Hit 'em with yo Know...

Wow! Its been a really long time before I have written anything. What can I say but this holiday has been one of the most hectic I have ever been apart of, and I didn't even go home for it!!

Hmmm...where to start?

--went to this little holiday get together one night at my friend's AWESOME Condo in Belltown. Everyone was supposed to dress "sexy" but no one really did (though I did my best). And there were way too many guys there too. Check out the pictures here:

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/friends_holiday/

--speaking of photo albums, I update my album with my Company Xmas Party and pics from numerous Karaoke outtings. Check them out.

--did a "chick movie" nite with a bunch of girls I got stuck with after going to dinner with a bunch of others who wanted to go see Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. I already seen it and these girls didn't want to watch it. Ending up watching "Something's Gotta Give." Man, that IS a chick film!!

--went to a poker nite with a bunch of Microsoft guys and pharmacists. Lost all my money. Walked away with a $10 copy of Halo for the PC. Anyone want to play with me?

--the Sunday before Xmas, drove to Vancouver to meet up with my friend Josh from San Diego and his gf. Ending up walking around downtown Vancouver and eating Vancouver sushi. Then wanted to hit a couple of clubs before the nite was up. Ended up accidently hitting a goth nite club and gay night. This of course doesn't surprise me cuz Josh and I have NEVER HAD A NORMAL NIGHT OUT together. Oh, the stories I can tell...

--anyways, drove back to Seattle early Monday moring (3am) so I can go to work two more days before I get the rest of the holiday off.

--Xmas Eve. Supposed to spend it with Karen during the day and catch a IMAX flix before heading to Oiyan's place for dinner. Instead, Oiyan left work early and we went to her place sooner. Played Trivia Pursuit DVD all day long (I won it all too!!)

--Xmas Day. Drove to Vancouver to spend Xmas with Denny and his family. Was to spend my whole holiday there with plans to snowboard, a wedding, a movie (Paycheck), nightclubbing, shopping, strip joints and lots of eating.

--Did pretty much everything except for Snowboarding, during the first weekend. Unfortunately, I realized how tired I really am (and looking back, I haven't gotten much sleep at all...forced to stay up late and wake up early everyday). so I decided to leave Denny on Sunday and drive back to Seattle so I can sleep. Promised to come back the following weekend to finish partying with Denny.

--since I have been back, been sleeping for at least 12 hours a day. It felt really good. Also got to squeeze in "The Last Samurai". Not bad movie.

--today is New Years Eve and I am planning a nite out. I will tell you about it later but its has been madness to set something up because I wasn't planning to be in Seattle for New Years and all my friends like to wait for the last minute. Basically, everything we are planning tonight only came out like a couple of hours ago. Wow! Can't wait...

My *Funny* Lord of the Ring Story

So, last night I went to see Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at midnight and coming home around 4am. Great movie btw, and didn't even once wanted to fall asleep, despite how tired I was. Anyways, I almost missed this screening. This is why...

So, around 8pm before the movie, I went to dinner with Vivian's roomate Kale before heading back to their place around 10pm. If you recall, Vivian's place was where I was also up til 4 am one night trying to break into her house after we went clubbing because she locked herself out. Anyways, driving to her place I realized that I was running low on gas. Not too worried since the low gas light just came on so I had penty of gas to get a gas station AFTER her place. So I drived to her place and parked on her slanted sloping driveway.

So, I stay around 10:30 pm before I realized I need to get to the theatre and line up with my friends. So I get into my car to leave, when I couldn't start the car AT ALL. I thought it was battery but my lights was still shining bright. Turns out, because I was low on gas AND I was parked on a hill, the gas wasn't getting into the engine!! Man, Vivian's place is cursed!!

So, calling out the other ppl in the house, we tried everything we can to get the car up the hill, including pushing it up but there was no way (too heavy). So, luckily, I had AAA so I called them. 30 minutes later they showed up and gave me a couple galleons of fuel to see if that helped. IT WORKED! Woohoo! And the best part...it only cost me $2 (for the cost of the fuel)!! AAA rocks!!

After filling my tank, I drove to the theatre and got their around 11:45pm. Luckily, my coworkers saved me a seat and everything was fine.

The End.

Oh, I just realized that I have seen each of the LOTR movies in a different city (San Marcos, Toronto and now Redmond). Is that cool or what? ;)

Mom, Boat and Life

Point form...let's recap!

--so, my mom has come to visit and stay with me for about 2 weeks. A couple of things I discovered:
...mom doesn't like to do tourist-y stuff. She rather go grocery shopping or stay home and cook for me and clean my place (even though I already cleaned it before she arrived, but she still said the place was fifthy!!)
...mom thinks dim sum in Seattle sucks
...mom thinks Seattle's Chinatown is not even open when I drove her there. Yup, welcome to the deadest Chinatown I know.
...mom thinks grocerys are very expensive here in the US
...mom thinks that no one walks the streets here (I do live in the "suburbs" of Seattle)

--my sister and her husband came into Seattle around the 2nd week of mom's stay. This was very good timing cause I was running out of things to do with mom and that mom can also do things with them while I went to work. They mostly did outlet mall shopping at Northbend and Auburn, in which turns out, I get a pretty discount at one of them just cuz of where i worked.

--during our last evening together, after some last minute outlet mall shopping, I took them all out for dinner. Since everyone was sick and tired of Chinese Food, I took them to the most American place I know...Tony Roma's for some good BBQ ribs and chicken. They really enjoyed it!

--I was able to attend one of Albert Shen's annual singles parties. If you read back far enough, one year ago, in my blog, I went to his last one too. Its where I did that "speed dating" thingy. Anyways, that last one was where I met a lot of new people, who are now some of my most closest friends...so I knew not to miss this one. First off...no more speed dating at this one. Secondly, this party was JUST PACKED with people. Even though it was held at the same place as last year, you couldn't even move around in the crowd, which made it even harder to get to know people. Did meet a few new people, but nothing to write home (or this blog) about.

--this past week was also my company's holiday party. This year, it took place on a boat going around Lake Washington and just like last year, we had fake casino games to entertain us. I also brought my friend, Di along who had a wonderful time. Nothing dramatic to report. Just a good time on a 3 hour boat ride.

--afterwards (since it was only 10pm), we headed to a couple of bars in Kirkland. This night also marked the last night of co worker / former classmate Sheldon who, after 7 years of being away from his girlfriend, was moving back to Newfoundland to be with her. It was a great night of drunken fun. And I have pictures to prove it (coming soon!). You will be missed Sheldon. Good luck in whatever you do.

--next day, I got to have dinner with a few of the "other" Digipen class grads who work / live here because one of theirs was in town to visit. Doug was in town, so Vivek and Nate and Keith and Ryan and even myself and Sheldon came out for him. We ate at Claim Jumpers which is always too much food to eat.

--afterwards, I had a little social at Kona Kitchen for a little Toy Drive action. I brought the coolest toy too to give away, a dancing baby Winnie the Pooh. Anyways, this get together was okay. Not such a great turn out but had lots of fun Karaoking in front of perfect strangers. I sung a duet of "Time of My Life" with Li that knocked everyone's socks off! Yeah!!

--right now, I am completely exhausted from these past 2 weeks, especially with my mom's visit. Because when I wasn't out with mom, I was working very hard (and long hours) to make up for all the days off I took to be with mom. And then I had that xmas party! I am still very tired, wanting to go home early and sleep but its not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, tonite at midnight, I am going to go see Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King! I can't believe I agreed to this! I am going to die!!

My Life and Thoughts in Point Form

Okay...I got s'plainin' to do, mostly about my lack of posts. Well, my only excuse has been that I have just been really busy. Busy with work but also busy with life. I have done so much these past days. Let's summarize:

--went to 3 different Thanksgivin Dinners. And had 3 different types of turkeys, all prepared differently (one normal, one with bacon and one deep fried!). Made Jonny Ward's famous cobblers in which impressed them all! I am the KING OF THE WORLD!!

--played a lot of video games, but not games I played by myself (though Mario & Luigi for GBA has taken ALOT of time from me. IT SOOO DAMN GOOD!). Went to a whole bunch of parties where I brought out my Eye Toy and Karaoke Revolutions. Both are EXCELLENT party games. Also played Halo til 3am one nite. Though I never really played Halo that well before, that night I KICKED ASS, rivalling some of the more seasoned MICROSOFT EMPLOYED players too! SUCK IT!

--saw 2 movies. Gothika and Master & Commander. Both were okay and though both of them weren't that scary, there were a couple of scenes that made it great to be a man sitting next to girl *le sigh*

--saw the next episodic play, Sex in Seattle 8: Doin' it Again. This was by far the best, and most funniest (and longest) version of the play. Too bad the next one is in June, 2004!!

--once again went clubbin for only 1 hour. We went to the Baltic Room for some great live Hip Hop. Too bad we got there at 12:30am and last call in Seattle is 1:30am. Doesn't that suck.

--helped Linh moved into her new place in First Hill. Had a great Vietnamese dinner with her parents afterwards.

--got to visit and tour the BIG Nintendo plant in North Bend where we saw our game, 1080 Avalanche being packaged and ready to be shipped all across North American. It was quite amazing how efficient and how everything is video taped so that if there's any "missing" shipments, THEY WILL KNOW!!

--went to some geek party where we played Mario Kart Double Dash a la 3 Gamecube / TV screens and 12 players(!) and then watched / played Lord of the Rings Two Towers SE drinking games. That was a lot of fun, especially with these rules of when to drink. Here, take note and use it at your next geek party:

Drink Whenever
... you see the EYE
... the hobbits are eating/talking about eating
... something gets severed
... anyone is referred to as "son of..."
... an elf makes fun of a dwarf or vice versa
... someone speaks a made-up language
... Gandalf or Saruman say "Morrr-dorrr"
... someone other than Gollum mentions "The One Ring" or "The Ring of Power"
....Frodo gets aroused by the Ring.
... someone gets picked up
- twice if they're thrown
... a chapter title from the book is mentioned (once per title)
... a new (extended) scene is introduced
... Gimli is used for comic relief
... Gollum develops laryngitis or Treebeard "Hroom-Hooms."
... Treebeard says, "Hasty"
... someone looks longingly at Aragorn
... a woman other than a cowering peasant (once per scene)
... Eowyn bitches about not being a man
... someone screams, "Nazgul!" or "Black Rider!"
... a named character in the film or the books dies or seemingly dies
- again if they "come back to life"
... a dead character makes a cameo
... a ladder falls
... you see Peter Jackson's kids

--of course, with all the things I have done these past weeks, there were a couple of events I had to miss. The big one being Denny's Pajammy Jammy Jam 3 in SF. MAN, I really wanted to go to that but I couldn't find the time to do so. I also missed a couple of dinners with old friends and even dinner and dancing with a bunch of nurses :( . That one really hurt. :(

--but the biggest thing to talk about is my family (mom, sis, brother in law) have / are coming to visit me here in Seattle! This marks the FIRST TIME ANY FAMILY MEMBER have come and visit me here since moving to the USA like 5 years ago! I picked up my mom from Vancouver on Sunday and now she's staying with me for the next 2 weeks. And all she wants to do is cook for me! How cool is that!! My sis and her hubby come next week. This is great since I am not going home for xmas but kinda bad cause it making my busy work schedule even busier. Eeek...Oh well...

--on a sad note, one of my most closest friend in the world had one of the worst thing happen to him...something a great guy like him, should never had happened to him. When he called me to tell me about it, I was completely speechless and when he got off the phone with me, I was almost in tears. Love FUCKIN' SUCKS! My thoughts are with you, JTW.