don't call it a comeback

i've been back to dynamite a few times since it's changed, and when i go, i'll still run into a handful regulars. thing's haven't been the same though. the crowd is a mere fraction of what it used to be. i don't know the bouncer anymore and have to pay cover; though i stilll know one of the bartenders, who takes care of me, though not as well as adrian used to. and the worst part, the music hasn't been anywhere close to what it used to be. you won't hear any gang starr or jaylib anymore and only every once in awhile will you hear some wu-tang.

now, i can't say it's back to where it used to be, but when i went back on saturday night, things were starting to look up. the place was filled up nicely and the music was much better than it had been in months. they weren't playing stuff "that you wouldn't hear anywhere else," but it was still good hip hop, mostly older stuff. i also ran into a few other regulars, the ever-present-at-dynamite chivas and always goofy-smiling paul. paul was a little more drunk than i'm used to seeing him. at some point, i was talking to him at the bar. i turned around to get another drink and when i look back, he's slid in between two girls dancing. eventually i swoop in and play wingman. at first he was trying to get with the blond, but when he found out that she was married, he quickly transitioned over to the brunette. ahh ... that paul. good times. like i told one of the girls, he's one of the most genuine people that i don't really know well.

it actually turns out that paul and i have mutual friends. he's one of the few dynamite regulars that i've seen outside of dynamite. i ran into him at arterra at the del mar marriott. one of my best friends teresa's cousin domanic's friend christine's brother josh dj's at arterra every wednesday from 5-9. since it's really close to my work, i just roll through after work and chill with them for a bit. it's the closest thing i have to a regular spot and a group of friends in san diego these days. josh and domanic, who also spins, listen and play a lot of the music that i'm really into. at arterra, they play mostly slower, loungy music. i've always thought that if/whenever i throw a party, i'd have one of those dj for me.

anyway, dynamite is not back yet, but it's definitely moving in the right direction.

weekend

my brother already recapped his 4th of july bbq here, but there's no way i can not post this video.



the sound is great too.
"nice! well played, brian, well played."
"fuck ... ... ... CAMERA!"
and of course, right at the end, "hey, hey, can i see your camera really quick?" which lead to kathleen getting tossed into the pool as well as soon as the camera was safely out of her hands.

unfortunately, my likwit crew shirt was a casualty of the day; though, i suppose it could have been worse.


friday night was a trip too. good ol time at double dutch with the likwit crew. the end of the night was straight comedy. though nothing i say will be able to recapture the hilarity ... one of those you had to be there things. but a couple highlights:

• vivek's magic tricks
• and jay waking up at 530am in his car, still outside my bro's place

saturday night's garba was a good time too. it was nice finally getting to spend a bit of time with anjali before her big day. santana row afterwards was ridiculous.

• manasa's hair catching on fire ... okay okay, not on fire, but it definitely burned, smoke and putrid smell and all
• five drunk girls and at least four cameras make for a bunch of great pictures
  
• "alright, well we all just took a shot of patron ... probably not a good time to drive home." then seeing the cop next to us look up and smile
• getting bombarded by drunk girls to be nice to my gf during her intern year

the wedding ceremony was beautiful. the reception was a blast.

• drinking in the parking lot with tha liks, bumping wu
• my suit button issues
  
• jay being drunk off his ass during the speeches
• saving a glass of scotch for after my speech (didn't quite work out that way)
• anjali's little cousin with the same ol sass i remember
• guys being all over labonee
• table 13 ... aka the drunk table
• labonee losing her purse at the end of the night (not sure what she was doing while she lost it)
  

good times ... i haven't had that much fun in a long time.

pictures of:
july 4th
double dutch
anjali's garba
santana row
anjali's wedding


and CONGRATULATIONS ANJALI AND NIRAL!

the bay

i've got a slow week at work, and i haven't posted in awhile ... what better time than now.

it'd been awhile since i've made my way over to the bay to kick with friends. seeing as i have a lot more free time these days on the weekends, i figured it was about time. i'm not going to get into details, but it was a damn good weekend, filled with good friends and lotsa drinking.

some highlights:
- ronak telling me that he's disavowed the four prong method for getting girls for a new and improved five pronged method ... apparently because of me. yeah, and i'm still not funny.

- ankita ... good ol drunkita. first, selling her beerfest ticket to my friend then changing her mind and buying another one on craigslist. i'm glad she came though ... pouring beer on people and smashing cake in people's faces ... good times.

- zena's drunk ass not knowing who i was

- our awesome limo driver gus gus

- my drunk ass at double dutch

- since i had a free upgrade on united that expired at the end of april, i flew first class back.

ahh, good times ...

pictures here and here

tonight ... nasty nas live

this year halloween fell on a weekend

it fell on sat to be precise. archana and priyal threw a great party. their place was awesomely decorated. we carved pumpkins, drank a lot, partied, and had a good ol time ... capped off by wandering down the street to my favorite place, bar dynamite.

i ended up dressing up as flava flav. i got a lot of "flava flaaaav"s and "yeah booooooy"s at dynamite, which was pretty funny.

anyway, check out the pics. if you want hi-res copies, let me know.

make way for the alkaholik crew

awesome past fews days. most of the stories wouldn't be conveyed well over a blog, which means i won't get into most of em ...

first of all, since thurs night, things have been pretty good. however ... the days before SUCKED. a project deadline was looming, which meant long hours of work. i'm glad to say that the model is now done with only minimal work left to "pretty it up" and i'm confident it's bug free and accurate.

aight ... to the fun. i made sure to have the model done by thurs evening, ensuring i had time to hit up dynamite thurs night. you all know i love this place (it keeps me sane), but this past thurs was my best dynamite night yet. i met SOO many random people, and unlike most nights, i was talking to someone or the other almost the entire night, which includes but isn't limited to:

- my new regular friend who's not as good looking as alexia is but much much more interesting and down to just hang out and talk. i think she's going to come with me to the jurassic 5 show this week. i'm hoping this will move outside the confines of bar dynamite.
- cute indian girl that goes to usc law, whom i met a few months ago there.
- fobby indian dude who's been in the country only a year. he was by himself, and i decided to go talk to him.
- two random guys from vegas. these guys were straight comedy. one of em started talking to me in the line for the bathroom because i was wearing my gang starr shirt. they told not to go to vegas this past weekend and go next weekend because they'd be back there and would be able to hook me up with tables and vip treatment. one of the guys told me to lookup the law firm he helped start next time i'm going to be in vegas.
- martin smith. just graduated from cal and used to play point on the bball team. but seriously though, this guy looked like he had ZERO game (not that i have any) and was having a horrible time ... didn't end up talking to him much.

so yeah, awesome night. what a good opening for a good weekend.

ahh ... vegas. i don't think there's much i'm going to say about vegas because, frankly, unless you were there, you wouldn't understand. one of those 'you had to be there' things. for the most part, we didn't do much but drink and gamble. we ended up going to jet in the mirage sat night, but not much other than that. anyways, to highlight a few.

- jay's flight being delay over FOUR HOURS!
- wyborny B*TCHES
- yeah, that's what she said
- byyyyaaahhhh
- trying to wake up labonee one morning and then having her say she's a light sleeper the next.
- jay and i being horrible shooters on the craps tables. one of the dealers was even like, "uhh ohh .. this guy" when i got the dice and later called told jay "you're slow today." ahh, that chack, good man.
- jay's adventure getting home saturday night.
- labonee's drunken walking
- vivek getting his nipple/shoulder bit on on the dance floor (and having marks to prove it)
- "i like mexican food"
- losing my first nine blackjack hands while labonee is tripling her money next to me.
- hearing about sanjay and viren's drunken exploits

good times. unfortunately i lost about $175 gambling, which means the next vegas trip probably won't be anytime soon (though i can probably be convinced if you try hard enough ... okay, you probably have to try that hard).

... and i miss spending time drankin with tash and ol dirty. get tha liks together and you know it's gunna be a good time.

UPDATE: pictures

JFK to LAX

i'm at work waiting for two coworkers to integrate their code, which needs to happen before i can integrate my code with both of theirs. i figured with this short span of dead time, i'd try taking the chance to blog about my new york trip, especially since i wanted to get it done before i left for belize (which is tonight!!!). so yeah ... new york. i actually didn't fly into JFK nor did i fly out of LAX, but i've always wanted to say that (*see footnote or comment later). terence and i got in early morning friday into newark and trained into manhattan. wandered around for awhile before eventually meeting up with yatin around 1pm. commence drinking (which basically doesn't stop for the rest of the weekend). we wind up at some outdoor bar (the weather was beautiful) and, sooner or later, our original party of 3 grows to about 8 or 9. at some point, my brother's friend ronak decides to grill me about my love life. do i have a gf? what's the deal with my ex? etc, etc. let me point out that i have never met this guy before in my life. after it seems he's done with interrogation. he schools me on the 'four pronge approach to getting girls' the four factors are: research, intelligence, listening, and humor. seems reasonable enough. he then proceeds to tell me that i am lacking one: humor. (thanks ass ... although he later gives up on the four pronged approach). yatin had created an itinerary for the weekend, which was comedy in itself. we kept to the itinerary pretty damn well, except for never making it to the p-lounge (which some would argue was the most important part). the key to this itinerary were the scheduled naps. after naptime, we headed to this bar called kanvas. i was pretty drunk/tired at this point (redeye plus little food plus lotsa alcohol probably isn't the best combination). i'm just glad i was able to catch terence dancing with this girl 'who must have had headphones on because she was definitely dancing to a different tune.'

saturday:
yat manages to go to the gym in the morning and get back around noon, when we're all waking up. he proceeds to pour himself some goose. 'hey, i just ran five miles. i deserve it.' commence drinking again. we head to cpk for lunch, and as soon as we get seated, someone orders 11 shots of patron. we end up taking another round later. sadly, the waiter refused to give us a third ... so we headed downstairs to the bar for that one. we went bowling (with beer, of course) after that, and some people stuck around for some entertaining rounds of ddr and air hockey. we head back to yatin's place, and what happens next is STRAIGHT COMEDY. basically, 'it's 7 and smitty is in 4am form.' he was walking around the place in just his boxer, and even those he had trouble keeping on (not a pretty sight). smitty manages to pour beer ALL OVER the new guys couch and get pushed onto (and tip over) the coffee table. people are throwing shit everywhere and seriously, the place is a DISASTER. naptime again. when i wake up from my nap, smitty was asleep with his door locked. anuj still wants to bug him some more and proceeds to take smitty's door off the hinges (smitty wasn't too happy about that one). after some serious indecisiveness, we manage to head to ps450. i'm in much better shape than the night before. terence, ankit, and now sriram once again argue about topgun and who the better wingman is: goose, maverick, or iceman. for much of the night, i end up following around a drunkass sheetal, who is hollering at every girl he can using his 'smile' line. at some point, i end up talking to some girl. average looking, not particular cute, but by no means, ugly. next thing i know we've been talking for about 45 minutes. then teesha comes up to me, and tells me we gotta go because anuj got kicked out. i talk about a bit more and tell her i gotta. she asks for my number when i leave, and i give it to her. we end up back at yat's place, still drinking. at like 430, she calls. she asks if she can come over to where i am. i'm like, uhh, there are like 20 people here and it's not my place so probably not. she then says i can come over to her place even though it's far and her roommate doesn't like when she brings guys home. i'm thinking i'm going to pass, but i tell her i'll call her back. she calls me FOUR MORE TIMES that night (ronak renounces the four pronged approach after hearing this story).

sunday:
brunch at hells kitchen with all you can drink. some entertaining/interesting game of never have i ever. the hostess was cute (and i think catholic, guessing by the cross and rosary she was wearing) and sri thinks she was feeling one of us. to make a long story short, terence and i miss our flight by less than 5 minutes after trekking all the way back to nj because of traffic on one of the tunnels. the worst part is that if we had checked in online at home, we would have been fine. we go back to the city where half the group is still drinking and the other half is napping (sri decided he take the bus back to boston in the morning, and anuj and sheetal missed their flight too, but only because their idiots). after more deliberation, we grab dinner and head a small local bar down the street. terence decides we should drink scotch on the rocks (which i normally don't mind, just not in large amounts). ronak even left reena (again) to meet back up with us. next thing i know it's 4am, we're the only people in the place besides the bartender and her maybe boyfriend and basically everyone is dancing on the bar. good times. we end up back at pooh's apt at 5 or so, and we have to be up in less than an to make it to the airport.

all in all, my first time in ny was AWESOME. lotsa drinking. good times chilling with some down guys. interesting conversation/drinking games.

my pics
terence's pics

if i get permission from terence (or smitty), i'll add some links to some hilarious video clips later.

other notables:
- 'good luck having sex tonight'
- 'why don't you .. uhh ... why don't you ... uhh ... heeeey'
- 'smitty is sleeping backwards on his bed. i wish i could take a picture' *said very sadly*
- my momma hits harder than you

** footnote: some of you (and by 'some of you,' i mean terence and shawn) may know why i've always wanted to say i've gone JFK to LAX. and on that notes, i've decide to attempt to make all the titles of my postings refer to a song, lyric, artist, etc. try guessing what each title refers to. this is also the reason i decide to change the title of my first post. if you don't think a title refers to something, call me on it ... maybe i'm slipping.

** UPDATE **
check out my bro's blog for a little more detailed account of things