Video Blog Take Two

Ironically, I think my first video was more interesting.

I'm just trying to get used to being in front of a camera and failing miserably.
Sigh.

Don't watch it, waste to of time.

Monyrith told me not to Video blog until I have something REALLY interesting to say.. otherwise, it will suck. Hehe... so I'm going to just leave it at that. Woot.

Hanging with the Cousins

The good thing about being home is that family is much closer. Last Thursday I went out to celebrate my cousin's birthday. I suggested Bolansa and my cousins LOVED the "perfectly seasoned" broth of the noodle dishes that they ordered. I was happy since it was a dessert place and I hate suggesting a place and finding out that it was the source of food poisoning.

My friends stopped by and told me that my cousins were HOT. Well duh. We're a hot family.



After, we headed to go roller skating! LOVED IT! I was dying to go, but no one would go with me. It makes me sad because it's obviously a dying activity. The roller rink was pretty empty even though it was family night. I wished this generation of kids went to the roller rink instead of myspaced all day. It's like mental retardation. Myspace = mental retardation. Roller skating = enlightenment and answers to the question of life.


My cousins were impressed with my moves. I was trying to get beat skating down where you would hop on the second beat of the song while you skated. I almost got it. I love skating to Salt and Peppa and Carwash! Oo Oo ! oo Oo!


After that we had my cousin's cake on my truck bed because of the stupid rink regulations. No plates, no knives = dig right in! Look at the damage we did on the strawberry filled Tres Leches cake!



I love family.

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This passed weekend I made plans to take a hip hop class with my crazy salsa dancing, corporate power woman, wedding planning cousin. We both got dressed like hot hip hop dancers and drove to Berkeley.

But.. we were late and missed the class. Instead we had lunch at the Durant Food Court. HAHA aka the Asian Ghetto.

Okay, this is my favorite, "Korean" dish. It's called Mushroom Fried Noodle. I really don't think it's Korea because it's not red or BBQed. Hmm, but I missed it because I used to order it when I went to Cal.




We talked about family and my brother and what's the best thing to do... she gave me some good insight.

My brother is a good kid. But he is bored. According to my cousin, he doesn't have fear; which is different from how the older cousins were raised. At some point in our lives, we were scared of our parents and responsibilities were piled on. My brother: not scared. Not scared of failing, not scared of messing up. On every report card there is a C and my parents merely say, "do better next time." With no fear, he has no motivation and just coasts along. Average is good enough... but what about college?

My parents aren't strict, but they do care. I feel that for his personality type, being strict would have probably been beneficial because he lacks discipline. But it's too late to switch strategies.

According to my cousin, he needs to have an "OH fuck" moment. He needs to fail BIG time to realize that online games that have stunt his maturity and he needs to wake up to the world around him...that there are choices for him to make that will affect him later. "I'm here to help, but you need to approach me." How many times can I say that?! I've been saying this since the beginning of the year: How do you teach motivation? But it's not clicking.

Maybe NOT getting college is the big failure he needs to have that life changing epiphany... OR not getting into college will cause him fall into deeper depression and exacerbate his indifference and apathy and he'll become a vegetable in his room playing online games and myspace until he's 30!!!!

Am I overconcerned? Probably.
But I'm not ready to watch my brother fail, even if it MIGHT benefit him in the end.
If the policy is "it's his life, as long as he's happy,".... I need to take a deep breath because that's definitely a hard concept to accept when our parents struggled so much and he manages to be... just average.

Vietnamese with Glasses

I have a list of people to chill with and Michelle was on the top of my list!

Woot.

When I arrived I found the perfect parking spot right outside her door of her cute SF apartment.  As I was parking, she came out.  Perfect!

The evening started with some Back to the Future II!  I love the 80's interpretation of 2015!  That's like tomorrow!  Wow flying cars in 7 years!  Brilliant!  

After we went to this awesome restaurant called Poleng.  It was a great date place.  It was hip and sexy!  Not to mention, the food was delicious.  Was it the food?  or the company?  What do YOU think Michelle?  

One of the kids I just met that night told the table a story:

"Yeah... so I was on the airlines and..."  she paused, look at me and said, "I'm sorry.." then she looked at everyone else, "the stewardesses were REALLY Gay!" 

Are you serious? Was I a representative of the Gay Stewardess association?  WTF?  "Wait.. why are you apologizing?"  "Oh.. because you know..."  

Wow.  Ig Nor Ant. I really didn't know what to say.  I guess she saw the rainbow bleeding from my ears and wanted to apologize before potentially making a homo-offensive comment.  Whatever.  The food was so delicious, it masked her retardation.

After, we headed to a Pub.  It was a purely beer place and I got a Cider.  Shut up.  

Harriet and friends were there and I managed to catch up with some good people.  Kalvin surprised me because he was really friendly; asking me how I was and updating me on his life.  I love people like that.  <3

I was talking to Clifford.  

"What fruit do you think they used in this beer?"

"Dude, I don't know."

"...hmm  Passion Fruit?"

"...dude, don't do that!"

"Do what?"

"Look at me like that and say..   pppasssssssion  frruit." Cliff drags out the words like he's seducing me.

"WHAT?!"

Apparently I was hitting on Cliff.   "You're ALWAYS flirting with Cliff!!!" proclaimed Michelle.  But.. I .. I didn't...   damn it.  Maybe I should have apologized for my nonchalant homosexuality.  Am I sending signals I don't know about to everyone I encounter!??!?!

We changed scenes and it was chill.  Inga from Cal Taiko joined us so I took the opportunity to send her shady text messages like, "god, you're so hot."  "I want you now!"  "let's meet in the bathroom."  I thought she knew it was me because she was playing along.  I started to snicker when she started to freak out.  "WHO IS 408!?!?!"  LOL, no one knew.  Come on, who else would it be?  I continued to be amused with Kalvin while he was telling "you KNOW when you're in Vietnam when...."  stories.  He managed to captivate my side of the table.  

Somehow we ended up at a Korea place.  What IS KOREAN FOOD!??!  BBQ and the flavor RED?  Someone PLEASE save me from my darkness.  I was hoping this place would shed some light.  It was 3:00am and the only people who managed to stumble in were hookers and drunks.  This one kid stumbled in, hit a table and fell backwards on his back.  Shit, i should have taken a picture.  But I didn't want to be accosted by his scary gangster Korean buddies.

Oh, and we got this dish.  It was the Flavor Red.  I liked the Rice sticks because they reminded me of Mozzarella sticks.  I LOVE CHEESE!

The next day.  Michelle and I discussed my Video blogging potential and did some Photobooth. We got some cute hole in the wall cafe food and I headed home.

Aww, Michelle is a WONDERFUL host.  This girl will always be my friend.  ...  cuz... we're both Vietnamese with glasses.

Video Blog

Ok.

So... I'm no KevJumba or Chris Crocker (thank god) or whatever Youtube characters there are... but I decided just to keep an open mind and try it out.

God, this is SO awkward. Now you guys know what I look like at 11:30pm.
Maybe I'll do something creative, but at least I'm trying. Eventually Mony and I will do a puppetshow. Maybe this friday.

Okay... I call this a trial run.
No special effects, no script, just... awkward.

I found some old videos and did some editing.
My Gym buddy doesn't understand how I check out people so much.
I didn't think I checked out people THAT much... But heres a video of me being caught in the act.

Oh yes... but dude, I was making Videos back in 2005:
Check it!

That was good times. High on life.. being young... and... being weird.
Hmm.. maybe I'll post more.

Here's my number... TAKE IT!

I was on downelink and I get a downelink IM from some random guy from New York.
I wrote:

Hey! I'm actually heading out to the gym, but here's my number if you wanna talk while I drive.

You must be thinking: Chris, what are you doing giving your number out? Well, I figure, he's from New York and there's no harm talking over the phone. While driving to the gym... I get a ring.

We chat up a storm until I get to 24 Hour Fitness and hang up on him. I call him after to finish the convo. He managed to tell me a pretty good story while being half asleep involving his straight friend. Heheheh. Love it... let's just say it involves being unconscious. LOL.

Anyway. Pretty cool guy. I told Smyr about him and he responds, "so you're friends? just like that?" Well yeah. Gay people make friends like rabbits make love: all the time and with out a second thought. "this is my friend so and so." bam: gay friend.

While we're talking about gay, a couple of things made me happy. The guy that I was working with to get my poster printed had a really sexy voice. "You can pick your poster up at 5" YOU BET I WILL! When I stopped by, I was right... cute voice = cute boy. Gosh, I wish he could print me out some personal posters... if you know what I mean. Okay stupid. I was tempted to ask him out even though there was NO indication of interest and our conversation was limited to business. Sigh.

At work, we're interviewing some engineers. My boss declares, "i like that guy.. he's cute!" Well.. okay, now I have to take a peak. Hehe. Oh another cute boy. Here take my number, I'll give you a personal interview. If you know what I mean. Okay stupid, I get it.

While at Berkeley, I had my Berkeley goggles on TIGHT. There was this kid on a bike that I wanted to jab a stick in the spokes so that he would stop to talk to me. And this boy at the QCS meeting that looks like a Koala. Aww.. I'll let you climb my bamboo.... OK OK, I'll stop.

Lol. Yes, I'm crazy.

Cost of Work

Mony reminded me that people don't enjoy being others' bitches. That's why a lot of people start their own businesses; so they can work on their own schedule etc. anyway.

Work stories will be limited to awkward situations and witty social examinations.

Today, I messed up, it cost me $239.28, but at least I got the job done. Blah.

Asian Adventure, but with no Camera

On Feb 17 we had an Asian Adventure around the South Bay with no Camera...Actually, I had a camera, but no memory card. And we had some l33t camera phones. Great. Sorry kids, no pictures... and remember, CASH ONLY!

Little Saigon - Alysia wanted to get King Eggroll so we went for lunch. There I was craving Pineapple slices and chilly powder. But they didn't have any! The food was gross, but the eggrolls were great and the Tamarind icee was impressive. I hate East San Jose. It's so congested and no one lets each other in. Bah. Instead of Little Saigon or Vietnam Town they should call it Big Headache Village

Japan Plaza - Off Saratoga and Steven's Creek is this little Plaza with a Mitsuwa Marketplace and a Kinokuniya Book Store. There we checked out some magazines for some inspiration. I concluded that Japanese people also have some Jacked up hair. But there were a couple of short styles that I liked. In the market is a Japanese Photo booth (Purikura)... there was only one thing to do!

Yeah, you like that gay shot don't you. O M G. Go ahead, zoom in, that's right.. HO MO Sexual.

Korea Street - AKA El Camino. We went Karaoke for an hours during happy hour! 18 bucks!! SWEET! But damn it, once again their recording machine was down. We had a good time belting out songs. Highlight: Szeto's voice cracked during Apologize! It was only 8PM! Dinner time! Time to visit China, so we hopped on 280.

China Square - For dinner was Cupertino Square where we had Taiwanese style small dishes. After we found this dessert place but then realized it sucked. So we drove to Mil-pi-TAS and had some Bolansa! Them bitches wouldn't let me rearrange the chairs! LOL! Yum.

Poor Szeto drove all around the South bay to hit these Asian HOT SPOTS! Awesome good time.