Family Visit!

Just a quick update on the family visit...

They came in earlier in the week and the first thing my Mom wanted to do is eat at "Pink's" hotdogs! She loved it but was feeling so tired and a lil sick from the plane. So I tok everyone to my place and as soon as my Mom saw her bed, she crashed hehe

Thursday, we started the day off by going to the house they used in "The Brady Bunch". My sister is a Brady Bunch freak so she was excited to see it.

We then went down to Hollywod, where they saw the Mann's Chinese Theatre and the stars and handprints in the sidewalk. We also did a tour of the Kodak Theatre. Everyone loved it!!! After that, I took them all to Rodeo Drive and we had a light lunch there. :)

For dinner, we all went to the "Inn of the Seventh Ray". I is my favorite restaurant and I wanted to share it with them. They loved that as well. Mom didn;t want to leave! She kept commenting on how pretty it was.

It was a fun filled day!

Yesterday, we went to Disneyland! We met my friend John there and he was kind enough to get my family in for free! What a great guy! Thanks John!

We went on all kinds of rides and I had dinner reservations made at the restaurant inside the Pirates of the Carribean" ride. It was Fabulous! John left for a few hours to go get his new iPhone (that thing is truly amazing!!!)

Mom did really god. We got there around 10am or so and left at 11:45. She took a lot of breaks but she lasted the whole day and had a lot of fun!

Today is an easier day. I just have Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach and perhaps third street planned for the day and Universal Citywalk for tonight. We'll see if the family is still up for it or maybe they'd like to relax by the pool.

Anyways time to get going. Going to have my morning coffee with Mom on the Terrace. :)

It feels weird to have family here. The last 10 years, no one in my family has seen my life out here in Cali. Its good to share it.

I also feel good that all my cleaning was not doen in vane! Mom is doing really well with her allergies. :)

Peace,
Eric

From Windows to Mac and from Dirty to Clean!

Saturday was the day I took the plunge! I went to the Mac store with my friend John and bought a Mac book Pro

I LOVE it! It came with a free printer, scanner, copier too! John let me use his student discount which entitled me to a free iPod as well which I happily gave to him for helping me out so much, Thanks John!!

World of Warcraft looks beautiful! The built in camera and mic let me video chat via AIM with John and it was seemless. Not choppy at all!

And the 802.11n wireless is fast as hell!

On Sunday I cleanedmy place from noon until 10 pm with 2 one hour breaks. Whew 8 hours of cleaning makes you tired! Not to mention 8 hours of smelling Comet, Pledge, Windex and various other chemicals!

Mom comes on Wednesday and I'm almost ready. Just gotta wash the sheets in the spare room and clean again real quyickly on Tuesday. I'll buy some food to snack on too even though I'll be treating my Mom, Sister and Neice to some nice places to eat. :)

I can't wait to go home and hook up my camcorder to my Mac. :) I love playing! :)

Peace,
Eric

Making peace with the animals

It's no big secret that I am a huge animal lover.

Well, over the past year (although it bugged me my whole life to a degree) I have really been thinking, "If I love animals so much, why do I eat them?"

That of course spun off into several tangent conversations (usually with my friend Sheldon as we go for walks at lunchtime....love our deep conversations).

Why do human think we are so much better than any other life form that we believe the planet is ours and everything on the planet is here soley for our purpose?

Is it because of that silly religious notion that we have a soul and everything else doesn't, therefore we are better? (Scary that people really still believe that nonsense)

Do we experiment on(in a lot of cases torture) animals simple because they can't yell out "Fuck, that hurts, stop it!" or "I'll sue if you do that again?" Hmm, no that can't be right. There are some species we CAN communicate with, like Gorillas for example via sign language. Some of those guys know so many words, they can sign whole sentences and paragraphs. And instead of looking at them as equals, we still keep them behind bars for people to laugh at.

I look at my cats "Dizzy" and "Doodle" and (just like any other animal) they have emotions and feelings. They are just as alive as we are. They play, get sad, angry just like we do.

I do not want to be responisble any longer for a cow waiting in line to be slaughtered. They know its coming, they can see the one in front of them getting the axe.

Therefore, for some time now, I have given up eating all red meat and pork. No more cow and pigs. No more Tommy burgers, cheesesteaks and bacon.

It will be easy since I really didn't eat much of it anyways.

That leaves me with chicken. Once I find a way that I can prepare wheat gluten, I'll give up those guys too. (I had wheat gluten once at a chinese restaurant. It was veggy orange chicken and I could NOT tell the difference, the taste and texture were the same!)

It'll take some time to go off of chicken since thats all I eat. But for now, I feel better knowing that at least cow and pig are being spared my digestive track. This is all just a personal choice and (with spirituality) I won't be pushing these beliefs on anyone. Besides, I can i preach not to eat meat when I still eat chicken?

I just want to look at a cow or pig and let them know they've got one more friend among humanity. A bucket of KFC is a different matter though....for now...

Yo ho Yo ho a Cleaning Pirates life for me!

This weekend was pretty Mellow. I spent most of the day on Saturday shredding some big stacks of stuff I needed to go through and throw away and I did a massive cleaning in thge spare room in order to get it ready for my Mom for when she comes out.

She is allergic to cats, so I took the litterbox out of the room, vacuumed it really well and dusted everythign that could be dusted. I closed the door so the room is off limits from the cats until after her visit.

I am going to clean the rest of the apartment like that too this comign weekend, complete with lint brush on all the furniture and touch it up again the mornign I go to pick er up at the airport.

I am also going to buy a few air purifiers to take the cat hair and dander out of the air for her. I'll place one in the spare room, one in my room and one in the living room/dining room.

Hopefully that will be good enough for her and she will be fine. If not, plan B is to put her up at the raddison (just a few blocks away) in a room that has 2 beds and me, my sister and neice and each take turns staying with her.

I also did laundry etc.

Oh, I bought a digital camcorder too! This way I can make acool DVD of my Mom's trip :) Well, Mom's, Sister's and Neice. :)

On Sunday I wenty out with my friend Douglas and Elizabeth to CityWalk.

We had walked around a bit, had dinner at Biuca De Bepo and then saw Pirates of the Carribnean 3. It was good but I can't get the witchy woman's voice out of my head! "Would you sail to da end of da Eart ta save Jack?"

Tonight, after the gym, I am going to go to Lamps Plus and get some bulbs and hopefully buy 2 lamps for my living room. If not, there are 2 in a store in the Galleria I like.

Peace and Love,
Eric

Queer Eye for the Bingo Guy!

Wednesday night at Bingo was a blast like it always is!

I sat with my friends Gil and Richard and on the way down, I called my friend John and it just so happened he was up in my neck of the woods so he joined us for the second show. It was great to see him, I haven't for a while.

As usual, the night was full of fun and laughter and mmmm chocolate martinis :)

The first show had Jerry Matheny (I think that's her name) from Survivor. She was on a few seasons ago, really bitchy and hated Colby...) She was really nice in person and really funny. She even took over Bridgette's Bingo paddle to spank some lesbians!

The 9 o clock show featured Jai from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Gil got some good pictures, I just got one so-so one and here it is:

I have such a fun time there. I'm finally back in my mode of going every week. It's great to go out in the middle of the week, have a few cocktails, hang with friends and play some games. I almost won a few times too! :)

L.A Pride!

This weekend was Pride Weekend and what a blast!

On Saturday, we decided to carpool down to West Hollywood. My friend Eric drove up from Orange County. We picked up Sheldon and then my friend Steve on the way down.

We started off (Of course) at The Abbey, where we all got drunk off of some Chocolate Martinis! :) Yum!

We were there for a while talking to people that would walk by. What a friendly crowd!

We then entered the festival and met with with a few other friends Gil and Richard.

Eric even got me in the County Western Pavillion where I did my best attempt (especially being drunk off my ass) at Line Dancing! I actually had a lot of fun! Being the whitest boy on the planet, I couldn't get the hang of it but it was a lot of fun and it provided more than a few laughs! haha

Toward the end of the night we stayed to watch the shows (Something we were all excited about!).

We arrived at the main stage just in time to see Berlin. Thery were really good! During "Take my breath away", the lead singer got on her husband's shoulders and he walked her among the crowd! What a fun time!

After Berlin came Joan Jett and The Backhearts! They ROCKED! Man, she has so much energy and she looks really good! They played a bunch of stuff off their CD as well as some old favorites like "I Love Rock and Roll" and "Crimson and Clover". They really did make me a fan again!

Shel and I both agreed it was the best pride we've been to to date! It was such a fun day! Steve, Eric and Sheldon are such a blast to hang with!

Eric spent the night in the guest room and we went back to the festival Sunday to watch the parade. I didn't go, I needed to some to recover and relax hehe I lost my voice screaming at the concert so much! I hung out in the pool and had some laughs with my neighbors and played a little Warcraft with some friends.

Below are some pics of Pride (As always click on the picture to enlarge it):

Me, Eric and Steve:

Eric Steve and Sheldon:

The Abbey had something for everyone :) :

A pic of Eric and me drunk :) :


We met up with Gil (Who had a Fabulous pride outfit on hehe):


We met up with Richard too:


Me all drunk and trying to Line Dance!:

Eric and me dancing:

Berlin playing at Pride!:


Joan Jett and The Blackhearts at Pride:

Life is nice!

I know, I haven't blogged much and now 3 posts in one day!

I just had an e-mail from someone I haven't seen in a long time. What a nice thing. :)

Life has been nice and calm since I've purged the negativity from my life. I love hanging around people that just like to live unlike before when it was like being on "The View" caught up in the gross gossip that filled the air.

I'm also excited because my Mom is coming out with my Sister and Neice! It will be so nice to show them around L.A. I am very excited.

What's been going on personally? Well, I've been making some new friends, been on some dates. Been playing WoW with friends.

Ok, that's enough for now. Hopefully that'll keep my sister quiet for a while :) *grin*

Fixin' up the Terrace!

This weekend was a nice fun and productive time.

Saturday, I hung out with my friend Elaine and found somce nice Living room occasion tables. Only the didn't have them all in stock, so I will check back in a week or so.

We went out to dinner afterwards and then watch a summer concert at the Galleria with my friend Guy. It was a very fun time. :)

Sunday, I spent doing some laundry and I swept and used the hose to clean off my terrace. Afterwards, I went to a local nursery and bought some flowers to fill my pots and hang up. They are really cool looking. Reds, Purples, Pinks. Very very nice.

I then went to Home Depot and bought some really nice indoor/outdoor carpeting (The nice stuff, not that plastic green 70's shit). I brought it home and cut it to fit. Fabulous! Feels so good on the bare feet and easier to clean than a bare floor!

It looks really nice out there now. I just need to get a fountain and I'll be all set. But at this stage, I am ready for summer BBQing! :)

My place has come a logn way. It's very cozy now. :)

But also this weekend I started coming down with a sore throat and today it is really bothering me. :(

Hunting isn't a sport.

I just read an article on CNN.com where this 12 year old boy hunted and killed this huge 9 foot pig that was once farm raised.

What is it with people? Now, before I go on - I would like to say that yes I am a meat eater and I understand that animals die for me to eat (something I would like very much to get away from) but there is a difference between hunting for food and hunting just for the fuck of it because "That's what Men do."

I used to have arguements with these "hunters" that would sit for hours in "Tree Stands" and wait for something to walk by and shoot it. They call it a sport.

Wrestle the damn thing barehanded then I'll look at you as a force to be reckoned with.

I just don't understand why any parent would give a kid a gun and teach him the "thrill" of killing.

No wonder why the world is fucked up...too many bad parents out there.

Favorite new ice cream!!!!

I have a new favorite ice cream! Ben and Jerry's Cinnamon Buns!!!

It is soooooo good and soooo addicting!

Go out and get some now!!!! :) Let me know what you think!