Random Thoughts from a Random Taru

E3 Extravaganza 2010!

This year’s E3 started off with a bang tonight with a special Activision event at the Staples Center. Lots of music and guest appearances.

Let’s see if I can remember all the famous stars…

Usher
NERD
Rhea
Jane’s Addiction
Soundgarden
Eminem with Rhianna
Bohemian Rhapsody dude who’s name I don’t know…

Here’s an article about ATVI’s E3 event…

Ok, so I think the best part was Usher and Eminem. I don’t think I really cared about the rest, although Bohemian Rhapsody was fun.

When Call of Duty: Black Ops came on, there were fire coming out and fireworks! Crazy. That’s when Eminem got on stage, too. Pretty awesome.

Since the show started late, it ended late. I am so tired right now, but I’m really pumped about Black Ops and the event tonight that I had to make a blog entry.

According to the article above, the entire thing cost at least $5 million. Crazy.

Posted in Daily Life | No Comments »

White Water River Rafting

The last time I went camping was back in the summer of 1995, right before I went off to Purdue. I can’t remember where we went or what we did exactly, but I remember it was a lot of fun.

Ok, the only thing I remember about it was that the girls tent was really cold, so we piled into the boys tent. I used a friend’s leg as a pillow. Very uncomfortable.

Memorial Day Weekend, one of my friends wanted to go white water river rafting near Sequoia National Forest. I’ve never gone white water river rafting before, so I was kinda nervous and I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to go.

I went.

Adam went with me as well. We drove up on Saturday morning and came back to Los Angeles on Monday. Rafting happened on Sunday.

When I saw the rushing river water, I thought to myself, why did I agree to this? I didn’t think I would die. I knew how to swim, and I had a life jacket and a helmet on. Surviving it wasn’t the issue. Coming out unscathed and in one piece was what I was worried about. I refused to sit at the front of the raft as well. More responsibility? On my first time? No thanks!

It’s actually a lot more fun than I expected. At least, after I got over my initial fears about it anyways. I got knocked out of the raft 2 times, and fell out once when we were doing a trust exercise (we stood on the edge holding hands while the guide spun the rafter around).

Another coworker went rafting, too, but I didn’t realize he was there until he saw me on Tuesday morning. He saw me and my Treyarch towel at the raft company’s parking lot. I had to go look him up in the office directory when I got back to my desk because I really didn’t know who he was.

Anyways, I think I might go rafting again next year. It was that fun. :)

Posted in Daily Life | No Comments »

Renaissance Pleasure Festival

I visited LA’s RenFair for the first time today. It was held in the city of Irwindale at the Santa Fe Dam. There were a lot of activities and events going on all over the place, so I enjoyed myself quite a bit. We saw a few comedy shows, drank mead, and watched a jousting event. I even bought myself a Legend of Zelda ocarina (which I’ve been wanting for a while) and several cute earrings. Adam bought a mug, but he didn’t check the price before buying it. It was expensive. Ouch. :(

The raspberry mead is tasty, by the way. I’m going to have to see if BevMo has any in stock.

There were a few incidents that marred an otherwise fun day. First was the amount of dust flying about. By the end of the day, I was blowing out black snot and my hair felt dirty. My camera was not spared either as it was covered in a good amount of dust. :( The other incident was while we were watching the last comedy act of the day, there were a group of drunks who wouldn’t shut up and watch the show, or leave. I really wanted to tell them to shut up, but I also didn’t want a fight on my hands. Oh well.

Overall, I had a lot of fun and I can’t wait to go again next year. :)

Posted in Daily Life | No Comments »

Armed Forces Day

This past Saturday was Armed Forces Day. Torrance has a parade and event every year. I thought about going to Torrance Blvd to check out the parade, but I ended up hanging around the house cleaning.

Adam came over in the afternoon and we went to the Del Amo Fashion Center to check out the event there. There was a M1A1 Abrams tank, helicopters, various vehicles and such. They were even military guys dressed in Vietnamese army uniform. Pretty cool stuff.

I really want to fly a helicopter.

And an airplane.

There were no airplanes there.

Dinner was at a Korean hot tofu restaurant next to Gablehouse. Adam never had Korean hot tofu before, so it was new to him.

We also saw Iron Man 2. It was a good movie. I wasn’t disappointed.

On Sunday, one of my coworkers invited me and Adam to yoga. I left my house a little late, oops. I fail my Japanese ancestry. Punctuality not my forte. We got there about 15-20 after class had started. It was donation based, so I didn’t have to pay a lot to attend. The yoga place even had a store with expensive merchandise. I bought a yoga towel because my feet get sweaty on my mat. Probably could have gotten it somewhere cheaper.

After yoga, we wandered around the area. REI is having a sale starting this coming Friday, so I’m going to have to go back and purchase a few things before the Memorial Day rafting and camping trip.

And that is another boring update by yours truly.

PS – Can’t sleep, drank coffee at 8:30 PM. Doh!

Posted in Daily Life | No Comments »

Kick-Ass and Mother’s Day

Saw Kick-Ass this weekend with Adam on Saturday. I figured it’d be hard to get good seats to see Iron Man 2 and there were only 3D showings of Alice in Wonderland, so Kick-Ass. It’s a good movie, however very gory.

So I found out what that weird white stuff was that was growing in the bag of dirt. They’re mushrooms. I found out by opening the other bag of soil and out popped mushrooms among the mega-colony white stuff. I have no idea what kind of mushrooms they are, but I don’t think they’re edible.

On Sunday, Laura and I celebrated Mother’s Day by taking our mom to a restaurant for lunch. My mom wanted to go to Black Olive, so that’s where we went. The service was slow, but it was because there was only one chef in the kitchen. Ouch. The restaurant isn’t normally open on Sunday for lunch, so that’s probably why there was only 1 chef in there. We didn’t hold it against them as the food was very good and the servers were very friendly.

Posted in Daily Life | No Comments »

Weird Thing In a Bag

Yesterday, I decided it was time to plant my cucumber plants into real pots. I dragged out the bag of soil I bought last year and tore a small hole open. That’s when I noticed something strange… Instead of dark brown dirt, I saw spongy white. What the crap?! Like, EW! The entire bag was full of the strange white stuff.

Gross.

I’m afraid that the other bag of soil I have in the garage is full of the same white spongy stuff. I haven’t opened it yet.

I also found a small lizard in my watering can. I let it go in my neighbor’s backyard. She has a bigger yard that’s not cemented over. >_>;

Posted in Daily Life | No Comments »

Drama

Drama sucks.

Posted in Daily Life | 1 Comment »

Obachan in 8 Months

My sister is pregnant! It’s too soon to tell what the gender of the baby will be, way too soon.

I told Laura, you better hope the baby is a girl, because I’m only going to be knitting girl clothes. If the baby turns out to be a boy, he’s going to be cross dressing for the first few years of his life every time I get to baby sit.

A day or so later, I read in a manga that all shoujo manga readers dream about dressing boys as girls if they don’t get a girl. LOL.

Posted in Daily Life | No Comments »

Last Hours in Hawaii

Currently waiting for my very full flight home. It departs at 8 AM. It’s currently 6:50 AM. I think I have time.

Homeland security threat level is orange, whatever that means. Should I start screaming at every suspicious person that comes my way? I’m sure there are a few shady people that I can panic around.

Wireless internet here is called ShakaNet. $7 for 2 hours. I think I’ll post this blog entry when I get home.

I already got ripped off for the ride here.

My stupid shuttle didn’t arrive when it was supposed to, and when I called about it, the guy was like, you’re not on the list of pick-ups and you’re supposed to call 12 hours before. I’m like, the website said 8 hours. Also, I signed up online 12 hours and 30 minutes before the time I wanted to be picked up. I’m going to have to call them on Monday so I can at least get my money back.

==Saturday, April 10, 2010==

I spent the morning just putting around in my room. Playing Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, and Restaurant City. >.>;;

I finally decided to go get some kona coffee (my last one on the island as it turns out) and check out the book signing at Barnes & Noble for the Descendants. The book store employees made me buy the book before I was able to get it signed. I was like, what?! What if I want to buy other books?! I’m not going to run off with the book. Geez! This line is short, and I would like to be in a short line now than get in a possibly long line later. Grr. I didn’t buy any other book. Crystal later told me that that bookstore made her buy a DVD to get a signing when she went for BJ Penn because they wouldn’t allow for free autographs.

After my trip to the mall, I hung out with Crystal and her two kids. We ate ramen and played mini-golf. Her kids are cute, but quite a handful.

I shoulda taken pictures of my food! Doh! I had ume-shio ramen. It was good. Thinking about umeboshi is making my mouth water. So goood.

Mini-golf kinda sucked. It was indoors and in “3D”. Just florescent paint on the walls, black light, and loud music. By the end I wanted escape. Seriously, that place sucked. The girl attending the place disappeared, so we had to wait at least 10 minutes to get in.

After mini-golf, we went to a really good Hawaiian snow cone place called Waiola. It was like powdered snow. Soft. I had the Obama’s Rainbow. It had passion fruit instead of banana. Yum. :9

I also got some girl scout cookies and other junk food from Crystal.

Later one, Matt stopped by with lots of stuff, too. Mmm, chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

I also went last minute shopping at the mall again. Got suckered into buying a hair straightener. It’s cool, but I paid way too much for it. Grrr. I knew I was getting suckered, too, but I didn’t know what the fair price was. I shoulda said, hold on, lemme go find the price for it online, and run to the Apple store to find out. Damn you sales lady! *shakes fist*

Dinner was pickles, natto, yogurt, and a crepe. The crepe wasn’t that good. It was more whipped cream and less fruit. -_- Darn you Shirokiya crepe store! *shakes fist*

Posted in Daily Life | No Comments »

Not a Yellow Submarine

Went on a submarine ride today. It was really quite cool and I’m glad my friend recommended it to me. I got to see lots of different kinds of Hawaiian sea life such as the milletseed butterflyfish and the spiny puffer. There were quite a number of green sea turtles as well. To anyone reading my blog, if you go to Hawaii, definitely go on a submarine ride. I think it’s well worth it.

After the submarine ride, I went to the Outrigger Photo to look for a USB cable. The store didn’t have any for sale, but he did give me one for free. Wow, that was nice of him!

I also found the puka dog stand in the International Marketplace. My physical therapist told me about it and that they were quite delicious. It was. Pricey, too.

When I got back to my hotel, I still didn’t get in contact with my friend from FFXI, so I went and sun bathed for a while. Two hours in fact. I was using an SPF 15 sunscreen, so I all good. :D

At around 4 PM, I finally got in contact with my friend Matt, and I tagged along with him and his mom to Good-to-Grill restaurant. Very good food there.

I skyped with Adam when I got back to my hotel room. Since it was a Friday, we got to talk and surf the web together for a lot longer than normal. Happy~

Posted in Daily Life | 1 Comment »