New York Minute and a Half


Hello fellow travelers. I'm here with another New York update. I've only got a few secticles to converse, so I'll keep it short and suh-weeet.

We've been wandering New York by-and-by, but mainly here to watch shows... of which we've seen five. Well, I've seen four: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (which was cool and funny), RENT (which was $20), The Wedding Singer twice (which freakin' rocks), and Wicked (which is always crowd pleasing). Timotei and Samantha Wu saw Avenue Q. I'll get more in-depth regarding the shows later (and with photos to boot).

But for now, I've got a story to tell. So I went alone to see The Wedding Singer again today and sat next to this elderly couple. The woman immediately started talking with me. I was sitting there in my new Wedding Singer shirt having paid the student price to get in (using my old University ID). The first thing she asked was how much I paid for the tickets. I told her that I am a student and I paid the discounted price. Because I hate telling people beforehand my opinion on something (fearful that they'll have a differing opinion), I gave her the impression that I was seeing the show for the first time.

She asked where I was from and I replied "California." Turns out she was also from California. She told me that she was from the city that my old University was located and I replied, "Oh wow! I got my undergrad there!" At this point, I prayed that she wouldn't ask where I went to school currently (having told her that I got the student discount).

Of course, that happened to be the next question out of her mouth, to which I hesitated to respond, like an idiot.

"Well... well... well," I stammered.
"You don't even know the name of your school?" she replied.
"No no, it's just that," I said, thinking slowly, "it's such a small school that it wouldn't matter if I said."
She looked at me suspiciously. I knew that if I didn't respond with a name, she'd know I was lying. So I muttered...
"Dupont."

I was struggling to remember what college a co-worker buddy went to. It was an obscure college that I had never heard of (yet they had a football team and my "big" university didn't). Luckily, she didn't follow up on Dupont University (which, if you look it up, was used as a joke name school referring to Duke).

But on went the conversation in this everlasting pre-show period. She asked what I was getting my masters in and I blurted out "Masters in Education," taking the identity of Shallow Val (my old high school friend). "I want to be a teacher," I said.

Her face lit up. "I used to be a teacher!"

I knew at this point that these lies, which started out fun, would be the death of me. I needed to change the subject, so I diverted attention to what her vacation plans were. I'm such a sly devil.

The show started and quickly lead to intermission where her husband retreated to the restroom leaving us to carry on our conversation. She asked me what I thought of the show and I said that I loved it, all the while hiding the back of my shirt which would clearly give away that I had seen the show already. I had hoped that she was a little hard of seeing and wouldn't notice my shirt at all, but that hope was thrashed after she laughed at a pun during the show in which the small license plate of a car read "XMAS BONUS."

Conversation led to the revitalization of Los Angeles and her having bought a new [expensive] apartment in the Financial District because she hated to drive in and out of the city. Metro trains came into the conversation and I had to bite my tongue on the fact that I take it into LA every morning.

We also talked about what kind of music my parents listened to. I really have no idea what my parents were into. She seemed to think my parents would be around sixty, but I lied again (I guess I hadn't had enough) and said they were in their 40s. After doing the math in her head, and me too hoping I hadn't goofed, she conceded to the possibility that they were forty-somethings and moved along.

After all this, I just wanted to get out of there. The lady even offered me some M&M's (which she loudly opened during the soft romantic ballad of the show). When the show ended, she gave me some parting words about Carnegie Hall and I wished them well and ran the hell outta there. I'm sure by now, they've looked up Dupont University (or lack thereof) to find that the boy they'd been chatting with was a compulsive liar. But that's just the way it works around me. I guess I just have to make things more difficult. But man, can you imagine if I told her that I wasn't actually a student anymore, and was still wrongfully getting student discounts??? The horror!


Giving them what they want,

Ricky
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New York Minute


It's freakin' wet here. Wet. And my socks are soaked to the bone. Bone.

It's a rocky start for our New York getaway as it's raining pretty hard for the weekend and we're getting lost at times. Firstly, unlike the last two times I've stayed with Ellvin Kelvin, his new apartment is nowhere near a subway station. It's pretty much off of Times Square, but about 4 freakishly l-o-n-g blocks away. So without a map and no real sense of direction, we wandered Manhattan until our shoes were soaked through, our socks damp, and our jeans also very moistly disgusting.

We tried to win lottery tickets to Avenue Q, but failed miserably. We overpaid for the Wedding Singer show... big time. We tried to snap a picture of Julia Roberts as she exited her show. I caught a glimpse (she's very tiny), but with all the pushing star-starved crapples around, we couldn't get the picture (though I think Samantha Wu got the back of her head which looks like a black ink blob in the photo).

And to start things off, the plane flight was pretty bad. The stewardesses weren't that friendly; the cabin got very very warm and muggy; the chairs were uncomfortable; and I let out a enormous snort that shook the cabin like a dawg.

But anyway, hopefully the rain will clear up, our luck will change, and we'll just have a damn fun time because as of right now, this really isn't the way I envisioned this vacation.


Weary,

Ricky
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Oh Brother... Where Fart Thou?


Now here's something that was weird to me. I walked into the bathroom and prepared the toilet seat to take my morning dump; double flush the toilet, rip out center of seat guard, apply seat guard ever so carefully, toss in long sheet of "splash prevention" toilet paper. Anyway, in walks someone who occupies the stall next to mine. He takes a seat and clears his throat and immediately I recognize that it's Timotei. And in turn, he knew it was me from my snazzy shoes.

So then we start talking while crapping and it sounded like this:

"So did you seeeeeeeee that homeless guy on the bus?"

"OOH ya-ah? I, eeeeee, smelled him a mile away."

Bloop!

In all honesty, I wasn't digging the conversation. It was just a little too invasive of the personal dung zone.

And now that that's out of the way, I can simply say that I'm very excited to be leaving for New York tomorrow. So excited, in fact, that I haven't even started packing yet. Which brings up a good point. I should start packing.


Bloop!

Ricky
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Exponential Excitement


Sirs, I am in need of a vacation. I believe my last vacation was just about a year ago when I went to New York with Erico Suave and MacArthur. Has it really been that long? Well shucks to that! I'm on my way back to New York. Seems like yesterday I was just announcing that I'm going... and now the trip is less than two weeks away!

I'm pretty psyched really. Mainly because I'll be off work and I've been craving Halal chicken and rice. I'm stoked to be returning to New York. I love the feeling of being a nobody in the big city. It's great to be caught up in the hub bub of the hustle and bustle. I just like New York. We'll also be spending much time with Amazing Grace! She wants to take us to a bunch of restaurants she'd only visit when out-of-towners are in town. I'm dying to try out a Bobby Flay restaurant.

We're staying with Ellvin Kelvin again, but of course, and I'm hoping he has internet at his new place. Then I'll be able to post some pictures and make reports as I'm there from good ol' Hedwig, my iBook. But if he doesn't, then I guess I'll just toss a bunch of pictures in one giant blog entry.

One really big event, that I knew about, but just by coincidence landed on the same week we'll be in New York, happening is the RENT 10th anniversary special performance. The original cast (movie cast) is going to perform the show for one night. Tickets are $1,000 - $2,000 a piece, but they're also doing $20 lottery tickets. If I won that, that'd be freakin' crazy.

I've already taken care of my taxes (2 weeks ago!) so I'm not stressing about that. I am getting both a federal and state refund, though not as much as last year. I guess I'll just spend my entire return in New York. It's only around $400 anyway.

But all in all, I'm just looking for a little R & R. Work has been pretty brutal as of late. I won't get into that though. I'd hate to spend my non-8-hours-of-work time thinking about my 8-hours of work time. Does that make sense? I don't wanna think about it.

Lastly, Mint the green squirrel moved out of my Animal Crossing town and I'm very depressed about that.




Wing dang doodle,

Ricky
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On This Day of Fools


*The following is NOT a cheap April Fool's Day prank. Though it may be hard to believe, I swear to you that I am not playing a joke.*

Here's what went down... we were walking down Spring Street in Downtown to get lunch at a small French-inspired café when we saw a homeless man taking a dump on the sidewalk. Not wanting to draw attention to his crassness (nor his assness), we diverted our gaze to the other side of the street where a man in a yellow suit was having an argument with a woman in a kimono. Tempers were flaring as they exchanged sharp words about their car collision. At this point, we hastened our walk and arrived at the café. Inside, the decor was simple and Frenchy, though it did smell like B.O. Flower and vine patterns snaked up the walls to the faux-Roman tiles on the ceiling.

A smiling cute asian girl was at the counter dressed in something similar to employees at Hot Dog on a Stick, but she looked as if she enjoyed it. We shuffled passed the crowded seating area to Denise, the asian girl, still smiling.

"Can I help you," she asked.

Having never been there before, I examined their extensive menu. Oddly enough, french dips and french fries were nowhere to be found. I settled on a turkey sandwich on rye and reluctantly gave Denise my order. She reassured me that the meal was very popular and delicious...

Long story short, the sandwich tasted like crap, Denise was punched in the face by an unhappy customer, a turkey sandwich pegged someone in the eye, a dump was taken on the café floor, and a car crashed through the girly wall prints.

We returned to the office... well, my co-workers did -- I was taken into custody for assault, public indecency, and assault with a deadly weapon. I need someone to post bail for me. Fun fact: Did you know that they let you post blogs from behind bars? I did not know that.


Betrayed!

Ricky
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