Root beer. A favorite of mine for ages. For many years, I thought that the world of root beer was made up of A&W, Barqs, and sometimes Dad’s, but the world of root beer (and soda in general) is far greater than you could ever imagine. Enter Rocket Fizz, a soda and candy lover’s dream.

I stumbled on this place a few weeks ago and had to go in for a look. It’s incredible. Filled with tin signs, tons of candy (they have a huge salt water taffy selection), and of course, soda. The place is filled with an enormous assortment of soda’s from all around the world (Mexican Coke and bottled Dr. Pepper. GOLD!). But there was one specific part of the store that got my immediate attention, the root beer wall. I still haven’t gotten an exact count, but the place has root beer for days.

I asked if there were any favorites and was promptly handed a small carrier and given four root beers I had never heard of. After trying one of these I decided I would in time try them all and give a small review. Now, I start my Saturday mornings with my morning coffee followed by a trip to the soda shop for four new root beers. The fridge looks gnarly right now. Bottles in every compartment. I’ll be putting those reviews up soon, but in the meanwhile let me just say that there is some amazing micro-brewed goodness out there. Some really amazing stuff.

What comes after the root beer? Sarsaparilla, root beer with a bit more bite, and then…cola.

If you’re in Old Town Pasadena anytime soon, check out Rocket Fizz and ask for Mark. The place is definitely worth a visit.

ROCKET FIZZ
111 West Green Street
Pasadena, CA 91105
626-449- 7632

When I was five years old, my older brother and I would sit on the living room floor drawing or coloring listening to my mom sing. She’d dance around the house cleaning, stopping every now and then to get one of us to join her. Those are few in not so many happy childhood memories. Memories that could not have existed without the music of Michael Jackson. So you can understand how hearing of his death today has been a pretty sad thing to experience.

Michael has been through some shit in his life. As of late, these molestation accusations which we still don’t even fully know are true or not. On top of that, the dude was a physical disaster, a freak even, but can you really blame him for turning out to be the person he became? A product of fucked up parenting, abuse, and childhood stardom yielded a very misunderstood man in my opinion. More like a child trapped inside a man. It’s fucking tragic.

In a way, when I think about all the shit he’s had to deal with, his death must have been a welcome release. He can finally be left alone (hopefully). On the verge of this epic comeback tour, it’s seriously fucked to have him pass. The skeptic in me started hoping he had momentarily Tupac’ed to make some awesome back from the dead tour. But no, he has gone. How he died, who knows? I’m willing to bet it was suicide, but the presence of his doctor at his place makes things quite sketchy.

It’s a shame. Michael was a genius. The moonwalk, Thriller, Billie Jean. Legendary. Seen a few greats fall in my lifetime to-date, but he’s by far the biggest to go thus far. Along with Michael, Farrah Fawcett has passed. And shit, even Billie Mays, the bearded dude who yelled at people through the TV. Fucking shame.

Michael, thanks for the happy memories your music made and will continue to make possible. R.I.P.

I got robbed last night at knife point by two assholes. That brings the count to 2 times at gunpoint, and 4 at knife point. What a wonderful world we live in. Like I said earlier it’s been a pretty stressful week. A lot of life drama, home issues, and world issues of course. None of it brings a smile to my face. So yesterday I decided to leave work a little early and go home and skate. My way of relaxing and just letting off steam. Then this shit happens.

A block away from home on Beverly, one dude came around the corner on a bike and rode past me then another dude pulled out right in front. I could faintly make out what he was saying since I had my headphones on. I took them off and hear, “your feria (money) homey!” and then *flick* out comes the knife. My initial reaction was to pick my board up and back up a bit. Then a little poke to my back let me know douche bag “A” that rode past me was in cahoots and was already behind me with his knife. Nothing strange or really scary about it. Just frustrating. I said, “alright homey chill, I know how this shit works. But I don’t have any money on me man.” He kept blabbing on in his cool guy gangster speak demanding money, but seriously, I had nothing on me. His buddy took the board, and the one guy took my ipod. I thought this shit was done. They took everything I had. But of course not. He thought I was lieing to him. He kept demanding money, and I kept saying I didn’t have any. That’s when it got a little serious cus his knife went to my throat. I’m thinking wow, if this dude is going to kill me, it’s going to be for nothing, I don’t carry money on me. I said the only thing that came to mind, “I don’t carry cash on me when I skate because of people like you foo.” He didn’t like that much, but after a tense minute, they took off, and I had to walk home feeling like a bitch.

Now, here’s the thing. Why? Like seriously. Why do that to another human being? A good friend told me it’s drugs. Which would make total sense. It’s people like this that perpetuate stereotypes. Talk about making your race look stupid. I’m pissed that it happened, livid. And it makes it all the more worse that society makes it so that no one gets involved. If you know Beverly, you know how busy the damn street is. You think anyone got involved. Fuck no. All I wanted to do was relax and have a good sweat to vent. Instead I have my board taken, and my ipod jacked by a dude who won’t like any of the music on there and probably doesn’t even own a computer and if he did wouldn’t know what to do with the shuffle anyways. Lets be honest, that’s probably the case. But again, why? I feel sorry for individuals that need to take something from someone else in order to get by. Bad parenting? No parenting? Retardation? Lack of education? Struggling economy? Society? Who’s to blame? And shit, should I feel like a bitch? In my mind I think a board I got for free, and a shuffle aren’t anything worth getting stabbed over.

The world is a piece of shit nowadays. You have people dieing in vain, scientist letting their curiosity further fuck with the world, people starving. Ultimately it’s because of all that, that losing what I lost is not a big deal, it’s all replaceable. But in a time when I’m already bummed on society, this thing just did it for me. I’m so done right now, just too fucking angry. It’ll pass but it’s a bitch.

Will I stop skating around my neighborhood? Fuck no. As a matter of fact I’m sure I’ll see “goofy”, “jester”, “dopey” or what ever the fuck his stupid name is, and his buddy again. At which time I could only hope karma does it’s job. I mean personally, I think it already has, because the dude is probably going to die soon and leave behind a single mom (just playing the stats). I’m ashamed to be hispanic/latino for at least a brief moment because of people like that. It just doesn’t make sense…

I wish it was Friday so at least I could say the week was over, but nope. 2 more days. Lets see what other shit can happen. Take care people, it’s all we all can really do.

I also was lucky enough to work on the marketing side of one Cloverfield’s many viral sites. I got to design and illustrate the colorful flavor bots on www.slusho.jp which has definitely been a very interesting experience. It’s a very strange feeling to see something you created generate so many ideas and stories. Once the site went live and the robots were added there were so many theories on their meanings and their relationship to the film. It’s definitely been kinda funny to hear what some of the die-hard fans had to say. And even more of a trip is to see what some fans did with them for the commercial contest that was put together. A friend sent me this link the other day where somebody animated the robots and even made a 3D version of one.

If anyone is still interested I went ahead and made some tees with the artwork over at www.cafepress.com/go_tee.

As for the movie itself. I think it lived up to the hype and dare I say, exceeded it. The handycam movements did make me a little queezy at times but the discomfort was a definite plus in my book. I was fully sucked into the film for an hour and a half panic attack. It was fucking great! I’ve heard a lot of shit talking since. People love to hate and with a film having so much build up, it’s easy to say it didn’t live up to it. I must admit that I was a bit skeptical at times. I mean most shit that gets as much of a push as Cloverfield usually does fail, but that didn’t happen here. Every opportunity in the film were shit could’ve gotten real cheesy, something awesome happened. So yup, a total success in my book. Do yourself a favor, take some Dramamine and check it out. The monster is like nothing you’d imagine it would be.

New Years resolutions? Yes, I can think of five right that I need to stick to:

1. Paying off debt and moving out.
2. Exercising more.
3. Eating healthier.
4. Taking more time for friends and family.
5. Exercising creative energy.

The funny thing about my resolutions is that I know that they will all be greatly impacted by the first. Moving out will force me into a lifestyle that’s better for me. At this point in my life, I need that change, and I can’t wait. I’ve also come up with something to help me exercise my creative energy without sitting around having to brainstorm for hours. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a list of things I want to do. Projects, illustrations, photos and the like. So, I wrote them all down on separate little slips of paper and put them all in a little box. The idea is that every week I’ll pick one thing out of the box and give myself a time line to complete it. It may seem a little dumb, but I know it’ll force me into keeping productive during down time.

With all the downs this year however, there was one event that made up for a lot of the crap. A life changing event for sure. My trip to New York. Life changing indeed. Until then I had never been outside the state and getting out all the way across the country opened my eyes to a lot of things. Everything about the trip made me realize things about myself that I don’t think I would have otherwise taken notice of. With all the anxiety about the trip prior to going, I was surprised to see how well I dealt. I finally got pictures to upload and I’ll do that next week sometime.

I feel like 2008 is going to be awesome, it has to be. I’ll be turning 25 in January and will hopefully be apartment shopping before Summer. The blog will also be turning 1 year old on my birthday. I’ll have to do something to commemorate that. Till next year!

Last Friday EA finally released it’s groundbreaking title “Skate”. This game is tons of fun and a breath of fresh air as far as skateboarding games go. Basically if you’ve ever played any of the Tony Hawk games and gotten annoyed by the ridiculous unrealistic physics, this is a must. The majority of the stuff you can do in the game can be done in real life. There are some goals and objectives but you can seriously spend hours just cruising around the city skating spots.

You get to create your own character and they give you a good deal of control (hairstyles aside) to create someone that looks a lot like you. I took a few pictures which you can see by clicking below.

Sweet merciful monkey juice…In the history of retarded movies there have been few to match the disaster that is “Shoot Em’ Up”. This was bad, like Chuck Norris flick bad minus the Chuck.

So last night I decided to go watch a movie with Dave. We both agreed that we should watch something completely retarded, and so we decided on Shoot Em’ Up. We knew this was probably going to be pretty stupid, but at the very least there would be some serious ass-kickings, and Clive Owen ass-kickings are some of the best. In that regard, yes, the movie delivered if not over-delivered. There was tons of action. Not 5 minutes in, Clive Owen is pushing a carrot through some dude’s head. The movie was filled with moments like those. Random dialog, crappy pointless editing, then bam! another shoot-out. Monica Belluci (so hot) has some crappy lines, and yes, gives a guy a BJ in an alley behind a dumpster. Why? Well to make enough money to buy the baby a bullet-proof vest of course…yes, it gets that retarded.

You see, what happened here is that the director was probably thinking about this movie for ages. Maybe it’s one of those things “he’s always wanted to do”, and so the excitement of actually getting to create all these action sequences made him forget that the movie had to actually be watchable and make sense. Now it very easily could’ve been a success, shit maybe even a cult classic. Had at any point in the movie, any one of the characters paused after a corny line, maybe glanced over at the camera, letting you know that yes…I just said something retarded but you’re not here for the dialog or a plot, then maybe the whole thing would’ve been laughable (which it was) and you’d leave saying, “wow, that guy sure knew how to make a bunch of violence and action rather humorous”. But what happened was quite the opposite. Instead you get these scenes that are poorly edited, long chats that make absolutely no sense, and the ultimate fuck-up, a sappy, 10 minute, sad attempt at trying to give the movie any meaning.

The movie sucked, for fucks sake, Clive Owen jumps out of a plane and has a shoot-out with a bunch of parachuting agents. I’m sure that 20 years from now I’ll look back at it and laugh hard. This thing made every Chuck Norris movie look like a Spielberg flick (including the Walker Texas Ranger T.V. series). It was just that bad.

Very smart from begining to end, and very very funny. However what really made the movie special were the in between moments, the “serious” moments, that made the movie really shine. Very awesome. Kudos to them for doing what many try and few succeed in, making a movie from a TV show that actually lives up to the hype. If you haven’t seen it, shame on you. See it on the big screen!

Now all was not perfect. There were a few really poor editing points where things were very obviously voice overed. I also thought it was kinda hard to believe downtown L.A. Is Washington DC when you don’t remove the library and the Bonaventure Hotel from the shot. But as soon as you remember that this is an over the top action flick, all is forgiven. Automatic 10 stars for Bruce who fights a fighter jet, and wins.

Plot wise, scary/interesting. Hope that shit never really happens. Go check it out. It’s a fun time.