So, yeah yeah, it's been a while since I've written, but things have been slightly crazy and have just settled down really. In the past two weeks, I've moved into an apartment and furnished it mostly from scratch. I still have wonderful piles of cardboard and unpacked boxes still around though. Thankfully, I now have a desk to work from and a bed to sleep on. Bed so comfy compared to floor...

In other news, the local peeps have been keeping me busy - weekly dinner outings, movies, hiking and more. It's definitely a more active lifestyle than before, but I love it. Summer in Seattle is just amazing, and there's no reason to stay holed up.

I generally think of craigslist as a place to get the cheap goods and to get taken for a ride when selling stuff. However, I just discovered the Best Of section, which is hilarious. Prime examples include MC with about half my coworkers. - 23 and I AM THE PHANTOM SHITTER. Total. Laff. Riot.

Well, my luck turned around pretty quickly. We had a second poker night this weekend where I got knocked out early in both the buy-in & tourney. I am not good with playing hard ball with the all-in. Oh well, still up lifetime.

In other news, I put down a deposit for a place in Queen Anne. Total spur of the moment thing, but I think it'll be good in the end. At the very least, I'm glad to be done with the apartment hunting for a while.

I was recently inaugurated into the sacred ritual of poker night. It was fun meeting new people while getting in some Texas Hold 'em. Plus, for the first time playing for dineros, I did pretty darn good by finishing up on the buy-in & winning the tourney. At one point in the tourney, I was pretty close to getting pushed out - I went all in when someone tried to buy me out. Thankfully, the triple queens prevailed, and I was ultimately victorious. I just hope that I haven't used up all of my card karma this week.

I seemed to have picked up one more souvenir from my time in San Francisco - a cold. Monday I felt the stirrings of a raw throat develop into something more. Yesterday has been a bit of a struggle - full on sore throat, pressure in the head, and a strong desire to sleep. I made it through the day, but I really didn't feel like I accomplished much. Today, however is much better.

Sadly, I didn't make it to death by karaoke because I just wanted to die. Alas, I shall have to make it next time.

Hello all from Seattle. Or more precisely, Yukino's kitchen table. I arrived in Seattle late yesterday evening after becoming intimately familiar with the "torrential down pour one moment, sunshine the next" weather pattern that seems to grace the area. Asides from a bit of sleepiness and a slight delay around Portland thanks to a traffic accident on I-205, I finally made my way into the city proper around 8 or so. I met up with the local kids, had nuked air-trasport Portillo's DIPPED BEEF and played Texas Hold'em for the first time before heading out to Yukino's.

Today was spent getting the work laptop up & running (as much as possible) as well as beginning the process of finding a place. I'll probably end up in the city since it fits my lifestyle more than the suburban lifestyle does.

Asides from that, I believe there will be drunken off-key singing tomorrow night with Lish. Also, rumors are afloat about a trip to Tojo's. I'm sensing death by omakase.

Back on the road again today. I shoved all the luggage back into the car and pushed off from SFO. Mucho thanks to Euni & Bob for letting me become a temporary couch fixture at their place - it was soo nice not to sleep in a hotel after three days in a road. I'll have to get back to the Bay Area - it's so nice that it's easy to see why people don't want to leave.

I ended up getting a really late start today, actually getting on the road around 10:45 am. Then I putzed around the Marin Headlands a little bit. The Marin Headlands, albeit very windy, were very lovely. I could easily see why people would want to have their weddings there.

Next was the Pacific Highway 1. If there's one part of the US that you need to road trip once in your life, this is it. There's just such a diverse amount of scenery along it: seaside cliffs, giant redwood forests, quaint little towns, and tons of fun driving features like 180º turns with 5% grades. Just remember that even though it's 208 miles, you'll probably be averaging 40 mph so it'll take quite a while more than interstating it up. Also, it'll make you have a new appreciation of cruise control considering how much time you'll spend mainpulating the accelerator.

Anyway, now I'm in a hotel in Crescent City, CA. Hooray for free in-room Internet access.

As requested, the Amoeba Hit List:

The Charlatans (UK) - The Charlatans (UK)
Curve - Cuckoo
The Delgados - Hate
Saint Etienne - Foxbase Alpha
Curve -Pubic Fruit
The Innocence Mission - Glow
Ladytron - Light & Magic
The Brilliant Green - Terra 2001
Dykehouse - Midrange
Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

Today was day two of doing the tourist thang in San Francisco.

I took the BART into the downtown area and then rode a cable car down to the marina district. (For the record, the cable car ride was neat - it's an experience hanging off the side of one of those things, but I don't think I'd really care to ride it again in the future.) I putzed around the marina district for a while, stopping in Ghiradelli Square for some chocolatey goodness before cable car'ing it back downtown.

While downtown, I passed through the Metreon before going into the Museum of Modern Art. The MOMA was rather interesting - asides from the POP art exhibition, there was a Larry Sultan exhibition on porn in ordinary homes that was actually rather interesting - the use of lighting resulted in a unique richness of colors that evidently mimics the style used in adult films. Additionally, the pieces were composed so there was an artistic flair to them although they may have some erotic undertones.

After MOMA, I hop-skip-jumped my way back to my temporary homebase to grab my car so I could run off to Palo Alto for dinner with Jen. This was the first time in nine (9!) years that we last met in the flesh. In spite of the time gap, it was easy to jump back into conversation, catching up on life in general. Definitely trés, trés cool to be able to do that.

Tomorrow will mark the start of the trek up the coast. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. I'll probably make a stop in the Marin Headlands and peer at the Golden Gate Bridge before scooting up Highway 1. Asides from that, it's up in the air - do I shoot for going all the way to Seattle tomorrow? Or do I take a leisurely approach and sightsee along the way? And should I take the coast all the way up or cut through Portland? I guess I'll feel my way through this all while on the road.

Long at last, I am in San Francisco.

I arrived late last night after an unfortunate 3 hour delay in BUFU, NV getting my brakes worked on. Asides from that, the trip out has been pretty smooth.

(Apologies if I'm going over stuff I've already mentioned in my previous entry, but I figured I should do the trip some justice and flesh things out a bit more.)

I moved out on Sunday after a mass amount of cleaning & packing. After having the unexpected fortune of someone offering their services to help throw out stuff, I finally got the place pretty much cleared out & cleaned by that afternoon. Final damage was 4 full dumpsters of trash and a *very* loaded Civic. I decided to take things easy and just drive to my parents' place. I dropped off a ton of stuff there (including the guitars, my Pee Schee, CD's & Mikasa dinnerware), grabbed a bake @ home carry out pizza, and watched Master & Commander: Far Side of the World.

The first real day of driving was rather hard because I wasn't used to driving 13 hours in a single day. Additionally, the western 2/3 of Kansas is such utterly boring farmland. I finally arrived in Denver around 7:30 or so localtime there. After checking intoo the hotel, I made my way to Trail Dust for mmm...20 oz porterhouse like water & 22 oz Blue Moon from the tap.

The second day was better & worse in various aspects: the day was shorter and the scenery far more appealing than the prior day. However, my stomach was on a rampage for some reason, and I had to stop rather frequently. I got into Salt Lake City early evening. I hit a nice Italian food, beer & pool place called Stoneground.

The third day (yesterday) was pretty decent. I got to checkout the Great Salt Lake...which is doing an excellent job of receding and becoming a big giant salt deposit. Unfortunately, I had the before mentioned 3 hour delay getting work done on my brakes just across the Utah border in BUFU, NV. It did give me an opportunity to read more of Quicksilver. After that, it was pretty much smooth sailing - raced through the rest of Nevada, swung through Reno, up and down through Tahoe region, and then a straight shot over into San Francisco. I actually drove fast enough to meet The General there.

Today, I took it leisurely during the morning before heading off to the Haight-Ashbury region for a touristy jaunt. I ended up spending too much money @ Amoeba Music, picked up a Vietnamese cuisine cookbook @ Booksmith and then wandered about Golden Gate Park.

I'll have another day of slacking in the Bay Area so I'll be sure to update everyone on the continued hijinks.