slipping back

but who cares?! I’m done. I turned everything in yesterday and it’s a new quarter ahead of me. but first, spring break!

I’ll be headed to “The Hunt Club” which is somewhere in Florida with 5 of my buddies. we’re staying at Drake’s in-law’s place for about 5 days to fishing and hang out in the sun (with the mosquitoes). no clue why it is called the hunt club — drake probably made that up.

Drake’s email to us summed up the next few days perfectly …

Fellas,

The Mancation is here. In 3 days we’ll be at the Hunt Club living a life of extreme indulgence of food, drink, sun, fun.

Essential gear is board shorts (swim trunks in TX), t-shirts, sandals, shades, hat, some warm gear for potentially chilly nights. If we go into south captiva town, the most strict dress code will be khacki shorts / collared shirt. Don’t need tennis shoes, cowboy boots, train conductor hats, computer. Everyone should also bring a flashlight. (ed note: there is no electricity at this place)

We’ll have limited internet access using a cell phone connection. Wife/fiance call time will be 3pm EST as that is most sober un-hungover moment of day.

He also attached this picture. Sweet. See ya when i get back.

link courtesy of hype beast

props to my bro for locating the shoes for me (surprisingly not easily found in stores) and to SoleCollector for bringing them to my attention (December issue).

Lance’s 10/2

that pattern just kills me

sick pattern all around

the obligatory pose

Hello, Manila!
break was filled with family, lots of laughs and good eats.

totally enjoyed hanging out with my older brother, Mark…

… apparently, so did my mom!

And as I mentioned, good eats!
A sampling — Chilean Sea Bass …

and Seafood something (the name escapes me). Yum!

but all good things come to an end, and I came home after my 3 week break.

since then, I’ve been studying …
oh, and playing a ton of videogames …

… on my new Vizio 42″ LCD TV!

props to G$ for convincing me that bigger IS better and for approving the 42″ size for our future bedroom!

In addition to my latest splurge, I’ve bought 2 pairs of rockin’ shoes. But I’ll save that for the next post. Have a good weekend!

As some of you may not know I was born and raised in the Philippines. I left when I was 12 years old and I’ve visited throughout the years. I last visited three years ago and sad to say, a lot hasn’t changed. I remember driving through the streets and seeing kids roaming the streets. These exact streets are still littered with kids, KIDS!!, begging for food and money.

Last night, on our way to dinner, dozens of kids were out on the streets. Christmas eve. Children, ranging from 7-15 years old, would run up to cars waiting at stop lights, press their faces on windows and beg, “It’s Christmas, sir, can I have some money?” I learned from my parents that almost no one gives these kids money for fear that the money will go to criminal organizations that own and whore out these children. Biscuits and crackers are given out once in a while, but it’s never enough. I even saw a young boy eating some crackers off the street. Geez. This is the only life these kids will know; some become prostitutes and others will just continue to beg — that’s it for them, no way out.

Maids, drivers and guards, all very common professions here in the Philippines, are also in pretty sad situations. Many of them aren’t educated, and they’re used to being ordered around. They will do anything they are told to do and how they are treated depends solely on their employers’ kindness, or lack thereof. They can be expected to work any day of the week – 24th, 25th, 26th — you name it. Some have night shifts, and have to use the crapola public transportation system at 10 or 11 pm. In the states, it’s sometimes unsafe to go home at that hour using public transpo. Here? Who cares — gotta get home. They’re not paid well at all, yet they go through this because it’s the only option they have.

Now I’m not trying to be self-righteous and preachy. In fact, we employ help in our own house. A justification I’ve heard during my stay here is that while difficult, these positions provide people with jobs. But it just makes me think. I am constantly amazed at all the new malls, fancy restaurants and new communities here in the Philippines — this country is really developing, I think to myself. But the core dynamic of the country hasn’t changed one bit. Yet people deal with their situations, find reasons to be happy and thankful, and accept life for what it is.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Philippines. Seeing how the other side lives, without a doubt, helps me think about things a bit more and put my values and priorities in perspective.

Of course, I procrastinate and do everything I can to not do work. Hello, Fantasy Basketball. You gotta give it up to Yahoo!. They totally dropped the ball on the search engine but they got fantasy right. While you will struggle to find someone that uses the Yahoo! search engine, everyone and their mother is using Yahoo! Sports for fantasy anything.

Constantly improving, one of the coolest features is this new smack talk feature. It’s about time someone realized trash talking was core functionality to fantasy, damnit! Michel (a.k.a. Borat) and I are the trash talking anchors of my league, and while I have never met this guy face to face, I know I’ll hug him when I finally meet him. Any time you can tell a stranger that he sucks, is a total douche and is whipped, you know you have a great invention and that you guys are soulmates.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I understand that a small percentage of my small reader base enjoys fantasy, but let’s just say this posting is tribute to me coming home, rushing to my chair and checking stats. This is for you, Gloria. Maybe that’s why nothing interesting happens in my life.

But before I go, I just received my Amazon shipment in the mail. The Find by Ohmega Watts rocks. Underground hip-hop, cool jazzy beats and diverse tracks have me feeling this record. Track 8, Mind Power, is laid back, has some chick singing backup and is my favorite so far. On the flip side, the Outro, Dream On, has some crazy drums and keyboard action which is very late-night-at-the-jazz-club but also laid back. More later, but upon first listen,.

to kick off the event, the clips were 1 hour late. the people receiving the turkeys were basking in the sun for a few hours waiting for the players to come but i don’t even think any of them cared who handed them the turkeys. the clippers’ presence probably increased the number of volunteers who showed up, but that’s not bad at all!

after the turkeys were handed out, i met a majority of the team, including shaun livingston, elton brand and tim thomas. shaun livingston was the coolest looking of the bunch, with some fancy shades and some sharp cornrows. i accidentally called him “sir”. kid is 19 years old! i also told tim thomas i liked his fugazi quote, from when him and kenyon martin got into a media name-calling war. that got a chuckle out of him.
ed note: there is a rock band named fugazi, but Timmy was referring to a gansta movie that called thugs fugazi’s.

of course, i forgot my camera at school, but was resourceful enough to get one of the photographers to take my photo and email me the pic. i also got a hat signed by the team!

anyway, that made my week — i love basketball, got some autographs, got a pic despite forgetting my camera, and did some good. happy turkey day, folks!

Me, Erkki and some guy named Elton Brand

my hat!

dinner

cobras and matadors tonight with glo and jia tonight. tapas! it’s got a good vibe and the food rocks.

jia is glo’s coolbeans maid of honor, visiting from colorado and always a good time — should be awesome. i hope to have some of my bschool friends with us too so that we can hijack the conversation with pretentious business talk that will undoubtely bore the girls. good times.

xbox 360

in other news, my videogaming-resource-buddy forwarded me this halo 3 beta link. sweet! halo rules.

while i don’t have an xbox 360 yet, glo has graciously agreed to buy me an xbox 360. say goodbye to society! other games which i will immediately buy upon purchase of the xbox are: tiger woods PGA Tour and splinter cell. still undecided about the suppossedly fantastic rockstar table tennis but let’s be honest, i’ll probably get that too.

borat

okay, so maybe I was a little extreme on my criticism of borat. days after my viewing, I’ve caught myself recalling lines from the movie and chuckling. i’ve also found myself discussing it with friends — mainly to express my point of view, but discussing nontheless. it got me to thinking … despite the slapstick-ish apperance of borat, maybe there is a deeper, subtle approach to sasha’s humor that isn’t apparent from the onset. or maybe i’m just thinking too much.

either way, i have a feeling that it’ll be like anchorman: the second viewing will be much better, as I anticipate the lines or scenes that I found funny. so i’ve upgraded it from “crapola” to “eh, it was aiight“. kevin found it hilarious after some inebriation, so maybe I’ll incorporate that if there is a second viewing. but enough about borat.

Walking around the UCLA campus, I felt like I was missing out. Borat had infiltrated my fantasy league, my friends’ email signatures, and everyone’s hallway conversations. People loved this movie and have been quoting it left and right (myself included) — I had to see it.

Last night, Gloria and I decided to see what all the hype was all about. One and a half hours later, I was wishing I had spent my 11 bucks (11 freakin bucks) elsewhere.

Can you please pass me the crack that everyone is smoking? That movie sucked donkey-nuts. While it did have its outrageous moments, and while I did laugh at some points, that was an utter waste of time. I don’t even know if i’d Netflix it. Some of the laughs were unadulterated, but everything else was forced. The film just tried too hard and it dragged.

I was hoping it would be the second coming of Napoleon Dynamite and though I may be caught saying “I liiiike, nice to meet”, or talking about “romantic explosion on the stomach”, I’m not a fan.

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In other news, I watched the 2 hour series premiere of Daybreak tonight. Seems cool, and great concept for a movie — think: frequency and memento. I’ll be interested to see how they stretch this out over 11 weeks, but I’m into it for now. More about my TV addiction in another post.