July 31, 2002
My updates have been LONG the past couple of days so I'll take it easy today and make this short (I've got a headache too right now so I don't really feel like typing up an essay). This also gives you more time to peruse the pictures i took in California. The best way to look at them, in my opinion, is to click on browse the entire album then change the settings on the upper right of the page to Detailed View.

Here's an article about a guy who just happened to have fallen into that trap known as American Idol. It's a comical view, that just happens to be true in my case. It's a tough call but someone gets booted off tonight.

July 30, 2002
My sister Jessica returns from California later today. Once she gets off the plane, she's gonna notice the biggest difference between Virginia and California - the weather. It is just too hot to do anything. Monday was close to being the hottest day of the year and today is predicted to be hotter than Monday. When I was in Cali, it was hot, around 90 degrees everyday. I heard lots of people complaining, but I was actually comfortable. It really wasn't that bad. Here in Virginia, the weathermen use a term that they don't use on the west coast - heat index. Tuesday is forcasted to be 97 degrees with a heat index of 115 degrees. The humidity is terrible. I just stay inside most of the day, or at least stay in an air conditioned store or mall.

Another thing about coming back is adjusting to my odd schedule of working the graveyard shift from midnight to 8am Monday night to Friday night. I have either not yet adjusted or I have created a new screwed up schedule for my body of when to sleep and be awake.

I usually go to work at midnight sort of awake but I don't feel sleepy at work until around 4:30am and then I struggle till 6:00am when other people come in. That usually gives me a second wind and I'm fine until I get off at 8am. I usually go home and determine what I have planned for the day. If I have plans I work my sleep schedule around them and I usually get by on about 4 hours sleep (sounds crazy but that's what I'm used to). The weekends come around and I live a sort of regular schedule but I catch up on sleep with about 10 or 11 hours each night (I know it's not "catching up" but that's what it feels like to me).

Ever since I came back last monday I have been sleeping about 6+ hours during the day, around 9:30am - 4pm (waking for the occasional phone call, but falling right back to sleep). This has allowed me to stay WIDE AWAKE at work, which I'm not accustom to. Right now it's 5:00am and I'm wired. I've been working since midnight and I am set to go for a while. This is a good thing I thought, until this past weekend. Saturday night was okay, I went out clubbing and I was wide awake. I had lots to "drink" and I wore myself out. I stayed out till after 3am and got into bed around 4am and fell asleep right away. Sunday night was different. I didn't do much Sunday. I was wide awake around 1am so I just watched some tv hoping to just fall asleep, nope that didn't happen. I played on my computer a couple more hours but I was still wide awake. Around 4:30am I decide to just go to bed and try to sleep, but I just laid there WIDE AWAKE thinking "d@mn this schedule. I watched the sun rise and thought, I'll just try to sleep sometime this afternoon, even though I had things I needed to do all day. Then around 7:30am I just pass out and sleep most of the day away.

Now I've got errands to do today, but I'll probably be too tired to get to them. Now I don't know if this new schedule is a good thing because I don't feel sleepy at work, or a bad thing now I can't get stuff done and probably mess up my weekends.

July 27, 2002
Today is my dad's birthday, give him a whassup today if you see him.

Now everybody don't jump at once, but I still got these d@mn A-teen tickets that I'm not using for a private concert tonight at the Norva. If you want them they are yours. I've got 4...where are all the A-teen nuts?

The grovestreet album site has been having problems lately. If you try to check out the pictures but you get an Page Not Found error or something like that, just keep try again later. It's really up there. I haven't added the needed commentary yet though.

While I was shopping in California, I was trying to look for stuff that wasn't readily available in Virginia. 2 years ago I was shopping around for Dance Dance Revolution stuff. This time I couldn't think of much other than these japanese R/C cars called Bit Char-G's by Tomy (Tomica in Japan). The cool thing about these cars are that they are tiny but are run by remote control and they run fast. I bought one off of the internet a few months back(a Toyota Celica), but there are "hop-up" parts that I was interested in that I could just buy in person there. Jessica wanted one too, so many of our shopping ventures focused on these bit char-g's. What better place to look for them than in the asian dominated malls of San Jose. Also, Luan took us to Japantown in San Francisco to find some, but we got there late as several of the stores had already closed for the day. I ended up not buying anything since everything seemed cheaper on the internet anywayz, but shopping all around to different malls was fun and visiting Japantown (a cool place indeed) was worth it.

Speaking of japanese toys, Otakon is going on right now in Baltimore. From the Otakon website - "Not familiar with Otakon? �Otakon is a convention devoted to east Asian culture, with a particular focus on Japanese animation (anime). For a weekend every year, we provide an opportunity for members to be immersed in films, series and other exciting activities along with fellow enthusiasts. Everyone is welcome, from the barely curious to hardened experts.� I guess this is like Comicon for anime and toys.

Butterbean vs. Holmes tonite from the Norfolk Scope...if you care.

July 26, 2002
It's Friday. I posted my California pictures in my Grovestreet album, but I still want to add commentary to them. You can check them out now, but check them out when I add the commentary as they add something more to them as I explain who everyone is and what situation the picture shows.
Austin Powers: Goldmember opens today.
Tomorrow there's a boxing match being held in Norfolk that's being televised via Pay-Per-View. Some people around here are talking like it's a big thing. To me it's just a big joke - Larry Holmes vs. Butterbean. I'm ashamed that that's the only big sporting event this town can attract.

If you want something else to do in Norfolk tomorrow, you can check out the pop group, The A-Teens. There's a private concert tomorrow at the Norva for a select few and I somehow got a hold of some free tickets. I don't need them because I really don't know who the hell they are. I've heard of them but I've never heard one song. It's not my kind of music anywayz, but if you've got some 12 year old girls around the house, they may want to go. This is sort of a rehearsal for their world tour. They're using this private concert as a practice. Let me know if you want to go and the tickets are yours.

Speaking of free (and also of being ashamed of this town) I forgot to inform everyone of a free concert open to everyone 21 & over last night. It seems the one and only Vanilla Ice (yep that guy) gave a free concert last night at Waterside. Don't hate me for not telling you. I made it up with the A-Teens.

Ok...back to another highlight of California.:

Reviews
While I was in California I was lucky to be able to check out 2 events that I couldn't do in Virginia, 1. The filipino-american movie "The Flip Side" 2. The Smokin' Grooves concert.

"The Flip Side" is an indie filipino-american film that is both comedic and satirical. It just coincedentally open up in San Jose the week I was there at a mall I was frequenting a lot. It will get unfair comparisons to "The Debut" and "American Adobo" but it is a totally different type of movie. It had several flaws, but I found myself liking the movie alot. It is a truly independent film as the first thing you notice is that the film is in black & white using probably only one camera. It reminds me so much of "Clerks" when Keven Smith made his first film with an incredibly low budget. It is mainly a satire of the filipino family as it focuses on the lives of one filipino home. The main characters are 3 kids - Darius, Davis, and Marivic. This, however, is one of my problems with the film as each kid is an EXTREME stereotype, each one is a person that I can't stand in real life. Darius is a college student who comes home from his first year of college and has become an elitist on filipino culture, upset that his brother and sister don't study more on filipino history and pretty much forcing history on his whole family. Second Darius thinks he's black and he spends the whole movie trying to be taller so he can dunk a basketball. It was a funny idea at the start, but by stretching the bit throughout the whole movie, it got old quick. Finally there's Marivic, who acts "white" and prissy and is ashamed she's filipino. There's more to the movie but it focuses on these kids. After I got used to the characters it became a pretty funny movie. You have to keep in mind that this is satire as the director, Rod Pulido, puts these characters in extreme situations. There are moments where the comedy doesn't work and there are dull moments when it tries to get serious, but overall the movie is hilarious. Unlike the straightforward "Debut" there are several instances where there are deep statements hidden in the dialogue, but it will probably go unseen by many in the target audience, but for you indie movie watchers, you should notice it easily. This film had opened in the prestigous Sundance Film festival and has drawn praise by many. It is following in the footsteps of the Debut by renting out theatres one city at a time to promote the movie, so it may or may not be showing in your area. In rating this film, it is much better than American Adobo but probably not as good as the Debut. It is different that both of those movies though and if it had the budget of the Debut, it may have become a better movie. It is watchable and worthwhile.

The Smokin' Grooves tour just happened to kick off in the Bay Area while I was there. The lineup includes Outkast, the Roots, Lauren Hill, Jurassic 5, Truth Hurts, and Cee-Lo. Most people know that my favorite band is the Roots so I had to jump at the chance to watch this concert. I'm also a huge Jurassic 5 fan and I had heard that they put on a great live concert. Because they reside in California, they rarely make an appearance on the east coast so I had to check them out. I dragged Lu and Jessica with me but from their reactions, they enjoyed the concert, but they also noticed that I was in nirvana the whole night. I even got to meet the lead rapper for Jurassic 5, Chali-2na. Everyone was great, but that's my biased opinion. Here is a more professional review from Rolling Stone Magazine. They also posted some pictures here. I could go on and on but you probably don't care.

July 25, 2002
I'm still feeling a little lazy from my little trip. I've been spending the past few days trying to get back to my routine. I should have some pictures up later today.

For the next couple of days on this update page I will explain some of the highlights of my trip (aside from seeing family & friends again):

Clubbing: I went to 3 different clubs last week. The first was an all-asian club called Mission Rock. This place was cool. It was in San Francisco right on the dock of the bay. It was part indoor/part outdoor. The outdoor part was right on the ocean and lots of people were out here dancing. The inside was 2 stories and housed several bars. And most importantly, the girlies were gorgeous and numerous. The first floor had a couple of dance floors house/trance/hip hop etc. The second floor is where we mostly stayed where they had hip hop. There was also a deck on the second floor that had a nice view of the Pacific Ocean, but it was cold on this night so we stayed inside.

Later in the week we went to Club Forum in Sunnyvale. This was your typical club. It had a good mix of people, but the girls here were sort of blah...at least it was dark. It had a house/trance scene on the first floor (lots of baklas in here), the second floor was hip hop, and the 3rd floor was for the VIP only. Luckily my cousin Ruby did her magic and we were allowed in the VIP section. It sort of sucked though. We just we back to the crowded second floor. It really was crowded. I'm sure a couple fire codes were broken that night.

The last club was actually a motel called Ibiza in Oakland. The idea is to recreate the party scene that is so popular in Ibiza, Spain. Now this was also an all-asian party held monthly, with a couple thousand people in attendance. The motel is shape like a square with a big pool in the middle. On one side of the pool the reggae band Native Elements is playing, on the other side is a dj and a big dance floor. There is also a big indoor dance floor. The cool thing is the people can rent out a motel room ($99) and pretty much do whatever they want with it. Many had parties, some had dj's, others were quiet rooms, one guy even had a grill and was grilling up hot dogs and burgers and selling them. Each room was it's own little party. A Hip hop group ,the Black Eyed Peas, were supposed to be there but I couldn't spot them amongst the couple thousand asians there. We spent a lot of time on the dance floor then later on went "room-hopping". Lots of music everywhere, lots of drinks everywhere, and more importantly lots of hotties everywhere. (Lu and I were just in awe of it all, especially the girls!!). We left around 2:30am but the place was still jumping and I was told it was going to be like that until about 6:00 am. I couldn't believe that a hotel would actually let this happen but I think this is all they do.

On this night, Ruby had met a girl named Kate in the mall who said she didn't have too many friends and she liked to go out. So Ruby invites this stranger to come with us to Ibiza. She turned out to be really nice girl and pretty too. I wish I had taken a picture of her, some of you would have been impressed. She was tall though, taller than me and Lu. She originally came from the midwest but moved to San Jose a couple years ago. She was Thai I believe. Once we got to Ibiza though, she partied it up. And she was constantly getting hit on. But I guess that's typical for most of the girls there. But that's how I met Kate in San Jose...but I'll probably never see her again.

I could go on and on about the nights we went out to the clubs, but you're probably already bored.

July 23, 2002
It's Tuesday, and I still haven't adjusted to east coast time yet. It's odd since I have a screwed up sleep schedule anyways. I guess I sort of adjusted to a regular routine that it's hard to change into an effed up routine. I pretty much slept all day yesterday and I had a headache that just would not go away. At least I stayed wide awake here at work in the middle of the night.

I plan to post pictures of my trip soon. It really was a good time. I don't have time right now to go into details, but here's a quick breakdown of what I did each day. Some names may be unfamiliar, but I'll explain who they are later. Also, my sister Jessica was with me everyday and did everything I did.

Thursday: I worked in the morning, packed up and flew all day (Nearly missing a connection). Landed in San Jose around 11:00 PDT.
Friday: Went shopping at a mall with Renee, met up with Lu, went to club Mission Rock at night with Ruby and Lu.
Saturday:We went to San Francisco to do some sightseeing with Lu & Renee and met up with Mike Lunasin. At night we went to Club Forum in Sunnyvale.
Sunday:We went to Malibu Raceway and Golf. We later went to another Mall.
Monday: We went Shopping with Renee and Chuck. Later on did more shopping with Ruby & Ritchie.
Tuesday:Went to San Francisco with Lu & Chuck. Did more sightseeing.
Wednesday: We hit up a flea market in the morning then went to Paramount's Great America theme park (just like VA's King's Dominion).
Thursday: Went shopping at another mall and at night went to the Smokin' Grooves Concert (Outkast, The Roots, Lauren Hill, Jurassic 5, etc.) with Lu.
Friday: Lu took the day off to take us to Monterey Bay. Visited the Aquarium there and did the scenic 17-Mile drive which took us past the Pebble Beach Golf coarse.
Saturday: We went to a picnic for Ritchie's wife Desiree. Did more shopping in the afternoon. Had dinner at a Vietnamese resteraunt at night.
Sunday: Flew back to VA all day long. It was a LONG day.

I'll include lots of details later along with pictures. But I'm at work right now and I have to get back to it.

July 22, 2002
Guess who's back...back again. Yes I'm finally back from my little excursion in California. It was a rough trip back though. My arrival of 10:30pm somehow ended up being 12:30am, 2 hours later. In fact it's 2:45am right now and I'm really exhausted. I've got pictures and stories and lots of other stuff, but it's just going to have to wait until the daytime. I may have an update on Monday afternoon, depending on how I feel when I wake up. But for now...zzzzzz.

July 18, 2002
Hi everyone from San Jose California. I'm doing good, I'm having lots of fun. I don't have much time because I'm borrowing my cousings laptop. I've been hanging out with my family here and sightseeing. Lu's doing good too. We've been to a bunch of clubs and also done other stuff. I'll fill everyone in when I get back. I'll have lots of pictures too. I'll be back Sunday night at 10:30,flying in from detroit. I gotta go. I'm taking lu to a big party in the bay at club ibiza on friday. I'll see everyone when I get back. WESTCYDE!!!

July 11, 2002
Today's date is 7-11. I'm hoping that's good luck for me as I take to the skies on the way to California. I just packed and I'm making a checkoff list so I don't forget anything. I always feel like I haven't packed enough and I've forgotten something. My suitcase right now is about to burst at the zippers. My sister Jessica will be tagging along as we take our southern twang to the land of the Valley girls. I will try to post a couple of updates while I'm there, so don't stop checking the NEWS. I just don't know when I'll be able to log on.

In the meantime, I've posted more pictures at the Grovestreet Album to keep you busy while I'm away. They're mostly from my Atlantic City trip and I've added more to the New York section. I've also added commentary to most of the pictures (I guess I've been watching too many DVD commentaries). I was going to post more pictures while I was here at work, but when I got here, I realized I don't have any picture programs that will compress the pictures I brought. I'm not allowed to download anything either (thanks to my Napster days).

I went to the doctor's yesterday to get some stuff checked out. I need to be my best when I'm on vacation. He gave me a shot in my right arm that has now numbed the right side of my body. I think it was a form of steroid to help the body heal, and it was given by a doctor so I wasn't doing anything illegal. Anyways I don't think I can lift anything right now with the pain in my arm. Hopefully it'll be okay by flight time.

I'll be back on Sunday July 21 at night. I think my flight is scheduled to pull in around 10:30pm.

Today's date,7-11, also signifies the birthday of the convienient store 7-eleven. And to celebrate they are giving out FREE SLURPEES. What was that you say...FREE SLURPEES. Yup, that's right. Your local 7-eleven should be giving FREE SLURPEES today to celebrate the 75th birthday of the company.

American Idol is now down to the final 10. The format changes now and so does the time, Tuesday @ 8:30pm. Now it's gonna seem like a concert and they boot 2 people off each week. It's gonna suck to come this far and not win. Most of them will probably come away with something from this anyways.

Allen Iverson's got a celebrity charity event this weekend in Hampton Roads. The problem is that he just made the nightly news again. This time he may go to jail for breaking into a cousins house with a gun while looking for his wife. The cops may issue a warrent for his arrest tomorrow. That'll throw a damper on this weekends events. He says he's still on for this weekend though, meaning he's confident he won't go to jail...again. Now if this thing goes on as planned, he's got a celebrity softball game in hampton and he usually pulls in some big names in both the sports and music industry.

July 10, 2002
I've got one day until I fly to the left coast and I still have much to do. I haven't even begun to pack. While I'm away, I'm not sure how often I'll check my email. I'll try to post an update or two in the news, but I'm not sure yet how much access to a computer I'll have. If anyone needs to reach me, I'll have my cell phone on me so feel free to call, even if to just say hi.

This is my first flight since September, so I'm a little nervous. And with the commotion in the L.A. airport last week, I'm not at ease with my 2 stopovers in Detroit & Minnesota. I will leave Norfolk around 4pm EDT and will arrive in San Jose around 11pm PDT, so it'll feel like 2am for me when I land. That's an 11 hour trip, and I don't fly first class, so I'm dreading the flight.

The midseason classic, also known as the baseball All-Star game, ended in a tie after the teams ran out of pitchers in extra innings. Now that just sucks. Baseball games aren't supposed to end in ties, but since this was just an exhibition game, they didn't want the players exerting too much and getting hurt, ruining an otherwise great game. Baseball fans will be complaining about this for a while, on top of all of the other things that are wrong with baseball right now. And they will go on strike soon to top things off.

A Terminator 3 trailer is up. It's not much, similar to the Hulk trailer, but it's something to get the hype rolling.

The final contestant, the wildcard, gets picked tonight on American Idol.

For the non-idol watchers, the ESPYs are on tonight. That's the ESPN awards for anyone who didn't know. And if you don't know what ESPN is then you wouldn't want to watch the ESPYs anyways.

This friday at the Virginia Beach Amphitheatre Lenny Kravitz is opening up his tour with Pink and rock band Abandoned Pools (I like them). For those of you not going, or not in the area, VH-1 will be broadcasting 30 minutes of the event LIVE at 9:30pm. It replays at midnight then again on Saturday at 12:30pm. I know some of you will be there and I'll be looking out for you.

July 9, 2002
Since I probably won't be updating next week, I'll try to let you know now of some stuff that's coming up.

Free Movies in Hampton Roads:
Today July 9, you can pick up free tickets to see the new Tom Hanks movie, Road to Perdition. It's for a sneak preview on Thursday July 11. Pick up the passes between 5pm and 8pm at the New Belmont on Colonial Ave. in Norfolk. That's in the Ghent section of Norfolk. It looks like a good movie.

The others are nothing really worthy of seeing, but hey, their free.

Second is Eight Legged Freaks. You can pick up the free tickets at Inpirations at Hilltop West in Virginia Beach on Wednesday July 10th from 10am to 6pm. This one looks dumb.

Finally, for the kids hopefully, there is Stuart Little 2. This is for a sneak preview on Saturday July 13. You can pick up the passes at Greenbrier Kia on Military Highway in Chesapeake between 10am and 6pm on either today July 9 or tomorrow Wednesday, July 10. Passes go quick though.

On Wednesday July 17, ODU will be auctioning off lots of their surplus. This includes lots of automobiles, computers, golf carts, furniture, pianos, oscilloscopes, etc. For a list of items go here (Adobe Acrobat required).

Also on Wednesday July 17, shine up those Harleys, it's National Ride to Work Day. This is for those motorcyclists. Everyone with a motorcycle is supposed to ride their motorcycle to work on this day to show the world the number of people who ride motorcycles. It's also supposed to show the variety of people who do ride, from doctors to teachers.

The Baseball All-Star Game is on tonight. It seems to have lost some of it's luster, but I still enjoy it. It could be one of the last good things in baseball this year as it seems the players are on the verge of striking again. This is just killing the sport.

July 8, 2002
Want to feel cultured and listen to great music at a free concert. The Tidewater Winds are a local professional concert band that plays free concerts every week in the Hampton Roads area. All of their concerts are free (except for one where they are trying to raise money for charity). The reason I bring this up is that my uncle (really my uncle on my mom's side), Albert Ascersion, is the conductor and he runs a tight ship. Check out his bio, he's legendary in the Philippines and is a top clarinet performer (I even picked up the clarinet at an early age due to him, didn't stick with it though, but I can still play). Here is a schedule of their free concerts this summer. Hey it's a good (cheap) date for some of you trying to impress someone. Dress casual too, it's not formal at all.

I hope everyone made it back to work okay. It's been a looong weekend for some of you and I know it can be hard to get back. I want to say whassup to everyone I saw last week.

I'm gonna be pretty scarce this week as I prepare for my trip to California this Thursday. I gotta pack, pick up souveniers for people in Cali, and tie up loose ends before I leave. So if you need to catch me for something, let me know now since my schedule is packed between now and Thursday. Also let me know if you want me to bring something back from the Golden State.

Did you guys see that police chase last friday that ended where the cops stormed the car and stopped the guy (who poured gas over himself) with a foam hose. Well that was on Highway 101 in Palo Alto, a couple miles from where Luan works in Stanford, and where I'm headed this week.

I added new pictures to my Grovestreet album. I've added a few pictures from Mike Lunasin's going away party held at our house on June 22, 4th of July pics, and Jay & Aimee's Engagement party that I attended this past weekend. And remember that if you want pictures, it's best to ask me and I'll hook you up with a better quality picture.