… And I’m back.
So my vacation went pretty much as planned: almost an entire week of doing nothing. I didn’t venture far and mostly stayed at home to catch-up on some video games as well as the mountain of movies and shows I’ve downloaded over the past few weeks that’s just been sitting around. Though I did a few other things here and there…
- Okay, I wasn’t a homebody the whole time; there was even a few trips to the beach, such as the weekend before last for the Mermaid Parade which I caught with Joe and June. There were plenty of freaks, geeks, and almost naked fat chicks dressed like mermaid to gawk at, as well as roller derby chicks from Brooklyn which were a bit more pleasing to the eye (though sadly my internet tryst was not seen rolling about). Hell, even the Underdog woman was part of the festivities. Afterwards Joe and I discussed matters relating to the upcoming “Matt Hawkins Anthology” (I think I finally have a title), we played some skee-ball at the arcade (which is now fifty cents, what a fucking sham!), I ate a corndog (of course), and Joe treated me with more of his one-man rendition of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Trust me folks, it has to be seen to be believed.
And this past weekend was John’s 4th of July party at his parents’ place in Long Island which I’ve been going to, I believe, eight years now (and as MK’s first naturally), though this year it took place on the 3rd. I basically just cooled off by sitting in the pool while watching John, Marion, Dave, Raina, MK, and a couple of John’s Star Wars line buddies play volleyball in the water. Plus there was plenty of hamburgers, hot dogs, cake, and talk about movie all throughout. There’s usually a fireworks display in the evening, but MK and I headed out a bit early to catch up with her friends in Jersey, but we still caught five different ones at the same time while on a stretch of one highway. I was originally going to spend the holiday at Steve Flack’s party but since I’ve been dragging MK along to tons of movies and to hang with my friends weekend after weekend, I figured it was only right that I finally spent some time with her circle (not that she has a problem with my friends or seeing the Filipino version of Spider Man). Plus I had seen the Brooklyn fireworks display plenty of times the past few weeks (they’ve been testing it every Sunday night all throughout June).
So we both spent the 4th on Jersey shore watching the Asbury Park display. Plus I got a chance to meet MK’s old boss Bruce from her days of selling Italian Ice (which you read all about here). The guy gave us this totally insanely huge cups of ices which proceeded to give me a monster stomach ache the rest of the weekend. Also saw MK’s dad for a bit and he had fun busting my chops for not practicing my golf swing. And I got the chance to dine on a few Wawa chicken sandwiches, and they were simply awesome.
- Finally explored a bit of Park Slope over the week. I hate to admit this, but Park Slop is pretty damn awesome. I guess the real advantage that it has over other trendy wastelands like DUMBO is that there’s actually stuff to see and do, plus the restaurants have real food. MK & I found a really neat donut shop (and I was delighted to discover that the extremely creepy, has to be a recovering child-molester, custodian from the 23rd St post office having coffee there), as well as a great Tai place. Plus we checked out some comic shops, and there was the Superhero Supply Store which had tons of cool stuff that superhero would want or need. I checked out a few of their capes (been meaning to get one for a while now) and MK almost got some grappling hooks (they were all top-notch stuff).
- Also saw a bunch of flicks over the week, mostly at the final leg of the Asian Film Fest. I’ll write about them in detail next time, but after going to numerous Subway Cinema events, I finally won a prize! Before every screening there’s always various prizes for the audience, which can either be pretty awesome (like primo DVDs and artbooks) to the uber lame (like bags of shrimp flavored chips). I myself won a General Ape shirt from Baby Milo.
I also forgot to mention that MK won a movie poster when we saw Survive Style 5+, which lead Subway Cinema co-founder and emcee extraordinaire Grady Hendrix to ask say “MK… is that your J-name?”.
And speaking of Grady, I finally got the chance to talk to him before one screening and, no surprise, the guy was super cool to chat with. Its no joke that Grady, as well as the entire Subway Cinema crew, is directly responsible for NYC being such a hot place for Asian cinema these days. So it’s a bit sad and almost ironic when he mentioned that the Asian Film Fest is pretty much it for Subway Cinema this year… I was hoping for a return of the Asian Horror fest from years past. But Asia films are such big tickets items these days that they can barely keep up, no matter how successful their ventures have been. BTW, for an awesome behind the scenes read, just check out this piece from the man himself.
- Played plenty of games naturally, including (and in some cases, finally)… Resident Evil 4 (holy shit, game of the year indeed), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (I like it, but I find the battle engine a bit too confusing and out of control), Virtual On Marz (I expected to totally get into it thanks to the Dual Shock replicating the arcade set up easily, but I’ve been so weaned on previous console versions, like the Saturn port, that I find myself struggling), Dead Or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball (laugh all you want, but I got it cuz I love volleyball and that’s the honest truth… and it ain’t no Beach Spikers that’s for sure), Star Ocean: Till The End of Time (I found myself getting into it far easier than KOTOR just because its action based, but that might be the only reason at this point… and the main girl’s character design? Yeesh… its like those creepy anime heads that psycho cosplayers have been seen wearing as of late), Psychonauts (simply brilliant, also game of the year candidate, easily), and Haunting Grounds (which I find myself enjoying far more than I could have ever expected).
I’ve also been leaving the house to play games; all week I went to a ton of different game related press events that were held for those who didn’t go out to E3, such as myself. The highlight was easily Burnout Revenge, which was damn impressive and will force me to break my “no-EA” game buying policy this winter, as well as Lost In Blue, Konami’s Survival Kids psuedo-sequel for the DS which was also loads of fun to play.
- I also found out that I won’t be able to mod my PS2 without much headache, goddamnit. So I finally found a decent mod shop in Chinatown, and the guy advised me that I shouldn’t mod my current system. Why? Cuz I have a series 5000 model and apparently there’s a 10% or so chance that it’ll fry my system. Totally shitty news, but at least the guy was being honest and I really appreciated it. He even offered to remove the chip if it did fry the system so I could get it sent to Sony for repairs, but the last thing I want to deal with is their customer service. So I said, what if I just get the newer model PS2, the PStwo, the slim one (I have the last of the bigger, monolith model), and had that chipped? Well that should be no problem he says, but he did say that it would be best to shut the system down for ten minutes for every two hours of play. Lame. But again, at least he told me this all upfront (the slim system is series 7000 for those who are curious).
And what’s the best part of all of this? The guy mentioned that if I had a 3000 series model, then I’d have no problems. Thing is, I did have an earlier version of the PS2, one which got destroyed due to a shit mod job thanks to the assholes at J&L, the most well known Chinatown game store (I’m still pissed about that shit). So I don’t have many options; I don’t even want to deal with that slide card nonsense, and I ain’t too keen about installing a flip-top. And forget about me buying a used older model PS2 (that’s a whole different world of headache that I don’t want to think about entertaining). Basically, I’ll have to deal with Devil May Cry 3′s insane American difficulty (among other things).
At least I found some good deals online for some import Dreamcast games like Napple Tale and Border Down. Plus I even have a new DC thanks to MK, who passed along one that belonged to her brother Kevin. It’s a bit beat up, but a brand new casing can fix that, and I’ve been meaning to get one of those colored ones for a while now. Unfortunately, I believe J&L is the only place that sells them. Great…
- Plus, it hasn’t been completely easy going at home; the only real downside with living in a nice big house with a nice backyward is that there’s a lot of work involved, and my big mission over the week was the eradication of a pest control problem that was starting to take shape. First it was ants which was easy enough to handle. Then it was spiders, and the task of getting rid of them was all mine since the two girls I live with are scared to death of them. Thankfully the big fat mean cat, Brantley, finally made himself useful by pointing them out, and I had the super cuddly and friendly plus all around much awesomer cat, Lopez, eat them. But the big problem has been flies, with the worst being this past Saturday.
Long story short, my roommate Steph left some wet cat food out on the porch the Friday night prior since it was starting to rot and was stinking up the place; the cat food is actually for the dog, Flaco, which Steph’s family had taken away the day before on Thursday to take care of so she could concentrate on finishing up her masters degree (I don’t want to make such an easy joke, but the fact that the dog eats cat food might be one reason why its such a pussy), and I guess he didn’t finish his meal before leaving. Anyhow, by Saturday there was almost a dozen flies buzzing around and on the bowl so I figured that I’d just toss the food and wash out the bowl. But as I was dumping the rotting food into the trash, I discovered close to a hundred maggots all squirming about in the food. I practically projectile vomited right there on the spot, but was able to hold my composure long enough to throw everything, rotted food, maggots, and bowl, in the bag and take it to a garbage can at a far street corner, far, far away from the house. And call me a pansy but the sight made me feel ill for the next two days.
- So that, in a nutshell, was my vacaction. Exciting huh? Not very, but I’m quite happy about that actually.
Anyway, I’m back at work with plenty of to catching-up yo do, including the internet which I made been mostly avoiding the entire time of the vacation. That means 12+ days (well, at least now) worth of the GAF, YayHooray, and the other usual sites to keep me busy. At least when I arrived I had a brand new G5 to help with the task (a dual 2 GHz model with 2.5 GB of ram, plus a new 20 inch cinema display monitor), though at this point I’m pretty much have had it with Apple, though that too is for another post.
