I’ve recently started developing a taste for wine. I’m not necessarily in it for the flavor (although I admit I am a fan), but I appreciate the gentle, yet thorough buzz that it provides. Bad wine is cheap, and my unsophisticated palette couldn’t care less about what I’m drinking. I’ve found that I can drink glass after glass of wine upon returning home from school and come close to enjoying my homework.

Besides, doctors say red wine is good for your heart. In the interest of my health, I’ve ‘entertained’ one and a half liters of Chianti in the last two nights.

Okay, so I’ve got a bit of an addendum. When Brian and I drove Mazer and Val back into the states so they could catch their flight up north, we stopped by my house and convinced my roommate Troy to join us for the remaining time we had left on the rental house. He drove down with us and achieved what every tourist in Mexico seems to thrive on: purchasing a cheap Mexican blanket and a $20 fake Rolex.

After Mexico, I just bummed around for a couple days and waited for school to begin. Aside from being ridiculously busy, things have been going fine. I’m currently taking three courses, working 15-20 hours a week, running the newspaper and working on a research project involving the Active Campus initiative. The research I’m doing also nets me 4 units of upper-division credit this quarter and next quarter, so I’m technically enrolled in a regular 16 units. Of course, my schedule is insane, and I don’t ever seem to have time to take care of my responsibilities once I return home.

This past weekend was pretty packed with fun. I was impressed we were able to pull it off. It was Kimiko’s birthday yesterday, so we had a party for her on Saturday at my place. About 15-20 people came (hooray for keeping things small) and we got good and smashed. I mixed up a ton of Fuzzy Navels but made the grave mistake of using a generous amount of grenadine in them. I’m still trying to clean the stains out of the carpet, and not even Oxyclean has worked so far. Goddamnit. During the party, the sluts next door somehow found their way over and invited themselves in. After offering sex to every male there, they ground their dirty crotches against multiple people—including my girlfriend—and went back to retrieve a couple greasy goth guys, whom they brought back over into Troy’s room. From there they spilled Fuzzy Navel all over his amp and carpet, then had the grace to grind up some cigarettes on his bed and leave crushed tobacco everywhere. I would still be pissed about their behavior had sweet, sweet justice not been delivered later, when their other roommate came over to ask what they had drank while at our place. Apparently, the two skanks were back at their place forcefully vomiting all over the place. I was so happy to hear it that I didn’t even mind that this girl had come over to obtusely accuse us of poisoning them. We informed the nosy one that the girls were exceedingly drunk when they arrived and we couldn’t be expected to meter their alcohol consumption for them. I hope we never see those whores again.

On Sunday, Kimiko and I joined her parents for dinner at a posh restaurant in Mission Valley. We were lavished with an incredibly diverse three-course meal that included an impressive antipasto spread, three types of pasta, jumbo prawns, roast chicken, pork chops, fresh vegetables & potatoes, and three types of desert. Kimiko’s parents insisted I have a glass of wine with them, which troubled our waiter to no end once he found out I wasn’t 21. Actually, they insisted I have more than one glass, but I needed to drive right afterwards and wouldn’t have the right to drive with a BAC above .01%, so I stood my ground at one. Man, I can still taste that fresh mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto. I had some of the leftover pork today for breakfast and it almost made up for the fact that I only got 4 hours of sleep.

Other random events that I feel I should mention:

I was given another $700 PDA to use in working with the Active Campus project. My old Jornada from freshmen year can now officially collect dust for the rest of its life. This new one is crazy awesome, despite the fact that trying to set up the Bluetooth wireless connection to communicate with my laptop was one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever done. It’s not often you get the feeling that a piece of electronics hates you.

A big water main above the MQ office started leaking sometime over the three day weekend and totally fucked some of our stuff. The carpet is still drying, and the whole room smells eerily like a hamster cage. When I came in and happened upon the leak, there was probably more than 10 gallons of water on the floor and on our counters. Fuck you, Sierra Summit.

Kimiko and I are renting a quaint little cabin the foothills nearby for Valentine’s Day. If there’s snow on the ground, it’ll make that hot tub all the more enjoyable.

Um…um…

That’s all. Another 800 words. This has to be some sort of record.

Oh shit, I’m going to update. It’s been forever, but I have an excuse. I’ve been busier than I’ve ever been in my life. I’ll say why in a second, but I should start from the beginning.

I last updated shortly before xmas. Since then, quite a few notable things have occurred. Of course, Mazer covered some of this already, but you’ll have to forgive the overlap if I decide to put my own spin on things. I’ve new things to add anyway; he didn’t relate everything I remember happening.

Driving back down to San Diego was much better than the drive up because Mazer and his girlfriend were in the car to keep me company (and share the burden of driving). A nine hour journey behind the wheel isn’t fun when you’re all alone. We arrived in San Diego and Mazer still had his goddamn cowboy hat on while I showed him around my house. I guess you can take the man out of Davis but you can’t take the Davis out of the man, heh. Brian and Kimiko joined us, and I think we ended up drinking to pass the time. It’s hard to remember because it was so long ago. The next day was laid back, and we crossed into Mexico (generously escorted by Brian’s family) the day after that.

Mexico was great. We made lots of memories. Let me try and relate some of the memories that Mazer missed.

Brian and I drank rubbing alcohol. Not much, but enough to make my eyes water and chest burn. The bottle, which the previous occupants had left on the bar (what kind of asshole would intentionally leaving rubbing alcohol on the bar for chrissakes), was all in Spanish except for large red letters spelling ‘Alcohol’ on the most conspicuous part of the label. The girls poured the rest down the drain after we looked harder and found the phrase “no es una bebida” on the corner of the label. Not a drink. Awesome. Later in the week I got horribly sick after we spent some time in Club Boom Boom. I was the only one to get ill, even though I drank about as much as the others. The only unique factor I could remember was getting tequila from the bar myself instead of letting the girls go charm the sullen, half-drunk bartender. I’m guessing at this point that he gave me my liquor from the “fuck up the gringo with poison” bottle. I’ve heard you can inflict symptoms similar to those that I had by putting Visine in someone’s drink. All the beds in our house had rat shit in them when we arrived except for one. The shower in my bathroom was evidently hooked up to the house’s electrical wiring and would shock you if you touched the metal of the showerhead or knobs. Our first day in Mexico was classic - we began drinking heavily around six when we returned from dinner, and we were all shitfaced and in bed by 10:30. Baby steps. I hated driving in Mexico. There aren’t any traffic laws, and the lines on the road hadn’t been re-painted since Abraham Lincoln was president. At one point we watched a police car do 30 mph in reverse on the main road through Rosarito as cars dived off the road to avoid being struck. Mexican 20 peso notes are amazing - they’ve got clear plastic windows in them. U.S. currency is frikkin ugly in comparison. We went to dinner in Puerto Nuevo, “Lobster capital of the world,” at one point, and it was pretty amazing. I had a grilled lobster with garlic and some giant Blue Coast shrimp stuffed with cheese and lobster and wrapped in bacon. Of course, I drenched the shrimp in melted butter too. If you’re going to do something you should always do it right, even gluttony. Shit this paragraph is getting long. We must have sampled a half-dozen types of tequila while we were down there. Of course, by “sampled,” I mean “drank multiple liters of.” I gained a lot more respect for tequila during our stay. We even had some that was of such quality that it didn’t require any chaser/lime. No hangovers were reported, either. Jose Quervo can officially gnaw my taint. The girls tried to go sunbathing one afternoon but were chased away by the hollering of a gaggle of Mexicans who had climbed up onto a roof to ogle them. We visited this one little bar a couple times and were served each time by an enthusiastic bartender with terrible hair plugs. Man, the shots of tequila they gave us there must have been around three whole ounces. Awesome.

Mexico was great, but I was exceptionally glad to pass back into the states. I’d never been so relieved to drive on a six-lane freeway. Three cheers for traffic laws and not-so-corrupted police.

I think I’ll post this stuff and start another while I sit in class for the next two and a half hours. Word count so far: approx. 850. Holy cow.

Happy Chinese New Year!!! Everyone go make fun of everyone else who seriously celebrates this holiday.

Great news, it was almost a nice enough day out today for me to take some pictures of my newly painted car. Check them out and tell me what you think.

And now… the exciting conclusion of Mazer’s christmas vacation.

Upon arriving in San Diego a much later time than originally planned, the drinking began!

Two afternoons and a little bit of partying later we were on our way to Mexico. Our good friend Brian and a couple hotties from Enigma’s arsenal joined us in a house we managed to rent in Rosarito about 30 minutes south of the US/Mexico border. I was immediately deemed “the person who knew the most spanish” when we got there after a slight misunderstanding in the grocery store. The first night was kind of disorienting. The sun went down around five or so, the way it usually does in the dead of winter, so we went and got some tacos at the closest restaurant. When we got back to the house we naturally started drinking. After a while someone asked what time it was. It turned out it was only 10:00 and we were all smashed, kind of a funny situation. Nevertheless everyone agreed that we couldn’t consume any more alcohol.

The days in Mexico were automatically half as long as a normal day because we all slept half way through them. There were countless little shops selling tourist-ie shit on the main street of Rosarito, none of them had anything worth buying. Except for blankets. Mmmm… blankets. Whatever we had a night of gluttony in Puerto Nuevo where we feasted on shrimp and lobster. We toured the bars and clubs. I managed to nearly blow myself up with mexican fireworks (photos will be posted later). Overall our adventures in Mexico have taught me to appreciate our clean cities and our safety regulatoins concerning fireworks.

After flying back to Sacramento on the 1st i slept for a couple days in Davis waiting for a ride home to Nevada City. When I finally made it home the next couple of days I spent madly painting and sanding my car getting it ready for a final color that was applied this past saturday.

So, now that you all know what I did over my christmas vacation, you should all take pity on me because I never got a chance to go snowboarding. Please, someone take me snowboarding.

So. You’re all back in school. Well, maybe not. Let me start again.

For those of you who haven’t started back to school, you can bite my ass. For those of you who have gone back to school the early mornings and late nights might be forcing you to procrastinate doing your homework once more. And for that reason I will indulge you in the happennings to Mazer over the christmas break.

I started off my break with a couple days of nothing. Absolutely nothing. I sat on the couch and watched TV while stoking the fire and trying to stay warm without a heater. My father seemed to see opportunity in me and made me dig some ditches to lay new gas pipe. This, was not fun. Aside from the fact that digging sucks, everything was wet and muddy, adding to the frustration of digging on a hill around roots and other gas pipes. Realizing that sitting idle at home only screamed cheap labor to my father I began work on my car. For those of you who have seen, or heard about, my car you know that it desparately needed a new paint job, so that’s what I set out to do. The few days preceeding christmas eve were spent sanding the hell out of my car and filling my garage with a thin, light green fog of paint dust. Upon finishing the initial sanding I made a makeshift paintshop in my dad’s building. Christmas eve arrived loud and uninvited. Prime rib among other things were on the table that night and gifts were exchanged afterward between friends. The following morning brought me a new digital camera (which you all will see samples from sometime) along with a new set of mechanics tools for me to fuck my car with. Later that christmas day my family tried to cross over to Carson City Nevada and found failure waiting for us not too far down the road. The next day was the day to drive to San Diego with Enigma and my girl Val. I’ve only got one thing to say about the drive down. People in Nor-Cal do drive slower than those in So-Cal.

This is getting too long for one post. So… tune in to the exciting conclusion tomorrow!