man, i am stuffed. A and i went to giovanni's today for lunch, and we each had half of a pizza. that doesn't sound so impressive, given that alan and i used to each eat a whole medium domino's pizza back in college, but remember that my stomach's totally shrunk these days.
one thing about the LA trip: GPS is totally a lifesaver. without it, we would have been fucked. we used it the entire time, and it got us everywhere. i am thinking about buying one now. anyone have suggestions as to what brand is good? we used a garmin, and it was a pretty good model.
ok, about the record of the year vs. song of the year in the grammy's. they're both given to only one song. according to wikipedia, the record of the year is given to the producers, and the song of the year is given to the writers. there's an award for album of the year, by the way, and of course, as the name suggests, it's given to the entire album. so there! this year, the dixie chicks won all three of them. i can't get enough of their song, "not ready to make nice." i haven't bought it or downloaded it, so i only hear it on 101.3, which is the only radio station that plays it. i wonder if it's a political thing.
so it's tuesday, and plans are already shaping up for the weekend. friday night, i've got a taiko concert at stanford, saturday, i've meeting up with diana for the stanford/UCLA game, and sunday is jack and amy's son's 3-year-old birthday party at chuck-e-cheese's. i still have to buy them a gift, maybe i'll hit up toys 'r us sometime this week. what's a good gift for a 3-year-old? i have no clue.
i took two diarrhea dumps today. they were all floaters. i'm not sure what makes the shits float and what makes them sink. is it water or gas content? i think somebody left me a comment a while back explaining it. anyways, i had to flush twice this morning back at my house because the floaters wouldn't drain properly. and the one i had at work left these long skidmark streaks near the top of the bowl. cool!
man, i am not looking forward to american idol tonight and tomorrow night. both of them are 2-hour episodes, both featuring 12 singers each. that's a lot of singing! tonight features the boys, and the only ones i'm looking forward to are chris sligh and sundance head. there is a bay area local (he's from saratoga), the asian dude paul kim, whose voice i don't like. and the rest are mainly forgettable at the moment. we'll see they're any good. plus, this year, the boys are missing a crooner, like john stevens and david radford. i love crooners! sigh. they make my heart melt.
i think i've decided that i don't like prime rib. i've had it a handful of times, and i've never enjoyed it. i think it's the fact that there's always a patch of rare meat in the middle, and it just tastes like bloody tasteless mush. i like my meat cooked, but i think if you get prime rib well done, it'll be tough or something. *shrug*
ok, that's it for today. off for a smokie smokie!
so friday morning, i got up at the ass crack of dawn at 6:30. i picked up mikeC at 7:20, and we headed to san jose airport, where we met up with john and grace. our flight was delayed because of massive fog, but luckily, it was only like a 40-50 minute extra delay before we took off. we picked up our car (we settled on a chevy HHR), and headed to the hotel. unfortunately, grace's luggage didn't appear, so that was terrible news. grace's dress and john's suit were in that bag, so you can imagine the stress that it put on those two. (Fyi, the luggage finally arrived at 4am at the hotel. *phew*)
we had lunch at kookooroo, which i didn't like (i HATE black beans), and then headed off to pasadena, where grace and some other girls met up to try on bridesmaid's dresses for another upcoming wedding. mikeC, john and i took the car and went to old pasadena, where we shopped at patagonia and hit up a starbuck's for some hydration. then, we went back to the hotel and walked up beverly drive to rodeo drive, where everything was closed. we had dinner at island's for some burgers, where i ordered the kilauea (sp?), which was supposed to be spicy, but it wasn't, so i was disappointed. i did enjoy my whiskey, though.
the next morning, i got up at 8pm and got ready for geoff's wedding. he wore his military clothes, and looked very grand. and the bride, pak, looked very lovely as well. it was a short ceremony, despite the long list of items on the itinerary. we had prime rib at lawry's afterwards, and during the dancing the ensued, i got called on to do (and learn) the electric slide. i couldn't get the last part, though, so i was stumbling a bit. ha!
afterwards, we went back to the hotel and changed, and a whole bunch of us went to the 3rd street promenade at santa monica. the place reminded me of this one district of barcelona, with the street performers and all the shops. i was especially impressed with this one cello/guitar duo, the ken oak band, whose website is here. the guy had a really nice voice, and i really dug their music. we enjoyed the sunset over the beach, and then we headed over to koreatown and had all-you-can-eat meat at this place called manna.
at manna, christi was kind enough to check the stanford/oregon score for me, and guess what? stanford won! i was so fucking happy! hehe. that was a nice capper for my day.
on sunday, we checked out of the hotel at 10am and met up with jimmy and sabrina at empanada's place. empanada's are like turnover's stuffed with meat and vegetables. pretty tasty, after all, since they're fried. i had a spicy chicken one and a spicy meat one. yum. then, it was off to the hotel. we landed, went home, and i spent the rest of the day relaxing by myself. i had taco bell for dinner.
on monday, we had dim sum at dynasty. i was a good boy and properly disposed of my post-meal cigarette at an ashtray. :) afterwards, i went to alan's place and we walked the dog rylie and grabbed some tapioca at the rivermark. after that, i just went home, watched the penultimate episode of _the OC_, and called it a night. and that was the end of a very nice 4-day weekend.