Great Weekend.

I had a fantastic weekend. Thursday night, the Redskins' rivals the Cowboys won their football game. Now, I'm normally never one to root for the boys, but since they won, and Green Bay lost on Sunday, this gives the Cowboys home field advantage in the playoffs. This also means, they now have nothing to gain by beating the Skins this coming week. So, they will likely rest some of their starters in order to get set for the playoffs...making a win for us more likely...and thus helpful to us to creep into the playoffs. On a side note, Terrell Owens got injured in the Dallas game on Thursday so he definitely will not play against the Skins. Hail to the Redskins!

Then on Saturday, I drove up to Atlantic City with some friends. We gambled all night Saturday and crashed hard Saturday morning. After a 5-6 hour nap, we woke up and headed home...making a detour on the way to stop by Philadelphia for some authentic Cheesesteaks. Mmmmm....sooooo yummy. I shoulda bought more to reheat later. I lost money in AC, but it's cool. I always go into a casino thinking I will lose. So I only bring what I plan to lose, and if I lose it all, I don't withdraw anymore money. I brought $400 with me, and lost only about $250. So that's a win in my book. I played very little poker this trip, just like every other trip. my belief is that I can play poker anytime anywhere. I take a special trip to a casino, I wanna play games I can't normally play...like Pai Gow, Blackjack, Craps, Roulette. Unfortunately, these games don't give me the edge like I hold in poker. Oh wells, it was fun.

Sunday. I get home just in time to get set for the Redskins game. They win, of course, beating the Vikings (who are also in the hunt for a wild card playoff spot). So that is a double bonus win for the Skins.

Monday. Xmas eve. Unfortunately, I have to go into work. But I get in at like 7 AM, so I'm out by noon. I get home in time to meet up with my cousins and celebrate our xmas that evening. (Yes we celebrate on xmas eve..don't ask why.) I got lots of cool gifts and ate lots of good food.

Tuesday. Xmas. Having already opened presents and celebrated the night before, I spend the day with my sister and my cousins. We eat delicious Dim Sum. We watch Sweeney Todd (a violent, but nonetheless decent musical movie starring Johnny Depp) And we cap off the day with Pho for dinner.

Only one more week till New Year's. Can't wait to see what this weekend has in store for me!

My December

Hooray for December! Hands down the best month of the year in my opinion. Here's why December is extra awesome for me this year:

-Start new Job at Mitre
My new job rocks. I get to work at like 7:30 AM everyday, but the bright side is I'm out by 4. I wear jeans, tennis shoes, and a polo shirt, or nice tee to work everyday. I make 21% more than I was making at Bearingpoint, and I get the cruciallest benefits ever. Work has never been so fun. Oh, did I mention, they're planning on sending me to Vegas for a week as part of my training. I love this place.

-Snow
Snow means a bunch of things. Most importantly, snowboard season is here. On top of that, I'm just a kid at heart. You can't beat an old fashioned day of playing in the snow.

-Xmas
I'm Buddhist, I'm not even supposed to celebrate Christmas. I do it because it's fun. My whole family gives gifts. Everyone is in a good mood. And everywhere you go, people are smiling, work is the least stressful it is all year, and cheerful music surrounds. Some people hate xmas shopping, but I love it.

-New Year's
Technically, it's January, but New Year's is always an awesome holiday too. You're bound to find a fun party to go to, cuz they're everywhere. And Nicky Long sure does love that New Year's bubbly. Cristal, anyone?

Hells yea. I love December...it also means my birthday is right around the corner.

Five Years

Hey everyone,
I don't wanna be a downer, and anyone who knows Nicky Long knows it's rare to find me upset or down. But today, I just wanna be serious for a second. Today marks the 5th anniversary to the day of the date my best friend Jack passed away in a tragic car accident. It was five years ago today that he was travelling to celebrate his crossing into a fraternity he'd been pledging in college and after a long night of celebrating, he and his "brothers" were driving back to school at UVA. Around the Northern Virginia area, his friend fell asleep at the wheel and they hit a tree. Despite wearing a seatbelt in the backseat, Jack suffered internal injuries that led to his death at the hospital.

Jack was one of my closest friends growing up. Aside from my other best friends Will and Ali, I spent the majority of my childhood in his basement or hanging out with him during and after school. He was the nicest guy I ever knew and everything he did, he put 200% effort into. He was a bright star who I feel had the most potential of any of my friends, but as fate would have it, his light burned out early.

You never know what life is going to bring, so please take advantage of the times you have. Don't brush off that invitation from a friend to go out to a club or a bar. Don't pass up the opportunity to eat a potluck dinner with some friends. Don't skip a movie that all your friends are seeing just 'cause it's not your type of movie. Making good memories isn't about where you're at or what you're doing. It's about spending valuable time with the ones you love. And those are moments that can never be recreated. You never know what lies in store for you and your friends, so live your life to the fullest and spend every moment you can with those you love.

I still miss you dearly Jack. I can't even begin to list all the great "memories" that we've created since you've been gone and every now and then, it brings a tear to my eye to think of what could've been, if you were still around. I know you're in a better place now, and one day we will see each other again. From all your brothers back here in Burke, LB, the 3 Musketeers...we miss you. Rest in Peace.

R.I.P
Jack Tse-Hou Chen
August 12, 1982 --- November 16, 2000

From all the boys, may you Rest in Peace, Jack.

Happy Halloween.

Yes I'm early, but being extremely at bored, this is all I could think about to blog. So halloween is coming up. Normally, I'm a huge fan of Halloween. Who wouldn't be? You get to dress up as something different, there's a surplus of candy everywhere you go, and moreso than other time in the year you get to go to parties where there will be lots of scantilly clad ladies.

Additionally, I love scary movies, and October seems to be the most ideal time for scary movies to come out in theatres. I haven't heard much about any this year besides the upcoming installment of Saw (the 4th one). I plan to see that Friday night.

Aside from my unknown upcoming halloween activities, fall is right at its midpoint, which means snowboard season is only a month or so away. I can't wait. Soccer is good, my kids are winning and should have no problem finishing out the season on top as long as they come with it every week. Flag football is great. Our team finished 1st after the regular season and we begin playoffs this weekend.

And for my trance friends, I know you all loved Tiesto when he came here last month. I look forward to Paul Oakenfold coming here next month.

That's all I got today for this post. I'll post something a little more interesting next time.

P.S. All my high school friends who I haven't talked to in forever, I know you all still read this from time to time, so holla at me. We need to meet up sometime and catch up. That means you: John, Tony, Crayton, J. Mirabello, C. Neam, Josh, Vinh Tran. I got a new cell phone so I dun got any of y'alls contacts anymore so hit me up. At the minimum, you can leave a post here so I can reach y'all.

Football Fanatic

OK, so everyone who knows me, knows I'm a Futbol fanatic. That's soccer to those of you who don't know. And anyone who knows anything at all about Virginia Tech knows that you can't go to the school without being a Hokie Football fanatic, which I am as well. But new to me this fall, I've been playing flag football on a team with my fellow Hokie Alumni. It's the same crew who's played Turkey Bowl together since we were at school, only now we rep our school in the Reston area against any and everyone who dares register in our league.



Currently, our team is 4-0...leading our division and the only undefeated team. It's now officially the highlight of my week to go Sunday morning and play football with the fellas. After a great game, I can come home and lounge all day in front of the tube for some NFL action. Life is great. Let's Go HOKIES!!!




Our team:

Tiesto Woo!

Hey friends,

Fall is in full swing and I couldn't be any happier with life. My hokies are finally on the upswing after replacing that worthless Sean Glennon with true freshman Tyrod Taylor. Though we're only 2-1, the future looks tremendously promising behind our Tidewater prodigy. My flag football team, also named Hokies, is 2-0. That's attributed to the tremendous amount of chemistry and talent among these guys whom I went to school with. I can't wait to run this league. And finally, my kids that I'm coaching soccer this year are sick nasty too. They're off to a 1-0-1 season so far, but they shoulda been 2-0. Either way, I don't see us losing a game this season and if they play like they did last weekend (we won 8-2), we should crush every team in the league.

But to the main point of today's blog. I FINALLY got to see my boy DJ Tiesto perform over the weekend. Over the past 4 years, he's made it a habit of always coming to perform on Thursday nights and not starting his set till like 1 AM. That means if I wanted to see him, I wouldn't leave the club till like 4 AM and work Friday would be impossible. Fortunately, this time, he did a Saturday show, outdoors, at Love the club in DC. The show was awesome. Tiesto killed his set. It's awesome to see 8000 people waving and cheering in unison. Wish my camera hadn't been broken so I coulda documented the awesomeness that is a Tiesto show.

Hooray for Autumn

Yes, that's right. It's September and that means we're officially in Fall. With the new season comes a few new "seasons" in my life too. First, there's season 3 of coaching soccer. I've moved up this year to coaching U12 boys. So I'm coaching slightly older 10 year olds and 11 year olds now. I've held a few practices already and all I can say is that my team is stacked. I'll be surprised if we don't go all the way again.

Secondly, season 3 of Hokie Nation Fantasy Football has just started. I drew the first pick of the draft this year so I'm pretty happy with my squad. I don't see my other alumni posing any kind of threat to me. You guys can go ahead and transfer your entry fees to me now.

And finally, with the new fall season, comes the new season of television on the horizon. It's been a long wait, but I'm finally ready to watch new seasons of my favorite shows. Heroes, Prison Break, Survivor. Lost doesn't come back till January of next year, but I anticipate that show as well.

Beyond that...fall season simply means we're a few short months away from snowboard season so I'm all smiles.

Big shout out to everyone who made it down for opening weekend at Tech last weekend. Shitty football game, but still awesome weekend!

Japan Rocks!

New month...new post. Seems to be the way with me. Sorry I don't post as often as some of you would like. Not much has changed since my last post. I went to the DC United game last week in which David Beckham finally made his MLS debut. It poured rain, but fortunately my seats were as close as they could be to the field but still stay underneath the upper deck so I didn't get wet. United won, which is always a plus. As long as the players stay healthy, I can see us going all the way this season.

This Sunday is Projekt Revolution. It's probably my most anticipated event of the summer. Not only do I FINALLY get to see Linkin Park in concert, but I also get to see My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday as well. I'm so excited. I plan on getting to the Nissan Pavillion around 1 or 2, and letting the alcoholic debauchery begin until the end of the concert that evening. It's gonna be great.

So to the main topic of this post. I'm not a huge Anime fan or anything. I've seen Akira and Ghost in the Shell movies. That's about it. While all my friends got hooked on Naruto and Bleach, I maybe watched like 3 episodes. But lately, I've been watching this new series airing in Japan called "CLAYMORE". Man, this show is awesome!!!! Without giving too much away, here's the basic concept. There's a group of evil monsters called Joma. They can morph and take the form of humans and they prey on humans. The only way to stop them is to hire these warriors called "Claymores". They are probably called this because of the giant swords they wield. Claymores are half human/half joma. As a result, they can use their joma energy (or yoki as it is called) to detect and fight these monsters. The only catch, is that as you expend yoki, you run the risk of going over your limit. At this point, you yourself turn into a joma. So all Claymores eventually turn into joma. But in the meantime, they kick butt and protect all humans. The show is awesome. I know, Nicky Long you're a geek. Hey, call me a geek all you want, this show is tight. I wish I could be a kid growing up in Japan. Their tv shows are vastly superior to ours. If you don't believe me, check these out:

Claymore:
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/3/2887

Bleach:
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/3/181

Ninja Warrior (badass show about athletes trying to complete a near impossible obstacle course. The twin US gymnastics brothers, the Hamms, could not complete it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1anoHXphvas

Kinchan no Kasoh Taisho (dunno what it means, but it's an awesome game show where people win by doing creative human art skits. You may recognize it from clips such as "Matrix Ping Pong"):
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=2105

Random Post

Yikes, it's been over a month and a half since my last post. Nicky Long is getting lazy. Just kidding, I was already lazy long before this month. In any case, I figured it was about time I posted again considering the little (no) work that I have on my desk right now. We're in the middle of one of the hottest, stickiest summers I can remember. It's one of the things I hate about living on the East Coast. It's not so much that it's hot here, cuz it really isn't. It rarely makes it to 90 degrees except during record heat waves. But the humidity makes it feel like you're in a sauna. Sit outside in the sun for 10 minutes, and you'll break a heavy sweat. It sucks. Fortunately, I'm inside most of the week, until the weekend. And then when the weekend rolls around, I spend a lot of the time at the pool...so I've been staying pretty cool.

Aside from the horrible weather, this has actually been a very busy summer. With all these activities I've been planning, I've been staying busy. I've been going to lots of DC United games at RFK. I've already got premium tickets for the Los Angeles Galaxy game here next month featuring David Beckham. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a mancrush on the guy or anything, but he is by far the most dynamic player in the MLS. Despite his age, he is going to make some things happen. I'm not saying he's gonna become the leading scorer or anything, because that's not what he does. What he will do, is create more opportunities for his teammates to score while showing the American audience why it is that soccer is called the "beautiful game". Additionally, thanks to the "Beckham" rule that allows each team to have up to 2 players with ridiculous salaries, brought in from overseas; we are now able to see lots of stars in the league on all the teams. I've been excited watching DC United as they picked up two brazilians in the last 6 months to add to their roster. These guys have already made a huge impact on the team.

Besides soccer games, it's concert season. I've already got my tickets for the Projekt Revolution tour next month featuring Linken Park, My Chemical Romance, and Taking Back Sunday. I've also already got my tickets for DJ Tiesto in the fall.

And finally, it's been wedding season. Congrats to my friends Long and Erica who tied the knot about 2 weeks ago. That was a fun wedding considering how many of my close friends were there. I drank entirely too much, and with my parents attending too, that was an interesting night. I couldn't be happier for the newlyweds though.

That's about all I got right now, I'll make a more interesting post soon.

Vegas 07

It's been a while since I blogged. Since the last time, I've embarked on the annual Guys' Vegas trip, part III. This year was extra special because it is the last time the boys will be out with Long Pham the bachelor. Also joining us this year for the first time were Sam, Jonnyman, my homeboy Kamran, Neville, and Adam. I don't wanna go into too much detail about the trip, aside from the fact that it was by far the best Vegas trip we've taken so far. Other than that, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Here are some highlights:



Gabrielle Union:











1210 H:

New Weather, New Activity

Sorry for the posting delays. I've been busy. No actually, I've been lazy. So spring seems to finally be here. Even on cold days, it's moderately warm. And for the most part, it's pretty sunny. So with that, I've decided to go out and enjoy the outdoors more. I'm still doing soccer a ton. Coaching and playing is keeping me busy most of the time. Aside from soccer, I've picked up tennis again...and shortly I should begin playing golf with my pops too. My new desire this spring has been cycling. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Lance Armstrong, but I think it'd be fun on a weekend when nothing else is really going on to take a bike out for a couple hours and ride trails in the area, or go around Burke Lake, or even just cruise on the road to my cousin's house or a friend's house or something. But before I can do that, I need to get a bike. I have no knowledge of bikes whatsoever so I've been trying to get some info from people I know who ride.

Aside from the beautiful weather, not much else has been going down. I'm sure you all know about VA Tech on 4.16.07. Such a sad tragedy. I never expected anything like that to happen at such a peaceful place. Sad that for so many people, my alma mater will now hold a tainted reputation and view...when all I have is happy, wonderful memories of the place. My heart goes out to all the families and friends of people lost in the tragedy.

Hurray for Spring, I think.

Hey hey, so I haven't posted in a while. Unbelievably, I've been super busy with work. And I generally only blog when I'm bored at work trying to fill my time. So yeah, I suppose you could say I'm bored today. So Easter came and went this past weekend. Being Buddhist, this meant nothing to me, except that come Sunday evening, all of my normal dinner spots were closed. Seemed like a good day for me to play some poker instead.

Overall, the weekend was awesome. I saw my old roommate Adam from college. He's in the army now and he's from North Carolina so I really only get to see him once maybe twice a year. It was awesome seeing him and his dog Eve again.

I have to say I'm not a big fan of the spring weather we've been getting. Ordinarily, I am a huge supporter of the cold when it's winter because of my addiction to snowboarding. However, I had already given up on riding several weeks ago, and was steadfast in my Spring/Summer frame of mind. Leave it to El Nino or La Nina, or whatever it's called to bring on these frigid temps again. My new coworker from Ohio was shocked to see snow flurries in April.

Other than that, life is same old same old. I still watch a ton of tv. All my normal shows + a few new guilty pleasures. That new comedy show on NBC "Thank God You're Here" is pretty good. They basically bring in popular comedians and have them enter a room they haven't seen, without a script, and act out a scene and be as funny as they can. I wouldn't say the show is like "Whose line is it anyway?" because I think this show is different. But they're both good. I've also been watching American Idol more than usual this year. Simply because Sanjaya Malakar is quite possibly the worst Idol singer ever and I am stunned as to how he is still in the competition. It really makes me want to audition next year and hope to make it to the finals by some miracle. I just need to make a ton of Indian and Chinese friends this year so they can rally support for me.

The Mighty Ducks Part II

So a new season of coaching begins for me this week. Last fall I coached a 10 year old boys soccer team for the first time. We started the season rough, losing every game. But by the end of the season, I had done my best to teach these kids how to play together and we began spanking our opponents the last few games. I felt very much like Emilio Estevez coaching Pacey, I mean Joshua Jackson and the rest of their peewee hockey team.

This week, I received my new roster. A new team of ADHD 10 year olds. I gotta say I'm looking forward to the challenge. It's probably one of the best moments of my week when I've been having a cruddy day at work and I go to one of my kids' practices and all I see are smiling happy 10 year old kids running around on the field playing with each other. They don't care about money, bills, deadlines, or projects. They don't have girl issues, "beef", or any other kinds of drama that starts to arise in teenage years. All they have to care about in the world is playing a game. God, it's the best feeling...I wish I was a kid again. What's even funnier is when my kids team loses. I'll run into a parent the following week at practice and be like "Man, I still can't believe we barely lost at the end of last Saturday's game!" And the parent will simply reply "Look at the kids. Does it look like they even care? They've already forgotten they lost and are playing happily again." And it's true. Not a care in the world.

Needless to say, I'm still not ready for kids anytime soon. knock on wood.

March Madman

So it's that time of the year when every man mysteriously disappears for about a month. He's unusally inactive at work, and exposed to unhealthy levels of tv radiation as he follows his favorite basketball teams in the NCAA national tournament. In addition, for the average man, he's probably invested in 2-4 pools hoping to display his testosteronic dominance in hardwood prognostication.

For me, this year is especially important because my Hokies are in the tourney. I'm only in one pool this year, but my hopes are high that my picks will hold. As much as I want my hokies to win, I'm picking Georgetown to go all the way. I think they have what it takes to upset and win. That's not to say I'm not rooting for my Tech team though. I would love nothing more than to lose my pool if it means the Hokies are the national champs. But realistically, I just want them to make it to the third round, and possibly pull off an upset there.

Beyond that, I have no other goals for this tourney. I'll see you all at Bailey's for the tech game(s).

I'm not a millionaire.

So recently, the mega millions jackpot lottery reached a record high of $370 million. I generally play the lottery once every few weeks, but when the jackpot got this high, you KNOW I had to play. So I bought 10 tickets on the last night like many of my friends. My best ticket won me like $3. So yea, I'm not a millionaire.

The thing with the lottery is, I don't even need the jackpot. Anything over 5 million is more than I want/need. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to get as much free money as I can. But realistically, I do not aspire to live like a baller or hip hop mogul (as my normal spending habits and clothing style might suggest). Honestly, my whole goal in life is to continue living the way I am currently living, and not have to work. For me, this equates to making somewhere between $70,000 and $100,000 a year income. So, let's assume that I live on the high end of my goal and make $100,000 a year. That's enough for me to live in the size house I currently live, have a decent reliable car, and have enough spending cash for my going out/vacations/travel/food etc. Now I figure that in order to reach my goal of not working and receiving this kind of income, I'd have to win a small lottery and put all my winnings into some kind of fund and live off the interest compounded from it. So taking a look at the kinds of funds that are out there, I figure that with a few million dollars (less than 5) I might be able to get 5% interest. So to receive $100,000 a year in interest, quick math puts me at 2 mill.

So 2 is the lucky number. 2 million dollars and I can continue to live my current lifestyle without working. So $370 million jackpot, that's nice. But I'll gladly play lotto south jackpot and hope to hit that 3-4 million jackpot. After taxes/taking that lump sum, I get my 2 mill and retire at age 25.

I'll see you guys at the 7-11 for my retirement winnings.

Ole....Ole Ole Ole!

I've been a soccer fan my whole life. I started playing soccer when I was 5 because my dad played soccer in college and thought he'd start me on it. I took a 5 year hiatus from competitive soccer when I hit college, but now that I'm a working professional, I've dedicated a lot of my free time back to my favorite sport. Last year, I started coaching a boys U10 team. It's awesome to watch 10 year old kids play. That's the age when they don't have a care in the world. School is easy, there's no teenage drama to worry about, and they sure as hell don't have any work/class/grown up stress to worry about. All they care about is playing a game. Even when they lose, they forget about it the next day and come back out and play again. I would give anything to go back to that age.

In addition to coaching, I started playing soccer again. I'm a member of several adult teams. I play with Spikey Mike's coworkers. We're not very good competitively, but they're cool peoples...and they love to drink/snowboard so that's win win for me. I also started up a team with my coworkers. They're awesome. Everyone on the team is extremely skilled. I feel weaksauce playing alongside them.

Both my teams are coed. I've found though, that's extremely hard to find enough women to play. My team with my coworkers struggles to find enough girls to play each week, and often times we have to play one down. If any of you happen to be of the estrogen bearing variety and would like to play, holla at your boy!

Other than that, snowboard season is pretty much over...so most of you should start seeing me on the weekends again.

Snowshoe '07

So I went snowboarding this past weekend to Snowshoe resort in West Virginia. It's one of the biggest ski resorts on the east coast, and one of my personal faves. We took a trip out there, about 50 of us and stayed in 4 separate condos. Arriving intermittently Friday nite, some of us headed out for Friday day/nite riding while others who arrived later broke in our condos with some good old alcoholic debauchery. Nothing serious of course, since we all wanted to wake up early the next day for a full day's worth of rides on the slopes. That is...all of us except for Alex. He decided to get tanked the first night and remain hungover and hammered for the rest of the trip...including when he threw up in our fireplace (putting out the fire...) and then throwing up in a cardboard box which he then threw into the fireplace (which was no longer burning cuz he put it out with his puke):

Saturday was fun. We spent the day riding meeting up in the early to late evening. After an evening of some night riding, we headed up to the only "club" on the mountain. To my surprise, there was actually a DJ who played hiphop and techno in between sets of a rock band that played typical West Virginia music. We basically chilled at our table shooting pool and playing foosball while slamming beers until the DJ came on when we rushed the dancefloor and rep'd DC, NOVA, and Virginia Tech like no other. Big props to Jac for taking over the mic in the DJ booth. That was hot.

After the club, I dun have much to say for the remainder of the night. It's kind of one long crazy blur. Dan got into a fight outside the club, typical, and we had to calm his ass down as we walked back to our condos. At the condos, we sat around and drank furiously. It was great because all of 1210 H was in one spot. The originals: Dan, me, Spikey Mike, and Andy. As well as Adam, who was part of the 1210 graduation unit. Dan hit the bottle hard, typical, and passed out on the floor:






After Dan passed out...Vin and I decided it might be fun to put his hand in warm water. We did this for about 10 minutes before Dan moved. We decided at this point that Dan was far too drunk so it wouldn't be a bad idea to put him in the snorers room (where I slept). We dragged him to the floor in that room only for him to jump into my bed. No biggie, I didn't mind sleeping on the floor. Several hours later, at around 3 AM. I awoke to Dan moving around in our room. I assumed he needed to puke so I moved to let him out. Next thing I know, I felt liquid on me. I feared the worst. Dan was puking on me. I jumped up and ran out the room to let him go. But he didn't come out. So I flipped the light on to see what was going on with him. To my surprise he was pissing on our dresser. I looked at my wet shirt...no puke. DAMMIT...Dan just pee'd on me. I ran into the living room, pissed as hell (literally.) I threw my shirt onto the floor and David Lam laughed at me. Trong woke up and also laughed at me. Karma's a bitch. That's what I get for trying to prank Dan.

Overall, the trip was fantastic though. Here are some more pics. Nothing beats cramming like 15-20 people into an 8 person condo. Multiply that by 4 and you get our trip.

Happy New Year!

So this past Sunday was Chinese New Year. I know what you're thinking...Nicky Long, you're not Chinese. Well, technically, the actual holiday is the Lunar New Year. It celebrates the new year according to cycles of the moon. While this holiday has developed a reputation and title in the United States as Chinese new year because Chinese people celebrate it and they are the most dominant asian population....it is also celebrated by Vietnam (and probably a few other countries that I don't even know about). So yes, this past weekend, I celebrated.

Of all the asian holidays, the Lunar New Year is by far my favorite. In Vietnamese culture, we wake up that day and everything we do that day, we try to make festive and "good" because the way that your day turns out is supposed to be a reflection of how your year will turn out. For instance my parents will do everything possible the days leading up to the New Year in order to make sure no one in our family is sick, nothing is broken in the house, etc. Yeah, my parents are real superstitious. So many families will eat big, delicious meals...drink plenty of good alcohol....pray/visit temple for spiritual balance....and have big festive get togethers in order to encourage happiness for the year to come. My new year's get togethers with my family entail 4 main things that make it my favorite holiday (at least in the asian culture anyway):

1) Good eats. There are certain things that we only eat during the New Year's celebration. Aside from those, you can always expect a big luscious meal as well. In conjunction with item number 2) you get a very full and content day.
2) Good drinks. Nice bubbly champagne and wine flow all night. Break out the Dom P and Cristal!
3) Money. It is a tradition in the Lunar New Year celebration that the elders, your aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, etc. will give red envelopes containing cash. Depending on the financial status of your relatives as well as the overall size of your family, this can be a very handsome collection by the end of the night. This tradition encourages wealth because by receiving money it is believed you will be prosperous in the coming year.
4) Gambling highly encouraged. I'm not sure how things work with Chinese families, but within Vietnamese families, gambling is encouraged during the Lunar New Year. I suspect it has something to do with giving and receiving money as well as joy with your loved ones. I take it as an excuse to gamble gamble gamble. There's a popular game that is played during the New Year. Essentially, there are 6 pictures of animals on a mat. You place bets on which animal you think will pop up. Then 3 dice are rolled that each contain the 6 animals on them. You get paid depending on what pops up. I like to call this game Vietnamese craps. My cousins and I can spend all night playing this game. Now that we're older, we also incorporate poker and other betting games as well.

This year was a bit slower for me. With my sister and 2 of my cousins away at college, as well as the inclement weather, our celebration was much smaller and shorter than it normally is. Nonetheless, I had a good time. Big Happy BDAY shout out goes to all my friends who celebrated their bdays this weekend as well.

Chuc mung nam moi (Happy New Year in Vietnamese)!

Toilet Seat Up. Why all the hate?

I was talking to a friend of mine at work today. He was using the men's bathroom at work, and because of the large traffic in there at the time, the urinals had all been occupied. So he went into the stall to urinate. As is the norm, he lifted the seat, and when he was done, he instinctively put it down. I happened to bump into him in the hallway and I asked what he'd been up to. He told me about how he just pissed in the bathroom, and I asked him...

"So man, did u leave the toilet seat up?"

And he replied no. And so we started conversing about this. Now, as a man myself, I find it is more convenient to leave the toilet seat up. I only drop a deuce a couple times a day when I've had a lot to eat, but I piss probably 6-8 times a day depending on how much fluid I've been drinking throughout the day. So based on the numbers, it only makes sense to leave the seat up and put it down when necessary. It's less work. So I asked my friend, why he put the seat down. Obviously it's an all male bathroom and I'm sure he and all the other users of the bathroom would love to leave the toilet seat up all the time as I do.

So he bagan talking about how it's courtesy to women and he just happened to be in the habit. I agreed, obviously. But then I began to think. Why the hell should men put the toilet seat down for women? It makes no sense. I've had past girlfriends and my mom tell me to put the seat down, but I honestly can't think of why this should be the norm. I've been told by women on many occasions that it sucks to fall in the toilet when there's no seat and that's probably true...but here's the thing. When I'm about to drop a deuce, I don't blindly sit on the can and hope the seat is down. I check it first. So why can't women? And don't give me this crap about women always sit down to pee/poop so they always gotta put the seat down. It's not like it's hard to do. For a guy, we've got to reach down, grab the seat, lift the seat, and fight gravity to put it back up in order for us to urinate. If I'm a woman and I walk in, and the seat isn't down, I don't even have to hold the seat to lower it. I could probably just tap it, and let gravity do all the work. So why, why is it such a hassle for women to put the seat down when we leave it up?

It only makes sense to me that it's much less work in the long run for everyone if we just make it the norm to leave the seat in whatever position it's in when you're done. For a man, if you've just pissed in the toilet, leave it up. For women, leave it down. That's my two cents. Women who don't agree...you must have fallen in the toilet in the past...and for that I have no comment. Look before you leap...look before you leap.

TV Junkie

Personal Story:

So when I was growing up, I was in the Gifted and Talented program in elementary school. Gifted and Talented? Not really. I took an IQ test in 3rd grade and it said I was smart...hence I started leaving my regular class once a week for a couple hours starting in the 4th grade to do exercises that would make my mind sharp. In this GT class, I was once given an assignment to monitor how much tv I watched in a week, recording the shows and times and durations that I watched. I remember coming back to school after a week of recording and while other kids put down that they watched maybe 7-8 hours of tv that week, I had watched nearly 20. Gifted and Talented? No, just a smart guy who was lazy as hell and loved his cartoons and Saved by the Bell.

This past weekend, I was watching a movie called Idiocracy. It stars Luke Wilson. Essentially, he's an average joe who lazily slips by his job in the military. One day, he's chosen to be a part of an experiment where he will be frozen for 1 year. The project has a mishap and he is frozen for 500 years. When he awakes, he finds that all the dumb people in the world have been recreating and recreating and recreating...while intelligent people have died off. He also finds that he is now the smartest man in the world and that the US needs his help to solve all their economic and social problems. Pretty funny movie that got me thinking....is it possible the world could turn out that way from watching too much tv?

My head started to hurt as I thought about this too much, and since new seasons of Heroes, Prison Break, Lost, Survivor, and Amazing Race all started within these past 2 weeks, I didn't have time to ponder it any longer. Lost premier airs tonight. I'll see you all on the forums tomorrow.

Comic Relief

I like to think I have a good sense of humor. I love a good comedy show as much as anyone else. Lately, I've been trying to find more clips of this up and coming stand up comic named Rob Paravonian. I'm not sure where he's from but his comedy makes me laugh. He uses a guitar in most of his act, but the stuff he talks about is so true and his act isn't corny like some other musical stand ups I've seen. For instance, this youtube clip shows him making fun of pop music. In particular, the theme from Friends (and how the Rembrandts tried to turn the song into a mainstream pop single) and also the Smashmouth song that used to play on the radio like in high school...god I'm dating myself.

Anyway, I just wanted to give props to this new comic cuz he makes me laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S8wBNoiv90

Take care.

So anyone who knows me knows that I'm a snowboard fanatic. When those 2-4 months of winter roll around every year, you're lucky to find me on a weekend unless you snowboard with me. Ever since I had knee surgery for my torn ACL 4 years ago, I'm ultra conservative when it comes to the slopes now. I wear my robotic knee brace every time I ride, and I don't try to do half the crazy things I used to do on the slopes. Let's be honest too, I'm 25 years old now, if I get injured, I am in no way healing with Wolverine-esque powers the way I used to in high school. So I gotta be extra careful.

This past weekend, I was reminded of how careful I should be when I take on "extreme" sports like snowboarding. My friend Lan Chi recently got hooked on the wonderful sport of snowboarding due in large to her boyfriend Sunny who happens to be just as big a snowboard fanatic as me. We took a trip this past weekend with some other friends of ours to a local ski resort. Long story short, Lan Chi had a freak accident on one of the slopes, falling awkwardly on her back and bracing herself with her hands. She broke her left elbow quite badly and required surgery to repair it. It was surreal being in the emergency room waiting for her. On the one hand, you make jokes and smile because you know your friend is ok and that she'll get through it. But on the other hand, you worry because you never expected this to happen or that it could be this bad, or even worse..that you're glad that it didn't turn out worse than it is.

I often tell most people I know that life is short. You never know when you won't get a chance to see someone again. I know this very well since one of my best friends passed away 4 years ago in a tragic car accident. When people I know get injured in these types of freak accidents it makes me appreciate life all the much more. So please, if you know me at all, please be careful because you guys never know when something unexpected could change your life. And I never want to miss that chance to hang out or talk to any of you again. So take that opportunity to eat, drink, party, hang out, watch a movie, go shopping, take a trip, dance, play, sleep with me. Because life is too short and unexpected to miss that chance to share some time with people you love.

And on a brighter note, my friend Lan Chi returns home in a couple days from the hospital and I'm gonna be the first to give her a welcome home present...well...besides her man-servant Sunny of course.

A new year, a new blog.

Hey all,

So it's been on my unwritten list of "Things To Do" for about a year. I get random thoughts sometimes and I wanna share them with you. So finally, after months of laziness and procrastination I've decided to start blogging again. Although with the growth of gmail, I've found a new blog site, as you all can see. I like this site better than xanga because anyone can comment on my blogs, not just xanga members.

There's actually a lot of "Things To Do" on my unwritten list. I like to think that the list will be completed eventually, but there are items on the list that probably date back to 2005 so we'll see how that goes. Some other things I need to do are write a book, clean my room, buy a house, go to Italy/Spain, wash/clean my car, buy new workshoes, learn to play baccarat, be an extra in a movie, invest in some stocks, get a dog, and apply for a job at DC United.

There's many other things on my To Do list, but it would take me a week to write it all down. Maybe I should just focus on my "Things Not to Do" list. It'd be like "die, get sick, go broke, lose friends."