Babbling Bumbling Ramblings of Ed

While at Chevron a woman came up to me today asking money for gas because she had some type of emergency and needed to get home. I said no, automatically assuming she was a fraud. Conveniently, i REALLY did not have cash with me. Should I have offered to swipe my credit card? Is it wrong to assume that she was a scam? Luckily, John Quinones didn’t come up to me with his camera. #whatwouldyoudo

I wanna get physical

This is probably my personal record of working out consistently for the longest amount of time.  Although it varies between once and four times a week, I have been working out since March of 2011!  That’s quite an accomplishment for me.

Anthony and I have decided to diversify our routine by adding indoor rock climbing, hopefully as often as once a week.  We went to Mission Cliffs in SF last night and I very much enjoyed it, compared to when we went 2 years ago and 4 years ago. We stayed there for about 3hours and I didn’t feel like my Tuesday night was wasted!  And I hardly go out on a week night!  :D

The downside: the stench from the rental shoes has been ingrained in my head. I want to buy my own gear, slowly, and hopefully that will push us to stick with this as a regular hobby.

Today the Harry Potter theme was playing in my head as if I were being chased by Death Eaters. In reality I was just walking to the cafe to get my sandwich.

This is one beautiful show.  Catch it before it leaves SF on August 21.

A Late Entry - New York in May 2011

I wrote this entry during Anthony and I’s stay in New York in May 2011. It’s been saved on my Tumblr app for quite some time now. It would be a waste not to post it.

Day 1. May 28, 2011
Red eye flight to NYC went by fast. Before we knew it we were in New York at 6am. Took the subway as usual to Hotel Belleclaire, they gave us our “standard” room, which was way smaller than I thought. Decided to upgrade to a queen with street view for a fee, and we were much more satisfied. You get what you pay for.

By noon, we had already eaten brunch at Samantha something, worked out at our gym for the week, and had taken a little nap.

During our trips, we tend to put off shopping until the last few days, which always causes us to rush. This time, it was our top priority! Haha. We packed pretty light so we needed to buy clothes to last us for 8 days.

Had dinner at our favorite Malaysian, Nyonya in Chinatown. Had a little drama between me and Derrick due to online misunderstanding. -__- lol. We ARE so dramatic.

Day2. Sunday May 29, 2011
Decided to rush tickets for Spiderman the musical (for straight guys).  I can’t even begin to explain how AWFUL this show was. Right from the first song, I knew that the show would be a joke, just like how the reviews warned. The show had its bright moments, like Spiderman’s bouncing off the walls, the swinging across the theatre and landing by the audiences. One or two songs were above average, the rest were crap - period! Like what I told Anthony after the show, its only saving grace was seeing little kids’ reaction when Spiderman landed close to their seat. The looks on their faces were priceless. Aside from that, I didn’t even think that the stunts were that great or necessary. The producers totally forgot that this was a musical.

Lunch at Pam Real Thai was a total miss, considering how much we loved it the first time 2 years ago. However I’ll come back and give it another shot.

Dinner at Lombardis. Real New York pizza!! Two thumbs up!

Dessert at Rice to Riches was good. It tasted a lot like champorado with nuts since we opt for the rocky road flavor.

Day3. Monday May 30, 2011
No itinerary day. Broadway shows are dark on Mondays, so watching a show is out of the question. Jogged at Central Park in the morning, worked out, then visited Coney Island. It really does feel like a rundown Santa Cruz boardwalk. We went on the Ferris Wheel ride, which was scarier than I expected because we chose a swinging car. Lol. The beach - well, I’ve definitely seen better. Not even the 90 degree weather tempted me to bathe in that mess. Made me appreciate California beaches a lot more. Left Coney Island after an hour. The heat, the ghettoness - it was all just a bit much. Did I mention that this day was Memorial Day so it was extra crowded with school kids? Fun. -__-

Day4. Tuesday. May 31, 2011
Niagara Falls day! Started the day early by flying to Buffalo, NY. We brought our passports so we crossed the border into Canada because the falls supposedly had a better view from Canada and it did! The small border city had its charm and for an instant Anthony fell in love with Canada until we took a little detour and discovered that this was a tacky little tourist trap. Think Vegas, but tacky. Yuck.

Niagara Falls was magnificent. The American Falls was underwhelming from the Canadian side, but the big Canadian side of the falls was worth the hype. I wish the mist wasn’t there so the view was better. I think really the best way is to take an aerial tour to see the whole falls. Someday.

Back to the American side, checked out the view, did the Caves of Mist trail. This was the best part of the day trip. Being feet away from the falls at the bottom, getting wet from the falls was just awesome.

By 4pm, we had already returned the rental car, checked in, and were now on stand by for an earlier flight. By 7pm, we were back in Manhattan! Ate at Yakitori Toishi, which was a good hole in the wall. Then at a Japanese teahouse for dessert, Cha An. I thought it was okay. Reminded me of Candy Bar, but Japanese.

Day5. Wednesday. June 1, 2011
Book of Mormon the musical. 
The hottest musical of the 2011 season. The jokes were definitely edgy. They say the F word about 40 times and I won’t even spoil who they say it to. >_< Haha. It wasn’t quite the inspiring show that I tend to favor, but it was definitely funny with some really really good music. 
You’ll need to have a real sense of humor and an open mind to enjoy this. All the seniors in the audience seemed to extremely love it, so I might actually be a lot more conservative than I claim or think.

Day 6. Thursday. June 2, 2011
This day was originally the Washington DC day, but fares increased and the thought of another exhausting 12 hour daytrip, we decided to cancel it.

Started the day by biking around Central Park. We finally made a complete circle around this park. 
Lunch at Arturo’s Pizza. Really good again!! New York pizza FTW.

We were close to the Theatre district so I was tempted to check show tickets for the night. I was able to convince Anthony to watch another musical. 
Checked Sister Act first, but they had no more rush tickets. Tried Jersey Boys then BINGO! Two Front Row orchestra seats for $50. We were happy. Well I definitely was. :D

Nighttime comes and our seats were HORRIBLE! Extremely partial view!! Not to mention the stage was about 4 feet high, so sitting down, we had to strain our necks looking up. -__- They didn’t inform us we had a limited view!! But for $25 per ticket, it was hard to complain. Again, you get what you pay for.

Show starts and I almost forgot how bad our seats were. The story, the pacing, the acting, the songs, were top notch! Now I know why this show has been at the Top 3 on Broadway for the past 5 years. It truly was a great musical.

Oh, and just before Act I ended, a lady sitting next to an empty seat in the center row left the theater and the 3 nice Jewish gay boys sitting next to us decided to scoot down and offered us their seats. We were now in Act 2 with better seats! Things really do work out in the end. :D the show ends and I’m very satisfied.

Day7. Friday. June 3, 2011
¡Que Horror! 
I wake up and Anthony tells me that he has a stomach ache and that he wasn’t able to sleep all night. 
He chooses to stay in for the day and I leave for the Today Show to catch a glimpse of NKOTBSB. In my head I hope that he falls asleep and he feels better.
I watch NKOTBSB or whatever small glimpse I could catch. You know it wouldn’t hurt if the Today Show stage was a little bit higher. The stage was pretty much the height of the streets -_- so i saw close to nothing.

After the show, the groupies lined up to where NKOTBSB is supposed to come out of into their tourbus. I thought of lingering a little since I had nothing to do anyway when my phone greeted me to a text message from Anthony asking for some Acetaminophine and that he was shivering. Awful awful. I bring him soup and a generic acetaminophine from Duane Reade. We both fall asleep and I wake up to a vigorous shaking on the bed. I thought he was joking but Anthony was now shivering like a $@%^. I covered him with more blankets, the shivering stops and whew! I thought we’d have to go to the hospital.

It was 2:30pm, I hadn’t eaten and Anthony had fallen back to sleep. I decided to grab some Shake Shack and eat at Central Park.

One thing I realized after spending time outside in Manhattan by myself is that I really am not that independent. I always thought I could travel by myself, but it felt quite sad wandering around Central Park.

At 4pm, Anthony calls me to say he’s hungry and that he some wants Shake Shack! Yes progress!! I was afraid he’d want me to watch How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying by myself. We had really good seats for this one, and it stars THE Daniel Radcliffe! He can’t miss it! We can’t miss it!! I was relieved when I got back to the hotel that he was better. By 8 pm, we were at the Al Hirschfield Theatre getting ready for Radcliffe to grace the stage.

The musical was really good! Daniel Radcliffe’s passion for theatre can definitely be felt. He’s an average singer and a pretty damn good dancer. 

Show ends and we wait at the stage door. Daniel.comes out 45 mins later to loud applause. There was a huge crowd gathered outside to see him. I failed to get an autograph or a decent picture but I did capture some videos. I saw him upclose. Flesh and bones. Hair and blood! (?) He was 2 feet away. Surreal. I was starstruck. I wanted to tell him he was great that night but I froze and just stood there. From the looks of it, he loves Broadway and will do more shows. I will definitely be there for his next Broadway show.

Day 8. Saturday. June 4, 2011
Brunch at Cafe Luluc in Brooklyn. Walked around. Wondered where in Brooklyn Lea Salonga possibly lives. Anthony and I both agreed that if we were to live in New York, we would probably stay in Brooklyn too. 

Final shopping at SoHo. People watching at Rockefeller then back to the hotel to get dressed for dinner. Ate at John’s Pizzeria, which is another NYC original. It was good, but the large size made it hard for us to finish all of it. Walked down the East Village neighborhood for the last time, then it was back to the hotel.

Day 9. Sunday. June 5, 2011.
Home sweet home.