BT and a bunch of his friends were up in town last week. Good times there all around…at least, the parts that I can remember. Going out one of those nights, I got a bunch of phone calls from an unknown 808 number. Thinking it was some sort of emergency, I ran outside on the third call, expecting to get connected to the hospital and hearing about my mom or my brother or something.

It was BT’s wife. I guess she’d been trying to call him but it was loud in that place and we were pretty blasted (or at least, I was!). I think something was going on with BT’s phone too I’m not sure. But anyway, all’s well that ends well!

He also came out with us to check out First Friday again, and it was a lot more packed this month than it was back in February. I guess less people tend to come out when it’s raining? How about that, huh?

Speaking of weird weather, it’s snowing right now! Or … maybe not snowing; but small chunks of frost are falling from the sky. I’m fa-reezing!

It’ll probably be a while before I update again, because I just got Bad Company 2, and have been playing that nonstop with the guys back in Hawaii. That game’s good times!

This morning, Scott IM’s me saying that Hawaii’s under tsunami watch from an earthquake in Chile (my thoughts go out to them). I spent some of the morning going through the facebook feeds of everyone back home, and calling some friends to tell them to be safe.

One of my friends back home reported seeing a sign at Safeway that read: “Limit 2 cases of Spam per person”. Hahah only in Hawaii.

Crazy night at Rok last night. Danced with a lady and realized she was kind of old when I grabbed her hand to spin her and it felt a little dry and wrinkly. Woke up on Reid’s couch again this morning - I had my shoes this time, but not my car! I really need to get this stuff down.

Crazy night at Revolution last night with a bunch of High Life’s (the champagne of beers!) I woke up on Reid’s couch this morning and could not, for the life of me, find my shoes. I drove home this morning in my socks.

You see random things sometimes when you go out for a walk.

You see random things oftentimes when you go out for a walk in Vegas. Here are a few from today:

- Douchey looking asian guy lounging on one of the Bellagio lobby couches, texting and using his baby’s stroller as a footrest.
- The Bellagio fountain show playing to Aaron Copland (the song in those “Beef, it’s what for dinner” commercials)
- A beggar’s sign reading “Why Lie, Need Weed” (with a little pot leaf drawn on the side)
- Another beggar’s sign reading “Why Lie I need a whore”. As I passed by, the guy yells out “It’s a worthy cause! Help me out!”
- Two jock/alpha-male types walking down the strip holding those cartoonishly large drinks and singing “If you’re a hooker and you know it clap your hands..”
- A bunch of those hooker cards piled up on the ground at the top of an escalator. They would all bump every time a new step slid beneath them. It reminded me of those ledge-pushing coin games they had at Fun Factory where you’d insert a token to try to get more tokens pushed off the ledges (does anyone know what I’m talking about here?)
- Two guys pulling their rolling suitcases down about two blocks right on the strip. Welcome to Vegas, guys!

Relatively tame compared to a couple of other of my walks here, but still good times.

I was driving home just now and that’s how the radio commercial started. “Ready to change your life forever?”

I thought it was going to be for a trade school or something, but it was for laser hair removal. Yes, folks, laser hair removal will change your life. FOREVER! But only if you’re ready for it!

To their credit, they DO have “Sweetheart specials” going on right now, with “Amazing savings [hey that rhymes!] on legs, armpits, and the bikini area”

I don’t know man. Should I get the hell out of Vegas already and just move back to Hawaii?

I just realized that it was just about a month ago when I checked out First Friday back in Honolulu. It seems like it’s been a lot longer than just one month.

Any way, I’ve always been curious about First Fridays here in Vegas. And last night, I finally got around to it. I didn’t know what to expect, and I had a great night.

I almost missed the whole thing, actually - or at least, the major parts of it (that’s what I get for not studying the map closely before going). I was already driving back toward Las Vegas Blvd when I noticed all the larger galleries. I parked on the street and headed down, and that’s where I spent the rest of the night.

There was a lot of great art, and some interesting times. Some of the more noteworthy instances:

- In front of a bunch of photos of japanese tattoo’s, this guy starts talking to me and tells me about how he used to live in Japan. When he heard me speak, he goes “You totally sound American” to which I replied “Oh yeah man I was born in Hawaii” … which was my way of saying “I AM American, jerk!” He was good people, though.

- At another gallery (sorry I didn’t get to remember or find out the names of a lot of these places), I was staring at these shopping carts converted into chairs. Real industrial stuff. The artist walked by - big dude with a mohawk and piercings everywhere. “I love your stuff,” I told him, “It’s great!”. When he turned to me to thank me, he had one of the most genuine smiles I’d seen on anyone in this town.

- I bought a print. It was an illustration of Vegas in flames, during a zombie uprising. The artist was sitting there at the table and I asked him what the story behind it was. He said in his mind, he pictured zombies that only attacked when they get bored, so the trick was to keep them entertained. “That’s not far from the truth,” I told him. I also told him that I needed one of those prints, and needed him to sign in. Talking to him a little while longer, he told me that he’s been unemployed and thanked me for the sale because he needed the cash. But he’ll be leaving for Japan in April to work for Disney. I thanked him for the print and wished him the best.

All in all, a really good time there, and a great art walk….with actual art! (better than January’s “First Friday” back in Honolulu, with the ONE gallery open ..then again, it was New Years Day, so I can’t really compare).

Kerri had called me earlier in the evening and let me know that she and some coworkers were at the Orleans to watch another Coworker’s band play. Her friend was in town too. I headed down to hang out. The band was called “HNLV” because they were all from Honolulu together. It was great stuff.

The end of the night was us heading back to Main Street for late night loco mocos. Good stuff.

Don’t worry everyone, I’m still alive!

It’s been a busy week, and an… interesting weekend. An old friend from high school was visiting last week. On the night I hung out with him and his friend, we visited Reid over at the club and got a good buzz going. Thinking back on it, it may not have been the greatest thing because I took them to Sapphire Rhino afterwards. They were then hustled out of hundreds of dollars (while I stood around saying “I’m good” and “I’m just waiting for my friends” over and over again).

My friend’s friend came back at one point with a drained look on his face.

“How…much did you blow?” I asked. “Did you buy her an Xbox?”
“I bought her Xbox-es” he said, shaking his head.

Good times.

And the weekend … brought about fundamental changes to my life. It’s nothing that took me by surprise, but .. it’s change nonetheless. The next few weeks are going to be interesting.

I just finished Super Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. The book was interesting; not as good as Freakonomics was, but still interesting. It wasn’t really a sequel either, more of a followup.

I’m just feeling good that I’ve read a book again. The last time I read one of these things was back in November. Up until then I was going through about 2-5 a month. And then Modern Warfare 2 came out.

So I think I’ll stay off the video games today and keep reading. Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” is sitting there on the coffee table so I guess I’ll just dig into it. Time to put on my bad-writing-glasses!!

It’s another cold night here in Vegas. Of course, I shouldn’t be complaining about weather in the mid 50s, but most of you guys reading this are in Hawaii, so I think we’re good.

I knew before I left that I wasn’t looking forward to coming back to the cold. And I’m still feeling a little weird. I’m still wearing shorts and a t shirt, just like I have been for the past month. I even walked out to the mailboxes like this yesterday. I’m not sure if I was imagining things, but the puffy-jacket-wearing-lady that I passed and said hello to looked at me like I was on crack.

It’s a cold, quiet night here tonight. Kerri’s already asleep after a long day at work. I’m sitting in the living room, TV off, and thinking I’ll probably just be reading tonight. I was pretty excited a few minutes ago when I saw this link that lets you play Super Mario Brothers:

http://www.nintendo8.com/game/629/super_mario_brothers/

It made me think of this time when I was a kid back at a church dinner. For the kids’ section, they’d set up an NES with this game playing. Remember how it was a two player game, and the second guy would take his turn after the first guy died? Well I was Luigi, and after the kid on controller 1 died (which took maybe 6 minutes), I went on to pass the entire game in one go. Yeah, I used the warp zones and all, but I just didn’t die. About half an hour later, there was an audience watching me pass the game (only half an hour because I used the world 1 and 4 warp zones). I distinctly remember this one guy behind me saying “He’s going to do it. The korean kid” (I’m Chinese).

Yeah dude, I used to rock Super Mario Bros like that. Thinking about it now though, poor kid on first controller only got less than 10 minutes of playtime and had to spend the rest of his turn waiting in vain for me to die.

Fast forward to tonight. I’m trying to play it on my keyboard and I died literally 4 seconds into the game.

You can’t go home again.

There’s a metaphor to life here somewhere. One that even relates to me this very night. I’m just not sure what it is…or if I even want to realize it. So I’ll stop here.