Fast Track Prototype

Ariza’s Where Are You?

We were at El Prado last night when we noticed that Ariza’s wasn’t at their spot; this scared us. Emosweater made note that it hasn’t been there for the passed three days, so that made it even scarier. So if anyone knows what happened to Ariza’s or where they went – I can only imagine that their presence on that street wasn’t exactly legal, especially when squatting meters – please let us know. It’s hard getting good Mexican food for that cheap without having to chase trucks and deal with restaurants that cater to, well, ya know, people who don’t really know real Mexican food. Ya know, people who think Baja Fresh is something of a heroic staple. Seriously, WTF.

Ariza’s, where are you!?

In an attempt to pay homage to the great Taco Truck/Trailer and also to get a fix for some good tacos, I made some tacos at home using left overs, looks nice right? Wrong, it was just…ok. The meat I used was seriously just some left over stuff that was sitting around. When it comes down to it, the salsa and the meat make the meal. Anyone can chop up onions and cilantro and flip corn tortillas over heat, but the “meat” of the meal comes from the, well, meat along with the salsa. And Ariza’s uber spicy tomatillo salsa was the icing on the already delicious cake. I might actually cry right now.

Tags: Ariza, Cooking, El Prado, food, Tacos

One Down, 11 More to Go

Months that is. Not that this is a countdown, but I can’t freakin believe it’s February already.

Three years ago I was teetering on a relationship with a long time friend; it seems like I just sent her home on a plane last week. I remember as a kid, everything felt forever. Everything felt like it was taking too long to get there. Road trips, birthdays, Christmas always felt like it was a brutal countdown and now I’m wishing for time to slow down so I can try to attend to all the matters that need addressing.

I feel like Lucy when she and Ethel are at the chocolate candy assembly line. At first things start at a nice pace, but then things get wonky fast and she can’t keep up and starts eating the candies she can’t wrap – and if I have to explain this bit to you, you’re in serious need of some I Love Lucy time. It’s classic for any generation.

Well that’s what’s happening. Things are getting eaten and it’s starting to make me feel sick and overwhelmed. We have all these trips and adventures planned for this year and month, not to mention our usual barrage of weekend mayhem.

Here’s to not being too overwhelmed that we can’t write about it.

No Excuses

Make no mistake. We shouldn’t have stopped writing, whether people were reading or not, it doesn’t matter, the idea was to put forth content, to push ideas and share stories and it all stopped.

I can’t promise anything, I can’t promise things will change, I can’t promise that we’ll be different – but we can try.

We can only look forward to the things that are to come, we’re still taking shape and we’re still trying to figure things out and most importantly, we’re going to try.

Hopefully we’ll find that voice we’ve been trying to hear, find that song we’ve been trying to sing, play that game we’ve been trying to play and work that job we’ve been trying to work. After all, the idea was adventure, sharing thrills, frills and even the shrills.

2010, here we come.

WTF Weekend: Going The Way of the Turkey

The entire week consisted of drinking, eating and sleeping. In that order from greatest consumption to least consumption. It actually started a weekend early. Our friends and I had the annual Thanksgiving/Christmas party where the pot luck table was so full, I almost felt like I didn’t have to bring food. For once we had somewhat of an alcohol shortage, well good alcohol and was left with crappy wine and weird vodka ice tea mixtures. I know, chick shit written all over it. However I’m not one to turn down alcohol so despite my dislike for very sugary alcoholic drinks I pulled up my panties and drank.

The hardest part about drinking at any Thanksgiving dinner is balancing the space in your stomach for food and alcohol. If you’re too full you can’t drink a lot. At the same time, if you eat too much it also takes a lot more alcohol to get to you. So it’s either you don’t eat and get drunk fast, or you do eat and drink a lot. There seems to be no happy middle ground. Go big or go home.

Tuesday my roommates and I started what will hopefully be a tradition of us going out for the holidays before we depart for our own with our families. We hit up Karaoke Bleu and managed to wax three bottles of vodka, sing songs we can’t remember and ended up eating meals that pretty much greeted us in burps the next morning. Despite the two times we shall never speak of, Bleu never fails.

I spent my Thanksgiving with my roommate’s family – always a riot. We ended up broiling catfish, eating oysters, turkey and pig and still managed to knock back mega sized bottles of Grey Goose and sing obnoxiously on a magic mic with still more time and space to burn soju shots at the end of the night.

Saturday an old buddy of mine was having his annual potluck and in good old Mexican fashion it was a night of beers, tequila and a whole lot of laughs. I think between the three of us, us being my friend’s sisters and myself, we went through more than half the giant Costco sized bottle of Patron ourselves. I counted at least 7 shots. This is not including the Crown and Cokes and Fat Tires. I had to keep my spinning head from coming off the neck and forced myself to drink what I believe was about 72 oz. of water so that I wouldn’t have the massive hangover I was expecting to have in the morning.

No hangover. Cue mariachi music.

Tags: Holiday, Thanksgiving, WTF Weekend

Tonight: Karaoke Blue – Pre-Pre-Thanksgiving

In celebration of a Pre-Pre-Thanksgiving, we’re going to be at Bleu tonight. Why a Pre-Pre and not just a Pre? Well let’s face it, when the day ends Wednesday, everyone’s going to be in a mad rush to get home in a furious cavalcade for the Thanksgiving finish. So why not take our sweet ass merry ol’ time and enjoy tonight for what it is.

Tuesday.

C’mon like we really need a reason to go out on a Tuesday?

Bring your drinking shoes and singing souls. We’ll feast our minds and hearts on good times.

Tags: Karaoke, Karaoke Bleu, Thanksgiving

Twilight: The Chick’s Star Wars

I’m sure about now, a buttload of females have seen, are seeing or will have seen Twilight: New Moon and will find themselves with internal conflict on whether to side with the vampires or werewolves. Now I know this little tidbit not because I saw the movie or read the book, but because Burger King made a commercial about it.

I’m not going to break anything down, I’m in fact going to keep this very simple. A friend of mine made a very good point today. If a guy can geek out about Star Wars and have a ZOMGLIGHTSABERS moment, then a girl has every right to ZOMGMYEDWARDS!

I don’t like it, but I have to be fair. After all, the women in my life tolerate my WoW, Zelda and SciFi’s. I can give them them their Twilights.

Tags: Geeks, Star Wars, Twilight

Because Drunken Pool is So Much Better Than Sober Pool

My tongue keeps running over the serrated edges of my newly chipped tooth from last night. It’s not so bad, you can’t really see it when I talk or smile, but if you look closely, you’ll see a tiny snag. My tongue swears it’s the size of a Giza pyramid hanging upside down geofront style. Like I could sink my teeth into a piece of meat and great white the mother fucker off it’s hook. I have to keep telling myself it’s tiny. My tongue keeps running across it. Why do we hate ourselves so much that we keep picking at the things that hurt?

I was trying to tell a story about something when I made an attempt to bite into my mug – for effect – and it wasn’t a tiny frosty mug, it was a liter. Add a few spikes and it’s a fuckin deadly weapon by ATF standards. So in my horribly coordinated state, instead of successfully biting into the mug to demonstrate the silliness of my story, I ended up colliding with the rim of the glass resulting in a very uncomfortable stun. I’m actually lucky I didn’t knock my tooth out or give myself an un-cosmetic chip. It’s bad enough I break out into whistling Pete at random times.

After downing two liters of Alaskan Amber, a few fries, a chicken strip, 3 peanuts and 3 lollipop chick cigs at Heroes, we made our way to Stubrick’s to cap the night. Stubrick’s by the way is right next to Slide Bar where the infamous too drunk to care to get her number story took place. Idiots.

Some guys who were playing pool gave us their game to finish so my friend and I went against Sketch by his lonesome. Keep in mind, all of us were pretty toasty at the time so we can pretty much sum up the game as the “longest pool game ever with 3 balls.” Luckily for us Sketch scratched and we won by default. Usually I hate winning like that, but victory is victory.

I could sprinkle in all the reasons why we initially went from West LA to downtown Fullerton, but it’s irrelevant. The important thing was that we showed moral support, we made a statement about people and friendship and the support system that we need as human beings.

I mean shit, fuck the drive, I chipped my gawd damn tooth!

Tags: Break Ups, Downtown Fullerton, Heroes, Stubrick's

Playboy Bunnies Are Soft and Cuddly

My face was firmly planted in the couch. I moved my eyes as far as I could to peer at the clock and saw that it was almost 10:15 pm. Sketch said he’d be popping by at that time to go to a fundraiser involving playboy bunnies and karaoke. You’d think I’d be excited about that prospect alone, two quintessential things coming together to form a robotic tour de force of mechanical lion sweetness.

Nope.

I was happy on the couch.

I’ve been suffering from mild fatigue so I’ve been sluggish and the couch had me in its warm embrace.

Sketch showed up and since I committed to the event, I peeled my face off the couch and we drove down to a ghost town of a street. There was hardly any traffic, all the shops were closed – it was very eerie. I expected zombies to come trudging out from behind the corner and me with no weapon; we would have been brain flambe. The only sounds came from the bar we were headed to and once we got inside we were greeted by platinum blonds, tiny skirts and sake shots. Admittedly, we totally did sake a bad deal and tossed them down like bad whiskey, but in all fairness, two did the trick to get me primed to sing a song when the lights came on.

It was time to go home. Vanessa, our French Canadian server was a doll and humored us so we pulled in one more round just for her and then stepped out into the quiet to find out what our next destination was. Our friend at Maloney’s wasn’t working and due to an intense craving for Ariza’s we called up our Silver Lake resident and with a little nudge and her brokering out of a glass of wine she agreed to meet up with us at El Prado to indulge in more beer and then ultimately, Ariza’s.

The night almost took a nose dive when we walked out of El Prado and turned the corner only to find the street normally vacated by the Ariza’s Taco trailer empty. At first I thought I was seeing things. Not seeing the trailer there, well I’ve never not seen the trailer there, was heartbreaking. Sketch has been witness to its great escapes before, but for me, it was like removing the top off a girl and not being greeted by her mammarian friends. We stood there stunned. It wasn’t even go time and they definitely went a go. Luckily for us, our Echo Park guide took us to the next best thing. Taco Zone.

Don’t be fooled by the name. It’s the real deal. Their creamy green sauce, which really wasn’t your standard fair verde, made for an extra kick of flavor that made my medley of lengua on tortilla a delight. I’m not kidding, there was no regret on my end for missing Ariza’s truck. But then again, I was pretty buzzed and day old taco bell would have been divine.

Tags: Echo Park, El Prado, Karaoke, Silver Lake, Taco Zone

P90X is Not For Fat People

Is there anything that will decrease the mass of your legs? My thighs are so big squirrels bring me their nuts to crack. Seriously, I wake up in the morning and I see them all at my porch with those sad squirrely eyes, holding up their nuts.

Gawd there’s a nut joke in there somewhere but it’s too early to crack one.

Anyway, I saw some of the routines for P90x and said, FUCK THAT. You have to be ripped to begin with. It’s like those damn Pantene Pro-V commercials where the women have immaculate hair. It’s like they picked out women with already gorgeous hair to do their commercials to say, hey you can have hair like this if you use our product when those women who are in the commercial already have flawless hair to begin with.

Yeah, whatever, YOUR MOM.

I’ve known a few people who have already gotten injured, some incurring a wrathful trip to the doctor, from P90X. I’m not saying it doesn’t work, I’m saying, it really does work, but you can’t be a fatass and go into it all EXTREME!!1.

I feel like I need a six pack before I can work on the 12.

Gawd I want beer now.

And for fun:

Tags: fitness, health, P90X

WTF Weekend: That Was So Last Halloween and Buttonwillow Santa Barbara

The biosuits I was picking up for our costumes were used. Kinda scary. On one hand, I highly doubt they would sell anything that is still contaminated, but the thought that this suit was once possibly exposed to killer chemicals and infectious diseases did cross my mind. If I grow an extra pair of testicles, I’ll let you know. Hell, I’ll put it on Youtube.

We were the Anti-Swine Flu Team, complete with biosuits, goggles and vials of Swine Flu Vaccine aka 100 proof vodka with syringes to apply the “shots.” It was totally a hit – when we weren’t “OMG GHOSTBUSTERS” or “LOLBEASTIEBOYS.”

Emosweater and I decided to hit up Vegas on Sunday for a turnaround and catch up with the others. When we hit state line we grabbed a sixer and downed three beers a piece before we hit the strip so by the time we got to the hotel room we were nice and saucy. Kids don’t try this at home, or anywhere else for that matter.

Lavo was cool, despite the fact that I spent most of my time outside when I finally did go in and join the group groove, I had a blast, up until Fez showed up. Now I don’t know if he was spinning or just hanging out with the DJ but he kept getting on the mic every fuckin 20 seconds to say something. Dude, stop interrupting the song, just let the music play, you’re fuckin annoying. Guess he wasn’t doing much acting on that 70’s show after all.

We hit up Drais afterward, greased the cigar girl a few bucks for free passes for the ladies, got a gander at Optimus Prime and that giant fuzzy Cheshire Cat Looking guy from Where the Wild Things Are in a costume brawl when Michael Jackson showed up and kicked their asses. Then it was a parade of gay men and dancing moonrakers, when Emosweater and I decided it was time to go home or die driving there in a losing battle to slumber.

* * *

This passed weekend Emosweater and I decided it would be fun to catch up with Sketch after his Santa Barbara Half Marathon. It’s got that coastal town feeling to it, like San Deigo, which is something we should have kept in mind when we stopped at Buttonwillow to eat at Carl’s and realized we were way off course. Two and a half hours to be exact. 5 North, straight shot, I didn’t question it. In my mind it sounded right, but we probably would have ended up a few miles outside of San Jose before we realized if we didn’t stop to eat. Without sounding too existential it really was more about the journey and getting outside of LA city limits for a change of pace, which we succeeded in doing, but the downside to it was, well, Santa Barbara just felt like Orange County or San Diego. Granted we were probably setting ourselves up for the local easy stop or the tourist trap setting on Main Street – I mean that would be like us directing folks to Old Town Pasadena or 3rd Street Promenade. These are the places you hang out at when you’re not 21, from out of town or just point all the non-cool people to when you need to send them to some generic place to do stuff.

The highlight of the evening, or the downfall depending on who you talk to, was when Emosweater was totally violated by some drunk guy, so much that I totally panicked for a few seconds. My instinct was to grab his hand and drag him out of there or step in between the two to break up space, but it was Emosweater and not some girl and it was a guy that was hitting on him and it was – it was so strange. Either I was frightened by it, or caught in some eerie fascination of what was unfolding. Then at Madison’s, some chola threw some shit at the bartender right next to us and things almost went gansta. I guess the excitement really fired up this random drunk guy, who went on a freak-everyone-at-the-bar-air-humping-spree. Of course Emosweater was the first to be accosted. It was so his night.

The drive home initially was rough, we went through three or four cycles of getting drunk and sobering up that day – with drinking starting at 4 pm, which is really taxing on the body we discovered, but after a few shakes of Monster and doing the ABC’s of name that boob, we made it home.

My favorite: Dirigibles and chesticles. How I never heard of chesticles I’ll never understand. Pure genius.

Tags: half marathons, Halloween, Holiday, Santa Barbara, WTF Weekend