being bad dudes...

over the spring time my sister convinced me to join up in an ultimate frisbee (think a mix of football/soccer/basketball) league with her and her friends... having only played no more than two other times in my life at college, i decided, what the hell...

now zip back in time about 3-4 years when i was in this monumental (well, i'd like to pretend it was) rawk band called the optionals.. we did this little tour called A.I.R (asians in rock) tour around mi and in clevland with a couple other bands - jenny choi and kris racer. kris was this asian indie-rocker who not only rocked his acoustic guitar but did it sitting in a chair that he would tip back and forth side to side, at times balancing on one chair leg... it was amazing enough to make it into one of those cirque de soliel (sp?) shows, as he never did fall...

in any case, back to the present, i come to find out that kris knew my sister through frisbee and that he would be on my team... small fucking world i say...

so a couple weeks ago hazen, j, and i headed out to the empty bottle to see kris play again... i was a little sad to see that he had traded his acrobatic chair routine for some new delay pedals, but listening to his new material, it seemed to be the right choice... he did have some marching antics that sufficed my antic-wanting-need.. keep up the good music kris... he has a new album coming out soon, so check his website (it's currently down) for it...

the other highlight of the night was finding an old Bad Dudes arcade machine... i hadn't played this game in decades... i remember playing it on the NES back in the day when i was 8 or something... this was a pleasant surprise... hazen and i geared up in our torn white and pea green jeans and jean jackets... threw on the black leather gloves and were ready to kick some ass...

lucky for us, janelle had an exhorborant amount of quarters stashed away like fort knox in her purse... she paid out quarters like we had just rolled a 777... thanks to this, hazen and i were able to battle our way through levels of baddies and bosses (including the many quarter eater bosses) and save the president... it was a tough battle, but about $5+ dollars later, the president was safe and we were heroes... we then took the president out for hamburgers (you'd have to beat it to understand..)...

As proof, i've included a photo of hazen and i with the pres: (note the hamburger in his left hand):

[hazen's wearing the green pants, in case you couldn't tell...]

back to skewl

oh yeah... i am now officially a grad student... i've always complained about how much i missed skewl ever since graduating... let's see how much longer i miss it for...

hii has his wii! and the twisted 13

a couple weeks ago, we learned that janelle's lil' bro' had heard about the wii and suddenly his christmas list changed to only want that... problem was, so did every other lil' boy/girl his age, making it quite hard to find... alas, due to lots of research, calling around, and pimpin' we were able to get word as to when the arrival of the next shipment would be..

i'm sure most of the retail peeps were quite sick of the myriad number of calls they probably got in a day about the wii or ps3, they were quick to answer, "i don't know..." to any inquiry we had when we called.. however, through the grapevine we heard that target would be getting some as well as toys r' us...

thanks to the help of janelle's sis (jessica) and her main squeeze (aj), we were able to split up to head out to target and toys r us.. needless to say, her lil' bro now has a new toy... i can't wait to see his face when he opens it on christmas... that'll be all worth waking up early and standing out in the 0 degree weather... he's been told that he won't be getting one since it is too hard to find, so that'll only set it up even more...

on friday we stepped foot into the starry studded sky of the aragon ballroom to attend and evening with the red jumpsuit apparatus, rise against, and my chemical romance... we're at that stage in life where we feel quite old at concerts (although i'm sure mcr's crowd is geared towards more youngins than oldins)... the good part is that we're taller than everyone else on the floor.. which leaves us to a clearshot view of the stage...

we were able to get pretty damn good spots front and center with an unobstructed view of all the ongoings...highlights included - 2 sorostitutes drunk and dancing to DJ music in between sets, bumping into everyone (mind you that we were packed like sardines, in fact i think i had 5 people who i didn't know in me at one point..) and being quite obnoxious-attention-whore-because-they-realize-their-lives-are-plain-old-boring-jane... they even started picking on some grrls around them trying to start that sorositute shit but the people around them wouldn't have it... they eventually opted to leave (or were made to leave)...

i really liked red jumpsuit apparatus (since their name reminds me of megaman) and rise against were alright (didn't realize how rockin' they were)... my chemical romance were a ton better this time than the last time i saw them... gerard (sp?) must have taken some vox lessons as his singing has vastly improved from the regurgitated-off-key-yelping (pre-black-parade).. but mcr's set was absolutely rawkin... pits broke out all around us as we helplessly were swept back and forth within the crowd, singing at the top of our lungs... it was a good time had by all..

in the end, we were finally able to unstick our sweaty selves from the other sweat laden bodies on the floor and peeled ourselves out the door into the closest corner store for refreshing drink... after a quick el ride (where we heard a homeless man talk on repeat about how his mother had just died [felt quite sorry for him]) we made it back to casa-de-yue and took in some much needed z's....

wii have our wii!

so a couple of weeks ago, the geek-extravenganza of console release day was upon us... after unsuccessfully trying to obtain a ps3, 2 days later sought the release of the beloved nintendo wii... however, the dilemma of the UM/OSU game (yes, i hate sports in a loving way) was a hard choice to choose from... scoping out my resources and figuring out my own game plan, we decided to hit up a midnight raffle at a meijer for 25 wii consoles...

too bad there were about 200 people there we came back empty handed...a number that was 3 or 4 numbers away from us did get called though... figures... just our luck.. on our way back home, determined in finding the holy grail, we checked out some stores and the line of campers already awaiting to drink from the cup...

we decided to check out a local circuit city and noticed that only about 4 people were in line at about 12:45 am... i was planning on staying out there by myself, and as we headed back home, my wonderful contra code knowing wife said she wanted to come too... wow.. i had to ask, are you sure? a couple hundred times but she meant it... i couldn't of found anyone better for me...

we rushed home, bundled up, loaded up on warm clothes and supplies, and headed back to circuit city (luckily we live close enough to circuit city where it's a quick 3 min. jaunt to get supplies if needed, or to poo).. lucky for us the line situation didn't change and we unpacked and setup our camp 5th in line...

the contrast of the wii crowd to the ps3 crowd was entirely different... they weren't profit hungry whore mongers, but just the casual geeky gamer (who i could probably talk to for hours)... laid back and chill it was such a great setting... we set forward for a cold snowy night... other than huddling in our 3-4 blanket deep fortress (which didn't seem to help at all), we threw some a frisbee around to keep warm...

later into the night, the snow and rain started to fall... even with all the stuff we had on (imagine a ralphie's brother) it was freezing... luckily, circuit city had a little awning we could stay under to provide a little haven from the rain and snow... i couldn't wait for morning, when the sun would come out and warm things up... or so i thought..

as morning dawned upon us, it didn't get warmer... it somehow got colder... much much colder..it's was almost unbelievable how cold it got in the morning... i actually wanted it to be the snowy/rainy night we had since it was warmer (or more bearable) then... we took some nomadic migrations over to the other side of the parking lot to stand in the sun... it helped as much as putting water on you while you're stuck in ice...

more frisbee, more huddling, running around, pacing, trying to stay warm... the night flew by, but as morning came time seemed to stand still...9 am came, and the manager came out and handed out numbers in the order we arrived... ahhh... the relief... the store didn't open until 10, but having this number was like using the red potion in zelda.. life was revitalized into us since now we could leave and warm up and come back around 10 to pick up our system...

we returned at 10am after getting some BK, warming up, and shedding about 23672 lbs of clothing.. already another large crowd there, at about 9:55 am, they let herd of sheep into the kingdom of geekdom... 22 of us became exhibits, enclosed by the electronic doors, to the unlucky few that were locked outside..

we did it... we braved through the elements, climbed everest, and reached the pinnacle of console glory.. wii did it...

oh, here's what the first 2 people in line did... stay in there car.. those fuckers (or maybe they are just smarter?)

the crew, bunkering down...

us trying to stay warm...

snow day!

i feel like i did back when I was 10 and would wake up to the saving grace if white blankets... haven't felt that feeling since until now... i'm much too excited to go back to sleep.. time to play!