Catching Up


No, jury duty didn't claim me. Far from it actually. I didn't even have to report to the courthouse. Like my last summons, my group number was never called, so thus ends another easy jury service.

So here I yam! Stuffage. Yes.

I can't believe it's already summer. Do you realize that this year is just about half over? Wow, and kids are almost out of school, aren't they? June used to be so exciting because it meant the start of summer vacation. But now, well, it's still kinda exciting. Summer means Early Fridays at work and donuts! Yup, just what everyone needs to get beach-ready: fried freakin' glazed dough.

Today was our second Early Friday. I spent the first one in Hollywood getting tickets for a bunch of us to Hairspray (cheap $25 seats!). Today, I spent the extra four hours of the weekend asleep! Seriously, I got home, ate, and crashed on the couch. I'd say that's time well spent.

Speaking of summer, check out how pale I've gotten. I am in dire need of a tan.



We've got stuff planned for the weekend, like seeing Urinetown at UCLA (cheap $7 tickets!). There's also a birthday party for many familiers on Sunday (our family gets together a lot), so that means Metroid Hunters marathon! But first thing's first... HAPPY BERFDAY EM!


June gloomy,

Ricky
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Who Gives a Duty?


Next week, I pay my debt to our fantastic cuntry (what spelling error?) by going to jury duty. This is my third time being summoned and thus far, I've never been selected for a trial.

The first time I received that dreaded pinkish court paper, I was a college student and stupidly enough, they asked me to show up during summer sessions. I thought I was for sure off the hook, being able to just cite that I'm a full-time student. But when I called to be dismissed, the jury duty guy said "Okay you have school. When is your next break?"

I went to the courthouse and sat for 8 hours as they called just about everyone to the jury stand. Finally at the end of the day, after so many dismissals, I was one of the few never called up to be questioned. And that was that. I was off the hook.

The second time I was summoned, my group number was never chosen to go in. So that was nice.

I'm hoping the same thing happens this time around. However if it doesn't and I have to serve, it's okay because I'll get paid for jury duty ($15/day!) and for my regular day job. Every little bit helps toward the purchase of Timotei's and my house... but I shouldn't say too much about that right now, as nothing's final at this point. More to follow down the road.


Fingers crossed,

Ricky
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Dookis


Two things I forgot to mention about New York.

Numbero juan: I met up with Princess Karlita at Serendipity, the restaurant that spawned a movie about drinking frozen chocolate pudding. We chatted about stuff and more stuff and ate some comfort food (we needed the comfort due to the stuff we were chatting about!). I had a sandwich called The Catcher in the Rye. Unfortunately, it did not have the f-word graffitied all over it. And the sandwich wasn't that good either. It turns out that rye bread sucks.

After lunch, we went to Central Park for a stroll through the zoo and chit-chatted on a park bench. Of course, if you know me, you know that I'm a bird dooky magnet. There've been around 6 times or so where I've been pooped on. And yet... strangely enough, these shit hits have all occurred when I was out with my high school friends. Therefore, it's gotta be them who are the bird crap aficionados!

Numbero toes: On the day we saw RENT, I had a Mango-a-Go-Go from Jamba Juice that I slurped down in about 7 minutes; no brain freeze. Right before they opened the theater to begin seating, Samantha Wu had to use the restroom. Instead of braving the theater bathroom crowd, she used the Burger King restroom across the street. When she came back, we were all set to take our seats when my stomach went blurrroooop! Suddenly I needed to take an emergency dump. I ran to the Burger King where there was a line. Legs crossed, butt clenched, I waited for two largish white girls to finish peeing, I presumed. It was a great non-plan on my part. With women going in first, they would have the toilet seat all dry and polished.

I went into the bathroom (a line had begun forming behind me) and found a toilet that would not stop flushing. At first I felt screwed, but realized that this worked to my advantage. The constant flushing would muffle my toots and eliminate splashing. Well, what a dump I took. I fired on all pistons; one of the worst cases of dooks I've ever had. I tried to expel as much as I could before catching up with the others at the theater.

I knew that I'd have to go again during the show. Luckily I had seen RENT so many times, so I knew which parts were the least interesting and planned my trips accordingly. I went twice during the show; once during "On the Street/Santa Fe" and again during "Goodbye Love." I didn't expect anyone in the bathroom during the performance, but when I went in the first time, there was someone else in one of the stalls. I had to go no matter what, so I went as quietly as I could, but immediately let out a loud thfffffwwwwwtttt! I saw the guy-next-to-me's feet leap from surprise and/or disgust and leave as fast as humanly possible.

Needless to say, I stayed away from smoothies and dairy products in general for the rest of the trip.


Poop-si-daisy,

Ricky
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Trippin'


New York was fun. The past two times I went, I came back all buzzing and happy-like, with the feeling that I would love to live there. This time, however, I did not feel as exuberant. I'm not sure what happened on this trip, but I was just really happy to be back home. In fact, I was saying last Thursday about wanting to get back home.

Well all we really did was watch shows and eat. We ate at this hip cafe eatery called... erm... "Eatery." That was a 10 block trek in pouring rain for some quality omelets and waffles. We ate at a nice burger joint called McDonald's. We at expensive chinese food in Chinatown and cheap dumplings and noodles in Flushing. We ate great pizza at a place called Montello's, next to Papaya Dog. And the most expensive meal of them all, we ate at Mesa Grill owned by Iron Chef Bobby Flay.



We also hit up Central Park on a very beautiful day. I forgot to mention that after the two days of intense rain, we had intense niceness the rest of the trip. It was sunny and breezy and nice. It was weird weather because when we left the apartment everyday, it felt like jacket weather, but 23 minutes later, we would realize that it's just short shirt weather. So it was very frustrating at times to have to lug around our jackets; especially since mine is big, fat, and pockety.

Anyway, we went to Central Park and took a stroll. I had never done the top part of Central Park and this trip was no exception. We stayed in the southern section, basically crossing the park to get to The Met.

The Met was as thrilling as ever.







Let's get to the shows. Here are the shows that we saw:

Avenue Q
Timotei and Samantha Wu saw this after winning the lottery on second try. Samantha Wu liked it so much, she went to see it again alone on the day we left.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Barely anyone did the lottery for this show because it's more than a year old, so we easily got cheap tickets. I thought the show was really funny. Norbert Leo Butz is hilarious as Freddy Benson. I wanted to get Butz to sign my program, but he left through a secret exit or something and eluded me.

RENT
We tried to win tickets to a special 10th anniversary original cast performance of RENT, but so did hundreds of other freaky looking people. Well we didn't win, or if our names were called, we couldn't hear it. But we ended up seeing RENT at a special discounted night for $20.

Regarding RENT, I think I may be over it. After seeing it five times on stage, it just doesn't pack the same punch. I used to like seeing it because it was like a rock concert. But the show just seems a bit stale now. We had a good Mark and Angel, but the Roger was too weird and the Mimi couldn't really sing. And it might have something to do wtih the seats. This was the first time I was sitting int he mezzanine rather than orchestra. The show really needs to be seen from the front row to feel connected. All I know is that I'm done seeing RENT for at least a year or two.



The Wedding Singer
Originally, Timotei and I were the only ones with tickets. We paid $111 each for center orchestra seats. Ellvin Kelvin, Amazing Grace, and Samantha Wu joined us with partial view student rush seats for $26. We all ended up liking it (some more than others). We got pictures with the cast and our programs signed. Besides loving the movie The Wedding Singer, my main reason for seeing the show was the fact that my favorite comedian Stephen Lynch was starring in the Adam Sandler role. I totally geeked out. I saw the show twice more and even got Mr. Lynch to sign my copy of his latest album "The Craig Machine."

Wicked
Saw Wicked with Eden Espinosa (from Brooklyn last year) as Elphaba and she was really awesome. I think she was even better than the original Elphaba. The show was great as always, save for the African American Fiyero who really can't sing.

Tarzan
Here's a show that really sucks! This show takes place mostly in the air, as you might think a musical based on Tarzan would. When they announced they were making a Tarzan show, I thought of all the possibilities of Cirque du Soleil type aerial dancing between Tarzan and Jane. What did we get instead? Apes jumping around on bungees. The show wastes all opportunities for great aerial acts. The new songs that Phil Collins wrote add nothing to the show (one of the new songs is nice, but comes out of left field; appropriate I guess since Jane is lowered on a flower swing for no reason during the song). The cast is really good, but are wasting their talent on a bad production. They also ruined the story by trying to flesh things out, which seems impossible but they did it. They added unnecessary plot (the fate of Kerchak's parents) and by doing so, eliminated important parts (Kerchak accepting Tarzan as his son). The big Clayton scheme is a full 2 minutes of the show and is resolved in literally 5 seconds. The ending is horrid. The sets (or lack thereof) are plain and boring. You stare at green strings the entire show. And wait till you see the giant spider! This show is bad. Expect to read bad reviews when it officially opens May 10. This show is unsalvageable.

Okay, enough about the shows. I was actually starting to get sick of seeing them. I'm sure I have many stories about what happened in New York, but I can't remember them. There was the thing with Harry Connick Jr....

We were walking to get ice cream and saw a crowd waiting near a stage door. We found that people were waiting for Harry Connick Jr. to come out. Samantha Wu wanted a picture, but right before he came out, his bodyguards said "No photos!" So I took her camera and took video of him coming by. The bodyguards tried to get in my shot, but I assured them that it was not a picture. What were they gonna do anyway? Who cares.

Anyway, days later, we were walking back from a show and saw a man sitting alone on the side of a building dialing on his cell phone. Turns out it was Mr. Connick Jr. himself. Instead of bug him about taking a picture (since he was on his cell and because he's so sensitive about photos), I just told him to have a good night as we passed. He looked up and gave us a nod and that was that. I should have kicked his ass for cheating on Grace Adler.

Okay I'm tired of writing this. But before I go, let me leave you with this artwork from The Met of a lion who is freaked out by something...




Meow!

Ricky
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Back in Action


I'm back from my somewhat stressful vacation in New York. Yes, I had fun and really enjoyed seeing seven shows (well, maybe 5 of them) and meeting my favorite comedian and eating at a famous chef's restaurant and saying "what's up" to an emaciated actor... but in all honesty, I'm glad to be back. Yeah, I got sick, but it's just nice to kick back at home and actually relax. At New York, I feel constant pressure to be doing something and if I don't, then I feel it's a wasted time.

But anyway, I have to gather all the photos we took from Samantha Wu, Amazing Grace, and Timotei for a true-to-force trip report. Until I get those pictures, I can't write up anything.

I can say this though. This is my 250th blog entry! Awesome!


Back in the dumpster,

Ricky
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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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