C I S C O F I E L D



Mine eyes doth seen the glory that be the promised land of thy mightiest team of baseballites -- The Oakland Athletics (or San Jose Athletics as the may be called).

Early yesterday, Oakland Athletics owner and managing partner, Lew Wolff announced the A's and Cisco were going to join forces much like Tenacious D, to produce a ballpark the likes of which have never been seen! Together, $400-to-$500 million dollar venture will be the center of the Baseball Universe!

2011 is going to rock hard when the A's move to Fremont. For a large chunk of the late night I was geeking over the renderings of the new ballpark and neighborhood that is going to hit up the lower East Bay.

Unlike other new parks, not only will Cisco Field be the most technologically advanced sports venue in the world, but it will also go past the park into a full town themed around the Athletics.

I am so going to have an opening day ticket! Cisco Field will make Angels Stadium look like a bombed out Operation Iraqi Freedom Crater and the Giants AT&T Park look like the backwater faux-Kazakhstan of Borat.

There is nothing I like better than rubbing it in those teams' faces. With Billy Beane, a general manager who can identify the next big player, a rabid and loyal fanbase to fill the stands, and new technology based sponsorship, my beloved A's will go from perennial contenders to the new 800-pound gorilla ready to slug it out with teams like the Red Sox and the Yankees.

Okay, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. All I know is it's gonna be sweet!



http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/oak/ballpark/new/index.jsp



Champions

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I forgot to put up anything about hanging out with Kim, Mike, Shirl, Jodes and company at a club for Halloween.

We had a nice time sweating it out in the club. Jodes borrowed my Cobra Commander costume, Shirl, Kim, Elizabeth and Alicia were girl scouts. Sharon had a Karate outfit and Mike looked like a "cool guy."



As for me, I was El Hombre Delicioso with random masked wrestler, El Taco Grande.

Wearing wrestling stuff at a hot club is extremely comfortable.

This is Halloween!! (a la Nightmare before Christmas).

Of course this is my favorite holiday because you have license to dress up like a total jackass and get away with it. Also, it is the only holiday that has nothing to do with America and seldom to do with religion.

I do have some Halloween pet peeves though, which include:

--People who try to pass off wearing a mask as wearing a costume
--Drunk people who expect to see titties at the Castro
--"Hot girl" costumes on girls who obviously live short of the adjective to their costume
--People who stay at home and straight up tell kids they do have any candy (especially since you can get it 4 cheap at a 99 centavos store)
--The fact that Halloween usually falls on a weekday in the middle of school or work
--The way a cheap costume feels on your skin
--Bodily smells

Other than that, Halloween is the best (like a fake ass Utimate Warrior).





Real and fake haunted mansion





A couple of things I didn't know about the Haunted Mansion until I checked out doombuggies.com, the best Haunted Mansion Web site ever:

1. The paintings in the stretching room are stressed a whole lot so they are constantly repainted by whichever artist gets the commission. Because of this, the paintings which basically look the same have many stylistic differences based on the certain artist's style.





2. In a certain wedding package offered through Walt Disney World Weddings, you can book the foyer room (the first room in the haunted mansion with a deteriorating picture of Master Gracey) for candlelit dinners (AWESOME!!).

3. Before there was ever a bride, there was the Hatbox ghost. I heard about this ghost but thought I always missed it in the ride. The effect was supposed to have a ghost carrying a hatbox. In a matter of seconds the ghost's head vanishes from his body and into the box.



4. There is a small room behind the bride called the blue room which used to provide maintenance people access to the ballroom. Since they built new routes into the room, the blue room was sometimes used by castmembers who wanted to get down and dirty. It overlooks the graveyard.

5. A lot of the ghosts in the mansion have the same sculpt as certain nefarious raiders of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

There is a lot more, so you should seriously check out doombuggies.com. You can even get a death certificate printed out there.



Hurry back...

Up at night wasting time, so I thought I would share some picture.





I always theorized that if I were a rich man, I would put the shrunk down railroad in the backyard a la Walt Disney, but this is more pimp.

The Niles Monorail--a FREMONT original!

http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/Niles.html

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The Dark Lord came from my high school...





Darth Vader and company goes back to Moreau before I ever do...who knew??

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What not to do at the Price is Right...



Okay, knowing me I would probably do it.

Athletics: We had a good year that ended sooner than I would have liked. I'm going to miss Zito when he leaves the Green and Gold, and dons another uniform.

Muchachos: Hanging out with old pals adds years to your life and good Filipino food to your stomach. Guitar Heroes!

De Anza: Good school but I hate the morning drive over.

Halloween: Two costume ideas and I think I might do both. For clues think of two Jack black Movies.

Foreign Concepts: Working out to trim as opposed to bulk?

Name Brands: Under Armour--all I ever wear.

Career Paths: What will get me to Walt Disney Imagineering?

GameCube: Godzilla-King of the Monsters is a steal.

DVD on TV: Sharon and I are on a Lost Season One and Two enhanced edition g DVDs glut.

Honda Element: My car is only getting better.

Life is alright.

It's been a great season for the A's. It hasn't been this good the late eighties when they trumped the Giants for their ninth overall championship. In a season full of spills and chills, I'm not going to walk away from my head down.

I missed a couple of the games the ALCS between the A's and the Tigers. It's probably for the best because my team got lit up for three starts handing our starting pitchers Zito, Loaiza and Harden each a fat loss--Harden's appropriately coming on Friday the 13th.

It is almost a done deal--either the A's have to do something wrong or the Tigers have to do something right.

It will take the A's playing perfect baseball to win four games in a row and win the series, and although I people keep reminding me that anything is possible (especially after the Boston Red Sox took one over on the New York Yankees on, coming back 0-3 to win the 2004 ALCS, then the World Series), I don't believe the A's are going anywhere but on vacation.

The A's magic that was prevalent all year isn't here anymore. The Big Hurt, Swish and Chavvy can't buy a hit while the Tigers lay it on thick.

Before this thing is over, I want to get something straight: even though the Tigers hide behind the illusion, the Oakland Athletics are the true underdogs of the baseball playoffs. For the longest time, the Tigers won more games than anyone else this year fading off a little at the very end. The A's on the other hand are the bargain bin team with the small budget and the can-do attitude. They used grit and teamwork to get where they are, and people from all over write them off as the team to take a win from.

Detroit has recent championships from the Red Wings and the Pistons. Oakland has not felt the touch in a long time.

No matter what, the Tigers won't be a true cinderella story like the A's would be.


Stranger things have happened and the A's haven't been this on the ropes all season. We are just a few hours in what can become a knockout blow. I remember a fellow Oakland Athletics fan sporting his "A's in '06" shirt and talking about how 2006 might not be a year we want to remember. I don't think I will look upon 2006 with disdain, but it is crunch time and this is when legends are made.

I hope the A's can shock the world.

If not, I can still breath easy at night.

Remember, eventually Rocky beats Apollo Creed and it is the A's with the million to one shot.



Time to do four of those games Bill King would love to call.

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Rest in Peace Cory Lidle.

“The Autumn Wind is a pirate, blustering in from sea.
With a rollicking song he swings along, swaggering boisterously.

His face is weather-beaten. He wears a hooded sash
with a silver hat upon his head and a bristling black mustache.

He growls as he storms the country, a villain big and bold.
And the trees all shake, and quiver and quake as he robs them of their gold.

The Autumn Wind is a Raider, pillaging just for fun.
He’ll knock you ‘round and upside down, and laugh till he’s conquered and won.”

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When game time comes, most of the time you can find me sitting on the floor with my undivided attention toward the television. Today is no exception.

For all of the great feelings and energy I have gotten by the awesome championship run my Oakland Athletics have pulled off and the surprising start for my San Jose State Spartan Football team, the quite opposite comes from my connection the the Oakland Raiders.

Unlike a lot of people who are born and raised with colors and allegiances that are passed on through generations of fandom, I am a product of self-choice. I was always a fan of sports in general tagging along to Bay Area sports teams even giving some pops over to the San Francisco Giants and Niners.

This all changed when the Oakland Raiders came back.

At first they were the other team that came from nowhere and I resisted them. They were the Outsiders who were alien to the Bay Area. I did not even though they came from Los Angeles, I did not know Al Davis or his influence over all sports. When I did not know, I even cheered against the Raiders and looked down on the Oakland team as secondary.

On my high school career and the beginning of college, the cultural world changed for me. It began when our current governor Arnold Schwarzenegger donned black motorcycle leather barreling down the Los Angeles drainage canal system in a Harley Davidson Fat Boy as the heroic cyborg in Terminator 2. I started listening to more classic, hard-edged music from electric bands like AC/DC and Metallica. In WCW, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall along with their counterparts in the WWF; Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Chyna and the New Age Outlaws began the New World Order and Degeneration X respectively. I began picking up X-Men comics to watch the feral Wolverine berserker rage like an animal right through his enemies.

Suddenly all my heroes were villains who were men in black.

This complimented my angst in high school as an outsider on the wrestling team when I was percieved as more of a liability than an asset, and my downright cockiness as a member of the marching band, showing off to competing bands after we robbed all the awards with our badass jazz riffs.

The appeal of the Silver and Black became stronger and stronger when I found out the nefarious history of the team and its maverick owner who defied the league and willed his beloved franchise toward success. The Niners were the goody-two-shoe law-abiders who are afraid to get their uniforms dirty and their tea cozy wusses of fans. The Raiders were the larger than life force of parallel dimension darkness, playing in the dirty, gritty, smash mouth game as it was meant to be played. Their fans were rabid, wild and dangerous. It was our death metal to their Kenny G, their front-seat overachiever to our back-of-the-class heckler bully. It was out chainsaw to their butter knife.

I officially marked my beginning as a true Raiders fan when the greatest player of all times, Jerry Rice defected from his home as a Forty-Niner to become one of the many awesome Raiders to sport the black jersey, silver pants and helmet. This was galvanized when I joined Alpha Phi Omega because my chapter Gamma Beta was overwhelmingly predominantly SF Giants and Niners fans. At this time I reconnected with my East Bay allegiances, putting them squarely toward the Oakland Athletics and Oakland Raiders. In defiance of the mainstream, both of my teams were the alternative.

It was a good couple of years the Raiders had with Jerry Rice in the employ with Charlie Garner ripping up the enemy secondary, Rich Gannon dissecting defenses, Tim Brown lining up as an opposite threat for a touchdown and Bill Romanowski prowling with the Raider defense for kills.

Unfortunately, the good times wouldn’t last. As everyone knows, the last bit of success the Raiders have had in a long while was a poor showing in the Super Bowl against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Every year since it has been a downward slide into this, what has to be the worst season every recorded by the Silver and Black.

Today I was sitting on the floor just off the couch wearing my black Raiders baseball jersey and black Raiders flex fit cap much like I have for the last five games Oakland has had—screaming profanities at the television. After leading at the half much like they did at home against the Cleveland Browns, the Raiders embarrassed themselves by playing undisciplined football that lead to easy touchdowns and field goals for the Niners cementing their position as the worst team in the National Football Team.

I ended up throwing all my Raider gear at the television screen again.

It is ironic that the Raiders have fallen into a black hole stronger than the fans in the south end zone could anticipate. Much like the battle-bruised pirate on the side of the Raider helmet, we abandon all hope to ye who enter the football season. The Raiders have never had three losing seasons in a row since they became the Silver and Black, and now to watch this proud and storied franchise fall apart has not been easy. I cannot even say that it will get better soon as Al Davis has bordered more on the side of madness than genius.

I guess I am writing this because today is the worst of the worst. There is no team I hate more on this earth than the San Francisco 49ers—even worse than the Broncos, Chiefs, Chargers, Angels, Fresno State, SF Giants, Stanford University and any other bullshit franchise that perpetrates to my teams. They gave us one today.



This is what true fandom is all about. Maybe one day we will overcome this and Raider fans will come out on top. Maybe the only cheering I will do is for the Oakland Athletics who have been finally living up to the Billy Beane vision of baseball’s future.

I’m not going to hold my breath for better days, but I will go out the door an out into the world proudly sporting the first team that I ever got into. Whatever happens to the greatness of the Raiders, I will forever be Silver and Black until my dying day.
After all, the alternative is grim—I could be a punk ass San Francisco fan for a dumb fuck team like the Niners.

Till the autumn wind stops blowing, Viva los Raiders!

Time to celebrate--THE OAKLAND ATHLETICS ARE 2006 AMERICAN LEAGUE WESTERN DIVISION CHAMPIONS!!
(Okay, it actually happened a day or two ago, but who's counting.)





We celebrated early at the A's v. Angels fireworks game on the field.



It is all tentative, but I bought my playoff tickets against what I think will be the Detroit Tigers. I'm sooooo EXCITED!!







LET'S GO OAK-LAND!!!



Homer will have to paint his curb for the 2006 A's pretty soon...

Shitting bricks right now because the A's lost a game they should have won.

Why is that a problem?

The Oakland Athletics Magic Number to clinch a berth in the American League Divisional Series is 2. This means that with two A's wins or two Angel losses, the A's become the AL West Champions.

The problem is that the A's are in a losing streak at the end of the season while the Angels are on a winning streak. If they can't win the simple games and this shit goes on same as it has been, the A's, who have been 8 games up with 9 to play, will have become the biggest chokejob in baseball history since the Yankees gave it up to the BoSox in the 2004 AL Championship Series!!

You better believe I'm praying for a handful of A's wins and a handful of Angel losses.

If I don't have the A's, what do I have--the Raiders?? Not this season!

-GO A'S!!



Save us, Uncle Milton!!


More on the Game of Life later

For anyone wondering where I have been, it has been half-in-half.

The first being busy putting together this Alpha Phi Omega Region X Disneyland Day.

The second wanting to be an invisible man for a while.



I'm still around...somewhere...

It's a couple days after my birthday and a day after thanksgiving, and I am done with what I need to do at the Palo Alto Weekly for the while.

Here are a couple of birthday observations before I talk about some things.

1. The older you get, the less presents you get.

2. The older you get, the less presents you think you should warrant. After all, when you became two it freakin' doubled your age, so that shit was significant. Now that I am 25 and have no more physical growing anymore, I am all man (at least physically).

I'm not going to write about the awesome Marie Callendar's breakfast and the superspectacularness of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (which is easily the best Harry Potter movie to date), or going to the Sharks game with the fraternity brothers in almost the same thin atmosphere seats as the ones I saw Prince with. I actually wanted to reflect on the day before because it was pretty cool.

What happened was that I headed over to Fremont after work from the Palo Alto Weekly. Those who are not hip to the are should know that Palo Alto and Fremont are connected by the Dumbarton Bridge, which I used to drive from the Peninsula side to the East Bay.

Anyway, I took a bit of a wrong turn and ended up at Vella'a Raiders Locker Room store near Ardenwood. I don't know why I stopped for a bit as there is a Vella's over at the Great Mall. I guess I was just curious after passing by it so many times when I lived in Fremont.

I went in and struck up a conversation with an oldtimer chillin' with his solitaire-playing compatriot. He was wearing one of those while polos the coaches of the Raiders wear during game day. We struck up a kinship as many of us Raiders fans do when we collect with each other, and early on in our conversation I was taken aback when I looked at his hand and there on one of his long fingers was a RAIDERS SUPER BOWL RING!



Yeah, he had this bad boy on his ring finger. This was the huge ring the Raiders earned after they shamed the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl 11 in Pasadena. It was Al Davis' first Super Bowl win and he told the ring designers that he wanted the rings so fitted with jewels that the Queen of England would take notice if one was brought to her court.

I shoulda asked to try it on.

Apparently he traveled with the team back in the bad old days when the recently deceased Bill King (rest in peace) was the voice of the Raiders and the team earned their truly villainous reputation. He is friends with Ken "The Snake" Stabler and Fred Biletnikoff, amongst other Raider legends.

It was pretty awesome to see someone so tied into the Raiders organization as that guy, not to mention is owner of one of their heavy pieces of hardware.

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I'm going to take the last few paragraphs to commemorate an actor who had a profound impact on the lives of members of our generation, Mr. Pat Morita.

I found this out when I was watching ESPN, that the guy we all know as either Arnold from Happy Days or more famously, Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid, passed away at his house.

He had other roles like the voice of the Emporer from Mulan, but in the end it was his portrayal as a mechanic/sensei/banzai tree specialist that taught us all to believe.

Also, I think I had one of his action figures from the Karate Kid figure line.

If there is anything his portrayal of Mr. Miyagi taught us, it is that revenge and anger in one's enemy is not the path to becoming a better person. If you have your enemy in position fo the death blow, he taught us to honk the person's nose of blow on them, pretending to use a sudden gust of breath to knock'em out.



Thank you, Pat Morita!

I think I wrote something like this before, but it bears repeating under the circumstances.

A couple of days ago, I was watching a sports news program which alerted to a professional wrestler dying. I was on my way out to bring Sharon home so I wasn't able to stay and find out. Later on, when I went onto the WWE Web site, I came to find out that former WWE champion, Eddie Guerrero had passed away.

This was a bit of a shock to me as he was in the prime of his career. He was a little bit over a year removed from when he won the title at No Way Out against Brock Lesnar, becoming the first Luchadore in the history of professional wrestling to become champion of the world.

If you know about wrestling and about how much of a image-driven industry it is (almost to the point of racist and sexist depictions of certain members of society), you can appreciate how much of an accomplishment this really is. No one is saying that wrestling is real or fake, but what is attained still stays true because wrestlers still earn their keep. When Chris Benoit, Guerrero's good friend won the World Championship from Triple H at Wrestlemania, it marked the first time I can think of at least in the modern Attitude/Nitro era, that two wrestlers representing from outside the United States (although both have ties to the US, Benoit trained in the Hart Dungeon in Albera, Canada and Guerrero as a member of the Guerrero Mexican Wrestling Family) had possession of the former WWF title and WCW title.

To me, it was a moment like this that was most exemplified the American Dream. The Mexican people have always had a place in my hearts because they are so akin to Pilipino people. Culture and respect for family are the binding ties we share despite being seperated by an ocean. It was champions like The Rock and Guerrero that gave people like us hope that any person, regardless of ethnicity, could be champion of their own domain.

Before I headed out to my art class last night, I was lucky enough to catch the beginning of Monday Night Raw. There, in front of thousands, the members of the World Wrestling Entertainment family stood at the top of the walkway under the Titantron to say goodbye to a collegue and a friend. You would never have seen so many big intimidating men crying or holding back tears. It was that same familiar feeling during the tributes to fallen wrestlers Owen Hart and Brian Pillman that came back to the community of the WWE. A lone lowrider sat driverless on the side of the stage while the ring bell tolled ten times for Guerrero.

"Thank You, Eddie," the fans shouted in unison.

If you can say anything about watching him on television, you know he was the consumate character. He brought people to fierce laughter with the "Lying, Cheating and Stealing" gimmick and portrayed an aura of madness when facing off against nemesis and dear friend, Rey Mysterio. When the cameras were turned off, he faced many demons in the form of substance abuse, yet managed to surpass the pain when he was in the spotlight or when he was with his family.

In the Spanish language, "Guerrero" means "Warrior." As a fitting tribute at the end of Monday Night Raw, John Cena placed an Eddie Guerrero shirt in the middle of the ring and placed his world championship belt on the base of the shirt.

It is a poignent reminder to us who are wrestling fans to always be thankful of the performers that become both hero and villain in the universe of the wrestling ring. Behind it all, they are people with triumphs and tragedies, angels of better nature and demons of ill-gotten regret, close to God and family, always looking to bring joy to the people of the world.

My lasting impression of Guerrero will always be of Benoit's victory at Wrestlemania, when confetti, fireworks and streamers greeted the two champions. Both men cried, hugged, smiled, raised their belts and told each other that they loved the other. After all the suffering both endured, they were at the top of the mountain not knowing one would not be there in the next couple of years.

Thank you, Eddie. You will be missed.

Viva la Raza

It's my day off, and I wanted to write about something cool before I totally forgot about it.

On my way to the Palo Alto Weekly one day I was following an old dark blue Mustang from the 60's. Normally when you see one of these sweet cars, silver letters on the back spell out "M U S T A N G," letting you know that now you're messing with a--son of a gun, you're messin' with a sonofabitch (to those of you who got that rock reference from Guns N' Roses, I salute you).

The thing about it is, I think the car is missing the letter "S." So instead of replacing it, the dude who owned it turned the "M" around and made it a "W."

Obviously the car cannot be messed with because "W U T A N G" Mustang ain't nothin' to fuck with!

I tried to take a picture with my camera phone but it doesn't look clear enough. Still, I thought I should share that with you because it indeed made me chuckle.

I remember that I was going to write something about this earlier, but since this story ties into a nice story-arch, then I think it is okay that I missed out on a couple of days of livejournaling.

Anyway, to give you a little background on what's been going on, I have to rewind to September when Shiela came back from Ohio for a bit to hang out with us for a bit. It was pretty cool because for some reason, the good Lord (and my superiors at REI) found a way to get me a day of to hang with my old high school pals. Sharon and I got to go to Santa Cruz with Shirl, Sheila, Kim and Jody, a new member of the group who despite his nickname, is actually a cool guy (not a female).

To make that long story short, we had a fun time hanging at the beach talking about how I threatened the Ocean and how it blindsided me with a wave, thus taking my glasses years ago after we graduated from Moreau. Also, we tried fried oreos and twinkies, checked out some old school kicks and walked the downtown.

Okay, back to near-present-day.

We were knocking together a plan to chill out on the most sacredest of holidays, Halloween. It was going to be another bout in Castro, but this time with Sharon in tow so she could check it out for once before our climactic move to Chicago.

After a shift at REI, where I was in full costume training in the footwear department, I took myself and my Captain America costume to Sharon's place. I gave her the reserve druid-girl costume we bought last year that she wasn't able to use a year ago because of some miscues.

We got there after a long commute driving her Montero and riding on the BART with a fat shirtless Incredible Hulk, a piss-poor luchadore and a clubbing-type Cruella De Ville. Sharon was asleep most of the time, so I woke her up to get off the BART train so that we could meet up with Jody (who was wearing a bathrobe), Shirl (dressed in all olive and was supposed to be a park ranger) and Shirl's library friend Anthony who is a cool bakla that was dressed as a business-type devil.

The reason everything ties together is that Shirl and Jody, who apparently have been getting closer and closer since Santa Cruz and made that shit official on Halloween. Our little Shirl is growing up--she finally hooked up on one of the coolest of days, and with a pretty cool guy to boot. I joked around with her about how Sharon and I hooked up on St. Patrick's Day and how she was copping my holiday thunder.

Sharon didn't think she would enjoy it, but she later admitted it was cool checking people out at the Castro. We got to see a couple of lesbians coordinating to be the Village People, a girl that looked like the Queen of Clubs card, a Marvin the Martian with an inflated looking head, the movie Wolverine that looked legit to Hugh Jackman, and our personal highlight: a group of people dressed up like zombies with a red-clad (jacket-accurate) Michael Jackson leading the dead in the Thriller dance.

Balls to the wall, homey.

We made our way to the station and we saw a person dressed up with Stewie, complete with a paper mache head. That was pretty cool.

The thing that wasn't cool was that after we got to a connector station in Oakland, this drunk pothead crashed a picture between Sharon and I, and wouldn't leave our group alone. He claimed to work for Insomniac with Dave Attell but he was a total alchey loser with the flamable breath. We tried to wave that motherfucker off but he wouldn't go, so we did the devious move of saying that the next station was our and we ran into another car after getting off the train.

Anthony and I wanted to run by the car he was in after the San Leandro station to show he got moded, but we couldn't run fast enough.

We ended the night with good conversation, burgers and fried tacos which Sharon really liked at Jack-in-the-Box.

After it was all said and done, Shirl drove us back to the Fremont BART and we took Jody back home to San Jose.

I have to say it was a good night.

Anyway, I think we are going to work out a Vegas trip between Sharon and I, and Shirley and hers. This remains to be seen, but in the words of my honey, I think these two are going to last.

A little postscript--I couldn't get over the fact that Jody wore a "I just woke up," costume complete with jammie pants and a toothbrush. I think he dropped his toothbrush a couple of times and he just left it on the BART, plus the fact that when he as going into the restroom at Jack-in-the-crack, that he actually did look like he was about to take a morning shower. I told him he was a broke-ass jedi with the lazy robe styles.

So here is my situation now.

Basically I work every day of the week splitting my time between REI and Palo Alto Weekly. It is a bit of a grind seeing as how it is not fun to be on deadline for an article and have a lot of the time you need to write something get eaten up by the other job, but I manage.

To tell you the truth, working at the Weekly is a lot less stressful than being at the Spartan Daily, which requires you to constntly crank out articles in a short amount of time, so I am not complaining at all. Actually, I am having the time of my life because it is truly beginning.

These trix are no longer for kids.

There are only two downsides to this occupation equation:

1. Little time to hang out with the girlfriend and no time to hang out with the homeys.

and

2. If you work at a cool place like REI that has the foresight to stock really cool merchandise, then chances are you are going to find something great to buy over there.

Thank the maker that I don't work at a comic book store or else my assshesh would be grassshesh.

So in an attempt to compress some other things that have been going on into this entry, here is another top three list.

1. Musculo Man! I am trying to work out smarter and harder lately. I've been taking protien, looking out for what's in my diet (give or take with a whole lotta take) and buying things like underarmour shirts.

Also I am reading more about getting fit which can lead you into a trap sometimes because I picked up a really good magazine that shows you a lot of different lifting techniques but that I am sure doubles as Gay Maxim. As I am not a gay I have to avert my eyes.

2. The Oakland Depression I guess this can sort of spread to San Jose also, but what is up with the Athletics and the Raiders? Did I just see one of the more dynamic baseball teams of the year totally eat it when the Angels came into their stadium in a must-win sitch? Un-fuck'n-believable!

If that wasn't enough, the Raiders tore my heart out by beating themselves in a game that they should have won against the Eagles. We had them upset and on the ropes, yet a.)SeaBass can't kick a chipshot field goal if his supply of Guiness and Smirnoff depended on it, and b.) the usually dependable Raider Defense comes short on stopping a drive that a lamelegged kicker shouldn't have made.

3. The other side of the bay

A couple weeks ago I finally got to check out SBC Park when the Cubs came to play. I actually got to be an opposing team fan for once and I thought it was pretty cool to be the enemy visitor.

Let's just say that they have a nice ass park that is better than the Colostomy-bag-eseum. I had to sway Sharon away from Giants fandom just because of the park.

Thank the stars for Lew Wolfe getting ready to smith us a beautiful new staduim for the A's to play. If Oakland city council is smart, they would be all on this bandwagon because this is the best thing to happen to the East Bay in a long while.

We have better teams then they do and cooler appeal. Time to cash in on that sucker.

 

After a long hiatus from the bottom of the summer barrel, I am finally fit and able to rock-it to the top with some tasty licks for this livejournal.

The primary reason I did not write was because there was a sparse set of topics to write about set against the fact that my house was becoming as hot as a crotch during the pit of the summer. I call this the "piss-poor percentage" which I use subconsiously to see if I have the will to write something for the journal.

In short, the numbers were stacked against me.

Think of it as a favor because the summer wasn't too pleasant.

Now that we are somewhat into the fall (well, school season), I feel obligated to give you guys the quick run down of the summer in my usual fashion of the almighty list, so without further ado, here is Ken's Top Ten of the Summer.

1. Job Search is to Ken, as Rock is to Bat

The reason the summer became a bit shitty was because I learned the universal truth that when you send off a resume or application to a prospective job after getting a college education, it ends up in a spacial anomaly like a black hole.

This was pretty frustrating because I need to take an internship to graduate, and if my shit was being sent to a black hole then you can imagine a very warm Ken in a swelting house, wearing houseclothes and having those visions much like the Native Amerivcans rockin' in the sweat house.

Like I told Kim after she came home from her trip with Shirl to Europe, it is like hitting a rock with a bat and having the rock totally win that battle.

I guess it took a change in season for that to get better. I got a few calls for internships and general and I think I will have an internship by the add/drop deadline. Also, I got a job at REI and am looking forward to getting the wheels of the train rolling along.

Fall is looking up.

2. You can find me in the club

Yesterday I got to hand out with Shirl, Kim, Liz and Kim's new friend/fellow moreauite Nick. Initially it was Sharon and Shirl who worked out for all of us to have a night out at San Jose's premier clubbing establishment of the VooDoo Lounge and would have been totally fine/dandy, except that Sharon had a small headache that would have become a larger headache. So like a bakla-styles, it was going to end up as a night with the girls.

One thing about moreauites is that you can't get rid of them. If there was a nuclear holocaust, then the only things that would be left are cockroach carcasses and zombie moreauveans doing the Thriller. Because of this fine point, it seems that if you gather up enough of us, we seem to double in number out of no where. That being said, I thought it was pretty nifty that Alex Wong (who I knew from band) and Chris Enriquez (who was one of my teammates on the wrestling team).

Anyway, I had a pretty fun night because I had just enough alcohol and energy to get down.

notes:

a. Liz freaks better than her quiet demeanor lets on
b. Kim caught a fish with the bait and I think there's going to be a reel in
c. I haven't seen as much of Shirl as I have that night which is unexpected (applaude now)
d. Alex done got cock bloqed!
e. Chris still has the dorkiness in his dance moves but it works to his advantage
f. Cocaine is a helluva drug...not that I took any of it

Good night

3. Krys wins the Miss Saigon Beauty Pageant (the non-ho division)

So the reason Sharon had a headache was that we had a night out the day before watching my sister kick a ruling majority of ass as a bargirl/VietCong soldier/wedding guest in the Diablo Light Opera Company production of Miss Saigon.

For those of you who don't know Miss Saigon, it is basically a play about the hardships that Vietnamese people, portrayed by Filipinos who can sing really well, faced when the Viet Cong drove the Americans from Southeast Asia. The play was made famous by Pinay Superstar/Minus-One favorite, Lea "I was Princess Jasmine and Mulan" Salonga.

Sharon and I got to watch the first half of the play in the very front and center seats, which was pretty kick ass because actors pointed a lot of direction to you. Krys made us proud by being the girl who seemed to work the hardest by getting down with a big guy (who she reminds us is a Bakla) in a dancing cage).

For the most part, the play totally sucks except for my sister who is money in the bank when it comes to drawing the show--just kidding. I think it was all good. The play was great and I loved every minute of it. Shaunie-Bo seemed to bag on the helicopter because it looked like a clown car packed with GI's.

Shaunie-Bo is rocking his condescending ways because that helicopter body was great. People cheered it because it looked like a real. It is talagang REAL!!

Ken is PROUD of Krys!!

4. LV is the hardest crotch of the country

One good thing about this summer is that we had a nice vacation. I have the best family in the world and it is always cool when we invade another territory with our manifestourist destiny. It was an added plus that my honey, Sharon got to come with us.

We drove in a rental Town and Country to Hell's hotter sister city, Las Vegas. To give you a clue about just how fucking hot it was, we have a picture of the car's digital thermometer at 120 degrees. The sun just beat down on all of us like gang busters--if you had a solar-powered car, I think you could go back into time and tell someone that it might be better to build Las Vegas closer to San Diego than Death Valley. Doc Brown proved that it would only take 88 mph to do it.

When we got there we kicked it with our cousins Vanessa and Michelle along with Uncle Iyo and Tita Lynne. It was a veritable Seli-Lopez-Cadag Jamboree.

We stayed at Excalibur where we were as Kings.

The most notable thing about the LV leg of the trip was that Sharon and I got to club for free at MGM Grand's very own incarnation of Club 54. It was great for the first part of the night, but it was total shit that some drunken bitch stepped on Sharon's toes with her heel. She shrugged it off and we made the most of the night. We left though when we saw some really ugly fat girls who weren't even trying to fit into the club. Here Sharon and I are trying to look fly and doing a good job of it, while we see this mataba pasty white woman with crimped blonde hair, maroon tights, fanny pack and tassle-ripped shirt akin to that of hardcore wrestler Terry Funk. Fucking tasteless.

We dropped it like it was hot.

5. The return of the mountain from update space

The other leg of the tour featured yet another trip to Disneyland. Anyone who knows me knows that I am so down for some D-land both of the Disney and Tenacious types. This would be around my thirtieth time going to the lands of the mouse and I was more psyched than ever.

This was mostly because my sister hadn't been there for a while and there was a lot of new stuff there for the 50th anniversary of the park.

The coolest shit by far was the return of Space Mountain. For people in the know, Space Mountain was falling apart and the tracks needed replacing. It took about two years for the mountain to land and rock the shit out of people.

Gone are the cheese-style faux-newscasts and commercials, which I am going to miss, and a very futuristic/utilitarian design set in its place. It was cool to find out from a picture of Space Mountain in outer space that it is actually part of a network of mountains that come together to form a large space station.

The ride itself sits on the same track layout as before though there is a pretty cool launch effect that makes the lift look like it is going into the a swirling black hole. It is faster than ever because of the smooth tracks, the quicker moving stars and the upgraded ventilation system that blows a cyclone of cold air in your face. The ride was made even better with a new Star Wars-esque soundtrack that replaced the old rockabilly that used to play.

All I have left to say is that the end of the ride makes the whole thing worth the money. The old light tunnel effect is nothing compared to this LED light explosion for a finale.

Just like when you finish the Indiana Jones ride, most of the people in the car end up clapping.

The Magic of Disneyland

Outside of the ride, it was the best getaway day I’ve had in a while because Sharon and my sister were having a fun time. Though it was packed and we didn’t get to ride everything we wanted to, just to get around and see all the new things was awesome.

Something about the Seli family vacation that is greater than great.

6. Black Hole Forever

I have to write a little ditty about East Bay Sports because there is a lot of moving and shakings about it.

I’ve been building up excitement for the upcoming NFL season, mainly because the Raiders picked up Randy Moss from the Vikings. I don’t know about our running back situation with LaMont Jordan, but we have the best receivers in the league. It is pretty awesome to have a huge shit-talker on the Raiders who can totally back things up.

I got to see the team on the field during the Raider Nation Celebration, which I dragged Sharon to. Basically it was a comic book convention for Raiders fans, which I happily indulged in. Sharon and I got to see the locker room

To make a long story short, I am filled with that preseason optimism that overtakes all sports fans, that this year will be “our” year. I have a lot of faith in the Raiders going far this year even though they are playing the defending Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots (who incidentally still make me sick because of that Tuck Rule Bullshit).

Go Raiders—Shame New England on national television!

7. Do the M-Athletics

I am severly biting my nails when it comes to the Oakland Athletics. It was supposed to be our rebuilding year after losing two of the big three from our pitching staff. Lo and behold the rookies on our team our money in the bank and we are competing for an AL West championship.

The highlight of the season was an A’s win over the Giants with a 5-4 save. It was a GB Baseball day and a lot of my chapter. Most of my chapter is stuck with the disease of Giantsfanitis while only a few like myself are stricken with Athletics Fever.

There is nothing better than winning a squeaker against a hated crosstown foe than to just throw it in your buddies faces that their team ate the dust. I felt emotionally great right after the A’s wallped the Giants, and it was just as good that the next day the A’s won over the Giants with like a 16 run margin.

A’s just got to chomp down on that bit and get the job done. We need a championship for Oakland from both teams. A’s look like they are going to go get there first.

To paraphrase a line from the Giants fans, “BEAT LAA (Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, that is)!”

8. Wackest of the WAC

Even though we have a new coach with that mean bulldog demeanor, I still don’t expect good things from my San Jose State Spartans; and this is coming from a Golden State Warriors fan.

9. O’Doyle RULES!!

He does, but not as much as I.

10. Wordblood from a Stone

It is the wee hours of the early morning and it is totally hard to squeeze out ten things. I wrote this over the course of three days and it is up to five pages on Microsoft Word, so I hope this is enough for now.

For the most part, it is a lazier summer than I think I would have liked. The thing is that I am back to normality after the hard semester that I went through, but the jobs aren't biting on my hook baited with my resume.

I just got off my email and discovered my second rejection letter for a fine paid internship. It kinda sucks not being wanted. I just want to be a productive member of a team and make a little bit of money--move out of this grey area between graduation and the rest of my adult life.

It would suck even more if I didn't have Sharon for support. We are both in this transitional phase where it is wonderful because our whole lives are ahead of us, but frustrating because we just want to be wanted.

Wish me luck as I try to eke out my destiny. Out of so many rejection letters, something good has to come.

Sorry I haven't been around in a long while. There has been a lot going on and not a lot of time for personal typing.

Here are my top five in somewhat chronological order:

1. A tip of the cap to GB

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't think I've been to a APhiO-GB Banquet that I actually liked being at. There is always something that gets in the way that really makes me want to get the hell out of dodge. I guess it was only poetic justice that the last one I had to go to was the first one I would have no drama in.

Sharon and I had to go to this latest banquet because we both needed to get our graduation stolls from the chapter. There was a record of about 29 people graduating from the chapter, which I laughingly said were people that were "hitting the ground running off the sinking ship."

It was themed as a P-Diddy White Party, so I ended up wearing my white Athletics Jersey and some white painters pants. I had two good steaks and a lot of fun afterward. I don't know what made this banquet so much better then the rest, but both Sharon and I were digging it. The only thing that was a little bit of a distraction were the black sheep (many of whom are members of my pledge class) barging in and out to get their stolls. They clashed with the rest of us who were wearing all white by wearing their black sheep sweaters (black letters with black trim on black sweaters) and blue jeans, and left quickly to drink at the bar. I think it was a little symbolic having them clash with the rest of us. Despite it all, I still love those guys as brothers even though we all seem to be having a difference in philosophy.

I got a "Dedication Award" certificate from the chapter and Sharon got the "Best Potential Mother". It was just fun all around and we danced the night away.

2. Empire Rising

Sharon and I got to see Revenge of the Sith on the opening night with a couple of our brothers. We were wielding a couple of lightsabers and got ready for the last Star Wars movie ever. We would end up getting seperated into different theaters as many screens at Camera 10 were being taken up by the rise of Vader.

A lot of people in the audience had their sabers ready along with various bits of costumry, and I couldn't help but think of my sister's friend Del Mar who went to school one Halloween wearing an identical Queen Amidala costume as the original.

I'm not going to spell out the whole movie, but I have to say that Darth Vader is a bastard for killing kids. On the plus side, there was the best lightsaber battle ever in the middle of molten lava. Afterward, "beef jerky" Anakin was pretty cool, even though what newly-armored Vader says and does after being helmeted was pretty fucking lame. Frankenstein Vader pulled a cliche.

The second half of the movie was better than the first.

Also it was pretty good that Princess Leia was adopted by that good Mexican family.

3. Graduation

With the exception of a few loose ends to tie up, I have everything done. It is about time as I have been in college forever, but Sharon and I finally got everything squared off.

I got to walk twice, once at my department graduation and the other time at the huge one the university has at Spartan Stadium. The departmental one was better and a lot more fun, mainly because of our keynote speaker. The dude is an alumni of the journalism department who made a career on outdoor writing. He totally looked the part wearing the blue jean shirt/pants set, dirty black boots and Grizzly Adams beard under his "Graduation Speaker" robes. To make a long story short, the dude a.) saw a guy land near his boat when he was fishing off the Golden Gate Bridge, b.) made friends with Waylon Jennings (for those of you who are not in the know, he sang the "Dukes of Hazzards" theme song) and c.) said that the best thing to ever happen to him was that he got hit in the back of the head with a hatchet, which helped him realize what was valuable in life. Good times.

At the main graduation, I snuck off for a churro.

I guess I can forever revel in my degree that will feature Conan the Barbarian's John Hancock on it.

4. What happens in Vegas

So one of the best parts about graduating is that people throw money at you. After having the itches and the nervous jitters, I got my fix of casheesh to tide me over.

If I wasn't with Sharon I think I would have just bought a ton of junk or something, but the benefit of having a girlfriend is having a person who you can perpetually go somewhere with. Together we had a little money so we decided to go for a couple days down to Vegas.

We stayed over at Treasure Island, which I am sad to report, is a little toned down from its original skull and crossbones theme. They even switched the show (which we didn't get to see because it was too windy) from a battle between the British Navy and the non-chesthair Pirates, to a battle between Siren Burlesque dancers and other pirates. Still, it was a pretty cool place even though they watered down the theming experience.

For three days, a lot of cash and a couple bouts of sore feet, we got around all over the strip using the new monorail system they put in. The thing we had on our side was the fact that the weather wasn't ass hot like usual. It felt like nice San Jose weather and was actually a little humid, which meant NO STSTIC SHOCK!!

Despite being attacked by armies of salespersons who thought Sharon and I were married, I got to show Sharon a nice time on her first time at Vegas. She got to see the fountains ot Bellagio, the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace and the roller coaster at New York, New York. We also got to see the Borg kidnap some Federation personnel at the Star Trek Experience. Dropped a lot of cash there too.

The best part of the trip was that Sharon and I got to catch a viewing of Mystere Cirque du Soleil production at our hotel. It was pretty awesome checking out the athletecism and showmanship of these world-class acrobats. I can't explain what we saw, but Sharon and I spent most of the time either saying "whoa!" or laughing. If you haven't checked a Cirque production out, I highly suggest it.

In the end, Sharon and I left Vegas in a hurry. We just squeezed the life out of our mini-vacation and had to jet in order to make our plane.

The commercials were right!

5. Growing up

Now that everything has died down I am on the job search. I need an internship to fully graduate so that is what I have been putting my time into.

Sharon found a job at a financial analyst place. Her boss worked for Howard Hughes in the bad old days, which is pretty cool. Because I don't have a job yet I bring her lunch.

Picnics with the gf are cool, but I need some bread of my own.

Wish me luck becoming a grownup.

Right now I am giving Sharon some company because she is on call at Washburn Hall. She has to be here from 7 pm to 7 am. It kinda sucks that we are at school during Spring Break.

Anyway, she just came back from a conference in Chicago, where she had a whole lot of fun. Chicago is now a possibility for us after graduation.

I am not in the mood to write a long journal entry so I am stopping it here with some goodies.

If you are into transformers, check out this commercial from the UK.

http://uk.download.yahoo.com/ne/fu/oa/eurcncs185030.mpg

Check out this website if you want to shoot stuff up.

http://www.lucasarts.com/games/mercenaries/main.html

Don't say I never give you anything.

Hey lawspaz (a.k.a. Sheila) -- if you still read this site, I was trying to put a comment on your livejournal but was bounced because I wasn't on your friend's list.

Holla back at me.

I thought about writing this journal entry a while ago while I was watching America's Funniest Videos.

Like most people, I am amazed that America's Funniest Videos, or AFV to attract a younger demographic, is still on the air. The set looks like a nightclub versus the normal crap facade of fake houses and pictures of people making funny faces, but for the most part the feel is the same -- grown-ass men getting hit in the nuts doesn't seem to get old.

Bob Saget's stank seems to have staying power.

Anyway, I was watching the show and aside from watching old videos of grandmas losing their dentures or unsuspecting tourists getting fucked over by animals at zoos, and other different examples of "Honkies Gon' Wild," there was an important message from the corporate bosses at ABC.

For anyone who knows how media conglomerates are lined up, the American Broadcasting Network is owned by the almighty forces of Mickey Mouse -- the Walt Disney Co. That's why the cast of Boy Meets World and Family Matters had crossover events at Disneyworld. AFV, who is not immune to the power of the Sorcerer's Apprentice bowed to the will of their masters and put on a long commercial touting the possibility of winning a world tour of ALL the Disney theme parks in the WORLD.

A list for those who haven't been able to keep track of the parks (In the order I think they opened in).

1) Disneyland (The Optimus Prime of the kingdoms)
2) Magic Kingdom (The Rodimus Prime -- an inferior product that still has its merits)
3) EPCOT Center ("In the Year 2000" -- La Bamba from Conan O' Brian)
4) Tokyo Disneyland (Evidence that Donald can bitch in another language)
5) Disney MGM Studios (The Universal Studios with Aerosmith, Twilight Zone and Indiana Jones)
6) Euro Disney (Take that, France!)
7) Disney's Animal Kingdom (Suprisingly the best Disney park I've been to next to OG Disneyland)
8) Disney's California Adventure (Getting better)
9) DisneySea (The most advanced park and the one I want to see the most -- next to Tokyo Disneyland)
10) A new, currently unnamed, park in Hong Kong

Any person who has met me or spent agonizing hours reading my journal knows that among other fickle things, I am a huge Disney fan, so damn if I didn't want to win the trip, even if I had to watch old videos from the early 90's of dumbass teenagers who hit ramps the wrong way and fall into garbage cans besmirching their Stussy wear. I realize I don't have time for this as I have somewhat of a life away from bad television which involves good television amongst other things.

It would be pretty sweet to become a globetrotter and visit the parks in the matter of weeks. The castmember staff would probably have to bend to your will and give you tons of free shit, like free scuba diving lessons in that huge fishtank in EPCOT or your own audio-animatronic figure of a Yeti from the Matterhorn.

This is probably the real life equivalent to the episode of Step by Step where Flash (the hyper replacement for the laid-back Cody who was taken off the show because actor Sasha Mitchell beat his wife) attempted to obliterate the record a Russian fan set visiting every single attraction at Disneyworld. I think he smashed the record with the help of the resident family nerd, Mark Foster, who had a better time spending his Disney vacation in the bowls of the command center rather than riding Space Mountain.

Anyway, I am of the belief that though AFV stoked my imagination, I will most likely not win the coveted Disney prize that allows me free access to the glory of Disneyana, but I guess that visiting the Disney parks are high on my list of things to do in my life.

It isn't the most important thing or the most pressing thing on that long list of life's ambitions, but as a reincarnated Mousketeer ("Chubby," I think) I would like to have my picture taken next to all the Disney landmarks.

Lord willing, I have a long life ahead of me to do something about it. Maybe after I overcome this bout of Senioritis and complete my time as a Spartan of San Jose State, I'll make that first step forward into this unnecessary dream.

Boo-yeah