OakMonster’s Den

“I hate liars!”

Overheard somewhere across the office.

“I fucking hate liars.”

I couldn’t agree more, comrade. I couldn’t agree more.

Hi gang. I’m buzzed off of my friend Jon’s home brewed yummy Chocolate Port and highly addictive Hard Cider. (John - I will sell my soul to you as long as you keep making them Hard Cider!) Lots and lots and lots of food served. I can’t even begin to discuss the yummy brats, wings, dips, and much much more.

And my favorite commercial of the evening? CareerBuilder.com. I’m going to make me one of the ring binder helmet at work!

Here are the highlights of the conversations going on during the game that I managed to remember…

Prince of Our Hearts

Lupe and I screamed our lungs off at the big screen during Prince. (Oh, I bow before thee, Prince!) Well, Lupe more than me at one point.

Me: Quick, Lupe! Throw him your panties!

James got up and pretend to get to his panti…I mean, underwear…

Lupe: But my panties would stick on the TV…

Prince of Our Hearts II

During “Purple Rain”, Prince broke into a guitar solo with his Symbol guitar. A giant screen was raised in a sense by the wind and it was back lit. Prince’s shadow is casted onto the screen. And I couldn’t resist making some comments.

#1: Wow. Prince is suddenly as big as a normal person.

A few seconds later, his guitar certainly became, um, a part of his body in that shadow.

#2: Wait. How is THIS family friendly? Take that, Janet Jackson!

We did a re-run of the half time show after the game because Greg M. had missed it. When it came to the shadow play, I noticed something else.

#3: Hey. Actually, that guitar shadow now kind of look like the Rabbit…? Um…did I say that out loud just now? (KROQ’s Sex-U and Mazing Amy educated me well…)

No Beans for You

We were talking about food or something when Lupe told us about Paul’s likes and dislikes about food.

Lupe: Paul doesn’t like beans.

Heather (Greg B’s girlfriend…we just met tonight): Well, that IS a good thing.

Paul: Hey, Greg? Why did you…

Me: And lucky for us.

Paul: …bring her? HEY! Seriously! Why is SHE here? *Direct at me* And why are YOU here?

Me and Heather high-fived.

Oh them REALLY happy cows

The new “Happy Cows come from California” came on.

Me: Did the cows just sing, “We’re Californians and we’re gay”?

Greg M (who is gay): Well. Those gays. They’re just taking over the state.

Like A Hurricane

Brenda broke the hurricane lamp on the window sill. She was going to blow it out but somehow dropped and broke the glass.

Jon: Well, now we find out that the lamp is no good for the hurricane.

Good night, y’all!

Just got back from my optometrist. I am wearing my new astigmatism-corrected contact lenses.

EVERYTHING looks bigger than before.

I mean, my computer screen looks like font size 14 instead of 12. Well, fuck. The monitor itself even looks bigger than last night! The Vitamin Water bottles in the store, the same size as what I have at home, look huge. My judgment on dimension is a little off right now so I keep banging into things…which makes me feel like the things ARE bigger.

Even myself looks bigger. Thicker, I should say.

Good lord.

I get to walk around wearing these for 4 hours today. Tomorrow, I suppose to wear them all day to see how they do.

I guess, this literally opens my eyes to an entire new world this morning.

My first stop was at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to pick up a tin of English Breakfast tea and a caramel latte for me. That was when I first noticed things were bigger than before.

The tins for the tea looked HUGE and I thought to myself, huh…they’re making everything bigger these days. Once I picked it up, I realized it’s the same size it has ever been! LOL.

Now, behind me there was a guy sitting by himself with a deck of cards. I don’t know if he was playing anything or was just there practicing his magic tricks. But every few minutes you’d hear that “ssshhhhhhhffff” noise. If you’d look up it time, you’d catch this guy shooting the cards from one hand to the other. Nifty.

As I waited for my coffee, I was thinking of just going over there, sit down at his table and just say, “Hit me!” and then walk away. But my Mohawk donning barista was swamped so by the time I got my latte, the Magician was gone.

Oh yes. My barista has a Asian Mohawk. I don’t even want to ask how he got the uniform viser to go over that.

After the coffee, I finally stopped into a Famima!! store, a Japaneses style 7-11 type store that is fully stocked with food and Japanese food and products. I have heard so much about it and our bus goes past one in Downtown everyday–actually we also past the soon-to-open one on the way home as well.

OMG, guys. So. Much. Fun! LOADS of fresh food. Friendly staff. Clean, comfy, and uncluttered space. I will write about it on Hmm…Food…Good once we’re done eating our lunch later today. But so far, their danish pastries kick ass.

We are awaiting the verdict from the Andersons in San Diego. We may head down this afternoon, or they may come up. Justin has said he wanted to visit his mom solo. So we suggested that we can have a “Borrow Olaina” while he visits with his mom. Hehehe.

After all, I just got The Devil Wears Prada from Netflix and Brandon’s WoW friends are probably missing him now that he’s been playing Final Fantasy XII for a few days. Girls Day In! Woohoo.

But if we head south, it’ll be just as fun. The weather is gorgeous. And the Adams Avenue Grill’s fantastic food and wine awaits.

We’ll see how today goes.

*Update* Devil Wears Prada was cute. I wouldn’t say the best movie ever. Meryl is fantastic and Ann Hathaway is gorgeous. Simon Baker? Deeeelish! And we ended up in San Diego for dinner with the Andersons. Lots of fun. Will blog on Monday about that, and a review of the ever so fantastic food at Adams Avenue Grill.

Gosh. Only if I have all the time in the world! Then you would’ve known that in the past few weeks, I have…

*UPDATE*…nearly fallen off my chair when Brandon called me. “You wouldn’t believe what just happened,” he said.

As he was leaving to go to his side job client’s office 2 Fridays ago, he felt something flew by his head into the apartment. He thought, well damn, that’s a big moth. He looked back inside.
For a brief moment, he made eye contact with a hummingbird who perched on our bookshelf for a second before flitting off around the apartment.

For the next hour, Brandon chased the bird around trying to get it back out the door. Eventually, he did.

“Yeah, now what am I going tell my client? That I’m an hour late because a hummingbird flew into my house?”

“Of course, babe. Weirdd stuff like this could only happen to you. They’d understand.”

…seen Lady in the Water. And I absolutely LOVE it! I think people who hate it–99% of critics and general public, it seems–have lost their inner children. With our imagination mostly intact, the fairy tale makes perfect sense to both of us. I can seriously see this happening out in my backyard right now if I have a backyard and a pool. How it plays out also makes sense to us in a hilarious way. Sure, it’s far fetch and over the top, but it’s a FUCKING FAIRY TALE, people. This is not serious drama. Neither is it Tolkien. A lesson on how things are never really what you think and “the experts” may not always be right. How a community of, well, outcasts, weirdos and freaks come together for just one thing. And of course, the one thing I believe in above all else, one small change can one day change the world.

On the other hand, The Covenant was just horrid. The flying Hummer was cool. The rest? I don’t know. I walked away soon after that. Brandon fast-forwarded through almost half of it before given up altogether.

…heard my mom made a joke over the phone for the first time. I asked what she was having for lunch (her time) that day. Then I told her I made some ground pork fried rice for Brandon earlier.

“Don’t give Brandon too much pork,” mom said.

“Why not?”

“You’re going to turn him into a pig.”

Things seem to be returning to a more normal level over there I see. She’s very lively and happy to be home, we think. Her friends still visit everyday, and of course, now she gets to see more of dad and Onk. The cancer is staying its itsy bitsy size and hasn’t traveled elsewhere so far. The concern is that mom still mostly lives on Ensure. She’d have a bite here and there but not a lot. Not eating well affects her strength and her will to do physical therapy. Then again, we think she may be getting a bit too comfortable in that wheelchair of hers and therefore been playing hooky so she can stay the spoiled lady of house that she is. Heheh.

…have found a new favorite bar, ever. The newly revived Redwood Bar & Grill in Downtown LA. Once the haunt for hard knock LA Times reporters, politicians and mobsters back in the days. Now a PIRATE THEMED joint!

…just today, have created a new Flickr set.

So, there you go.

I’m going to go play the piano now.

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Originally uploaded by theoakmonster.

Accounting Guy. You. Fucking. Rock. My. World.

He happened to go back to Costco last night and picked up the last 2 red Swinglines.

One of them is for me.

Yet not enough time.

I’ve found myself coming up with all of these things I want to share with you guys. The nuances of funnies. The interestingly psychotic rant on nonsensical stuff. An old poem I found scribbled on a back of a napkin from what feels like gazillion years ago in college.

This. That. And other.

But there is just not enough time. Or opportunity to do so.

If I post 3 times a day, not to mention that I would raise much suspicion and ire from my bosses (hi Demi Boss and Lady Boss), but that feels too much.

But then when I waited to blog it all at once, I end up with this seemingly never ending entry that meanders in and out of topics, time and space, channeling the epic styling of J.R.R. Tolkien minus the Hobbits, hot 300-year-old king of men or someone speaking in elegantly in Quenya.

And then you’d either lost interest reading 3 paragraphs in. And move on to the next thing.

(Hey, speaking of which, my high school was in the papers today. I had Doc Hensen for only a few days my senior year before I changed my schedule. I was highly disappointed to have gone through school and not have Doc for religion. He has so much personality and knowledge to go with that eccentric edge. Yep, the brilliant and eccentric type. I hope this whole thing blows over real quick. It sounds like much ado about nothing to me.)

Probably that is why my readership has dropped drastically. Something I expected since there is no benefit of Blogger random “next blog” button or other ones of their listings.

But what I didn’t expect is that it seems every time I check my BlogPatrol report, all of the recent hits came from me checking to see what my post looks like.

That, my friend, is a truly sad, sad situation.

But, blogging is possibly the most easily accessible and convenient form of self expression for me at the moment.

And it beats constantly trying update people with emails. ;-D Hahaha!

At the Accounting Guy’s desk.

Me: Hey, here’s the paperwork. Can I borrow your stapler for a sec?

Him: *Hands over this:

Me: DUDE!!!!!!

Him: What?

Me: You own a fucking red Swingline?!?!

Him: Isn’t this cool? You never see a red stapler in the store…

Me: *Jaw drops to the floor*

Him: …I bought it from Costco the other day for $10…

Me: *jaw stills on the floor*

Him: …See? It came with this mini stapler and a remover. It’s a very good deal. What?

Me: Obviously, you have not seen Office Space.

Him: No…?

Me: *Briefly explains the significance of the red stapler* You see, it’s $22 at ThinkGeek and $36 at Swingline website.

Him: Oh, it’s a collectible? Wow. I should have bought a few more.

Me: Dude. If you get there this weekend, get me one? Please?