Disneyland Overflow


Today was my company's annual Family Day, held this year at Disneyland. We got there a little after opening and collected massive Fast Passes. But after lunch, we met up with more family with annual passes. The problem was that the three of us who got there at opening (Mother Routes, Timotei, and me) finished the west side of the park and didn't intend on returning. But with more people joining our group little at a time, we found ourselves repeating a lot of the stuff we'd already completed.

Eventually we ended up as a group of 23, which made it impossible to get anything done. But we did do some cool things. We visited K-mart as she played host for Buzz Lightyear. And we even posed for pictures on Tower of Terror.



Click the picture for a better look.

I couldn't stay long however. I originally had plans to see Sister Act in Pasadena with Erico Suave and MacArthur. So at 6:30 in the evening, I left the group and met up with my friends and we drove down that crappy 5 Freeway in bumper to bumper traffic. I felt the most claustrophobic in Erico Suave's VW Beetle. The traffic was entirely too frutrating to bear.

But we made it with plenty of time to spare. I had eaten a big lunch buffet, so I wasn't hungry, but the drive made me incredibly thirsty. The Pasadena Playhouse has nothing really around it (unlike the Pasadena Civic Center which I mistook it for). So I was forced to buy their $3.00 bottle of Aquafina. Then during intermission, I found myself starving and bought a $3.00 cookie and $2.00 bag of M&M's. Crap.

The show was pretty good. A lot of good new songs, but something seemed off compared to the movie. Anyway, I was so tired from running around all day at Disneyland that I was falling asleep during the show. One thing that was cool, we saw legendary composer Alan Menken there (he wrote the music for the show). I wish I got a picture or his autograph, but he was always so far away. Oh well, when I tell this story again, I will have met him and now we're good friends.


Exhausted,

Ricky
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P-Wii-vieW!!


It's no secret around here that I loves me my Nintendo games. I consider myself a born-again Nintendo fanboy. I was a dedicated Nintendo kid back in ye olde pub days. I still remember that Christmas when my brothers and I unwrapped the very first Famicon Nintendo system (which included Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt with Zapper, and Track and Field with Power Pads). We were off-the-wall overjoyed.

The next few years, we got the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and we were just as bowled over.

But then something happened. There was this perceived notion that we were growing up. We were never treated to a Nintendo 64 system and then opted to buy a Playstation. I can't remember why exactly we turned our backs on Nintendo at the time. I think it was the perception that Nintendo was for kids. Since we were getting older, we were supposed to graduate to the Playstation. (Plus, games were *cheap* with easily modded systems [if you catch my drift]).

So we missed out on most of the more famous Nintendo games like Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Starfox 64. I remember my first impressions with the N64 were bad because the new Mario game was completely in 3-D and I found extremely boring to navigate (but apparently it's incredibly beloved).

We eventually graduated to the Playstation 2, basking in the graphics upgrades and real life simulations. And while PS2 was our primary system, I still bought a Gamecube when an opportunity dropped it on my door for a bargain price. But even after buying it, I found myself only playing a few games like Smash Bros.

It wasn't until the Nintendo DS that I fell back in love with Nintendo's classic and superbly designed games and even trying many series that I bypassed/missed/overlooked.

I've never beat a Zelda game because I was very uninterested in long RPGs. Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation, along with the handheld Mario & Luigi games, helped break those barriers. I had never cared for the Starfox series because I thought free-roaming in space was dull. And I never tried Metroid because it seemed too difficult and on the Gamecube, I wasn't into first person shooters. But the DS showed me such inventive ways of playing that I wanted to try everything. I gave everything a shot and with the backwards compatibility of Gameboy Advance games, I was able to catch up with classics like Metroid: Fusion.



Which brings us to today. A bunch of us went to the Nintendo Fusion Concert stop in Orange County where bands like Relient K and Hawthorne Heights were playing. But the real reason I wanted to go was to preview the new Nintendo Wii console. With motion sensing technology, Nintendo plans to change the way we play video games. And after playing some of their games, I think they're going to do it. The new ways of playing are so much fun. I've already committed to spending the night in front of Target to get one on November 19.


Wii-living past gaming memories,

Ricky
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Ending Pending?


Just to let you know that I won't be discussing any specifics regarding the last book in A Series of Unfortunate Events. So if you are worried about spoilers, you can still read my thoughts on it. I'll try to be as vague as possible when describing things. But rest assured, I won't ruin anything for you.

Begin review of The End.

After the disappointment that was The Penultimate Peril, book twelve of A Series of Unfortunate Events, I wasn't as eager to read the final book The End. I mean, don't get me wrong. I was very interested to answer all of the lingering questions that the first twelve books have been dragging along. But I didn't find myself counting down the days to its release, not like I did with book twelve. I think I was just preoccupied with the Nintendo Wii.

But I did pre-order the book and had to wait an entire extra weekend to receive it from Amazon. And yeah, once it arrived last Monday, I immediately cracked it open.

The book starts off just like all the others; recapping the story of the Baudelaires. The book isn't exactly what I expected. I thought the last book would be a collection of explanations. I guess I expected it to come full circle and toss out any kind of story to just explain everything; much like the series finale of a show. But this book bucks that trend. Like all the other books, it is its own self-contained story. And why shouldn't it have been? This book speeds along as if it weren't the last of anything, and I gotta give the author credit.

And the story is fantastically interesting and imaginative. It was refreshing to see a different villain (though it depends on how you look at it) and to even see a different side of Count Olaf. The books are far from realistic, but at the same time, they are down to earth. Lemony Snicket doesn't sugar coat things and he has warned repeatedly that it won't end well. Well, I gotta say that I thought the ending was very fitting. Though not all my questions were answered, I believe there is meaning in Snicket's decision to leave things open ended; namely that the points aren't important. And if he were to answer some of these questions, we'd no more understand or care for it than if we were still in the dark.

And dagnabbit, how he ends the book makes you ponder the story from the bad beginning and opens wide new questions. I'm actually thinking about going back and rereading the series, now that I'm knowledgable on a certain detail.

Was that vague enough? If you couldn't tell, I really loved this last book. It was smart, funny, poignant, pregnant, tragic, hopeful, heartwarming, infuriating, and just plain memorable. I'm very sad that there won't be any other updates on the Baudelaires, but this ending was very satisfying. Though if you've also read The Beatrice Letters, well, I won't say anything further. It just makes me sad thinking about it.


Wii!

Ricky
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The Wedding Usher


It truly is the year of weddings and jury duty. I can't believe the number of weddings that have happened this year around me; friends, family, co-workers, famous people, etc. And really, the number of people summoned for jury duty is staggering too.

But this is about weddings; Charmin's wedding to be exact! Yes friends, my amazingly awesome cousin Charmin got hitched to her fiance Tony Toni Tone today!






Ellvin Kelvin, Timotei, and I were ushers. I was a little surprised at what the duties were since I thought all we did was tell people where to sit. Because the church was so strict, after telling the guests which side to sit on, we had to tell them to turn off their cell phones and that they were forbidden to video record or take pictures until after the wedding. Then after all the guests were seated (after having arrived all at the same time to be seated), we had to escort the parents and grandparents down the aisle to their seats. It was pretty cool.



Of course once the wedding began, the flashbulbs went off. People were taking pictures everywhere. So much for our authority. And I had never noticed how annoying digital cameras were until I heard the beep-beepbeepbeeps every 4 seconds.



After the short and sweet wedding, everyone applauded when the minister guy announced them and we took a mess of pictures. But we couldn't stay long because we had to help set up the reception dinner.

The reception was pretty awesome. We helped set up the slideshow (which was also short and sweet) and the party favors. I was in charge of recording the reception, but from my point of view. In fact, the newlyweds wanted to witness memories from every table's point of view, so they left cameras for all to use. I thought this was clever and I had never heard of it, but apparently it's a common thing.

However, things weren't all rosebuds and Lucky Charms. Near the end of the meal, I turned around to see many people staring at a single table. Turning around even further, an elderly woman (who later I learned was Charmin's great aunt) was not responding to repeated attempts to open her eyes or mouth. Thankfully, it turns out that one of Charmin's good friends (and co-wedding coordinator) was a doctor, one of the guests was a nurse, and one of our second cousins was a firefighter. They all helped her to the ground where they administered CPR. I didn't want to look because it was really horrifying. They had successfully revived her before the paramedics came (within 5 minutes). She went to the hospital, but is expected to pull through. Word has it that she may have taken one too many heart medications.



But besides that scare, things went great. Our family had the most fun in a long time. There was some dancing and drinking and man was there drinking at our table.

We're all looking forward to Ellvin Kelvin's wedding, whenever that may be.


Munching Cap'n Crunch,

Ricky
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It's Your Wedding Day!


Back in July 2005, I announced that my old high school friend and fellow Loud Crowder Meechi was engaged! Also on that day, I let known that Charmin was engaged (more on that in two weeks). Well, Meechi got married today!

I got my invitation in the mail about a month ago and was very pleased to be asked to attend. Meechi is one of my absolute favorite people in the world and I would have liked nothing more than to see her walk down the aisle.

I got to the church pretty early expecting to see other Loud Crowders. However, the only ones that showed up were Erico Suave and Princess Karlita (who was the Maid of Honor). I learned that to keep the wedding semi-smallish, we were the only ones invited, which made me feel all the more honored.

So as the wedding started half an hour late, Princess Karlita came down the aisle trailing the rest of the wedding party taking deep breaths. She was literally on the verge of bawling. Then Meechi came down the aisle, beautiful in her wedding gown, with a giant smile on her face. Seeing her take the walk, I couldn't help but share such a big smile.

The wedding carried on for about an hour with lots of prayers and kneeling and prayers.

After the wedding, we made our way to the reception and ate some sweet Mexican food, drank some sweet champagne, devoured some sweet cake, took some sweet pictures, danced some sweet moves, gave some sweet gifts, played some sweet games, talked some sweet smack, and hugged some sweet friends. It was such a perfect evening with old friends and I'm so glad I was able to participate.

I wish Meechi all the happiness in the world! I hope you enjoy the freakin' heavy 24 piece glassware and banana hammock (literally a hammock for bananas and other fruit)!

In other late breaking news (and by late, I mean several months late), Shallow Val got married to The Diggery Dude.


Preparing for wedding number two,

Ricky
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Cul-charred


This is how I come to find a topic to write about. I look at the things I've been doing with my life; should I talk about Netflix, Starfox, Tank You Very Much? Nope. Then I look to the news for some inspiration; The Croc Hunter died today which I'm really sad about. Not something I can really blog about. Then, once in a while, Father Routes will come to me and force me into something that is easily bloggable. This, my friends, is one of those times.

The day started out with a rude wake up call at 9 o'clock in the morn. Father Routes had heard about a Chinese Culture Festival in Arcadia on his grating Chinese radio station. For some reason, he was very compelled to go and also to drag his family along for the fun.

And so we went at 10 o'clock in the morn to a park in Arcadia. Nearly 100° F out and not three steps into the park, I start to see pit stains. Four more steps and the stains run down my back. You've never seen so many Chinese people, unless you've been to China. You should have seen the line of us walking from the parking lot to the park. It reminded me of a zomba line (conga line consisting of zombies); a legion of the undead with big visors covering their rotting faces marching single file across a busy street and into the festival.

Well, that's what it looked like at least. If the people attending weren't undead, the festival sure smelled like it was. I can't remember the last time I complained about the tofu people we lived next to. A refresher: our neighbors own a tofu shop behind our house and make that nasty stanky schtuff everyday and smell up the street. Anyway, that's what it smelled like at many of the booths. I can't believe they allow stuff like that to exist in the world.

So after walking around a while, I got hungry. For a Chinese festival, there sure wasn't any good food to eat. So we walked to a big Denny's shaped like a windmill. I had the great Grand Slam Deluxe. They were out of bacon, so I had 6 freakin' sausages!!!

After a long time, we walked back to the park and met up with Father Routes. Then I sat my ass down in the shade and played Nintendo DS till everyone was just about sick and tired of the non-events and we left.

It was the first time in years that I've put on sunblock. I just hate the stuff, you know? It's greasy and smelly and lotiony. I hate lotions. But I'm glad I put it on because I would have been burnt to a crisp had I not.

After we got home, I told Father Routes that I hope he had the time of a lifetime because this was the only time in his life he'd ever go to one of these (at least with the family). We all hated it. I really hope he enjoyed what he saw though. I'm sure he had a better vision in his mind about the event; like us mingling with the families, enjoying the dancing and demonstrations, appreciating the music. I honestly feel bad that all we did was bitch about the thing. I'll make it up to him one day, but I will never ever go to another culture crapfest again.

Oh, and if you were curious as to what the hell I was referring to when I said "Tank You Very Much"...




Tanking of cooler days,

Ricky
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Povertyland


Back to normal civilian life after a weekend well spent with the angelic winged Jasmine. But it wasn't without its scares.

Yes, we saw Snakes on a Plane, but that wasn't the frightening thing.

After blazing through Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure in one day, we headed back to our hotel on foot. The walk was a relatively short one (about a block or two) up a hill, over the freeway. But as we were trotting along, we saw a husky black gentleman a good distance ahead. He looked normal enough; afroey hair enclosed in a cap, shirt and jeans, shoes and even socks. In his left hand looked to be a portable CD player (with no cord extending out of it) and his right hand jittering in the air.

It wasn't till he muttered "Where are you God?" that Angel Wing Jasmine and I thought he might be a little off. At this point, we were pretty close to him. So we stopped dead in our tracks. I popped my cell phone out and pretended to take a call using such obvious security terms as "oh Bob, you have 911 at the ready" and "oh, the police are on the line too?"

The man didn't seem to care. He just went along muttering to himself and walking down the sidewalk.

We waited a long time for him to be a really good distance away. It appeared as if we were home free. We sighed with relief. A family of six was even approaching from behind. Things were looking safe.

Looking ahead, the guy was so far ahead that we couldn't see him anymore. Paying no mind, we continued on toward the hotel with the family close behind.

As we finally crossed the freeway overpass, suddenly a rustling from the bushes and the jittery-hand man emerged from off the road. He was now five feet in front of us. We stopped. The family stopped.

The man pulled up his pants. It was obvious that he had taken a leak or a dump. He slowed his pace to a quick tip-toe as we approached our hotel. It was just sort of disgusting until he pointed his hand like a gun and pretended to fire at the passing cars. Click! Click! That's when it got scary.

The family behind us rushed ballsily passed the man. My plan was to stick with the family. It was the old adage that your chances of crossing a river full of alligators are higher when you cross with a big group. Angel Wing Jasmine pulled me back. She wanted to wait as long as possible (when our hotel was a hop, skip, and a jump) to blow passed the guy. And that's exactly what we did.

BOOM! We zoomed passed him and didn't look back. Into the lobby, up the elevator, and into our room; we were safe.

Yeah, it was scary. So to lighten the mood, here we are kicking butt on Buzz Lightyear.




Afeared of scaries,

Ricky
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Quarter Centurama


Birthdays come around too quickly. Honestly, is there anything much to say? Hooray, I'm 25 years old, I guess. But yeah, 25 feels like 24.

My close friends called to wish me well as expected, but the real highlight was getting a birthday cake from my Animal Crossing neighbors. It was the coolest thing when Pate, a local duck, greeted me outside my house and wished me happy birthday. It was awesome.

Ducks are fun.


Twenty-bore,

Ricky
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"If Something Stinks, It's Usually The Butz"


This weekend was a big weekend for the theater freak in me. Two shows that I coordinated finally came about: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Curtains.

On Friday evening, we (Lee Leman, Cousin Spacey, Ellvin Kelvin, K-mart, Timotei, and me) went down to the Pantages Theater in Hollywood to catch Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I had seen the show in New York and was blown away by Norbert Leo Butz's performance as Freddie Benson. The show has some genuine laughs and is mostly raunchy humor, but there are only a handful of good songs. At the stage door where you can meet the cast, I had tried to get Mr. Butz to sign my program, but the two times I was there to meet him, he had slipped away quickly. I had learned that he would be touring with the show, so after watching some bootleg videos on YouTube, I was motivated to see the show again, despite the hefty $80 price tag (in New York I paid $25). So the show was okay. Mr. Butz was as good as ever, but the rest of the cast seemed to be asleep during the whole thing. Oh well, after the show we got to meet Butz. He was gracious enough, signing a ton of programs (including mine) and taking pictures willingly. Just in case you were wondering why anyone would even care to meet this guy, he was in the original cast of RENT, he originated the role of Fiyero in Wicked, and won the Tony for his part in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.



On Saturday afternoon, we (and there's too many of us to list off; basically everyone in my entire family) went to the Ahmanson Theater in Downtown Los Angeles to catch Curtains; a world premiere murder mystery musical comedy starring Fraiser's David Hyde Pierce. This was more of an old-fashioned musical with a modern twist. There's so much story going on it's hard to keep track and not get too bogged down while watching. Basically, an actress is murdered at the end of a new terrible musical on opening night. A detective (Pierce) is called in to investigate. He names everyone in the show a suspect, but becomes more interested in fixing the musical for a reopening night. More people die and eventually he finds the truth and love in the end. I thought it was really inventive (the way they staged stuff) and the story was interesting and the detective character was funny and charming, but because the show was old-fashioned, some of the music wasn't to my taste. But still, it was really fun to watch, for $20 to boot!

And speaking of which, I got my confirmation for my group order for Wicked coming to Los Angeles next March. I've got 40 tickets reserved, great seats, at $96.50 a piece. Wanna go? Let me know soon!


Take that!!!

Ricky
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Bitchslapped by a Spider


There's no denying that I'm as blind as a bat without my glasses or contacts. My unaided vision allows me to see globs of roundish shapes, each fuzzy around the edges. Every morning, when I empty my bladder, I kinda just stand in front of the Juan and hope to hallahalla it hits the water. Sometimes I'll hear the snare drumming and steady pitter-patter vibrations of tinkle upon the floor and have to mop it up, which is a pain. But what can I say? I'm blind.

Course, the point of this story wasn't to showcase my hilariously tragic vision deficiencies. It's not for your amusement, sicko. Its purpose was to detail how this condition often impedes my ability to live a normal life. Morning blindness can have serious consequences, mostly when bundled with a phobia of mine.

Imagine if you will, stepping into the bath for your morning shower. All is as it should be with your every morning routine. Rushing water from the spout, step inside, water rains down to cleanse, lather, rinse, repeat. But something compels you to look down at the floor and you see a blackish fluff. Juevos Crickey, it's a spider. After an initial moment of panic, you simply step away from it and direct the water to flush it down the drain.

Unthinkable you say? No! True story! And it's happened several times I might add. But it's not that frightening because the spider stands away from you and they're easy to take care of. If you want to talk frightening, let us discuss this morning.

So I got out of bed, late, and made my way to the sink to brush my teeth and wash my face. I got my washcloth from the towel rack and ran it under the running faucet. Suddenly, something hit me in the left side of my forehead.

"What the hell?" I groggled, backing away from the sink.

I saw what looked like a fluttering bug at chin level. I proceeded to blow it away, but noticed it just kept falling slowly, gracefully. I took a step forward and approached it ever so closely with my face and a giant, ugly, black, stringy spider came into focus. The freakin' devil's crabs as I like to call them. Now, realize how close I had to be to see this thing clearly. I could have probably tapped it with my nose, I was so close.

I shuffled back in a panic as it webbed down and touched base with my counter top. Then it proceeded to prance over the edge and start its descent downward. I watched it, angrily, with the faucet still running. I was paralyzed, but I knew I had to do something. I couldn't just let it get away with what it had done. So I took the nearest object I could find that I didn't care to get spiderguts on, which turned out to be my bright yellow glasses case, and with vengence in my soul and eyes probably wide shut, I pounced that yellow lion onto the cliffhanging bandit!

Only to miss.

There was no friendly squashed eight-legger flattened on the plastic case. There was no longer a blackish fuzzy orb desending the white canyon counter.

I leapt back, expecting the thing to run full force at the blind man who attacked him. I looked up and down the counter, but did not see anything except... MY GLASSES!

I snatched them up and put them on. Scanning... scanning...

But there was no spider lying helpless on the carpet. I pictured a bug on its back, two legs over its head, sighing over-dramatically in agony. "Whoa is me," he'd cry, in a squeakish voice. "Whoa, whoa is me. Sigh. Sigh."

My terror alert jumped up to arach-red. Still scanning... scanning... Heart racing... Water running...

I now had a big Listerine bottle in hand, ready to drill that monster into the carpet fibers.

Alas, it was nowhere to be found; not under the two bags of garbage waiting to be taken out of my washroom; not beneath the bulk supply of Lever 2000 soap bars next to the door; not near the empty Waterpick box under the sink (we threw out that broken Waterpick long ago; why do we still have the freakin' box?!).

Whoa is me.

I can't go back. I know he'll be there, waiting. Next time, I know he'll successfully land on my head and suck my brains out. Or perhaps lay his babies in my pores. And when they hatch next Spring, I'll look like Seal. Although, with this Summer's breakout of acne, I'm about two zits away from looking like Seal. Hey, at least some chicks like Heidi Klum dig pimples. They finds it zexy!

I can only hope there are supermodels who find "death by spider" zexy as well.


Paralyzed and paranoid and parafied of ¡espideres!

Ricky
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