happy hallo-fuckin-ween.

i'm a smurf.... that's taking a shower

the search for beef noodo.

i have embarked upon an everlasting quest, that knows no end nor bounds... it's up there with the search for the holy grail, the search for the fountain of youth, the search for a solution to an NP-Complete problem, the search for "dude, where's my car?"... the everlasting search for the perfect beef-noodle soup place in chicago...

for those that don't know.. this is one of my favourite (yes i am pseudo-british now, like madonna) chinese dishes... when made correctly, it brings sweat to your forehead, tears to your eyes, and yummy to your tummy... it is, the apple from he tree of knowledge... i've had it in Taiwan and China (ala, the garden of eden where the bountiful fruit known as beef noodoh grows), and now search for the place near me that has it...

I've had it in NYC in chinatown and it was almost as good, and had found a small place in East Lansing that had it and was made above par good... In chicago, i'm still looking... i thought it would be easy with chicago being such a big city and all, but i haven't found the Tawain-style i've grown to love yet...

janelle and i managed to scope out a place some workmates recommended to us called Yu's... it was a pretty nice place (which in chinese food, isn't always good.. there is an inverse relationship between the cleanliness of a place and how good the food is..)... i quickly scampered over the menu and noticed... no beef noodo :(... i thought maybe it's one of those items that are only on the chinese menu, so i asked the waitress if they had beef noodo (one of the few things, but essential things i know how to say in chinese).... she said no, but offered something close...

what i got was this:

it was more like a thai/mandarin noodle dish with pork, veggies and seafood... it was damn tasty, but it wasn't beef noodo... alas, i had high hopes in ending my search that day, but it wasn't meant to be... yet...

janelle had gotten a fortune, that i quickly took...
Yes... my genuine talent will find its to success... and that talent will lead me to the success that i call beef noodo.

Oh, and sometime in the future, i will be attending the beef noodle festival in Taipei.

a lil' sumthin'

o yeah, did i tell you i moonlight as a rapper?

check it.

it's a sneak preview of my #1 hit that's being released next summa. You only get 47 secs. of it, becuz i'm hard up.

Hawwt.mp3

runteldat.

1 + 1 = 3?

so our adventures this weekend had us going to gameworks for a night of video game and drinkin' fun.. i do have to say that i was a little suspicious of it at first since arcades have totally changed from what they were like when i was kid to now.. now they're all about games that you physically have to move in (ala. dance dance), and there are no more quarter games... apparently these games are good enough where they warrant you spending at least a dollar a play...

Anyways, we made our way to gameworks and upon entering, i didn't feel the same magic from seeing the games that i did when i was a kid... when i was a kid, i always had my parents drive me to the mall so i could hangout at the arcade... i'd stay there for hours at a time.. it didn't matter if i had money or not, when i wasn't playing, i was watching and "learning"... every arcade had new/different games, never the same ones... now, i go in an expect to find Tekken, a Street Fighter Game, Dance Dance, and a multitude of gun-games.... This was what i expected and what i initially thought we got, but upon further inspection, there was a little more...

we walked around, and decided that this would be better with some drinks... so the first game we played, was the bar... after acquiring our health potions, we walked over and played a firefighter game... this game required you holding this heavy ass "fire hose" and pointing it and spraying water on the screen... i was actually pretty impressed at it... except my arms got hella tired towards the end, and i had to put my drink down to play it...

After a bunch more drinks and a bunch more games later, we headed to the ticket games... last time we went to an arcade we walked out with a genuine blow-up simpsons bat... who knows what treasures awaited us at gameworks! we walked in, played some games and.....

we came out with a crappy tattoo, and a calculator... yes a calculator... all the other prizes were dick and ass prizes, so believe it or not, the calculator was the best thing... (i haven't tried yet, but i bet if i try 1+1 it'll give me 3...)... after a disappointing "reward" for all our hard work, we headed off to play a horse racing/betting game... this game was insane.. you get you create and name your own horse (you pick the mates) and then you have to train it and race it... all the time trying to keep a good relationship with you horse while you whip it furiously as you try to place in a race... what's cool is that you get all your horse data saved onto a card, so next time you play, you can start off where you left off...

Here's my beautiful horse, turtling... we still have to purchase a stable for it, but for now, he lives in a box...

So, overall prognosis, gameworks = eh... gameworks + drinks = yippy skippy!

i will make you hurt...

we've finally finished up our mini-tour of concert going for a couple of weeks... we started last week off with the bravery, who did not dissappoint. Damn, they put on a good show, i'd have to say they were better than the killers (in way of stage prescence and just awe)... we got right up there in the tiny-assed venue (the vic) right at the front of the stage where we sang and danced out hearts out... sam, the lead singer, had leaned over us during "honest mistake" and we sang as well as we could into the mic... i had to put my hand down, cause i was doing the "rock-hand pump" and i thought i was going to poke him in the eye... if you want more details, see my wife's janelle's blog...

the opening bands were alright... i really liked the first band people in planes... they had an interesting muse/ours/radiohead sound to them... international noise conspiracy were decent, but a little too poitical for me... they did put on a hell of a show, and the lead singer bore a stunningly close resemblence to one of my college roomies (kampe)...

we were given a couple days rest and then it was off to the ass-kickin' NIN... man, if i woulda known back in the day that i would be seeing trent, i wouldn't of believed it... what a fuckin' amazing show... it would be best described as an industrial pink floyd the wall show... the light show was insane as well as the projections and stage setup... i never woulda thought that a concert could be so 'beautiful' (esp. for a industrial/rock band), but it was... gave me the shivers..

we were able to get up again to the front of the stage for maximum nails viewage... we knew there would be some ass kickin' but just didn't quite know how much... autolux was the first band... they blew donkey balls... interesting sound, but all the same, and all of it was too slow... ugh... then came queens of the stone age... i remember the last time i saw them, i dubbed the lead singer (josh holmme (sp?)) as a craig kilborn look-a-like... they were pretty damn good and he was pretty damn witty too... they played a pretty long opening set (45min or so), that got the crowd pumped...

at this point, it was still bearable up front... then the nin came out... and the pushing ensued... but all that didn't matter because there was trent... i'm proud of my janelle staying packed up there for about 4-6 songs especially during march of the pigs, and wish... head like a hole would of probably just meant the death of her :)... about after 6 songs, she had hurt her arm trying to get this guido-chach lookin guy off her, and i promptly signaled the security guy to pull her out...

we watched the rest of the show from the back of the floor which actually was a little better than up front... there was a huge translucent curtain that became a projection screen that was only fully visible from the back... we stood back there, admist the sea of wavering lighters during hurt, and finally screaming at the top of our lungs to head like a hole... fuckin' amazing...

i do have to say this... i find it funny that when there are people up-front on the floor in a general admission concert and they get pushed into (you know, the surge the minute the headliner comes on)... they try to push back, as if telling us to stop pushing into them... you know, i would if i could, but i'm not going to waste my energy to stop something that is going to happen regardless... if you're up front on the floor in a general admission concert, learn to get smashed, learn to love the feeling of that shirtless drunk guys sweat rubbing up against you, learn how to just ignore the pain and have a good time, learn to know that you're space is going to get invaded, learn that newton's 3rd law applies even in concerts... you are just wasting energy into trying to create your own island that'll get flooded the minute you push back...

anyways, we spent the rest of the weekened sleeping and recovering our war wounds... we finally ended up buying a digital camera (i got the one that took better pictures vs. the more stylish one)... got a great deal on the camera (saved about $120 beans) too which made it well worth it... i then spent today watching FF7 advent children which was sweet as hell... we celebrated our 1-month anniversary and then did some more R&R...

i think for the next couple of weeks, we'll just be "old" and take things a little easier :)

oh, and thanks to my monkey-like long arms, i was able to snag the setlist from the bravery's set...
happy anniversary. i love you janelle.