How I Spent My Summer Vacation: New York

Before going to San Diego last month, I had taken a visit to New York with my friends Joseph and Alisha. Joe and I had originally planned to go to New York sometime last summer as a graduation gift to ourselves. But due to poor planning, and just plain too much to do and take care of the first half of last year, we had to scrap plans for the big trip. So by the time 2008 rolled around, we made it imperative to start planning things to make this trip happen. Which for me that included having to sacrifice going to Coachella back in April with Alisha, Dang, and a bunch of other friends. I actually bought tickets to the event, but luckily, Keoki, who hadn’t yet bought his tickets to the festival took them off my hands.

Then after a while, and Joe and I began eyeing dates in which to go, Alisha told us she was thinking how much she’d like to see New York. Which led to Dang also to contemplate a trip out east. But in the end, Dang just wasn’t gonna be able to make it out with us. So it was Joe, Alisha, and myself.

Being the big, gigantic Oakland Athletics fans –let alone baseball fans– that Joe and I, we just had to make sure that we had to see a baseball game in Yankee Stadium. This 2008 season of course being the last season the Yanks would play before moving next door into the new Yankee Stadium. It just so happened that the A’s were playing a weekend series in New York in July. What worked out so picture fucking perfect and then some, was that the weekend after the trip to New York, was Comic-Con weekend.

To maximize our time in New York, we figured getting on a red-eye that left SFO on Wednesday night, and our connecting flight from Las Vegas to JFK would get us into New York at a little past 8am Thursday morning. In the cab ride into the city, I chuckled to myself as Alisha and Joe were either still kind of sleepy or had their attention elsewhere as we passed by an exit to Queens Boulevard. I mouthed the phrase: “I AM QUEENS BOULEVARD.” Joseph being a fan of Entourage as well, I thought he’d get a kick out of it as well, and I tried to show him the exit sign before it was too late. Hell, I got so much a kick out of it that I tweeted: “I am Queens Blvd.”

Anyhow, after checking our bags into the hotel (located in Times Square), we headed straight for the Statue of Liberty, which I gotta preface by saying that it pays to not only buy your tickets for these sightseeing stuff ahead of time, and online, but also to get the express passes. It really is so freakin damn worth it considering all the time you save, especially considering we were running from place to place at break-neck like speed –might be over-exaggerating with that, but still– we had to if we wanted to see and do everything that we wanted to see and do.

After the Statue, we had to conserve a little energy to get to Rockafeller Center for the tours we had planned for there, so we didn’t bother getting off the ferry again to see Ellis Island. Following the Statue of Liberty, the three of us headed to Rockafeller Center to take a pair of tours: the NBC Studio Tour and the Top of the Rock Tour.

The studio tour took us to the set where Brian Williams does the network’s Nightly News broadcast, which is actually only one room away from where MSNBC does their programming. We also got to see Studio 8H, which is where Saturday Night Live is taped. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go tour through Conan O’Brien’s set. My guess was that since it was so close to the hour in which they tape the show that they were probably rehearsing. Oh well. Also, they didn’t allow for pictures to be taken on the tour. Again, oh well.

After the studio tour, we took the Top of the Rock tour, which was basically a tour of the Rockafeller Center, and concluded with being shown to the top of the Rockafeller building.

Throughout the trip, I took photos with not only with my digital camera, but with my manual camera, too. I think I took something like four rolls at 24 exposures each. Haven’t gotten them developed yet, but I will, and like the others I’ll end up uploading it onto my flickr.

We went to Papaya King afterward for a quick –and I mean quick– bite to eat, which is also to say, some pretty good hot dogs. We had just enough time to get something to eat before having to get ourselves ready to catch the Avenue Q musical just down the street from the hotel.

When Alisha picked out the musical, I scratched my head sine the title sounded so familiar. They did a run of the production at a theater in San Francisco not too long ago. Thought it was enjoyable, especially considering most of the characters’ arc fit our the themes in which the three of us could relate to.

To cap the night off, we headed down to a movie theater on 34th Ave, where we met up with this fucking guy. Dave and his friend were already in line, as they were waiting for us to catch a midnight screening of The Dark Knight. I’ll share and repeat Dave’s description of the line that night: it was retarded! That line worked its way around the freakin damn corner; it was so long.
Since the theater sold tickets to the movie in four different auditoriums, Dave and his friend had tickets to watch the movie in a different auditorium than the three of us.

But when we met up with Dave after the movie, there was no denying the fact that we were all just in so much fuckin awe of that movie. The way in which Alisha kept describing my reaction to the movie –as the credit rolled– to people: “It was as if Joey had just seen Jesus.” More on The Dark Knight soon, I promise. I’ve been meaning to write something up on the film, and a couple other issues as well.

Anyway, after the film, as Dave was escorting/walking us back to our hotel, he laid this little bit of information on us: last call at bars and clubs in New York is as late as four or five in the AM. Of course, in California, bars and clubs have a last call at around one-thirty or so. Although the three of us were dead damn tired after just the first fuckin day, we took full advantage of this information the next couple nights.

And like the San Diego recap, there’s just too much to fit into in just one single post, so I’ll leave off here, and pick things up in the next couple days.

WonderCon 2008

So WonderCon has come and gone once again, and once again, I got to hang out and talk with a few Caballeros/Castaways. Last year, it was Triggerman that I hung out with most. Unfortunately, he's back home on the other side of the Atlantic. The same with Nick I.. And of course, Old Man Harris. But not all was lost. This year I got to hang out with fellow Castaway, Kedd. Also another change was the fact that I don't live in San Fran anymore, so my buddy James and his roommates put me up for the weekend.

Anyway, now for some of my Personal Highlights

-Meeting Darwyn Cooke on Thursday night at the Isotope and finding out -among other things- that Cooke and I are both Clash fans, and that his New Frontier character design of Captain Cold is based off Grant Morrison.

-Getting Darwyn Cooke to John Hancock my Absolute New Frontier, as well add a sweet image of the Spirit to the noir sketch book.

-Having a blast at the Get Smart panel.

-Visited Carrie and Stephanie's table, and picked up some of their awesome work.

-"My father doesn't love me."

-Finding out the main reason why Kedd's is able to maintain such a high post count.

-Being present at the DC panel that Kedd made Didio momentarily speechless as well as the moment Bagley called Kedd a trouble maker.

-Watching DC's New Frontier

-The Iron Man movie panel.

-Getting a helluva lot of new reading material throughout the weekend.

-Conversing with Mikie from the 'ol BKV Board. (He has yet to register onto Harris' new board.) Talked some really good stuff with him at both shin digs first at the Isotope on Friday, and then especially good stuff on Saturday.

-On Saturday, I went to Trad'r Sam for the first time since May of last year. This time with James (guy w/darkened Raiders cap) and crew. For Arvin (far left), it was his first time ever at Trad'r Sam, and he didn't listen to our warnings of just how strong Trad'r Sam drinks are. Yeah, he got messed up. But I on the other hand, am happy to report that I actually did a good job of getting a real good buzz, and yet, not getting defeated by the dreaded Scorpion Bowl.

-Getting a couple Tiny Titans posters from the DC Booth. Some of them are for my nieces and nephews, I swear.

-Here's a quote from James Sime's Twitter that best describes the mass of people from Saturday night.

-Seeing so many Castaways (unfortunately except for Capntightpants and Christopher)

-And getting Mark Bagley to add an utterly bad ass noir Batman to the sketchbook.

Good times. Good times. Good times. I usually take a lot of pictures when out on the town, but for some reason, not all that much in the span of four days... Probably because I "feel" more photogenic, and camera trigger happy when I have more than just a good buzz. Oh well.

Here be the rest of the weekend's photos.

EDIT on Weds. Feb 27: Forgot to add the highlight of chit-chatting it up with Brian Wood, and getting him to sign my first two issues of DEMO, and vol. 1 of DMZ. Awesome guy.

Happy New Year

There is so much to say about what was 2007, and about what 2008 is capable of being. But what it boils down to is that 2007 was big, and 2008 is expected to be bigger. I just don't have any kind of best of list other than there were plenty of things that I enjoyed, and had plenty of family, friends, and acquaintances to enjoy all the good times with. I have a New Year's ("Substance") Potluck Party to get to, so let's leave things at that. And hope all of you reading this had a good 2007, and an even better 2008. And be safe in all your New Year's Celebrations.

I have a lot, and I mean a helluva lot of photos that I gotta upload to myspace and flickr that date as far back as October. So hopefully, I'll get to post a Photo Parade blog entry by next week at the latest. Also, I wanna write a bit about a sorely missed television favorite: Arrested Development. All in due time, of course. Until then, and once again, Happy 2008 err-body!

Life is Happening

So yeah, I've running around both San Francisco, San Jose, and in between. Last Tuesday, I found out my friend Q.A. and her roommates were having a potluck party in Daly City, and because, I hadn't seen her, James, and a couple of other friends in that circle of SF/Daly City friends. Although I had to get someone to cover my Friday night closing shift. Lucky enough, I found someone who had a morning shift that same day to switch with. But that also meant that I had to open the store Friday morning after helping close the store on Thursday night.

Ho-Boy.

But it's not like I hadn't done something like that before, and it was a necessary evil. So I drove up to DC, and hung out with James, Q.A., and the gang. James' roommate, Bill, questioned my man-hood each time I didn't down whatever drink I had in my hand... I got a damn good drunkedness Friday night. I kept going on and on about my 100 & 150 Font roommates, and how much I missed my Wednesdays. My drunkedness even spread onto Twitter, where I texted in that not only do I miss my roommates, but also my potlucks and general hanger-outing with my fellow City Kids. Yeah, lately I've been lamenting just how much I miss living in San Francisco.

Anyway, I crashed at James' place that night, and Saturday morning we had breakfast at IHOP. It really hit the spot, and then went to the Metreon and watched The Dark Knight prologue and I Am Legend on IMAX. AS expected, the TDK prologue was so very the awesome, and I Am Legend was better than I had been expecting.

When I had gotten back to San Jose later Saturday night, it was for Frances' two younger kids birthday party: Julian (9yrs) and Alexis'(4yrs).

My pregnant sister, Frances, told those of us still at the house at the later stages of the party, that she felt she'd be giving birth any day now... she gave birth less than 24 hours later. I'll post photos of the newest member of the Fernandez brood soon. My sister and brother in-law have four kids: three of them with birthdays in December, and within four days of each other. Tristan is the only one not in December. Shit, she's gonna be 14 next year. Damn, I'm feeling old.

Anyway, I went back to SF on Sunday to join in on the WGA's protest in Union Square. I was there from about noon to three. As I was getting more fliers from the Strike Captain's car on Post St., I coulda sworn I saw Mindy walk by down the cross street, Powell. I shouted to try to get her attention, but I guess she was out of ear-shot. Met and chatted with some a few writers, got about a handful of cars to honk their horns, and froze my tookiss off, and by the end my feet were ice cold. But I felt good about what I did Sunday. And I swear, the short cat-nap I took on BART on the way back to Daly City from downtown after the protest, was the best cat-nap the earth has ever known.

Yesterday, I helped open up the bookstore, and today I'm goin back to SF with my brother, Patrick as he's taking an insurance license exam. I'm goin because I don't have anything better to do. Oh, shopping, and maybe watch Juno while I'm up there.

Hopefully, I'll have something very cool to plug in the next week or so.

I am so tired.

First, Halloween, wasn't bad, I guess, but walking aimlessly around downtown San Jose wasn't all that fun either. I'll post pictures soon. I've said that a lot lately, but I will get to it.

Today I checked my email for the first time since last Friday afternoon. I spent Thursday and Friday night at my day job at the ol bookstore. Hung out at the casa de Dang-alang, MAnthony, and T'Money's place after work on Friday. Then spent Saturday and Sunday revising the ol screenplay. When I say the entire weekend, I mean I left the house only twice. Once on Saturday, and once on Sunday. I kept myself in the house for probably what would amount to 30 minutes, but that's mostly because the drive-thru line as Taco Bell and In-N-Out Burger was so damn long.

Anyway, I'm goin to San Francisco for the day tomorrow to talk to a former professor, and hopefully see some friends. Plus I've spent the last couple hours catching up on what I've missed... I've missed a quite a number of things. And I've been uploading some pictures from within the last month that I haven't been able to get to yet. Plus, the WGA is officially now on strike, and they have my full support. I'll share more of my thoughts soon, but right now, FUCK, I'm hungry.

Whirlwind Weekend

Well yeah, I haven't abused my liver like this weekend since my birthday back in August. Pretty crazy. Pretty fun.

Here's a quick run down: lots of drinking... yeah that sums it up nicely. I'll post some pictures via Flickr and Myspace soon enough. But yeah, all that really needs to be said is how fortunate I am to have the enormous amount of friends that I have, and how much fun they are to hang out with, have fun with, and yeah, get pissed drunk with. And no, I am not currently buzzed, drunk, or otherwise inebriated. I am completely sober as I write this. And yes, that probably make this all the more a mushy blog entry. But yeah. Twas a fun weekend... yet now I am also thinking that I didn't get much writing done this weekend... FUCK!!

Oh well, just more inspiration for further ideas, nahaha :P

No Foakleys for me!

Simply put... I picked up my new glasses yesterday...

The lenses are new, but a while back, my brother gave me his old Oakley frames he didn't need anymore. Recently, I figured I may as well use these frames... especially since the right side of my old red frames broke.

My red frames broke a few days before my birthday weekend, so I had to wear my back-up frames that weekend, which was two weekends ago. When I got home from the bars, I fell asleep on my living room floor for about a half hour. When I awoke, I got ready for bed, but not before stepping on my (back-up) glasses. The damage wasn't that bad, really. The lenses weren't cracked, scratched, or otherwise broken, but...

Things were kinda, well, crooked for about the next week or so. The left plastic-nose-guard thingy kinda broke off, and it occasionally falls back off, but I've made it fit back in. Actually, that night I stepped on them, I also ended up spending what felt like an inordinate amount of time looking for that plastic nose-guard thingy while in the dark.

Also, before leaving the optometrist with my new glasses, I had a dilation exam. And I'm happy to report that my eyes are nice and healthy. Or at least as healthy as they can be. I mean, I do wear glasses. C'mon now...

But yeah, I got my vision kinda blurred because of the dilation droplets. I don't own any prescription sunglasses, much less did I have any kind of sunglasses on my person when I was at the optometrist yesterday. So it all meant driving home in a most humorous fashion...

I was given -what I have come to dub- "paper shades" to help my eyes combat the sun and the blurriness. And I figured it'd be easier to drive home with my old frames since my eyes were blurry enough that I didn't want my eyes adjusting to the new lenses, all at the same time, too.

But I did decide to do the driving and errand running an hour or two later with the "paper shades" and Oakleys...

Stylish, eh?

Happy 23rd.

Birthdays means to celebrate one's life.

Today, the 13th of August is my Birthday. And this weekend, including today the 13th, I along with my family and friends celebrated my birthday. As is customary, I have been wished a "Happy Birthday" by many a family member and friends. It's a lovely feeling when someone tells you "Happy Birthday." It demonstrates an act of love and care. For that, I am grateful for the last few days, and I think that it may have started when a fellow Caballero wished me a "Happy Birthday" on the Cabal early last week.... and then came the rest of the "Happy Birthday" well-wishes through the course of the weekend, and of course, today, the 13th. So again, thank you VF, and to the rest of my family and friends, thank you....

Because on Saturday night, the 11th.... well... you know how the morning after you go out drinking, you ask yourself "Did I really do that last night?".... and then you ponder that for a good long while, and then say.... "I did do that. Didn't I?"... and then you go... "Shit!"... And then you wanna find a a blanket or something or whatever, and cover yourself and hide.... yeahhhh... that was my Saturday night. Good times. Good times. Good times.

Here's my cousin Michelle, me, and the Mind Eraser I'm about to devour...


Sunday was Mommy's (aka my paternal Grandmother) Birthday. Her family is her life, and it was good to see most of my cousins come together again on Sunday afternoon. Happy Birthday, Mommy.

That brings us back to today, Monday, my actual birthday... as I mentioned how birthdays are meant to celebrate one's life... well we are also meant to celebrate one's life when one passes away.

This morning, I found out via the Cabal that Mike Wieringo passed away on Sunday. I think the best way I can summarize my feelings is to plainly repeat what I wrote on the Cabal:


I've only started collecting comics here in the 2000s, and although I've read quite a bunch of comics, I don't think I've quite scratched the surface of it all...

Unfortunately, most, if not all of Wieringo's work is one of those somethings I've yet to experience. I've admired his artistic style each time I've glanced through his work. As has been mentioned here, and on other places: his pieces have wonderful hints of hope.

And again... 44?? It boggles my mind at just how unfair life is. Jay, you mentioned examining your own mortality... that type of pondering will always come up in the wake of such a tragedy. I think to an extent, we all are right now. I mean, fuckin 44??

I celebrated a birthday this past weekend, and then this morning learn of Ringo's passing?? This world works in some screwy screwy ways. I hate to state the obvious guys, but always tell your family and friends you love them. At this moment, I'm sitting on a couch in a room full of people I'm close to, and damn... I cannot begin to express just how really surreal this all is.

I'll get caught up on my "must read" list as soon as I'm able to, which in a way, I hope only grows and grows... and while I am, please Rest in Peace Mike.


I just also wanna add that I hope that everyone remembers to live life, and enjoy it. It's a beautiful thing, and share it everyone you know and love. You just don't have to drink yourself into the oblivion that I did over the weekend, teeheehee, yeah... As my dear friend Justin once said: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.