818's and Heartbreaks

This post should be epic...

in length.

So I'm sitting here on my last night of Spring Break contemplating the ridiculousness that has ensued in the last 10 days. It has basically been a downhill ride the whole time. Lets recap.

The Good

I watched Domino on the plane to San Jose. Its a pretty obscure movie based on the true story of Domino Harvey, introverted Hollywood heiress turned bounty hunter, and her exploits in the LA crime world. Keira Nightly plays Domino, Micky Rourke plays her boss Ed Moseby and Lucy Lui plays FBI agent Taryn Mills. The movie progresses through flashback sequences and interviews between Domino and Taryn. It could use a little more action, but the story is told well and it ceased to surprise me. This is a movie that you could watch a bunch of times and figure out new things each time. Definitly check it out if you get a chance.
Kelly stayed with me the first weekend back. So that basically meant excessive amounts of eating out, exploring and lounging around: my favorite things in life :) And of course, here are some pictures entailing my food escapades.

Kahoo Ramen in San Jose was our first stop. It wasn't as good as I expected. The spot was tiny and the ramen was spicier than I had liked, but it was good nonetheless. I still prefer Tajima's in Kearny Mesa.Tartini in Cupertino has decent froyo, but the crepes are amazing.

Sushi o Sushi in Santa Clara is our standard sushi spot. Expensive but fuckin baller.

The Red Crane in Cupertino was probably the most expensive meal I've ever paid for, but also one of the best. Asian fusion at its finest.
We also got a chance to check out He's Just Not That Into You. After all the hype about this movie, it didn't impress me TOO much. Don't get me wrong, its still a good movie and its definitly not the typical chick flick. It centers around real life dating situations between different characters who are all connected in one way or another. Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson and Ben Affleck star as a few of the intertwined characters. The ideas that the movie tries to parlay are definitly realistic and different from typical "happy ending" date movies, but it was just too long for my liking (2 hr 9 min). I'd say rent it if you and the ladyfriend are trying to stay in for the night.
Ok and then after Kelly left, I spent the majority of the next few days working on my resume and attempting, to no avail, to find a summer internship in the Silicon Valley. So if anyones got the hookup then HOLLA ACTHA BOYYYY

On Wednesday Will came up from LA so we met up with a few of the Bay Area heads and showed Will around San Jose. Took him to Smoke Eaters (aka University of Chicken, aka Cluck You's) in Santa Clara. I felt hella bad because I told him to get Traditional Death Wings (3rd spiciest) and he was dying trying to finish all 15 of them ahhaha. After that we chilled at Valley Fair and got some Red Mango, which is officially my favorite froyo spot. Then we lived the true San Jose life and kicked it at Tapioca Express and later that night, at Starbucks. Next we went to Hot Pot City in Milpitas for some late night all you can eat hot pot. And as usual, we got too greedy and over-ate and all had MSG induced food comas and stomach aches. Will, Scott and Eric all ended up spending the night and the next day we went to Falafel's Drive In in Santa Clara for lunch (They were on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives on the Food Network). Its the best Middle Eastern food in town and they have a bombass banana shake. And finally, we went to the aforementioned Tartini to get the now famous crepe. After that I split from the guys as they went to stay at Scotts place in Oakley.

I noticed a lot of change in San Jose this most recent trip back home. Its subtle, but its definitly there. Everyone seems to have new crowds. Everyone seems to be utterly sick of being stuck in San Jose. Everyone seems to be quitting bad habits and picking up better ones. Everyone seems to be maturing. Its refreshing to not only see everyone again, but also to see everyone progressing and moving in a positive direction. I wish I had spent more of my Spring Break in San Jose.

The Bad

On Friday, I drove down to LA with Ku and Brian. Things were fine until we passed Pasadena around 3pm. We got stuck in the worst traffic of my life. We stayed on the 5 for an hour and barely moved anywhere so we decided to take local. We ended up driving through East LA, the most Mexican neighborhood I have ever seen (and I've been to Tijuana twice in my life). What should have been a 6 hour drive ended up turning into a 9 hour drive through cholo infested waters. We should have taken it as a sign of bad things to come.

*This part belongs in The Good but then it would ruin the chonological order of the blog, oh well.

We stopped off in West Covina to visit Joyce's new house/mansion and went to Stephanie's birthday dinner at Macaroni Grill in City of Industry.Then we went to Room 302 in Diamond Bar and had the best shaved ice I've ever had.

*Alright back to The Bad

So the main reason we all came down to SoCal early was to meet up with Mel and go to Paid Dues in San Bernadino. However, Friday night we all realized that due to bad planning and communication, none of us really wanted to go to the conert. We had all thought the others had wanted to go and nobody spoke up, so in the end we were stuck with 4 tickets that we didn't want. So I made a craigslist posting on friday night and by saturday at 8am our phones started going off. We were able to sell our first ticket at full price ($55) easily to some guy in Irvine. However, the rest of the day was spent haggling and negotiating with unreliable people all the way from Santa Clarita to San Marcos. We eventually had to settle with selling 2 tickets for $30 each to a girl in West Covina after we were flaked on, ignored and led on by everyone else. And in the end, after countless text messages, phone calls and miles driven around LA county, we were unable to sell our last ticket. We initially paid $220 for the 4 tickets and ended up earning only $115 in reselling, resulting in a $105 loss between the 4 of us. It was one of the most mentally straining days of my life, you just had to be there to really understand the ridiculousness that went on from 8am to 6pm.

We met up with Joyce after and she attempting to salvage our terrible day by taking us to 21 Choices in Clairemont and La Villa Kitchen in San Dimas.Afterwards she took us to a Color Guard competition that her old high school was participating in. I'm not guna lie, Color Guard was actually pretty fun to watch. Some of the shit they were doing was actually pretty amazing. Its just one of those things that you don't think is cool until you witness it in person.

We ended up driving back to SD that night and arriving around 3am

The Ugly

We got robbed.

Over Spring Break someone broke into our apartment somehow and stole hella shit. Luckily, we had locked the TV, PS3 and XBOX 360 in Scott's room. But they took all 4 of the PS3 controllers, an XBOX 360 controller, about 30 movies and like 10 games that were in the living room. Roughly estimating, we lost over $1000 worth of shit, most of which was Scott's (about 90%).

After Friday and Saturday, I wasn't ready to call this the worst weekend ever, but after coming home on Sunday to find out our shit had been stolen, I think I can safely say that this was the worst weekend of my life.

Lets try to brighten things up with the beautiful girlfriend....

pumping gas.