Year: 2004

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i went to this asian market today to buy some fresh fish. this place was pretty crazy. they had *huge* fish tanks with enormous fish swimming around. some of these fish were over 2 feet long! the whole place totally stunk of seafood. of course, i was prepared to see all the different types of fish, crabs, shrimp etc etc… but what i totally didnt expect was turtles. yeah, turtles for sale, only 5 bux each.

the turtles in that photo are alive by the way. still struggling about and climbing all over each other. it was a realy sad site. it’s so weird to think of people eating a turtle, especially i’ve known a bunch of people who have kept them as pets. i guess it’s just a cultural thing and realy… what’s to say that eating a lobster is fine but a turtle isn’t? it’s trippy how ingrained our cultural perspectives are. i keep wondering, would i ever eat dog? all sort of cultures out there do, and i keep wondering what i would do if i was offered some. maybe i’d try a bite just to see what it’s like. and the other question is, do different breeds of dogs taste different? how does a poodle taste compared to a german shepherd?

one of the turtles was able to escape the cardboard prison that he was in. unfortunately, he wasn’t smart enough to know that he was in just as much danger sitting next to the box as he was in when he was still inside. poor little guy…

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i was driving along listening to npr today and heard this hella crazy story. this reporter was talking about his experiences in this one area in columbia. i guess this area is ruled by these militant drug lords, but somehow he was able to get permission to be there. so he was saying that cocaine farming etc was so prevalent there and that it was such a crucial part of the economy etc, that a lot of people in town used it as *money*. i guess people will go to restaurants, and pay their restaurant tab w/ coke. or they’ll go to the doctor and pay the doctor w/ coke. or they’ll go to the candy store and buy their children candy… and pay for it with cocaine. this guy would see large groups of people just setting up huge tarps in the street and drying out huge piles of cocaine.

how crazy is that?? it’s so shocking to think that there could be a place where cocaine is so pervasive. i guess this reporter guy has all sorts of really hardcore photos of his experience in National Geographic.

after reading up about this a bit, it turns out that the area he was talking about is a section of columbia that was basically conquered by this group called Farc. this group is so violent and deadly that the government of columbia has no way of stopping them. they basically just took this area over, and now force the people who live there to grow cocaine and pay farc a “tax”. they reportedly make about 300 million dollars a year. it’s pretty crazy to think that areas like this exist. areas that are completely lawless and ruled by whoever has the most guns.

in the year 2000, they announced a new policy: “[The FARC resolves to] collect the TAX FOR PEACE from those persons or corporations whose wealth is greater than $1,000,000 in U.S. dollars…Those who do not attend to this requirement, shall be detained. Their liberation shall depend upon the payment of the determined sum. PUBLISH AND COMPLY.” in other words, they will kidnap anyone in columbia who is wealthy and owns more than a million dollars.

here’s a link to the national geographic article

some more stuff about the Farc

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the other night we all went out to PF Changs since it was dave’s last night on the west coast. as i’ve mentioned before, him and sharon are moving to the east coast for the next 6 years. it sucks! we’ve all only known dave for a year or so, and yet we’re all super down with him. he’s hella smart, nice, and damn funny. hopefully, some day i’ll make it out to NY and havng out w/ him and sharon… or maybe we’ll meet up in africa, who knows?

after pfchangs we all got a few drinks at gordon biersch around the corner. i think all of us were traumatized/brought closer together by everything that happened last weekend, and it was good to hang out again. not sure why, but somehow a group photo got suggested, and we ended up taking abunch of pictuires of us standing around and posing. sheez, we are *such* dorks!!

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this happened a long time ago, but i just remembered it the other day and thought it was funny, so i’ll post about it anyways.

several years ago, elena, joey, and i drove down to LA for a party and i ended up getting crazy food poisoning. i was yacking like crazy over and over and over. we were at jerry’s deli and i was chilling in one of the stalls for a while getting ready to get sick yet again. at this point, some guy comes in, and i dont think he knew i was in there. after pissing, he walks up to the mirror and starts making all these crazy body builder poses. he’s flexing all his muscles, tapping them, etc… and then… he starts talking to his muscles!! “oh yeah, you guys are getting BIG eh? you’re looking GOOOOD. pretty soon you’ll be HUGE. oohhhh yeah!!!”

holy crap!! i couldnt believe that this dude was just gonna stand there and talk to his *muscles*. sheez.

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fourth of july has always been one of my favorite holidays. there’s nothing like a holiday where huge explosions are mandatory. i’ve always been enthralled by fireworks, and pretty soon, just watching them wasn’t enough. i wanted to blow them up myself. unfortunately, fireworks are illegal in california. well, for the most part. but certain cities, do allow the sale of “safe and sane” fireworks during the month of july. shweet!

so, year after year, my cousin and i would drive out to newark and buy a crapload of fireworks to light off. it was so cool! of course, lighting these fireworks was only legal in the cities that we bought them in, so we would sometimes get busted by the police. one time we were lighting stuff off in front of a synagogue, when a cop car pulled up. uh-oh! unfortunately, we had just lit a large firework, one of the kind that keeps going on and on for like 5 minutes!! doh! needless to say, the cop was kinda pissed.

this year, we were hoping not to have to battle w/ the law. we heard that there was this beach in santa cruz where people lit off all sorts of fireworks, so we decided to go down there. dude. it was NUTS. people there had stuff wayyyy crazier than the “safe and sane” crap we had. they had insane rockets and mortars etc that fired off into the sky. the beach was packed w/ people shooting this stuff off. so basically we were constantly watching tons of amazing fireworks in all directions. imagine the best fireworks show ever, multiply that by 20. of course, it was a little sketchy too. a lot of these people were totally drunk and reckless. some of them would shoot fireworks towards large crowds of people. i was definitely worried that all of this could end quite badly… but luckily no one (that we know) got hurt.

next year i wont be here for the 4th, but the following year, dayum, i need to get my hands on some of them crazy fireworks!

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last weekend a bunch of us went to go play shuffleboard after watching fireworks. i dont know why, but for some reason i reallydig shuffleboard. there’s nothng like a bar that has shuffleboard. pool, darts, all that other shite i can totally do without, but playing shuffleboard rocks.

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i finally went to see this on saturday. it seems like everyone i know has seen it already. what can i say about this movie that hasn’t been said already? like everyone says: it’s really good, very powerful and emotional, and shows a lot of facts about Bush that the public may not be aware of. i guess the main complaint i’ve heard from a lot of people about it is that it’s biased and doesnt really show the other side’s point of view. well, of course it’s gonna be biased!! it’s supposed to be a persuasive political movie. the whole point of it is to present it’s political opinion and then bolster that opinion w/ facts. it’s not really meant to be neutral, nor even fair.

all of us, when we exited the theater were totally amped up. we all just couldn’t wait to go out and vote. of course, i’m guessing that california will end up voting against bush anyways. our votes wont really matter, but oh well, what can you do. too bad we couldnt vote in one of those southern states and really make an impact…

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at a jewish wedding, there is supposed to be this wedding contract called a “ketubah”. it’s a very important official piece of paper that needs to be signed by several witnesses. sarah asked yan and i to learn how to spell our names in hebrew so that we could sign this ketubah.

of course, being the laggers that we are, we never really learned how to write our names until the actual day of the ceremony. on the way there, yan and i were frantically writing our names in hebrew over and over to memorize how to do it. yan even ended up writing his name on one of his fingers just in case he forgot.

we get to the wedding, and when it’s time to sign the ketubah, everyone gathers around to watch. it turns out that this thing isn’t signed by a ton of people. there were two ketubahs, and each needed to be signed by only 2 people. yikes!! now i was scared. i was one out of only two people to sign this thing?? what if i forgot how to spell my name?? what if i did it wrong? what if they asked me what the hell one of the letters i wrote was supposed to be? to make matters worse, the signing of this thing was heavily scrutinized. everyone was staring, people were photographing the actual signatures, and the rabbi, a stern looking woman, sat across the table from you when you signed. i started sweating bullets.

remarkably, i was able to remember how to write my name. i wrote it all down. letter by letter. then, when i was about to get up, the rabbi says “and then you have to write ‘ben’ and your father’s hebrew name”. WHAT??! oh crap! everyone is staring at me, and expecting me to write this, and i can’t spell in hebrew. i start fidgeting. i look around at the mob with pleading eyes… “get me out of here! i’m an imposter. dont kill me!!” the rabbi is starting to get impatient, and urges me to get on with it. what’s she gonna think when i tell her that i can’t write in hebrew? should i have even been allowed to sign this thing then?? am i in trouble? is the whole wedding contract forfeit?! i seriously wanted to jump out of my chair and run like hell. arrrggghhh!!

out of confusion, i stammer something about not being sure what my father’s hebrew name would be. they ask me what his name is in english, and as soon as i say it, i realize how stupid i must sound. his name is isaac. That *is* a hebrew name. so they tell me to write “ben itzhak” (son of isaac). and finally, i have to say that i have no idea how to write that, or anything else for that matter. that i only know how to spell my name, and even that not very well. *sigh*. after giving me a grouchy look, the rabbi writes the stuff down on a piece of paper, and i copy it into the ketubah.

man, i am so smooth.

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sarah is one of my friends from way back in the day. i’ve been friends w/ her since highschool. unfortunately, she lives in oregon now, and i dont get to see her much, but she totally surprised me last year when she told me that she was getting married. it’s pretty odd when someone gets married who you’ve know ever since they were very young. but i was actually very happy for her. her boyfriend steve is really cool, and i think they make a really great pair.

last sunday was the wedding. they had the ceremony in her backyard, followed by a reception at the stanford faculty club. the ceremony was really cool and touching. super jewish ceremony with a rabbi, huppa, etc.

the other really cool thing about the wedding was that it was kind of a reunion of sorts. most of the people at our table had all been friends ever since highschool. some people, like jenny payne, i haven’t seen in almost 8 years! also, i hadn’t seen allegra, who was a bridesmaid, in many years either. it was cool to catch up w/ everyone and reminisce about the olden days.

one of the things we couldn’t stop talking about was hawaii. about 9 years ago, when i was only 19, Yan, Jenny, Sarah, Sharon, and I all took a trip to Kuai and stayed on this huge ranch that sharon’s grandparents owned. it was an insane amount of fun. we were still fairly young, so to take a crazy hawaii vacation w/ no parents was a blast. looking back, that kuai trip is one of our fondest memories. it was so nice to sit there last sunday and have everyone from that trip back together again.

funnily enough, other than jenny, most of us are still really close friends. it’s really cool that the bonds of friendship can last that long. there were so many crazy times during that week in hawaii… and actually during those years in general, and it seemed impossible that any of us close friends would lose track of each other. well, looks like we really haven’t. in a world that’s constantly evolving and changing, where people move away to pursue careers and college etc, it’s nice to know that some things stay constant.

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