Friday, June 15, 2007

My 300th Post! (a catch up post for the beginning of June).

Well, it’s the summertime, which is generally the time of year where I get to update more often (since I’m stuck in the office bored out of my mind).

Hopefully, as of next week, I should be updating fairly regularly. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to catch up with some things that have happened in the past week and a half or so.

First off, last week I wound up buying the new WWE Ladder Match DVD. It is freakin awesome. It’s got almost every ladder match that has happened in the WWE in the past 7 years (and some from before too). I can’t wait to rewatch some of the Tag Team TLC matches with Edge & Christian, The Hardys, the Dudleys and more. It’s also cool, b/c my dad is a big fan of wrestling, so I’ve been bringing the DVD with me when I visit him, and we’ve watched a handful of matches. I think he likes that.

When I was in Bestbuy to purchase the Ladder Match DVD, I noticed that Tekken 5 for the PS2 was put as a “Greatest Hit” for only $20, so since I have been a fan of the Tekken series (and played Tekken 5 quite a bit when my cousin Mitchell brought it with him when he visited for Christmas), I decided to pick up a copy. I haven’t had a chance to play it a lot, but it’s definitely cool, and gives me an outlet to release any frustrations I may have.

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Last Saturday- Me, Ariana, Phil & Ketrin went to New Roc to see Knocked Up. That movie was absolutely hysterical. The first hour was especially fun. It’s fairly long for a comedy (it runs for about 2 hours and 10 mins), but the time flies by. And looking back at it, I really can’t see what you could edit out, b/c pretty much every piece was important to the story. I definitely give the movie the highest recommendation and put it as a strong contender for Movie of the Year (up there with Spider-Man 3 and 300, each of which I absolutely loved).

Then Ariana and I decided to sneak into another screen to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. We knew we were in for a long day at the movies, since Knocked Up was long, and we heard Pirates was nearly 3 hours, but we figured if we didn’t see it then, we probably weren’t going to be able to see the movie in the theaters at all.

However, after sitting through the movie, we probably would have been better off just waiting for the DVD. Man, that movie was LONG. Not only was it long, but it was confusing as heck (how many betrayals, alliances and backstabbings did they have?? I lost track! And don’t get me started on how they could somehow sail to the “Land of the Dead” so freakin retarded). I was really disappointed in the movie. Even the huge fight sequence at the end of the movie- I was just so drained and disinterested by that time in the movie, that as good as the effects were, I just couldn’t bring myself to care.

After the movies, Ariana and I went to Applebees for dinner and boy did we tear into that menu (we really didn’t get to eat much through the day since we were at the movies for about 6 hours). The highlight as always was the Crispy Bread Pudding for dessert- man that is good stuff!

Following dinner, we went to Patty and Joe’s place, so Patty could show us the progress on the Save the Date cards she was designing and printing for us. And then we just hung around for awhile chatting away. So it was a nice day overall.

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The next night (Sunday), I had no plans initially, but I got a call from Phil midday about having a “Guy’s Night Out” that night, so of course I joined in.

It wound up being me, Phil, Jordan and Joe J. and we went to Joe’s place to hang out and watch movies.

I picked up each of the guy’s in my car and then we headed to Blockbuster to rent a DVD. This led to an amusing story:

So we walk into the place and one of the worker’s is walking around and when he sees us browsing he asks us if we needed help finding anything. We pretty much tell him “not really… we’re just looking for a fun, stupid movie.” And continue to search without his help.

The search was pretty difficult, as between the four of us (especially US four) at least one of us had seen almost every new release they had out there.

In the end, we decided to go REALLY stupid and rented Epic Movie. Thing is, when we get to the cashier, it was the same guy who asked us earlier if we needed help and he warned us that it was not worth wasting our money renting that movie. So we ask him “Okay… well we’re in the mood for Stupid Comedy, what do you suggest?”

Now the guy was either totally not paying attention to anything we were saying to him, or he was just dumb as a brick b/c he responds with this gem:


“Apocalypto was really good.”


We just found that to be friggin hysterical. We somehow managed to not to laugh right in his face and politely declined his suggestion and rented Epic Movie anyway. But as soon as we stepped outside the store, we busted out laughing all like “Apocalypto??? The Hell??”

We all had fun cracking jokes at the guy’s expense. Jordan made a few funny comments including something along the lines of “Hmm… and let me follow that with Schindler’s List, that’s a great movie.”

For the rest of the night, all anyone had to say was “Apocalypto” and it had us all rolling.

In the end, the guy was right though, Epic Movie was pretty bad. There were a small handful of amusing scenes but it wasn’t worth it. But it was cool to just hang with the guys, so it didn’t really matter.

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On Monday we got a call with some good news from my Lawyer. The seller’s lawyer finally finished up his side of the deal so we are now in a position to close. So hopefully we will be closed and have the keys in our hand within the next week or so.

It’s a little complicated due to a few things (which I’ll probably go into in another post). But overall it’s good news. So I can’t wait to finally be an owner. Ariana and I are very excited. We are really looking forward to fixing up the place.

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On Tuesday we took the Middle school students in our program to the United Nations. I myself had never been to the UN, so I was looking forward to it.

The kids on the other hand, weren’t as thrilled. First bad sign was when most of them asked “Where are we going?” It’s like “umm… didn’t you read the permission form both you and your parents signed??”

Then they also asked what the UN was? Which I guess is a slightly better question, but not by much, b/c shouldn’t this have been covered in their social studies classes?? And even if not, almost all of them have internet access. Wouldn’t it be common sense to say “hey I’m going on a trip to the UN tomorrow… I have no clue what the UN is, let me google it?”

No, I guess all they care about is playing video games, IMing their friends and general BS on sites like myspace (even though they are mostly all underage for that).

Another thing was that almost none of them came dressed for the trip. We were going to the United Nations. You’d think the parents of the kids would put them in something halfway decent. We’re not even asking for suit and tie, but at least not baggy pants and shirts that are 4 sizes too large.

Also, these kids need to learn respect. And how to act when they are put in certain situations. They need to realize that depending where you are you need to act in the proper fashion. An example one of the chaperone’s gave is that you wouldn’t act the same way at a formal dinner as you would at home, school, or even the local fast food joint. But many of them don’t realize that, and it’s sad. And it’s not all their faults… it has a LOT to do with the parents too.

But that’s a rant for another day. Let me not stray too off topic, b/c I can go off about this stuff for pages.

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Later that night, Ariana and I went to Patty & Joe’s place again to get a final look at the Save the Dates (b/c there had been issues with both the paper and printer). But things are now finalized and began to be fully printed that night.

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On Wednesday, I went to the Yankees vs Diamondbacks game. Before the game I met up with one of my classmates from Lehman, Serena, and we took the train over to the stadium together. We then met up with Ariana there and went to McDonald’s for dinner. Serena was meeting some of her friends at the game, and actually got hooked up with sitting in like the 7th row (so jealous…), but we met up with her again after the game to go back on the train together (as we parked near Ariana to avoid having to drive to the stadium and deal with parking, which is nuts due to all the construction).

The game itself went great, and the Yankees won 7-2, which finally puts them over .500! It was also their 8th straight win (and they won on Thursday as well), so they have a chance to match and maybe break their win streak record under Torre (which maxed out at 10 games). So we shall see, although by my just saying that, I probably doomed them to lose tonight, unless me acknowledging that fact plays as a counter…

… geez baseball players and fans really are a superstitious bunch aren’t we? Lol.

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I had signed up for one of those Focus group studies (where an interviewer asks you questions about something and then give you some sort of a stipend afterwards), a few weeks ago, and the interview was yesterday.

It was up in Elmsford and it was about Barnes & Noble and how they planned to update their website. It was a pretty simple and straightforward meeting. It lasted for only about 45 minutes and I was paid with a $75 B&N gift card. So that was pretty sweet.

When I got home, we had some company, our friend Isaac, and none of us had eaten yet, so we decided to go grab some Chinese food, where I got me some Steamed Pork Dumplings (they’ve become my new food obsession. Greg is right, they are like crack!)

Then I had to meet up with Joe J. to pick up the Save the Date cards that Patty had completed for us. He was actually hanging with some of the crew on Pete’s boat on City Island, so I met up with him at the docks and since I was already there I figured I might as well stay and hang out for awhile. That worked out well, b/c Pete actually decided to take the boat out for a short ride, so I got my first ever ride on a personal boat (ferries and party boats don’t count).

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And now I’m all caught up. We have a pretty busy weekend ahead of us but it should be fun. So I should have plenty to blog about as of Monday. Check back soon!

P.S. I’m trying to organize a group outing to go see Avenue Q the first week in July (I found a good deal for cheap tix). I sent out an e-mail about it, but if for someone reason you didn’t get it and are interested, let me know!

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