Ocean City, Maryland 2007

Earlier this month I visited my favorite place in the universe, Ocean City.

Some of you may scoff at this. I am well aware that Ocean City is over-commercialized and full of hicks. It's basically a low-class-beach-front Las Vegas, without the gambling, if you are in a hotel near the boardwalk, that is.

My family owns a house in Little Salisbury, the one residential area in the north part of city.

It's the best place on Earth.

















You can view the slide show here.

After I Ocean City my brother and I went to Puerto Rico with our mom and step-family. I will post the slide show of that later.

Chicago

Last weekend I went to Chicago with my family and I took several photos:

















You can view the slide show here.

Harry Potter 2007

Last night I went to the Harry Potter Release party at the Barnes and Noble in Fairfax. I took a whole bunch of pictures with my new camera:














Here is a slideshow.

The Most Important Purchase of My Life

Recently I made the most important purchase of my life. This seemingly small trinket has already affected my life to a degree that could not have previously fathomed. After I purchased it, I took it home and put it on my shelf and admired it from a distance, as one might admire a sunset or a Picasso in an exclusive art gallery.

This product has inspired me to travel to exotic places, to try new foods and to meet new people. It is my muse, my heart, my everything. It has shed light on my otherwise shadowy disposition. Its importance to me might not be unlike the pen to Hemingway, the bow to Vivaldi, the brush to Dali. It is the tool that will define my artistry, write my history, and sing my music.

Last week, I bought a six ounce stainless steel flask.

I bought it for this booze cruise that I went on with some coworkers last week. The cruise, which took us from Georgetown to Old Town Alexandria, was 45-minutes long and they only served beer and wine. Since I'm try to slim down, I only drink hard liqour, and therefore I needed way to smuggle some aboard. I went to the liqour, purchased this gem along with a bottle of Wild Turkey, and sailed into the sunset (figuratively; the boat sailed southeast).



I'm kidding. Well only half-kidding. I did indeed buy a flask for the booze cruise, but that wasn't my life-changing purchase. This was:


A Canon EOS D350 Digital Rebel XT SLR with an F-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. Unlike the flask, most of the things I mentioned in the first paragraph really do apply. Having a great camera will force me to try new things and go to new places.

Three things inspired me to buy this camera at this point in time:

1) After a six-year hiatus from photography, I finally had the money to buy it.
2) The price. Both the camera and the memory card were on sale.
3) I will be traveling to three different cities next month (Chicago, Ocean City, and San Juan).

There is also one other awesome product that has come into my life:








This, my friends, is a melodica. It sounds a bit like a small accordion, or a concertina. If you really want to know what it sounds like, it is featured in the song Champagne Supernova by Oasis.

I did not purchase this product. It belonged to my cousins, and they are letting me borrow it for an unknown amount of time. For the past year or so, I would play it sporadically, but now that it is in my possession, I play it nearly everyday. My goal is to learn a new song every week or so.

Once the battery on my new camera is charged, I plan to take 1000 pictures of my cat, make a cuteness collage, and post it here. Stay tuned.

My First Business Trip

My first business trip was to a print site just outside of Rochester, NY, in a town called Henrietta. I spent two horrid weeks there, then I went on to visit friends and family in the rest of the state. Since I didn't bring a camera with me, I had to borrow pictures from the Internet to illustrate my journey.




This is the town of Henrietta, NY:























I was stationed here:
























This is what I looked like during my time there, except with more work, and I was slightly more attractive:



















This was the one friend I met there:





















I also watched quite a bit of HBO in my hotel, and I fell in love with Flight of the Conchords:

















I plan to marry the one on the right, then cheat on the one on the right with the one on the left.

Eventually my project was finished, and I went to visit my friend Jay in Ithaca. This is Jay:























He painted his fingernails in honor of my visit.

And this is Ithaca (compared to Henrietta):




















This is my friend Jay's favorite band, The Verve:



















This was Jay's reaction when he found out that the band was getting back together:























I met some of Jay's friends:
















We climbed one of Ithaca's famous gorges:























Then I went to Syracuse to visit my family:
















And last but not least, at the airport, an insanely hot guy sat next to me on the shuttle bus:























Fin.

My extremely intensive and extensive review of Pirates of the Caribbean 3

Orlando Bloom is hotter than Johnny Depp. There, I said it. I feel so much better now.

Grade: F-

The Silent but Deadly Epidemic

A few years ago I lived with some friends in a rented townhouse. We ran an independent newspaper together. At least once a week we would get drunk and try to brainstorm ideas for the paper.

On one of these evenings, my roommate Oliver and I decided to make a beer and snacks run at the local 7-11. As per usual, we were goofing off in the store, cracking bad jokes and the like. We started browsing through the snack cake section. I turned towards Oliver to crack a joke about extra-long Ho-Hos, but before I could speak, he let out a gasp and his eyes widened with amazement. I knew he had just seen something astonishing. I looked towards the entrance to see if that was the source of the amazement. Nothing. I looked towards the cashier. Again, nothing. I looked back at Oliver, who was still catatonic with bewilderment. I looked down at the assortment of snack cakes before us.

Prominently displayed next to the powdered sugar donuts was a close-up of an extra-large, gaping, asshole. It looked like it had not been cleansed in the better part of this decade. The asshairs, which were easily visible due to the spread eagle nature of the photograph, were thick and matted. The strawberry-blond color of the asshairs made us very suspicious of the rose-Aryan cashier.

As a poetic cu-de-tat, the rim of the asshole was coated in a white powdery substance, not unlike condensed sugar. I looked from the photo towards the neighboring powdered donuts, and was amazed by the resemblance. My appetite for snack cakes had now dwindled, and I headed towards the Slim Jims.

We made our purchases and exited the store. We walked slowly to the car, pondering what we had just witnessed. Who was this person, and what possessed him (or quite possibly, her) to flaunt their bung in the snack cakes section? Did they wakeup and say “Yep! Today’s the day!”

Oliver insisted that the cashier was the asshole assailant. We turned back to the automatic glass doors. We gave him the stink eye, just as he had allegedly given us moments earlier.

Little did we know that we were at the forefront of an epidemic…

I was surfing some Internet forums the other day, and I stumbled upon this post.

It seems Oliver and I are not the only victims of this hanus act (misspelling intended).

Only one question remains:

Which one of you will be next victim of the bunghole bandit?

Possible Secondary Tragedies

It hasn't been the best week, to say the least. I'm not going to get supergushy on this blog and unload about my sympathy for the VT victim's families, which is in abundance. I will say that my brother (a senior at VT) is fine. As much as my heart swells with sympathy for others, it is equally filled with gratitude for my brother's wellbeing.

But that is not what this blog entry is about. The one thing that has hit a bad note with me has been the constant mention of Asian-American people, specifically Koreans, fearing backlash because the perpetrator was Korean. I can't be help that no one would have ever thought to attack Asian-Americans had the media not called specific attention to the perpetrator's race. During the Columbine Massacre, I don't believe Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's races were ever in the spotlight. Neither were their sexes, eye/hair colors, religions, or sexual orientations. No media corporation reported "White Males Fearing Backlash."

These incidents are completely separate from race. All races are capable of extreme acts of hate.

Finally, let us not forget the victims. Let us not forget Mary Read, the half-Korean "fun-loving 19-year-old" from Annandale, VA, or Henry Lee, the Chinese-American computer engineering student. If one were to attack Asian-Americans because of the perpetrator’s race, they would be attacking the Mary Read’s and Henry Lee’s families. If one were to blindly lash out at Asian-Americans because of this tragedy, they would do nothing more then dishonor the victim's memories, and add a bigger load to their families' already unbearable burden.

Awesomeness

The Onion has started distributing paper isues at metro stations in DC. It's about loving time. I've been driving to work in the past couple days. Driving is convenient, but it is more costly and it doesn't get me any exercise. Now that The Onion is now at my metro station, I now have more incentive to ride my bike to the blue line in the morning.

I really shouldn't be so excited about this.

The Perfect Movies List

This list could also be called "The Best Movies You've Never Seen" as all of them were probably considered box office bombs. But there are hundreds of "Best Movies That Did Shitty Opening Weekend" lists. There are very few "Perfect Movie" lists.

What do I mean by "Perfect Movies" you ask? Well, I mean several things. A perfect movie fully satisfies all the desires that lie buried within the human psyche. They execute situations of love, action, suspense, hate, and melancholy with flawless precision, animated wit, and supreme genuineness.

Watching a perfect movie is a sublime encounter. You feel like a better person for partaking in a perfect movie. The movie adds to your bank of experience. It gives more than it could possibly take. The time spent watching a perfect movie is productive time. Just by watching a perfect movie, you feel like you've molded the movie around your own personality. You leave the experience and step back, much like an artist stepping back from a canvas to reflect on her work. The perfect movie becomes your own art.

Here is my short list. There are definetly more than what is on this list.



1) Wonder Boys- Sometimes it is difficult to distill the essence of a movie, because it lives in the mind. Not really, that previous sentence was a quote from the film. This movie is about a writer, Grady Tripp, who is suffering from the opposite of writer's block. Though he has no problem getting words on to the page, his anti-writer's block is just as imposing. His neverending opus is impedeing on his success as a writer, being that it is preventing him from publishing his followup novel. During the course of a weekend, his wife leaves him, his editor shows up asking about the book, his on-the-side girlfriend drops a metaphorical bomb on him, and in the meantime, one of his troubled students has been following him on this wild ride of a weekend. It's sentimental and witty without sapiness or self-indulgence. The movie is about self-discovery, love, lust, drugs, passion, drugs, alcohol, writing, booze, pills, and dead dogs. What more could anyone want?


2) Joe Versus The Volcano- Not many people seem to like this film. But I have a theory about this. You know how sometimes you will have very fond memories of a certain movie or tv show, and when you revisited it later in life, you realized how stupid it really was? I think the opposite is going on here. This movie came out when most of my contemporaries were in grade school, so a lot of the complexities of this detailed cinematic manifesto may have been lost on them. The same thing happened to me when I saw The Big Lebowski the first time. I thought it was stupid, raunchy and juvenile. Now it is one of my favorite films. This movie is more literary than it appears upon first glance. There are several underlying themes and subtle nuances that weave this story into an amazingly epic tapestry of a film. If you ever rent this movie, plan this fun little drinking game:
Take a drink everytime you see the "lightning" symbol. You will find yourself more than tipsy by the end of the film. Bonus drinking if you hear a reference to the symbol.

3) Donnie Darko- Everyone should have seen this movie by now. If you haven't, crawl out from under your rock and Netflix it.











4) The Big Lebowski- See above. I have only one thing to say about this film. A lot of people have said that this is a purely masculine film. Anyone who says that has clearly overlooked the hard feminity of the female lead, Maude Lebowski. She is womanly but strong. A perfect ideal of a woman.

My extremely intensive and extensive review of 300

It was HOT. The extremely well built men were 3/4 nakey the whole time! The story telling was lame, the effects were good. But the men were HOTTTTTTTTTTT!

Lots of gory violence as well. It had as many beheading scenes as Sin City had castration scenes.

It was all around delicious.

New Apartment

I have finally moved into my new apartment. Not only that, I've almost settled in. Just a few things remain:

-I need to get and rf modulator for my tv
-I need to get cable Internet

For a solid week I did not have a tv, so I relied heavily on radio, dvds on my laptop, and books to keep my sanity.

Right now I'm sitting in a trendy coffee shop just a block away from my new place. This place has free Wi-Fi, which is awesome, being that I have no Internet at home.

So far everything has been great at my new place. It's quiet, clean and in a good location. It has a gym, bike room and laundry on site.

I will post pictures once I take them and then find a stable Internet connection.

On Friday I will be picking up a bike from my mom's house, then, weather permitting, I will explore the town.

Another "Best Of Expulsion" Article

Expulsion Exclusive!: Bush’s
Rough Draft of RNC Speech

Thanks to the heroic efforts of Expulsion’s own team of undercover spies, we have obtained a rare first draft of George W. Bush’s Speech at the Republican National Convention. Many thanks to those who lost their lives for this historic document.


My Speech for the Republikaan Nashunal Convenshun

My name is George Dubl U Bush. My mommy
sayz I should run for Prezadent agin. She sayz
I.m the coolest boy in the Whit Horse. I wuld
make a good prezadent agin cause I gave lots
of monies to all my friends. If I am eleckted
prezadent agin, I will give more monies to my
friends. If I am prezadent I will not alow homor
homer homosech Gaywads to get married. My
friend, Mr. Cheney, sayz I should get reeelekted
cause Mr. John Kerry is an fword-ing butthole. Mr.
Cheney also say that Mr. Kerry is a small cat. He
uses another word for small cat, but mommy
sayz that I shouldn.t say it. I think Mr. Kerry.s nose
loks like a giant peepee, and his cheeks look like
droopy balls.
I like playing war a lot. We should get into
more wars with the terororists. Terororists are
scary brown men with Weapons of Mass
Destrukshun. Did I say Weapons? I mean Programs
for WMDs. Did I say programs? I mean
plans for programs of WMDs. Besides, a terororist
with a slingshot is still a terororist, and I say we
should see their slingshots with rocket launchers. I like rocket launchers.
I also like horses and frogs and I hate it when Mommy and Daddy fight.
But I also like starting fights with the smelly brown people. It makes me
feel big, like He-Man. When I grow up I want to be He-man, or possibly a
CHoo-Choo train. When I am a choo-choo train, I will drive all the way to
the middle east and run over osama bin laden. Then I will take his snack
pack money.
I think i will make a great prezadent because i am good speaker
and i like blowing things up. Prezadents have to like blowing things up,
cause that is their job. If you make me prezadent, I will make sure that
tatter tots are served every friday, and that their will be a bigger hot
tub in every millionaire's bathroom. Thank you.

Memories

I've decided to post some of the articles that I wrote as Humor Editor for Expulsion, GMU's only independent newspaper, for two reasons: 1) I don't have time to write a full entry, and 2) the Expulsion website will probably close down, so I want to post them here so I have access to them.

So the next couple entries will probably just be my Expulsion greatest hits.

This article was published in October 2005, in a special bizarro world edition of Expulsion:

Bruce Campbell Wins His 12th Academy Award


This year’s Academy Awards had moments of grandeur, surprise and awe. The red carpet was a sea of glitter, glam and breathtaking beauty. However, none of us were stunned when Bruce Campbell walked away with three academy awards, making a grand total of twelve Oscars within the past ten years. With grace and charm that can rival no other, Campbell was able to thank all 43 members of his family, 37 of his closest friends, and give three shout outs to Buddha, Jesus, and some guy named Bob in all three of his acceptance speeches.

Bruce Campbell’s career started with a major bang when he starred in the international blockbusters Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness. His role as Ash in all three of these movies earned him three separate best actor nominations and two wins. Several Hollywood elitists agree that Campbell was robbed of the Oscar for Army of Darkness, and most say it was because the movie hinted at some sort of massive monarchial conspiracy to end capitalism.

Campbell went on to conquer Hollywood for the next eight years, snagging at least one Oscar every year. After the Evil Dead films, his next project entitled “Zombies Ate My Brain” snagged him another leading role Oscar. The year following he nabbed another leading role Oscar for his portrayal of Harvey P. Knockers in the internationally acclaimed epic “When Harvey met Some Zombies.”

With all this Oscar action, Campbell still has not met the record for most Academy Awards won by one person, a record which is still held by the late Walt Disney at 487. However, Campbell broke the record this year for most Best Actor Oscars received by a single man. During the 78th Academy Awards, Campbell nabbed two Oscars for starring and directing his tour-de-force “Leaves of Grass: A Zombie Killer’s Tale.” Additionally, he also nabbed a best actor award for his portrayal of Johnny, the deaf, blind and mildly autistic hero in “Zombies Attack Johnny: the Deaf, Blind and Mildly Autistic Hero.”

“This is so unexpected,” said Campbell as he accepted his last award of the evening. “I only prepared two speeches. Well I guess I will have to thank Sam Raimi’s money, Sam Raimi’s popularity, and last, but not least, God.”

Smorgasbord

Way too much has been going on.

I look at my life as a long list of to-dos. Some of the to-dos are really banal, like filing taxes. Some are more exciting, like planning for trips. My next trip is going to be to New York City on President's Day Weekend. It will be a trip on behalf of my cousin's 16th birthday. We will go shopping, walk around Central Park, go to the museums, and, as a special gift, I got us tickets to this:

















On Broadway, no less. I got the tickets for amazingly cheap. It is a matinee, though.

My next big trip will be Puerto Rico in August. Eventually I will go somewhere less commonplace, like the Galapagos Islands. Perhaps hiking in New Zealand. Anything is possible.

Pan's Labyrinth

I went to this movie expecting a slightly dark fantasy flick. You know, like The Neverending Story meets The Dark Crystal. What I got was Irreversible. I have seen snuff films with less violence.

The movie takes place in 1944 in fascist Spain. The movie's main character, an imaginative little girl named Ofelia, is the step-daughter of a very cruel army captain. The movie starts with Ofelia and her pregnant mother moving onto the Captain's post, which is located in a dreamy, unnamed, deciduous forest in the Spanish countryside. While wandering in the forest, Ofelia encounters a fairy, who leads her into a fantastic world of faun's, ogres, and secrets. In between Ofelia's encounters with the fantasy world (which are surprisingly few and far between) her mother is falling ill, and her mercilessly cruel stepfather is trying to quash the guerrilla warfare in the countryside by using the most brutal of practices.

I walked out of the theatre thinking I had just seen one and half movies. The stepfather gets more screen-time than the main character, and almost all of his scenes involve intense violence. This movie focused more on the harshness of warfare rather than cherishing of wonderment. I felt like I saw a whole war movie, than half of a dark fantasy movie.

I guess the key to enjoying this movie is knowing what to expect. It is well written, directed, and had excellent acting. However, it is more of a war movie than a fantasy film. It is not, repeat NOT, a film for kids. In fact, anyone, at any age, who has a weak stomach should stay away from this film. But if you like good film-making, and you don't cringe at violence not unlike the worst scenes from Saw, then knock yourself out. Oh, and surprisingly, most people where unaware that the movie foreign, so it has subtitles. Now you know.

Happy n00b Year

One of my promises to myself is to keep up with my writing. That means actually paying attention to this thing. It’s 5 P.M. on New Year’s Day, and I’m still in my pjs. I’ve spent most of the day watching the DVDs that I got for Christmas. The holidays were great, as usual. Here some of the stuff I hauled in:

This was one of my family's favorite shows. It appealed to everyone in our family.

Josh got this for me. I asked for it specifically. I made the most delicious sweet and sour meat balls with it.

Of course.

Another gift from Josh. My old one had a couple different species of mold.

A sappy but hilarious show.

Naturally.

I’ve got about 100 hours of DVD watching to catch up on.

I’m planning on moving in a month and I haven’t even found a place. I’m not that worried though because I know deep down I won’t be homeless.

I saw my best friend Oliver over the weekend. He invited me to this family party at his parents’ house. His sister just had her first baby, and this party was sort of like a big baby unveiling. His sister’s friends brought over their babies as well, and at one point we had a baby pile. It was a little mountain of adorable. Then they all started crying, kind of how neighborhood dogs set each other off. I was then reminded of how quiet (and equally adorable) cats are.

As far as 2006 is concerned, it was a year that evened itself out. The first half of the year wasn’t that great. My best friend left town, I couldn’t find a job, and my current job was getting on my nerves. But then I got a new job, and I’m still in touch with him. I feel like this year is the first year for the rest of my life. Or some such bullshit.

New Job Photos

Hello my fans! I know you have been eagerly awaiting my latest entry regarding my new job. It's going really well, and I wanted to share some photos with you.














This is my office. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Actually, it may be one of the smallest shared offices in the building.



















This is my officemate Aaron. He is hard at work. Just look at those neck muscles bulge!














This is Larkin. She used to have my job, but she got promoted. She's been training me and she's very nice. She also has the nicest computer screen on our floor.














This is the outside of my building. Sometimes a homeless guy will camp out near the entrance. He has an interesting personality quirk: he likes to piss into a clear plastic Starbucks cup, then display it on the sidewalk like it's street art.


















This is the entrance to Washington Harbor, a premiere waterfront venue with excellent restaurants and bars. It's about a 30-second walk from my building. When you are in the harbor, you have a perfect view of the Watergate and the Kennedy Center. I was too lazy to walk all the way down there to snap a photo.















This is the famous C & O Canal. This particular part is about a block from my building, and it's also a popular lunch spot. Sometimes, when I get to work early, I take a nice leisurely morning stroll along the Canal.














This is Georgetown, arguably the best shopping and dining area in DC. It's actually way cooler in real life, this is just a crappy photograph.














This is a restaurant that my cousin's friend supposedly owns. I took this picture for her.



















GO SKINS!!














This is an antique store on M street. I don't know the name of it, I just took a picture because it looked pretty.



















This is Bridge Street Books, a cheap bookstore. A lot of the books on that table are 4 dollars or less.



For those of you who were wondering "Golly, where is Heather going to get her Raspberry Snapple fix?"












THEY SELL IT EVERYWHERE HERE!!


Finally, this is how I feel about my new job:

Nothing But Blue Skies

Just a quick update.

My new job is going great.  I feel like my foot is firmly implanted within the door to my career.

Once I remember to bring a digital camera into the office, I will post pictures of my new digs.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with my mother at Sequoia, which is right next to my new office.  I'm so excited!

LIFE!

I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those people that starts a blog, keeps it up for a few months, then abandons it all together.  I ended up doing that with my trivia blog, but I will try not to do it with this one.

My main reason for updating is thus:

I GOT A NEW JOB. 

It's exactly the job I've been looking for and I couldn't be happier.  My next step is to find a moderately-priced apartment in the city.  Then all will be well.

In other news, the doctor has told me I have screwy cholesterol, so I've had to change my diet.  I don't eat much red meat, so my biggest problem is dairy.  I will miss it.  I also have to start exercising more.  However, this won't be as drastic a change as I will have to walk a mile each way between my new job location and the metro.

The day after I took the job offer, I realized just how much of my life had been devoted to finding a new job these past couple months.  I woke up the day after and realized that I could take my shower earlier because I didn't have to spend my allotted 20 minutes on craigslist.  I got home, went to my computer, stared at it realizing I didn't need to spend the evening on washingtonjobs or careerbuilder (I made myself apply for at least one job every day).  I now have much more time to devote to my hobbies.  Eventually I will buy a microphone and complete my New York Interactive essay.

This weekend I will be spending my newly gained free time reading, shopping, cleaning, and musing over my new life ahead of me.