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Tiburon512
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Country: United States
State: New York
Gender: Male
Interests: Biking, reading, baseball, video games, hanging with my friends, bowling with FLAIR!!!
Expertise: Being super sexy.
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/9/2002
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| New Year's is a unique holiday. Sure, it has a lot of the same themes, the countdown, the noise makers, the champagne, the singing. But unlike family holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving that resolve around the house and home, you can celebrate New Year's anywhere by doing anything. I've celebrated the New Year's at house parties, in parks with fireworks, in crowded restaurants and in small family gatherings.
This year, since it was a big one, we decided to make it opulent. Cynthia got us reservations at Pipa, this Spanish tapas restaurant on Park Avenue with chandeliers and mirrors hanging from the ceiling. It was an 8-course fancy feast that counted down from '9' (cute) and included a champagne toast at midnight. So we all donned our fanciest duds and headed out...
But first, some pre-dinner bubbly at Cynthia's! Also, to help warm us up, cause it was COLD out there! And kinda sleeting. Sucks to be in Times Square! Enjoy your diapers and your hypothermia tourists!
The food there was real delicious. Shrimp ceviche, lamb pizza thingie, plantains stuffed with chicken, fried oysters, the whole she-bang. It was an epic meal that spanned decades. My only wish? That I wasn't slightly sick so I could taste everything even more. And even though the place was fancy, they didn't skimp on the cheapo hats and noisemakers when the hour neared. Hooray!
There is a thin line between 'jaunty' hat and 'douchey' hat angles. I hope I conveyed the proper eloquence. It looks like Andres, however, is looking to represent the visual interpretation of 'ass-hat.' I kid! But really, he was shooting everyone 'murder-eyes' in pictures all night for some reason.
Ah, pinata snot. How did we celebrate the new year's before you came around?
A toast! To the new decade! In which we also won't have a name for it. The tens? the teens? The post-aughts? Grrrraaaah!
First bite of the new decade? Filet mignon and champagne. That. is. classy. There was also a dance floor, which we kinda used, but were mostly full of food that it was more like waddling to the beat (heh.)
Didn't get home until around 3:30 AM, in which I slipped into glorious unconscious. Woke up at 11:30 the next day to find that Andres had slipped out to go visit his folks, so I made a big ol brunch for Carrie and me, then headed over to the cousins' to eat some turkey and sushi and dim sum (hey, it worked!). Oh, and during the meal i totally splintered a wooden chair. Uh oh. A sign maybe? I have gained almost 10 lbs since Fakesgiving. Hopefully I can get rid of this cold and hit the gym, these abs won't sculpt themselves!
Next week I'm posting up my resolutions for this year/decade, and then maybe a retrospective of 2009 pics that fell through the cracks. Hope everyone had a blast on New Year's, and enjoy the long weekend!!
Quote of the Decade?
Cynthia: Hi, I would like to make New Year's reservations for four please? And what does the prix-fixe menu have? 8 courses? Okay, and can we order more food off the menu after that?
Me: Thatta girl! | | |
| Oh look, holiday season is upon us! Perfect time to break a month-long drought of blog posts. Sorry about the lack of posts folks, but blah blah work is long blah blah feel lazy blah. But I'm back! Now what have I been up to?
Secret Santa was yesterday, and it was superb! Cynthia took over hosting duties, and though her place was small, we like to call it 'cozy.' And hey, we're a cozy group of friends, so it worked out great! Speaking of friends...
What what? Michelle and Tillie at the same time?!? Are we in 2006? For the first time in oh so long we got the gang all together. And what perfect timing too, cause there were no holes in the Secret Santa chain this year - everyone gave and got their gift in one day. It was a Christmas miracle!!
Although it wasn't Fakesgiving, the food was delicious - green beans, jalapeno mac n' cheese, something called 'smorg' from Jon, corn souffle, yum! And there were SO many desserts! Cynthia made gingerbread men for all of us to decorate and devour, and Michelle even made gingerbread men with our names imprinted on it!
On to the gift giving! I got some awesome ornaments from Andres for our new tree, and a new bladder from Carrie! Excuse me? That's right - Carrie found some stuffed guts and gave them all to us! That sounds really weird/disgusting, but it was quite cute/disgusting. Suzy got lungs, Andres got a kidney, Michelle got a liver, etc! They were thoughtful too - Tillie needs her pancreas to process all that sugar and Christine needed a new stomach cause of her acid reflux. And apparently, I can't go two hours without peeing!
I'm pretty sure a first year med-school student would see this reenactment of the human body and just cry. I mean, I THINK that's where a spleen goes...
I also did my annual 'print out a shitload of pics' to give to everyone, but instead of piles for everyone to sort through (which usually ends up on the bottom of some drawer somewhere), I got lil' photo albums and sorted them out (which usually goes onto shelves and are treasured forever). Even gave a little surprise at the end, which everyone really enjoyed (I assume).
2009 is almost over! Time for reflections on the past year (and decade) and looking forward to a new year!
Quote of the Day:
Me: Bladder kiss! *smooch*
Carrie: Oh my god! Why is it wet? | | |
| So my boss, damned Yankee fan that he is, said that I gave too little notice to take off from work and go to Boston to avoid the ticker tape parade tomorrow. Shouldn't have told him why. Oh well, it would have coincided with Fakesgiving this Saturday anyway, no way to go to Beantown and back in just under a day. This is much more of a sacrifice than you might think, for hanging out with good friends is just above 'Hating the Yankees' on my priority list. What's that? You haven't seen my priority list? Behold!:
Steven's Priorities
1. Finish building my robot butler
2. Loving the Mets
3. Hanging out with friends
4. Hating the Yankees
5. Finding a way to warn President Lincoln through time before it's too late!
6. Pilates
There you have it. Now if you excuse me, I just figured out you can hook up an iPod to our new speaker system, so I'm gonna sit in on my couch and blast the new Glee soundtrack I got yesterday. Later! | | |
| Well I think Bloomberg got the message, a lot of people like me decided to vote against him on principle, and he just barely won, which considering how much he spent on his campaign says a lot. Still, I'm glad he won, and I didn't have to sell my democratic soul, so everybody's happy! And I'm also glad for John Liu, the first city-wide elected Asian-American official! I hope he comptrols well.
Andres just upgraded our living room by getting a brand new home-theater-in-a-box! Blu-ray, subwoofer, speakers galore, the whole deal. Just finished watching 'Casino Royale' on Blu-ray and it was great. The picture is so crisp it's like someone ironed it with starch. The colors are so vivid that it's honestly like an acid trip. So now we have to decide which of our movies to upgrade to Blu-ray disc. I'm a little hesitant cause it's so expensive and I can only play it on one device (and what if someone wants to borrow it, or if my parents want to watch the movie upstairs?) And do I really need to see every pore on Steve Carrell's face? But for action movies, nature documentaries and the like I think it's definitely worth it, and we can use Blockbuster and Netflix to check things out.
Screw you, Facebook East Coast marketing. I don't care that you just opened up your new office right across the street from mine, or that I can see into your floor from the breakroom. Sure, you're all young and hip and can go on Facebook for work allllll day. And sure you have a basketball court and nerf guns just laying around for the goofing. But... but... on Fridays I can wear JEANS to work. So, yeah, take that! (sob)
So after volunteering at the water station during the New York City Marathon, I got a free t-shirt. It says 'NYC Marathon 40th Anniversary: I'm a Part of It.' It's the same shirt the runners get! Hitting the gym has never been so much fun. "That's right ladies, I ran a marathon yesterday and I'm STILL on the treadmill today! Awww yeah! This is my cooldown. (wink)" | | |
| Halloween was quite fun this year, which was good cause I was definitely in need of some the ol' holiday spirit. Busy days at work and after left me no time/desire to get a costume, so I just went with with my zombie Resident Evil shirt I got at Comic-Con. I was planning on handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, but none came, I ended up giving like half my bag of Butterfingers to some lucky kids who were on my block when I left the house. I even skipped out on the 'Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D' screening that everyone else went to because I didn't feel like spending the money. But it was Halloween, and it was a Saturday, so I trekked out to the Village to meet everyone outside the theater.
A witch, a zombie, a devil, another zombie, and a Planeteer. Good lineup!
Dinner was at Kuma Inn, this wonderful hidden Chinese tapas place on Ludlow street. I know what your thinking, "Chinese tapas? Isn't that just Dim Sum?" but this place definitely had the tapas-feel, with the small plates of meats and veggies. Delicious Chinese sausage, rice crepes, decadent steamed pork buns, and scallops awaited us, and the best fried pork tonkatsu I've ever had. Sure, you can get most of these foods on the streets of Chinatown for like $3 bucks a pop, but it was all very good and each dish had a fusion twist to it. Throw in a huge bottle of sake and Danish cherry wine, and you got yourself a great meal!
They even played 'Rehab' and the entire Amy Winehouse album for Cynthia, who definitely had the best costume of the night. It was a little scary how similar they look, I never noticed it before because they have such divergent personalities. Don't do heroin Cynthia!
After dinner we walked the Village a while, then split up, Cynthia and friends went to a party, while the rest of us caught the midnight showing of the Upright Citizens' Brigades Halloween production of 'Killgore.' I didn't know what to expect, I knew it was going to be horror improv, but when they all gave us ponchos to wear, and told us to avoid 'the blood gutters' up front, I began to get excited/nervous.
Poncho Villa.
The show was hilarious, and disgusting, and oh, so, BLOODY. Honestly, the walls and furniture was covered with arterial spray and guts before the first act was over. The first row not only had the ponchos but a tarp as well they were sprayed so much. In between scenes an actor mentioned that they all went to Tisch, and someone in the audience went 'Fuck Tisch!' Man did HE get bloodied/man-humped for the rest of the show! And Killgore himself was quite the climatic reveal. Great way to end Halloween festivities.
Thank god for Daylight Savings time, we didn't get home till 3AM, which was quickly changed to 2AM. Got around 5 hours of precious sleep before getting out of bed to hand out water at the NYC Marathon, which should NEVER be the day after Halloween. | | |
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