The Lunchbox

Vacay

2009-08-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

if i'm not handlin' business... i'm traveling.

Let's Get Sexy

2009-07-28T23:40:00.000-07:00

it's old... but nonetheless funny.

Let's Get Sexy with Craig Robinson from Craig Robinson

Can I Spray It On My Stanky Leg?

2009-07-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

Health

2009-07-22T12:26:00.000-07:00

You can't afford NOT to invest in it... Health, that is.
My Aunt died from this, you could too.

Can't Wait 'Til I'm...

2009-07-14T11:54:00.001-07:00

in paradise...

America... fuughhk yea!

2009-07-04T17:10:00.001-07:00

Husalah

2009-06-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

The man who says his name so many times cause bitches love the way he rhymes.

Cold Summer

2009-06-29T02:30:00.000-07:00

R.I.P. Michael Jackson... The King of Pop.

A lot of things have flat lined for me recently. The internet is one of them. It may be good and bad, but it seems like a lot of things around me have been changing course. R.I.P. MJ. We will all miss you. I don't think there's anyone who can say they were around for the 80's and was not influenced by this man and his music. My MJ memories consist of watching his performances on TV in awe to the kind of reaction he had from the crowd. This was generally followed by an unsuccessful attempt at the moonwalk, which leads me to believe that I bet every guy has tried it once. Unless you have no legs. No offense.

And if you didn't know, MJ has sold over 300 million records worldwide. Bad, Dangerous, and Thriller are among the best sellers with Thriller remaining as the biggest selling record of all time. And although I've learned from MJ that it doesn't matter if you're black or white, his Billie Jean video was the first video by a black artist to air on MTV.

He is not an icon, he is THE icon.

- Raw

I Support

2009-06-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

more to come...

- Raw

All That

2009-06-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

this kinda brings me back...
care of my homie @itstheJtotheD on Twitter...
my apologies for a delayed absense. sometime's life's too interesting to blog.

- Raw

Happy Born Day

2009-06-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

Happy 46th Johnny Depp
...can u do us all some justice and opt to be the next Joker?...

I'm jus sayin'.

**doesn't Avery Storm kinda' look like him tho?... related, at the least... he could pass**

JK + 8 Sex Tape

2009-06-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

...i'm pretty sure it exists... somewhere...

have you seen their video clips? is it John or Jon? anyways, he records everything - they have everything on tape, the proposal, the wedding, and the honeymoon at Disney World. yea, Disney World. so if anyone hasn't taken the time to notice or say anything, i'm saying it now... i wouldn't be surprised if one of their family members runs through their stuff and finds the tape and releases it.

saw the midnight showing of The Hangover last night... loved it.

In Honor of Our 44th President

2009-05-28T17:27:00.001-07:00

Presents from the East Coast. Don't think I'll crack this anytime soon. I'll keep it on the shelf. Stack it in my future bar. I wonder if these'll hit the West Coast.

Just got back from a week long trip to Vegas. Crazy. But I'll be back on the road. Headin' to LA tonite. Be back Sunday. Always on the move.

Stay thirsty my friends...

The Best I Ever Had

2009-05-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

You the fuckin best...

Good times with the Buldas & Barnes.

I was expecting to have my first sip of Louis later in life, but the celebration of life (my niece's baptism) brought forth the gathering of a few good old family-oriented men. Around this table, history was shared along with jokes & laughter over an exuberant amount of alcohol complimented by cuban cigars. Cognac, tequila, vodka, rum, and beer flooded the table while no real man (at least no "punk bitch") would turn down the offering to share a drink with his newly found comrades. Aside from Dos Equis beer (stay thirsty my friends) the most popular drink of choice that evening was Louis XIII, an extremely aged/extremely expensive Remy Martin cognac. I kid u not, it was indeed the best cognac I've ever had. It makes everything younger than X.O. taste like cork. Who am I kidding tho, I love all types of alcohol and will continue to drink even the most youngest forms of cognac. Either way, good company... good times.

Stay thirsty my friends.

-Raw

*brought to ya'll over the air by my swagBerry as I chill poolside at my cousin's vacation home in Vegas. life is good. take nothing for granted*

Flashing Lights

2009-05-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

So, tomorrow I'm off to Sin City for a week.
Crazy right? Cause normally I can't do Vegas for more than 3-4 days.
But I guess this trip is half business half vacay. So it changes things a bit.

Other than that, this girl's album comes out tomorrow (Tuesday). I could've never pictured her voice/sound with that face. Could you? A Malaysian singer/songwriter, Zee Avi began posting her videos on YouTube which ultimately led to a record deal with Brushfire Records (Jack Johnson) under Universal Records.

Mr. Chris Raw Daddy's

2009-05-11T23:45:00.000-07:00

So I guess their original name works better than mine, but here is folks. For all you shrimp & crawdad lovers, here's a good post for ya'll. I haven't done food posts in a while, but the main reason why is because I've been in training for a competition in Las Vegas towards the end of May, so I've been on a health tip in regards to my diet. Somehow this place slipped in, but I'm trying to fight the urge to go back. I don't think ya'll want me to continually post the different sandwhiches I order from Subway now do you? So here you go. Last Friday some of the fellas and I hit up the South Bay to escape the general haps in the city (SF). We hit up this seafood spot that one of our friends put us on, pounded some shrimp and then headed towards downtown to catch happy hour and watch Game 3 of the Lakers vs. Rockets series. If shrimp or crawdads are yer thing, hit this up. It's crackin'. May get pricy for some if you continually buy pounds, but it's worth it in my opinion. Except for you lazy eaters - you have to peel your own shrimp. Let the fob in you come out for once. The shit gets messy. Don't take her on a first date here. Not a good look. And the spice can get a lil' hot, so if you can't stand the heat, choose the lowest level of spice.

What happens is first you look at the menu of course.

They sell crawdads and shrimp by the pound.
Crab too, but it goes by the market price of course.
Order up, they'll give you a plate with lime + salt and pepper.
The extra dipping thingey is for the juice that comes in the shrimp bag.
Fill it up and dip the skrrrimp in it. Crackin'.

The four of us ordered 5lbs.
Word to the wise, only order 1-2lbs at a time.
When you order 3-4+ lbs the shrimp over cooks in the bag.
Unless your the fastest shrimp peeler in the world.

They don't sell rice, although I've seen an old asian lady crew bring their own in.
My friends like to add fries on the side, it compliments the seafood well.
Or, if you feel daring like I did, add some catfish + fries.

Destruction.

Empty plastic bags for the fallen soldiers.

It gets messy.
Lose the ego.
Use the bib.

And the napkins usually add up. Keep em' close.

Obviously I couldn't shoot much of the action cause my hands were occupied. It gets messy so be prepared. Juice gets everywhere. No homo. But the food is crackin'. I hope ya'll know how to peel shrimp. Otherwise your first experience will be a slow and messy one. Take my advice and only order 1-2lbs. at a time and add on as you go. The bag is pretty warm, so if it sits too long the shrimp over cooks in the bag. The shrimp gets powdery and doesn't taste as good. Other than that, the shrimp is great. I haven't tried the crawdads, but I heard they were cool. With crawdads tho, you don't get as much bang for your buck cause the meat content is very little.

So we end up hittin' downtown SJ and can't decide which lil' joint to catch happy hour at so we end up hittin' Gordon Biersch. We started pounding away at different kinds of alcoholic drinks, from Patron Margaritas to Arnold Palmers (with alcohol of course). We watch the game, and before we head out we decide to pound a beer. The waitress said the, "Maibock" (pronounced like the Mercedes Maybach) is one of their most popular beers. I'm not much a fan of the darker side of beers, but this one was pretty good. I believe she also said that it has the highest content of alcohol out of all their beers. I think it was that fact combined with the name, "Maibock" (Maybach) that sold us. Wouldn't you drink it too?

"10 black Maybach's back to back in the lane."
- Uncle Ricky

Stay thirsty my friends.

- Raw

p.s. Don't forget who put you on. Pay respect.

More on the Fight

2009-05-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

Not really, but I hate how I picked up my parents from the airport cause they returned from Vegas and until this day they can't stop talking about the fight and watching a burned DVD copy of the fight + interviews. Man. You can take someone out the Philippines but you can't take the... nevermind I won't finish that. It sounded lame. So anyways. Gotta bring this up cause I know every male has given' this a thought, and if you haven't, you will now. If you can't already tell by the picture, I jus think she's hot, in an older milf-ish way of course. No bitch, I'm not talkin' bout Jinkee, the Pound for Pound Greatest Boxer in the World's wife. I'm talking bout #2. Ya boy, Ricky Hatton's wife, Jennifer Dooley. (insert accent here) BOY IS SHE SMASHING! Hahaha. I can dig it. Although some pictures that have surfaced the net are rather fugly, she generally has looked good for the camera. Yes, I have a very strong adoration for MILFS and I'm not ashamed to say it. Who doesn't appreciate a nice MILF? Girl's can't say shit either cause that's what they eventually want to be when they get at that age.

Who has the hotter wife? You be the judge.

Ringside... mmm.

Ringside... damn. Them shit's looks straight as fuck. Dentures?

Jennifer Dooley pictured on the right.
Jinkee on the left. Queen on the right.
That's a nice mom bod. Not the greatest donk.
But tell me you wouldn't?
Or would you rather have the mom face?

Now look, I don't mean to hate on the Pac-Man. He's done well with his career. This is probably the girl that was there before all the money. But it's the trade off I guess. You can't have em' all right? Now if we're going off jus looks, would you rather be the top dawg pound for pound greatest fighter with a busted wife?

Or would you rather have a busted face, lose to the top fighters and competitors in your sport, but go home to a hot wife?

You be the judge.

- Raw

p.s. some bonus footage. watch ricky pound them guiness' mayne. dayamn.

Back to Monday

2009-05-04T02:37:00.000-07:00

Before I demolish this post-workout meal I've prepared and head to bed, I figured I should touch base with ya'll and update my blog.

Big weekend in sports; two of my main interests of course were the Bulls & Celtics series which unfortunately ended in the Bulls losing and the Celtics advancing, and we all know the Pacquiao/Hatton fight. We all know what time it is. And if you haven't heard by now, which I doubt cause everyone's on Pacquiao's nuts, Pacquiao whooped some Manchester ass. Glad to see Floyd Sr. was proven wrong, since he's an old-timing shit talker. And of course I'm rootin' for Manny cause he's on the home team (I'm Filipino). HOWEVER, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Ricky Hatton. He was undefeated before he fought Mayweather, and he won after that loss until now. He's a strong fighter and I respect him a lot. Because of this fight, I even feel sorry for him. It's like he'll always be #2. He was undefeated until he went up against the best of the best. It's like he can rise to the top but will lose to whom ever is #1 - he'll never be top dawg. At least while Manny's alive.

So my hat's off to you Manny.

I tried to sell this bad boy for $100 to some white chick who said she had a Filipino friend who would "abbsooolutely die" for one of these. She looked at me crazy when I said $100. Anything less won't suffice lady. This shit is on some collection/pride shit. I'd even feel somewhat shameful to if I let this go. Eh. Maybe not. But my excuse is the economy.

- Raw

Year One

2009-04-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

Finally watch, "I Love You, Man" and they played this trailer.
Now I finally understand all the stupid one-liners everyone keeps talkin' about.
Better late than never I guess... right?

How Do You...

2009-04-30T08:53:00.001-07:00

wake up Lady Gaga?

...you poke her face...

Play Ball

2009-04-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

So I know I've been away for a while, but here's a little glimpse of what I've been up to.

Last week, my schedule was tied up almost every day with helping out the USF Hui O Hawaii club for their big lu'au which took place last Saturday. All that was fun and exhausting, not to mention that I'm also training for a competition at the end of May, so my time is pretty stacked. Somehow in the meantime I've been able to make it to 3 Giants game and every game I've been to so far they've won - I'm 3 for 3 and lovin' it. I went to Opening Day, Filpino Heritage Night, and the afternoon game that took place the day after Filipino Heritage Night (we were still playin' the San Diego Padres). None of these are from Opening Day, but peep game.

Oh AT&T Park, how I love thee.

That was Filipino Heritage Night with Manny in special attendance and throwing the first pitch (if you didn't notice). Here was the afternoon game I went to the immediate day after. Nice weather. Bleacher seats (where the hardcore fans sit, in my opinion - which by the way, I am not claiming to be one of them. I'm just your regular sports fan). A lot of yelling, screaming, and baseball chants... including a whole bunch of weird white people dancing (see below). A boooooring ass game - it went into extra innings. Finally, we were able to pull thru bottom of the 10th. Final score, Giants 1 - Padres 0.

Dear, Mr. Fred Lewis

I want to like you right now, but your performance has been below par. So please. Step it up.

So...

Bleacher seats are hardcore. Upper reserve are nose bleeds but you can see everything. Lower reserve or box/club level are the best. But you get what you pay for... hopefully. Manny can throw a baseball (if you didn't notice, that was him throwing the first pitch). Giants games are fun. I haven't had better garlic fries than the ones at the AT&T park.

I'm not your hardcore fan or sports fanatic, but I love sports nonetheless.

- Raw

Wipin' Off The Dust

2009-04-28T23:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, my peoples. I have returned. I gotta' wipe off a lil' dust in this biatch. I've put this blog up on the shelf for about over a week and it seems like a year has passed by. Believe me when I say that it wasn't intentional, I've just been a lil' more busy than usual.

Be back shortly.

Nukka Please!

2009-04-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone's weekend is going well.
Mine went by pretty fast. Found this on my homies youtube page in his favorites section.

Thought it'd give ya'll a lil' Sunday afternoon comic relief.

- Raw

Hoop Dreams

2009-04-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

As always, here is my weekly update for ya'll. (Starting last Friday - 4.10.09)

Weekly Update

Friday... Sutra?! Again?!
Fuk it, why not. Sister's old friend's in town from med school. Actually she has been for the past however many weeks but she's been in super-study mode. They decided to celebrate after she took her exam. Same ol' though. Nothin' interesting. Except we went to the strip club on our way back to the car for free. Dude let us get in cause it was 1:30am already. I'll spare the details.

Saturday... Top Secret Surprise Party?!
I think not. I jus went out to dinner at Benihana's for a "week-later" dinner celebration for a buddy's b-day. After there was nothing special. We kicked it at his house and messed with his '09 Macbook which is pretty sweet. Didn't do much... except fake out a whole bunch of Twitter folks by posting pictures (not me, my homie) from a while back when we partied at the Standard Hotel down in downtown L.A. They thought we were at a secret surprise b-day party, invite only. Neh... We weren't doin' a damn thing. First Saturday that I've been sober in a while. Crazy.

Sunday... Easter. (See: "Eggs-actly")

Monday... Warriors game.
This was the last Warriors game at Oracle Arena. I must say that I've had a great time hittin' up games this season, even though Monte fucked up the first half of the season by being injured from ridin' a freakin' moped. C'mon man. Step it up. At least say u was on a motorcycle or somethin. Actually, he prolly could've been but by saying so, it might've increased whatever penalized actions took place. That's for another discussion. So anyways, I must've hit up like 10 games this season. Doesn't sound like much, but it's at least double the amount I went last season.

Tuesday... Listening party.
Rick Ross' "Deeper Than Rap" officially leaked. At least with the forum that I use to download free music. Had to take a listen to it. I've been waitin' for this joint for a while. Other than that, I watched "Observe and Report." It was coo, but I missed the beginning minutes of it or so. Not super hilarious I guess. Seth is pretty coo, but he didn't have anyone from the crew with him, so it wasn't as funny.

Wednesday... the usual.
Nuthin' too special or extraordinary. Had a good lifting session at the gym, but that's part of my regularly scheduled program.

Thursday... HOOP DREAMS
At around 11am I hit the gym with a buddy to lift weights. We get a good lifting session in and after head on over to this basketball gym that we play at with all our folks. Today seemed dead, our Thursday afternoon consisted of half court 4 on 4 until it became 3 on 3 for about 4 hours. But on Friday's, it seems like every shows up 20 deep and you gotta wait 3 fuckin' games before you can get on. So today seemed pretty dead, only to be livened up by the local straggler. I call him the local straggler because he's the guy from somewhere in the neighborhood that shows up by himself and no one knows. But he's there all the time workin' on his shot. Doesn't really get how to play basketball, only he understands that the underlying concept is to put the ball in the hoop. He's a little strange in the head, and we've accepted it. What made this Thursday even more interesting was that he said he had to leave, so he picked up his things and headed towards the door. 30 minutes later, we see him standing at the front check-in desk. We realize he was trying to hit on the front-desk lady until she shoo'ed him away. He's a writer. He tried to share with her some of his work, but was unsuccessful. So instead, we let ol' boy share it with us. And it went a lil' somethin like this:

- Raw

WTF.LOL (part II)

2009-04-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

"I got that white guuurl. That Lindsay Lohaaaaan..."

She's on eHarmony? What has the world come to? I came across this Tuesday night, but would've rather let Uncle Ricky get some shine on my blog page than this chick. Anyways, peep the ad.

**edit: the vid is gettin' taken' down. I'll try to continually repost if it continues.**

USPDF

2009-04-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

I heard about this, and now I can say I've finally seen it.

The USPDF stands for, "United States Pole Dancing Federation" and every year they hold a competition, female only - Thank God. The application process is open to any female over the age of 18. However, only 12 applicants are chosen to compete based on (amongst other things as well) their skills, coordination, and creativity. Female applicants are to turn in a 2-3 minute video displaying their pole dancing skills.

After watching this highlight reel, I'm a little disappointed. Nudity, thongs, or g-strings lead to automatic disqualification. But they're supposed to display strength, flexibility, and sex appeal all at the same time. Honestly, these competitors look like gymnasts. Either that, or body builders. C'mon... Where's Candy? Destiny? I don't mean to sound like the male chauvinist, but no tits and ass? I'm talkin' bout before the nudity. These girls are doing gymnast poses. The closest thing to sexy was that stupid upside down body roll which would've looked ok on anyone else, but she looks like Siren from the American Gladiators.

Miss Sexy 2009 - No tits no ass.
Miss Trixter 2009 - I'd rather call her Miss Toothpick
Miss USPDF 2009 - Ok... Jenyne Butterfly. Not bad I guess. I hope she wasn't the one doing the upside down body roll. That would go against everything I just said.

Really though. I feel like they're tryna take pole dancing away from strippers. It's their livelyhood. They do it for a living. They make money. How many of these USPDF competitors dance on a pole for money? They're turning pole dancing into something else. They need a little less gymnast and a lot more sex appeal. I think they can do it and still keep their rules of a non-nude competition, but until they change somethin up, the gymnast is gona rule that competition, ending any kind of sex appeal that pole dancing brings. Weak.

What's In Your Playlist? (Part I)

2009-04-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Currently Listening To:

Finally... it officially leaked. Gotta take time to listen to the whole shindig. Hope ya'll got yours. Peep this track tho, it didn't make the album I guess. The Game, Ja Rule, & Fat Joe. Damn. The anti-50 Cent lineup.

Seriously tho... Ja Rule? It must be serious.

"...cause I fucked you up once, fucked ya up twice. And yer still talkin' shit. What must I do to get thru to you? Curly, get off my dick, fo' that ch-ch-ch-ch-chopper get that puh-puh-puh-puh-poppin' off the niggas that be mouthin' off. Read in between the lines when you hear me talk. Go on and get outta' line, this is RULE York..."

hahaha... wow.

Eggs-actly

2009-04-14T04:11:00.000-07:00

Allow me to introduce to ya'll my family. (Up Above)

As I dabble in yet another form of artistic expression (photography), I'm beginning to realize how truly critical I am of my own work. When it comes to art, I throw out the rule book. I can shoot 9 bad pictures, but the 10th might be the one. So here are a few shots from last Sunday. I was at my sister's house in Hayward, and we had a whole bunch of Easter festivities. We basically ate and napped from 12pm - 4pm, then all the kids started doin' the whole Easter egg decorating deal. After, we flew a kite for shits and giggles and then had an Easter egg hunt. I'd rather keep as much of my family off the internet as much as I can, so check out the Easter egg basket above. That's my family. And this was us beforehand:

The kids had their little creative session goin' on. After the madness, we all put our names on an egg. But damn tho, why they gotta make the food coloring tablets look like this though?

I think ya'll catch my drift...
Anyways, this is my lil' nephew. The happiest baby ever. He always laughs and plays, he hardly ever cries. Sometimes he gets a lil' frustrated when he has to take a sh*! or when he's hungry, but other than that he's great. I know this goes against my whole family posting logic, but for the sake of art, why not.

- Raw

Hangover

2009-04-12T03:38:00.000-07:00

So me and the fellas caught the new Fast and Furious movie the week it came out and I totally forgot about this trailer. I gotta share it with ya'll. For some reason I'm askin' around, and no one has seen this trailer but us. I'm sure people know about it, but I am pretty surprised word hasn't got out yet; maybe cause it doesn't carry the cast with a popular rep like the Apatow crew, but who knows. All I know is the Vegas theme / "WTF happened last night?" mentality is drawing me towards this film. And they lose the 1 buddy who seems to be the bachelor who's supposed to get married. Interesting.

C'mon now. Some people aren't cut out for Vegas. This shit looks crazy don't it?

**...there are probably different versions, but this is the exact trailer we saw in the theaters...**

If you've really gone to Vegas (and by that I mean you did Vegas right - party hard, no sleep, and maybe a little substance abuse), there should be at least one thing in this film you can relate to. I mean, maybe not waking up next to a tiger or a baby in your room. But c'mon. You get the picture.

"Shhhh..."

"Mike Tyson?!"

"... this is my favorite part comin' up right now... da dun da dun da dun da dun DUN DUN... BOW!"

"...he still got it..."

This is How We Measure Dicks... No Homo

2009-04-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

WEEKLY UPDATE

So now I'm back on track. Let me say that shit's been gettin' crazy round here. I kinda' like it, I kinda' don't. But that's life right?

Friday, the 3rd.
I'm still resting from the little turn-around trip to Reno which blew a S*!TLOAD of my money. Friday night I had USF practice.
**USF has a club called Hui O' Hawaii (i think that's right... don't quote me) and they put on a Lu'au every year. It's basically their Hawaiian club. In the past 5 years (with the exception of Spring '07), I've been helpin' them out with putting on their show, alongside my teacher of course (He's been helpin' em out for like 9-10+ years). It's like a workshop.. sorta. Every year my teacher gets brought in as an instructor. We train the guys and girls for their lu'au and put together routines and what not. In the actual lu'au we get to lay back as musicians and provide the music and drumming for the club while they dance. So we usually only seem 'em any time during or after January up until their lu'au which usually falls end of April.**
Later that night was probably one of the most emotional/hilarious nights I've had goin' out to the club. It was the eve of my homie Alex's bday. We hit up Sutra. Did our thang. Ended up having a weird hour long conversation with my cousin's previous significant other about why things didn't work out. Left the club pretty faded. Seen certain folks who we have bad ties with for certain reasons. 5-0 was there, so I guess somebody's night was saved. I end up in front of my boy's car with a $44 pizza tryna' explain to my homies new girlfriend that we act the way we act and do the things we do and there's nothing wrong with it. Should I even have to explain?
Thus, I learned a new term.
"Measuring Dicks" (no homo) - this is coming from her of course.
When guys act like guys in a physical sense. Like horseplay.
... or that period right before guys get into a fight ...
Or if they actually do get into a fight, it's referred to (by her) as, "Measuring Dicks"
So in the event of learning this new term, "Measuring Dicks" I decided to celebrate by doing none other than, "Measuring Dicks." I can't explain to you the exact process, but I basically took a fully cemented parking meter and removed it from the ground.
Later that night I end up meeting the guys over at my boy's spot. We were all drunk and faded. Somehow I ended up shooting craps until 5:30 in the morning. I came there with $10 in my pocket. I think I left with about $80.

Saturday night was the real celebration of my boy Alex's bday. We go to Bruno's, a spot on 20th and Mission. Super packed... Crackin'... Just a little different crowd then we were used to. But the guy to girl ratio was really good so that wins points with me. No one remembers half of the night, and a whole bunch of people threw up. I knew at least three people did. Not gona' name who. But three different people yuked. So you know FOR SURE, it went down.

Sunday marked our 8th basketball game of our season. Team Go. 3-5.
We won. Smash House. Only we started out playing 5 on 4 cause half their team no-showed.
Sad story. But fuck it. We ended up playin' 5-5 later on after the 2nd half, but it was too late.
SMASH HOUSE. We'll be headin' into single elimination playoffs the week after Easter Sunday.

Monday, back to training. Hustle.. on the grind, all the time.

Tuesday... OPENING DAY!
Giants won. Shit was fun. Lower reserve right behind the Giants dugout. Never been that close at a baseball game. Makes me wana' cop tickets there all the time. We were 5 rows behind Peter Magowan. Garlic Fries were screaaaaamin'.

Wednesday... My uncle gets sick. Fak!
So I gotta cover for him (lead our practice in our Santa Clara branch). Everything was all gravy, only I missed out on a free ticket to the Giants game. A few rows behind home base. Where the shit's not numbered, it's lettered. Damn. DAMN! I coulda' went to back to back games. I end up headin' to Skylark that night after practice. Met up with some of the fellas. Too bad it was dumb crackin' and stupid packed.

Thursday... Academy of Science. Siiiiick.
So my sister's fiance's b-day recently passed and she decides to plan a surprise shindig for him today. We hit up the Academy of Science in the city. Every Thursday from 6pm-10pm, they're open to adults 21+ for only $10 admission. What's sick is that generally, it's $25 for adults at any other time of the day. AND they serve alcohol, which makes science a little more interesting in my opinion. So me and the fam tour the newly remodeled museum. It's super crowded cause everyone goes. FYI, they sell out online way in advance, so if you want tickets, get em. Otherwise, you have to wait in line. At about 5:30pm the line is about 100 yards long and it's not a guarantee you'll get in, unless of course you're towards the front. After our little expedition, we hit up Marnee Thai on Irving. Food was great. I would blog it, but I didn't take pictures.

Pretty busy week. Didn't go to Reno or anything, like last week. But still. Eventfull nonetheless.

Stay safe over the weekend folks.

- Raw

It's the BOSS

2009-04-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Rick Ross - Maybach Music 2 (feat. Kanye West, Lil' Wayne, & T-Pain)

Came across this the other day. Not sure what to think of it. I wana' say that it doesn't feel as pivotal as the first Maybach Music track. But I'll keep my door open to it. I like Ross' music. I NEEDA HEAR THE ALBUM UNCLE RICK! I'm currently waitin' for it to leak of course.

Not a big fan of Yeezy right now... but if I had to give him a line or two, well... here it is:

"...I hit the strip club and girls get extra hype. U hit the strip club and girls turn extra dyke. We know who not getin' no sex tonite. And a lap dance would prolly' be a blessin' right?..."
- Kanye

Glad to see Lil' Wayne not on the auto-tune for once.
T-Pain chorus.. eh. Don't have an opinion yet. Don't wana speak bad or good on it. Yet.
Ross. Can't be disappointed. And Justice League is always killin' it with these Ross tracks.

Think about it.

Who Wants To Get Serrrrrved?!

2009-04-09T03:37:00.000-07:00

You ain't ready for the next generation of dancers.
My boy posted this on his myspace page a long time ago.
It always cracked me up every now and then after re-watching it here and there.

And then somewhere along the way I came across this:

I wonder how far these two will take their dancing careers. They should face each other in an online epic youtube dance battle. Crazy concept right? Is this the future of our generation? Why does this white kid just look like the white boys I already see at the club tryna get down? I hope I'm not too racist by saying that 15 years from now the asian kid will probably grow up to compete in a crew on America's Best Dance Crew, and the white boy will be that Irish kid who'll drink you under the table and dance the exact same way he's dancing in this video - when all else fails, turn around and slap your own ass.

- Raw

why is he hella buff though? what size beater is that?!

WTF.LOL

2009-04-08T01:50:00.000-07:00

So in the midst of wrapping up my night, I was unable to leave my computer as a result of being flooded with a whole bunch of internet nonsense that you can't help but laugh at.

I mean, c'mon.

I type in "Remix" in YouTube and get this:

she's freakin' hot. but foreal. the voice? and is the Fubu jersey necessary?

then P-Funk hits me with this:

and now I can't help but sit here with a blank stare at my monitor... wtf.

and then I drop by Dirty's... see: "Betcha Can't Do It Like Me"

It never stops.

- Raw

What the Hell Happened?

2009-04-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday night, April 7th.
My last post before my mobile post on Thursday, April 2nd, was the day before that, Monday, the 1st. Which makes it 5-6 days since my last post and I feel like it's been a month. At least with all the things that have fit inside the past week or so. I didn't give you a weekly update on the 3rd. I'll try to fill you in here and there. But chyea.

A big reason why I've been outta' commission is cause I've been sick. Body aches, fever symptoms, hard cough, green flem. You get the picture.

Somehow I rehabilitated enough to hold myself together for a quick turn-around trip Wednesday night, returning Thursday afternoon (last week). Me, my cuz, and my uncle, along with a bag of Cadbury Thizzles (see: Thursday, April 2nd) blasted to Reno Wednesday night at around 11:30pm. Hit the Silver Legacy at around 3am and checked into our room. We hit the casino floor between the Silvery Legacy and El Dorado until about 7am. We returned to the room, KO'ed until 10:30am, only to wake up and do it again until about 12pm. That night, I must've drank a whole Hennessy fifth to myself, passed out and woke up thinking, "...what the hell happened last night?..." And in the midst of all the commotion, somehow I remembered exactly how much I lost that night. We bounced in the afternoon. I don't want to get into specifics, but lets just say my wallet's dented.

That was pretty much my big highlight of last week. My cuz was on vacation, so we did anything he wanted to do. I felt like it was fuckin' Adventure week. Anyways. I'm back to the regular planned schedule.... sort of. not sure if that even exists.

Be with ya'll shortly.

- Raw

Quick Getaway + Road Trip Snackage

2009-04-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

Well I'm on my way to Reno.
Quick turn around trip. Glad I got these little guys wit me.

Snackage baybeh!

Ill holla.

**via blackberry**

- Raw

Mason Aguirre

2009-04-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, the Dew Tour made its way over to Northstar at Tahoe. I believe I went there the week before and the week following. I would've went to the Dew Tour, but I'm not much for being a spectator if I'm gona' drive a few hours away to stand around and wait in the snow - I'd rather hit the slopes. Although I did hear from someone who did go that weekend, she said that the runs were empty 'cause everyone was tryna' check out the competition. So who knows. Maybe I should've gone. But would I have hit the slopes? Or got sucked into the audience?

Anyways, when I was making my decision on my new setup, I came across the Burton Custom. I was riding my sister's fiance's old Custom and enjoyed it, so I was looking into the current model and ended up gettin' the 09. Along my path to enlightenment, this guy popped up: Mason Aguirre. He rides a Custom. He's also Raw as hell became pro when he was 15. Not sure as to when Burton picked him up, but I know he's born in 87, which makes him 22 in 09. He took Superpipe finals at the Dew Tour at Northstar. Only, he's riding the 2010 Custom model cause all the important dudes get the gear a year in advance. Here's some highlight footage with him at the end:

April Never Fools

2009-04-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

"Chuck Norris' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd. No one fools Chuck Norris."

Twitter... Day 7

2009-04-01T00:45:00.000-07:00

but it's really Day 10 cause I didn't keep up.

i jus came down with somethin. think i caught a virus. feel like crap.

all in all, Twitter's fun to use, but it's more fun if you're an iPhone user cause you have the easiest on-the-go access. that and you have to have people u know on it to make things more interesting. i wana say that these online social networks dont get much traffic now that twitter's here. or is it just me? cause im usually on twitter instead, which leads me to believe that since twitter is a newer/quicker/more simple platform, a lot of people will be spending there time tweeting versus logging onto myspace & facebook. but who knows.

- Raw

Twitter... Day 6

2009-03-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

I've officially deleted Twitterberry off my Blackberry.

It was too slow & laggy. Now if I want to hit up Twitter, I just do it through my mobile browser and post thru there. A little hassle but it's definitely more convenient than Twitterberry and most definitely not as slow.

BBQ Mistake... never again.

2009-03-28T18:28:00.000-07:00

So I realized I've made a mistake. A crucial error in judgment that I will now share with you so all you future customers won't experience the same grief.

I WENT TO GORILLA BBQ AND DIDN'T ORDER THE RIBS.

FAK! What was I thinking. Would you go to the House of Prime Rib if you were a Vegan?! Well don't go to Gorilla BBQ and not order the ribs. Now that I got that off my chest, let me say that there's nothing wrong with what I ordered (beef brisket + pulled pork). But you have to get the ribs. Just trust me. Especially if it's your first time.

Twitter Day 5... plus the weekly biz.

2009-03-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

Twitter Day 5:

My twitter usage has gone down tremendously. That's all I have to say. Ha!

Weekly Update

So I'm back from another crazy week, primarily due to the fact that I had a competition today. If you wana' know more, ask me. I'm still on the go. Headin' to a b-day celebration and if you're not into the Polynesian performance realm, I don't want to bore you with it.

Some highlights for this week:

I joined Twitter.
I had BBQ 4 times this week (different kinds of course).
I figured out how to blog with my mobile phone.
Practiced alllllll week.
Had competition in Merced.

Gona' end this shindig by partying tonite for my boy's bday.

Short and sweet. And I'm too lazy to give you the details.

I wana' party. PAYCE!

- Raw

Competition Time... kinda... (on-the-go)

2009-03-27T01:35:00.000-07:00

So I'm laying on a futon at my uncles house, hoping the kids don't wake up to the sound of me jamming my thumbs on my Blackberry. I can't sleep cause I generally sleep late anyways, and I gotta drum tomorrow for a competition, so I generally lose sleep over this kind of stuff.
Anyways, I'm not really competing, what's happening is, we have one student competing who's the daughter of a highly respected mentor-ish figure of our group.

For those of u who aren't familiar with Tahitian competitions, what's gona happen is she's gona go on stage and dance next to other girls her age in front of 3 judges (and the audience) in an elimination round. If she makes it past that round, she advances to the next round where she gets to perform a solo using her own drummers (us - me, her father, and our teacher).

That's where I come in. If she makes it, I'll be alongside our teacher and her father, drumming for her solo. It's our responsibility as musicians to not fuck up the routine and drum her routine well so she can put on the best performance possible. I have no doubt in my ability or our abilities as a unit, I jus find this sort of stuff exciting considering our group does not compete much. And since she's the only girl from our group competing in this particular competition, we only have one chance to knock em dead.

Drummings gotta be on point. We got one shot for one routine for one dancer.

With that being said, I gotta rest my hands. I need em tomorrow. Haha. Not that this makes a difference. But I should go to sleep.

**via Blackberry**

- Raw
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

BBQ Madness... again!... (on-the-go)

2009-03-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

Gorilla BBQ

This week has been BBQ madness for me.
First Filipino BBQ, and now this. 2 piece meat combo - pulled pork and beef brisket. All combo plates come with a little cup of beans over rice + two sides and a piece of cornbread. Of course I doubled up on the mac and cheese. Then BBQ again this saturday for Miguel's bday. Food madness. I love it. Too much mobile blogging, not enough eating.

Purdue vs. Uconn with BBQ and a 6 pack of Rolling Rock.

Peace britches!

- Raw

**via Blackberry**

Twitter... Day 4

2009-03-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Forreal tho... peep the asian dude. Racist. Haha.

"NONE OF YOU HAVE ANY FRIENDS!"

who hasn't gotten the fail whale tho?

So I was bitchin' bout why my Blackberry Twitter software doesn't have an "instant upload" feature for pictures. Well I was wrong. So sorry, Twitterberry. Only after I select and open up a picture could I then bring up the menu and choose "send to Twitterberry." I can't look at the file or even view the picture in that smaller thumbnail option where I see a whole bunch of other photos too. I have to be viewing only the actual photo before I upload it. So I tried. Only every time I've done that, it's failed to upload my picture/update. So Twitterberry still doesn't impress me much. I'd rather send my picture thru my assigned Twitpic address. Why am I complaining though? It's still all pretty easy. I'm jus sayin'... It's not as user friendly as I thought it would be, considering there's major hype around this thing. And it's still F'IN SLOW. FAK! I do know that iPhone users have it the best. I've heard nothing but good when hearing about the iPhone Twitter apps.

One of my favorite Twitter quotes thus far:

Tit: "So if you Twitted yesterday, doesn't that mean you 'Twatted'?"

What's gona' happen is, because Twitter is already getting pretty big. Pretty soon someone's gona' buy out this mother fucker. Then their programers will hopefully bring on technological advances and we'll have newer and better Twitter features along with advertisements and outlets or links to where we can spend money on bs (hopefully the membership will stay free). Hopefully shit will at least be faster by then. Who knows.

Logo... what's yours?

2009-03-25T23:40:00.000-07:00

Came across this not too long ago. Found it interesting, forgot to post it.
It's the evolution of the Batman Logo. Are they missing a few? I couldn't keep track.

Watch Batman Logo Evolution on CollegeHumor

Decided not to hit the bar tonite with the folks. We were at Koko's last night. Now that my Grandpa and my parents are headin' to the Motherland, I'm sittin' around with nothin' to do. And I ain't gotta watch over my Grandpa for the next month. What am I to do?

...the plot thickens...

Success

2009-03-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

I see my mobile post was a success, and now I can blog on the go. So expect it.

Last night I was with some buddies and had a little ayo technology craze. It started off with the purchase of a Flip Mino HD by JD. He brought it thru and they were fuckin' around with it. It's pretty clean I guess.. I don't really have too much experience in the video realm but I've been slowly getting into it. It started off with stupid slide shows when I was a kid using Adobe Premiere back in the day. Then I made my little vegas slideshow which I wish I had more video footage of(but who stops and thinks to continually record footage when you're out in Vegas gettin' hammered?). But anyways, my friends are some pretty creative people, so I wouldn't be surprised if I have some new videos to blog about in the near future. That whole shpeal reminded me of all the snow footage I have but no movie. Still, I wish I had more footage of actual snowboarding to finish my short, but I'll update on that later. Later on that night, me and Tit returned to the house with some El Farolito. Andrew was lookin up random animation videos, and we got into the whole stop go animation convo before devouring our food and getting a few quick rounds of Street Fighter in (my first try at the new Street Fighter for PS3). I'd love to do a stop and go short on some random shit. But how many pictures will it take? Damn.

I guess the "technical" name might be, "Stop Motion" Animation.
For those of you who haven't seen it...it looks like this:

**if you didn' t know... stop motion is a frame by frame animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own**

On the Go Blog Test

2009-03-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

Check out my Atkins friendly lunch plate.

Filipino bbq madness!

Twitter... Day 3

2009-03-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

I've come to the conclusion that after this whole experimental period (1 week), I'll probably continue using twitter. Not sure as to how much or how often I'd continue to use this online social network death trap, but hey, these things are free. So why not? A lotta my friends are on this joint. I gotta say tho, I'm tired of the Twitter lag. It's pretty freakin' slow. As I said in the Day 2 post, the Blackberry software doesn't impress me, and now I'm finding more issues online. First off, the Blackberry software that I have doesn't let you upload pictures instantly from my Blackberry. Instead, I have to email it to a special address linked to my user profile. This is through a separate site linked to Twitter (www.twitpic.com). Not only that, but when I'm actually on a computer, uploading a picture is kinda slow, and after I changed my picture, it didn't instantly change. So it takes a while for the server to actually post your new one. That, and I couldn't tell if my picture was uploaded or not, I just sat there and hoped it saved my new one - luckily it did after I checked back later. On top of changing my picture, I changed my profile name which automatically changes your url (your url is twitter.com/yourprofilename). Now when I browse through peoples pages and they have me under who they're "following," it still has my old url.

If it wasn't for the lag and other update issues, Twitter would be a little more enjoyable.

Twit... Day 2

2009-03-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm getting accustomed. The whole instant update thing is cool I guess, but I feel the actual server itself is too slow. When I'm online on the computer, I get a lot of error screens... it says "Try Again... too many tweets." And the Twitter Blackberry program for my Curve isn't too impressive either. It's simple and straight forward, but it takes a while for everything to load when I want to get @replies or updates. And after get updates, if I want to get updates again, it keeps the ones I already have and gets the same ones again including the new ones and stacks them on top of each other, creating a never ending list of updates that make the overall experience slower and more cluttered than I expected.

Although I did add it to my blog, so now my readers can follow me even if you don't have a Twitter account.

paaaayce

- Raw

Ms. Keri Baybeh

2009-03-24T01:15:00.000-07:00

Many of you folks that know me know my undying infatuation with female celebs whether it be actresses or singers or what have you. In this case, with the release of her new video and her album (In A Perfect World) **releases today - Tuesday, March 24**, I'm referring to Keri Hilson. I discovered her a while back as the girl who wrote Ciara's, "Like a Boy" and Omarion's "Ice Box." After hearing that she's becoming this up and coming song writer, I still didn't really pay attention until she started popping up in videos. The whole song-writing shpeal + the ability to sing and start her own singing career gave me the impression that she's probably the female version of Ne-Yo. It all hit about a year ago, Rich Boy, "Good Things." And honestly, black women don't always appeal to me. I dont say that to be mean, I'm always open to the idea of dating a black woman, but it seems to me that the best ones are celebs or video vixens. Haha... damn. Sounds fucked up but I ain't. I guess I'm just looking in the wrong place. Believe me... Keri... I'm in love... "...with that, guuud thaaaaaang..." She's sexy. I thought she was coo, bouncin' around in her little dukes with her twins hangin' out, but not too trashy... beach-classy. So then she's in that, she was also in Timbaland's, "The Way I Are" along with making an appearance in Usher's "Love in this Club" video. She hit the ground runnin' and now she's everywhere... Dayamn. I'm sayin tho. I'm not always a big fan of all her hair-do's, but shiet, she can wear it any way she wants. There's somethin' about her. Maybe it's cause she actually writes her own songs? That may be it, cause I'd be turned off if she looked like that and had a shitty ass voice. But damn, she got tops and bottoms. EeuGh! And the voice jus kills. Did you watch the video? She's lying on her bed, twisted around just so you can see her little bubble butt hangin' out her booty shorts. C'mon now.. that shit ain't right... Ahhh... arite that's it... no more. Can't be a guilty pleasure... cause I don't really feel guilty 'bout it.

No shame... Alicia Keys... baby... where'd you go?

Twit... Day 1

2009-03-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

So I've requested the aid of a fellow Tweeter to guide me along the ways of the Twit.

[15:10] Me: how long u been on that twitter thing?
[15:11] P-Funk: since like late jan
[15:11] Me: shit's crazy...
[15:11] P-Funk: lol
[15:11] P-Funk: why?
[15:11] P-Funk: what's up?
[15:12] Me: iono
[15:12] Me: nuthin
[15:12] Me: i jus find it weird
[15:12] P-Funk: it's like stalking 2.0
[15:12] P-Funk: but i dunno
[15:12] Me: hahah...

**screen names were altered to protect privacy**

So as I expected, there's a setting where you make your Twitter profile private, and for people to follow you, you go through a request and accept process like any other online profile. Twitter's stalker rating has gone down... just a little. Juuuuust a little.

To Twitt or Not To Twitt?

2009-03-23T02:35:00.000-07:00

I first heard about this new technology fad back in early January. Never decided to hop on, and usually when I really want to, it's already become the accepted norm. So it seems like the thing that everyone's doing, just like blogs, myspace, facebook... everything. But status updates? That's essentially what Twitter is to my understanding... "Instant micro-blogging." The Facebook status update without the Facebook. But why update everyone on what you're doing every second of every day in your life? Of course, the Twitter defense is, you don't have to - what you share/update and how much or how often you do share is up to you. But really though, I'd almost feel nosy if I were to continually read everyone's updates. But that's what it's there for right?

I guess I'll try it out. I'll give it a week, update ya'll, then decide if I want to continue...

...or let it die like everyone's Friendster accounts... hahaha.

- Raw

Happy B-Day Spike Lee... and Lady Gags

2009-03-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

Happy 52nd B-Day Uncle Spike.

"That ain't the way to go brother man... Did you do Do the Right Thing?! What films you made?!"

And of course I gotta point out that it's Lady Gagger's B-Day. Only because she's one of my favorite butter-faces since she makes music that makes girls jump up and down and act crazy in the club. And I guess if her bio's correct, she's a '86er like me, making her 23 today. She's proving my theory right tho, making Konvict Music one of the ultimate all-ugly music label's in the business... I'm down with their music though. In a guilty pleasure sort of way. She doesn't look as busted in this pic though. But thas what happens when you have a hot bod and wear big ass shades that cover half your face. Girls do it all the time. Oops, was that supposed to be a secret? C'mon ladies, we ain't that dumb. It must be ya ass... cause it ain't ya face.

See what I'm saying?

Or is it just me?

Don't hunt me down Lady Gag. You do remind me of a killer fembot. Ok..ok. I guess as of now, you can be my number 1 butter-face. Marry me. Interracial babies are always better looking. Let's just hope they get your body and my face. Keep makin' them club bangers.

- Raw

Time Flies

2009-03-20T00:45:00.000-07:00

Weekly Update

This week went by way too fast... in a good and bad way I guess.
It's been a week since my last post, so I've decided to give you a weekly update on shit that's been goin on surrounding me. In between these weekly posts, I'll continue the random spectacle of Lunchbox madness: food, places, events, interent clips... the original intention of starting this blog.

Last Friday I left home for Oxnard, CA. It's about an hour closer to the Bay Area than L.A. is. It's in the Ventura County area, somewhat close to Santa Barbara. Spent the weekend there. It gave me a new perspective on kids and parenting. I'd rather not speak on it though, I think I have more bad things to say than good. So I get back Sunday evening and was lucky enough to spend some good quality time with the fam. I had to KO for an exorbitant amount of time - the weekend was too hectic. Monday night I had a tough practice. Tuesday night, practice again... Tough. My cousin then tells me he wants to hit the slopes on Wednesday cause he got the day off. That night I ended up at this bar/lounge called Koko's for a homegirl's bday. Considering I didn't see the crew the whole weekend, it was coo to see some folks even if it was a Tuesday night. Drank up. Ran into a whole random plethora of folks. Return to the homefront around 2 am, knowing that I'm leaving for Tahoe at around 4:30am (or so I thought). It didn't take too long to get my things together, but I had to take a shower to sober up, so I ended up gettin to my cuzzo's house in Union City around 3:30ish. So of course he's KO'ed and doesn't hear my calls, so I'm stuck with sleeping in my car until departure. Fool wakes up late and we don't hit the road 'til like 6am. This was the 2nd time that happened this season (with someone else though at least). We had fun though, I slept almost the whole way there and back. A lil' fucked up to the driver, but I did have to sleep outside his house for a few hours. I ain't trippen tho, anything to go snowboarding. That makes my 7th run this season, startin' mid January up until now. Good times.

**speaking of which, for you shred heads, it's spring snow right now, a lotta ice and packed powder and groomed madness. but there's a 60% chance of precipitation this weekend. EeuGh!**

So the run was coo. Got a little freeriding in at Sierra. So yea, that was Wednesday. I ended up missing my sister's bday dinner that she had that night that she notified me about that morning which is weird because her birthday was March 4. It's all good though, I went to her other bday events so I'm not totally glum about it. Thursday was another sleep-in day. Pretty tired from Wednesday's run. Ran a few errands, then back to training at night. Shit was intense. And now it's Friday. I'm ready to KO and enjoy Friday. Get it in. Carpe Diem. All that good stuff. (Now I'm thinking of that movie quote, "...time to suck today's dick!..." what fuckin movie was that from?)

Anyways, I gotta end this post with a "thank you Jesus!" cause I dont think Catholics do that enough. "Put the Lord first, then go hard." - Rick Ross. Don't let this quick religious splurt fool you, I don't even go to Church on Sundays which is not the greatest thing to mention, but I do wana say that the shit crosses my mind. So yes, Thank You Lord for a wonderful week. I also gotta say I miss my Grandmother. Folks, please visit your passed relatives, I'm sure they miss you even if you don't think about them all the time. The crazy thing is, I think about her all the time. I think my absence in music makes her upset or disappointed in me, like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. But that's a whole different story.

Before this gets too mushy...

Peace. Love. God Bless.

- Raw

p.s. If you got a good job, stop bein lazy!

(This of course applies to those who are...)

The recession is here. Even if it hasn't hit you, it's probably hit the ones around you. Someone very close to me just got laid off. Of course it's due to budget and all that good economic mess. And although he's somewhat well off, he still has a wife and two kids to take care of. I'm not really worried about his situation, it just brought me to think that people are gettin' cut no matter who you are. Whether or not you have dependents. It used to be the shitty worker who got cut, but now it's the higher paid hard worker that gets the boot. This marks the 8th or 9th person I personally know who got laid off within the span of these last couple months. So if you got a job, hold on to it and be happy that you got one.

On the Road Again

2009-03-13T01:54:00.001-07:00

Always on the move... it never ends. I will be in Oxnard for the weekend. Holla.

I leave you with this video. A funny collection of signs for snowboarders.

- Raw

Snowbound... yet again (run #6)

2009-03-12T00:50:00.000-07:00

Yazzur... back at it again.
In a few hours I'll be on the road again. Time to hit the slopes.

Northstar anyone? Get at me.

- Raw

p.s. I can't decide who my favorite Beautiful Warrior girl is... I think it's a toss up between Jeanette and Nazanin w/Jessie Camacho trailing close behind. But I guess that would make Jessie 3rd really, if I were to ever make a decision on who's #1.

EeuGh!

2009-03-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

I didn't expect to find such levels of sexy at 11 in the morning.
But somehow I cam across this:

iono bout that KiD CuDi... either way, I'm not sure where this came from.

edit (11:20am): Battalion Armour on Vimeo - "Beautiful Warriors is a classic black & white series shot with powerfully engaging women by Tishaun Dawson."

the original trailer:

Beautiful Warriors : Trailer from Battalion Armour on Vimeo

and they got every girl in a solo...

Beautiful Warriors : Jessie Camacho from Battalion Armour on Vimeo

Beautiful Warriors : Nazanin from Battalion Armour on Vimeo

Beautiful Warriors : Marly Ashtin from Battalion Armour on Vimeo

Beautiful Warriors : Kacie from Battalion Armour on Vimeo

Beautiful Warriors : Kaila Yu from Battalion Armour on Vimeo

Beautiful Warriors : Jeanette from Battalion Armour on Vimeo

it says these were posted 3 months ago (with the exception of the KiD CuDi video which actually put me on to find the origin... which leads me here). so forgive me if ya'll was already up on game.

but mmmmm... women & art.

- Raw

Happy Birthday Chuckie

2009-03-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

"On his birthday, Chuck Norris randomly selects one lucky child to get thrown into the sun."

Happy 69th Birthday Chuck!

It seemed like it was only yesterday when my friends found this website with this weird url that would spit out random Chuck Norris facts when you refresh it (I think it was 4q.cc - the website has changed tremendously since then). At the time, this was the only website we knew of that did this. The hype grew so fast that now you can find a billion Chuck Norris facts websites. Man, it must've been at least in '05? Late night skateboarding at our local public high school's yard, while everyone with a sidekick would continually refresh the site to see what new fact came up. So in honor of Chuck's BDay, I'll post a few facts. I'll try not to go too overboard.

"There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live."

"Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice."

"Little known medical fact: Chuck Norris invented the Caesarean section when he roundhouse-kicked his way out of his monther's womb."

"Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door."

"Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he's never cried."

"Chuck Norris can speak braille."

"Chuck Norris' Calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd - no one foold Chuck Norris."

"Chuck Norris sleeps with every woman in the world secretly for once a month. They bleed for a week as a result."

ok. I can go all day with this, so I'll stop now.

"...Stop dreamin' it, I'm livin it!..."

2009-03-04T18:15:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, more music videos.
Who didn't dig this when it leaked?
I know I did... And John Legend fit perfect with the song.
But I've always liked Rick Ross, so I guess I'm biased. Maybe it's the beard?
Speaking of which, I wonder why John Legend trimmed his. Maybe two beards in a video would be too much.

"...She 30 but don't look a day over 18..."

2009-03-03T22:45:00.000-08:00

It seems like months ago when I first heard this song mobbin' in Damier D's car. It was on one of his random cd's. After enough spins, the shit just got embedded in my brain. You could've easily said this was a guilty pleasure track... at least until the video came out. The video release may have knocked some value off. Although I wouldn't say it's completely kicked off guilty pleasure status. It's your standard video though, hoes and cameos. Although they're not throwin' money around, they are pourin drinks. Is that Nuvo?

By the way, it's supposed to be, "go-go dancer..." not, "real slow dancer."
Why d'you have to censor "go-go?" She's a go-go- dancer. It's a profession is it not?
T-Pain was in love with a stripper - they didn't censory that. At least I dont think. And speaking of T-Pain, Dirty D (not to be confused with Damier D) and I always had this conversation about how Konvict Music is killin' it right now. Akon's a smart dude. Don't forget T-Pain is his artist, much like how people forgot 50-Cent is Eminem's artist. Whether or not you consider Konvict Music's music good or not, numbers don't lie. Whether or not you like Akon, he's puttin' in work managing his label with all these artists with a lot of potential. He could lay back and make money off T-Pain for the rest of his life if he wanted to. If Colby O' Donnis had a little more variety in his album, I think he could smash Donnie Klang and eventually compete with other male solo R&B names. I'm not a big fan of that Jamaican duo.. Rock City? I forgot their name. I dont think an album dropped yet. I'm not a fan of Sean Kingston, but I'm sure he's killing it in his demographic. Akon revived Kardinal Offishall's career. Lady Gaga's killin' it too. Akon got all these artists. I hope he ain't got em' with a Diddy-type Bad Boy contract. They all seem happy though, and they're all prolly making good money. The funny thing is that they're all ugly. They're the "all ugly team" of the music game. Colby O' is the only normal looking one... No Homo.

- Raw

God's Country

2009-03-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

So I pass out on the couch knowing that it's garbage day and that I'll just be taking a nap in a place where I usually don't fall asleep very often so it should be relatively easy to wake up and take out the garbage. I wake up to the sound of the garbage man and his truck a couple houses up the street, so I got up and rushed to take out the garbage. That was the fastest I've ever taken out the garbage. Now I got a lil' blood pumpin' in me and I can't go back to sleep. So I hit the net and I stumble across this clip...

To be honest, I'm not super up on game when it comes to our country's government and politics. And while I sit here and try to come up with something interesting and clever to say about this next clip, my mind just hits a blank. I usually don't click on these types of videos, but for some reason this time around I did and I must say the first few minutes got me hooked. Maybe it was the look on this girl's face and I wanted to see what kind of racial comment she had about Obama. I ended up watching the majority of it. Look at how passionate these people are. Yea, I love America, but it seems to me that my views on America are not exactly the same as theirs. I don't know, I'm not sure what exactly to say about this...

Back at the Lodge...

2009-02-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

So yea, it's been a while since I've posted on some fine eatery business, so I guess I'll make an attempt to get back to the food aspect of my blog. So here it is folks... You all know (and if not, I'm obviously telling you now) that I've been hittin' the slopes quite often this season. I've noticed my dieting has been going haywire because of this. Yea, I make an attempt at being healthy... We'll leave it at that for now. But anyways, any traveler knows that your options are pretty limited in terms of having an outlet to healthy eating when venturing relatively far from home. In my case, headin' to Tahoe to hit the slopes means: departure at 5am, a stop to McD's to get McDonald's breakfast, arrival at the resort, a day of shred, and food back at the lodge (not to mention another fast food dinner meal on the way home). So unless you cook your own food or go a day on granola bars, you're pretty much stuck with this:

You can find this joint at Boreal aside the normal cafeteria-ish food like pizza, corndogs, chicken tenders, etc. Your standard heart-attack platter, the chili & cheese fries. Something to warm your stomach on a cold day. Just know and be aware of your stomach tendencies after consumption. You don't wana catch my drift on this one... so stand upwind.

If you're in the mood for a burger, why not get the steak burger? You can find this at Sierra (South Lake Tahoe). Steak Burger?! Yea, that's what I said. I guess it's just an excuse to charge more for it. Soon there'll be prime rib burgers too. Wait, do they have those already?

When I can't make up my mind or am not in the mood for anything in particular, I always resort to the standard chicken tender plate. Something about snow resorts and chicken tenders. I feel like you can't go wrong. This is also at Sierra, where you can ask for a cup of nacho cheese to dip your fries in. EeuGh!

If you do find yourself at Sierra's lodge, I do recommend you try this: the pulled pork sandwich. Of course it's not going to compare to pulled pork you can get at a smokehouse or at a bbq party or something, but it'll suffice if you're not into all the other standard and boring resort food.

One of my favorite joints though would have to be at Northstar. What is this you might ask?

What happens is, they take a whole french roll, cut off the end, and impale it on the rods on this machine. It ends up packing the inside of the french roll so there's enough room to pack a hot dog link inside.
And in the end you get this:

And two minutes later, you're at the bottom already. Don't worry about ketchup and mustard, they pack it in there for you. If you want it by itself, you can purchase the Frog Dog for $7. If you want it to come with chips and a drink, it goes for $11... and it's called, "The Big Deal." Ha. Thas right... Please believe it's a big deal.

Around Northstar they have these stands with "Euro Snack" posted all over em'. So if you're looking for these little huts that sell these lil' joints, look for "Euro Snack." And at the end of the day, this particular smell hits the air. Believe me when I say that the smell is sweet enough that you can almost taste it in the air. Towards closing time, everybody flocks to the stand to buy a waffle. And so many people order em' that the smell fills the air. And at $4 a pop, these things are worth every cent. It tastes like waffles, pancakes, french toast, churros, and anything doughy and sweet all mixed up into a square waffle that fits in your palm. After a long day hittin' the slopes, this definitely tops everything off.

It was so hot, we had to let one sit on the ice.

And 2 seconds later, it looks like this:

So for all you hittin' the slopes anytime soon, you know what to look for back at the lodge. If anything, I definitely recommend you get that waffle at Northstar... Especially at the end of your run. Trust me on this one. If you don't, why would you be reading this in the first place? Anyways, I probably wouldn't order this kinda stuff on the regular anywhere near home. But there's something about being in the snow and chillin' in the lodge that makes me enjoy the cafeteria-like entrees. It becomes comfort food, but only in the snow. And it's not like you have much of a choice unless you packed your own lunch. But that's just more shit to carry.

Ya dig?

- Raw

Snowbound... yet again (run #5)

2009-02-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

Like I said in the previous post, I'll be headin' up to Tahoe again to hit the slopes.
Super juiced, probably because this'll be the first time I get to use my new gear. And for those who haven't kept up with my snow-related news (and even if you have), here's a lil' taste of my new new. Or is it nu nu?

The 2009 Burton Custom with the new ICS system

Don't mind my, "Sorry Roger, u Tiger now!" blanket. Haha. It's the sickest shit ever. Super comfy. But back to the board: these are the Burton Triad EST's. It stands for Extra Sensory Technology. They only work with the new ICS system. Extra cushion...Super Buttery.

This is the new ICS system. It stands for Infinite Channel System. Instead of your standard 3D system, where you screw in 3 - 4 screws from the bottom of your binding into your board, this system allows you to screw in your bindings with only two screws along a track that allows you to rotate and place your bindings in an infinite amount of stances. Traditionally with the 3D system, you can rotate your stance in any degree, but the process is lengthy, and the spots where u move your bindings on the board to either widen or shorten your stance is limited to placement in the holes on the board. This new technology is breaking away from traditional thinking, offering endless possibilities in the way you ride.

Super comfy binding straps that wrap around the toe area and push your boot into your binding as suppose to the traditional binding that straps over the wide part of the foot, squeezing and putting pressure on your feet.

I'll be doin' the regular one day trip.
Leavin' at 5am and headin to Northstar. See ya'll when I get back.

- Raw

Flashbacks

2009-02-25T15:25:00.000-08:00

The other night a good friend of mine called me and we got to chattin' about what's to come in '09, particularly in our travel plans. We have yet to decide on a big annual trip that us guys usually go on, just to get away and have a big vacation to look forward to. So then of course comes the flashbacks. We're trying to expand our horizons and travel anywhere and everywhere that sparks interest, but of course your natural default is to resort to going to Las Vegas. I can hear slot machines ringing in my head, chips shuffling, and the Outfield - Your Love constantly playing in the back of my head. So if you need a quick fix, this might do you a little justice.

Craps

Click here to play this game

The rules aren't 100% the same as if you were playing in a casino.
But whatever, just to imagine you're back at the tables is enough sometimes.

I love travel. '08 was a great fuckin year for travel...at least for me. In '08, I went to Vegas on average once every two months. Two of those times included the fellas rollin' 20 deep into clubs ordering bottles like there's no such thing as the recession. Damn. I love it. I've been down to SoCal a few times the past year also, but who's counting. I hit Seattle up for the first time too - that was a good trip. I'm glad that I've made it to Tahoe 4 times this season, making 5 after tomorrow. Yazzzzur, I'm snowbound once again. Tryna' get some good footage I can share with ya'll. Next season I'm definitely hittin up a season pass. Gona' hit that 100 mark. Fuck, that's tough. That's 20 times a month starting in December, so iono.. haha. I'll prolly hit at least the 20 mark, that's for sure. So whoever's down, holla!

- Raw

Burton

2009-02-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

By the way, this is that new board I copped last week.

Ayo Technology maaaaan. A lotta people hate on Burton 'cause it's the mainstream commercialized Nike of the snowboard game - when it comes down to it, it's really all preference. Personally, I'm sold on this ICS stuff.

At least for now...

- Raw

Don't Quote Me

2009-02-23T01:52:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of runner ups, but this to me has been my personal favorite quote of the year thus far.
Now I'm not sure if you'll feel me exactly, realizing that you'd have to somewhat understand the context. Nothing too inside joke-ish, the fellas were all just drunk one night gettin' into a funny conversation about women.

"...Man, I'll cook some fried rice that'll turn that bitch out!..."

Said by a homie of mine, this quote never fails to at least crack a smile, even if there's no laughter behind it. Maybe u had to have been there, but I just thought I'd post it. I need some comic relief. I've been goin through snow withdrawals, even if I just went last monday. And because I just bought a new setup, the withdrawals get worst cause I just wana use my new shit already. I had a whole week of traveling and partying and the sucky thing about it is it all ended with my basketball game today which our team lost. Although I didn't lose the game for the team or anything, I personally felt I "didn't bring my A-Game."

It was a crazy week. Kinda glad it's over.

- Raw

Oh fack! Garbage day and I didn't do it yet. Don't u hate those moments?

P-P-P-Penis

2009-02-18T02:08:00.000-08:00

I'm glad I fly Virgin America...
They have the newest airplanes, individual interactive touch screens, and comfy/spacious seats.
And oh...they also don't serve penis.

via: Dlisted

- Raw

Just Wait

2009-02-17T04:15:00.000-08:00

'til I return with endless footage from Tahoe.
I didn't feel like posting a whole bunch of pictures, so here's a preview of what's to come.

(Flicks and Clips were taken at either Boreal, Northstar, or Sierra... or somewhere along the way)

Snowbound... Again

2009-02-15T12:04:00.000-08:00

Yazzur. Back at it again.
It's been a few weeks since our last run, so I must admit I'm pretty excited to hit the slopes on Monday. This would be run #4 for me. Plus I just copped a shitload of nifty tuning tools for upkeep and maintenance.

My personal favorite: the hot stick iron.

It's basically a flat iron to melt and apply wax on your board. I would use an old iron (like the ones u use for clothes), but those have holes in them. The stick iron looks pretty sweet though, it looks like u can do a whole buncha other crazy bullshit, like make grilled cheese sandwiches or smash someone's face in and leave a crazy burn print.

Photos from the trip when I return.

- Raw

p.s. To any of you catching this, if you go to www.anymountain.net (The Any Mountain store's website), you can join the Any Mountain preferred customer program for free. You basically just get e-mails on deals and all that junk-mail business. But the point is, it's free...PLUS, you get a coupon for $50 off a $100 item. The downside is, it's only off a single item, and I'm spreading the news pretty late. The coupon expires tomorrow (Monday 2/16). The closest ones I know of are Berkely, Redwood City, and San Jose. Get it in!

Happy Valentime's... I mean Valentine's Day.

2009-02-14T05:10:00.000-08:00

Greetings from SF's Pelican Delivery. Support your local businesses! Especially this one, cause the owner's a personal friend. No, I take it back...Brethren. No, really. They're great. Yelp em'. So what did we do on a Friday night when things are lookin' pretty soft on the eve of Valentine's Day? Kick back some beers, peel some crawdads, and sip cognac. Biatch!

Peel away...

...only... your hands smell like boudissy after.

FLOSS

boudissy is butt and pussy mixed together... by the way.

right J-Man?

EeuGh!

bet u ain't got one of these...

old school calcs... chords on phones?

"looks like it's about that time...gentlemen."

So like I said... Pelican's great. Try em' out. Yelp em'. They'll take care of all your delivery needs. Other than that, stay safe and don't forget to add "boudissy" to your vocabulary. I hope you and that special someone have something planned for Valentine's Dizznay. Don't get too romanticle. Pervs.

- Raw

They Can't Figure Him Out, They Like Hey Is He Insane?

2009-02-13T01:00:00.001-08:00

I was once told that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Well, every time I wear my favorite pair of sneakers when attending a Warriors game, they win.
So in this case, I don't want different results.
I'm going to do the same thing and get the same outcome (hopefully!).
I've been to quite a few games this season, and the one night I didn't wear these to the game, they lost.
That game was the Monday (Feb. 2) night game against the Spurs, where we lost in OT.
I also went to opening night, and we lost there too...
I was not wearing the sneakers of course cause this was before my theory existed.
The last game I went to was on Tuesday (Feb. 10) against the Knicks - we won, I had the sneaks.
Another memorable moment was our victory over the Celtics - we won, I had the sneaks.

Now ya'll might not believe in superstition, but in this case, why change a good thing?
I wear the sneaks, they win the games. Let's ride this out as long as we can.

The only catch is, I have to attend the game.
Warriors in the playoffs? Now that's pretty insane, but never impossible.

...and oh, kudos to the fashionista who can name the shoes. I hate flossin' on the net, but sometimes I get the urge to, uh...SPLASH!...

- Raw

Guilty Pleasure (Part I)

2009-02-06T02:05:00.000-08:00

We all have em' ... U can't deny em'.
That's what makes mainstream so popular - you can't help but like it.
And since I'm starting this new, "Guilty Pleasure" portion of my blog, I must start with my ultimate #1 guilty pleasure of all time. This song has been my #1 guilty pleasure since Spring '08, and I think it'll be hard to top that song anytime soon.

Imagine a night consisting of hours of alcohol consumption, a plethora of pure MDMA, and enough cocaine to make South Lake Tahoe look like the Sahara Desert. Being blinded by a never ending laser show and fireballs shooting from the pyrotechnic machines mounted on the ceiling, you remember why crazy shit like this only happens in Vegas. All the white girls begin to go crazy and dance like wild banshees. And it's all because of this song...

I don't expect you to feel me on this one.
But if you don't, you've probably never been to Vegas.
Or at least heard this song in one of their clubs.

Don't judge.

- Raw

The Jedi's Must Be Pissed!

2009-02-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

All these years I've wondered how they've kept warm. Well, the secret's out.
And I thought this was that stupid Amish fireplace commercial.
Luckily my body has been blessed with good insulation. Suckas.

Rehabilitation

2009-02-02T00:30:00.000-08:00

My boy put me on this a while back. He said he caught it on current tv. So I know to many this might be old news, but at least now others can feel that they're not the ones that only just heart about it but didn't see it. Funny little skittles commercial. Did you notice that every person in the customer's reflection is different? There's a black dude on the left, a dude who I think looks like Saddam Hussein in the middle, and the dude on the right who I think is speaking Tagalog to the tailor.

Anyways, it was another short weekend in the books.

Friday - Rehabilitation. Don't want to talk much about it, cause it's nasty. I was fucked up with what I thought was hybrid illness between food poisoning and the stomach flu.

Saturday - Felt strong enough to get out of the house. Ended up in Sacramento visiting family friends.

Sunday - Basketball team gets first victory, making our record 1 - 1. Felt good to get a W and more playing time. And oh yea, the Superbowl... big deal. The Steelers are raw. In '04, I called that shit way in advance. Everyone's a Polomalu fan, but that year, I knew they'd win the Superbowl once playoffs hit. I had too much faith in Heath Miller and Willie Parker who were both rookies that year. But now that they hold the record for 6 Superbowl wins, the Niners don't have much to hang on to. Whatever tho, I can't hate.

Catch ya'll soon.

- Raw

Good Night World

2009-01-29T23:10:00.000-08:00

Before I bid you good night, I have to tell you that I've just discovered that I made a mistake.
Mums does have an all you can eat option that doesn't include sake & beer. That plate is only $24.95
The Shabu House still beats Mums.
The meat is better.

If you need a refresher, see my earlier posts: The House Wins & Shabu-balaboopy

That's all for now. Jus needed to clear the air.

...good night world...

- Raw

Good Afternoon World

2009-01-29T16:05:00.000-08:00

I couldn't help but laugh when thinking of about this game I played on the way back from Tahoe. I believe it's called "Six Degrees of Separation." The object of the game is to somehow connect two actors in six ways or less. To do so, you link them with other actors/actresses from their past films. It makes it more fun though when you make things interesting and hard by choosing two far-off actors. By far-off, I mean two actors that seem nearly impossible to link up.

For example, Steven Seagal and Sarah Jessica Parker.

How the fuck would you link them two?
So yea, our car burst out in laughter while I actually made an attempt.
The conversation went as such:

Alex: "Steven Seagal and Sarah Jessica Parker?!?!"

Darryl: "She was in Failure to Launch with Matthew McConaughey if that helps."

Me: "C'mon now... Steven Seagal was in Exit Wounds with DMX who was in Romeo Must Die with Anthony Anderson. He's been in a lotta movies."

(I later find out that Anthony Anderson is actually in Exit Wounds, so that degree of separation didn't matter... but it made the car ride funny anyways.)

Alex: "Hahaha... Anthony Anderson!!!"

Me: "Yea. Anthony Anderson, who was also in Barbershop with Ice Cube..."

Alex: "Oh shit... Ice Cube was in Anaconda with Jennifer Lopez."

Me: "And she was in The Wedding Planner with Matthew McConaughey who was in Failure to Launch with Sarah Jessica Parker!"

... the car bursts out in laughter ...

Well it may not seem funny written down, but it was funny as hell in the car when it happened.
In fact, 'til this day, thinking about it makes me laugh. So it made my afternoon.

- Raw

Good Morning World

2009-01-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

What's in your lunchbox today?
More importantly, what'd you have for breakfast? Ahh, yes. That meal. The one that's often referred to as, "the most important meal of the day." The meal that, for half of my young adult life, I was never awake in time for.
And yet while many people say it's "the most important meal of the day," many people don't know what it means.

This is where the fat man breaks knowledge where other fat boys can't.

Breakfast. It's made up of two words: break and fast.
That's exactly what breakfast does - you're breaking your fast.
No, not fast like a Nascar, I mean fast, like Ramadan in the Muslim culture.
During those hours of sleep, your body is fasting. Even if you ate right before you went to bed, somewhere along those 8 hours your body is going without food. That's why moms had you eat something before you went to school. You're gettin' calories in you to be broken down and used for energy. You'd probably be more attentive and focused in class. So eat up children, and believe your Pilipino uncle when he says, "It ish guud per de brein!"

Now for all you up and coming meatheads that prefer brawns over brain, you all should know that this applies to you guys as well. Look up: Catabolism. Break the fast fellas. Every meathead'll tell you that when you hit the gym and lift weights, you're technically not building muscle, you're breaking em' down. That's what working out is. It's when you're resting that your muscles are building (or re-building technically). What happens after the gym is just as, if not more important than what actually happened in the gym. Be wise and eat healthy. After a work out, if you don't replenish your bodies with some well needed calories, your muscles will go into a catabolic state. What it basically means is, you're body is looking for energy and nutrients to repair your newly torn muscles to rebuild and make em' bigger and stronger (what happens after u work out). When you don't eat, your muscles will eat themselves, the opposite of why u went to the gym to workout in the first place. That's why meatheads take whey protein immediately after their workout. And even more crucial meatheads take Casein protein, a slow reactive protein that breaksdown in your body over the course of 6-8 hours. You can take that before you sleep so your muscles never go hungry.
But hey, don't worry about all that meathead business. Just make sure you eat something when you wake up. In fact, you don't need to be on that GNC hype.

The egg is still the single most reliable natural source of protein.

You don't have to take my word for it.
But my stomach is happier than yours right now.

before the damage...
smoked salmon, poached eggs, & toast

Have a wonderful day and a great workout.

- Raw

The House Wins

2009-01-28T12:30:00.000-08:00

Such a sad phrase when referring to gambling.
Luckily, that's not the case.
By "house," I mean "Shabu House." (If you need a little preface, see my earlier post: Shabu-balaboopy) In the battle between the Shabu House and Mums, I declare the Shabu House the winner. By no means is it a undisputed, hands down type of victory, but there are a few things that give the Shabu House the 1up on Mums.

Taken mid January, here are some Shabu House photos.

Dipping sauces

Kobe Beef

Drop it in...

Shake it up...

**side note: here is a cooked piece of meat that I dropped in my dipping sauce. it reminded me of a particular Japanese meat dish called, "momiji." It's a beef dish that comes with a vinegar based sauce that you can soak or dip the beef in. It's crackin'... The downside is that I have only found it served at this Japanese restaurant in San Bruno called, "Akagi." Many people appreciate Akagi for their speedy service and decent tasting bento boxes, but other than that, a Japanese food fanatic would rather spend his or her time elsewhere with higher quality Japanese food. BUT, I challenge someone to find me somewhere else where they serve a momiji dish and if they serve it just as good as Akagi. I'll go there and order their momiji any day.**

Plate #1

Plate #2

I scream two top hit off

Quality of food (I should say meat really), the Shabu House takes the cake.
Mums is not bad, but it's thick, like many other places that serve shabu.
You may think that thick is a good thing - in this case, I feel it is the opposite.
The Shabu House's thinner slices of Kobe Beef are more savory.
Like that line in Sunset Park, "...it's butta baybeh..."
On top of that, the Spicy Miso broth beats the plain water broth used at Mums.

You can have the same all-you-can-eat meal with better quality meat for a cheaper price.

But I can't just bash Mums, it's definitely a restaurant I'd go back to multiple times.
Here's the other side of the fence...
One thing that makes Mums a worthy Shabu House competitor is the service.
They have a staff of maybe 8-10 people running the floor. They don't stick to one table, they help ALL tables. And they do a good job floating around, gauranteeing that whatever service you need at the table will be taken care of. Meat, vegetables, beer, sake all come out almost instantaneously.
The service at the Shabu House isn't bad, however it isn't great either. Two brothers work as the main hosts (they look like twins almost), along with a team of maybe 3-4 waitresses. I'll admit, sometimes they forget about things or take a little longer than I'd like to refill my water. But patience is a virtue. They're not that bad all the time.

My conclusion:

If you just want quality in meat, go to the Shabu House.
If you're interested in the all you can eat special and you're not concerned with beer and sake, go to the Shabu House. Usually there's instant seating at the bar (usually, meaning if it's not full...obviously).

If you have a medium to large sized party and you want the all you can eat AND drink special, go to Mums. Everything seems to be larger. Unlimited sake and beer. The sake's not too shabby and they serve beer in the Chris Raw size bottles. By that I mean the 32oz. plus size bottles - not the regular 12 oz. one's you would normally order.

Choose up.

- Raw

The Return

2009-01-27T17:05:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, we hit the slopes. Came back.
Saturday was Ryan's birthday celebration at the club.
Sunday was the first bball game of the season (I signed up for a league... sort of).
Monday, we hit the slopes again.

Now it's Tuesday evening, and I'm glad that I dont have any special event to tell you about other than the fact that I've been taking care of my Grandpa all day and resting.
Later I got practice, where I'll probably get a good hour of drumming (Tahitian) in.
I'll then rendezvous with Dirty D, the author of yourDIRTYmagazine, and discuss current events, the latest hip hop related videos, and any newly discovered hot spots for grub (local or non-local).

I'll be back with some good stuff. Stay tuned.

- Raw

The Day After / Snowbound... again.

2009-01-22T21:42:00.000-08:00

First off, a big Happy Birthday to my boy Ryan Casuga.
Happy Birthday you Lil' Boosie ass nukka.

Since it's raining and some classes got canceled this friday, we're hittin' the snow again.
Doin' another one-day quick fix: leave at 5am, hit the slopes, and return in the evening.
It's quick, easy, and cheap.

But anyways, I'll leave you with my Daly City hidden gem.
What was in that to-go box I posted a few posts back?

FILIPINO BBQ

The restaurant's called Manila Express.
This is your standard 3-piece pork bbq plate.
U can't see much of it in this picture, but trust me when I say that this meat is coated with a semi-sweet red sauce that works much like crack - hit it once and you'll come back...trust.
Comfort food. Especially the day after an exhausting day of snowboarding.
As a kid, this was a common saturday morning meal with the fam.
Having this as a sunday afternoon meal was a good post-snowboarding thing to do.
If you haven't had this before, then it may not do the same to you.
But if you're willing to try it out, it's located on my street, Gellert Blvd.
425 Gellert Blvd. Daly City to be exact.
I gaurantee you probably won't find it for a few minutes.
It's in the cuts. Like a hole in the wall behind 3 other hole in the wall's located behind a 7-11...haha...literally.
Find it.
And I bet you that my city's filipino bbq shit's on your city's filipino bbq.
At least when we're talking about pork... on a stick...
I dont say this to talk shit, but in an act of faith to stand behind this product.

Try me.

Damage.

- Raw

The Day Of

2009-01-20T02:30:00.000-08:00

What a fuckin' day...
Please excuse my language, but I must say that I am extremely pleased with the outcome of our one-day Tahoe quickie considering the unfortunate events that took place leading up to it.

Allow me.

First off, Friday afternoon we were scrambling around to find a rental car, or any means of transportation for that matter. We were running low on options.
Darryl's SUV was headed for the shop.
Janette's SUV needed maintenance.
Muriel's SUV is bound for death.
My car has massive cracks on the windshield and squealing breaks.
Alex was busy being drunk.
Luckily with the help of a good friend over at Enterprise, we were able to get an '09 Ford Expedition for cheaper than your average monthly cell phone bill. But we weren't sure at first what the outcome would be because it was a four day weekend for MLK Day and Enterprise didn't have cars at all. It could've been a Expedition, it could've been a Geo Metro. Luckily the cards were in our favor. I guess that wasn't an unfortunate event, but the stress of dealing with our means of transportation raised my blood pressure significantly. I'm glad it worked out, we were even considering not going under certain circumstances.
What was unfortunate though, was that while I was doing a load of laundry so I could actually have clothes to wear to Tahoe, my dryer decides to turn into a pussy, and took an extra hour longer to dry clothes that it usually gets done in 30 minutes. This delays my rendezvous with Darryl and Alex at Alex's house - I was supposed to be there at 1am, instead me and Darryl arrive at 2:30am (keep in mind, we're leaving at 5am). So because fate has decided to make me the lagger of the year, Alex decides to turn into the drunkard of the year.
Not really, but for that day, maybe he was.
The plan, after dispersing at 11:00pm, was to rendezvous at 1am at Alex's.
Anxiously awaiting our arrival, Alex begins to drink himself stupid because he can no longer wait for us after realizing that we didn't show up at 1am.
Just when we thought things were going good, Darryl and I show up to Alex's house, only to see through his living room window that he is passed out on his couch and that his phone was nowhere in sight...great...
After waiting and hoping that he would arise from his drunken death slumber, Darryl and I came to the conclusion that we might as well sleep in the car and wait for the morning.

Just to note, '09 Ford Expedition headrests = DEATH!
The worst engineering ever. Damn.
Can someone just make a car with seats comfortable enough to sleep in and get a good night's rest? Or at least a power nap...

Only by fate does Alex wake up at 5am and call us to apologize and ask where the hell we're at, in which we reply that we've been outside the whole night, which then made Alex apologize more and then blame me for doing my laundry and not being on time.

Anyways, we end up making it to Tahoe, where the table begins to turn.
The drive was fun and hittin' the slopes was exciting. We ended up getting separated for about 2 hours but it was all good. Nothing to fret about.
I even ran into some good folks from BMB.

(the arrival)

...amongst all the organized chaos of snow rubble. is it really necessary? at least it's waterproof...

I can tell you that this probably is... (Costco, 10/$10 - taste the difference)(...farewell Sierra... 'til next time)

When the resort closed, we couldn't be satisfied with ending the day there and going home, so we hit the casinos in South Lake Tahoe.

At first, it was colder than ever. I'm not talking about the weather, I mean the tables.
Craps was cut throat and Roulette wasn't looking too good either.
We began to question why we even came to the casinos.
Why didn't we just go home?
With the little money we had left, we either could've lost it all in good fun, or left with whatever pride and dignity we had left.
That's when me and Darryl turned it all around.
Putting the negative mentality behind us, we watched the Roulette board until we felt it was time to place our favorite bet, the "2nd 12."
Let it ride? Let it ride?
The series of events is now a blur to me, but what I do remember, is that "2nd 12" must've hit at least 10 times in two different sessions where it hit back to back at least 4-5 times in a row.
All of a sudden, Darryl and I were staring at about $400 thinking, "man we were just about to leave too."
I then proceeded back to the craps table, which by the way is currently empty because everyone left due to shitty shooters and cold dice. Standing there with good company, I let my girlfriend shoot. Little did I know that after hitting a few points, hardways, and come bets, we would leave Tahoe happy campers.

Even this one couldn't handle the excitement.

She has decided to remain nameless.
But anyways, after all the commotion, she warns us that she has began to feel dizzy and lightheaded. What happens next? Casino security walks by. We assured security that she'll be fine once we get her some water and something to eat considering we haven't eaten since that afternoon and it's late + snowboarding is somewhat physically exhausting.

So what does casino security suggest? They insisted that she takes a couple hits from the oxygen tank. They were hawking her like they were some kind of drug dealers tryna get you on some new shit. The funny thing was that they were right and she felt better after taking a couple of oxygen hits. And the whole time, we thought they were tryna scheme and maybe detain us on some bullshit. Or at least kick us out. But hey, she turned out alright in the end. Peep the smile through the oxygen mask.

The ironic thing is that the last time we went on vacation with her, we were in Vegas, and her friend was wheel chaired outta the club and back to the hotel room.
This one was given an oxygen tank.

What's next?

- Raw

The Night Before

2009-01-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

The night before departure, my friends and I had a nice little sit down dinner.
My friend put me on this Korean BBQ joint in the avenues, a nice hole in the wall.
They have regular sit down tables, but they also have larger tables with a custom grill in the middle so you can cook your food. With everyone being high-spirited and awaiting the mini-vacay ahead of us, we opted to cook our own food.

**side note: If I'm going to pay top dollar, someone better cook that shit for me. But Korean BBQ and Japanese Shabu Shabu are foods I will make an exception to cooking myself in a restaurant.**

I forgot if we had spare or short ribs, but other than that we had the chicken and my personal favorite, BULGOGI. Or is it Bul-Go-Gi? I duno, I'm not too familiar with the Korean language.

The upside is the food is crackin, and it appears to be a healthier meal than something deep fried or similar to that nature. Cooking it yourself might actually do something psychologically to make your food taste better, but either way, it's a fun experience to share with other people. They also give you a whole assortment of extra giblets to eat on the side with your food. I wasn't very fond of many of them, but I'm sure a lot of people love em.

I hate to say anything negative about such a nice place, but there is a downside. A common issue, not only with this restaurant but many others where u cook your own food, is that when you leave the place, you'll probably carry the smell of whatever you cooked and ate that night. It'll be on you AND your clothes. So my recommendation: if you plan on going out that evening, change first! Or at least change your shirt or your top or take off your sweater. Being that dude in the club that smells like food isn't the best look one could have.

Aftermath
Here it is suckas... go find it.

- Raw

Hello Again

2009-01-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

My friends and I just returned from Tahoe. We packed all our things in an '09 Ford Expedition and took off yesterday at 6 in the morning. After a fun day of tearin' up the slopes, we took a little trip deeper into the heart of Tahoe and gambled at their main "strip" (and I have to say "strip," because it's arguable that it's not much of a strip considering it only has 3-4 main hotel casinos). And now we're back home. We returned today at around 2am and knocked out for a bit.

So I give you this box to ponder upon.

After waking up, this is what we ate.
Tell me what it is and I might take you there one day.

More to come soon...

- Raw

Shabu-balaboopy

2009-01-15T02:00:00.000-08:00

"what does it mean?"

"...iono..."

"Shabu Shabu" is Japanese for, "shake shake."
...later I was told that it roughly translates to, "swish swish"...
But being that I am not Japanese, nor do I speak the language, I am not sure how accurate that translation is. What I can tell you, however, is that's what I was told by a waitress while eating in Hollywood at a restaurant called, "Koji's." Maybe that's what they tell customers to make their dinner more interesting.
...man was she fine...
But anyways, Shabu Shabu, described as some as, "Japanese Beef Fondue," is a Japanese dish consisting of thinly sliced beef and assorted vegetables. The slices of beef are cooked almost instantly after shaking in a pot of boiling water or broth. Served with rice and dipping sauces, this particular dish has made it's way into my personal favorites of '08.

Last Friday, I was fortunate enough to celebrate a friend's birthday at a restaurant that serves Shabu. That night, we ate at "Cafe Mums," a restaurant located inside of Hotel Tomo in Japantown, SF. I wouldn't actually consider it "inside" since the entrance is still located on the street. One would not have to actually enter Hotel Tomo. Hotel Tomo is just connected to it.
It's on the corner of Sutter and Buchanan.
I feel sorry for those who have eaten at Mums and did not order the all you can eat Shabu Shabu (that's like ordering a fish plate at the House of Prime Rib).
I know nothing of the breakfast or lunch menu - all that matters, is that for $42.95 and some tip, you can have all you can eat Shabu Shabu AND all u can drink sake and beer for 2 hours. Well, maybe 1 and 1/2, but we stayed there for 2 and they didn't mind.

Good Food. Good Company.
The essential ingredients.

They have Asahi... They have Sapporro... They have sake.

And oh, the Shabu's pretty good too.

Plus dessert. They have green tea ice cream. I hate green tea by the way, so I asked for vanilla.

$42.95... + tip...
All you can eat shabu shabu.
Never ending sake bombs.
All within 2 hours.
My end of the table (4 guys) consumed about 6 plates of beef.
In my opinion, it's worth it.
Unless you're a vegetarian that doesn't drink alcohol.
The atmosphere is great and the service is fast.
Although it gets pretty loud cause everyone's pretty much drunk.

Is it safe for a date with you and your girl? Eh, maybe.
It's better for a slightly bigger party.
And make sure they have an appetite so they feel they got their money's worth.
Or at least drink.

I do recommend another spot though, just as satisfying, and not as much a big a dent in your wallet.
Also in SF is the "Shabu House," located on Geary blvd. between 15th & 16th ave.
You can definitely taste the quality in the beef here compared to Mums.
A reason why that may be so is because they advertise Kobe Beef.
I'm not sure what exactly Mums carries. I honestly just sat down, asked for the, "all you can eat," and started eating. Restaurants will generally serve rib-eye or top sirloin - when sliced thin, it's hard to distinguish between the two.
The Kobe Beef, however, at the Shabu House is actually the best Shabu beef I've ever tasted thus far. Maybe it's thinner? Who knows. All I can say is that I know it tastes better.
I'll probably update a future blog with photo's from the Shabu House just to give ya'll a taste.

Their Dinner Kobe Beef Shabu Shabu plate is $15.99 for the regular, and $18.99 for the large. Imagine something similar to the pictures above, only, after you finish your plate, another one doesn't come out. I want to say that they do also have an all you can eat and drink option, but I'm not sure about the price and the time limit. I'd assume that beer and sake is included.
I'll give an update on that later.
They also do give you 3 choices of soup base to cook with: water, spicy miso, or ginger chicken broth. My personal favorite in terms of flavor is the spicy miso. Trrrruuuuuust.

Anyways, I hope that one day, you too will also be as passionate about Shabu Shabu.

- Raw

McDonald's Brunch Menu

2009-01-13T09:30:00.000-08:00

an interesting turn of events...

yesterday, my father, being surprised that i was up early enough to see the sun, asked me to head to 7-11 to buy the san jose mercury news. he also told me to grab some breakfast from mcdonalds (a health disaster as you all may know, but proves to me to be one of the best hangover cures).
what this really translates into is, he needed to find a way to kick me off the computer so he can check his email.
so i leave.
arriving at the drive thru around 10:45am, it occurs to me that breakfast stops getting served at 10:30am. i ask for breakfast anyways, and to my surprise, they allowed me to order both.

the best of both worlds? unfortunately not. the trade is, by that time, they no longer have hash browns.so i had the egg mcmuff with chicken nuggets and fries.
weird combo.

but in the spirit of it all, i also went to 7-11 and bought both the sf chronicle and the san jose mercury news.

so now you know.
head to the drive thru slightly after 10:30 for the brunch special.
i'm personally not a huge fan - the absence of the hash brown ruins the whole breakfast sandwich experience.

stay tuned.

- Raw

"In the beginning..."

2009-01-12T09:26:00.000-08:00

...there was raw...

Chris Raw, that is. At least in this beginning. And as a child, I was fortunate enough to have a few good years before I was too cool to carry my lunch in a box. So before I become too cool or old for things on the internet, like this blog, here is my modern day lunchbox. And it's filled with all kinds of crazy shhhhhiet. In the end, I hope you find the contents of my entries at the least bit useful, interesting, or funny.

But there's no use in explaining it all at once.

For the most part, my aim is to try to stay anonymous as possible.
Content should speak for itself.
But many of my readers probably know me or discovered this site through other means in which my identity is on display (...didn't sound as tacky as, "my myspace page" ...).

So, without further ado...