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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Kung Fu in the Kitchen


Usually I don't post... well... ever. Nah, that's a lie. I post semi-often... well... decent-often... or sorta-often? Maybe partial-kinda-often to be honest-ish. But there are days where events will spark a need to spill your chest, so to speak. Today is one of those days.

I've noticed in the past few months, perhaps even years, that my parents have been fighting more often. I don't know if it's because harsher times tend to leave a deeper mark on memories, but it seems as if there've been more fights than laughs. The problem is, I never know what they're arguing about because they shout in Chinese. Well, whatever it is, it's probably over something stupid.

UPDATE: I found Mother Routes sitting alone in the living room and asked her what their fight was about. Apparently she asked Father Routes what was in a certain box, he didn't like her tone, she insisted she didn't have a tone, he started yelling because he felt she was yelling, she yelled back, etc.

So yeah, stupid. Or as they would say: Bing da noya! Ay ya!


Not caring enough to discuss further,

Ricky
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The Summer of Stephen


...King that is.

The first time I heard of Stephen King's latest novel, Cell, I thought he had definitely run out of ideas. Cell phones that turn people into mindless crazies? Sounded like a rejected Goosebumps tale. And then, check out the tagline:

THERE'S A REASON CELL RHYMES WITH HELL.

Whoa! Talk about words to send chills down any man's spine! Sheebus!

The book finally came out and I didn't so much as bat an eyelash (I'm not sure if it's socially acceptable for guys to use that phrase, but I did anyway... I'm just a rebel like that). And months passed without me even caring. Let's just say I forgot about its existence. The book got good reviews though, many hailing it as Stephen King's return to form.

Then a friend of mine raved about the book. She was completely enamored by this gory tale. So I asked her if this book was anything like some of the old stuff that I couldn't get into. I've only read one Stephen King book, as you may recall from way a way earlier blog, called The Long Walk. And I loved that book. Then I tried to read Dreamcatcher, which was completely unreadable if you ask me. But she assured me that she was just like me. She hated Dreamcatcher and Cell was very different in that it moves along at a very nice pace.

So, needing another book to read, I took the bait and ordered it off the Amazon Marketplace. Great place to get newly released books because people get these bestsellers, read them, and then unload them onto eBay or wherever. I like to collect books that I read since I don't read that often anyway. And so, I got the book for $2 (like new), with $3.49 shipping. Pretty damn cheap.

And I am loving the book. Page 6 rolls along and already the book gets to the point and the shiz hits the fan!

The book is also a great conversation piece. I get a lot of looks when I'm reading it in public and people ask me about it, which is neat.

Also this summer, TNT is showing a Twilight Zonesque show called Stephen King presents Nightmares and Dreamscapes. The title is from a collection of short stories; a book that I gifted to Angel Wing Jasmine back in college and she read the hell out of that thing. I read some of the stories, namely the ones about the chattering teeth and the teacher that killed her students one by one. But the TV event series is based off of many short stories from many books by King; a lot of which I'm unfamiliar with. The show has its great episodes and its dull ones and its ones with crappy endings, but I'm enjoying it anyway.

Hmm, isn't that peculiar? I'm enjoying summer. Who'da thunk?


Heat waves suck,

Rast!
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OUENDAN!!!


I've been completely obsessed in the past few days with a Japanese import game called Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. This rhythm action game is translated to Go! Fight! Cheer Squad. But it ain't no cheerleading sissy game. This game is rocking my freakin' socks off. You basically tap around the touch screen to the beat of a song and depending how well you do, the story being told on the top screen changes good or bad. Maybe I'll post a video of it one day when I figure out that You Tube thing.

Thus explains my absence, sort of. We also didn't have internet for a while because our service provider sucks noodles.

But really, there hasn't been much going around, as always. I mean, between work and games and trying to stay cool in this global warming epidemic, yeah... nothing.

Though I have been spending entirely too much money lately. Speaking of games, I bought a Mahjong game for the DS which plays by Japanese rules (which is infuriating), the cheer squad game mentioned above for $50, Bleach: Heat the Soul 3 for PSP for Timotei's and my commuting buddy's birthday, tickets to upcoming shows (more on this later), books off Amazon, a new iPod shuffle and Airport Express, and more food than I can store on my waist. So I think I need to just cut back on buying junk. However, come September, there's a plethora of stuff I am going to have to buy, so... if you need to borrow money, hit me up now.

And speaking of upcoming shows, a popular show was recently announced coming to Los Angeles and as soon as I heard, I put in a giant group order. The theater called me back and said that I was the fourth person to be accomodated for tickets and set me up with some premo seats (and also some not so premo). But as soon as I get my order in place and seats confirmed, I'll share the news (and way of distributing these nice seats). This purchase is gonna hit my credit card hard. So yeah, forget about that whole "borrowing money" thing I said earlier.

Well then, until next month, so it seems. I still have to get that picture of me up for the July 5th anniversary blog. Some tradition that was.

Happy birthday Lee Leman!



Growing money on trees,

Forgetful Ricky... whose tastes are so damn picky.
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Meat Meets Hole


You're f'in dirty. This is NOT a blog of a suggestive nature! I'm talking about the holes left after my wisdom teeth were removed.

So I was eating some ribs delicioso for dinner. Scarfed down four pieces eating normally. You see, I learned that when food gets stuck in one of the four holes, I just dig it out with my tongue or rinse it out. They don't get absorbed into the body and disappear forever like I had thought.

But then, after I ate those ribs, I felt something jammed in my lower left pocket. I tried to tongue it out, but no dice. I tried rinsing it out, vigorously, but nothing happened. So I tried prodding with my finger. I felt the healing gum tissue, but couldn't find the lodged meat. I started to think maybe it was my gum flapping around the hole. But determined to find something, I got a toothpick and jabbed it around. I struck blood which concerned me. But I now knew that there was indeed something stuck in there because the toothpick pushed it further into the abyss.

I got way more concerned. What would happen? Would it be in there forever, getting moldy and pussy? In a panic, I tried flossing, nothing; more toothpicking, nothing; fingering, nothing. Finally, I even more vigorously rinsed my mouth, honing all my suction power on that one particular hole. In and out and in and out, I swished and swashed, never swallowing. It was tap water.

Then the most amazing thing happened. I felt the meat rising to the top--swish--bulging out of the hole--swash--dislodging itself--gurgle--ooh oohh pop! Like some ecstasassy eruption, the meat leapt out of the crater and was spat into the sing.

It was a huge chunk of a BBQ rib. I was afraid if I tried to eat it again, it'd get stuck once more, so I flushed it down the drain.

And that's my story. If you found some parts questionable for certain audiences, I think you need to get your head out of the gutter. You nasty.


Asking if that was meat in my pocket or was I just happy to see you,

Frisky
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Thrice


The years fly.

Unlike Superman. Burn!

But seriously. I've been doing this for three years and still arguably enjoying it. Yes, I hit some dry creative droughts for periods at a time. Sometimes, read "most of the time," my life is pretty damn boring and I attempt to spice it up with some fancy wordplay. And sometimes I just forget to blog for a few weeks. But I'm still going strong. Still good. Arguably.

It's amazing though what has come about since I started writing the blog. There was that whole not really graduating in time unless I took Spanish during the summer. There was my actual graduation. There were multiple trips to Disneyland with friends, beach trips with Angel Wing Jasmine, and my whole X-Games phase; who could forget my devastating skateboarding injury. The life of an unemployee, then employee. Oh yes, the big job and then the big raise (make that two). New York! New York! New York! Florida! Florida! Florida! Feeling down. Poetry. Dirtbikes. Getting drunk at Avalon Cove. 24 marathons. Rufio/Dashboard/Something Corporate/New Found Glory concerts! Backwards blogs. Karla visits. Christmas listlessness. Finding out that musicals can be cool. Cirque too! Reading some books for a change! Conquering Hurricane Ivan. Gambling...once. Starting a savings and watching it grow. Up Syndrome? Hating Philly. FerFerFer. ViveViveVive. 666. The many adventures of poo. Triple shits. TV! Nintendo! Ant rants. Popping bunny tails and shooting cats. Mac addict. iPods. Dreams at wake. The homeless. Getting fat. Series 6. Chim Chim Cheroo. Animal Crossing. Ill. Self-help. Amazing Grace! Lying in NY. Wedding Singer three times! Wisdom teeth. Present.

Wow. Three years in one paragraph. I need to get out more!

[Insert annual picture]


Summer-izing,

Ricky
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Poo'd the Piper


I sure paid the price today.

Because of my recent wisdom teeth extraction, I've been confined to eating soft foods for the past three days. On the first day, I had some porridge and pudding. However, yesterday the Oblongs had a big birthday party with tons of Hawaiian barbeque that I couldn't eat. So instead, I ate a scoop of strawberry ice cream, two cups of pudding, cream of mushroom soup, macaroni salad, and a nice helping of ice cream cake to end the night.

Today at work, my stomach did the blooooooop! while in mid-conversation with a co-worker. I promptly excused myself and bolted to the bathroom where I prayed no one else was doing "the two." Unfortunately someone else was. It was an unavoidable situation however because I had to go no matter what. So I took a seat and endured the burningest liquid shizz I've ever encountered. Ever. Surprisingly I was pretty quiet, but not without random short bursts.

I slowed things down a bit to let the other guy finish up and leave. It was an excruciating waiting game. Wouldn't you know it, the fucker wouldn't leave! He was probably waiting for me to bail, but I held my ground... that is, until someone else joined us... and this guy was a tooter.

At the first sign of an unpleasant Triple Shit, the first guy wrapped up his business and left. And after no signs of winning some privacy, I cleaned up and left. And wouldn't you know it? Just as I was leaving, the tooter cleans up.

Opportunity!

I walked back to my cube and waited around a bit and then returned to a private restroom. I was free. I was relieved. I was in heaven.

Of course, I had to return twice more to actually finish up. And now I walk funny.

But seriously, I cannot handle that much dairy or I'll die of dairy-ria.

And for those who were curious as to how the actual extraction procedure was, it was extremely simple. I was nervous of course, but the surgeon assistants or whatever reassured me that it would be nothing because I was going to be put under. This was my very first time being gassed or shot up with whatever puts you out, so I was scared of how it would be like. The most important thing to me was making sure I was asleep. I didn't want one of those horror stories where the person appears to be asleep, but really isn't and then witnesses everything.

So they took my blood pressure and tried to find a vein to give me the shot, but couldn't find anything. They looked on both arms and finally found a spot on my wrist. The shot was a shot, you know. I mean it hurt, but wasn't anything notable. Then they told me that I'd be asleep in about 30 seconds, so I made sure to keep my eyes wide open-- and suddenly I was in the car on the way back home. Supposedly I said some things in the hour of my life I can't recall, but nothing too embarrassing. I didn't dance with the nurses or anything.

Okay, I'm gonna end this now. Bye!


Pooped,

Ricky
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