Archive for Steve’s Suggestions

Summer 2003: A Review (AKA: The Summer of 2006)

{ February 24, 2011 @ 2:17 am } · { Steve's Suggestions }
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The summer of 2003 was a hard one.  I know this mostly because I just went back to read my dead journal to make sure.  I started driving, which was awesome.  I spent a lot of time with my friend Jennifer in Downey.  Also, I got to spend a lot of time with the guys.

The bummer was that Justin was leaving to San Francisco for college, and that depressed everyone.  Also, it was just an odd time between high school and college and I felt like a lot was changing all around me.  This was very confusing for me since nothing was really changing and I was still living at home and having to deal with that.

I played a lot of music that summer and actually started my Choice Hat project which would end up with me writing a song a day for about three months from October to December in 2003.  Most of the songs weren’t very good and only about 5 still exist today, but it was a great experience especially because I did it all by myself.

I think overall, that summer really taught me a lot about my friends and how much they mean to me.  While Justin leaving to SF really tripped stuff up, I got to spend a lot of time getting closer to Max and Lenny and Anthony.  Getting to know Anthony was a real blast because he wasn’t like any of my other friends and when I spent time with him I really had no idea what to expect.  But we did build a really powerful friendship that I still treasure very much.  And honestly, to this day, I have no idea what to expect when I meet up with that guy.

Oh, one other thing that happened that summer was my hanging out with a lot of people before they left for college.  These people were never really that close to me, but we’d talk online and then go do something.  There was this urgency that really made people want to see everyone they could before they left.  I ended up going on a few dates with girls who were WAY out of my league because of this, and that boosted my confidence for college where I’d date some of the strangest women I’d ever meet.

But that’s a review for another time…

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Eating During the Holidays

{ February 24, 2011 @ 1:44 am } · { Food, Steve's Suggestions }
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Steve asked what I like to eat during the holidays…this isn’t really a review…but I guess you could call it an opinion…

Turkey Sandwiches.  Cold thick slices of turkey between two pieces of white bread with some ketchup.  I don’t know what it is about this kind of turkey sandwich, but it really hits the spot.  I love it.  It’s really what I look forward to most about the holidays.  I see my family all year long and as I get older, gifts get less and less interesting.  But this sandwich takes hold and doesn’t let go from around Halloween until I sink my teeth into one.

I’m convinced that if God ate sandwiches, this is all he’d eat.  And he’s wash it all down with some Vanilla Milk from Nestle.  Seriously…why did they get rid of Vanilla Milk?  I LOVED Vanilla Milk.

And Crunch Tators…

Now I’m depressed…

It's been a long time, old friend. But perhaps we'll meet again some day...some how.

Vanilla Milk...where are you?!

 

Contra

{ February 21, 2011 @ 6:16 am } · { Steve's Suggestions, Video Game Reviews }
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Do it. Enter the code.What can I say that people don’t already know about how awesome this game is?  Contra is amazing.  If you don’t know, in Contra you play as a badass with a gun that flips all over the screen shooting in all different directions killing less badass dudes with guns, aliens, robots, and a slew of other stuff.  It was one of the first games to really try the 3D thing, and they nailed it.  The bosses are difficult, but fair.  The controls are fluid.  I really have nothing bad to say about this. Aside from being an awesome game, it helped popularize the Konami Code.

In case you’re not a gameophile like so many awesome people around the world…and me, the code is “up up down down left right left right (b) (a) start.” Yeah, you’ve probably heard it or seen it many places, like here:

( this song sucks)

or here: (this song kind of sucks, too)

or in here: (this song isn’t nearly as lame)

Also, this:

Sexy? Yes?

Anyway, Contra is amazing and if you think you’ve been there and done that, like I have for years, go download the ROM and an emulator, and revisit your friend.  He misses you.

Family Guy

{ February 19, 2011 @ 6:09 am } · { Steve's Suggestions, TV }
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Steve wanted me to review Family Guy.  This kind of reminds me of that time I caught Barbra Bush double dipping her chip.

Ever since that South Park episode where they totally destroyed Family Guy and exposed their formula, it haven’t been able to enjoy it the same way.  

The more I think about it, the more I don’t like Family Guy.  I like it because it is funny, I don’t like it because I usually hear about how funny it is all the time and I usually have to endure people quoting it or talking about it before I even get to see the episode they’re talking about.  If I really cared, I’d watch it, but I don’t.  I used to.  But I have never recorded it to watch later, it’s always been the case that I’d watch it if it was on.

South Park, I recorded the hell out of that.  And The Venture Brothers and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.  Never Family Guy.

Family Guy is funny, don’t get me wrong.  They do a lot of great pauses that induce a good laugh or two.  They also do a lot of great gags that go on and on until you’ve LOLed and then gotten tired of it only to LOL again.  Truly, they have defined “LOLercoaster.”

Maybe I just don’t have time for it.

This is a horrible review.  I’m sorry everyone.  I just really don’t care.  I’m only posting it because I’ve written this much and don’t want to think of it as a waste of time.  Sorry!  And thanks for reading!

Here’s something for sticking it out:

Living with Lenny and Max

{ February 17, 2011 @ 5:41 am } · { Steve's Suggestions }
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Lenny and Max. In all their glory.

What can I say about living with Lenny and Max? They’re two of my best friends. Most people dream about moving out into a sweet house with a couple of high school buddies and throwing some crazy parties and bringing home loose women and what-not. But by the time we moved in, I had a girlfriend. Also, we had one or two parties which resulted in some issues with our sinks, so we didn’t have too many more after that. Reality bites.

Really, Max and Lenny are two very different people, and to review them both together would be a great injustice. So, let’s break this up.

Lenny:

Of all my friends, Lenny is the most Asian.

Lenny is like a cat. Living with Lenny is like living with a big giant cat that bitches about his car a lot and plays video games all day. And work. He bitches about work a lot, too. He really hates his job. It was nice coming home to Lenny, sitting in his room and playing games that I had never heard of and probably never would have wanted to know about. I’d be like “Hey, Lenny.” and he be like “Sup?” It was chill.

My best memories of living with Lenny was when we didn’t have electricity. In Gardena, the infrastructure isn’t exactly on par with the rest of southern California…or Baghdad, for instance, and so sometimes in heavy rain a transformer would blow. The first time this happened, we walked around, tried to light some candles, and laughed a lot. I don’t remember what was so funny. Another time we went to dinner with our buddy Josh. One time I came home and the power was out, and Lenny was laying in bed

Max gave Lenny this awesome leather jacket. So Steph and I took some pretty cool pictures of him showing it off.

with his headphones on. Scared the hell out of me as I walked through the house trying to figure out what was making noise by the light of my cell phone.

Worst memories just involved trying to sleep as we shared a common wall and Lenny loves his techno music. When it was a big deal I just let him know though and he was cool. Lenny’s chill like that.

Max:

Max love attention. But he hates it when you point that out. Sorry, Max.

Great guy. Fun guy. Love him. Lazy as hell though.

His job was to clean the bathroom. He didn’t. Mold would grow on my soap. On Lenny’s toothbrush. Anywhere. Everywhere. Gross.

Still, we had fun. He worked nights and usually my cue to go to be was hearing him walk into the house at three in the morning. I remember hearing his footsteps coming down the hall and thinking “Damn…I’ve got work tomorrow.” Sometimes when I would decide to go to bed and I heard his footsteps stop at my door (I assume he was listening to see if I was awake), I’d have to sit really quiet and turn off my TV to keep him from knocking or coming in. Other times I’d have to jump out of my bed to catch him, quietly to not wake up Lenny. Good times.

Oh, also, sometimes he would come out of the shower topless and walk into my room to say something. Between him and my line of sight was my computer chair which blocks my view of his body from the waist down. So he’d stand there talking to me, and the whole time I would be left wondering if he was wearing any pants. To this day, I wonder about some of those conversations…but I really don’t want to know.

Conclusion:

I love living with my girlfriend (and not just because she would kill me if I didn’t mention how happy I am right now), but I do miss those guys. I’m just happy they’re still living together and keeping the tradition of wasting life on video games and Netflix alive. Also, someone needs to feed the opossums that live under the house and scratch away at the floor every night like demons trying to escape the underworld under our beds.