A Back-Words Weekend Recap

I'm typing this blog post from my pop's house in Granada Hills. Right now, he's out of the country for a few days, including Thanksgiving. To you it sounds odd that one's parents won't be around to bake and cut the Turkey and digest the stuffing inside it while watching a ball game either taking place at Detroit or Dallas. I'm used to that already. Between 2000 and 2008, its mostly him or my moms who would spend the entire month of November traveling to Nigeria, and one of them would stay and have the traditional Americana Thanksgiving dinner. But since my pops got remarried three years ago, he's been hosting gatherings at his place where my relatives and cousins would swing by and I'd have conversation with them while on a full stomach.

Its been a month and a half since I slept over at the house, where I spent the majority of my middle school and high school years at while sharing a room with my little brother until I moved back from spending the summer at Oxnard in 2006. All my siblings have moved out the past few months and they haven't stopped by here in a while, and its been already over a year since I moved out to Sylmar. I got here yesterday morning before the rain started to pour like crazy and watched the Green Bay/Tampa Bay game on the big screen HDTV in the living room. I turned it off after the third quarter cause I was feeling really tired and I'd wanted to go lie down on my old bed in my old room that I haven't slept on in a while. I was gone in some random lucid inception-type dreams for a few hours. I woke up later and order Papa Johns pizza cause there wasn't anything good in the kitchen and watched Sunday Night Football while feasting on the $17 extra large pizza that I ordered, and that shit was worth it. The New York Giants were supposed to win that game but they got picked off at the end by one of Philadelphia's defense around the two minute warning, and also they had Vince Young at Quaterback since Michael Vick is out. To me, that was an upset that the Eagles won that game at Giants Stadium... I mean, Met Life Stadium (seriously, fuck corporate stadium names). I didn't watch the rest of the games during week 11 cause they were all too predictable and bland, just like this entire weekend.

Saturday was another ordinary day. Nothing really happened and a lot of people other than my pops are out of town also. Went to my church to catch the last few minutes of the sermon. When it was finished, I went to the potluck room, then went home five minutes later. I was originally gonna go with my brother to a church either in Simi Valley or somewhere in the 818 like Van Nuys or the one next to his place in Canoga, but he didn't want to get out of his bed when I called him that morning which led me going to the one near my house. The rest of the day was just editing and touching up on some photos.

Now the day before on Friday, I attended the opening day of the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show. The showrooms were all the same like last year, just with newer cars, but I didn't really care about it that much. I only attended to test drive every car that they had available outside this year. Before I did that, I ran into Tanner Foust who was talking to some of the other attendees in the Lobby. I met him last year with my homeboy Jeremy while we went to a taping of the American version of Top Gear. He did recognize me for a bit and told me that they're still filming some episode. After talking to him for a bit I went to go drive some whips.

The test drive took up a lot of my time. I drove every car they had except the Dodges, Toyotas, Chryslers (I really wanted to drive in the new 300c and the Challenger), Kias and whatever new compact car that Mitsubishi had that's not named the Lancer. Its not cause they suck, but there wasn't that much time and all the test drives end at 5PM. The whips that I did try out was all the GM cars from Buick, GMC and Chevrolet. They had Cadillac there also, but I driven their cars SO MANY times this year that I'm already used to them. They only difference was that they had the entire V lineup for the attendees to drive and I was like WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?!?! I was told months before that the V cars can only be test driven at a closed course track due to its INSANE RIDICULOUS HORSEPOWER OUTPUT PERFORMANCE that made the CTS-V the fastest American production sedan in the world. I never driven their V-series and that would've been my opportunity to do so, but I didn't wanna risk getting pulled over in downtown while burning fuel with over 550 horses. If this was at the desert or someplace completely open, then I'd drive it, but not in the city.

I did however drove the Chevy Camaro SS Transformer edition. That shit can fucking scream. I'd had TOO MUCH fun driving it. Yes, its fast and all, but that was my first time driving a Camaro. I knew the SuperSport was gonna be quick beyond my expectations. One of the funnest cars I've ever drove. I then drove some Lincolns and a couple of Fords. The REALLY stepped it up the Explorer. My parents used to have the second and third generation Explorer, and I wanted to see what the new one look like. The dashboard and the navigation panel looked like absolutely nothing than the previous models, and plus the SUV now reduces emissions and has a decent EPA rating from Ford's Ecoboost technology.

Then I made my way to the Hyundai section and the cars that they had were no fucking joke, especially the 5.0 R-spec Genesis Sedan. Jesus Christ, that whip can FLY! I also drove the Equus Ultimate sedan that has gotten a few talk since it came out and that car was the sleekest, swagged out vehicle I've ever driven since I rode in my uncle's BMW 750LI three years ago. That car has SO MUCH TECH. Cameras on the side of the cars, a control console entirely built into the back seat, a refrigerator and a fucking massage feature for the back seat. That blew my mind, hell I could've rode in the back seat instead of driving it. Shit was Birdman in a Maybach status. Finally I drove the Elantra and already fell in lust with it. I'd recommend that over a Toyota Corolla, a Nissan Sentra, a Ford Focus and a Chevy Cruze that took me away in interest until I drove the Elantra. 10 years and 100,000 mile warranty on this car? You can say no to it, real talk. I didn't drive the Sonata cause I didn't feel like it, they didn't have the Genesis Coupe to drive and I forgot to check out the new Veloster. Shoutout to Hyundai Motors for doing whatever they doing to get to change people perspectives on considering automobiles and making them enjoyable to drive and major props to the staff at the LA Auto Show for another great experience this year.

When it got dark, I wanted to eat at the ESPN Zone just a block away, but the appeal didn't seen to catch on me since there's no NBA season for now. I always go there whenever there's a Lakers game taking place across the street, but not this time. So I left and just walked over to the Five Star Bar to see Darger De Milo perform for the first time without my friend Nicole Stetter. They actually did great as an all male group, no changes to the rhythm at all. Talked and mingled with some of my friends there who attended the Five Star bar and then went home after Darger De Milo performed. I didn't stay till the placed closed like I usually do, but I was at the Los Angeles Convention Center all damn just driving and looking at cars that I'll never obtain.

I'm sure you notice that I've gone backwards in this weekend recap. I don't even know why I did that, but from looking at it, the unorthodox chronological order went from worst to best. Thanks for taking your time to read this and enjoy the Thanksgiving week.

Driving that Holiday Road Again

Yes, I saw Christina Aguilera last week in Hollywood getting her star in the Walk of Fame and yes, I randomly got pulled into a VIP section at the Saddle Ranch at Universal Citywalk to party and take photos of a dude who's celebrating his graduation from a Barber College.

Those two were probably the most interesting things that happened to me last week. I was gonna write about all that in detail this past Saturday using the Double space outline, but it didn't look great. So I erased everything that I spent 70 minutes typing and manually separating the lines, along with the photos I was gonna add. But honestly, I don't really like to post photos that much on here, except for only just out-of-the-blue one liners that I made up dealing with that particular day's current events.

Anyway, I finally checked out the Los Angeles Auto Show this past week. There were some positives and some negatives. The positive parts were the females showcasing the new cars being displayed. They looked attractive, as well as some of the whips. One of my favorite cars that were on the showroom was the Nissan Ellure concept sports car and seeing the Lexus LF-A in person for the first time. The also had this custom made fine tuned two door Toyota Camry that was inspired by NASCAR. Another car that they had on display that I liked is the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, which is the FASTEST domestic American sports cars in the world. The engine, which you can see through the small glass on the hood only on the ZR1, is the LS9 Supercharged V8 that goes to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds. That's FUCKIN' QUICK FOR AN AMERICAN CAR!

This is where in the negative comes in. You can sit inside majority of the cars the had at the event, but not cars like the ZR1, along with the Audi R8 and the Nissan GTR. I wanted to sit inside the ZO6 Corvettes instead, but there were too many fuckin' people wanting to take turns. That was the same for the 3.8 Liter Hyundai Genesis Coupe V6 and the 2011 Nissan Maxima, two of my other favorite imports. I mostly sat inside some Infiniti models, the new Acura ZDX crossover SUV, and pretended like I was driving manual on a Honda Civic two-door coupe. They also let people test drive some cars from Fords model line. They had all of the cars they produced, including a 2011 Mustang that was customized with aftermarket rims and other parts.

The test drive part should've fallen on the positive category, but again, too many damn people wanted to drive the Mustang as opposed to the other cars, including the new Ford Taurus SHO, which stands for Super High Output. I only drove two cars, the F-150 and the Taurus SHO. The F-150 felt like driving my mom's Ford Explorer, except that this truck is a bit larger, and it had a lot of options that should've been a comeback of the discontinued Lincoln Mark LT pickup, which was also made by Ford. The Taurus SHO was a very awesome car. The black girl who was instructing the test drive with me inside the sedan made it more awesome, and made the ride more comfortable by driving over 300 horses on the Streets of LA around the Staples Center and the Convention Center. That car is very underestimated, even though Ford discontinued it back in 2006 and brought it back last year as part of the Detroit company's rebuilding process.

When we got back to the Convention Center, the line for the Ford Taurus SHO was LONGER than the line for the Ford Mustang, and I can see why from the test drive I just did.

I didn't stay too long for the entire convention cause I wanted to get back to the Valley before the traffic got ridiculous on the freeways and all the roads. Unfortunately, I spoke WAY too soon. The freeways were getting packed and all the streets and roads were on a gridlock. No surprise here, cause that means the unofficial start of this holiday season which will last until January 2nd, since New Years Day counts as it. Theses photos I took below was when I was on Foothill Blvd coming from my place in Sylmar heading to my pop's house in Granada Hills for Thanksgiving. Later on that night, I went to Nicole's place for a little pre-Thanksgiving housewarming party.

By the way, Thanksgiving went well yesterday. Mostly family business obviously. Spent majority of the time watching movies on Netflix with my cousins. The thing I didn't like that the movies weren't available in High Definition, but the quality is still decent. It was fun though. Plus, I just found out that my pops got Toy Story 3 on DVD the day before. I wanted him to get the OG version on VHS back in 1996, but he only rented it. I remember playing it like 10 times on the weekend that he rented the home video cause I was VERY addicted to that film that time. I had all the toys from Burger King and this one kid at my school had a 1996 Toy Story calendar that had me in amazement. Unfortunately, my parents wouldn't buy it cause that shit was $14.95 plus tax, which is expensive for a calendar. I haven't seen the third one yet, but I'll give it a chance when I get the time since I saw the first two both in theaters on its original release dates in 1995 and 1999. Many people, including some dudes, told me they cried at the end, but to me, that's sounds bullshit.

By the way, fuck Black Friday. That shit is one of the core reasons why that many people don't know the true meaning of the holidays. Hell, there were fools camping outside Wal-Marts for 24 Hours celebrating Thanksgiving out in the damn cold before the store opens. And why the fuck is it opening at midnight? I remember going with my moms to Wal-Mart back in the day around my Junior High School years for black friday. We got there when they opened at 6 AM and escaped the store with EVERY ITEM that was on sale. The crowd wasn't that crazy when we got there. Now when you go there, its like camping out for a pair of limited Air Jordans in 2005 or a meet and greet to see the main cast of The Twilight Saga or some shit like that. Every year, there's at least 10 stores in Southern California that has a news story about some pregnant mother getting into a fight with another pregnant mother or a some old dude getting ran over by crowds and fight breaking out. Yet, the recession is still going on and I think they should have these type of prices everyday instead of the day after Thanksgiving. But again, those greedy white-collar corporate suit bastards want more money, which is what the holidays are now mostly about in certain people's minds. I really don't like talking about this every year, but its very obvious as you look around. If I lived in small town that I've never heard of before, then this whole holiday shopping (I don't like to say Christmas Shopping cause not everyone is Christian) frenzy would be completely foreign to me. Now I have to endure this holiday marketing crap until the first week of January.

One more thing before I forget. This may sound very juvenile, but MILEY IS NO LONGER UNDERAGED!!!! Is that why their parents were splitting up? Now all the single thirsty dudes of all ages will get to sleep very well. Hey, its a fact. I'll let these photos I didn't take make you decide.