called Lust! DO come out!! i'll be taking pictures of the night as with every Saturday night, so yeah.. parrtay!

random movie review: i watched Eagle Eye earlier.. i enjoyed it quite thoroughly. the suspense and edge-of-your-seat action is almost non-stop. i'll admit that a lot of the movie is improbable and maybe even impossible and unrealistic, but it still worked for me. the ending is what i expected from many a not-so-good review, but the rest of the movie backed it up pretty well... in my opinion of course.

my 2009 has been going along pretty well so far.. but just like anything else, life had to find a balance in the positivity and throw something negative at me. when someone really close to me decides to betray, it really takes a toll on my emotional standpoint and forever changes the way i find myself trusting others. and the question forever stands: how can someone turn their backs to the people closest to them? and what drives them to take both destructive to others and self-destructive action?

* * *anyways, as if i couldn't get any nerdier, i've fallen into a nostalgic chapter. with the recent movie trilogy and future wolverine movie coming out, i've found myself engaging interest in Marvel once again, much like i had growing up. broke out the old (but complete!) collection of my collector cards. haha geeky and childish, yes.. but whatever. anyone my age or close to it MUST remember the old school x-men cartoon on the fox network. i'm sorry, but that show was all kinds of awesome. and upon further research i found out that x-men is the 2nd most requested animated tv show that is still unreleased on dvd, following shortly behind MTV's Daria. with a demand that high, im sure some money could be made if they released it. supposedly, in 2008, the series was being planned for release in the UK, but because of some drama with the media companies, the release (if any) is unknown.

but in this day and age of technology, some geek out there compiled all 76 episodes of the 5-year run series and made it available for download. so 12gigs and a couple days later, i've collected all the episodes, and will be enjoying my free time re-experiencing the series. yeah i know there was another attempt at an animated x-men series "x-men: evolution" but that gained almost no ratings and simply doesn't live up to the first one. yeah, the animation is thousands of times better, but the old series just had better plot-lines that stayed true to the comic. re-live the intro to the original cartoon and tell me that wasn't groundbreaking for its time: X-Men: The Animated Series Intro. /end nerd rant.

* * *yesterday was a day full of japanese eating for me. started my day with joe's sushi for lunch. all-you-can-eat awesome quality sushi woot! we're pretty much regulars there so we were getting a lot of free stuff. they just love us over there! everyone, including the non-21's got free sake bombs with the chef. food-wise, we got a hefty bunch of sushi that would feed well over 8 people BEFORE any of the actual sushi we ordered came out. a few sake bombs and a full stomach after, we head out and part ways. i go home and take a sake+food induced nap.

i then wake up and get ready to head out to cesar and jackie's birthday celebration at a japanese bbq restaurant in victoria gardens, gyu-kaku. i've been to gyu-kaku before; at the huntington beach location, and i was eager for the harami steak. we ordered a LOT of meat, mostly harami.. and it was just as good as i remember. and the fact that you cook it yourself to your own personal taste makes it a much better experience. the dinner itself was a nice reunion for a bunch of us as well. headed back to cesar and andrew's for a few more drinks and discussion. barkada ski trip 2009, watch out. haha!

oh yeah, i saw this n00b on the freeway:


kbye.

this is my first entry of 2009. exciting.

my new year celebration was a bit more relaxing than i had wanted it to be, but still good nonetheless. it was the first time in four years that my dad, my mom, jamie, and myself (oh, and kobe!) spent it together. the last time all four of us were together for the countdown was january 1st, 2005 in vegas. 2005 seemed to start off okay, but as history proves, it was THE worst year i've ever had in my 25 years of existence. so this 2009 celebration was a breath of fresh air.

my day started with a mini-meeting/evaluation/bank errand with jackie. then i came back home and continued with a flyer design for jayvee studios. kept at that for a few long hours, while my sister dropped off some stuff and headed out for dinner with cousins. my dad came over and we all had dinner. stuck around for a little bit, then headed out to pick up my sister, who had a couple drinks.. she was fine to drive but didn't want to risk this holiday famous for sobriety checks. we get to her place and greet kobe. and tune into the almost vegetable dick clark and ryan seacrest for the countdown. we decided to be fobs and throw coins in the air at midnight. i honestly dont remember doing that when i was little haha. then we kinda sat around like "now what?" haha. come a knock at our door, and my aunt and her husband come to visit. she gives me a belated christmas present. and to my delight. it's a little clip-on led light. meant mostly for laptops so you can see the keyboard in the dark. so nerdy yet so useful! woot. haha.

after a little bit, i head over to jackie's to see how the bmodders are enjoying the new year celebration. they were pretty gone and not before long started to pass out. after some drinks and a game or two including catchphrase, i head back to jamie's and finally sleep.

let's hope for a good year ahead!

p.s. i'm cleaning my room.. wha???!