Bento Box

Jerry and G drove up from San Francisco on Friday evening. They arrived dead tired at my doorstep on Saturday morning and we all piled into my brother’s suv and headed toward George, WA. We got there around 1pm and made our way to the campsite, which looked more like an internment camp with the sheer number of people there.

When G and I finally got to the venue, we got there just in time to see Iron & Wine, and to see the dark ominous clouds roll in. Still, it was a glorious view.

Another stupid thing that happened was that G went to get food, and couldn’t find his way back to where I was sitting. I saw a bit of Neko Case and shortly it started to rain…then hail. BIG, PAINFUL HAIL.

I went back to the campsite using a towel as shelter. G came back a while later soaked head to toe. Lessons learned on Saturday:

• Always triangulate your position so you can get back to your friends
• Be prepared for rain
• Bring a cell phone when going anywhere

The next lesson would be: FUCK CAMPING. At least at the Gorge. The campsite was muddy, rain was seeping into our tent ($35 tent, I got what I paid for), and I was bored out of my skull. I didn’t bring anything to keep myself occupied, so all I could do was try and sleep.

Sunday would prove to be a nicer day. We woke around 7 in the morning and agreed that we would not camp another night- Jer and G had stuff to do back home, and the 13 hour drive doesn’t help. We packed up and went to the nearest town to eat and then came back for the show. We got to the venue before the gates opened and luckily lined up in a shorter line that not many people were aware of-this probably saved us an hour of waiting. We layed down a tarp and large towel to mark our prime real estate.

With the nicer weather, the landscape was beautiful. The backdrop for the stage was the most impressive setting I’ve ever seen. Joyce and Jaime got lucky and got tickets off craigslist at the last minute and met up with us. There were a couple periods of light rain, but it was mostly sunny out. Sunny enough that Mr. “I don’t burn” Jerry got sunburn on his thighs. One of the difficulties of being on the lawn is that it is sloped. We kept sliding down and would have periodically have to get up and adjust the tarp we were sitting on.

We mainly stayed at the main stage, Jaime went to another stage to see Ben Lee and Guru and I would only later go to the other stage to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Some of the acts we saw:

• Blue Scholars - Hip hop group from Seattle, easy nice accessible beats in the vein of J5
• Pretty Girls Make Graves - An indie band from Seattle whose lead singer bears a striking resemblance to Kelly Osbourne. G ended up loving this band, despite the screamo tendencies. Jerry’s ears were bleeding and we couldn’t wait for the act to be over.
• Nada Surf - I was excited to see this band, but their performance was pretty lackluster. Their sound is pretty mellow and it seemed they weren’t putting much enthusiasm into playing. They sounded much more different live and now I prefer the produced sound on their cd rather than the trio’s raw live performance.
• Arctic Monkeys - Great band, great live performance. Their energy was great and the crowd was really into them. Usually when Brits sing, their accent does not show through, but for this band, the lead singer’s accent was so thick it comes through even during song. This was one of the top acts I saw.
• Decemberists - Not only does the lead singer LOOKS like Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard, but I would describe their sound as Death Cab with a country flair. A good act, but forgettable. G said “He looks like John Elton… - err wait, I mean Elton John”
• Matisyahu - Another great live performance. Matisyahu really shines live and sounds much better than on his cd with too much production. He would talk between songs and get really spiritual, even a bit preachy. During his performance a rainbow came out and he told an anecdote about some lesson about God and rainbows - as you can tell, I forgot what he said.
• Queens of the Stone Age - I’m not that into them. G said they were probably there to appease the white-trash of the crowd.
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Holy crap their stage was PACKED. Being short sucks. I could hardly see. One creepy stoned white guy was standing next to me and kept rubbing his face and swayed side to side. Next year they should be on the main stage. I stayed only till they played “Skin of my yellow country teeth.”
• Death Cab for Cutie - Wow, this band proved to me that even if a band’s style is mellow, it could still be played with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. Sean Nelson of Harvey Danger came out to sing along with the chorus on Crooked Teeth. The other time I saw Death Cab live was an acoustic set at work, so it came as a shock to me to see them rocking out so hard.

We did not stay for Beck since Jerry and Guru had to get back and start their trip back home. Towards the end Jerry seemed delirious from lack of sleep. Here’s some pics of us goofing around.

I recently got back in touch with my friend Aziz who I’ve known since freshman year of highschool. During one of our conversations Aziz mentioned the name of the first teacher we shared: Ron Latin.

To everyone else this name is innocuous, but to us, it conjures up memories of 28.8k modems, flashing gifs, 300dpi scanners, and horrific MIDI encrusted webpages. You see, our beloved teacher Ron taught a class on HTML and computer apps but did so in a manner that was most certainly a danger to our sanity, but more importantly, a danger to the internet.

His methodology for teaching HTML was to steal other people’s source code and just modify what he needed and claim it as his own. Under many circumstances this wouldn’t be so bad, but he did it in such a way that made your eyes bleed.

Thanks to the technology of the wayback machine we can explore his glorious website which he used as an example to follow.

Multiple archives - knock yourself out - just dont click on any of the java links! I wrote 3 long paragraphs and then accidently clicked it and I lost all my writing when my browser crashed. It was archived in 1998 but it’s been up since before 1996.

While I was in his class, I found the Ron to be so laughable that I decided to make a website spoofing him. It makes me smile to see how my scathing sarcasm was stayed with me through the years. Apparently sarcasm is lost on him and he found the spoof website to be so complimentary that he mirrored it on his site. C’mon, the spoof website had crap like:

Reasons why I love Ron Latin so:

• Ron is so funny! have you ever seen his “hot flash,” it was so funny! I haven’t ever seen anything on the web like it!
• Ron is handsome too! I love his round body, soft, and cushiony body.
• I wish I could really meet Ron Latin, I feel like I already know him!

…and to this day I’m still complimenting people on their websites (blogs) about how great their lives must be. In a way, I am jealous of their ignorance, but that’s still overshadowed by the sick pleasure I get from making fun of someone to their face and they don’t even know it. Message me on AIM if you want to see some recent comments somechick and I have left someone’s blog.

And if you can’t get enough of horrible websites from the 90s, check out this site I made for my brother in ‘95. I was 12 at the time (I later updated it to say I was 13). My brother wanted me to make the website for him to supplement all the chatting he was doing on IRC trying to meet girls. I wish they archived the picture of him standing next to his accord, or the one of him flexing.

What would you be (career/lifestyle), if money were not an issue?

One of the first things that comes to mind is that I would want to help others. I think I would want to be some sort of “life coach,” where I help others make a lifestyle change. It could involve personal training, nutrition aspects, introspection, and maybe even spiritual development. By helping others on a journey to improve themselves, I would be actively learning and improving myself as well…

just a thought.

Edit: Looking back, this sounds like a gay introspective post; but honestly, I think its a good question to ask oneself when it comes to trying to “know thyself,” and think about what direction your life is headed.

(10:56:09) kevin: omg i felt my ass cheeks sticking together and i had to go to the restroom to re-wipe my ass….i have such a HUGE skidmark
(10:56:41) Tim: there are things meant to be shared between friends and things not meant to be shared
(10:56:43) kevin: i need to keep an extra pair of underwear at work
(10:56:46) kevin: like a child

Holy crap this sunburn sucks. I’m itching more than Ratgoo’s crotch after a night of castro clubbin’

It wasn’t even my intention to try to get tan or anything, I just stupidly forgot to wear sunscreen. In fact, I prefer not to be tan. No skin cancer for me thx, I got enough moles already.

Here’s pics of my redness vs whiteness

It’s a pretty silly looking burn too: T-shirt line and then it stops at my wrist where I wore my gloves.

Despite knowing how boring and predictable my life is, foomfoom said “diu risey update your blog,” and I always do what foomfoom says ;(
This morning I went on a bike ride from Issaquah to Woodinville. I took the East Lake Sammamish Trail and connected to the Sammamish River Trail to get to Woodinville. Hit up 3 cities within the 19 mile trip: Sammamish, Redmond, and Woodinville. Total ride distance was 38 miles. Longest I’ve ever biked so far. Most of the trip was on gravel and near the end I was going tired and biking slow. Nothing very eventful happened nor did I see anything very interesting but I took pics anyway since it was a nice day. I made sure to bring my camera along to spice up this sub-par blog entry.

I’m glad I stopped to buy energy snacks before I left, but I was still exhausted at the end of the trip. I tried a Snickers Marathon Caramel bar and some Jelly Belly Sport Beans. Should I start writing reviews about energy foods like foom is doing with ramen?

Dammit, I got sunburned

Not too much happened this weekend. Biking at Tiger Mountain was the highlight.

On Saturday, Pat and I went to East Tiger Mountain State Forest to ride. The ride was more challenging than St. Edwards: more rocks, more trees, more roots, more turns, and more hills. There were also more bikers too, all much more experienced than us. There was lots of sections where I had to walk my bike. Much of the trail was on a hillside, and there was a constant fear that I was going to crash and drop my bike down the ravine and not be able to retrieve it.

Other events of the weekend included a CAAP hot pot event, dimsum with my family, helped shop for a tricycle for my niece, and some tennis.

A recent survey concluded that Seattle is the top gaming city. Findings are based on the number of video game systems owned per household as well as the number of games purchased and rented, combined with the frequency of online game play via Xbox Live and or Windows-based games.

read more | digg story

Reading this story and all the comments on digg inspired me to think about my own experience with Seattle and how it compares to the Bay Area. This story made me realize that ever since moving to Seattle from the Bay Area, I’ve played far LESS videogames than I ever have. I’ve pretty much turned into an outdoorsy/active lifestyle kind of person now. It helps being located to so many accessible outdoor activities like snowboarding, hiking, and biking, but not only that, I’ve made friends with people who are also new to the city and lead active lifestyles.
Many of the comments on digg mentioned that the Pacific NW is a well-kept secret and that people who live here tell others the weather sucks just so people don’t move here. I’m starting to agree, I think the weather aspect is blown way out of proportion. Statistically, other major cities get more rainfall. Most don’t realize how beautiful the city is during the months it is not raining. Shortly after moving here, it hit me how GREEN the city and surrounding areas are; a far cry from the brown and khaki of the Bay.
So if I ever decide to stay here permanently, you can count on me complaining about the weather and telling people to not to move here.