Monday, November 25, 2002

Greetings all:

Anyway, just wanted to say WELCOME BACK ED.. I'm glad to see ya post... I
was wondering where'd ya been... Anyway, I feel your pain w/ Shinjo in that
Mr. Bell has become a philly fanatic.. yes, how unfortunate.. I have no idea
who they are going to replace Bell with.... I'm just annoyed he signed with
them... well screw him.. (for now)

Just wanted to let everyone know how my weekend went...

Friday - I actually got to see Harry Potter, "the chamber of secrets" with
Christine at AMC 1000... and talk about good timing.. I actually finally
found parking on Van Ness and Bush (which is like 6 blocks from the theatre)
and literally ran to the theatre (b/c the movie was starting in 5 min)..
There, I met Christine and we went to the theatre... the theatre was
packed.. luckily we spotted single seats on either side of this one asian
couple on the top row dead center and asked them to move so that Christine
and I could sit together... talk about lucky. =)... the movie itself was
great.. I still like the first one better.. but the second one had its
moment.. that dobby character kills me... I was sad that I didn't see
Hermione as much as I did the first movie b/c I think she's a real good
character they develop... anyway... before I give anything way I will
stop.... overall it's definitely a movie worth seeing at the theatre. in my
opinion... After the movie, I dropped my beanie somewhere and christine and
I were literally on hands and knees looking for it on the nasty, oily
floor... we had to finally wait for the theatre lights to go on for us to
finally find my hat which was stuck in a crevas in the seats in front of
us.. It was totally camouflaged so we would have never seen it without more
lighting..

Saturday - I basically played my new PS2 game Ratchet Clank.. It's a cool
game about a mouse-like character "ratchet" and his robot "clank" who go on
missions to find this "captain clark" (who kinda look like captain america)
in order to preserve the universe... the graphics are pretty cool and the
game is easy to follow... I dunno if the game is too easy b/c I think i'm
almost done.... At night, my sister, ariel, Lory, and I saw Cirque du Soleil
"varekai"... talk about some great acrobatic, daredevil feats.. my heart was
beating every minute they were flying through the air.. some of the acts
don't even have nets or spotters so it's a little scary... I had actually
seen this show on thurs with my dept (due to a dept contest we won) so I
already knew some of the acts.. however, I dozed on some parts on the
thursday matinee so I totally missed the love-scene that was basically woven
throughout the entire show... lamo I am..

Sunday - I basically went shopping in San francisco by myself while Ariel,
my sister, and the rest of their friends had make up consultation by
smashbox... I didn't realize that it was going to take 3 hours..so I
basically visited every guy-friendly clothing store imagineable downtown...
I think I've had my fill of downtown for a good week at least.. and you know
what the scary thing was.. I bought nothing.. yeah nothing.... eveything was
either not on sale, or if it was on sale, the sale prices was like reg
price... in any case.. I felt empowered shopping by myself. By the way talk
about a beautiful Union Square.. they really made that square look real
nice...


So hope everyone' week goes great.. I will see you all on friday...Also, my
mom is having a house blessing on sunday at my condo in case anyone is
interested, call me if you wanna come... it's going to be at 11 a.m. (yeah I
know early)....

My v-ball game is tomorrow... if we win, we take 2nd seed into playoffs, if
we lose 3rd seed.... Wish me luck... =)

Friday, November 22, 2002

Matsui who?

Don't leave Shinjo.......
remember the time I yelled your name when Dusty put you in as the second half of a double switch in the 7th inning of a blow-out?
remember the time i waved to you while you sat in the dugout combing your hair?
remember how i took your bobble head to softball games, fed him, and tucked in his blankie at night?
remember the time you looked in my direction as you were running back to the dugout after grounding out to second base?
remember the time i almost bought those bright orange wrist bands, but couldn't cause they were burning my retnas?
remember how i dyed my hair like yours after you singled in game 1, then said that i'd grow my hair like yours after you reached on an error in game 4?
remember how troy percival struck you out in game 7 and you made me cry like a little girl?
we've been through so much together, how can you just up and leave? wait did you hear that..........'twas my heart shattering into a thousand lifeless pieces. where have you gone joe dimaggio?...who cares...Garfunkel should rewrite the song to where will you go Tsyoushi Shinjo our nation cries it's lonley tears for you.
boo hoo hoo.

did you see me the other night.....30 points 16 rebounds 2 blocks 1 asssist.....as Stuart Scott said, "only 9 assists away from a triple double".

returned from hawaii on wednesday.....the meteorlogist guy in hawaii should have his job title changed to extended vacation guy. "aloha. me thinks it'll be nice outside today, back to you skip."......got my fair share of the 5 S's. sun, surf, snorkle, swim, and sleep....there were so many japanese people there i thought i saw shinjo at least 5 times.....usually your vacation ends when you step off the plane. mine ended the second united decided to show scooby doo starring Freddie Prinze Jr. as their inflight movie.

i meant Yao earlier, not me. so for clairification once again, i'm not Yao.

HUNKER DOWN FOR WAR.....tiff wants war she'll have it. she and her fellow munchkin pranksters decided to rearrange everything in my room upon my return from paradise. let's just say everything in my room has been resituated 45 degrees clockwise, which of course, places my desk directly in front of my front door. i currently have to use the "side entrance", also known as the bathroom. as immediate action was needed to be taken, i decided to help advertise tiff's moving / feng shui services on Craigslist. she has already received many replies. i also decided that it was time for tiff and nick to get some action, so i posted an ad for tiff under the category women seeking women and for nick men seeking men. i think nick and tiff were both quite appreciative.

the BIG SPLASH will be held Sat. at 10am in Berkeley. unlike the BIG GAME, CAL owns stanfurd in water polo winning the Heaston Trophy (given to the winner of the BIG SPLASH) for the past 3 years. anyone who's interested in going give me a call. there will be former and current olympians there....and i'll stand next to them to try and blend in. and remember, the only reason the guys in the water are so good is that they got to practice against tools like kev and i.

will see you all at Taft's after day turkey goobily-gawk thing.
ECP.

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

Tuesday 11.19.02
6:56 PM
UCD Computer Lab

Does anyone even check this thing anymore? The number of posts has seen a dramatic decrease in the past couple of months. What's up with that? Write people! I want stories, thoughts, feelings, anecdotes, trash-talking...you name it, it belongs here.

Big ups to Phil for being a faithful citizen of the blogworld.

Following in Phil's footsteps, I thought I'd write a little bit about my weekend, since it was a rare entertaining one that surprisingly didn't consist of me sitting on my ass being bored as hell. The fun started on Friday when my good neighbors next door (who happen to be two of my former teammates) hosted their annual "Wine & Cheese" event. This entailed getting all dolled up and getting drunk the high fashion style, with glasses and glasses of fine wine. And yes, Tafty got wayyyy tipsy. Enough said.

Continuing the "let's pretend to party it up like the rich" theme, the following Saturday I went to Sonoma with some friends for my first winery open house. My friend is a member of a wine club and gets invites to open houses for some of the wineries in Sonoma. As we pulled up in the parking lot in a janky 1980-something Jeep, we couldn't help but notice the BMW on our left, the Mercedes on our right, and of course the occassional Porsche here and there. Hmmmm...needless to say we felt a little out of place. But who cares, it was free wine tasting and appetizers all day! The atmosphere in the winery itself felt like a swanky ass barbecue. I believe I overheard a conversation about trips to the Hamptons at least twice. Bouuuuu-gie. We spent the rest of the day walking around downtown Sonoma and then decided to cap the night off with a "Sex and the City" DVD.

The bougie lifestyle ended there, as Sunday was spent doing errands and of course watching the U.S. men's national team play a friendly against El Salvador. It was nice to see some of my favorite MLS players wearing the national team jersey. And apparently the curse of the blue jersey is over, as the U.S. beat El Salvador 2-0. The highlight of the match for me (no, it has nothing to do with Landon Donovan. Calm down) was seeing the Metrostars' Clint Mathis wear the captain's armband. He received a lot of shlack during and after the World Cup by just about everyone, so it was nice to see him come back and show them all that he is indeed, the shit. Go Clint.

And to put a final end to the weekend, I went to see the new Harry Potter flick. All I have to say is that it was better than the first one.

Time for me to catch the bus home. Hope to read some new blogs soon.


~Taft

Monday, November 18, 2002

Anyone interested?
Bulls@Warriors this Wed., Nov. 20
7 or 7:30 pm (I forget)
Oakland Arena...tickets as low as $10
Transportation: BART

I'm getting there early to get autographs from my favorite DUKIES!

Call me by tonight or before lunch (12pm) tomorrow (Nov. 19).
I'm trying to get the tix by Tues. nite.

Jefe
*Phil posts his weekend blog*

HOLA, just wanted to let everyone know how my weekend was...

Friday - After taking a 3-hour nap, I met up with Michelle to watch a movie.. Originally we wanted to watch Sweet Home Alabama but then there were no more late showings, so we thought maybe we can get lucky and watch Harry Potter... however the only available showing was 12:40 and it's a 3-hour movie.so uh.. passed that one.. so we decided to watch "the ring"... Now if any of you have heard or seen it.. it was one scary movie... Michelle thought I wasn't scared b/c I didn't cover my eyes or anything but the trick is.. to look down.. that way no around you sees that your scared... heheeh... at least that's what I did for most of the movie.. Now as far as plot line... the premise (which you get in the first 5 min) is basically that there is a VHS tape that if you watch it, you see some weird stuff (e.g like a lady looking at you) then after u finish watching it, someone calls you and says "7 days" and basically that means you will die in 7 days.... so I haven't spoiled anything but basically the movie has twists and turns (not too many but just enough to keep you guessing) why in the hell and what is causing all this... I highly recommend this movie.. but don't watch it late night (it's a little eerie if it's too late)

Saturday - Basically I cleaned my entire apt. I hadn't done that in awhile and so I was pretty amazed on how much cleaning (as well as doing laundry ) I could do in 7 hours.... Afterward, I went to a wedding at the SF Marriott... talk about extravangas.. the bride and groom (both of which are Ariel's friends) had 550 guests... and 4 rooms at the hotel ballrooms... The show went by pretty quick and they had a live band... It was very nice.. they even had gift potpourri boxes as "favors" ... yes favors.... did I mention they also had 2 kinds of wedding cake to choose from??? Let's just say my tummy was happy after that...

Sunday - Cleaned more and more... then had sylv, christine, and my sister come over to swap pics of New York (and which all of you will see soon online)... we ate tons.. I swear we had tons of food (not as much as July4th but it was gettin there)... and watch Monsters Inc and the American Idol DVD>.. which reminds me... SYlv and I went and saw the American Idol in concert.. It was awesome! 2 hours of great music, great soul perforamcnes (go tamyra)... I must admit I'm obsessed with that show and can't wait for American Idol 2....

Here are some random thoughts
- Shinjo is gone.. talk about all the apparel that has to markdown and all the people who have shinjo jersies... how sad =( guess they will have some new outfielders..
- ALOUUUUUUU is in town.. I wonder how he'll do as manager of the giants.. I think he's a selection compared to uh Jim Fregosi... (yuck)
- IF you ever go to a concert, never park near the entrace, park near the exit.. you'll save much more time getting out (I got out in 2 min after the concert)....
- Birds of Prey, any of you watch it... if so, did you know it's getting canceled...
- Survivor is down to its final 8, any thoughts on ultimate winners?
- Bachelor - Helene or Brooke, you decide
- CD's I've bought within the last two weeks : Justin's "justified" Christina Aguilera "Stripped", Missy Elliott, TLC "3D", on the verge of buying the "now that's what I call music 11, and maybe Craig David" what have YOU bought

OK hope I hear a response from at least one person... =)
PHIL

Tuesday, November 12, 2002

*Phil yawns as he is about to go to bed*

Bonjour everyone... Anyway hope for those of you who had a long 3 day weekend enjoyed it.. I myself dont' usually get Veteran's day off, but I decided to make it a holiday for me.. I called in sick just cuz I wasn't feeling like going to work... isn't that great... technically my job has unlimited sick days... so technically I could call in sick more often.. I just feel bad doing it... this time, however, I didnt' feel bad.. last week I had flu-like symptoms and my manager knew it and didn't even tell me to go home!! she was like "aww, take some vitamins"... I was like dumb ***** tell me go home!

But anyway as far as my weekend went..
Friday - went to eat with my friend Brianna from berkeley. Though I have come to the realization that I practically had no close friends from college, I am surprised that I still am close to a few of them, Brianna being one of them... If any of you remember, she is the one girl that looks like she's totally white but she's 1/4 filipno... anyway... we had some ghetto chinese restaurant over by the berkeley campus.. good food just ghetto place.. I had a soda and asked for a straw and she said they dont' have any (not they ran out, they actually dont' carry straws) and their water tasted like expired water (not that I know really how that tastes like).... so yeah.. but anywayz the food was pretty good... after which we went to Tower and looked at CD's.. however found nothing that was cheap so we left... (by the way TLC's CD comes out tomorrow!) that was friday..

Saturday - Went home to go to my cousin's cotillion (cotillion meaning 18th coming-out b-day party for filipna women)... anyway... her theme for the evening was peach.. so her whole entourage was wearing peach dresses.. Now peach dresses would look good if everyone was light-skinned but a couple weren't and it looked "yuck"... now I don't even know why her entourage had to wear the dresses considering that they no waltz, cha-cha or any real performance or entrance.. so to me that seemed like a waste of money...

then to make matters worse;... I was supposed to play the piano in the beginning of entire night with this one girl (danielle) she got from her alma mater "mercy sf".. now, the girl who was singing the song i was plyaing "on my own"... had been practicing for weeks and weeks... apparently, my cousin (tracy her name is) felt that the program was running late and decide to "cut" our duet... so Danielle gets all pissy and starts crying and is hella mad... so tracy feels bad and decides to have the performance (mind you that the piano is now in the same room as the actual dinner/program) so all the guests that were asked to go into the banquet room had to go outside to the open lounge area to hear this one performance... anyway.. so Danielle and I perform the song, everyone claps, and she runs off with her dad and bf and leave the entire party.. talk about bitter... but whatever...

Anyway back to the cotillion, my cousin doesn't even bother to do a welcome speech and ends up just having dinner... which actually I ddin't mind b/c by then I'm starving... then after the dinner.. the program begins.. now she has everything from her singing solo (of mary j blige's "a beautiful day" to her dad's singing solo, to hula (which was actually pretty good), to martial arts, to a hip hop performance, to a raflle, and then there is more games,, talk about a long program..

the she has these party games (which I thought I was kinda strange for such a formal party) she had the entourage, the 18 candles (which included my sister and I) to play pass the peach (a.k.a hot potato) .. so we had 3 circles of 6 and the winner of each circle would win a prize... my sister was eliminated early, however I came down to the final two in my circle.. however I ended up losing... and losing what might I add??? 18 dollars!! she was giving money away as the prize!! talk about bougie... then they had musical chairs (which was ntended for the adults, but who in their right mind is going to play musical chairs in a suit/dress) anyway the candles again (or those who volunteered) got to play... so 7 ppl played, they played 1 rnd, and that was it.. 5 ppl won 18 dollars each again!!! ugh... I could have played again... but anywayz...

to make matterz worse the DJ's were horrible.. spintronix (yeah the old-school dj group) dj'd the whole thing and charged $700 for some crappy ass house music (though I love house, this was hideous) and played nothing but awful songs...did I mention that Romeo Gotera was the main dj.. small world..

Ok, I figure this is too much to take for one blog so I'll blog about sunday and monday later.. see y'all soon! hopefully at tiff's... =)
PHIL

Saturday, November 09, 2002

sabado, 9 de noviembre 2002
1:35 PM
mi casa en South San Francisco

hola mis amigos!

just wanted to sign in real quick and give everyone a heads up on the (day after) turkey day dinner. plans are still set to have it at my house, the day after thanksgiving on friday the 29th. i'll be sending an evite / email out soon with more info.

until then,
taft

Thursday, November 07, 2002

*Phil sits at his desk watching Lea Salonga singing "On My Own" on Bravo*

Anyway, I have some great news to share... I finally got promoted.... yes Phil got promoted at Mervyn's..... now I am a Senior Business Analyst...woohoo... .and yes I get a raise (don't ask how much)...yes all that extra extra hours finally paid off.. now it gives me more opportunities within the company to move as well as looking better on my resume... anyway... just had to share that one..

On Tuesday, my v-ball team won our 6th game of the season.. we are currently 6-3 and in 2nd place..... unfortunately one of your teammbers twisted her ankle after going up on a ball to spike it... she is our best all-around player... sucks... but anyway.. if any of you are interested in ever coming to watch, let me know.. it's cool if you don't.. I know it's too far to get to by 6 or 7 (depending on my game time)

Dusty Baker Gone! Wow, I can't believe the Giants just let him go... I honestly don't know if I am sad or ok with the decision.. I guess I won't know until I see who the replacement is.. hopefully it is someone who can keep the giants rollin....

Elections, elections.. so did anyone go out and vote.. I tpersonally didn't vote b/c I coudln't remember where I registered and plus I had my v-ball game so Ic hose to go that instead... Personally I didn't favor Davis or Simon for governor... I'm surprised with all the slander and dirty campaigning simon did that we got that close to davis.. I guess it shows that dirty campaigning doesn't always hurt...

Anyone watch the remake of Carrie??? if so, here are some questions... was their a "period scene' in the original??? Didn't the original Carrie die at the end??? Did Sue Ellen really ask Tommy to take Carrie out of pity? or as a joke? (I missed that part)... Didn't you think Rena Sofer (a.k.a the coach) act a little bit too militant during her scene with her students... Personally I think carrie is a classic and should never have been remade... oh well... guess people don't have imaginations any more to create something new...

The Bachelor.. so I finally decided to start watching it, mainly b/c the CMA's were on instead of the Amazing Race... so it's down to Helene and Brooke... who'd ya think will win? I personally want Helene.. she looks more interesting... and seems a little bit more real... I just dont' like brooke... too bad for Gwen.. I think she was about to cry real hard... can't wait to see next week's season finale just to see who gets dumped....

So gobble gobble day is coming up... I believe tiffy wiffy spiffy is still hosting another, ain't that right tiffy?? if you are... let us know what time and what we should bring... =) I always love that.. hey and tiff, will there be a showing of a certain TV episode/?????

anyway until we meet again. adieu.
PHIL

Friday, November 01, 2002

HELLLLLLOOOOOOO EVERYBODY!!!
how the heck has everyone been? did everybody all of a sudden get shy for unknown reasons? we're all friends so lets start to share again!
update on what's been goin on w/me:

~many of you don't know this but the primary reason i have not blogged is because i haven't had the energy. in dedication to my grandmother, i have given up eating meat and seafood for 7 weeks. it has been a hard couple of weeks and i cannot wait to sink my teeth into a nice phat juicy steak. so remember me when you eat your hamburgers, clam chowder, BBQ chicken, sushi, etc....appreciate all you eat cuz you know i do.

~now to the good news. today, Friday, November 1st 2002 is my LAST day of work at the hospital. after a year of doing almost nothing but bloggin and emailin, i have acquired another position that will use my brain - sort of. now don't worry peeps, i'm sure i will still have enough time to hit everybody with some tiff-love =)

~as a treat to myself for sticking around a whole year, i'm going to BOSTON. as i enjoy cold weather, i will have ample opportunities to freeze by bootie off in boston. high temp is 40 degrees now brrrrrrrr...good thing i have a collection of ugly hats to keep me toasty. please let me know if you need anything from Boston. hey tiff, i will keep a pix of you on my bag so Boston-bred hotties will see what they are missing out on in Cali.
~so who's down to party tonite? YAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

laters,
tiff
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