maiden voyage

well it happened this weekend. stevey and i have been talking about having a gathering at our place for some time now. and while we have had fhe, birfday get-togethers, and other casual functions, we had not hosted any big parties. so friday night we were in soho getting some pizza at pomodoro's figuring out what we were going to do with the rest of the weekend. and although we were tempted to join the chinese new year festivities in chinatown, we decided to host our own celebrations.

i, luckily, spent most of the day at the library, while stevey and ryan ran down to chinatown to get some goods. to my adulation, they returned not only with the desired gyoza, but they brought back many other gems, like bruce lee banner and all sorts of cool chairman mao perephernalia. so after some cleaning and decorating, we were ready for our maiden voyage.


all in all it was fun. some of my dental school friends showed up, we had some regulars, some new blood, and some entertainers. i normally don't condone long posts with excessive pictures, but today i will make an exception for the sake of the stevey's photos.


look at these two cute couples: you guess who is with whom?



enter the dragon


stevey snapped shots of everyone showing up


some columbia friends: yasemin and jen, with yours truly in the faded back care-taking the gyoza

literature

sometimes i don't like reading because it deflates the authenticity of my own human experience.

you know you're home when...

yes. you know you're home when you inadvertently arrive at the aroma that is 191st street off the 1 train. there is a very distinct smell as you walk out the elevators and head on the street to walk up to wadsworth avenue. maybe the smell finds origin from paul, monica, star and their associates, i'm not sure. but that smell now equals meaning to my mind: welcome home! here's the thing about smells. for example, when you get off the B/D train at grand street, you don't have to see all the tiny little asians running around, you know by the smell, before you even leave the tunnel, that you're in chinatown. for real, do you think its possible to just close you eyes as you ride along and get off only according to the smell as the subway doors open? for example, if you didn't see the picture of me and stevey in soho and could somehow smell, do you think you could pick out the diner we're sitting according to contemporary psuedo_medicinal_lore, smell is the sense most closely associtated with memory. i don't know if i buy that or not, but let's consider that the point nonetheless.



my absolute un-favoritist smell: the smell of ex-girlfriends. i dated this girl in high school and even to this day, when i catch a whiff of the lotion she would wear, i feel like i'm 17 again. (then again, i feel like that often as it is anyway) now, for real, if you look back on your relationships, most likely, not that many ended horribly. so again, most likely, you have positive emotions associated with those memories. so where am i going? i hate the smell of ex-girlfriends when you have to live with the looming: why didn't that one work again? because you probably just remember the good times more vividly anyway. the issues and concerns seem to melt away with time, but the fun times, the inside jokes, whatever, that all remains. so this jog back into a past (that was good) juxtaposed with a present (that is nothing) carries a wind of a different manner. and you wish you never had the accompanying residue of that once pleasant smell as it corrodes to the order of stench.

puff, puff, give

ok so its been awhile since i've posted any activities. its been a little theoretical lately. so i'm gonna bring back some event reports.


two frandsens: one is a poser...

did you know you can use physics to melt ear wax out of your head with conical wafer-looking tubes? i didn't either and i'm still not sure if its true. as my intuitive and almost genius cousin commented, we will never know unitl we can run a true control test with reproducible results. so for those of you that still have access to ear wax burning/melting cones, try a dry test run for us and please let us at the shake-down know how it turns out.

to say the least, its pretty funny to hold that thing up on your ear while the flame glows bright in the eyes of those watching you, because lets be honest, you can't see anything. you can definately feel the flame heating up the side of your face and the intesity of interest and the flame glowing the the eyes of the observers, wondering if the assisant (KD is this case) will be able to cut the cone before your hair is all ablazed, but you have no idea what's going on so close to your own skull and its accessories.

and what would we all do without good friends? especially the ones who watch the fire around our heads. cheers to you KD and marcy marc...


and y'all should be happy i don't have pictures of the results of the activity, for they not for the lite-hearted.

oh, inverted world.

for those that know me, you may have already heard this exposition. in fact, if you've ever talked to me you have probably experienced it as well. for example, if you have had "A" conversation with me in the last month, you have most likely been subject to an honorary tribute to the white stripes. and yes, i know they were the subject on a posting awhile ago as well. or maybe you heard me talk about lazy sunday, or the new beck album, or how solid each weezer album continues to be, or how i hate walmart, or whatever. but let me discuss this inverted world.

one thing that people will never surrender is their taste. and this has nothing to do with CN VII. so, people love their music. people love to share their music. and we all do it. we constantly recommend this or that. i am guily in a bad way, in fact, nothing makes me happier than when someone tells me how much they have been listening to death cab lately (3 people this week alone) and they can't get enough or whatever. there is as much joy in the recommendation as there is in its receipt. taste sets us apart, as it breeds individuality. without individual preferences we would be a stale society steeped in stagnance. musical taste is no different. nor are movies, tv shows, books, museums nor even boy/girl friends. in fact, i think that this may be one of the reasons it can be so difficult for single people to be completely satisfied in a relationship. there exists an element within us that wants our partner to be the living realization of our tastes. when considering this living emulation, whether is be as shallow as the jokes they tell or deeper as in the way they perceive people, you want that person to epitomize all that you deem as "good taste." otherwise, what do you have to set you apart if not your taste?

and for me, that means the white stripes, AD, BMX bikes, hating walmart, the daily show and mac elitists. and i will forever try to sell you on my music, even if you don't like it at first. and yet therein lies the great irony. i seek to force my tastes on everyone, while concomitantly claiming that our tastes delimit our individuality. mutually exclusive? maybe, maybe not.

in the present tense, be sure to check out "oh, inverted world," my latest shins album discovery and my latest profile picture. and i will continue to post album covers on my profile of whom i am currently tuned in to.

two people you might like___

if you live in utah, these are probably two people you might like. if you ever thought you would be this uncomfortable watching two people you might like having a conversation, think again. click here, you gotta see this. then go to dave and bill (1/3/06).

two words. un. comfortable. seriously, this is heavy. funny, but not in its usually way...

2006!!

i know, nice title. well, it is 2006. happy new year to y'all.

in fact. happy new year to all y'all who are actually cerebrating new years day with time away from responsibility. some of us have already re-entered that realm. at 9:30 this morning, we at the columbia medical center began again. notwithstanding, the rest of the columbia community doesn't begin til jan 17, or that most other schools don't start til next monday, or the ridiculous fact that the rest of the country including banks and postal services are enjoying this national holiday. so forgive my complaints.



forgive my complaining. but at the end of the day, don't we all really deep down love to complain. there is an element in modern society or maybe just our generation that likes to compare adversity. as if we validate ourselves by bragging about how hard we have it. recently, i've been reading "notes from the underground" an obscure piece by dostoyevsky. he furthers this point by inserting that "it's the moaning that expresses the pleasure of the sufferer, for if he didn't enjoy it, he wouldn't moan. . . moans that express all the humiliating pointlessness of the pain." and people like to admit that there is pain and there is no enemy, while concurrently bemoaning their complaints.



either way. we started school today. welcome back, here's five lectures that you will need to know. enjoy. i guess the japanese tradition of the new year will find conceptualization this year. because i feel that my 2006 will strictly mirror the manner in which it began.