costin and i took the boat to the shop today after work. the guys were pretty nice, and apparently there was a pretty long list to get a boat in, but since i said i had talked to “jim” who didn’t mention the list and since i was there with the boat they took it. plus we’re just vip like that. anyway, they said that it wouldn’t be done by the weekend, so i guess no boating for us for a while, unless we can take out billy’s lake boat.

they had this cool fork lift with a tow hitch on the end to drive it around… i totally need to get one of those for when we put it back into the driveway :)

“A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005″
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530

“A looter carries a bucket of beer out of a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005″
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10908301723

“Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.(AFP/Getty Images/Chris Graythen) “
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/050830071810_shxwaoma_photo1

DAMN, and how much does that guy from the 2nd pic look like a black blanka?!

there are 3 damn billboards with this car on my way to work. pimpness ultimo.

and she didn’t get the tow package?!? =p

so something’s the fuck wrong with the boat. looks like it might be the universal joint or the gimble bearing in the outdrive, or worse. i called bay marine in signal hill they said from my description of the problem it might be $300-$600, which isn’t that bad, but i’m still in the midst of building my new bike, and i wanted to get a carbon fiber hood for my integra since the hood paint is getting so bad that it’s almost embarassing. anyway, i figure i should get the boat fixed asap, since there’s a a few good weekends of wakeboarding left in the summer, and lots of fishing to be done in the fall… i’ll still be able to finish the bike, and i guess the damn hood can wait :$

we took the boat out today to do some waterskiing around the stadium. we were out on the water for about 4 hours, but it was pretty warm out, and the water was glass at times. me and costin are getting braver and trying tricks at higher speeds. the boat’s also making a much better wake once it’s on plane at about 20 mph, i mean, 17 knots. =p all of these pictures were probably right before some devastating wipe-out.

ha! i just flipped to spike tv, and jaws 2 is on… right at the part, where there’s a waterskiier being pulled and jaws comes up and eats her. then it goes after the lady in the boat, who for some reason has canisters of gasoline, poors some on herself then shoots a flare into the boat exploding herself. that almost happened to us last week.

i honestly don’t get why he’s complaining. what guy wouldn’t want to be boned by 3 chicks at gunpoint. and they were apparently good looking enough that he went to have drinks with them first, so yeh… i just don’t get it?

—–
“Johannesburg - Police are due to release identikits on Friday of three women who reportedly gang-raped a West Rand man at gunpoint.

Captain Paula Nothnagel said on Thursday the 30-year-old man, raped on Saturday night by three women in turn, was still traumatised.

The women, who were in a maroon BMW, apparently stopped next to the man in Roodepoort to ask him for directions to a hotel.

He climbed into the vehicle to show them the way. Once there, they asked him to join them for a drink, which he apparently did.

They then asked directions to another hotel and again he went along to show them the way.

They reportedly took him to a secluded spot near a mine dump, produced a firearm, stripped and took turns having sex with him.

Nothnagel said a case of indecent assault had been opened.”
—–

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1760105,00.html

al came over at about 7:30 last night and we did a 30 mile ride in the dark in about 2 hours. we just took random streets heading towards the beach. we stopped by atlas/cosnet enterprises and bugged costin’s dad, ‘casue it happened to be right on the path we were heading, and we ended up in huntington beach at around 9. on the way back we tried to take random streets, but ended up going in a huge circle, stupid areas i don’t know/darkness. but once we got our bearings straight we hauled ass home. held 20+mph for the entire stretch of bolsa chica through sunset beach. we got home at about 10p and played poker with ben until about 1:30a. *sigh* it’s nice to have supplemental income again :)

this is kinda neat, but equally stupid:

A young job-seeker takes a seat in front of executives of ImageNet Co., one of Japan’s top Internet apparel retailers, during an interview on top of Mount Fuji, August 24, 2005. The job interview was held atop Japan’s highest mountain to make sure new employees have what it takes to scale the heights of business, the company said. 11 applicants out of 20 succeeded in reaching the 3,776-meter summit on Wednesday to attend the interview to try for one of four jobs on offer. Photo: Reuters

i’m getting pretty tired of those pussy frenchies bitching about an american winning thier most prestigious sport 7 times in a row now. i guess some newspaper in france tested urine samples from 1999 (lance’s first tour win year) and found traces of a drug “EPO”, a banned substance, that couldn’t be detected in tests until 2001. first of all, they can’t actually prove that it was his urine that they tested, and second, why do they still have lance’s piss from 7 years ago? anwyay it seems that it’s always the french that are trying to find a reason to tear down this guy, and tarnish his name, and it’s just kinda sad. even if he was taking this drug in 1999-2001, what about his last 4 wins, when this drug could be tested for and he still blew away the competition.

http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news?slug=ap-armstrong-doping&prov=ap&type=lgns

this drug EPO sounds pretty cool though. i guess it boosts oxygenated red blood cells to increase endurance… add that to my viagra-tequilla cocktail and i’ll be money, or dead.

edit: i also read this quote on another board: “Erythropoietin is very commonly used in patients who are undergoing chemotherapy. Chemo often causes significant drops in hemoglobin levels, and EPO helps boost hgb back up to safe levels.” anyway, just more food for thought, that he might’ve had trace levels of it in his system from then.

yesterday we took a half day and went up to la to watch a taping of will & grace. i’ve never even watched an episode of the show, but i guess shali really likes it and it was a reason not to go to work and it was free, so i didn’t see a reason not to. plus it’s exciting to be some small part of the hollywood magic, even if it’s only my annoying laugh in a soundtrack that probably will be replaced with a laugh-track.

we showed up kind early, like 2:30p or so and we got in what was already a pretty long line and i had been making fun of shali for wanting to show up so early. there were these two gay guys infront of us wearing matching “i am karen walker” t-shirts. i didn’t even who karen walker was, but it was still funny. then for the next 30 minutes 9 other gay guys wearing the exact same shirt joined their buddies. they were kinda cutting in front of us, but they were all feeling up and kissing each other so i figured better safe that i keep my distance. so finally the line starts moving and it gets stopped half way into the gay karen walker crowd. the organizers say there should be room for 14 more people, and there’s 6 gay guys, us 5 straight guys and then a huge line behind us, but it seems groovy. then a short while later, they come back and tell the gay group that there’s only 5 more places (there’s 6 of them left), and bam, they’re like “you guys have 5″? and we were on the bus to the studio. it was way fucked up and akward, ’cause shit i’ve never even seen the show, but we lucked out, we were the last people to get on the bus.

so we get there, thinking we’re the luckiest bastards ever, and when we get off the bus with our will & grace cards, they say they just sent up “the last 5″… turns out some jerks said that they were us, but luckily the organizers were fair, and pulled their asses out. so here was another akward situation as some real fans can’t see the show so i can. they all sneered at us too, it was funny, and scary.

the taping was pretty fun, but long as hell, we were actually sitting there for 6 hours or something. they gave us candy and there was a houseband and this comedian guy to entertain us between takes, but towards the end no one was laughing that loudly, ’cause everyone was pretty tired. it was a fun experience. after the show we lined up for the busses to take us back to the parking lot where we had come from. we were the last group to get on the first bus =P it was pretty uncanny how lucky we were. i can’t wait to see the episode now though. i bet i could recite every fucking line.

oh yeh, and shali shook eric mccormack’s hand, she was all giddy <3