merry x-mas person (well the only one who probably read this is mark)!

so we've had our "dorkz holiday party" last saturday. it went extremely well i thought. everyone had fun. unfortunately, we weren't able to go karoaking after dinner, but we ended up at my friend, mark’s house afterwards, and it was great. here’s the recap of my day:

11:32 am – woke up.

11:32 am – went to my computer and clicked on the link to “think the unthinkable.” one of the hilarious comedies on the bbc. it’s about this unique, off-the-wall consulting firm. it’s a riot. i promise.

12:00pm – got out of bed. decided to watch some of the extras in the “lord of the rings” dvd. i have to say that this is one of the best extras ever on a dvd. it blows the extras on the “spiderman” dvd by far. (as of tuesday night, i’m still not done)

12: 20pm – got a call from jenny, who i was suppose to go shopping with later in the day. set up a time to go shopping. you know it’s bad when someone calls you at around noon and asks, “oh, did i wake you up?” come on, i’m not big on sleep, but still…

12:22pm – decided to make breakfast. usually i like my eggs over easy (don’t get me started on my strange way of eating my eggs), but on that day, i figured that i’ll make some scrambled eggs. why not? it came out a bit bland. then i made some fried hot dogs cuz i didn’t want to bother with making sausages. and i made some biscuits. it was okay, nothing to get excited about though.

1:36pm – jenny calls on the way to my place. took a shower and got dressed. jenny showed up half an hour later.

2:02pm – i needed to run to my bank to deposit some checks. who knew that wells fargo closes at 2pm on saturday? so instead, i did what i usually wouldn’t like to do, and that is deposit my checks through the atm. whadda ya gonna do?

3:50pm – after walking around stores to find jenny a cashmere “thing” to wear over her dress for the holiday dinner, we ended up at pacific sunwear (website down). now, you wouldn’t think that they would carry scarves. i mean shit, it’s a surf store you know. but they had what i was looking for; a scarf for my secret santa.

4:27pm – we got the scarf, and jenny had gotten some foot massage package (in a tin can no less, nice touch!) for her secret santa some time before, we went into this shoe store called, o’my soles. this is the store where i’d purchased my steel-toed dr. martin’s three or four years previous. so we walked in cuz i was thinking of buying a new pair of shoes. i tried some on and in the middle of doing this, the salesperson mentioned something about how worn my shoes were. i didn’t really mind, cuz they were pretty bad. however, having said that, he then continued with, “i’m surprised she let you wear them out.”

*** ATTENTION: i’m not going out with jenny. we’re just friends who go shopping and hang out together. ***

4:33pm – he just lost his commission.

4:45pm – on the way home, i mentioned that i wanted to get a haircut, and jenny wanted to get a manicure. so we stopped by ben’s barbershop here in good ole south pasadena, and while i got haircut, jenny went and did her nails.

5:24pm – i got home and decided to call my friend, andrea, in nyc. she had moved to ny just a month prior to the 9/11 attacks. we had at one time, corresponded on a regular basis through email. however, having been sick for the past 3 or 4 months, i’ve slacked off on that. i received a x-mas card from her that day, so i thought, i should ring her up and have a chat. granted, dinner was at 7:00pm, and i wasn’t exactly well prepared to leave. but we chatted for about 30 minutes, which was very nice. she’ll be back in town later this month, and we’ll meet up then.

5:54pm – wow, i’m so freaking late. i didn’t realize that it’ll take me some time to figure out what to wear. and i haven’t even shower yet (i like to shower after getting my hair cut since i really can’t stand the discomfort from the little bits of hair that get caught on your collar). not to mention that i have to go get some stuff for jenny and a ribbon for my gift. as i was getting dressed, i couldn’t figure out what coat i wanted to wear. so i decided on wearing the trenchcoat i’d purchased weeks ago. it was going to rain that night.

6:37pm – where the fuck do they keep the tampons at rite aid? seriously, if you’re a guy, you would have no idea where tampons were located at any store. wait, that’s not exactly true. if you’ve been single for a year or more, you would have no idea where the tampons are kept at a store. no way.

7:15pm – christ, i’m still on the 10W heading out to santa monica. better call carlin to let him know that i’m going to be late. oh what? you’re not there yet either? holy crap. why are the people in front of me driving so damn slow?

7:34pm – note to self: for next year, pick a place where there’s (in the words of “south park”), “ample parking everywhere.” good god, there are no parking spots out in the parking structures at the 3rd street promenade. none.

7:45pm – finally got to the restaurant, a place called monsoon cafe. almost everyone was there, save for carlin, patricia, and jay. jay had to work late and carlin… well, carlin being carlin, is late. even tony was there. you know it’s sad when tony shows up before you do. but hey, i had to travel about 22 miles more than he did. said hi to everyone.

*** LIST OF PEOPLE AT DINNER: (table 1) chris s., roy, cecilia, rob, jay, susan, patrick, jenny and mike. (table 2) mark, me, tony, shawn, kathy, charlotte, chris l., carlin and patricia. ***

9:26pm – finished up dinner. i had the “burmese curry beef.” let’s just say that it was a misnomer because i couldn’t taste any curry in the dish. nor did mark. it was highly disappointing. and to make matters worse, we didn’t even get the cute waitress. table 1, got the cute blonde with the nice arse. round and bubbly.

*** ATTENTION: yes i know that was completely sexist and i’m such a male chauvinist pig. but she really did have a nice arse. ***

10:27pm – after getting some liquid refreshments at ralphs on cloverfield, arrived at mark’s only to find that with 17 people there (probably over 10 cars), parking was a bitch. bitch = just a street block away. hey this is LA, gotta have parking baby.

11:02pm – started our secret santa gift presentation. we put the gifts on the bottom of the stairs and i picked names out of a bag. we started off with someone and ended with someone else. hahaha, you can’t expect me to remember the order do you? that’s just silly.

11:36pm – it was my turn. i was kinda excited and a little embarrassed. i enjoyed mc’ing of the event, but when it was my turn, i got kinda nervous. so i went to get my gift (brilliantly wrapped, mind you). and to my great surprised, i got a wonderful t-shirt from urban outfitters. it’s a blue shirt that has “england” written in the front of it. i was so grateful, cuz i’ve never gotten a gift that involved clothing before.

11:53pm – all the gifts were handed out. now we have to guess who was our secret santa. i vaguely remember some…

shawn got mike a “beavis and butthead” dvd
mike got shawn an “unchi” (japanese for shit) piggy bank
susan got carlin a george foreman grill (only to realize later that he doesn’t cook much at home)
jenny got susan a foot massaging kit as mentioned previously
jay got patrick some big freaking playing cards
tony got charlotte a calendar with pictures of penguins (her favorite animal)
mark got chris l. some japanese graphics design book
pat got jenny a pair of bowling gloves
patricia got tony a x-mas tree doormat
carlin got roy a box of beer from around the world
cecil got kathy something from the body shop
kathy got cecil a scarf and a beanie
roy got mark a drinking game.
i got patricia a scarf i mentioned before
and chris l. got me the wonderful england t-shirt (i shook his hands and gave him a hug i think)

12:24pm – let the drinking commence! we played with mark’s drinking game. basically there are six shot classes and there’s a spinning arrow. you drink whatever’s in the shot glass that the arrow lands on. somewhere down the road, mark had a tequila shot. he really hates tequila. jay started making apple martinis, shaken not stirred. i had a few beers, but didn’t get drunk.

4:24pm – some people had left already. i was on my way out. drove back to south pasadena and called my parents in hong kong for a chat.

5:04pm – went to bed… with “think the unthinkable” playing in the back ground.

so there you have it. a wonderful saturday in december spent with friends and people you care about. oh, i’d forgotten to mention that carlin and i made little souvenir t-shirts for everyone. it was kinda shoddy because we used iron-on’s instead of silkscreening. but hey, it was the thought that counts, and we had a week and a half to do it. anyhow, we spent quite a bit of money there. carlin and patricia put the finishing touches on; ribbons, candy canes, and holiday tags. brilliant carlin, just brilliant. people were generally surprised, and i got patrick right on the face when I was passing the shirts around. excellent.

can’t wait til next year. merry x-mas, everyone… oops, i meant mark.

ps: oh, one more thing, i’ll link the site with the pictures once carlin or jay has them up.
posted by your arse at 2:50 AM