NEW BLOG

go here:
HERE

eugene choi
eugene choi
eugene choi

i noticed that if you do a search on 'eugene choi' this page will actually pop up on google on the second page.

NEW BLOG

go here:
HERE

farewell

jitters

i should be nervous, but im not. all day, people have been asking me, "tomorrow's your first day of work, huh? arent you nervous? it's like the first day of school." it's funny, cuz at least 3 different people used the "first day of school" analogy. but strangely, i havent even been thinking about tomorrow that much, and im not that nervous at all really. im a little anxious about the traffic (i plan to leave my house 2 hours early, just to get to the santa monica office by 9am).

we'll see how it goes. i just have to remember peoples names. im bad with names.

j - o - b

it's been 7 months of uncertainty, but i am unemployed no longer. today i got the call. i start monday. it's with carat usa, a media marketing agency. that means it's an advertising agency without the creative side. the pay is low (upper 20's), but it's considered pretty high for an entry level job in this industry. i am happy/relieved/abitanxious.

as per custom, i will be buying all my friends dinner when i get my first pay check. late july-ish? who'll be here?

eDonkey



i've been hearing a lot about eDonkey2000 lately from different people. it's supposed to be the ultimate "napster" where you can download ANY type of file. i must be getting old cuz i cant figure out how to use it.

vegas baby!

this is the luxor, where we stayed. i didnt take the picture, i just ripped it off somebody else's website.

i just came back from vegas. midnight, tues. night/wed. morning. shit, we were supposed to leave sunday like everyone else but my friend rob gambled so much this weekend that they kept giving him free rooms and meals. so basically although i spent/lost a whopping $660 this trip, it wasn't that bad cuz the last 3 days i had free food and lodging. we averaged about 1.4 buffet meals a day.


after losing most of my money from blackjack and 7 card texas hold 'em poker, rob taught me how to play pai gow poker and that's all ive been playing the past 3 days. i really enjoy the pace of that game. for those of you who dont know, think of it as poker meets blackjack and had a love child.

in other news, i lost my atm card. on the way to vegas, i offered to buy gas since rob was driving. the pump wouldnt accept credit cards cuz the machine was broke. i had to drop it off with the attendant inside but i forgot to pick it up since im so used to paying at the pump all the time. so basically tonight on the way back i was trying to look for a stop with a texaco gas station and an ultramar gas station. didnt find it. b of a's sending me a new card in 10 days.

many interesting vegas stories soon to follow.

4th of july

damn, still have jet lag. ive been getting pretty sleepy around 1100 and i wake up every morning around 7-8am.

i started reading books again. this morning i started reading aldous huxley's the doors of perception. i finished nick hornby's high fidelity yesterday. that got made into a movie and so did his other book about a boy. lately the thoughts in my head sounds like a narrative from a novel. i guess that's a good thing.

traffic jam at newport beach, so me and a couple buddies ended up at corona del mar. surprisingly, this is the first time ive been to a california beach (and swam) since 1996. that would explain why ive been such a pale kid. but after my 3 hour roast in nice, france i've been sporting a pretty decent tan. now if only i can gain back the weight i lost in europe...

tomorrow i leave for vegas. not knowing whether ill come back richer or poorer is making me nervous. hmmm.... should i play roulette and try out kevin's so-far successful system? (find a table that has had 3 colors [red or black] in a row, then plop money down on the opposite. if it doesnt hit double your money till it does). me and mike had a nice discussion over dinner whether that would work. 2 views: regardless of the previous outcomes, with each draw there's still a 50% chance of either color coming out. even if there were 10 blacks in a row, on the 11th draw red and black still both have an even 50% of coming out. but then again, in the long run, with 100 draws there should be about 50 blacks and 50 reds. my mind's been grappling with this gambling dilemma for a long time now.

life is good

the interview yesterday went really well. i met with 2 would-be bosses/supervisors, and they seemed to like me. they were also talking as if i already got the job. i wont know for sure until i hear from the HR guy at the santa monica office. if i get this job, i think im gonna move to irvine.

going to vegas this weekend with old high school friends, and im thinking about making a trip up to berzerkeley sometime in the near future. i wouldnt mind if i didnt start work for a couple more weeks.

my cousin sent me an e-card today. how sweet of her. why are fobs so sweet?

using flash, the card depicts some of the events surrounding the korea-usa game. you can see a cartoon ohno and shit. if you listen carefully, there's even a korean punk song that mentions the world 'fucking usa'. i was impressed. korean punk? what will they think of next.

she can pilsung my korea any day



did that make any sense?

london part deux: stuff i'm thinking the second time around

1. everyone's sporting a david beckham mohawk.

young punks, old farts who should know better and everyone in between.

2. the pound can suck my dick. 1£ (pound) is approximately $1.50, but i've been spending pounds like dollars. today a bought a small coke at burger king--and it was the small kiddie happy meal size in the states--and it cost me .99 pounds. fuckin' ripoff.

3. i feel pathetic spending so much time in an easy internet cafe. but it's cool. it's cheap. it's passing time. it's relaxing, shelter from the hectic, expensive world outside. and now traveling solo for the first time, i get to write down some of the thousands of thoughts that have been running thru my head, stuff i havent been able to tell anyone in my limited human contact. i average only about 20 words an hour. "thank you," "where's...?" "can i have a...?"

4. there arent many asians here. a lot of south asians aka indians, but not many east asians. i'd say about 75% of the east asians ive seen have been tourists. as a result, im treated like a japanese tourist wherever i go. good and bad. good: i get to be invisible, get to mind my own business, fall back into people-watching mode and do as i please. bad: people treat me like i cant speak english. im invisible, but in another way. people say things around me as if i cant understand. kinda like how i would make some off color remarks in english in the presence of old korean ajumas (women) who would faint if they knew wat i was saying. kinda like that, but not really.

true story - lunch today was a £3.90 buffet lunch. took the econo-route and got to see the world cup. not bad.
i was over getting some pasta, when an english couple came in, undoubtedly attracted by the sign that snookered me in. the female came over and looked at the pasta i was scooping onto my plate and told her man, "oh, it looks horrible." the waiter came over and asked if they wanted a seat but the man said "don't bother we're just leaving" as he was halfway out the door.
how fuckin' rude. granted, the pasta wasnt that good, but im sure it would have tasted a little bit better if that bitch didnt say that shit. i knew the food wasnt going to be no 4 star gourmet fuckin' meal, i mean for £3.90 you get wat you pay for. i just wanted to save a little dough and watch the world cup game.

5. this is not only true in london, but every youth hostel i've been to. when im sharing a room with other travellers, the fuckin' room stinks. i dont know if these other fuckers dont take showers or wat, but yesterday when i came into the room late at night, the windows were closed and it was stuffy and stinky in there. smells like fucking feet. 'traveller's feet' ill call it.

6. there are some hot asian mamacitas here. i think they're hotter cuz they have a british accent. a saw a couple on the street yesterday near the 'high st. kensington' underground station where im staying. it was bright and sunny yesterday, it was saturday and a lot of people were walking around. there are a lot of clothing stores on this street: gap, british department stores, benetton, sisley, fcuk, and other high fashion boutiques, so the place attracts a fashionable crowd i noticed yesterday. i see a lot of asian hotties in the subway stations too.

today in urban outfitters there was this rather plain looking asian girl manning an area. she looked southeast asian, light-skinned. wasnt hot or nothing. i asked her about this lomo camera i already decided to buy for my trip to the grenwich meridian line later today. i just wanted to hear her talk. her accent wasnt that thick, but still, I LIKED. ooooh baby, hit me one more time.
i kept asking her other questions and generally was initiating conversation. i guess you could say i was kinda hitting on her. i was laying on my american accent thick, slurring my words and all. she didnt seem impressed. i didnt take it as a rejection in any way, she just seemed a tad shy. oh well, either way i got what i wanted.
that's another thing here in the uk. i think the asian stereotype of the unmanly asian guy is deeply engrained in everyone's head, even among asian girls. i see a lot of white dudes with asian girls. but considering all the fobby asian guy tourists, i can kinda see why. either way, i feel invisible and i feel like im not getting any respect like rodney dangerfield, and that's a pet peeve. shit, i feel like a whiny little bitch and this chip on my shoulder feels big right now. a cynical part of me thinks that asian men don't get any respect unless they look like they have money. while this makes me mad, rather than whine about it for the rest of my life, i think ill just make a lot of money and let the power get to my head.

7. cctv. it stands for close circuit television, or surveillence cameras as we might call them. they're EVERYWHERE. even here, at the easy internet cafe im at. they're in every single store, every indoor mall, even outside. you'll find them all over the subway stations too. some places dont even have signs mentioning them, but you'll see them lurking about. other places, like the subway stations, have signs everywhere warning you that assaulting station employees is a serious crime and that cctv cameras are watching you. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING.

8. one thing that pisses me off about london is that in 99% of the bathrooms, public and private, the faucets are separated into 2, hot and cold. on top of that they're the push kind so you can only wash one hand at a time. and the hot one is SCALDING hot; no joke, i suffered 3rd degree burns the other day. so its pretty fucking useless. hot's too hot, cold's too cold, and you can only wash one hand at a time. this may be no big deal to most people but it bothers an obsessive compulsive hand washer like me.

in other news, i've been chatting with sue j. lee on aol im lately in between reading about the world cup and other news. she aint doing shit this summer, no summer school, no job, nada. she just chillin', like a mother fuckin' villain. anyways, it's been nice talking to you, sue. a little bit of home for a homesick traveller. god bless the internet.

jamaican me crazy

so last night i went to camden town. it's pretty shady when you're alone. i feel like a target. maybe that's cuz as soon as i walk out of the station all these jamaican dudes utter stuff they have for sale under their breath.

one guy says 'koinichiwah', only the 99th time i've been mistaken for a japanese tourist in europe. i make eye contact, really subtle, but enough so he knows that im interested in something. weed.

we walk together, having a conversation under our breaths and without even looking at each other. he's a older than the rest of the guys hanging around there.

we stop a couple yards from the station entrance. he pulls out some shit wrapped up in saran wrap. its wrapped thick so you cant see the contents. immediately i walk away, weary of being ripped off. he desperately follows and takes out some of the stuff, asking me to smell it. i know it'd probably smell decent but just from a quick 1 second glance i know that it's the same bullshit me, davefonic and andy got last time in picadilly circus. he keeps following me, keeps saying 'koinichiwah' and subsequently attracts a lot of attention. some of those other dudes come hit me up, cuz now they know im looking for something. i briskly cross the street and walk away.

i walk around camden town, and it's a bit shady there. funny thing is there are these trendy little cafes, bars and asian noodle houses around. i look inside and there's some nice, yuppie looking blokes inside. outside there are gutter punks, jamaican dudes and other random characters.

i eat at the chinese/vietnamese noodle place i ate last time. 'super bowl noodle' something, i forget. pho wasnt as good as i remembered.

i walk around, and stumble into a little liquor store. indian dudes, all with english accents. i buy a mini-bottle of absynthe. davefonic would be proud.

i walk around, stumble in a odeon movie theater. biggie and tupac is playing. the 1115pm showing is too late however, cuz the underground subway stops running 1220am.

outside the theater i have a cig. i see 2 british blokes chilling against a railing, when a young jamaican dude walks up to them. i see thru their facade. they're native londoners, so i figure if they're buying their shit from this guy the shit should be good. as he's walking by me i make eye contact, the knowing kind.
'ganja?'
i nod. we continue our little dance.
i ask him if it's good. i just came from amsterdam, i say, and the shit i bought last time sucked.
he says it's good jamaican shit. straight from jamaica. £20. i negotiate down to £15. he says he'll be right back.
while he's gone i have a cig, or a fag as they call it here. he comes back and puts a small benson & hedges box on the rail next to me and then walks 10 yards down and waits at the bus stop. i inspect the goods and see it's the same shit the old jamaican dude had and the same shit me and davefonic and andy got last time at picadilly circus. it has seeds, sticks, stems but i think it's still sticky icky. o well, if those londoners got it i figure that's all they have here. i walk over to him at the bus stop and complain about the seed content. he shrugs, and looks a bit defensive. i try one last time to talk him down the price. he cahnt, he says cuz it's all weighed out and shit. i slip him the dough and i start walking back to the train station.
he's going the same way so we start talking. i've won his respect, i can sense that from his tone. i've shown that im quite knowledgeable of the whole game, that i know how to tango.
'you've gaht to mix it een wit da tobacco. i know you americans like to smoke only the marihuana.'
'yeah, thats one thing about europe, all you guys like smokin those spliffs.'
something like that. i like him, good guy. we say goodbye. mutual respect.

i get back to the street my youth hostel's on. it's actually in holland park. i sample the jamaican shit, and it's decent. not that strong tho, i can see why they mix it with tobacco. i imagine this is the type of shit the hippies must have smoked in the 70's. any of my friends back home would call it schwag, stress. it gets me kinda stoned.

i cross the street and buy tickets to the 1115pm showing of monster's ball. £8.50 for a movie ticket sucks. so does assigned seating. the movie, however does not. halle berry naked, also does not.
trying to take 'sean combs' seriously as an actor, ha.... youll just have to see it for yourself.

solid movie. my stamp of approval.