Fast Track Prototype

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

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

WTF Weekend: Mondays UnFundays

The weekend was pretty chill across the board, unless you want to count a loft sitting friend who found himself drowning in alcohol since Thursday. That’s where mine begins and ends.

I was playing the part of good uncle all weekend long, I had my niece with me so we pretty much spent the entire time eating and playing video games. I did take her with me to a BBQ gone awry when the birthday girl locked herself in her room because her douchebag of a boyfriend along with his cohorts decided that playing poker and playing the cookie game was more appropriate than tending to, what was supposed to be her event – just sayin. How are you gonna be a dick to your girl on her birthday in front of her friends? Oh that’s right, now that you’re surrounded by your posse you can show her and everyone else who the tough guy is. Oh real fuckin tough Asian Glow Boy.

The entire week had been shot admittedly. In what was initially supposed to be a stay-in week, I ended up getting into some trouble with “underage girl” on Tuesday, Not so Price is Right action that same morning and Thursday coming up in a storm and flurry of vodka shots on an empty stomach.

What good is my diet if it gets me drunk and slams me with the munchies afterward? Seriously, it may actually be worse. I can’t honestly recall much from that evening, but the whispers say that I made out extensively with someone, ok I do remember that, but what I don’t remember was trying to make out with another girl behind a bus stop – oops – falling on my face and crushing my nose (I’m still snorting out bloody boogers) and eating at Koraku. My only memory of Koraku was staring into an empty bowl. No really, that’s it. But apparently we had full on conversations about what movie we last cried at. My friend made fun of me because he remembered that I once mentioned crying at My Girl – which at the time that I saw it, was warranted – but seriously, the last movie was Whale Rider. If you have anything resembling a daughter and you don’t cry, you’re fuckin dead inside.

I woke up to find myself in someone’s bed, my car almost towed away (ok I’m being dramatic, I just parked it somewhere else and totally forgot) and getting home at 7:30 am hungover and tired as shit, just to sleep an hour so I can get to work.

It’s nice to know I still got my Office Champ Shoes.

Tags: BBQ, Birthdays, Koraku, WTF Weekend

WTF Weekend: Quarter Life Mythologies

Shortly after returning home my friend stopped by since she was “in the neighborhood” to tell me about her bad date experience. She was set up by her aunt; supposedly this guy was begging her aunt to set him up with her and after much dismay, my friend agreed and to further dismay, the date sucked.

How is a man going to beg someone to hook them up with a girl, finally go on the date and not say a damn thing. Maybe he was nervous, scared shitless, she is, despite my objections of her being a giant goofball, quite an attractive woman, so I can understand that guys freak out around her, I dunno, my immunity to all things attractive is quite the un-bane. I say un-bane because, although I should appreciate things that are beautiful – at the same time, I don’t become a nervous wreck around all things, I-guess-beautiful. The point is, if you’re gonna work to get a date from a girl, you better prepare to make something of it and not just sit there like a loon.

After much mish mash of relationship conversations we segued into a conversation about mythologies, politics, religion and the irony of people who demand freedom of speech but don’t return the favor.

We also dabbled in the realm of the quarter life crisis. There’s definitely a divide, especially in our generation for those who are starting families and those who are still trying to figure themselves out. We’re like the outcasts, the n’erdowells, struggling to find our place at our own pace.

Nevertheless it was a chill weekend, very intellectual with an in between of a mega mind blast. Sketch is off in Vegas until Tuesday, that bastard, that’s where I need to be. We’ll live vicariously through him, stay tuned for an update – I’ll probably be pulling my hair out getting his texts and tweets in the mean time while he’s out partying it up 24/7 with Playboy DJ’s and Go Go dancers – oh and let’s not forget the buffets. SO JELLY.

WTF Weekend: FU OC

It was an OC weekend for me. My cousin’s friends from Hawaii decided to stay their last few days in Huntington Beach so a few other friends and I decided to throw together an impromptu pub crawl of sorts on Main Street on Friday. Maybe it’s been years or my tastes have really changed but WTF man, Main Street is a meat market and not in a random party with good looking people kinda way. I’m talking ghetto slab. As in slab of meat. We hopped a few bars before we settled on a less crowded one, I can’t even remember the name, we were drawn in by offers of $3 shots which turned out to be really shitty Sex on the Beach – we opted for Patron instead.

My favorite part of the evenings were the drives. I came down from the Westside and we fast tracked at home, pulled over somewhere near commerce to pee near the off-ramp and shot gunned recession beers in the car before hitting main street. On the way home I stopped by Molca Salsa and ordered super nachos and a fish burrito. I got through half of both and started to head home when narcolepsy reared its ugly head and breathed a dragon toke of sandman swiss in my face. We Motel 6′d the shoulder of three off ramps before finally making it home at 5:30 am.

I was asked to whip up batches of Soju for a friend’s wedding reception and to be clear: flavored soju, I’m not exactly conjuring up vats of fermenting sweet potatoes in my pockets. We decided to have a tasting to see what flavors proved to be popular – in Irvine. The soon to be bride lives out there so I made another monster trek down to play soju time for a party. 6 batches and a Rock Band concert later we had two cops knocking at our door telling us to keep it down.

And seriously, a pre-printed form? You have got to be kidding me.

Orange County, you suck.

Tags: oc, WTF Weekend

WTF Weekend: The Echo Park Gentrification Edition

Imagine my surprise when I got an invitation to Echo Park Hospitality Night.

What?

My ideas of Echo Park come from years of conditioning, experience and old social affairs. Echo Park at the time I was growing up, wasn’t exactly – hospitable. It was a gang town, kinda like, Atwater. But nowadays it seems that these towns have been gentrified big time, so imagine my hesitation when someone said, we’re gonna party in Echo Park. Not that I have a problem with that, my history suggests that I can hang, but it wasn’t exactly at the top of my list. Maybe right next to drive by shootings, slapping some bitches and fuckin some ho’s, which is always a favorite past time of mine.

I thought it was a street festival of sorts, but I got it wrong. It was really a vintage boutique shop coming up with a creative way to promote their store – it succeeded, by confusing people. To their credit, it worked. My friend scored a gorgeous dress, which by the way looks stunning on her and we got free booze. Not to mention that we got cheap drinks at Shortstop, who my friend described as a half cholo and half hipster joint. She was spot on. Seriously, spot on. We went to some other place I can’t remember, although I do recall putting so much charm on someone her man came by and swept her away, boo shenanigans! We capped the evening when our stomachs cried bloody murder and beer fuzz so we hit up Arriza where I scored a very gritty tripas burrito. Yep, even too gritty for me and I’ll eat almost anything. Still good though, just a lot of grit, but that awesome hot sauce, sawesome if you will, they have, holy shit my mouth waters just thinking about it, will pretty much make everything magical. Emosweater can attest to this.

The plan was on Friday, that I was going to stay in and get in some R&R and maybe catch up on some TV. I know it’s a Friday, but I was ok with it. But another friend was in the west side so I joined her to alleviate her inbetween time before she bounced over to downtown for a bar hop of sorts. Well that didn’t happen. We ate at Alibi then skipped on over to Big Foot West and stayed there until we realized we were both pretty drained and called it a night around midnight.

Saturday we crammed a tiny noraebang at Max Karaoke, wow that was an ethnic butchering of a sentence*, for our friend’s birthday surprise. Got drunk in the room, hightailed to downtown to his place to continue what was a very surreal experience; cracked out fashion models all sitting on a bed while others are shooting guns off at sleeping people surreal. Don’t read too much into that last sentence, it’s supposed to sound like that; welcome to Saturday night.

*Noraebang is the Korean word for karaoke, often room style, as opposed to the entire venue. Max Karaoke is Japanese run in Little Tokyo.

Tags: Arriza, Echo Park, Karaoke, Little Tokyo

WTF Weekend: Fake Dates and Productive Sundays

It’s Monday, it’s not exactly funday, you’re either back at work or you’re slaving away at something unfun partially due to the fact that you’re not awake yet or you just can’t get into the groove. WTF happened to the weekend and more importantly – WTF happened over the weekend?

It started Thursday when Emosweater declared to the world he needed a drink. Work had shackled his spirits down a bit so we invited him over to our place to imbibe a few beers and engage in merriment. I think my roommate was on the same wavelength because he and I came home with cases of quality beer and a shiny new bottle of Makers. It’s official: the economy is stabilizing, we have quality beer at the house. Goodbye recession beers.

One Fast Track and a Korean style tabletop barbecue dinner later, we were drunk off our asses and I awoke Friday morning on the couch. Natural alarm clock FTW; I still made it to work.

Friday was a struggle, but in true Office Champ form I kept all dizziness and queasiness to myself, complete with a smile and trudged through the day. I just wanted to get home so I can catch up on a tiny bit of R&R which was nerfed when a friend of mine showed up at the house insisting on getting something to eat. She’s a bit finicky with food so we walked around downtown Culver City when she decided Rush Street’s ambiance was enough to warrant a taste test. It’s a fancy pants sports bar. The food was ok but had some killer Happy Hour deals, $3 wells? Yes please. The place was packed however, a total date spot if you ask me. I started laughing when the server came by and lit the candle at our table. I’m not a date kinda guy so when I was trying to blow out the candle, my friend insisted that it stay on just to make me squirm. She enjoyed the fact that at anytime a friend of mine would walk in and “catch” me on a date. She was out to ruin my reputation. I guess it can’t be all that bad, she’s kinda cute and well, she paid for the food.

We managed to ninja parking validation from the movie theater (score!) and then picked up gelato affogato for dessert then headed out to Bigfoot West. I’d indulge in the details but the entire evening would sound like me describing a date and also a 101 on how to make other girls jealous, but that’s for another time. We hit up Bossanova at the end of the night for some late night eats and I was in bed by 4 am. For some unknown astrally torturous reason, I suck at sleeping in and was up at 7.

Saturday was literally spent watching TV all day and nodding off at every movie. I believe we went through the entire Aliens quadrilogy.

Sunday because of all the rest, Emosweater and I picked up coffee and donuts and had a work meeting. Unheard of if you ask me. It was 8 am on a Sunday completely of our own volition. We then went on to finish up chores and errands by 1 pm. Typically, we’re just getting up at this time. We picked up groceries to cook a late lunch – wow another “date,” bromance FTW, but lesson learned, American Supermarkets are not a substitute for Asian Supermarkets – then played catch up with a friend of ours who decided it would be fun to fill us in on her sexcapades of giant penises and exotic islands.

Granted it wasn’t the pool party, twestival, crazy DJ nightlife living that sketch was cruising with all weekend, but I’d say it was one of those weekends that was good for the soul.

Tags: big, Bigfoot West, Culver City, Rush Street