….and of course, going online probably isn’t helping me.

I woke up an hour and a half ago from a bad dream. I dreamed I was Spider Man, and I was in a fight with Wolverine, who began charging at me. I woke up swinging my arm and feeling my heart race.

And now I can’t go back to sleep! I gave up trying after about a half hour of tossing and turning.

I know this sounds pretty weird. I’m not even that big on comic books (any more). I’ve never dreamed that I was frikken Spider Man before.

You know how they say you get nightmares when you eat too pizza? I guess I actually did eat a lot of things I don’t normally eat - Kerri’s mom and one of her friends were in town, so I was driving them around. We ate lunch at the Orleans Casino buffet where I had two huge plates of crawfish, a had a big glass of pepsi (I usually don’t drink soda). Later on Kerri’s mom also bought me a big ice cream cone (I usually don’t eat ice cream). Then I had chilli and rice.

Actually..between the soda and the ice cream, I think I ate about twenty times more sugar than I usually do in a day. I don’t think it was the crawfish.. but at any rate I can’t sleep now, and my thoughts are disjointed and I’m rambling. Battlefield Bad Company 2 to the rescue!!! (ie: I’m going to go play video games until I pass out, which should be right around when the sun is rising)

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.

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?

The ‘past’ does not truly exist. Neither does the ‘future’. They are only memories and expectations. The only real thing is the fleeting present.

What was once “Friday night” is now a blur of random memories. Here are some of them.

• The plan is to meet up downtown around 7. I get there at 6 so I could go look at some art. Turns out all the galleries are closed except for one.
• I wander around a bit trying to figure out how to kill an entire hour. I make my way down to Indigo for a few beers.
• I’m at Indigo sitting at the bar. Barback tells me that they may have moved “First Friday” to the month’s second Friday, but wasn’t sure. Bartender chimes in and tells me that tonight is the first time in 16 years they are open on Jan1 because of First Friday. Everyone seems confused, and pissed to have to work on New Years.
• Big white lady comes to the bar right next to me and leans in to ask the bartender for a drink suggestions for her friend. She wants something sweet and creamy or light.
• I suggest the Colorado Bulldog to big white lady. She’s never heard of the drink before but likes the suggestion as her friend is originally from Colorado. I never did find out what her friend thought.
• An asshole Euro guy (or maybe Australian I’m not sure) comes up and asks if they use “fresh cream in their chi chi’s”. He is unhappy with the drinks they got and says the cream tasted like it was curdling (does coconut cream even curdle?).
• Bartender is pissed at Euro guy’s attitude (she and I exchanged the “is this guy for real?” look as he complained). Bartender offers to re-make the drink, or suggests margaritas. Euro guy says it’s for his kids, orders fruit punch as replacement, and returns to his table.
• Bartender is even more pissed now at whatever waiter took the order because the original ticket wasn’t for virgin drinks.
• I leave Indigo shortly after, thank the bartender and barback, and say “Hey. Your year will get better.”
• I make my way to Bar 35.
• I get a text from my friend. They are running late. My 1 hour to kill becomes 3.
• Sitting at the bar of Bar35, I order a PBR. My first bottlecap is the Ace of Hearts. “A good way to start off the night” says the bartender.
• A couple sitting next to me is trying new beers. They get red seal ale per the bartender’s suggestion. I just drank that for the first time a few days prior. I ask them if they like it. They do.
• Two white girls come to order drinks. A few minutes of conversation later I’m asking them “How do you not know what PBR is?” Turns out they were born and raised in Hawaii (Kailua). I totally forgot there are white people born on this island, too.
• White girls (actually I found out one was hapa) and I are trying to decide who’s older. They say “We’re pretty old” and I look at them and reply “I’m probably older”. Turns out I was right (yay me!) They invite me to meet their friends who are all in the back but I’m still waiting for mine so I tell them maybe later.
• My friends come. I’ve had about six or seven drinks by then.
• The rest is a little more blurry.
• At some point, white girls from a few lines up leave the club with their friends (who are more white girls). One of them sees me on the way out and gives a friendly wave. I wave back but don’t talk to them again. They are the first people I met in 2010.
• There’s some dancing, and a lot of bad music.
• Cool Haole girl comes up dancing to one of the girls in our group.
• Uncool Haole girl starts saying stupid shit. A fight nearly happens.
• Very uncool Haole girl and her boyfriend are kicked out by security.
• More bad music. Less dancing on my part.
• More bad music, now combined with bad DJ’ing. We leave.
• We all cram in and take a cab over to Bar7. Cab driver is a pervy old dude who uses too much cologne.
• At Bar7 I am standing around surrounded by little kids and feeling really old.
• At Bar7 I run out of steam and bail out on my friends early (to my credit, it should be noted again that I DID start my night about three hours earlier than everyone else did). But sorry friends!
• I walk about two blocks before finding a cab to hail on Keamoku Street.
• Cab driver is looking like a total terrorist, with the cheap long sleeved shirt and all. Nice guy though. He tells me he’s originally from Bangladesh.
• Cab driver begins rants about how he’s got no customers all night and a family to support, which is why he has to work on the night of New Years. “First Friday?! Is bullshit this month!” he says. “Downtown! What a joke!” I tell him I agree. (Cab driver giving off a little more terrorist vibe now).
• As taxi enters freeway, driver puts on a cassette of Islamic Prayer.
• Cab driver asks me if I know what this is. “The Holy Quaran” he says and goes on about how it’s a beautiful history. Not sure if he’s trying to freak me out. (terrorist vibe goes up a notch)

• I tell cab driver that my parents are originally from Malaysia and I’m vaguely familiar with Muslim prayer ritual. “Five times a day, right?” I ask.
• Cab driver is now significantly nicer to me. Terrorist vibe goes back down and now we’re just two dudes talking about life. I realize that cab driver may have been inadvertently been giving me the terrorist vibe in response to me inadvertently giving him the gelled-hair drunk douchebag vibe earlier on. The rest of the trip is pleasant.
• Fare is $15.60. I give cab driver a 20 and tell him to keep the change.
• It is 3am and my night is now over. Before hitting the sack, I have enough energy to change clothes and brush my teeth, which is a lot better than some nights.

It’s been a hectic past few days. BT, Nicole, Steve, and Zach flew down on Wednesday and were only there until Saturday morning, so we did our best to make the most of their few days here. We went to Rok both nights and did a lot of running around otherwise.

It’s always good having friends visit.

I took them all to the airport on Saturday, and then the weekend totally kicked my ass. I went out to dinner with Kerri on Saturday night and had a piece of prime rib that must not have been very well cooked - because a little after waking up on Sunday, I felt sick to my stomach. Like that feeling you get when you eat something too oily.

I spent the entire day in bed. To make things even more fun, part of the Las Vegas Marathon was set up right by our house that day, with some rock band playing about a hundred feet from our house. The band must have had an affinity to Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”, because of all the songs they played for the runners that were passing by, that one came up at least a dozen times.

Eventually I felt better (after hurling into the sink). It was like my body didn’t want any of Saturday night’s dinner in my system and just kept it at the front, waiting for me to puke it up. Kind of gross.

I’m doing a little better now though. But that’s the last time I order my prime rib medium rare.

I had to try one because of those stupid commercials on TV.

It wasn’t too bad, but just tasted like a regular taco, but with a different kind of cheese inside. The black shell seems thicker, but not that different/special.

I also thought the commercial said it was only 59 cents or something, but it was listed on the 89-cent menu when I bought it tonight. Oh well, at least now I know!

Sorry for the absence, everyone (that is, everyone who isn’t on facebook to otherwise stalk me). I actually got sick earlier this week and haven’t been going online as much. I’ll be back when I get better…

…Ironic, that the last entry on the blog was about the huge temperature drop we had a few weeks ago. Cause that drop played a huge factor in me getting sick!

Holy crap there was a black widow in our garage. Kerri called me from the garage when she pulled in and said there was a big black spider on the ceiling. I came down, smashed it with a broom and turned it over. It had a red hourglass on it’s abdomen. Yep, black widow.

Then it started running toward us, I screamed like a little girl, and smashed it a little too hard with my slipper. It was too mangled for pictures. Fail!

In other news, ODST’s pretty good times.

Here’s Orochon Ramen. I found out about the place on Man vs. Food and even though I think Adam Richman is a total douchebag, I still enjoy watching the show from time to time. And after seeing the episode at Orochon Ramen, I really wanted to check the place out.

A lot of the reviews on Yelp said that the place was overrated, and not very good. I believed them, but still had to try it for myself.

When we got there, we had to wait about 15 minutes. After that, we ended up sitting outdoors in the sun, and shoulder to shoulder with complete strangers.

Anyway, in the pic above, you see all the people standing outside? All the white people, in particular? Yep that many white people in front of an ethnic restaurant usually means the food’s not that great.

And as good as it looks, it really wasn’t that great. The noodles kind of tasted like cheap chinese egg noodles. I ordered the #2 spicy bowl (#1 being the hottest) and it wasn’t anything special. Just go to any ramen place, dump chili powder in it, and that’s pretty much what you get.

If you’re curious, the “challenge” on Man vs. Food is to eat the whole thing, soup and all, in half an hour. I don’t remember if I’ve ever drank all the soup in Ramen. (Don’t people in Japan think you’re weird if you do that?) I didn’t even want to bother trying, either, since we were sitting out in the sun on a relatively hot day.

Anyway, I thought the place sucked, but it was still something I had to do. Thanks for nothing, Man vs. Food!

To add to the irony, we were seated next to a non-asian family who apparently also heard about the place from the TV show. I overheard them talking about how good the noodles were, and how the soup was among the best that the dad’s ever had at a restaurant. They obviously don’t eat Ramen very often, because I put the food at Orochon slightly below the stuff you get at Ezogiku back home — the one near University, not the one in Waikiki.

I really miss Tenkaippen now.

..And again, if you wanna see all the pics from the trip, here they are.

so today i walk over to my mom and hold up a pair of tweezers in front of me.
“what’s taht?” she says
“I need you to pluck out a white hair” i say, while i bend down in front of her.
she starts laughing
and she’s like “I can’t see it”
“it’s right there! like right in the front? You don’t see it”
i feel tweezer’s plucking hairs
“ow! you just plucked two hairs out!”
“sorry! okay wait i think i got it…is this it?”
i look and it’s a white hair..i think.
“thanks mom”
then i go back to the bathroom
AND THE WHITE HAIR IS STILL THERE
my mom plucked out like three hairs
and in the end i still had to pluck the actual hair out by myself.

(hi everyone, I’m drunk! And awake at 3.30am. Assbackwards jetlag strikes again!!)