Sounds of a Sunday

Here's some chill music that's perfect for a lazy rainy day like today. Give it a listen...

Track 6: featuring Micro of Def Tech!
Track 8: Japanese J-Lo?
Track 12: Cookie Monster? (listen and you'll understand)

Micro of Def Tech - Aug. 8!!

I want this CD! It's by Micro, one of the two singers from Def Tech. Def Tech is this really great Jawaiin reggae (Japanese Hawaiin reggae) band that I love. Micro has a great voice and I love the melodies of all of their songs...very chill and laid back (as the title implies). Here's the video from the first single (which comes out on Aug. 8th):

hung up on Hung

Realtity TV shows on Bravo...Mmmmm!

I'm totally addicted to them all, especially Top Chef.

Well, I woke up this morning and was watching this week's episode on TV and reading through a few Top Chef blogs (I told you I'm addicted), when I stumbled across Hung's MySpace page.

(Hung is the medium-attractive bisexual Vietnamese-American contestant that I predict will win this season)

Now, I know that most people think he's a bit of a jerk. And he definately is cocky. BUT, he's also a chef at one of my favorite Vegas restaurants, so I decided to send him a quick message to tell him that I like his food and to say "good luck."

Well...guess what! He actually wrote me back! Just a short message saying "thanks for the support" and offering some restaurant recommendations in my area, but still...how cool is that.

Big sigh...

July 19, 2007

Dear Mr. Thomas,

Thank you very much for your interest in the 2008 Monbukagakusho Research Student Scholarship. Unfortunately, I must inform you that we cannot recommend you for a scholarship this year. I hope you understand that the competition for this program is exceptionally keen, and we are unable to recommend as many applicants as we would wish.

I hope that you will not be discouraged and that you will continue to pursue your interest in Japan. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Sincerely yours,

...

Consulate General of Japan

Sweden!

Yesterday, I grabbed a bottle of water, some sunscreen, and my passport and headed to Sweden, aka Ikea.

For those of you that have never been to Ikea and don’t know what it is: it’s basically the greatest store ever. Here’s why:

• It has a restaurant and snack bar! With $.50 hot dogs!! And the best cinnamon buns ever!! (Why does my whole life revolve around food???)


• The workers sometimes wear name tags with fake Swedish names like Lars and Thor. Come on…we all know that makes shopping more fun!


• You can buy a 10 pack of batteries for only $.99!!


• It’s a gay, family, and environmentally friendly company. (you have to pay $.05 for plastic bags now, but all proceeds go to replant trees!)


• They have cool furniture and stuff for your house at super low prices.


• It’s a great place to meet single people. (except the one near Boston seems to be a couples only kinda joint…not sure what’s up with that.)

I bought some furniture to finish my sunroom and to almost finish guest room #1. (I’ll post pictures later) But by far, the best part of the whole day was when Amy and I sat down in one of the living rooms in the showroom and had a serious conversation for 30 minutes as if it were a coffee shop or my apartment. Reclining, feet up on the chair, and everything! People kept walking by and browsing, so we moved to another living room, and then to a bedroom. But the other customers kept following us. Finally, with Amy sitting on a bed and me on a chair across from it, the ridiculousness of the situation hit me and I just started laughing. And laughed so hard that I actually started to cry! It’s definitely one of those things that you had to be there to understand, but it was definitely one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever done.

Still no news yet...

...but, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve decided that’s it’s time to spice up my life a little. I’m just way too bored here, and am a person that needs to constantly be challenging himself to be better and happier. So here’s what I’m going to do about it; my goals for the rest of the year:

Be able to carry on a basic conversation in American Sign Language – (taking a class in the fall!! So excited!)

See another cast of Rodin’s Le Penseur (the Thinker) sculpture – There are about 19 or 20 casts in the world (Turkey, Belgium, France, Argentina, the Netherlands, Mexico, United States, etc…). It’s my goal to eventually see them all, and so far, I’ve seen 4: Stanford Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, le musée Rodin in Paris, and the Kyoto National Museum. I don’t know why, but this sculpture has always been really powerful and relatable for me.

Get into better shape­ – for real this time.

Double my circle of friends – Yeah, it’s quality that matters, not the quantity. And I do have some really great friends all over the place. But I’d like to have some more in the area.

Learn how to prepare sushi­ - not really sure how or where I’m going to do this, but it’s definitely a goal of mine.

Introduce someone as my boyfriend or girlfriend – okay, so this is more of a hope than a goal. But it sure would be nice. (And preferably someone that is happy to sit around and watch sappy Japanese and Korean dramas with me.)

Learn how to play늦게 핀 사랑 on the violin – I’ve always wanted to learn how to play the violin and there’s no better time than now. It’s a Korean song (pronounced “neut ge pin sarang”) and I think it means “too late” in English. It’s such a wonderful and moving song for me; so full of passion. You can here it here: http://www.520music.com/play/122985.htm

Continue Learning Japanese - (trying to take a class in the fall)

Design and get my next tattoo - I’m not sure exactly what or where it will be yet, but I know that I want and am ready for my next one.

Tomorrow?

Well, I still haven't heard anything about the scholarship I interviewed and tested for over 3 weeks ago...

Having been so long, I began to wonder if maybe they already notified the people that moved forward, and simply didn't let you know if you didn't get it. I didn't want to waste anymore time wondering about it and checking my gmail 9000 times a day if I didn't get it. So, I called the consulate on Tuesday to ask, and they told me that they hadn't made their decisions yet, but that they were aiming to notify everyone by the end of this week.

I didn't hear anything yesterday or today, so I guess tomorrow is the big day! Everyone keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Kuitan and my addiction to food

So, I just finished watching another Japanese comedy/drama series. This one is called Kuitan, and it's about a detective that LOVES to eat, and solves crime mysteries each episode through his spot on sense of taste. It's basically the Japanese version of Monk, except that instead of having OCD, Kuitan has a serious addiction to food.

He's kind of my new hero. You can (and should) watch some of the first episode here:

This is a great series and the only downside is that because Kuitan is constantly eating delicious looking food, I've been hungry pretty much the whole time.

Now most of you know that I LOVE food, almost as much as Kuitan. One of my coworkers even calls me "hoover" because I tend to eat everything in sight, kind of like a vacuum cleaner.

So, here's a list of some foods that I'm craving right now:

Japanese Big Mac - I can't really explain how, but the taste is just different

Tuna sashimi - just the best taste in the whole world!

Crab Rangoon from Nancy Chang's

Bailey's Irish Cream Dream chocolate fondue from the Melting Pot!!

Grand Marnier suffle from Alize on the top of the Palms Casino

The #6 from Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwich Shop!!! Wait, make that 2 #6's from Jimmy John's!!!

Stuffed French Toast from IHOP

Okay...time for lunch now!

Itadakimasu!!!

Chris vs. Maya

A few days ago, a friend of mine posted a really interesting blog about why it seems so many gay men are so eager to “settle down,” that they are practically ready to profess their love and move in together after the second date.

Now… those of you that know me know that I definitely don’t fit into this category. But the blog was interesting none the less, and one sentence in particular caught my attention:

“When people show you who they are, believe them, the first time.”

It’s a quote from Maya Angelou, and on first thought, it made perfect sense to me. After all, who really knows what a person is like better than him or herself?

But the more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder if Maya might have made a mistake this time. I began to wonder how well people really do know themselves.

I mean, how many times have you heard someone tell you that they need some time to “find themselves” or some variation of the like? Now, I’m not really sure exactly how people “lose” their sense of self in the first place, and this has never happened to me, but there sure are a lot of people out there trying to find it either again or for the first time.

Come on, we all know at least a few.

And what ever happened to giving someone the benefit of the doubt? …turning the other cheek? …forgiving and forgetting? I mean, is one action always a part of a trend? For example, if a person lies once, does that mean that he/she will always lie and should be written off as a liar?

Now it may just be me, but this sure seems like a pessimistic way to go through life, and it’s definitely not my style. It’s not like I’m some cheery glass half full optimist all the time, but I do believe that people are generally good and that a mistake can be just that.

In my opinion, defining people be one action alone fails to take into account just how wonderfully complex we all are.

I think you may want to rethink this one Maya.

Harry Potter Mania

The new Harry Potter movie is AWESOME!!!

I went to the midnight showing with my friends tonight mainly so that I could make fun of the people that dress up in the costumes when they see the movie, (what's funnier than seeing grown men and women dressed as Harry Potter and Dumbledore? haha) but it turns out that the movie was actually really good. ...Maybe the best movie I've seen so far this year.

Definately a movie worth seeing.

Boing 787 Dreamliner

I can't wait to fly on this plane!!

Waking up in 9th grade

Yep. So I apparently went to sleep a few days ago and woke up as a 16 year old with a crush on someone.

Sure, I’m attracted to people all the time (maybe too much), but I haven’t had what I would consider to be a “crush” in years. To be honest, it’s been so long that I didn’t even realize that this is what it is until a friend pointed it out to me.

Nothing will ever come of it, for only about a zillion reasons. But the interesting thing is that once I started thinking about this person in relation to the other people whom I’ve been interested in this way, I noticed a fairly shocking trend:

It seems that I’m almost exclusively interested in guys and girls that are either really bad for me, or have some issue(s) that would make a relationship really challenging.

Seriously, what’s up with that??

At any rate, my crush will pass and I guess it’s better to know this than to not know this. I guess I just never thought of myself as the type that would choose the “bad” guy (or girl) over the good one. Who knew?

Fourth of July fun

On Monday, I left work an hour early, went to the airport to pick up Amy, and then headed to my friend Katie's house in West Haven, CT for a mini-vacation. It wasn't anything super special; just your typical 4th of July family cookouts and fireworks displays, but it was really nice to get away for a little while.

And, it was definately a huge plus that Katie's house is just a few minutes from the beach! Going to the beach just makes me so happy.

Definately the funniest part of the whole trip was that one of their neighbors also had a huge BBQ party in their backyard at the same time as the one we were at and had something called an "ice luge." I had never seen one before, and it's kind of hard to explain, so here is a picture I found on the internet:

Basically, people put their mouth at the bottom of a big block of ice with a groove cut into it, and people poor shots for them from the top. I thought it was pretty cool.

But, the funny part is that everyone at their party got SUPER drunk by like 1pm as a result and thought it was a great idea to plug in the ol' karaoke machine outside! So, we got to watch random drunk strangers make complete fools of themselves all night to renditions of Footloose, Sweet Home Alabama, and other karaoke classics all evening. And the drunker they got, the funnier it was to watch! Some of them even danced!

Ah, the things that seem like a good idea while drunk... haha

To the untrained eye, my phone looks innocent enough. It's nothing fancy, and barely has any features. Actually, it doesn't even have a calculator. (I really only picked it because it was free and I didn't have a lot of money at the time)

But don't let the cute little Doraemon strap fool you. This is actually an incredibly evil piece of technology that is slowly ruining my life! Here's why:

As part of my job, I am on-call a large percentage of the year, including the entire period from May through August, for a variety of emergency and work situations that happen after hours and on weekends. Rather than carrying a work cell phone and my personal cell phone for the entire summer, I decided that it would be easier to just set my work phone to forward all calls to my personal cell phone. ...and this seemed like a good idea at the time.

But, the damn thing has not stopped ringing in the 3 weeks since I got back from Japan! Case in point, I have made/received 23 seperate phone calls about work situations in the past 24 hours alone!!!

This phone is driving me insane!

...all the more reason to get an iPhone! At least if I had an iPhone, getting and making calls would be a little more exciting haha. But too bad I have a constant stream of friends and coworkers telling me what a bad idea it is to get one now. :(