Sam's Blog

Link: http://www.nin.com/

It has been raining a lot in San Francisco. Though expected, it really is hard for me to adjust right away. I like rain, though I did forget my umbrella (I eventually bought another one at one of the gazillion Walgreen's here) and spent a majority of the day running around under other people's umbrellas inbetween stores. I also forgot my New Years top that I was going to wear. The girls (Alexis, Kate and Monica) were also looking for clothes as well, so we went to the new H & M and a whole bunch of shops in Union Square. I was not too impressed by H & M this time. I remember going to DC and New York and dropping tons of money there, but this time, it was really crowded and like a zoo. Besides that, the clothes were mediocre and not that great. The accessories were pretty good, but the lines were sooo long. I was frustrated a bit but I browsed for a while and found one thing that I liked, but that was it. We went to Forever 21 and it was huge and the selection was way better, sadly. We shopped ALL day and it was tiring. (Boohoo, I know) I got a top though, and so did everyone else, so problem solved! But we were all tired...we walked all day and ran around everywhere and saw cool things. Overall, a great time.

We are currently lounging around today to rest up for the big night. We are going to Ruby Skye tonight and I hope the weather clears up. As I am typing this, the sun just came out. Excellent! I hope that it stays this way the rest of the day. I'm always an optimist!

Link: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000069/

I'm going to San Francisco today! Woohoo! I will be spending New Years with some of the greatest girls that I know (Kate, Alexis, & Monica) and I hope to meet up with my other friends that live up there. I am so excited!!

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=zLElfJ9YCh0&search=narnia

It's Christmas day and I am in Ventura. I think I'm getting used to it. I've been here the past few Christmases. Josh's family is great and I am very thankful for them. This past week has been a flurry of craziness.

My final presentation went great. I think I did pretty well. The guy that I was trying to sell to liked my ideas and thought that I asked for a fair amount of share of his budget. Overall, a great and fabulous time, despite me being SO tired after staying up most of the night and having to work all day that day. I am glad that it is over, but I did enjoy the class. I learned a lot and met a lot of cool people that I can add to my business "contact list," including my professor, who knows EVERYONE in the industry. She's amazing.

I rested up and got ready for our work holiday party the next day. It was a wonderful time. Our team went to the ever-so-trendy Geisha House for dinner. Their food is AMAZING. We had the waitor bring us whatever he recommended. The albacore sashimi, cod, and kobe beef were my favorite. Sake was a plenty and we all had a good time. We had our party at the Cabana Club and it was all decked out with tents and such. I would say that there was about 1,100 people there, which is a rough estimate. I know that there are a lot more employees than that. I danced the night away and fought off overly persistent guys for my boss. She is such a guy magnet and can't help it. It was actually quite funny and amusing, to say the least. It was nice to see my other coworkers outside of work and see how they let loose and hang out. We have such great comraderie as a whole department, despite the different channels that we work for, it's nice.

I've seen a few movies this past week as well- Syriana, King Kong, and Cinderella Man. They were all fantastic, in their own little way. Three different genres and three different stories to tell. I was rather fascinated by the storytelling aspects in each movie. I think Syriana is a bit more complex than what normal moviegoers are used to. Stephen Gaghan is an excellent screenwriter, I have been a big fan for a few years, but he has a tendency to have a lot of different plotlines going on at one time and eventually has them all intertwine in the end. It's not a new way of storytelling, its just not a normal way, which is why people may become a bit confused. Anyhow, I am slowly catching up on the movies that I've missed. I still have a long list that I've actually taken the time out to write down. And hopefully I will watch them all soon.

I went to Ventura last weekend as well to make some yummy candies and cookies at our annual bake day. Josh's mom gathers a whole bunch of us, including Josh's sister and her friends to make some goodies for the holidays. I like going because I always learn how to make something new. This year, it was choclate cabndies with filling. I am a big fan of the peanut butter filled ones. I took some home and brought them to work. They were a big hit in the office.

I was really happy on Monday night because that was when Amy came back home from NY. I hadn't seen her in months and it was so nice to finally hang out again. Her family lives in Orange County, so she made it in for our gift exchange at Andrea's house and we went to see the House of Davids. It was an interesting house full of lights and 17 Davids dressed up in hats and they looked really festive. There's a black Mr. and Mrs. Claus in the front lawn and a huge sign that says FHP = "Feed His People." It was an amazing house and though some people call it an "eyesore," I think it is fabulous.

On Tuesday night, I took M out for her birthday dinner, since I missed her formal dinner on Saturday night and then stopped by Lisa's place to say hello. With the holidays and such, I realized that I hadn't seen a lot of people in a while. It was nice to chat and I caught the season finale of Nip/Tuck there too. I was a bit lost because I hadn't watched it all season, but I was able to make sense of things with Lisa's help. It's such a cutting edge show and crazy too.

I finally feel like a part of the normal digital world because I now have an ipod. I never really cared either which way about NOT having one, but it felt like I was the only one that didn't have one. Strange, but my life was fine without it. I wonder if it will be different now that I have one. I hear that it will be, but I am a bit skeptical, but we will see. It's black and has video and it's beautiful. I haven't had time to put a lot of music on it yet, but I was able to download my current favorite music video from Saturday Night Live about the Chronicles of Narnia called Lazy Sunday. It's a rap parody that Chris Parnell did with Andy Samberg and I seriously have been watching it several times a day. It cracks me up. So yeah, I forgot my ipod cord, so I have been trying to conserve my battery life here in Ventura. But when I get back, I'll be uploading and downloading like crazy! 30 Gigs is a lot of space and I hope to fill up most of it. I don't think I have enough music, but with mine and Josh's music collection, I think we'll be pretty close.

Link: http://www.greenplastic.com/

I got a new computer today at work. It was the highlight of my day. It's so much faster and I feel as though I am more productive now. Yay! I finally got a flatscreen monitor and it makes all of the difference in the world. Things are so much brighter and work is a little less dull. It's quite lovely.

Anyhow, back to working on my presentation. This is going to take all night, but the good thing is that it will be over by tomorrow evening. Hooray! That and I have tons of things to look forward to, such as the fabulously awesome work holiday party and a trip to Ventura this weekend for the annual bake day and Josh's sister's birthday. Yay!

Link: http://www.beatles.com/

What a great long weekend. My 25th birthday was excellent. Not only was I able to spend it with all of my friends that I love so dearly, but I was able to take time off work to finally just relax and sleep and chill for a bit. It was definitely time well spent. Josh and I were able to hang out a lot, which was nice because ever since school started for both of us, we hardly see each other during the week.

I was able to reflect a lot about where my life is right now. I realized that I hadn't set up any concrete goals for myself or thinking "by the time I'm 25, I want to do this ______." Maybe I am not goal driven. Or maybe I didn't know what I wanted to do by this time in my life. In any case, the good thing is that I am not disappointed in some strange way. I see people get disappointed at themselves for setting, more often than not, unrealistic goals for themselves and say that they want to accomplish it by the time they are ___ years of age. I guess I don't think that way. Or maybe I am scared to do so, in an event that I may not succeed? Who really knows. I think it's more of me being a realist moreso than anything. I guess that explains a lot of things in my life thus far. Maybe even explains why I am not married with kids yet either. Everyone asks and I always say that we are in no rush. And to be quite honest, we are not. There's tons of people that are planning their lives right now...when they want to get married, when they want to have their kids, etc. I am not that type of person really. I do have specifcations and preferences for my wedding, kids names, etc. but that's about it. I actually feel like I'm on track and that, to me, is what really matters most. I too would like to have a big party eventually with all of my friends and family attending and celebrate, but its not happening very soon and I'm okay with that.

But as I type this, I know that I am very happy at this moment and this past year has been awesome to me. I have done a lot of rationalizing in my head and have come to the point where I am very honest to myself and have "cut the crap" in every aspect of my life. That is probably why I feel so great right now. Yes, there are small ups and downs, but overall, things are falling into place. I am friends with people that I want to be friends with. I have kept in contact with family members that I still want in my life (its amazing how MySpace is bringing all of my cousins and younger family members together, who would've thought?). But yeah it cuts down a lot of the unnecessary drama in my life and I don't end up wasting my time. It's quite nice actually. I'm getting too old for drama.

I uploded pictures from this past weekend here. I went out to dinner on my actual birthday with Josh, Tripp, and Kurt to Kabuki for some sushi. We had great conversations about the most random things, which is why I love hanging out with those boys. The next day, we had lunch with Angela and Randy at a neighborhood Mexican Restaurant. It was really yummy. I think I will start going there from now on. I got a lot of shopping done with M and Lisa. After dinner, Josh, Lisa and I went over to Marty's party (it rhymes, hehe). It was a sort of end of quarter-moving out-holiday party, of sorts. It was a lot of fun, but I felt really old there. I was chatting with one of the guys there and found out that he graduated high school in 2002. That's when I graduated COLLEGE. As Joey Lawrence would say, "Whoa!" I AM old. Boo.

I slept in a lot this weekend. It is so nice to not have anything to do in the morning, therefore allowing me to sleep until I want to get up. And then walk around the place and not have to shower until I really have to. It's lovely. Anyhow, I had to get ready for my birthday festivities on Saturday. I met up with a few people for dinner and then headed to drinks. I was so happy that a lot of people were able to stop by for a drink at the bar. It really means a lot to me. I feel very fortunate to have such awesome friends around me. I even had a celebrity sighting that night. The ever elusive Jack White from The White Stripes made a cameo in the bar. He had a small entourage with him and he headed straight to the DJ booth. I, mostly intoxicated by then, walked to the back to go to the bathroom and as I walked out, said hello to him. He glanced and said hello back. He was so pale, dressed all in black, with a black top hat and a white cane. That was about it. Nothing too exciting.

The next day consisted of sleep, grilling food, and laundry. That was pretty much it. I was supposed to work on my final presentation that is due this Wednesday, but I never got around to it. It's a shame because I have to do it now. That's what I get for procrastinating. I went back to work today and it was good to be back, though I was a little sluggish. I eventually picked up the pace and was very productive and will be able to catch up just fine on the work that I missed. After work today, I met up with M for our weekly dinner. I cannot believe that her birthday is coming up too. Time flies! We had great conversations over good Indian food. The conversations consisted mainly of Bob, her boyfriend. They are very cute together and I am glad that we were able to finally meet this past weekend. Good fun.

Well, I am off to study for my presentation. Eek, it's only 2 days away!

Link: http://www.beatles.com/

Wow. I'm getting old!

It's so weird to me. I'm officially 25. No drastic changes quite yet. Is it weird to think about death on your birthday? Every year, at one point during my birthday, I think of John Lennon. He was shot the very day that I was born. Though I was thousands of miles away at that time, I still am affected by it in some strange and cosmic way. The cycle of life is always apparent to me on this day because of him. I have grown to love him and his music (solo and with The Beatles) while growing up, but he was never alive at the same time I was. So as I celebrate my 25th year of life, people all around the world celebrate the 25th anniversary of his death. It's a little bittersweet to think about. So after this post, I am going to stop thinking about it and hopefully have a fun weekend.

M gave me my present yesterday at our weekly dinner. They were lovely. She knows me way too well and I am very fortunate to have her in my life and see her as often as I do. Sometimes we take things like that for granted, but I know that I will never have someone as aberrent as her as a friend ever again. I like that about her. My coworkers took me out to lunch today and it was nice to finally sit down with mostly everybody, especially with the new guy too. I want him to see how close we are and how great of a team we are and that we like to have fun together. In a few months, he'll be a pro at everything and that is very comforting for me to know.

I took the next two days off of work. It's bizarre. It's my first day off work since I started 6 months ago. I don't know what to do with myself, but relax. It's nice to have a break. But I know that I have a lot of stuff that I need to do this weekend, including working on my 15 minute presentation for class. Fun Fun!! But I will try to have loads of fun Saturday night. It will be a great night. Yeah!

Link: http://www.deathcabforcutie.com/

I freaked out yesterday. It wasn't a huge deal. Not really that big of deal at all to some people. But I was grabbing food after the USC Animation screening last night and I reach into my purse to grab my camera to take pictures of everybody and then, bam! It hit me hard. My camera wasn't in its case. WTF?! I was so cracked out yesterday having only a few hours of sleep and couldn't remember if I brought it with me when I was leaving LMU's Law School campus. Hmm...I was speechless. I tried to remember so hard where I put it, but I couldn't remember. I knew that I took pictures on campus but not during lunch. I was going crazy. I was getting anxious.

I got home and checked at my desk and on the coffee table, the only likely places it would be and nothing. I was overwhelmed with disappointment. I felt so stupid. How could I carelessly misplace my camera, one of my most favorite things in the world? It felt like I had lost a child, seriously. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I was going crazy. I knew that it was replacable, but I had grown accustom to all of the features and settings of it and it was so easy to use. I loved it. Sigh. After gaining my composure, I became more rational and decided to call the people that I was with that morning to see if they saw it. And soon enough, I found out that Angela had it. Whew! She is a saint! I was so relieved. Lesson learned. I am so thankful and lucky. It's just the little things in life that make me happy, I guess.

On a different note, I will be turning 25 very soon. I don't really know if I'm happy or sad about this. I don't feel like I'm 25, but then again, I still think that I am still 21. Now entering my mid-twenties, I feel a lot better than I did a year ago, way more focused than two years ago, and way more solid than three years ago (in almost all aspects of life - family, friends, career). I guess I am getting older. If only I could cook more and want to clean more. That would be fantastic. I guess it's not so bad. I've always been the youngest ever since I was born. Since my birthday is so late in the year, most people have already turned 25. They survived and I know that I will too. For some reason I am not nervous or anxious about it at all. I think it's denial mainly. But on the upside, I can legally rent a car soon. Woohoo!!

SATC quote of the day:
"Can you get to the future if your past is present?" - Carrie (Season 6 - The Perfect Present)

Link: http://www.gnronline.com/

I started this post in November when it looked like it was going to rain. I guess it's not too relevant anymore now that it is December and it never did rain that day. I don't even know where to start. The last few weeks have been a blur. Thanksgiving passed by quickly. Then November ended and the days kept on flying by. I've been keeping myself busy with work and play and everything else that falls inbetween. I've been in some minor pain due to a huge cold sore on my upper lip that sprouted up on Thanksgiving day, but it is finally going away.

Thanksgiving was nice. I went to Ventura to hang out with Josh's family. His mom cooks up a storm this time of year and is always trying new recipes. I made green beans and bacon (stolen from Lisa's Aunt) and it was yummy. The food was great and there were a lot more people this year because Natalie's college roommate and her family joined us as well. They used to live in Ventura, but have since moved to Sacramento. We played pool after dinner and met up with Josh's old friend, Paul.

On Friday morning, Josh and I ventured into the desert with some friends and headed to Las Vegas. It was a quick trip. We were only staying one night. Went with Matt, Mike, Nadja, Andrea, & Nate and stayed at Bally's. We got there in time to see Big Elvis perform at the Barbary Coast (Tues-Fri, 3pm-6pm). Mike and Andrea were dying to see him. He was 600 pounds and a very BIG Elvis he was. We drank and ran around the strip and ended up at a gay club called Gipsy because they didn't have a dress code and they were very cool with us. Poor Josh in a gay club. He had fun just observing, as did Nate. We woke up and had the Paris buffet (yummy!) and left the city of sin. It was a very short trip, but it was way fun. Pictures are available here.

Work has been slowing down a little. I still can't train people very well. We are trying the best we can with the new guy, but there's just not that much new work for him to do. That will change very soon, but for now, I feel bad because it feels like we are not doing things, but I certainly am catching up with my portion of the work.

Thursday night, the Alumni Association hosted a recent grad event after the Bonfire and Rally for Beat $C week. It was nice to see all of the other volunteers again and to see people enjoying themselves around other recent graduates. Friday night was game night at the Girls' place (Eva, Dre, & MichGarr). They had tons of people there and we all broke off into small sections and played our own games. The highlight was playing "dirty Scrabble" which basically meant, anything goes and Josh and I won the Trivial Pursuit 90s edition. It is a very fun game. It was very awesome to see everyone again in the same room at the same time and having lots of fun. Some pictures are posted here from that night.

Saturday was a sad, sad day for UCLA. I didn't expect them to even win the game against USC really. I know that they are a great and wonderful team that is on fire right now. I just thought that it would be awesome if we were the team to stop them. I thought that we would at least put up a fight. I know that our defense isn't that geat, but our offense wasn't too hot either, which I wasn't expecting and therefore allowed a 66-19 victory for USC. So sad. But I guess we weren't too shabby considering Texas beat Colorado 70-3 that same day. So it's Texas and USC at the Rose Bowl. Very ironic that they are playing in UCLA's home stadium. But you will know who I will be cheering for. Greg goes to University of Texas and is having a blast there. I hope that his team will be able to stop USC. They are our only hope right now. But we won't know for sure for another few weeks. And if not, we will have to wait around for next season to see how they do because a few of their key players will probably leave school early and go to the NFL. I don't blame them in doing so, but the team will be very different without them. Only time will tell. Empires will eventually fall.

I went to Randy's fundraiser in Chinatown with Angela. We met up with Wynne and her friend and her old roommate from college, Michelle, who is coincidentally dating Angela's cousin in NY. Crazy-small world. We all drank a lot and danced a lot. The DJ was okay the first half of the night, but towards the end, he started playing every single hip hop hit from 1988-2002. It was like a really long medley of familiar songs. It was awesome. Some songs I hadn't heard in years, such as songs from Kris Kross and Public Enemy. It's cheesy hip hop but I love it because they remind me of junior high and some even date back to elementary school. It was awesome fun.

Angela and I stayed out until 4am. This is normally okay for a Saturday night, but we had volunteered to help Mike out on his final for law school the next morning. We had to be in downtown LA this morning at 9am. It was awful. We were so tired. Angela was a juror and I was a small witness and they were reenacting the Robert Blake case. Matt, Geoffrey, and Sarah were also there as witnesses. It went on for a good 4+ hours, so we were exhausted by the time it ended. We rewarded ourselves afterwards with lunch at Palms Thai. It was super yummy today. I loved it.

Josh and I went to USC's Animation screening to check out what their program was putting out there. Tripp's friend, Keren, was screening her film as well and we wanted to check it out. It was a cute screening, some films I didn't care too much for and others were really cool. I wasn't really blown away by any one film in particular though. I think that I have become desensitized after going to so many of these types of events. My standards are way high now after seeing Shane's film at the UCLA screening last year. It's just amazing. No one has been able to top it since. It was nice to see Kurt and Tripp again. It has been a long time since we all hung out together, especially since Tripp has been traveling all over Asia and on the east coast and such. Oh and a big congrats to Tripp on getting a new job. It looks like he and Rachael are going to be staying in LA for some time, which is most excellent news, even though they both didn't want to end up here. I told him that LA eventually grows on you, especially West LA. I hope this is true in their case.

Anyhow, time to sleep. I'm way exhausted.