Andrew Zimmern better watch out because my sister is coming after his show. On his show he eats the weirdest and sometimes the nastiest things ... I won't get into detail about what he does eat but you can watch it on the Travel Channel - and soon you should be seeing my sister on that network too going head to head with Andrew.
Her experience goes way back when she used to live with us. The first story she told me wasn't really about "eating" but it was closely related. Here she was washing up before going to sleep and about to brush her teeth. This has happened to everyone out there where they are brushing their teeth and the toothpaste will fall off the brush or the tube and end up in the sink. Sometimes we forget (or are just to lazy) to wash it down and sometimes we do wash it down. Being a frugal person that she is, she sees this glob on the sink and sees that it's clean and all around the sink is clean. So it must have been a clean drop from the tube and the sink wasn't dirty at all.
With her bravery and courage guiding her she scoops it up with her toothbrush, making sure that there was enough glob to brush her teeth with. As she starts to brush her teeth she realizes something ... it wasn't toothpaste, but in the same cleaning family. It was acutally the liquid soap that had made it's way to the sink which somehow hardened a little to look like toothpaste!
Andrew wouldn't even attempt to do that! +1 for my sister
This morning was another step closer to her having her own show. I get a text at about 11am this morning telling me how she just cleaned out her freezer. In doing so she finds something in the back and burried under all the other food that's been frozen.
Just a little back story, when I used to go to San Diego a lot, I would always bring home something and that was always bibinka. It's a filipino pastry dessert type of cake. I would bring them back twenty at a time since my parents liked it so much and my sister too.
Well you can guess what she found in her freezer! She found a single bibinka still wrapped in the foil that I had brought back from San Diego about six years ago ... yes six years ago. You guessed it, my sister tried to heat it up as she normally would since it was still wrapped in the banana leaf.
She ate it!
A six year old bibinka ... she ate it! Not the whole thing but she tried it and said there were parts that were still good and that was what she ate. The other parts were hard and had freezer burn, the rest was mushy.
Some people made fun of me for eating year old sourdough Jack sandwiches! Well we have a new winner with my sister eating at least a six year old bibinka. My sister wins and we'll wait for what comes next ... whatever the next challenge is I'm sure she won't back down. Another +1 for my sister.
There's this thing that I call the "Raymundo" curse. What is it? Well it's the fact that once you reach a certain point, the weight gain starts and that sexy body that everyone loved through high school is no longer there. I think the curse hit me when I was a sophomore in high school ... so it came a little early for me, at least that's when it started.
It's happened to other family members, but there have been those fortunate enough to stay away from the curse completely, while others have been able to battle their way back from that curse.
During college years I was able to maintain and keep to my 180-190 pound range. With little to no working out I was able to maintain this for a few years ... but it snowballed from there. With my mother passing away one of my many defense mechanisms came up ... it was to eat. The amount of weight I had gained in the months after her death I'm not really sure of, but all I know was that when there was food, I was there too, so food was never lonely when I was around. Even if I just ate, I'd welcome more food to come my way.
This weight gain continued until I hit about 235 ... yeah you read that number right! I was 235 for the good part of the middle of 2008. Usually when I go through tragic moments in my life that will increase so easily, but in September I was actually able to get away from the curse! Triumph, for once in my life!
Going through a break up I found myself unable to eat. Yes, this is a true story, for those of you who know me, this is extremely hard to believe but I really couldn't eat, no matter how much I wanted to. Whenever I would be around food and wanted to eat, after two bites at most I started to feel nausiated to the point of not eating anymore. This got really bad where I was only able to eat two spoon fulls of rice and ulam a day for about a month. A crash diet in the worst of ways, and unvoluntary too.
There were parties going on where the most I could do was smell the food, what a tragic time where I wasn't able to enjoy in the many feasts that were going on. Even a short trip to California didn't fix it for me, I wasn't able to eat that wonderful Caliornia goodness. Jack in the Box and Royal Mandarin definitely missed me.
In the span of about a month and a half I was able to lose 35 pounds. Almost one pound a day ... and I was still alright physically, no dizziness or fainting. I dropped to 200 pounds for the first time in a long time. Here I was content to keep this weight and maybe I could go a little bit lower!? Do I dare try and was it too much to do?!
After the regular meals started again I was actually able to maintain the 200 pound mark. My clothes fit me better, I had less of a gut when I sat down, I started to turn some heads on the street (ya know the deal!), I started to play sports again and I wasn't winded running up the stairs on the subway! Definitely an improvement from where I was healthwise. I even joined three or four different volleyball leagues and it did me well. The lowest I got was about 195 but it would usually stay at the 200 pound marker.
Introduce Holy Week 2009 ... here is where the Raymundo curse decided to hit me hard. It was more of Lent 2009 than just the Holy Week. The weeks leading up to Holy Week I was going out and eating food that I really had no business eating, you can tell from the reviews on my blog. I wasn't reviewing salad places, they were burger joints, chinese food, and whatever else you can think of that would make you smile from the pure unhealthiness of the food. I thought it had peaked when I went to Cherry Valley ... but I was wrong, so wrong. The trip to Cali was supposed to be a spiritual one, and it was, but the curse took hold of me. The only day from that week long trip that I didn't eat a burger was during Good Friday, but the other days were filled with burgers, chinese food, hot dogs, ice cream, soda, more burgers and chinese food. It was just filled and so was my stomach.
The weight that I gained was invisible to me until I got back to NY. Here I am going through vidoes from the trip and I see myself on Easter Sunday huge as a ball! I did weigh myself when I got back home, but it said that I was only 209 pounds ... so about a nine pound trip to Cali, not bad I thought. I'll just play some more volleyball and eat less. But how can you eat less with a tray of Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings in the fridge!?!?!? How I ask!? It's not as great as when you have it fresh, but it's still good! Crack chicken is crack chicken to an addict.
Today was another losing day for a diet, I thought I would start today by just eating soup and rice. That quickly turned into another fantasy, it turned into a foodfest for me. First breakfast that my dad cooked, then Ikea for more food ... here is where we actually loaded up on food and came a wake up call. Walking through Ikea, there was a scale on the floor (I believe that this scale was put there by God Himself to tell me to stop eating so much), I confidently walk on the scale waiting for the 210 to come around ... and around it came, and went. It kept on going ... up to 220 pounds. I'm not sure if this was wrong or not ... but my dad tried it out and he said it was wrong because it was ten pounds over what he knows his weight to be. But with that explanation ... he was with me the whole trip so him gaining ten pounds is not out of the question whatsoever! That was not the end of the day as I tried to eat soup and rice for dinner ... but the chicken just called my name so loudly that resistance was futile.
Here I sit, shirtless and typing away seeing my belly come up again and my moobs (man boobs) and stomach forming sort of what would look like a chubby bear with big cheaks. The Raymundo curse has his me a number of times already and I think that Dudoy is next on it's list. I hope it moves on already from me and goes to him so that I can "start" my diet again. I don't have a magic number that I want to hit but I do want to go under the 200 that I was just a few short weeks ago. The summer if coming up and I don't want to be sexy ... I just want to be sexier because everyone already knows that I am sexy.
Diet here I come to fight off the Raymundo curse, I'm just not sure if the diet can win. I hope it doesn't take another tragic event in my life for me to lose the weight and win the fight. So ... I need to reduce.
The title could be a little misleading, well only for those that have a not so clean mind. I'm talking about the airline!!!
I guess I'm going to have to add a new category for this since this is new ... but I just had to share my experience about this airline. It was about two years since I've heard of Virgin America and back then they were fighting for their chance to fly, they were having some issues with getting approval but luckily they finally got it.
Ever since I've heard about them all I wanted to do was try them out but I wasn't able to get on their flights until this past week. The reviews and videos I would read just made me want to try them out even more ... here are some of the features that they do have and advertise:
leather seats
tv's with directTV channels
food/drink orders
first checked in bag free
Ok you're reading that and aren't amazed ... those are the regular things on most if not all planes. So here are the things that I feel set Virgin America apart from the rest of the airlines:
mood lighting (no white/yellow lights, they have purple and red lights!)
I wasn't even on the plane yet and just waiting at the gate and could already see the difference. Virgin America just stands out from the other airlines. My niece made it on the plane before I did and she texted me "omg it looks like soul plane" and for those of you who haevn't seen Soul Plane, go watch it, it's hilarious! She was referring to the better part of the Soul Plane, not "low class."
The mood lighting on this airline is really easy on the eyes and it makes it feel like you're walking into a club/lounge. That was the first thought I had when I was walking down the jetway and saw the lights coming out of the cabin doors.
standard electric socket in every seat (first class or regular)
Who hasn't dreamed or wished for this on the plane? You don't need those adapters for your electronics to get charged ... or buy those batteries that will last the entire flight. Here you just plug it in and you're good to go. So now you're not limited to the two or three hour battery life of your laptop.
One thing I'm wondering is if I can plug in a surge protector so that I can have multiple plugs to power a few different things ... hmmm would that be something that I would be willing to try and mess around with at 33,000 feet in the air??? Yes I would and I WILL try next time!
USB port on every seat
Power your Blackberry's, your IPods, and whatever else that has a USB port to charge. I'm not sure if this works since I forgot my USB cable, but I think if you have a device that has a USB cable and plug it into your seat you might be able to load that into the RED system at your seat. If it's not in their system now, they should read this and make it happen!
LAN port on every seat
I didn't get to try this either since I forgot my cable. But you can connect to the internet with this wired connection, from what I now, not all flights have internet yet, but they will soon. I'm also wondering if you were to connect wired, would you be able to access the servers and network on the plane and other laptops connected too ... hmmm this would be interesting! Mile High LAN party!
food/drink orders done via RED (their system on the touch screen display) at every seat
Ok don't lie when you say that one portion of airline food fills you up. It never fills me up and I always want more (if the food is good). So here comes VA, using their touch screen monitors at each seat (or the remote control that's in every seats arm rest) you can do a whole bunch of things through their RED system. Long gone are the days when the carts come through the isle asking what you'd like to eat or if you want pretzels and peanuts, they only do that one time with the drinks. Here you can order snacks, meals, drinks, alcohol ... the water is free so you can order as much of that as you want.
They have sandwiches and some wraps, the wrap was actually really good. The snacks ... I would recommend the chocolate chip cookies, I couldn't stop eating those! The drinks, they had a selection of a few teas which were really good too!
So if you're an eater like me ... order away with your credit card, no cash.
safey video that you will want to watch
It's not your typical video that you see or the flight attendants doing their thing ... but it's a video that keeps your attention
games via RED
You can ask Dudoy about this ... he was playing some word game where he claims he got the highest score! But they do have a lot of games you can play and they even have the original DOOM.
movies and tv shows via RED
The movies are pretty new and look really nice on the screen when you order them. They were $8 each and the TV on demand were shows that are popular were $1. The live TV on the plane allows you to join a chatroom where you can chat with others watching the same thing you're watching if that's what you want to do. One thing is when you are watching a show and want to order food or start a chat, it will bring the TV or movie in PIP mode and bring it down to the bottom left while you can do whatever else you want without missing your show.
free movies on late flights
I'm not sure if this is real, but this was on our flight home. We took the red eye flight and they had Bolt, Marley and Me and Seven Pounds for free. They also had all of the TV on demand for free on the trip home.
chat rooms and chat with other people on the plane
We were chatting it up in our chat rooms once we figured it out ... but one great thing about this is you can chat with strangers. Say you are sitting in 13C and you see a hot girl sitting in 7D. Just put her seat number in and start a chat ... but that does not guarantee that she will answer! She can decline the invite and block you so there is no airline chat stalking here.
free wi-fi
This isn't on all the flights yet, but from the reviews I did see with this, some people were even streaming video from the plane live! It will definitely be interesting to see this in action on a flight I'm on ... I know they restrict some things, but it's only for our benefit (i.e. no VOIP).
mp3s via RED
There are a few thousand MP3's here you can select and listen to, not that crap radio that is offered on most flights.
custom playlists via RED
You can make a playlist of MP3's and also make a playlist of the music videos if you want. I think that in the future you'll be able to save the playlists and use them on your next flight.
I could go on and on about all the good things about this airline. I remember when JetBlue was just starting and how people were saying how great they were, well the same goes for Virgin America, the only thing is that they have added almost ever possible thing you can think of to make your flights more enjoyable!
This was actually one of the first flights going to Cali that I didn't go to sleep because I was to busy playing with everything that was available. I think I was ordering too much food and playing everything too much that I broke my TV. Mine actually stopped working, but they were nice enough to offer me free food! I got my roast beef sandwich and some drinks and pringles!
Their fares are pretty good too, the round trip from NY to LA was $255 ... they also have a nice first class section that has massagers that are built into each chair. I'll review that when I get a chance to fly first :)
Props to Virgin America and I will definitely be flying with them again. They have my "best airline award."
Ahhhh yes I'm back in NY, I landed yesterday around 5:30am and it's that "horrible" feeling of coming back from a nice "vacation." Going to Cali wasn't a vacation when I go during Holy Week, it's time spent with the other BNP people from all over the world and it's definitely a great way to jump start that spiritual part of your life and is always a great experience.
The day started out with us landing in JFK and the rain welcoming us back to NY. One of the worst parts of being at the airport is waiting for checked-in luggage! I don't check luggage in but I had to wait for everyone else that had their bags checked. That's the worst when you're sitting there just waiting for the belt to start spinning ... and it's even worse when your luggage just happens to be one of the last ones to come out of that chute. Here it is about 6am now and the belt starts, people are crowded around it shoulder to shoulder waiting for their bags to come. I find it funny how some people stand about 10 feet away from the belt and hope to snag their bag up when it comes out. There was one guy who had that hope ... as his bag came out of the chute he seems it and instantly bounces up from sitting against the wall. Now his bag is on the belt and as he's slowly walking parallel to it there is a wall of people in his way until he finally finds that small opening, just big enough to get his hand through. It was with his skills that he was able to grab one of the straps on his duffle bag ... but now comes another problem! He has to pull the bag out of that small opening ... while other bags are still coming and about to push his bag further down. Sounds like a video game huh??? Now the success of this plan lies in how heavy his bag is and how strong he is. If he's not that strong and his bag is too heavy for him to pull with three or four fingers on the strap, then he loses. His bag will get swept away with the other bags and he'll have to wait for it to come back around. But fortunately for him the combination of his strength and weight of his bag was perfect and he was able to snag his bag and pull it out of that small opening from the wall of people.
We all know that feeling of taking a "nap" because we're so tired but then when we wake up from that short sleep we feel so much worse! It was about 6:30am when we got home and I changed real fast into house clothes in hopes of getting some sleep in my bed for an hour or two ... but saw what became of my room for the past week. A bad part of "vacationing" for me is that when I leave Shadow (my dog) alone, I think he gets mad at me ... either that or he just has some problems with his butt. He greeted me as happily as he could when I came in the door, but when I looked into my room, I saw what he had been doing for the past week. He was virtually alone except when my brother was there feeding him, so there was no one to take him out to do his business when nature called. I won't go into detail but if you want to know what it was like, it's similar to the movie Dumb and Dumberer. That scene when younger Lloyd was in the bathroom with a Hersey bar in his back pocket and it melted on the radiator. The chocolate went everywhere and when the father (Bob Sagat) later went into the bathroom he saw the chocolate everywhere but thought it was something else and all you could hear him yelling was that "he sh*t everywhere! ... Look what he did he sh*t all over the wall!"
I ended up sleeping on the rug in the living room and couldn't fall asleep for a while, I wish I just got up and started cleaning up instead of trying to knock out. But I did end up falling asleep and woke up around 10am and had to be at work by 9:30am. Woke up with that feeling of "damn I wish I didn't sleep" but somehow made my way to work. I don't even remember what happened at work ... the day went by and I had volleyball that night but wasn't sure if I was going to make it.
Going home on the train, you know you're tired when you knock out immediately after sitting down. Also, when you wake up because your face is cold from the drool dripping down your chin and down your neck. Yes I was drooling ... again. Ended up missing my stop and the only reason I woke up was because I had one big snore and it made me jump to see that I passed my stop.
At home I cleaned up the mess in my room and ended up weighing myself ... it wasn't surprising to see the results. I knew that I had gained some weight during the trip and it was about eight or nine pounds, you'll find out why later with all the food that we ate while there. So I had to go to volleyball to try and work some of this new poundage off!
Back to the daily grind ... wishing I was in Cali or going back soon. Now I have more time to blog, blogon!
I'm still here in Cali and am heading back to NY late tomorrow. The ones left with me are some of the youth and my dad and we just got back from a family friends house. The kids ended up meeting up some of their friends and I was hoping to catch a movie with my dad.
Boxing wins when he has to chose and there was some HBO special that he ended up watcjing at the hotel.
So here I am at the movie theater alone. I never though there was anything wrong with going to the movies alone but this is different. I'm actually the only person in the theater! I don't think anyone else is coming since this is the last showing on a Monday night, this theater will all be mine. But is it going to e strange that I'm here alone and will be laughing by myself???
I'm glad I'm not watching a horror movie or else I'd be curled up in a corner scared out of my mind! Observe and Report is the movie of choice and I just hope I don't feel strange when I'm actually loling here.
+ mon
P.S. Oh dammit ... As I was writing this they are showing a scary preview and now I'm no longer have any poop left as I'm scared s***less! Dammit ... F**k!!! I can't even get myself to leave my chair!!!
I forgot to mention that I'm going to be in California for Holy Week and won't be back to NY until Wednesday, so my entries are going to be limited. I have some things to post about but I haven't had enough time to put them up yet.
Today I leave for Cali for Holy Week and I left the house this morning wearing a suit. My dad saw me and asked me why I was wearing a suit and if I was going to change before the flight. If you have traveled with me, you know that I like to go on flights as dressy as possible, suit and tie are the max - I'm not wearing a tux.
It all started when I used to fly standby (buddy passes) and the rules were that we had to wear slacks and a collared shirt. This was something I had to do when flying Continental and there were times when I ended up wearing a suit and I noticed a difference. The difference was in service and also the treatment and respect people were giving me. It was strange but definitely something that I noticed.
It's not a guarantee but I think that being "dressed up" makes it seem that you're more professional and at the same time somewhat "important." There have been a few times already where my suit has gotten me out of situations or helped me in certain situations when traveling.
One of the rules with traveling standby on a buddy pass that you are not allowed to be upgraded to first class, even though there was the occassional rule bender that would let you. There was one trip, actually there were three trips where I was wearing the suit and was checking in. I made it common practice to ask "how's the flight looking" whenever I checked in and would then ask if there was any room in first class. I would normally get agent who would tell me the rules regarding first class and a buddy pass, but on these occassions the agent looked at me after telling me the rules and made the comment "well you are dressed for first class" and when they handed me the ticket, the seats were in first class.
Another time I had four friends with me and we were running late to the airport because someone wanted to stop by Goldilocks. We got to the airport with about 35 minutes before the flight and I dropped them off, then returned the car. It was alright if they made it on the flight and I got stuck, but when I got back to the airport, there they were sittingo n the sidewalk. They wouldn't let them check into the flight because there was no checked luggage going into the place within 30 minutes of the flight (this is one reason why I don't check bags in). The ticket agent had told them that they would have get on the next flight and pay the difference in the price plus a fee. The total came out to about $400 - $500 for each person. Here comes Suitman to the rescue! I went in and talked to the same agent and told them the situation. He recognized my friends that were outside ... and I waited for him to tell him that there was the $400 per person. After a few minutes he said that we were all set and I even asked him if there was a fee for the flight differential. His response to me was "don't worry about it sir, we'll take care of it for you."
Rushing for a flight, it was only ten minutes before my flight left. I ran to the terminal and of course there was a long line for the tickets (this was the time where etickets counters didn't exist yet). I was about to give up and walked off the line to check the next departing flight when a ticket agent came over to me and asked me if I was flying in first class. I told her that I was not, but she said that she'd help me since it seemed that I was flying first class anyway ... she realized my flight was in ten minutes and escorted me past security all the way to the gate to make sure that I made it in.
So here I am dressed as Suitman again. Going to the airport and hoping that I will be able to use my powers for good and help those in need. I don't mind the suit and tie all throughout the flight if it will help in someway or could help if a problem were to come up. This also works for car rental companies ... as I've gotten many free upgrades and "bonuses" because it was Suitman at the counter.
We can all be Suitman! He's inside of us just waiting to come out and use our powers to help us through situations which seem hopeless. So overdress as you must, and tie that tie, then work your way to first class and past security onto the gate to just make your flight.
Thank's for your response and how are you today? I hope you are allright by the special grace of God.
It's not tha i don't want to respond to your email,i am not ok, if my inhertance money which my late father keept for me in the bank,my life and my bright future are not secured.
I contacted you in a way after the money has been transfer to your account, i shall come over to your country to be with you,continue my education and have a new life with you as well if you wish to marry me,but you have not even contacted the bank i don't know why you refuse to contact the bank where my late father deposited my inhertance money while i have told the bank mananer about you and he has been waiting to hear from you since.I thought by now i should be in your country with you to continue my education and have a life with you while you go on investinig on my behalf. I requested your information, your cell phone number for easy communication ,you have not send it to me ,why?
Please all i need you to do is to get this money out from the bank as that is the only way i will be liberated from my situation that i'm facing now.As i am right now i am fiding it very difficult to eat as i spent all the little cash with me and you know that i'm not doing anything neither do i move freely so please help me out and fast.I hope to hear from you soonest.
Thanks and God bless you as you proceed the transfer with the bank.
Yours Sincerely,
Miss.Monica Sankara.
And another response, two in one day!? Oh joy!
My Dear.
You can contact the bank with this email adress,paulduncan_boaci@yahoo.fr.
This is my response to her ... I hope she doesn't drop me like a ton of bricks!
Monica!
There you are! I've been looking for you and worrying day and night, my goodness gracious, I have been worried sick and now I can finally breathe - whew!
I don't think you read my email when I did try to contact the bank. I called the number you gave me but unfortunately there was a lady who answered the phone and well if you hadn't read my email I'll put it frankly that we got very intimate on the phone. She had a very sexy voice and a man of my age gets lonely so it's easy for me to fall into things like that - will that be alright with you? To know that I might cheat on you when we are together and married?
I don't have a cell phone, I had to barrow the phone of my nurse here for me to call the bank at the number you gave me.
My dear I don't think you're reading my emails fully. I asked you if the bank manager had an email address that is directly affiliated with the bank? You never responded.
I need to ask you something Monica ... this is a really serious question. Why is it that when I want to talk about LOVE, you just want to talk about MONEY? I'm not sure you understand who I am Monica. The $7.5 million that you have inherited is a small portion of what I have collected here in the United States. If you pick up a newspaper, I am sure you will see my picture there because I do have a lot of money here kept away. But, I do want to help you with your inheritance and invest it properly, do not worry my dear, I know exactly where to put it - have you ever heard of a company called Bunghole? The bunghole is exactly where we will put it, all of it, we will put everything in the Bunghole, how does that sound to you?
Monica, can we trust the bank manager???
Do you love me Monica? I really need to know if you do ... please let me know. Do you have any more pictures of yourself with less clothing? I would absolutely love to see you in some more pictures but with not so much clothing on.
Email me back my dear, and let's talk about love, love, love. Mr. S.
We'll see if she sends me those pictures and if she's persistant on the cell number, then I'll give her my Skype number so I can record what she says! I will keep you posted on this love affair!
I haven't heard from her in forever, so I've been emailing her trying to get in touch. I'll let you know as soon as she replies, if ever ... damn I'm heart broken.
Monica!?
It's been 8 days since I have last heard from you ... and frankly I am a bit concerned. I'm worried about you as I know there are people out there who are trying to end your life, I'm hoping that nothing bad has happened to you. Please I am begging you to respond to my email and let me know that everything is alright!?
If you haven't emailed me back because you can't forgive me for what I had done on the phone when I tried to call Mr. Duncan and ended up with talking to a lady instead, then that's alright, I understand, but please at least just respond to me and let me know that you are not hurt and you are keeping safe.
I desperately wait for your reply ... please.
Mr. S
Below is my email to her today ... I hope I'm not getting stalkerish?
MONICA!
Comeon, just email me back and let me know if you're doing alright!??!?! I'm really worried, and I haven't been eating properly since I'm so worried about you! Please Monica, email me back just to let me know that you are alright and the thugs didn't get to you. It's ok if you're mad at me, and don't even want to talk to me again because I had some raunchy affair with that lady on the phone, but please just do me the favor of letting me know how your'e doing.
We've been through so much together Mon Baby! Please let me know that you still are out there and safe, please let me know that you're missing me and thinking about me. Here I am typing this email to you as my tears wet the keyboard, with each key I strike, more tears fall. All these minutes and seconds that run by without hearing your words is causing my heart to shrivel up into a little tiny ball which will fit in the tube of a BIC pen soon ... please don't let that happen and give me a sign. Any sign my Mon dear.
Email me back, even just one word, just one single word from those fingertips ... just one.
Mr. S
I guess all I can do is wait ... I'll wait another day for her to respond or not, then I'm going to just let it all out!
So you've probably read about my detox attempt before where I tried to eat "healthy" after eating a whole bunch of non healthy food for a little while and how well that all worked out. Today was my second attempt at this and hopefully it was going to work.
You can see from all the past entries being about food and what I've been eating, it's definitely time to detox! I really tried, really I did ... for lunch I went to the gourmet deli and was at the salad bar, but then gravity drew me into the regular food bar and I loaded up. Not on the super bad food, but not the "healthy" ones either.
Look at the evidence of the healthy food attempt with the salad! Then I ended up getting some shrimp, then rice, and finally the two meatballs. Not so bad right?
Tomorrow's another day, we'll see how that all turns out. I have to eat "good" tomorrow since we have our volleyball game, that's motivation for me!
Ever since one of my friends took me to Rutgers to the grease trucks, I have recommended the Fat Cat sandwich to everyone, even though it is a good drive away. They have variations of sandwiches and I always call it an entire meal between bread, and it's really good combinations!
I don't get to have the Fat Cats that often as it's a good trip into NJ, but when I do, I love eating them, just not enough to eat three in a row ... well perhaps I will try that one day, maybe!
Here comes a known secret that I have just recently been told about! I heard about this from my niece and nephew when I called and they told me they were at "Cherry Valley" and for some reason it registered as they were in Cherry Hill in NJ. Then they told me it was a deli in Whitestone and they have insane sandwich combinations there, again I brought up Fat Cats and how they are the bestest ever!
Saturday night came and after some last minute late plans for bowling, we made our way to this Cherry Valley deli that I heard about a few times before. It was about 3am and I saw that there were a lot of people in the deli ... hmmm reminded me a lot of the grease trucks when I first saw it. My mouth was watering, I do admit that. Before leaving the house I looked at their menu and saw what was in this "Beast" and that's all I could think about all night long.
There had a huge menu of different sandwiches and other fast food type items, I almost couldn't decide but I went with ... the beast. The contents of this "sandwich" was chicken cutlet, bacon, swiss cheese, onion rings, topped with gravy on a toasted garlic roll/hero bread ... sounds good? Just reading that over makes my stomach want it right now, seriously it's making noise. Now you add a special side of extra gravy and you have yourself a knockout, dipping the sandwich ... errr I can't call it just a sandwich, it's an experience. So dipping this experience in the extra gravy is just wonderful.
Pictured below is half of the beast ... and you can't tell from the picture but the taste is an explosion of awesomeness in your mouth! If you're skilled enough, look passed the picture and see the beauty that's within the beast. The extra gravy is almost so good you want to "accidentaly" drink it thinking it's hot chocolate!
Have you ever seen a unicorn or seen a rainbow and tried to get to the very end of it to find that pot of gold? Well if you haven't, then go to Cherry Valley and get some experience (sandwiches)!
I can't tell you how good it is, but I do want to go again. I'll have to limit to once a week though, as I don't think my body can handle more than that. There is something else there that I want to try, it's called their loaded fries. It's either waffle or regular fries topped with bacon and then ranch sauce!
So ... who wants to go and when!? I'll drive you get my food!
Taste : 9.5 Price : $ out of $$$ Restaurant : 8 (small and a little crowded at 3am, but clean)
Everytime I'm in Cali the ones who I go with make a big deal, a huge deal about In and Out. They talk about how wonderful it is and how great it is. To me it's just another burger, it's good, but it's not what I go to Cali for (that's another topic all it's own ... MmMMM Jack in the Box and Salt n Pepper Chicken!).
There has been one place here in NyC that has come close to that In and Out type burger, and it's on the eastside called Blue Burger Heaven. The reason I sayy the In and Out type burger is because of the way they cook it and serve it to you, and somewhat on the taste, which I still think tastes like a regular good burger.
Well I've seen this place before but hadn't tried it until recently. It's called Five Guys Burgers. Diday brought me back a "Little Bacon Cheeseburger with onions" the other week. The "little" is only one patty as their "regular" burgers have two patties. I decided noti to eat it with ketchup or anything else, just however they made it. Took two bites and I could taste the goodness, instantly an In and Out killer for me. The taste and meat was just different and better, yes I said it's better than In and Out!
Two bites into the burger I took a "break" and went into the living room. When I turned my head back to the dining table, I see my dad eating the burger until there was nothing left! So I'm guessing my dad likes it too, he ate that thing pretty fast too ... and he just ate dinner.
I had a chance at my own burger during the workweek as we were trying to figure out what to eat. But looking at the menu, something else caught my eye ... it was the hot dog. Unknown territory again ... how would this hot dog compare to anything that I've had before, most especially Gray's Papaya and Weinerschnitzel.
Here I had the bacon cheese hot dog with mushrooms and onions ... just typing that I could feel my heart struggling for it's next beat! But it was good!
One of my favorite things about Five Guys is that they give you fries ... A LOT OF FRIES! They put it in these styrofoam cups, but once they get all that you ordered in the bag, they dump more fries in the bag! I can't forget about the Cajun Fries ... these are extremely good and I want some right now! All I've been doing is craving these fries since yesterday when I last had them.
All that seasoning on the fries along with ketchup ... I could go without the burger. Potatoes are healthy right!?
Taste : 8.2 Price : $ out of $$$ Restaurant : 8 (quick, free peanuts and refills)
I saw something last week that shows how people are trying to cope with the changing lifestyles that people want to lead. It seems that everyone wants to be "healthy" and people are trying their best to be that way, they even have all the calories listed on the menu's at a lot of fast food places now.
For me, I've never been able to jump onto that "healthy" bandwagon, I can eat some of the healthy food out there, but add some bacon strips to that instead of the bacon bits, then we can make it work.
Even the Chinese food places are getting into the healthy diets, I've seen some that have "special diet" menu's where everything is steamed, but this was a first for me, and I've been in many Chinese food places!
Who can blame them??! They are taking what they know and love to do ... and mixing it to make it "healthy" for those people who want to go that route. Four wings with salad, not too bad and considering it's only $4.75, if you tried to get that in the city you'd get half a wing if you were lucky.
This sounds like you're getting more with the half fried chicken salad ... but in actually if you think about it, "more is less." If you got the four piece chicken salad instead, there's more skin to eat than just eating the skin of the half chicken!
Of course I didn't get this, but I'm glad that they do present the option. I mean, how could you not have rice with the fried chicken!? It's just unconceivable! Props to Jade Garden for TRYING to be healthy, or having the appearance of it.
Living in NYC we become accustomed to seeing these "DVD" stores that used to be peepshows and other adult related materials are sold there. But since the "cleanup" I think a lof of these places cleaned up their act and actually sold real movies ... or so I thought!
Being a big movie buff I wanted to buy a new Blu-Ray movie and was just walking to the subway. There wasn't any Best Buy's around for me to get anything, so I saw one of those "DVD" stores and took a walk to the front door. All the stickers on the window was saying they sell all movies and then I saw one that said "Blu-Ray" and so I decided to pay a visit.
This is very important to know ... the stores in New York City that have neon flashing lights and stickers on their windows advertising how they sell all types and all movies, while having no view into the store from the street, DO NOT SELL REGULAR MOVIES!!!!
I found out the hard way last night. As I opened the front door I was greeted to a huge picture of a person that was in an uncomfortable looking position from a not so flaterring angle. Quickly I went to the counter and asked for their Blu-Ray section ... they pointed it out to me and I was still hopefully of finding "Slumdog Millionaire" since it was just released. As I went one by one through the 30 or so Blu-Ray titles they had, all of them seemed to be pr0n! Then I come across a movie that looked to be the "Slumdog Millionaire" ... but sadly it was not. I'm not sure to the exact title but it was somewhere along the lines of "Doggystyle Millionaire" ...
So if you're looking for a movie that's real and something that's in the movie theaters, or on DVD from Blockbuster, then don't go into these stores!
I still feel dirty from being in there and seeing some of the things I have seen. I guess yesterday was a day where I started with a locker room full of wangs, to being in a video store that had nothing but horrible images, then to having an embossed wang from the painted jeans.
One of my pet peeves on the subway is when there is room for just one more person in the seat, and a person who knows they take up more than one spot on the train tries to get in! I'm not making fun of people who are large or overweight, heck I'm overweight and large myself! All I'm saying is that people need to have some common courtesy where they don't try to squeeze into a space they can't, it's the same with a parking spot!
Boarding the L train at the last stop, I get a seat right away and there's still a lot of room on the train. As we pck up more people on the trip, the train fills up and this cute little italian lady ends up sitting next to me, she was pretty nice too as she chit chatted with me for a little while until we both ended up falling asleep. Nice way to end the day and just waited to get home to chillax.
As italian lady and I slept on the subway side by side, but not too close, out of nowhere we were both awakened as I was crushed on the bars and italian lady (let's call her Bella) started to forge into my right side. I barely had enough room to turn my head to see what was going on, at first it was the feeling of when the train suddenly moves from a dead stop and everyone moves towards the back of the train from the momentum shift ... but then I was able to peak over Bella's head and see this huge mass of a man that had somehow calculated himself to be smaller than reality and pushed that square piece into the hole of a circle!
He was massive, I should have asked for Bella's real name because being that close to someone, it's only right that you know their name, and even moreso take her out to dinner first! She smelled like dove shampoo btw, for those of you who were wondering. With each breathe massive man took, it's as if there was less room for Bella and I, there wasn't even any room for me to get up out of my seat to offer whatever room I was taking up to her.
Bella was in a better position and she popped herself up and got out of the seat. With that there was the deep breathes we took as we separated our bodies, only a few more minutes of that and we wouldn't have been able to leave each others side for the rest of our lives - I wasn't goign to complain!
No goodbyes from Bella or myself, as I'm sure we were both just glad to be able to breathe. But massive man was just chillin' as if there was no issue whatsoever. He even fell asleep on the train ... and well this following picture is his picture. There are no camera tricks, he was actually that large and took up that much space!
After the train cleared out and Bella left. I saw that there was bout a foot and a half of space that was available. So I just really don't know how this guy miscalculated his own mass. Anyhow, this ordeal left me scared ... I have bar marks on the left side of my body and missing Bella!
You know me ... I'm an eater, a big eater and I really don't have any "rules" about eating, but I do have one. Subways are off limits with me eating, there's just something about the place of the subway that's dirty and sometimes the people that are in the train with you.
As I sit there minding my own business (after taking the picture of the guys crotch), I look across from me and see this lady just sitting there. The train was a little crowded and people were around her, but she decides to whip out a sandwich!
Comeon now! That sandwich is sacred and should be treated as such, but I guess when you're hungry, you're hungry and who am I to argue with that?
She ends up eating the whole sandwich ... well most of the sandwich in "stealth" mode. Taking little bites as if she's really not and trying to hide the fact that there's a sandwich in her hand. All the dirty particles from the subway and the people who are in it, and have been there, are now sticking to that sandwich.
The sandwich is consumes almost fully before I get off my stop, lucky for me since I get to take another picture of her making "baon" (doggy bag) with some of the sandwich. I guess she was saving it for a late snack, but she kept some of the turkey on her jacket.
See I'm not that mean where I'll take pictures of you eating on the subway, complain and blog about it, without telling you that there's some meat on your jacket! Comeon now people, I had to tell her! If I didn't, she would have gotten up, that piece of meat would have fallen on the floor and it would have just gone to waste!
Here I am, trying to make eye contact with her to let her know that there's something on her jacket. She is refusing to make eye contact with me, so I wave my hand towards her and point to her jacket and then do a gesture of me brushing it off the jacket (using my own jacket as an example). Miscommunication is one of the things that cause a lot of conflicts and there was a big miscommunication with her last night. Apparently she thought I was asking for some food! But to her credit, she was nice enough to just offer some even though she didn't know me. There was some left in her plastic wrap and she reached out to give me the rest ... but I said no. Everyone on the train was now looking at us having this pantomime conversation only using our hands and gestures.
After a few back and forths, I again signal to her jacket where she finally sees the meat. With some embarassment (but not that much embarassment) she picked it up and ate whatever was left on her jacket. For the next 2 minutes of my train ride, she refused to make eye contact or even say thank you as she was probably embarassed from the whole ordeal.
Geeze, I can only imagine what kind of dirtiness she ate with that sandwich! And she had the nerve to offer me some ... trying to make me break my one and only rule about food! For shame sandwich eaten on the subway lady! For shame!
There was a time in High School when we would see these girls that had the tightest of jeans we've ever seen, I'm not saying this in a good way, it wasn't as if it was sexy as they were wearing tights. Instead it was a bit disturbing and I always wondered how they got into and out of those jeans, all I knew was that the seams on those jeans must have been sewn together with fishing wire and there must have been some crazy stress tests going before selling them.
When I saw Dudoy start to rock the tight jeans, I was a bit worried ... my nephew wearing jeans that were so tight that his boys were embossed for the world to see. Well luckily he's changed his ways, somewhat and gotten jeans that are a little roomier in the crotchal region.
It always amazes me what I see on the train that I have to be ready at all times for possible picture opportunities ... and last night was a good night. I know that the following picture is probably grounds for comments regarding me taking pictures of other guys' "areas" but I felt the need to have to share this with all of you ... and provide you with a visual aid since the entry wouldn't be the same without them.
This isn't exactly painted on, but for a guy, this is as close as it gets. I think you can see it in the picture, but there's some good embossing on there. I guess it goes with the locker room, some people have no shame, or maybe that's exactly what this guy wants!?
In any case, if you do have tight pants and rock them ... just becareful of the outlines that it shows, and becareful of people like me who like to talk about anything that's on their mind. Beware the painted on jeans, and if Dudoy is reading this ... watch out man! This is what people could be seeing when you're standing in front of them, let alone when you sit down and then the pants get tighter around that area!
I've been looking for an indoor basketball court for the longest time that is close by so I can go there and shoot around or play some ball during the work day. After YEARS of searching, I finally found one at the West 56th street Health and Racquet Club, it's only a half court (actually it's the size of a racquet ball court with the rim mounted on the side, so more of a 1/3 court).
To add to that, I found out that my firm has a corporate membership so it's cheaper and we also get the week free pass.
It's been a week of me trying to get over there, but things have been a little crazy here at work (hence the less entries this week), so a coworker of mine and I decided to meet there at 8am this morning. Alright, if anyone knows me, 8am during the work week is the time when I'm pressing snooze waiting for the 8:30am alarm to go off. We made a deal that if I wasn't there on time I owe him $20, and he gave me a grace period of ten minutes.
I guess the me of old came shining through as I was excited to play basketball before. In my "prime" (damn you know you're old when you say that) I used to wake up 7am during summer vacation and bike 30-45 minutes to play basketball the whole day with my friends. I wasn't even confident that I was going to make it this morning either, I got home at 11:30pm from the volleyball game last night. One two different occasions, 5am and 6am I woke up because I was excited to play bball, even if it's just to shoot around.
Turns out that I made it there at 8:09am!
Alright, so I haven't been to a gym in over 4 years, meaning the gym with locker rooms and people changing, etc. So here I was sitting in the locker room putting my things in the locker, I'm not used to having naked people around me ... and when it's men, it's just that much more uncomfortable. I'm minding my own business and I used to love my peripheral vision and the fact that I observe things that other people don't pick up on, but not today. I was surrounded by wangs! As I sat there putting on my sneakers, an older man behind me (who was dressed when I first got there) was but naked! It was about 5 inches between me and the ridiculously hairy (_|_) and I quickly jumped up when I noticed.
It was like a bad dream for me (well not really because I never have had any dreams like that)! Ever try to shut off a sense that you have, but it doesn't work ... that was me today. All these images are burned into my brain right now, and I'm waiting for them to just go away, so I felt the need to share it with all of you! There were all sorts of guys there ... an assortment if you will. From the fit, to the not so fit, from the buff beef cakes, to the whoa what happened!? There were also a lot of variations from the clean cut, to those who needed a body trimmer and some even lawn mowers. It was pretty bad.
I tried my best to walk with my face looking up at the ceiling, but again the peripherals were a curse today. Maybe this is why I never joined a gym? Because I can't be around naked men! Geeze, I feel like I have to apologize to my eyes for putting them into that kind of situation ... I'm sorry!
Will I go back? I think I will ... maybe I'll just try to void the locker room altogether, but I still have to find a way to take a shower. Some people have no shame!
+ mon
Update on Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 10:54AM by
MONStar
I'm sure you guys are glad that I don't have any pictures associated with this post!
Sorry for the slacking on the entries but some poop (yes I talked about it again!) hit the fan, splattered everywhere and broke the fan yesterday and is still going on today, so I was stuck in meetings most of the day. Well ... onward and upward, or was it ... to infinity and beyond!
I've never been to driving school and the way I learned how to drive was with my dad and Tito Ed from Cali. One of my first experiences in driving was taking the car ... errr the Susuki Sidekick that Kuya Tony from Cali left here for me, and parking it back and forth for alternative side parking regulations. It was this small little red jeep and it had no gas in it whatsoever! It was running on fumes and I think it had been running on fumes for the past however many months that I used it as my parellel parking test prep. There was even a time that we ventured out to Metro Mall with Ody as the driver!
During the summer months, or when there was no school, I would eagerly take those keys and hop into the jeep. I remember making excuses for having to go around the block to find parking or making the excuse that it's illegal to just go in reverse when you see a parking spot a few cars back, so I had to obey the law! Well actually I was breaking it more than I was obeying since I didn't have a license, and I didn't have a permit. So there I was driving the jeep around the block, sometimes two, and if I was feeling adventurous, three times - those moments when you see the cops (no matter where they are), are moments where you feel like the hair standing on the back of your neck and you have no idea what to do (similar to the stall door opening!). There would be days ... alright who am I kidding, but this would be everyday and everytime I moved the jeep, no matter what the month was, I would sit in the drivers seat with the window down and engine off, but the radio would be blasting! There I would be for a few minutes then eventually made my way inside. Yeah, that's how I do, ya know!? Pimpin' ain't easy, unless you're me!
So with this driving experience under my belt, my dad would hand over the car to me when we went to Delaware - sometimes against my mom's request. I was driving down the NJ Turnpike at about 80-90 with no license, no permit and I wasn't on the insurance, dang was I just asking for trouble! Luckily it never came and I got my driving experience in that way.
Tito Ed taught me some other things and did a refresher course right before I was going to get my license.
See with me, it took a while for me to learn how to drive, I had to go through stages and different instructors. But ... the kids now have someone who they can count on! Someone who will be able to teach you the ins and outs of driving as no one could! His first customer will tell you how good he is, Dudoy my nephew knows what's up.
My dad is set to open up his own driving school soon, I'm not sure what it's going to be called but I'm thinking it will be called Diego's Defensive Driving, or Double D Driving. Come to think of it, I was his first customer and now Dudoy is his next one ... and it's better when you bring a friend! Dudoy brought his friend Emil to the driving school too. Everyone gets action in the Red Panther that I spoke about in an earlier entry. There's a list of people who might be signing up too, Arvin might be next on the list so if you're interested, you better sign up fast! There's going to be a waiting list soon.
You just need to be able to take constructive criticizm and be able to take screaming and yelling. Not out of fear but out of anger.
Another thing you'll need to be able to handle is the fact that half the back windshield if being obstructed. That's something you can't negotiate and have to really learn how to drive with. We have all seen the signs on top of driving school cars saying what company they work for and some even have the stickers on the bumpers that say "Student Driver" but that's not the case with the Double D Driving. Here you get a sign that's protected behind thick heated glass. Guaranteed not to fade, peal or fall apart as long as you follow the directions.
See I'm not sure if this is legal or not, but it's a good way to tell everyone to move to another lane and watch out for abrupt turns. Also for the pedestrians, it's something they can see after they get up off the road and wipe the blood from ther head as the Red Panther continues onward.
Now everyone in Queens knows that Dudoy is a student who is hard at work in trying to get his goal of getting that license.
If you can't see it in that picture, this is a picture that I'm sure you'll be able to see clearly.
My dad always finds and does creative things, but I think this one is one of the best things he's done ever! Wanna sign up, just comment and we can schedule something and work things out, in the meantime, watch out for the "student" driver.
What would you do when you're faced with a situation where you felt helpless, you felt somewhat paralysed and didn't know what to do? I'm sure some of us have gone through this before and have experienced many situations where these different feelings do and can come up.
Today I had an experience where I did feel all of those feelings and thensome.
It started out as a normal day here at work and then I decide to take a short trip to a place that I like to call my "smaller office." The trip started out as I went to my normal spots, but all of them were occupied by other employees who seemed to be going to their small offices as well.
So what choices do I have, as nature was calling ... actually yelling at me. I decided to go to one of the higher floors to see if there was anything available and usually they are quieter and you can spend the whole day up there. I found one where there was one out of two available and made my way into the small office.
One thing I noticed was that the door swung outward and I looked at the "lock" on the door, it was very shaky and I made a mental note that if there was a sudden impact on the door or someone would try to open it ... that it would simply give way. My neighbor was very quiet ... and as nature was yelling at me, I was trying to be as quiet as he, but it was to no avail. Nature yelled, and I yelled back. That feeling of having a neighbor in these situations who is being quiet makes things uncomfortable, you try to be as silent as possible, but sometimes that's just impossible, then you start to wonder what they are thinking and then you remember what you were thinking when you were in the situation but you were the silent neighbor and how your face cringed with each noise the person next door did. I waited for him to leave, but it seemed as if he was situated there for a while. I could hear people coming in the door, then immediately leaving because they saw that both doors were closed and occupied, I guess at that particular time, nature made it's roll call to a lot of us here.
I won the battle of patience and my neighbor decides to finish up and leave. As he was leaving, he opened his door and as he did that the worst feeling came over me. It was a feeling of not knowing what to do next, that reaction of fight or flight came and I had to make a choice as to where I would go next and what I should do.
What would you do if you saw this scene about 3 feet in front of you, with your pants down around your ankles?
This picture was taken after the fact and when everything was over and done with. It's a reenactment as I would not have been able to take this while everything was going on.
So what would do you??? Good thing for me is that I noticed the shaky lock mechanism, if you could even call it a lock. I would have had better luck putting tape on the door and the frame to keep it closed.
As the door swung outward ... yes outward, a panic in me started to set in. It would have been easy if it swung inward, but that wasn't my luck today. I could see my neighbor through the opening of the door now and I'm sure he could see me looking into the mirror and seeing the door swinging open! I quickly decide to leap forward to close the door ... but there's no handle on the door, only a small turning metal part that "locks" the door. I couldn't grab onto that and had to think quickly.
See it wasn't just a matter of finding a place to hold the door and close it ... but time was also a factor here. The door was swinging open more and more, the longer I waited the more exposed I would be, and the harder it would be for me to find a way to close it as well!
I ended up grabbing the hook on the top of the door where you use to hang your jacket or coat and slowly pulling the door closed and putting it in the "locked" position again.
For that brief moment after the sweat drips off your forehead do you find peace. Then you rush to finish your business because this could be a recurring issue.
I think this is actually one of my worst fears coming back to life. I say "back to life" because this isn't the first time this has happened to me. The first time was in an airport and the same situation happened when a neighbor slammed the door shut, and mine opened outward, but there was some complications with this as my bags were in the way and I couldn't lean forward enough to grab the door as it swung FULLY open. The good thing was that it opened towards the urinals and there was no one there. I leaned as far foward as I could trying to reach the door but with no luck ... what felt like an eternity, but I'm sure was only a few seconds, 30 seconds at most, the door started to swing closed again and I was able to lunge forward to close it.
These things always seem to happen to me! Becareful out there, and bring some Scotch tape for those doors!
Monday, April 20, 2009 at 12:51PM 
