Life's short and boring...

I haven't written about how bad my New Year celebration was.

For starters, the morning of New Year Eve, we woke up to discover that our refrigerator was broken. We don't when the coldness generator (don't know what it's called) stopped working. But we woke up to spoiled food and a melted goop dripping freezer. WE HAVE NO FOOD! I've been eating instant noodles and canned food for the last few days and occasionally we'd eat out. There were a few food items that were salvaged. The pre-cooked foods were okay. It sucks not having a refrigerator. So the foods we saved are out in the backyard (it's cold enough). Not only is our food outside, but it's in a Kikkoman Soy Sauce barrel. We have lots of barrels and crates because of our business. Anyways, the barrel provides protection from wild animals.

For the rest of New Year's Eve I spent the day serving crazy customers and totaling their checks at work. There's only two holidays in which we are extremely busy: Thai New Year (in April) and Roman New Year (that's what we call it). What felt like endless waves of people pouring into the restaurant faster than customers can pour their champagne kept me busy! The last table didn't leave until 11pm (we close at 10 pm people!). The chefs were tired and angry. Me and my sister were exhausted and just wanted to go home. We drove off in a separate car.

This was really weird... So, normally we'd be celebrating at home or at someone's party in front of the TV watching the countdown. Not the case this year. It felt weird that we did the countdown in the car... with the radio... Once it struck midnight, it first for both of us, but we saw live fireworks being lit near the expressway as we were driving. Because we would usually see them on TV, it was kinda cool to see a lot of fireworks live. It was no surprise that Pink's "Raise Your Glass" played on the radio as it was played after last year's countdown too. The next song that played... is forever etched into my mind... it was LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It." Yeah, kicking of the New Year with "that" song. We were singing obnoxiously even though I don't like the song.

I guess I'm looking forward to what the new year has in store for me.
More than anything I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEW FRIDGE WE'RE GOING TO GET!

This is something that I should technically be putting onto the restaurant website. Or even the restaurant facebook account, I'm not going to because our facebook page is fan-run (knowing "them" they probably already put it up).

I just wanted to write about it somewhere...
My restaurant is in a two page spread in the "Kane County Chronicle!" It's a review by a critic, have a look:

Work was tiring today too, so I think I'm going to go straight to sleep after this.

Yeah... I've been ordering a lot of stuff lately.
Only a few days ago, I received my new AAA cds and the Naoya cards that won't seem to leave me alone... The day before that I got a KH: Birth by Sleep Keyblade necklace in the mail. And you know what? I'm expecting another package next month filled with AAA concert merch and goodies. In two weeks I'm expecting a package from Korea, I ordered another Zoid, the one I've always wanted (my dream Zoid), the Soul Tiger. I've also got one more package from an anime shop, which includes a "Soul Eater" plushie and a wallet with the characters on it.

Ha ha... I actually got a package today too!
My Chibi Gundams came in today!!!

I can't wait to build them tomorrow morning before I go to work!
And of course I'll put up pictures.

Good night!

Hahaha! I'm free.
Since I'm done with the one a day comics for now, I get to sit back and relax a little. I can take my time for the next upcoming one. Attack All Attackers is going to be so quiet the entire week without me.

This morning, I woke up a little early and I baked a pizza...
I dunno, I was in the mood for pizza?

I played on the computer for a bit and then went to go work on a Gundam model I had bought in Japan. After I only built the feet, I was dragged off to a Laosian temple. I don't speak Laosian, although most of our language was rooted from it. I had to pin money on the "money tree" for donation. It's a tradition to place money on fake trees to make it look like leaves.

The lady is putting more money on the tree. While on the right, that's just a close-up.

I got to work and worked.
There were a lot of customers today.
I just love it when customers write stuff of the receipts they give back.

This made me smile:

I KNOW I'M AWESOME!
It's from a few days ago, but I didn't have time to put it up.

But you know what isn't awesome?!
My strange fear of centipedes!!!!! No seriously, I hate centipedes!!! They coil and they crawl with all those freaky legs!!! I think I'm CURSED with bad luck today. In the middle of the day, after I got off the phone with a customer, I noticed something moving on the ground. I looked again..... and I saw a long thing with tons of legs... I started freaking out in front of all the customers. I'm not the kind to scream, screaming is rude and disruptive in a restaurant setting. Instead, I took a pen and used the blunt end to pin the centipede's hind legs so it couldn't go anywhere, I didn't want to kill it.

I had a combination of bursting into tears and laughing hysterically from being in shock and fear of being so close to the centipede, seeing as I'm still pinning it down with the pen. I started yelling for help from the employees. Instead... everyone ignored me and continued their own business. (you guys suck!) Then a nearby customer asked me what was wrong. I told him to go sit down because I need an employee (who is ignoring me) to help me. He then noticed the centipede I was pinning down. He then suggested that I lift the pen and he'll squash it. I immediately screamed, "NOOOOoooooooooo!!!" I told him I didn't want to kill it. So... he picked it up with his bare hand and tossed the centipede out the door... Problem solved... I wasn't expecting the customer to be that brave, did you know that most centipedes are poisonous?

The rest of my day...
I had some deliveries, the Olsons gave me a good amount for tip as they usually do. Today, Alex stopped by, the bartender from O'Briens(the bar next to us). He always orders something to take back to the bar. I always give him a big discount(cuz he sends his customers over to us every once and a while). Yay! Alex gave me a 3 dollar tip today! While I was talking to him, he told me that business has been pretty slow at the bar. But Tusk seemed to be packed and busy, unlike his place. I was thinking in my mind, "there will always be a higher demand for booze than Thai food." It was strange because that bar is always packed.

Now I'm in Chicago.
Bedtime!
I'll start working on the next Attack All Attackers comic soon.

I woke up early so I could stop by Mitsuwa for magazines and curry bread, Miki bought groceries. I picked up some old AAA issues, since our Mitsuwa actually receives magazines 2-3 months "after" the real release date. I went to go check cds too, but all they had was "AROUND" and "Heart and Soul." I didn't bother.

We were in a hurry to get back home because Miki needed to get stuff for FND and I needed to get my stuff together before I headed out to Union Station to get to Batavia. When I got back home, the adorably evil prince of darkness was waiting for me at the door.

His sleepy expression screams: "where do you think you're going? If you leave me here alone, who am I going to annoy?" He bit my leg as I walked out the door for the last time.

There was so much traffic to get into the city. The cars hardly moved. It took forever, but I made it to Ogilvie Union Pacific West Station. I took the Metra often in the past in order to get to Batavia. But the train doesn't really go to Batavia, it stops in the neighboring town of Geneva. Anyways, here's my train:

It's always a smooth ride, but I was really bored. I couldn't listen to music because my mp3 charger broke. I couldn't watch anything because I was too lazy to take out my laptop. I read through that AAA magazine for a bit and ate my curry bread, that's all I did on the train.

After I got off the train, I managed to lose 100 dollars in cash because I'm clumsy and it fell out of my pocket. What bad luck

I got picked up from the Geneva Station and was taken to Batavia. Now everyone in the restaurant is freaking out because Batavia Bridge Bash is this upcoming Sunday. Well... city council has now changed the name to "Batavia Block Party." They have a segment called "Best of Batavia," it's when all the Batavian restaurants sell samples of their best dishes for only $2. We don't stand outside in tents or anything. We sell it from our own building. BOB which is the shortened term, it's a big hit every year, I mean, even our fellow Batavian restaurants run out of food/ingredients before the event ends. Every year we set up a table station in the restaurant and customers form a line to make orders. Normally, the line for our place stretches around the street corner. Take that "Thai Village!"(competitor) I love Bridge Bash! It's a lot of work because the hordes of people seem endless. But it's really fun to see people leave happy. What can I say, we're popular. I need to prepare for the event, last year over 300 people came into our restaurant for this one day event.

I hope this year will be a success too.

Yup, today's my birthday! I just turned 21!
Wohoo... drinking age... blah blah blah... Everyone knows I don't care much for it. Never liked the smell and taste, never will. There's something about moldy liquid bread and spoiled rotten vinegar that doesn't appeal to me.

I had a party with my friends yesterday too. Everyone actually came. We all got together and went to go eat at Shiroi Hana, one of my favorite Japanese places. I mainly like it for the fried shrimp heads, oh I love it so much... My horrible luck, they didn't have any shrimp heads yesterday. Jason, Marvin, Maciek, Ex and I really enjoyed the lunch.

After lunch, we all went back to my house to chill. I opened presents when we got back. I opened Jason's gift first. He got me a cute bowl with a little ceramic doggie clinging onto it. Next I opened Ex's gift, he gave me a temp tattoo and $30. Then I opened Maciek's gift. This was awesome... Maciek got me the platinum edition complete dvd box set of Neon Genesis: Evangelion. It was a collector's edition tin box with the complete series. THANKS A LOT MACIEK, NOW I'M GONNA DO AN ANIME MARATHON!!! Then of course, I saved the best for last, I opened Miki's presents. Miki got me a kitty coin bank, which was super cute, it was a box, you put a coin on a sensor plate and the cat will pop out of the box and snatch away the coin with it's paw. The other gift was Mario Party 8 for Wii. The final gift from Miki was a beautiful venus fly trap, it had beautiful red traps. My friends were so fascinated by the plant, because most people have never seen one up close. Miki wanted me to name it... I was thinking of naming it "Buzz-kill," but naming it "Seymour" (ref: Little Shop of Horrors) was on my mind too.

You know what we did all day besides eat cake?
We played 15 rounds of Mario Party and we played Super Smash Bros. Brawl non-stop. With my friends, once we get started on Brawl... we don't stop. It's an endless massacre! I got second place first round and I won first place the second round.

Today we celebrated my birthday at the restaurant too. Mostly employees showed up. It was fun and there was good food.

Noooooooooooooooo....
I'm getting old......

After I woke up this morning... I started watching Zoids Genesis.
I went through three episodes and then went down for... lunch? I ate the remainders of that Kobe burger. I had some blueberry toast too. I finished and went back upstairs to watch more Zoids. I watch five more episodes before I left for work.

We drove off to work and there were already customers waiting outside because we were a little late. I walked in and prepared the AC. The customers were then seated. After a while of observation, I walked out and across the bridge to check out the Batavian Art Fair. Like I said, Batavia is a town filled with artists. There was this old couple that ate at our place yesterday, the eat here often. They're kinda famous around Batavia. Last year, that old man and his wife took first place with their amazing artpieces. The old man makes miniature scale paintings. Like 2 x 1 inch paintings. For something of that scale, the painting was so detailed and breathtaking. It was so beautiful. I admire the old man's work, it's hard to believe that such beautiful work can be done in such a small space. He even invited us to view his newer works at the fair too. When I arrived at the fair it was already clean up time. I just missed him. I walked back to the restaurant and continued watching more Zoids.

It's sad isn't it? I spend my work hours watching anime.
I watched nine episodes at the restaurant today. I then took a break and ate "basil noodles," not my favorite dish, but I was hungry. I was in more of a panang mood, but they wouldn't cook it for me anyways because it's bad for my health. In the anime, the battle is getting intense. But I'm not sure about this... there were an awful lot of Avex advertisements in Zoids Genesis. There was an Avex endorsed ad for the Kamen Rider OST and then there was one for the Zoids anime too. Not only is "DAI" (don't feel like typing the whole name) advertised but the voice actors in the anime sing the ending song too, so they were advertising for their own OST too.

Later, Miki and I stopped by Walgreens to pick up some allergy meds and basic stuff I needed like batteries for my Zoids at home and some extra snacks so I wouldn't starve in Chicago.

Miki will be home tomorrow. We'll get to hang out, but she'll be at the gym first thing in the morning. I'll just build another Zoid or watch more anime while I'm waiting at home, it'll be fun.

My back pain returned a few days after arriving in Chicago.
It still hurts even till now. Last time it was a herniated disk. This time around I'm not quite sure. Behind the spine there are two main nerves that lead into the legs. One is the motor nerve and the other is the sensory nerve. If something happens to the motor nerve, then you become paralyzed. If the sensory nerve is disrupted, there will be severe pain. When there's something wrong with the nerve, there's a 50/50 chance, motor skills or pain. All I can say is, I hope I don't end up in a wheelchair. I would prefer not to distribute further to my disabilities.

Miki always arrives in Batavia every Saturday. I need to call and remind her to bring the i-pod cord. Do I need anything else from Chicago? No, I think I have all I need.

The restaurant was really busy today. Many tables and many regulars. Completely packed, no walking space. I had to handwrite some special menus too. Since I'm smarter than the manager, I wrote two of them and went to xerox them at the Batavia Public Library. I made lots of copies. If anyone is wondering why I didn't type it and just e-mail it to Kinkos-FedEX Office, it's because my computer still doesn't have Microsoft Word. I'm always put in charge of the menu. Changes, revisions, design, assembling, new items, omitting old items, price changes, and special promotions... I'm in charge of all of it. Alignment is what really takes forever and I kill many trees in the process.

I'm allowed to sleep in now because of my jetlag. So I can go to work as late as I want. Tomorrow, I need to buy a new laptop case, because my old one busted at Narita Airport. I need to complain to T-mobile about my defective phone and the harassing phone calls that aren't even calling for the right person. I'm also seeing Miki tomorrow. I think I want to eat a hamburger for lunch tomorrow if that is at all relevant.

I haven't been online as much as I usually am.
I've been working non-stop as I said in a previous entry to earn some extra cash for my trip. Working leaves me with almost no time to relax on the net, even after work. I would've posted more stuff but... I'm an idiot and I left my stupid charger and cellphone cord all the way in Chicago. I had pictures from my dinner, Thai fest, and Jame's b-day at the restaurant

So it turns out...
I'M GOING TO JAPAN ON JULY 22!!!
I also have a list of people to notify before and after I get to Japan... friends, cell service, bank, host family, etc...

One of my crazy friends, Maciek, decided that I should have a "going-away" party. Funny thing is... I planned a day (this Monday) and he wasn't even available to attend. Unlike me, Maciek's job requires him to be there and not miss days left and right (unlike Roel). I have job security, Maciek doesn't, so he needs to work his shift and hopefully get promoted. So... my party is this upcoming Monday, I was thinking... Gameworks and eating out. After Maciek, I sent a message to Jason. Jason's first response is that he couldn't go because he's broke, thanks Jason. He apologized though. My unreliable friends, I can't blame them though, they go through something called "life," it's something I have yet to understand the concept of. I sadly, have no knowledge of responsibilities and independence. Those are the main things holding me back from "growing up." It's also the reason why I'm still childish and have the logic and reasoning abilities equivalent to a child.

Those two are out. I was on the verge of canceling my party. Then I got a response from Marvin and he's totally up for my party. He was a little disappointed when I nearly canceled the party. As long as one person is willing to go, the party is still open. That's one check for Marvin! Today I called Izzy, but I called from the restaurant phone and she didn't recognize the number so she didn't answer until my second call. I haven't talked to Izzy since ACen, it was nice to talk to her again. I told her about my party and she's available on Monday, yay! It's the first time that Izzy and I will hang out outside of ACen and Harold Washington College.

By the way, did you guys know I go to two colleges?
I switch back and forth between Wilbur Wright College and Harold Washington College. My grades are valid for both colleges and it transfers easily. Same school system, no hassle, it's like going to the same school in a different part of town.

So far, just Izzy and Marvin are available for my party.

Okay, when I get to Japan.......
I want to buy a lot of "Zoids!" My mind is set on buying toys! Zoids are my absolute favorite motorized model kits. They're like robotic animals and they walk and roar after you assemble them. They were popular in the States for a while then popularity declined and they ceased all productions of all the Zoids products. That made them really difficult to find, since they weren't sold anymore. The US only had certain Zoid releases, well... a few of them and Japan had all the exclusive ones. While I'm in Japan, I'm going to buy the Zoids I never could buy over here. Like the "Murasame Liger," it roars and swings a katana around as it walks. Or the "Shadow Fox," it has launching missiles. There's a rare one I want too, it's called the "Whitz Tiger: Imitate Edition," it sounds like a fake but it's not, in the Zoids series, the Whitz Tiger is a reflection of the Whitz Wolf, which is why it's called the imitate. It's a very detailed model, it's so beautiful. I want this Zoid so bad, I hope I'll find it in a shop somewhere in Japan. This is a picture of the box.
*whine* I WANT THIS ZOID SOOOOOO BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really hope that I'll find this in Japan. Everyone says I'm too old for this... I DON'T CARE! I WANT THIS ZOID!!!

Everyone is probably wondering what Tessie found this time?

Okay, well... today was another ordinary day at work, the lunch shift is dead as usual. A customer steps in and tells me that he's alone so a "table for one." I noticed that the young man was carrying something familiar in his arm. I guided him to his seat and I pointed out, "Dude! Nice longboard!" He was a bit surprised when I said that, he replied, "What?! You actually know what this is?! Yeah, thanks, I just got it recently."

I FOUND A LONGBOARDER IN BATAVIA!!!

I just got into a little conversation with this guy, "Wow, that's really cool! And yeah I know it's a longboard, because my friend bought a custom longboard back in high school and he's a member of the 'Chicago Longboard Society.'" Then he asked me, "Do you know what shop your friend got his longboard from? I was thinking about getting a custom for myself." I told him, "I don't really know, my friend told me that  he bought it from Michigan, but no details about the shop, sorry."

Now I should explain what a longboard is...
It basically looks like a skateboard, only bigger and longer. The material for the board is sturdy but really flexible. The trunks are larger and have a wider range of motion compared to a skateboard. The wheels are much bigger (double that of a skateboard) and made of a gummier softer translucent polymer. It's a bit of an underground sport. Not very many people practice this type of boarding nor do most people know about it. Finding other longboarders is like trying to win the lottery... very random and slim chances.

After the guy finished eating, he walked to the counter to pay for his lunch. I made a strange request after he finished paying. I said, "I have a strange request, can I take a picture of you with your longboard?" The guy said very happily, "Hahaha, why of course you can!"

Here he is!
The longboarder I found in Batavia. I so want to show this to Maciek. Maciek is still an active longboarder, I'm sure he'd enjoy hearing about how I found another longboarder. What I found strange in this picture... this guy's longboard is rather small. Every time I visit Maciek's house, I can see his longboard sitting in the corner of the basement. Maciek's longboard was definitely bigger than this one. It's a different shape too. Oh well, I need to ask Maciek about it then...

It was fun talking to this guy today. Unfortunately I didn't catch his name. I wonder if he'll stop by to eat again... In the future, I can probably give him the name of that custom longboard shop in Michigan. But I would need to ask Maciek first.

Until next time, bye for now.