Check it out...

Hey guys, I will be writing about this past weekend soon. Dave had the wildest party ever and his graduation was so joyous yet melancholy.

But in the mean time you guys should go check it out this game, make sure you have your volume turned up...very cool...leave me a comment and tell me your results :)

GAME

Have fun!!!

Graduation

Time flies! It really does. I have been secretly hoping that May '06 will not arrive since about Summer of last year but I cannot believe how fast it has passed me by. It has been great though, I have absolutely no complains. It's been a great ride.

I attended Joe's graduation this past weekend at Columbia College and I will be attending quite a few others this coming weekend for Mizzou's graduation i.e. Dave, H2, Matt M, Emily, Matt G and quite a few others. This is a big milestone and it means it's the end of one chapter and the start of another for these people.

A small fear in me is that the new chapter for these people will not include me. I don't mean it as to us not being friends anymore but majority of them will be moving away and friendships always change when people move away. We will talk for a while and as time goes by, we drift further and further apart. I know I will definitely not lose touch with some of the closer ones but still it just won't be the same. I know, I know...never say never...but if experience has taught me anything, most friendships almost always does drift apart. I am just as guilty of it myself.

I have had quite a few chapters myself and have made amazing friends along the way. Some of the really close ones, we still keep in touch but somehow it's not the same. Little things like being able to "read" each others mind or body language or finish each other's sentences or funny little sayings or made up words will no longer be shared or used. But that is just reality. Nonetheless, I am still so amazingly grateful that I had the chance to become apart of their lives. Hopefully, our paths will cross again, one just never knows!

I don't show much of these emotions because deep down I am truly happy for all of them for accomplishing this major milestone. I guess I am just selfish, but then again aren't we all just a little bit selfish sometimes.

Happy Birthday, H2!

Yesterday was my one of my closest girl friend, H2's birthday. Happy Birthday, Girl!!!!! She's reach a milestone but she still looks like she's 21 so it's all good ;) Took her out to dinner at this new fancy schmancy restaurant in town called Sycamore. She got this special Gnocci pasta and I got a Veal dish. The food was good but it was definitely a little too rich for my taste. We then walked around downtown chatting and trying to decide where to go for dessert. We settled for Tellers and had their Chocolate Decadence Cake and Lime Cheesecake....very yummy (Muuuur!) :P James and Jerod joined us at Tellers and we had a few drinks prior to Soco.

It's been a while since I've been to Soco on a Thursday night but I had a good reason tonight, it's my friend's bday. I was still feeling a little under the weather but I didn't have a choice...I HAD to go, right? It was fun, it was packed as usual. I didn't plan on drinking but ended up having quite a bit to drink and got a little tipsier than I had anticipated. The night went well but some asshole stole my AE shirt which I left at the coat rack. It wasn't my favourite shirt but it still pissed me off to think that someone would just take something that didn't belong to them. I looked around but didn't see it anywhere or on anyone but I quietly cursed the person who took it, "May his crotch be infested with a thousand fleas!!" Hope that'll the SOB a lesson...:D

It's a Friday and I'm almost done with work. I'm happy. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

My first Nephew!

So how was everyone's weekend? I hope it was good. How was mine, you ask? Well I didn't really have one since I had to work 12 freakin hours on Saturday doing physical inventory! Got off work and had dinner with Steph, Em and Dave at Chilli's then later went to Brook's surprise birthday party. After that we went to Shattered for Mark's (of Mark&Daniel) birthday party.

There is definitely no shortage of birthdays around this time. There is Steph, KK, H2, Tze and also my brother, all celebrating within days from one another. Steph's birthday (a big shout out to Steph "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!") was Sunday. We gathered up the group and had lunch at Flat Branch. After that I just got home and rested. I am still not 100% recovered as I have a bad sorethroat but my cough's gotten much better. I need to lay off late nights for a while until I start feeling better.

Today is KK's birthday (another shout out to KK, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"). I also received some good news from my oldest brother, Ewe. I am an UNCLE to my FIRST NEPHEW!! He sent me a text message saying that Masako gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Tatsuya, weighing 3.4 kg at 8:32pm May 1st. I have yet to find out all the details. Will definitely have to call and get as much info as possible. It's so hard being an uncle and living on the other side of the world, these are times when I really want to be back home with family. My niece, Naomi's starting to walk and talk and she barely knows who I am :(

My 2nd brother is also expecting a baby sometime this year. Sure seems like babies are popping out left and right this year. If you read an earlier post, my friend Reema + Chad just had little Arden. I also received an email from my old college buddy, Adam, telling me that his wife just delivered a baby boy, Wynn. I just feel so happy for all these people and truly wish they were all much closer so I can join them in celebrating their happiness.

I partied like it was 1999!

The title says it all. This last weekend has officially beat out all my other weekends, well maybe except for when I was back in college, when I was young, naive and reckless. Guess I'm not young nor naive anymore but still a little reckless, HA! j/k y'all..

But anyway here goes the chain of events:

Thursday evening, I got off work as usual and decided to hang out with Joe downtown. The weather was amazing so we walked around and had dinner. Soon after that we met Dave at Noodles along with Zack, John G and James and they managed to convince me to go out that night. It turned out to be a good decision since Soco was totally packed and the music was good. Of course there were other friends there and we all danced after the show. The night ended and as usual everyone headed for IHOP. I had to work the next day so I politely excused myself and went home and crashed at 2am (which was no doubt, still very late).

Next day, I was not too productive at work obviously. Got off work, was planning on taking a nap but Dr Matt called and we ended up going to dinner. Brandon came along and we went to the new Bangkok Gardens; the restaurant was nicely decorated but the food was the same (no improvement), we had to wait for about 1 1/2 hrs for our food and they ran out of rice! So I probably won't be going back there anytime soon. Went to Coldstone after that (Muurrr) and then headed to Justin's party after that. It was really good seeing Matt again after so long but I did feel bad for not hanging with him more but he had to be up at 3:30 am to moonlight at some hospital so he was probably glad I had to leave early.

Justin's party turned out to be a real success. A ton of people showed up (Justin, Chadd, Dave, me, Joe, James, John G, Jerod, Danny, Airforce John, Matt, John Millionaire, Byron, John Filipino, Gary and a bunch others that I don't remember). Halfway through we left for Soco, danced and then came back and partied some more. I got pretty drunk and finally left Justin's at about 3am, the party was still very much alive. I later heard that the last guest left at around 6:30am, craziness :) Joe drove me home that night so no worries about drunk driving.

Saturday, I got up at around 11am and later Dave, Joe and myself hung out at the mall and had lunch at Chipotle. In the evening we (including Steph, Em and Amy from Dave's BLADE) were all invited to John Millionaire's for a cook out. He lived in Highlands which was a pretty upscale neighbourhood to begin with but his house definitely blew away all the others on that street. A private driveway and they had an 8 garage attached to the house with 3 more garages in a separate shed. They also had a separate guest house which was quite impressive but John's a very down-to-earth guy, which was good. I just cannot stand people who likes to talk big. The bbq went well and most of us from the bbq headed to Shattered after that. We danced away to the 80's music. We left for Jerod's after party after Shattered closed at 2am. Jerod/Danny lives in a pretty nice town house south of town. I thought it was funny when we all made champagne toast to everything from John coming out to his parents to Asians to friends forever to short people etc etc lol. We hung out there till about 3am and then took off. The party was so much fun and we all got quite drunk AGAIN!

The next day was Earth day so went downtown with H2/Mas and the same group of people from Thurs/Fri/Sat and hung out yet again! I'm glad that we are expanding our group of friends to include more and more really cool people. I am truly very happy with my social circle starting with the core of Dave and Justin. Anyway we walked around, enjoyed the weather and then had dinner at Addison's. After dinner, Dave, James and myself went to Coldstone yet again (double Muuuurrr) and pigged out on ice cream. I'm glad I dragged my ass to the gym yesterday and did about an hour of cardio workout.

So that was my totally crazy weekend. We took a ton of pictures so I'll be posting them soon. This Saturday will be inventory so I'll have to come in to work, booo :( But it'll be Steph's birthday Sunday so that'll be fun. I need to also relax a little more for I feel like I'm coming down with a cough. With all these partying, I bet my immune system is working double time!

Happy Easter

"Sup bitches!?!" yells Little Arden Kairi (L) & Happy Family(R)

First and foremost I'd like to congratulate my friends Chad and Reema for their healthy baby boy Arden Kairi born on Apr 15, 2006 at 9:03am. Aww...look at that adorable little thing!

Secondly, have you filed your taxes yet?!? Today's the deadline, well for most of us at least. I just got mine done about 2 weeks ago, paid a cut throat accountant $150 to do my returns. I'll definitely have to buckle up and try filing it myself next year. It's ridiculous how much taxes we have to pay in this country! Sales tax, income tax, property tax, capital gains tax...what else... cibai tax got, ah? KNNCCB...

Did everyone have a good Easter weekend? Mine was so-so. Started out feeling great on Friday. Just couldn't wait to party. After work, went to have dinner with Steph's family which was rather fun (in a family setting kinda way) at Shakespeare's. Had to blow Dr Matt off for the 2nd time **I feel so bad** (I definitely have to go out with him this Fri). Then after dinner, met up with the gang at Harpo's where they had free drinks for grad students. By the time I got there around 9pm the party was almost over so we left and went to Soco but it kinda sucked there because the music was bad and not many people showed up. The rest of the weekend I spent entertaining my friend from St Louis which was just blaaah...:(

Here are some random pictures of recent "activities" at Soco Club :D


Airforce John & me (L) & Fabulous Dustin (R)

Chadd, Justin, Me & Steph (L); Matt & me shaking our booty(R)

Look at the two sampat-lou wearing the same shirt ;)

~~~~~N10~~~~~

Short talk:
Saw this site which I have linked to "blogs i find interesting". It's about a guy on a quest to eventually trade for a house starting with one red paperclip! He starts out with the paperclip, advertises it on craiglist and got a fish pen for the clip. From there he just goes on to bigger and better things. Now he's up to a year's free rent in an Phoenix apartment. It's pretty humorous and unique. Definitely check it out.

Went to the MU Rec center on thursday (Oh did I mention, I work out there now) with Matt to play racquetball and did some weights then later called Dave to come join in on some kind of celebration they were having with free food and raffles. It was fun and relaxing. We soaked in the hot tub, relaxed in the sauna and floated around on the outside pool, it was amazing, felt like I was at a resort for a night ;)

It's so late, it is...early!

This past weekend was just like one of my usual weekends, too much partying, too much alcohol and staying up way too late. Before you say anything, I realize that this kind of behaviour is detrimental to my health but I have an excuse (and I'm not just making this one up). As you all know I am majorly stressed out and hate going to work but my social life on the other hand has been GREAT and I absolutely love it and it is pretty much the only motivation for me to keep toiling in to work day after day. So back to my excuse, my social life might come to a screeching halt! (I'm praying really hard that it doesn't) The way I see it, those that are very close in my cirlce for eg H2, Dave, Steph, and Dr Matt are leaving Columbia! Dave is graduating from Law School, H2 is getting done with her Phd, Dr Matt is done with residency...so pretty much 80% of my close friends are moving away. I definitely hope that I'll be able to branch out and rebuild my social circle but it's going to be hard. Soooo because of that, I'm taking every opportunity to spend time with my friends and party it up. I know it's bad to overdo it but all I can say is it's not going to last forever and before I know it, I'll be staying home on Saturday nights watching TV all by my lonely self :(

OK now back to my past weekend. I was supposed to hang out with Dr Matt since I blew him off the week before but I guess what goes around comes around because this time he blew me off because Matty was coming into town. I ended up going to Fulton with Justin for some "talent" show. It wasn't any good so we left, took a tour around Fulton (which is where Justin grew up) and came back to Columbia and had Sushi at Osaka. Dinner was very yummy and totally ran into Dr Matt and Matty. We were supposed to meet up with Dave after but he totally flaked out on us (He had a movie date with actor Alex) and we just called it quits around 11pm. I was a little pissed wasting my Friday evening because I was all dressed up and ready to go out.

Anyway the next day, I was supposed to do a biathlon with Steph but since I couldn't transport my bike in my car, I flaked out on her. I ended up hanging out with H2 majority of the day eating at this new tea house, Kayotea, going to Sams and then later to the mall. We rounded up most of our friends and went out to Soco later that evening and it turned out to be alot of fun. H2, Mas, Dave, Justin, Chad, Chad's sister, Joe, and myself showed up (later met Brandon, John Millionaire, Ben and Eric) and we totally danced the night away. After Soco, with me being a little tipsy, we headed to IHOP (which is totally the place to be after bars) and just hung out there till 3am. As usual there is always IHOP drama, but I won't get into that in this post. After IHOP, I was still feeling pretty awake (must have been the "special" tea I had earlier) so I went over to Don's to hang out with Matt and Don. We just sat around and talked and smoked some.....now now don't hate and don't judge...hehehe ;) It was all good...Don and myself got into talking about world civilizations and Chinese history/civilization (trust me, this kinda shit happens) and it turned out to be a great chat. Matt passed out around 4am but Don and I kept yakking away. When I finally left Don's, it was around 6:30am and the sun was rising! I think the last time I was out till the sun rised was when I was 18 or 19 in Inti College and being totally stupid. I just remember having this odd feeling and telling myself that it so mother effing late that it's actually...early!!!

I got up at 2pm the next day. I would usually feel like shit on days like these but amazingly I woke up and felt exceptionally good. I had some lunch and headed out to the gym and met up with Matt. We played some racquetball, did some weights and ran for about 2 miles. After all that, I was still feeling quite energetic like I can run another mile or two but I decided not to push it, so I went home eagerly expecting new episodes of DHW and GA but neither one of those were new! KNNCCB...

Happy Birthday, Dave!

Dave's bad-ass birthday cake!

I was not feeling well most of last week (actually called in sick on Wed) but by Friday I started feeling better and totally partied all night and got drunk. I was definitely asking for trouble for I had barely recovered ;) But it's all good and it was Dave's birthday! He turned 25 on Fri, Mar 31st just one day before April fools. We reserved the Pasta Factory and of all 15 people that said were coming, about half showed up. Dinner was good, as usual Justin & I bought him dinner and an ice cream cake from DQ and I got him a leather bounded resume holder thingy. After dinner, we went to Tellers for a few drinks and then off to Soco we went. The night was fun and I had a little too much to drink. Started off with a Chamborg (sp?) at tellers and followed by a smirnoff, jello shots and red bull tattoo at Soco. I wouldn't usually drink so much but this new guy I met Jerord was really cool and kept buying me drinks. It was awesome! I guess I went pass my two smirnoff limit. I apparently passed out on someone's shoulder while dancing. LOL. After Soco, we went to Ben's where Dave got even more trashed by doing Yeagar shots. I finally went to bed at 4am!

Chattin and drinkin at Tellers bar (L-R: Justin, me, Zack, Mark, Daniel, Mike, Dave, Em and John)

Dave, me and Justin drinking somemore at Soco, I'm starting to get really red!

Danced our booty's off (Justin, me and Jerod)

The next day H2's friend Kenneth from KC was taking a trip to StLouis and originally it was just the two of them but after some persuasion I decided to tag along. It was rather fun we went out again on Sat night, first to Novaks then to the Complex. I didn't drink much but we danced and I just remember feeling really sore and tired by the end of the night. I remember thinking that I'm getting too old for this kinda non stop partying ;) The next day we had dim sum and then went to the Galleria to do some shopping. I got home around 6pm and passed out on my couch :P

Short Talk:

Went out to watched "Why We Fight" at the Rag Tag yesterday with Joe and I must say very good independent movie/documentary. It was definitely biased but still educational. Definitely go check it out if you have the chance. It pretty much analyzes just like the title says...why America goes to war. Starts off with Eisenhower's final speech as President warning America about the Military Industrial Complex which is fast becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. One of my favourite lines in the movie is "...the military spent 3/4 of trillian $$, when War is this profitable, we'll definitely see more if it..." indeed very sad but true. Also gives a funny yet true story about how the US totally screwed around in the Middle East starting with Iran and then to Saddam, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It's amazing...

It's amazing to see how much money is wasted and how much corruption exist in this country. One of the things they said that I truly believe is there is definitely NO COINCIDENCE that a military contractor becomes the US VP. It's a good movie, go see it...

Good Movies

I managed to check out two very good movies over the weekend. I enjoyed them very much eventhough the reviews were just mediocre. This weekend was the start of Spring break so most of my buddies were either out of town or going to be. Dave and Em were venturing out to Portland, OR/Seattle; Matt went to gay mecca San Francisco(I regret it now but I was originally invited to go but declined); Joe's on NG duty and Steph is heading south to Austin, TX.

Nothing major happened, just took it easy. Went to watch Transamerica with Justin, Dave, Lim & Marshall on Friday night, night before Dave's trip. The next day, Dan from St Louis visited over the weekend and we went to watch V for Vendetta on Saturday night.

Nick's Reviews:

Caution possible spoilers

This movie was definitely funny, charming and entertaining considering that this movie was an independent/low budget film shot in a very constrained time line. I know some of you were turned off at the idea that Felicity Huffman (a woman) played the role of a male to female transexual but she did it very well with her talented acting/voice along with the magic of Hollywood make up and clothing. She definitely deserved the Oscar that she won for this movie.

I noticed that the make up was often one shade too light or dark and the mismatched/outdated clothing definitely gave her an awkward look that somehow made her look less feminine.

The makers/actors of this movie managed to portray the emotions of the characters very well and yet the movie felt very care free with its constant humor. Everyone should give this movie a chance despite the genre and check it out

I give this movie 8/10



I went into this movie with not much of an expectation. I've heard such mixed reviews that I didn't know what to think. But this movie captured my attention the entire time. I know this is quite a controversial movie with possible anti-Bush agenda but we must remember that this is based on a comic book that was written ions before this administration. It's just a mere case of life imitating art.

One of my favourite lines in this movie is "...people should not be afraid of their Government, the Government should be afraid of their people..." how true, right? I also liked "...remember, remember, the 5th of November..." very catchy. This movie is from the same makers as the Matrix and interestingly just like the Matrix, this movie provokes its audience to think and question, very powerful in my opinion that a movie can achieve this feat.

The beginning of this movie confused me a little. There was a short clip of a person hung to death. Then right after that it moves on to the future. There were no explanations or follow ups. I later found out from Joe that the clip was of a man, Guy Fawkes, who tried to rebel by trying to blow up the parliment because the King/govt was opposed to Catholicism but he was caught before it happened. I guess the entire premise of this movie was based on that little clip. I feel that most of you will enjoy this movie more if you don't go in expecting tons of action and violence. The previews definitely did portray it as an action movie, in my opinion.

I give this movie 8.5/10

Career Fair

The weekend really started on Thursday 3/16 when Justin said that Chadd really wants to go to Soco. After Justin successfully persuaded Dave and me to go out, we all went and guess who was the first to leave Soco? Surprise, surprise...it was Chadd...he just disappeared without letting anyone know. But that's Chadd's signature, he makes dramatic exits ;) The next day we didn't really do much, I had dinner with Steph at El Maguey's and then later Dave, Emily, Justin, Steph and me met at Steph's condo and played a very uneventful game of Cranium.

The next day, Dave and I got on the road and headed to St Louis and got in around dinner time and was invited to have dinner with Dave's family. It was a great seeing Dave interact with his family members(Father, Mother, Aunt, Grandmother, niece and nephew). I made small talk here and there but the most rewarding part was noticing the little details that reminded me of my own family meals back when Mom was alive. It made me feel good seeing Dave's Mom hurrying around the kitchen preparing food, his grandma playing with the grandkids and the little jokes between Dave and his Dad. This experience made me feel good inside and definitely brought back my own memories. We went out to Magnolias, Complex and JJ's later that night. Nothing too dramatic happened...

Sunday started out with me wondering around Delmar by myself eating the much craved beef stew noodle and mango custard bubble tea. It was so yummy...:P I then hung out at a Starbucks and finished Memoirs of a Geisha (which is a GREAT book by the way) waiting on Dave to get done with his lunch/interview with the St Louis public defender's chief (0r something like that). I didn't have to wait long when he soon showed up and we went on to the Galleria and spent a good deal of time shopping. Later that evening we went to dinner with Charles and later hung out at a lesbian martini bar and Bill's home.

I took a vacation day for Monday and went to the Marriot for the diversity career fair. Met up with Barry (coworker who was recently laid off) there and passed out some resumes and managed to rack up a bunch of free shit. The fair wasn't especially big but I did not have any expectations going in so I was not disappointed. We all had lunch and then drove back to Columbia.

Below are pictures from the Mardi Gras weekend in St Louis which you can read all about here.

At Denny's after we got kicked out of the Complex

Shane was really drunk and funny (L) & Mingling at the Complex, there were so many ppl from Columbia there that weekend (R)

Don, me, Matt and Bryan at the Comlex