I had a pretty rough week all around. Lots of thing went wrong for xTian MORE after the jump…

Posted on July 2nd, 2010 Filed in: Life Tags: Fun Week, The Hose Editorial, those were better days

The Sparkseses are heading to NYC this summer, Cha and Lamb in tow, and are looking to rent an apartment.  We found one that seems perfect – plenty of space, close to kid-friendly attractions, reasonable price, air conditioned, doorman building, etc.  When we inquired as the to the exact location, they said 96th between Columbus and CPW.

A number of us went to school very nearby 15 years ago.  Back then, the 90’s and 100’s near the park were terrible.  During orientation, there was a execution-style slaying of a 12 year old gang member, in the middle of the day, in the middle of an intersection (108 and Columbus, if memory serves).

Of course, a lot has changed in NYC real estate since then.  Can those of you still in NYC give me a feel for how that neighborhood looks these days?  Is it still crawling with street toughs, or has it mellowed out into the investment banker paradise it should rightfully be?  Is my favorite clothing store – Fowad – still at 96th and Broadway?

If we do get this place, anyone want to meet up at Evelyn Lounge for a cocktail, then slide over to Bourbon Street for an alligator punch bowl, and finish the night off with darts at Jake’s Dilemma?

Posted on April 22nd, 2010 Filed in: Life Tags: ask a black guy, Sparks=Wrong, those were better days

Since I decided to start contributing again to the Hose, I have been going thru the archives reading all the posts I have missed the past few months/years. I even went back and started replaying the podcasts to keep me company in my commute.

Right now, I am in Episode 5 of the Hosecast where xTian and Catjyy are discussing the Bachelorette (side note: Manolo wants more Catjjy). Around minute 22, xTian and Catjjy start discussing the amount of hair products the prospective bachelors use.  I must not have heard it the first time but this time I did. At the 22:48 mark, Catjjy states: “Manolo MUST have a LOT of hair product…”
MORE after the jump…

Posted on April 6th, 2010 Filed in: Life Tags: Manolo, those were better days

In Episode 18 of The Mighty Hosecast, Evil and xTian spend the first five minutes tearing me to shreds.  At the end of the day, they are right. I do not contribute enough and therefore will have trouble in a court of law in claiming some of the $78.85 ad revenue garnered so far.

Therefore, I feel you are entitled to some sort of life update filled with half truths.

MORE after the jump…

Posted on March 16th, 2010 Filed in: Life Tags: best of 2010 Candidate, Global Economic Meltdown, Manolo, those were better days

About a year ago, I was unceremoniously dumped in what was clearly a fixed and corrupt poll. I disputed the poll results and when that didn’t pan out, I took to the mountains and staged a bit of a revolution. I was doing okay for a while but changing real estate market conditions meant I had to go back to my regular life. I took refuge in my work and tried to keep the banks at bay. You would think I owe them money…oh wait, I do.

As an escape, I also started blogging in the new and improved Hose… That didn’t last too long since I was too busy and my lack of activity had nothing to do with the fact that a lot of nights I stayed home drinking my sorrows away or playing with my Wii (Evil, please mark this as a single entendre).

Every 3-4 months I would come back and scan the Hose and saw how everyone was patting themselves in the back. I saw how snide comments were heaped upon me every few posts. This did not happen with the Bumpasaurus or Sleeve or Cheo (previous members of the Hose). I saw how charts were made up to showcase how the amount of comments per month went up during my absence. Of course, said chart did not take into account that the number of posts per month increased as well. Where is the chart to show that the number of comments were proportional to the number of posts and that said ratio has kept pace, if not decreased through the years?

It seems that the Hose became a popularity contest were quality was eschewed in favor of quantity. Trust me, I know about quantity versus quality. I have slept with quite a few ugly chicks in my day…Nowadays, it seems the Hose now revolves around American Idol and lame “looky-likeys”, and teabagging all in a ploy to pad the numbers in the Google page rankings….

Can’t you see that money and fleeting popularity have blinded you? Can’t you see that you sold your souls for the ad revenue?

The Hose has failed to live to the founding tenets of its charter….and I quote “The Hose is like “id Gone Wild”. Join us as we fail to push our agendas both online and in real life.”

How are Sparks and Catjjy failing online and in real life? Beautiful family, happily married, probably in the top 1% of wage earner, living in San Francisco, beautiful kid, tons of Facebook friends with photos to prove it…

Where is the emotion exposed? Where is the rawness? The pain? Where are people’s dark and inner secrets? Why doesn’t anyone talk about the time xTian gave himself a roofie? Does anyone make fun of him for his love for Gilmore Girls? Where is the counter to see how many 16-and-under country girls Evil has “erroneously” banged while in China? Why isn’t anyone questioning Killer B’s sexuality? Come on, you kind of have to wonder with all his American Idol reviews…

You see, I was going to comment all this on a random post, but as I was scrolling the Hose, I was very surprised to find my name listed back as one of the contributors…Perhaps it was an editor’s mistake (someone should be fired for this)….I took it as a sign from above (not religious at all but the thingie that moves my chair up and down broke and since I am too lazy to swap it with the one in the office next door, technically the monitor is kind of above me)…

I have decided that I may not be the most popular but my stuff will always be from the heart with no filters…it will be raw, emotional, personal…it will be just like the original Hose except that my posts will include the more/hide feature (once I figure how that damn HTML code works…Satan’s spawn, I tell you).

More to come…that is unless my access is revoked once again…and please, don’t call it a comeback because I’m gonna knock you out [huuuhhh!!!]…. More…

Posted on April 21st, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: Manolo, self loathing, those were better days

Evil

The Rabid Wolverine… he did too young. I just got off the phone with Xtian… he’s all broken up. Xtian really loved Chris Benoit. Not in a gay way.

Posted on June 26th, 2007 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

i have a younger brother. growing up, he and i were partners in crime. we used to mix the chemicals in household cleaners and other items to see which would fizzle, sizzle, change colors, eat through cardboard. we’d then apply heat, sometimes cooking the concoction on the stovetop, but most often, we just throw lit matches into the brew. once, we burned a plate-sized patch of the rug. my dad fumed over it. but he never bought a new rug, so for years, we just covered up the burned area.

for about eight years, we lived on the 2nd floor of a two-family house. our living room faced Northern Boulevard, which was a five-lane street, two going in each direction and one turning lane. our house (well, we rented it, so it wasn’t technically ours) was on the corner. when cars came to a stop at the traffic light, they were right below our living room window. i dont remember exactly how we developed this idea, but it was pure genius: we made shaving cream grenades out of Kleenex and shaving cream. Squirt a child-fist-sized lump of shaving cream into a sheet of Kleenex and pinch the ends together. we’d make a bunch of these and set them below the window. we’d watch the cars on Northern Boulevard stop at the red light. and just as the light turned green and the cars started their acceleration, we’d lob a shaving cream grenade onto the street. when we’d hit a car (which was often!), it would already be moving forward, so there was nothing the driver could do… except keep driving. we were geniuses who never got due credit. those were great times. my dad never caught on that we used his shaving cream to make these grenades, thanks to the fact that he had (and still has) this penchant for buying things in bulk. so we’d basically exhaust and entire can of shaving cream at a time and he never noticed when one or two can disappeared.

one summer, my brother and i perfected how to make rubberband guns out rubber bands and chopsticks. this must have been why i ended up going to an engineering college. mid way through the summer, we had a robust gun design that included a working trigger mechanism. this rubber band guns were powered by rubber bands (and held together by rubber bands too), but it didnt shoot rubber bands. no! it shot paper “V”s. you did NOT want to get hit with one of these V’s because they hurt like a motherfucker. if you’re like my sister and welt up easily, then you’d see little red V imprints on your skin.

i’m glad we came up with the rubber band guns because they were so much sophisticated than what we used the previous summer, which was slingshots fashioned from metal clothes hangers. for bullets, we used chick peas. those things are hard as rock. you can buy a pound of that stuff for 79 cents. in retrospect, i’m glad we never shot anyone’s eye out because that was certainly a possibility. but we didnt realize it back then. there was one time when we were on a bus and landed a perfect bulls-eye on this mexican guy’s bare belly. he had been sitting on his front stoop, shirtless, trying to beat the heat.

Posted on June 16th, 2007 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

Sunday night. Drinking alone. Watching a documentary on Kurt Cobain. I miss Kurt Cobain. He was only 27. He died 12 years ago. Is that possible?

Posted on June 4th, 2007 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

I went to the corner grocery store to buy three serrano chilis. The Korean lady rang up my purchase: 22 cents. I took a quarter out of my pocket and put it into her open palm. She gave me three pennies in change.

Posted on June 4th, 2007 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

Just got one of those automated emails from Columbia telling me to log on to the Alumni website and either accept or decline the undergrad interviews that they put in my queue. It’s undergrad interviewing season again! I always have a good time interviewing undergrad candidates. Most of them remind me of how immature I was when I was that age.

Anyway, while I was on the Columbia alum website, I couldn’t help but click on the “facebook” link (facebook in the generic sense, not as in facebook.com). What an amusing walk down memory lane. I saw Xtian’s undergrad photo. His head is just as big! I also saw ET#2’s photo. She had short hair in that photo. But I couldn’t find ET#1. Waaah. What’s up with that? Maybe ET#1 did the same thing I did, which is click the “Hide” checkbox under our profile options.

Posted on December 23rd, 2006 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

This is a picture of my sister, circa 1975. Proof positive that she’s an alien! Look at that giant forehead!

Posted on May 11th, 2006 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

Sort of random, but I thought about 2 things that remind me of my childhood.

1. The “Give a hoot, don’t pollute!” (isn’t that cute?!) TV commercials.

2. The jingle from the Mount Airy Lodge commercials. C’mon, sing it with me… “All you have to bring, is your love of ev’ry thing.”

Also, 2 things that remind me of childhood as it directly relates to my dad:

1. Being yelled at because I kept needing to get new glasses… because my eyes always got progressively worse… probably because I watched so much freakin TV.

2. Being yelled at because I hated taking showers and was mostly a smelly, icky kid.

Posted on May 9th, 2006 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

I’ve been emailing with a friend of mine recently. We haven’t communicated the previous half-year or so for various reasons. Most of it was due to her job cutting off her IM. Damn you, The Man! (*shakes fist defiantly*)

Over email, I asked my friend, “When was it that we first met? Was it while I was unemployed? That must have been 2 and a half years ago.”

She wrote back, “…you were unemployed and giving me tips on how to roast a whole chicken. you told me to stick a lemon in its butt! i still do it that way…”

Maybe this is weird, but her comment made me feel pretty good. It made me feel like I’ve actually made a difference in someone’s life, however insignificant.

Posted on September 28th, 2005 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

Josephine’s eyes are one brown, one blue. It runs in her family actually; her brother has the same except in the opposite eyes. I don’t know what’s more rare for Chinese people: to have a set of blue eyes, or just one. I don’t know any Chinese people with both eyes blue, so I guess having just one is actually more common. Go figure.

I saw Josephine on the train this morning. She was sitting in the next subway car, but I saw her thru the scratched up plexiglass. I recognized her instantly. Not by her eyes, because you can’t see that stuff through scratched up plexiglass. I’ll always recognize her because she has this smashed-in looking face and too-thick eyebrows. The last time I saw Josephine was about a month ago, also on the subway. The last time before that was a long time prior. I was 14 and she was 10. It was the last day of Chinese summer school and I thought I would see her again the next year as usual, but who knew… my parents didn’t make me go back the following summer.

In my mind, I play out the scene where I cross the subway cars and walk up to Josephine. I say, Hi, and smile and she glances up. She wears a sullen look and it doesn’t change when she sees me. I say, You’re Josephine, and a glimmer flashes across her brown/blue eyes. I think it’s a glimmer of fright, but I’m undeterred. I say, We went to Chinese school together, way back when. I knew your brother, Ba. Then I smile. When I smile, she cracks a smile, but it’s forced. I know a forced smile when I see one. In the scene that I play out in my mind, we get to my stop and I’m relieved. I bolt out of there and wonder why I couldn’t amuse even a brown/blue eyed girl with smashed-in face and too-thick eyebrows. It gets me sort of down.

In real life, we actually come to my stop. I step out, walk past the car that Josephine’s in and check her eyes. Yes, one brown, one blue. It’s her. She sees me, but she doesn’t recognize me.

Posted on March 4th, 2005 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days

Evil

I thought I saw Betty Ng at the Starbucks this morning. My heart skipped two and a half beats. I grabbed the cup from the Starbucks girl’s hand and quickly shuffled out. I’ve been in-between beats ever since.

Posted on February 23rd, 2005 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: those were better days