I finally got a smart phone: the Evo 4G. I’m using it right now to create this post. Earlier today I went to the Shake Shack. Great burgers, as usual, long line, as usual. Here’s a mobile pic to go with the post.

One of the things I really love about my job is the Summer schedule. Every Friday we get to leave at 12:30 PM. Believe me, it’s a great feeling watching all the other working stiffs go back to work while I leave for the day to start my weekend early .

Friday, May 28th, 2009. I, accompanied by my friends and co-workers: Carlos and Lynne, left work to eat lunch at the Spanish restaurant La Nacional. We wanted to give Lynne a special treat as thanks for all the times she’s had us over to her house and cooked for us, or brought us home-made treats at the job. We insisted on taking her out and she requested Paella, a dish La Nacional is known for.

We got to the restaurant and were seated in a dimly lit dining room with rustic, tavern-like chairs and tables. The dining room gave off an old world feel and a calming effect. My only complaint was there were only two windows in the room that, unfortunately, faced 14th street and a car who’s alarm went on and off at various points in time.

Now that all that is out of the way we can talk about the food . We started off with tapas (appetizers): Gambas
(grilled garlic shrimp), Calamares (grilled or fried squid) and Chorizos. Unfortunately when dug right into the appetizers without taking pictures of them but believe me when I say the Gambas and and Calamares were great, however the Chorizos tasted like a Hillshire Farm links. Next up was the main course: Paellas!

I ordered the Fideuá Paella: Thin noodles with white fish, shrimp, squid, green peas, piquillo peppers & alioli. And it went well with two glasses of Sangría. The Fideuá was was flavorful, the noodles were crispy around the edge of the skillet and the vegetables added to the taste of the dish instead of overpowering it. The aioli sauce tasted like butter, however, I’ve never had aioli sauce before, so I have nothing to compare it to. The amount of seafood thrown in was very welcome as well. As the pictures show La Nacional does not skimp on the seafood.

Fideuá Paella. Picture taken by Lynne Yoshii.

Carlos ordered the Arroz Negro Paella: Black rice with white fish, shrimp, clams and mussels in sofrito, green peas, piquillo peppers & aioli. I think the rice in this paella was given its color by squid ink. This dish had an extra briny taste to it that accented the seafood really well. The rice was soft, but not mushy. I kind of wished I had ordered this paella instead.

Arroz Negro Paella. Picture taken by Carlos Lao.

And Lynne ordered the Paella de La Casa: Shrimp, squid, clams, mussels, chicken, green peas & piquillo peppers. The rice in her order seemed a bit more seasoned than ours, and although better flavored than mine her her plate couldn’t compare to Carlos’s.

Paella de La Casa. Picture taken by Carlos Lao.

Onward to dessert. Lynne ordered the Crema Catalana (caramelized custard with orange zest), Carlos ordered the Flan (traditional vanilla custard) and I ordered the Torta de Santiago (almond cake). We each took a piece from each other’s plate and I Must say that each were very sweet and delicious, not to mention it was my first time having flan and it was fantastic. It’ll sound childish but the only thing I felt each of us were missing, during dessert, was a tall glass of milk.

Crema Catalana, Flan and Torta de Santiago. Picture taken by Carlos Lao.

All in all it was a great lunch. The service was great, the food was great and the Sangría was great . I definitely recommend the La Nacional.

Here’s a link to some pics taken by Lynne Yoshii: Lunch at La Nacional

Wednesday, November 25:

It’s my birthday weekend ! I started it off by having to go in to work (not by choice mind you). Since Carlos and Lynne wouldn’t be seeing me for the holiday weekend I got my gifts early . From Lynne I received the Biohazard 5 Official Art Works book (known as Resident Evil 5 here in the states). The book is entirely in Japanese, but who gives a rat’s ass?! The art work, character designs, concept art for monsters, area designs, every page in that book is a visual feast for the eyes and a twisted imagination such as mine . Suffice to say I had to do one of my victory jigs , and no there will be no video footage of that jig posted here . Here are a few pics of the book:

Next up is Carlos. He bestowed upon me a small pile of books of various genres ranging from funny to instructional: Applegeeks Vol. 1: Freshman Year, Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics, Empowered Volume 1 and Apple: Volume 2.

All right here’s a synopsis of each book and some pics:

Applegeeks Vol. 1: Freshman Year is a collection of the first two years of the Applegeeks web comic. The art is great and the stories are hilarious . I fell in love with this site when I first got my graphic design job and I continue to read it to this day.

Empowered Vol. 1: Okay here’s the deal, I find this book hilarious and a bit touching. It’s about a ne’er do well heroine called Empowered. She wages the good fight for truth, justice and all that shit, but there’s a problem:

SHE SUCKS AT IT!

Emp’s powers reside and rely on her costume, if her costume is intact so are her powers, if the costume gets ripped her powers begin to wane and ebb. Her costume gets ripped at the damn near slightest provocation. She constantly goes into battle and usually immediately gets taken hostage by the corny villain(s) and trussed up in some bondage pose due to her costume getting ripped up during the initial struggle. Now if you just skim through the book you’ll be treated to images of a woman constantly tied up in skimpy apparel , but if you actually read the book you’ll get insights on the character, her insecurities, her dreams, her personality. Slowly but surely, Emp becomes and interesting character who begins come into her own, throw in a couple of friends that that she meets throughout the first volume and you’ve got yourself an exceptional read.

Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics: I’ve been told, many a time, that I’m good at faking perspective in my drawings. while that’s all fine and dandy I am not adverse to learning the proper way to render objects in proper, visual perspective. I can’t wait to sit down with this one .

Apple Vol. 1: Best described as an art/comic book. This book is INSANE !!! The book features illustrations and short comic stories from various Korean artists. The book stokes the flames of my imagination, makes me curse my own lack of artistic skill , yet inspires me to keep drawing! The book was such a treat that I wanted to get volume 1 but that dream was shot down when Carlos informed me that it was out of print and stores that did have it were selling it for about $500.00 ! Someday soon, I hope they’ll reprint it and charge the regular price.

All in all it was a good day, friends, gifts and getting out of work at 2:30PM. No complaints .

Thursday, November 26:

HAPPY TURKEY DAY !!! Time to eat and grow large with food .

Friday, November 27:

Ran some errands and chilled out .

Saturday, November 28th:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Went to see Ninja Assassin with Monique, her daughter Janiah and my goddaughter Taquasha. After that I was taken to lunch at Sapporos (at least I hope that’s how you spell it) there I had two orders of gyoza and the Sapporo Special Ramen bowl, ahhh, pure bliss. I walked back to the subway my belly feeling sloshy and full, or as we say in St. Croix: “Belly full, banah glad.” I dropped Taquasha at her house and received Birthday Cards from my other goddaughters: Latonya, Sylvia and Destiny. Monique and Janiah also gave me some gifts: the first three volumes of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster !

It was a great weekend for me overall, I’m content, I had a superb birthday, great friends, a great movie, excellent food and awesome gifts. Now I just have to wake up Monday morning and go to work . Thanks for reading y’all. Peace.

Thursday Nov. 27:

Started off the morning with a call from Shawana, the mother of three of my godchildren. She was verifying if I was coming over to her house to ride with her and the kids over to Nancy’s (Latonya’s mother) house. I reminded her that I’d be taking the bus to Nancy’s and proceeded to get ready for my journey. I got to Nancy’s at around 11 am, said hello to both her and Latonya and decided to go to work fixing Latonya’s PC which had gotten hit with a virus months ago. At this point I should let everyone know that the month of November hosts four birthdays that I celebrate: Sylvia’s on the 13th (She turned 12), Latonya’s on the 21st (She turned 13), Jeff’s on the 22nd (He turned 30), and mine’s on the 28th.

Shawana and the kids showed up about an hour and a half later. When the girls got settled I gave Latonya her birthday presents (I was a week late with the gift, but I was there a week earlier to sing Happy Birthday). I gave her a Nikon L18 8 Megapixel Camera and a 4GB Sansa Fuze MP3 Player. The other girls were smiling at Latonya with envy . Latonya showed her gifts to her mother and Shawana. That led to a discussion about the gifts I bought. Shawana thought I stole her gift idea for a camera that she was going to give Latonya for Christmas, and that I was trying to show her up . I let her know that she never told me she had plans to get a camera for Latonya and that I got the idea for the gifts from Latonya’s Christmas list.

Other guests arrived and the rest of the day went fine. Until that night when we were all getting ready to leave. I made a comment to Shawana (who was driving me home) that I don’t care where the kids sat in the car as long as I was in the passenger seat. I got scolded (in front of the kids, I might add) for my comment and was told that it “irks” her when I talk like I don’t care. My reply to that? I bit down and swallowed my urge to chew her out, turned away from her and asked Nancy where the bus stop was. She did me one better, Nancy asked her brother Buster to drop me home!

After Shawana and the kids left, I continued working on Latonya’s computer. It was pretty much fixed and I needed to restart it. That’s when I got hit with a “blue screen of death .” It was 11:23 pm so I decided to call it quits and took Latonya’s PC home to fix it at a later date.

Thursday night was complete.

Friday Nov. 28th:

MY BIRTHDAY !!!

I’m officially 31. I started the day off in a nice deep sleep, which got interrupted by the phone ringing at 7:30 am. Usually this would PISS me off, especially since I told everyone that I’d be off from work (which pretty much means let a man sleep in late). I answered and was greeted to Nancy singing me happy birthday to me, which immediately put my rage in check. We both laughed and I thanked her for the song before she hung up to head off to work. I returned to sleep, a thing that is damn near impossible for me to do once woken up. The phone rang an hour later, it was Shawana. She wished me happy birthday, I told her thank you and got off the phone 4 seconds after that. Yeah I was still mad about Thursday . Anyway I was totally up by then so I decided to go online and check my email. I got another call at 9:20 am, it was my godchild, Sylvia. She wanted to know if I was okay. I asked her what she meant by that. She said I looked sad after Shawana yelled at me yesterday. I explained to her that I was okay, that Shawana didn’t yell at me and I thanked her for her concern. I then reminded her that it was my birthday (So sue me! I rarely get gifts on my birthday the least I can get is a “Happy Birthday” from everyone !). She wished me happy birthday and I returned to my computer. Thirty minutes later I got a call from godchild, Destiny, she wished me happy birthday also. Then my friend Lisa called, we both have the same birthday so we wished each other a happy b-day. An hour later I showered, got dressed and headed to Queens for my friend Lynne’s after Thanksgiving get-together. I got there at around 12 pm. Only problem was I got there 6 hours early. Lynne wished me a happy birthday, gave me some birthday lemon cookies and a gift: The Megaman Zero Official Complete Works Art Book! Fucking awesome !

I helped her with some of some food preparations, played with her Cintiq , read some Hellboy comics and ate the lemon cookies. After being at her house for about two hours I started feeling cold and queasy. By the time Jeff showed up at 6 pm I had gone to the bathroom like three times already .

I was officially sick . The sight and smell of food nauseated me. Since 12 pm and for the rest of the day I ate nothing, watched Samurai Champloo, Wall-E and Kung-Fu Panda with the other guests, talked to my mom and dad over the phone and ran to the bathroom to throw up: twice. I left Lynne’s at around 11 pm feeling drained and nauseous .

Friday night was complete.

Saturday Nov. 29th:

Woke up at 7:30 am. Still felt a bit queasy, but I had a mission to complete . I promised Latonya that for her 13th birthday I’d take her out for the day and we do what she wants. Officially Sylvia was supposed to go with us, but she had an all day appointment to keep so she was a no go. Nancy dropped Latonya off at my place, we then jumped on the train and headed to Union Square where we went to see the new Disney movie Bolt in digital 3D. Good movie, not great, but entertaining and the digital 3D was a sight to behold. It didn’t bother my eyes at all as all 3D movies have done in the past. During the movie Latonya offered me some popcorn. I was hesitant but decided to be strong and put my stomach to the test. Well, not only did I not throw up after eating the popcorn, I found out that the earlier queasiness was actually hunger (I hadn’t eaten since 1 pm Thursday afternoon). That pop corn tasted like God himself popped it just for me. I had some more and decided to save room for when the two of us ate later. After Bolt we had an hour wait before our second movie excursion uptown. So to kill time we stopped at my workplace and I got her some new themes and games for her R4DS card for her Nintendo DS. She was really happy for that. After that we hopped the train again and headed to another theater, this one on 34th and 8th Ave to see Madagascar 2. Good movie, not as funny as the first but still entertaining. Once the movie was over we hiked up to Times Square and got some food at Applebee’s. By the time we got there I was STARVING , I mean people were starting to look edible!

We started off with three appetizers: the Boneless Buffalo Wings, the Dynamite Shrimp and the Spinach Artichoke Dip. Sustenance from GOD! For drinks Latonya got a Mango Banana smoothie and I got a Cherry Limeade. We then ordered the main course. Latonya got the Double Crunch Shrimp and I ordered the the 12 oz. Ribeye with the Shrimp Parmesan and grilled onion toppings and fully decked out mashed potatoes. The kid couldn’t finish all her shrimp, and I’ll admit I was having trouble finishing my steak, but I was determined to devour it or die trying. So after that spectacular meal Latonya wanted to go to Cold Stones for ice cream, kids seem to have a second stomach for sweets. It sounded like a good plan but I was completely stuffed and Ice cream sounded too decadent. I told her I needed to walk around a bit to lose some of the food in my belly. After walking around the entire block I still had no room for ice cream, so I got her one and we walked over to Grand Central and caught the train back to the Bronx. I dropped her back to her house and chatted with her and her mom for a couple of hours. I left at around 11pm.

Saturday night was complete.

Sunday Nov. 30th, Monday Dec. 1st and Tuesday Dec. 2nd:

Before embarking on this Thanksgiving weekend I used my last two vacation days of the year to take Monday and Tuesday off. Suffice to say it worked pretty well for me. From Sunday to Tuesday I woke up as late as I wanted to. . It was great. Sun I worked on Latonya’s computer and have running up to my specifications. The rest of the day and the following days was spent watching Ergo Proxy and surfing the web, total relaxation.

Overall, minus the stomach bug I caught on Friday, I’d have to say it was a great weekend. But of course it all had to come to an end and Wednesday morning it was back to the daily grind. Thanks for reading.

Peace!