Pirate Adventure

Allen and I went to Pirate's Dinner Adventure this past Saturday as part of a field trip for his school. I must say that I thought the whole thing was pretty torturous. It's kind of like Medieval Times if you replace the knights with pirates. The show is a cheesy, low-cost (no-cost) musical. And, to make matters worse, the food isn't even good! It's like airplane food, which I find really gross.
The best part of the "adventure" was when I got berated by our pirate. Everyone is put into a different colored group and has a respective pirate. For example, we were seated in the yellow section and were assigned the yellow pirate (he also happened to be the only Asian pirate, wonder if they made him yellow on purpose...). So before the show starts, the yellow pirate walks up to our row and asks one of Allen's co-workers to go up to the stage with him. She immediately agrees. He then approaches me and this is what happened:

Pirate: I need you to come up to the front with me.
ME: Um. No thanks.
P: Why not? Just come up front.
ME: Really, no thanks.
P: I told everyone they would have fun! Come up to the front.
ME: I'll just have fun from my seat thank you.
P: You won't be embarrassed. It's fun. Just come up.
Me: Yeah, really, I'll just stay here and have lots of fun in my seat.
P: WHY ARE YOU BEING SUCH A BABY???? WHY ARE YOU BEING SUCH A BABY???
ME (about to punch this mother-effer in the face, but trying to remain calm so as to not embarrass Allen in front of his co-workers): NO thanks. I'll stay here.

Can you believe that?! He totally was shouting at me. When he was done with me and realized (finally) that i wasn't going to give in, he turned to the girl next to me and started yelling at her! He was such a douche bag. He even more disappointing when we realized he was the lamest pirate of them all, he couldn't do any acrobatic tricks like the other pirates, he couldn't sing or act (a required skill they all seemed to be lacking).

Anyway, don't waste your money. It was free for us and I still regretted going.

Mini Update

I started the new job this past Monday. I still miss all my friends at W. Beach. It's not that people at the new place aren't nice, they definitely are, but it's not the same. I'm sure I'll make new friends and they'll be fun too, but the W. Beach folks became a part of my family.

My favorite things about the new job?

Free parking!
At W. Beach I had to park on the street and walk a couple blocks to the office. The walking I didn't mind, but i HATED parking on the street. My car got scratched, dinged and sat upon (one day, I found a Land Rover parked ON TOP of my bumper).

Free food!
They have a good selection of snacks/food here, including Hot Pockets, cup-o-noodles (so bad for you, I will try to resist eating), yogurt, cottage cheese (yuk), fruit, oatmeal, cereal, popcorn and more! Plus a wide selection of beverages though i mostly just drink water.

Office supplies!
I'm a complete nerd and LOVE, and I mean LOVE, ordering office supplies. I tried to maintain some form of composure as the receptionist handed me the giant Corporate Express catalog on my first day. No one here knows about my love for office supplies yet. I really, really tried to not go crazy and order everything I wanted, whether I needed it or not, and I think I did pretty well. I got some new pens, highlighters, sharpies (one of my all-time favorite products, I resisted ordering the giant 24-pack, and just kept it the basic four colors - trust me, that took restraint) and most of the desk stuff that everyone needs such as drawer organizers and so forth. Office supplies are ordered each Friday so I won't get mine until next week. The suspense is seriously killing me. I can't wait for them to arrive!

That's all for now. I'm glad I have at least one friend here at the new place. She's helping me adjust and introducing me to all her friends.

Dolphin Killer(s)

I was completely horrified when I read this on Yahoo! News as one of the 'top stories.'

Four dead dolphins have washed ashore with fatal bullet wounds and fifth with lacerations on its pectoral fin, said authorities who have offered a reward for information on the slayings.

It's a horrendous thing that happened," said Mark Oswell, spokesman for the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. "That someone would go out there and shoot four dolphins."

"It usually turns out to be a fisherman," said Oswell, adding there have been cases when anglers take out their frustrations on dolphins and other mammals that eat their catch. Complete article.

I can't imagine how anyone could live with themselves after killing a dolphin. I know, people get killed all the time and you don't see me blogging about it daily, but then again, sometimes people suck, while dolphins never suck. Sometimes, sadly, you can understand why and how a human being would get shot: self-defense, poverty, mental illness, gang violence (aka The Game for all you fellow Wire watchers). But dolphins are innocent. They're so lovely and smart and friendly and entertaining. So it's really quite unbelievable that someone, even a struggling fisherman, would intentionally shoot and kill one of them, not to mention four of them. A whole school! I hope the person is caught and severely punished.

Camping

We finally uploaded the camping photos from our one night spent at El Capitan State Beach.

Our tent! It looks really small in this picture for some reason, but it's not. It's very spacious for a tent. We love it.

After dinner, we went back to the beach to watch the sun set. Pretty right?

This is later in the evening, just as the sun is about to set. Remember the dolphins we saw? yeah, we really couldn't get a picture of them. I mean, we tried, but they're not visible; they just look like they're a part of the waves.

Okay, that's all I have the energy to post. I'm a lazy bum these days.

DVD Reviews

Since I've had so much free time lately I've been watching a lot of movies. Here are a couple of the latest ones I've seen.

Alpha Dog
This is based on the true story of a 15 y/o boy who is kidnapped by a bunch of low-level drug dealers. It actually happened in LA during the late 90s so many of you might remember it. The movie starts off badly. The first 30 minutes consist of these druggies telling each other to f--k off and is just really stupid, but I guess there setting up some background and letting the audience know that the characters are just a group of stupid, young, immature guys. They end up kidnapping this boy because his older brother owes the ringleader, Johnny Truelove, money and has been threatening and insulting to Johnny.

The story is really sad because the boy has multiple opportunities to leave, but he decides to stay because he's trying to be grown up and thinks it's a way to help his brother. JT is in charge of watching him and eventually sort of becomes this boy's friend. He's actually not half bad in the film. Anyway, I'd recommend renting it if you're interested. I thought it was worth the time even though parts of it are stupid and seem pointless.


War Tapes
This documentary uses footage shot by three American soldiers while they're on duty in Iraq. It's not the best documentary ever made, but it's very interesting. You see the soldiers risking their lives for the very obvious purpose of helping KBR/Haliburton (Vice President Dick Cheney's company) make more money. The soldiers become aware that that they've essentially been deployed in Iraq mainly to serve as security to the cargo trucks belonging to Haliburton. Haliburton basically has a monopoly on every product in Iraq from food to gas. One soldier described it as if each and every store in your community was owned and operated by one single company. Haliburton is even contracted to serve the food on the army base and charges the US government for every single item down to the paper plates. Haliburton is by no means the main focus of the documentary, but it's hard to ignore the fact that these soldiers are risking their lives and that Haliburton is making an ungodly amount of money because of it, not to mention that WE, taxpayers, are lining Cheney's pockets with more and more money every day that we're in this war.

It's also very interesting, and a little sad, to watch the soldiers progress. They definitely change as they're over there and become more cynical and jaded. When they return two of the three are visibly more angry, depressed and emotionally scarred.

Hello

Okay, I know I haven't updated in a very long time. Sorry! Since leaving W. Beach, I've just been bumming around. Even though I've had all this time off, it's not a good time for Allen to take vacation since it's the end of the school year for him and lots of his students are graduating. Luckily, he was able to take a couple days off last weekend.

Friday 6/1
We woke up super early to make the drive up to Refugio State Beach, which is about 20 minutes north of Santa Barbara. We had packed up the car for a four-day weekend of camping and were really excited to finally be taking some time off to do something fun. We got to Refugio, but it turned out the campgrounds were full. The park services girl suggested we try "El Cap" (by looking at the map we figured out that she meant El Capitan State Beach), which was a few miles south. We drove down there and luckily there were four sites left out of over 200!

(We didn't take this photo. I was going to upload pics, but Allen took the camera today - sorry!)

We set up and took a nap - we were really tired from waking up so early! After we woke up, we took a quick walk on the beach. The campgrounds are right on the coast and the beach is only a few minutes walk. We only stayed for a bit to check it out, but after dinner (spaghetti and meat balls!) we went back to watch the sun set. It was so pretty! We even got to see some dolphins near the shore. We kept trying to take pictures of the dolphins but they were too far away and too quick for us.

After it got dark, we built up the fire and tried to enjoy the night. Unfortunately, there were a lot of kids in our area. And even more unfortunate, they were really annoying. Normally, I'm a big fan of kids. Everyone knows I dote on my niece and nephew, but man, the girls near our site were so bratty and one of them had a very shrill voice. Like banshee shrill. And she kept insisting that she was not afraid of the dark. So we gave up on sitting by the fire and went to our tent to watch an episode of The Shield on Allen's laptop instead. It was a good one! Then we went to bed.

Saturday
In the morning, park services told us we couldn't stay - the grounds were fully reserved for Saturday. It really sucked, but we packed up and tried to see if the other campgrounds had any open sites, but we didn't have any luck so we just had to drive home.

When we got home, we were totally bummed out that our trip was cut so short. Allen already requested Monday off so he decided to plan a mini-trip to Palm Springs! We'd never been there together and Allen had never been at all. We booked a cheap room for Sunday at the Palm Court Inn.

We were somewhat cheered up so we decided to go to dinner. We took BK to eat soon tofu at BCD Tofu - his first time. Yum! Then we got Korean dessert at Ice Kiss. It's this crazy dessert that has fruit, ice cream, jelly things, red beans, whipped cream and shaved ice. It comes in a doggy bowl! The only thing I don't really like is the red bean, so I won't get that next time.


Sunday
We headed out to Palm Springs and made a stop at the Cabazon Outlets since check-in wasn't until 3pm. It was pretty hot outside, but we tried to tour the entire mall. We bought some new salad plates at Crate And Barrel (love that store) and some other stuff.

(I didn't buy the whole set - I wish! But this is what our new salad plates look like)

After checking in, we went swimming. It was seriously hot in PS with temps in the 100s during the day and in the 80s at night. Swimming was fun and relaxing. I normally don't like swimming very much b/c I hate getting water in my ears, eyes and nose, which kind of defeats the point. But it was so hot that I just had to get in the water. There were these two foreign women who were also in the pool and all they did was work out. It was so strange. They were doing push-ups and swimming laps. Made me feel really lazy and fat, but whatevs.

We decided to go into town after it cooled down a bit. We saw a Cold Stone and thought it would be perfect because it was still pretty warm out. We had to wait for a LONG time before we were served because there were two groups in front of us. Both groups had only one member who could speak English (barely) so ordering took a really long time. I was getting pretty frustrated, but eventually we got our ice cream (Allen got a shake) and it was delicious.

Monday
We had to check out by noon so we ate breakfast and then went into town. We tried to walk around since most of the shops had been closed the night before, but it was so damn hot that we just decided to go home.

See? I haven't been doing much. The only thing I have been doing a lot of is reading and watching DVDs. I'll post reviews next.