Happy Hallo-WEAK!

OK, this Halloween has been pretty lame...

1. Last Thursday, I saw the 3-D version of Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas.

I love LOVE LOVE the movie, but I was disappointed with the "3-D"-- it just never popped out at you. (I will admit that I still can't get the "Kidnap the Sandy Claws!" song out of my head, though. =))

2. Then on Saturday, I attended this party at the Princeton Alumni Club (it was an all-ivy event--I went with some Harvard alum friends). It cost $60/head and it was in their library, of all places. :-P

The crowd was pretty small (probably about only 50 people) and most of the people were pretty old. My cool friend, who was dressed as Marilyn Monroe (and looked smokin' HOTT!), kept getting ogled by these old men-- one of whom kept asking her to sing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend".

Moreover, the dumb "Halloween Ball" ended at 1AM-- which after daylight savings went into effect was really midnight. So we barely got to take advantage of their silly "open bar" (which only included wine and beer) and "buffet" (which was basically a selection of tiny cocktail hors d'oeuvres)-- not to mention the fact that it was supposed to go on until 2AM (false advertisement, anyone?).

Needless to say, it was a total bust. =P

3. On Sunday, I went to Sleepy Hollow (i.e. home of the headless horseman) to visit a "haunted" Philipsburg Manor.

Instead of an actual haunted house, though, it was just a bunch of small outdoor displays-- none of which were scary. And the headless horseman never came over to our end of the fence-- so I got slightly irritated at the fools who made us wait 30 minutes for the hoseman to show up. >:O

4. Finally, I went to work today-- not dressed in my ninja costume (as I lost my black belt and nunchaku over the weekend...)-- and our Halloween events were nowhere near as exciting as they were played up to be.

About 5 women were dressed as witches (isn't it time to retire that idea as a costume, already? =P) and probably the best costume was this guy dressed as a member of Def Leopard.

I do want to mention, though, that last year's winner of the Halloween costume competition was a pregnant lady who went as a pumpkin farmer and actually painted her stomach like a pumpkin, which was exposed to the world! But sadly, she was part of the quintet of witches this year (although it was kinda funny that she brought in her baby-- who was dressed as a pumpkin today). =(

So tonight, I stayed in to avoid wasting any more time on lame Halloween events.

Thumbs down to what was a pathetic Halloween 2006.

Blah! =P

r. star = ROCKstar!!

So last Tuesday, I went to this concert for my favorite musician/rocker-- Ryan Star (www.rstar.net).

It all began over this summer, when I was randomly invited to a Corrine Bailey Rae (a superstar in the U.K.-- whom I had never heard about) concert by one of my bestest friends at the Bowery Ballroom. Ryan was the opening act.

The crowd was fairly small and needless to say, I was BLOWN AWAY by Ryan's talent-- and lucky enough to get my hands on his CD, "Songs from the eye of an elephant", and also chat with him for a few seconds (really nice guy, by the way...).

So after that night, he ended up making it onto this reality TV show called Rockstar: Supernova, where he finished 6th and gained legions of fans.

Last week was his triumphant return to New York (he's originally from Long Island) and the Bowery Ballroom was PACKED!

I think Ryan's somewhat of an anti-war activist too. He was wearing a green t-shirt that had the words "Where is the love" in backwards letters and he sang a song called "Somebody's Son"-- which was an obvious protest against George W. Bush. And as the sweat got onto his shirt, it kinda looked like he was wearing camoflage. Weird stuff, huh?

His lyrics also really speak to me. Here are the words to one of his songs, "Psycho Suicidal Girl", that pretty accurately reflects my relationship with this girl in college:

Everyone knows, you're wasting my time.

So why don't I ask you to leave?

And if you should go, I want you to know

That everything wasn't for free.

I'll be charging for time, I had you on the line,

We talked about the ills of this world.

Now I'm praying for time, so I could see you die.

You're a psycho suicidal girl.

Brilliant, eh? ;-)

My spiritual life...

So last week, I went to this "New Life Expo", which was basically a convention of all these new age organizations.

Some of it was total garbage (e.g. these $5,000 crystals supposedly from Tibet that would change you energy fields), and some of it was pretty cool (e.g. this mixture of 30+ dried fruits and veggies from Wholefood Farmacy, www.wholefoodstore.net).

But there were a few things that I actually spent money on that I was particularly curious about...although they were kinda the same thing.

Basically, I had an "energy healing" and a photo of my aura taken. And both of these analyses seemed to reveal the same things.

I can't quite explain how aura photos work, but the final output is this photograph of yourself in a cloud of color-- like so:

(and I also had photos of my chakras taken...).

For me, my aura turned out to be indigo-- although other energy fields around me where different colors.

A few things in my analyses that kinda surprised me

• They say that I'm stressed, which might or might not be true, depending on the day and the situation I'm in.
• They also said that the side of my spirit that is open to embracing new friends is very strong-- which I don't think is really true, considering that I haven't really made any new friends recently. =P
• And on the flip side, they also said that the side of my soul that tries to hold people back is very weak. So I get taken advantage of-- which isn't really the case, since I tend to drop friends more than most people I know.
• Overall, they also said that I have low energy-- something that I also disagree with.
• BUT, I'm very intuitive-- which I'd like to think is true. ;-)
• AND that I'm a "great lover". Hahahahahah! =D

So overall, I have no clue whether or not I actually trust this stuff...

Nevertheless, I also saw this cool new aerial yoga technique that I'd really LOVE to get into-- if only I could ever afford to have this type of contraption in my home (which will also require me to build a big exercise room =P).

I can definitely see this kind of exercise becoming big-- as long as idiots don't go about foolish lawsuits when they get hurt. Check out the website for this new exercise, though: www.omgym.com.

And I do have to also say that I got a really good feeling from these guys who were selling meditation mats (they just seemed to have good "auras"), so I might get into that sometime soon.

I finished reading the Dalai Lama's "How to Practice a the Way to a Meaningful Life" recently and I really see some value in promoting kindness and compassion to the world. Some describe this belief as "the force" (from Star Wars), and I really hope that I and other people will be able to embrace this to make a better world.

With that, I think I am going to burn some incense and reflect on my fortunate life, before going to bed tonight.

Thumbs up to the extra hour of time this weekend! =)

Roar! And giving back to the less fortunate-- with the elite crowd

So I've long finished mouning the loss of the Mets... =(

And I have to say, I went into the 2006 World Series as a Cardinals hater-- since they barely squeaked into the playoffs (not to mention, beat the Mets) and were grossly incompetant just 2 years ago, when the Red Sox--who barely made it into the World Series that year and had an 80+ year old CURSE on them!!-- won the World Series (I mean, couldn't they just beat the Red Sox in ONE game??? ).

Anyway, now the Cardinals are officially the world champions.

So I give props to the Cards and I have a new team to hate-- the Tigers.

Those fools from Detroit got into the World Series after basically giving the Yankees an ass-whuppin' and became the clear faves for to win-- some even thought they'd sweep all 4 games.

But instead, they lost-- badly. Granted, they were an underdog team-- but everyone was putting their hopes on them and everyone had been saying all season long that the American League was a billion times stronger than the National League, so it seemed destined that the Tigers would have a shining moment in the sun.

When it counted, though, they made constant fielding errors and lost against the incompetant Cards.

So to the Tigers: ROAR to you!!

---------------------

Anyway, I wanted to talk about how after 2 years of giving nothing back to the rest of the world (besides interviewing kids who wanted to go to my college, and the random monetary donation here and there-- for example, the tsunami and Katrina victims), I FINALLY did some actual community service last weekend.

It was an event called New York Cares Day and I spent my morning and early afternoon helping clean out this school in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

We had put together an alumni team from my college and were ready to work at 9AM on Saturday morning.

The NY Cares Staff wasn't particularly well-organized (we had to wait over 2 hours, before actually getting to work) but with our ideas and teamwork out overstaffed team (NY Cares had more volunteers thav they needed), we were able to finish our task in even less time than needed.

We were supposed to clear out this closet on the 3rd floor and move the contents to a storage room in the basement, so we came up with this idea to do an almost assembly line-type formation-- and we finished about 2 hours earlier than expected!

Yay us!

But what really shocked me was how annoying and high-strung some of the alumni I met from remain.

After we finished, some of them were soooo eager to do more work (since they feel incredibly antsy/anxious when they're not being productive-- I'm not kidding, these are their own words), that they decided to "help" out this guy who was busy painting the grating of a radiator...

So soon enough, about 10 Penn alumni were crowded around this guy, telling him how he was doing his job wrong and how he should be doing it better.

Can someone say "obnoxious"? =P

Hooray for elitist, type-A Penn alums who always think that they know better than anyone else!!

Haunted week...

As my hometown team slowly tries to inch its way to the World Series, it begins to rain.

Will the season end the way it began? or will they disappoint and forever be known as New York's secondary baseball team?

Seeing the way my week has gone, I have to guess that they stand a good shot of losing-- although my luck has turned around a bit...

On Monday, I woke up just before I was supposed to head off to work and I had a fairly crappy day. Lots of last-minute work requests and I just felt really annoyed and unmotivated. Oh, and I was also reminded of a presentation due Thursday that I completely forgot about. =P

As I was heading home, I was getting really tired of waiting in traffic, so I detoured onto bumpy service road in the Bronx...

Little did I know, the bumpy road would put bumps into my car...

And so, I got up at 5AM on Tuesday to get to work early (so that I could finish a bunch of last minute tasks before an 11AM meeting), but my car was wobbley and I couldn't control it!

Turns out, the rear control arm holding my back tires was dented-- so my wheels were outta alignment (thus, the swerving). And of course, it started to rain.

I drop my car off at my mom's friend's garage in Flushing and figure that the repair will be expensive.

I take my mom's car into work at 3PM and stick around until 9PM...

The rest of the week wasn't much better either... =P

I'm thinking that my karmic debt has been paid for this week and Endy Chavez just made an AMAZING play!

Let's go, Mets!!

tragic accidents...

So yesterday, we all heard about Cory Lidle from the Yankees crashing his plane into an Upper East Side Building.

And of course, all the typical thoughts ran through my head: terrorism? the Yankees pitcher?? if only they had won against the Tigers!!! the weather was bad, so why was he out flying??? wait, why isn't there better air security in Manhattan?????

But today, I started to remember an old classmate of mine from Penn-- Abraham Huang.

I had met Abe after he transferred to Penn from Perdue and he lived a few floors above me in the dorms. I didn't really know him too well, but I remember that whenever people found out that he rode a motorcycle, they were always concerned about his safety. And he always told them that it was perfectly safe-- the same way Cory Lidle always touted the safety of piloting his own airplane (despite the famous airplane deaths of John Denver, Yankees captain Thurman Munson, John F. Kennedy Jr. and more).

In December of 2001, Abe died in a motorcycle accident on a Philadelphia highway and we were all shocked. =(

I guess I don't really have a point to make, but it just seems like these risky activities just aren't the best idea for extracurricular activities-- and I understand the hipocrisy of my saying this, as someone who just recently jumped out of an airplane. =P

Baseball players have it written into their contacts that if they get injured while taking these risks, part of their contract will be voided. And sometimes, I wish they would take the hint and just not do these things.

I just hope that everyone out there realizes the fragility of life and is more careful before they drive a car, fly a plane or ride a motorcycle.

Rolling through the streets of New York

So I just had an ENORMOUS "Woody Allen" (i.e. corned beef + pastrami) sandwich-- followed by a strawberry cheesecake-- at the Carnegie Deli, and I think I'm going to die.

I spent all weekend around Manhattan with my mom, checking out different places from the Open House New York and we rewarded ourselves with the HUGE Carnegie Deli dinner tonight.

I think I won't be able to eat for a few days... =P

We walked all around New York, during the Open House...

We went to a number of places on Saturday-- include this teensy Catholic church in Chelsea (of all places), some super-lame architectal firm in the Garment District, this Museum of Art and Design (next to the MoMA) and the townhouse of Paul Rudolph (which was AMAZING!! I want my house designed by someone with this man's vision).

We also tried going to this place called Exit Art in Hell's Kitchen, except it was unexpectedly closed for renovations. These nice strangers we met from Long Island actually gave us a ride back to the Upper West Side after we all discovered that the Exit Art place was closed.

So a BIG THUMBS DOWN to Exit Art!!

And today, we saw the Mount Vernon Motel-- a 1700's country club from early in New York's history, a Russian Orthodox Cathedral and these 2 Marble Cemetaries in the East Village (the New York CITY Marble Cemetary was the obvious better of the 2) and the Scandinavia House in Murray Hill.

Overall, a pretty good weekend! =)

Everyone should definitely check out the next Open House New York!!

Politicians who screw the gay community...

So I got photos from this past weekend.... Here's my Pictionary team, consisting of (from left to right): my Stuy friend's girlfriend, RyT, me and the dyke (yes, that IS a girl...):

And here's a picture of everyone:

Notice the lesbian couple making out on my lap and RyT's girlfriend, sitting next to him.

Speaking of gay issues, I just wanted to say how disgusting I think this Republican Florida Congressman, Mark Foley is being.

After being outed as a pedophile (who had numerous inappropriate IM's with his underage congressional male pages), Foley's lawyer made some statement on his behalf about how he was "molested by a Catholic priest as a youth", is in rehab and "is a gay man".

Obviously, he's looking for sympathy, but my question is: What the FUCK does being a gay man have to do with ANY of this??

The fact that he happens to be gay is completely incidental to all the shit he's pulled. And I hope the gay community tells this fool that they don't want him.

I think it's really disturbing that politicians like Mark Foley and Jim McGreevey decide to come out AFTER they're caught doing something wrong.

Why didn't you freaks come out when you were in office??-- rather than after you were forced to resign!!

This just casts a completely negative light on the gay community and I hope that Americans will not relate these bad apples to the gay community at large (although who knows how stupid Americans will be?). =P

Sad, sad night...

I just got back from a completely wasted hour at Cosi's. =P

Last time, I was able to use their wireless internet and get some work done (unlike when I lounge around in my studio), but this time I couldn't even get connected! >:O

When I got home, I noticed that Ponce-- one of my building's staff members-- had his photo up behind our mail desk. When I asked about what happened, I found out that he had died! Apparently, he didn't leave his apartment (also in my building) for a while and they found him dead. They're still not sure what happened to him...

His family is coming up from Florida to settle things in the next few days. Hopefully, they'll have a memorial fund set up soon.

To all of his family and friends, my thoughts are with you...

=(

Skydiving buddy...

My Don Juan friend mentioned that I'm mentioning my skydiving buddy a lot and she just sent me her skydiving pics, so I figured that I'd post 'em up (as I said I would, weeks ago...).


Here she is, parachuting down the sky with her instructor. A runner/partyer extraordinaire, my buddy is also demonstrating that she's got abs of steel, as you can see her legs extended at a perfectly straight L-shape in front of her body.














And here we are after she survived her dive. Notice how I have a "DANGER" sign on my back-- perfect warning for all those who dare jump out of a plane from 14,500 feet off the ground. =P









CHEERS! =D

A very lesbionic weekend...

So on Saturday, I got to meet my old high school friend, RyT, and his girlfriend J.

The snatch here is that RyT used to be a girl, but NOW he's a guy (well, at least living like one...). So things were a bit different than I woulda imagined 6 years ago.

J. was loverly and coincidentally enough, the girlfriend of one of my boyz from high school was also there! (RyT went to the same college as my boi and his girlfriend).

There was also another lesbian couple there-- this dyke*, who works with J. and this femme, who has 2 teenage children. Together, this couple has almost 30 tatoos (including each others' names in various languages) and made out on my lap. hahahahah.

And on Sunday, I saw this show in the East Village called "Fallen", which was basically a female private high school version of "Lord of the Flies". (Think "Gilligan's Island" meets "Heathers".)


I thought that an all-girl production about women in the wilds of the jungles would mean at least some girl-on-girl action, but I guess the gay director didn't share my vision. =P

One of the characters was this crazy girl, who was beautiful!!-- and shoulda totally made out with the expressive-eyes girl in the poster.

Disappointed... :-(

Not too bad a show, though.

And props to my lady Guenivere-- who assistant stage managed the production! ;-)

*After a few comments from some friends, I just wanted to put a short disclaimer: The person whom I called a "dyke" was a self-described (and pretty obviously) one, so that is why I used that language. Let me just state for the record that I tend to throw around some words, such as "dyke", very loosely and in a jocular manner. In no way do I mean for it to be derogatory, so apologies to anyone who is offended!! I keed, I keed!!! :-)