Maligayan Pasko!
Christmas time...what a great holiday. The long weekend and the getting together of family. You have to love it...and I do.

We had our holiday party at work on Thursday at Dave and Busters at the Spectrum and it was actually really nice. It was so much nicer than our parking lot bbq's that I'm accustomed to. We actually had a space reserved by the pool tables where we ate and then played pool and shuffleboard and they even gave us $10 Powercards to play games in the arcade...it was great! Yeah, too bad I had to finish some stuff up in the lab afterwards, but that's alright...if I get it done now I won't have to worry about it when I'm supposed to go back to work the day after Christmas (meaning I won't have to come in).

Friday I spent trying to hunt for the freaking Nintendo Wii and I failed. None of the stores that I went to had them and some of them had lines waiting for midday shipments that may or may not have them. People were waiting 2 hours to just see if the UPS guy had them...and a lot of them didn't. WOW! I do have a Nunchuck and a Remote, but that does me no good when I don't have a Wii. Oh well.... I ran off to do other errands instead of waiting around for non-existant deliveries of Wii's. Cat and I headed off to John Wayne (thanks Joes for the ride) to fly up to Oakland to celebrate Christmas with Cat's family.

We spent Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning there in Union City and it was fun being around her family, eating lots of food, watching them open presents (and opening mine too), playing with their dogs, and just being lazy the whole weekend. Good times. We even attempted to play "Sinking Ship" which isn't a good idea to do with tiny 6 year olds who get smashed. Cat and I went to Christmas Vigil mass and it was just crazy to see a whole church filled with Filipinos...I felt like I was in the Philippines for Christmas (which I've done before and was pretty fun).

Monday morning we flew back to OC and we drove up to PV to celebrate christmas with my family. Good times again just eating again, opening presents, and just hanging out. My little neices and nephew are growing up so fast.

I was supposed to go to work on Tuesday but I was lazy and since I pretty much finished everything the before I left last week, I just decided not to go. Ahhhhh....sgreat. Cat took me to breakfast at the Ramos House in San Juan Capistrano...great breakfast and awesome atmosphere right there next to the train tracks and historic San Juan Capistrano. Then we went to shop a little at Fashion Island. We didn't buy anything, but we were just walking around and window shopping. In Bloomingdales I saw this girl that looked really familiar and then when her little sister mentioned her name I realized who it was. It was Lexie from MTV's Laguna Beach...man, she's TINY.

After a long day of shopping and driving around I was just pooped (Cat could tell I was tired because I was so quiet) and so we just went home where we relaxed for the rest of the day. Ahhhhhh...sgreat.

Well, 2 more days of work for me for this year and then I'm off for the long ass drive up to Lake Tahoe to celebrate NYE there. Wooo hooo!!! I hope you all had a great Christmas like I did. Such is the life of Joe...

Wii have a problem
Another great weekend comes to an end. Time for work, but this week right before Christmas is useless...I'm hardly working at all and all I'm thinking is where I can get a Nintendo Wii and what other presents do I need to make.

Watched the Nutcracker on Wednesday. Thanks Karen and Joesan!!! It was pretty good, I guess...I'm no expert in ballet, but it was nice to watch it. Ballet tights are really revealing...dudes tights look like they were painted on. Too bad all the girls had stuff over their tights though....i mean.....

Friday I told me boss I wasn't going into work because I didn't feel like it and because I wanted to start on my Christmas shopping. Got half of it done...you'd think the malls would be empty since everyone is at work...wrong...it was still packed...but not as packed as it would've been if I waited after work to shop. After a long day of shopping I met up Cat at her work and we went to Wilson Creek Winery in Temecula for her company party. I love whenever her company has a party because they pick us up on awesome coaches, have beer, wine and snacks on board, and we have free food and drinks once we get to the destination. It was good times and I had a lot of fun there. Her co-workers are really cool.

Saturday we woke up early to go rock climbing for Sol and Boj's birthday. It was really fun even though I'm scared of heights. I think I did 5 or 6 walls and was just tired by the end of it. After going home, I could barely pick stuff up because my forearms were killing me!!! We just rested for a while and then headed out to Boj's Christmas party. Good times just eating, drinking, white elephant, and hanging with friends. We also played this AWESOME game called "sinking ship". At first we were wondering why we had to take off shoes and jewelry and stuff...but as we started to play the game we realized why. So much fun, even better when you've been drinking, but yeah...it gets very physical.

Cat and her girls then went and had "girl talk" for a while and I just sat and watched Justin on SNL. I have to admit, he's a good actor, and there were some hilarious skits especially "D!ck in a box". HA HA HA! hilarious!!! Yeah, it was about 2am when the girls started their 'girl talk' and they didn't finish until 5am. It's good to know that Cat has a group of best girlfriends who look over each other and can have 'heart to hearts' with. I stayed up all that time because I was planning on going to Target or Best Buy early on Sunday morning to get a Nintendo Wii.

I got to Target in the Tustin Marketplace around 5:15 am and they already had 50 people in line! I saw that there were over 20 at Game Stop and so i went over to Best Buy where there were over 50 people...same at Toys R Us. This was all at 5:15am....3 hours BEFORE they opened! DAMN! I drove all the way to the Target at the Spectrum and they had at least 70 people in line and so I finally went to the Target at Foothill Ranch were there were only maybe 25-30 people and so I got in line. I probably waited an hour (until around 6:30am) when they handed out tickets...they only had 13!!!! DAMMIT!!!!!! So I went home defeated. Boooooooooooooo....

It was a great weekend nonetheless. Good times all around. Thanks Boj, Sol, and Mimi for a great time at rock climbing and the Christmas party. Now it's time for me to look for a Wii....such is the life of Joe...

I'm Old
Yeah, I know, I've been lazy to post...maybe it's my old age or whatever. But thank you to everyone who emailed, texted, called, IM'ed, myspaced, and came out to celebrate my birthday. WOO HOO!!! 359 days left of being in my 20's!!! Damn, I'm old.

Yeah, so Friday night before my birthday Cat had a sushi night at the apartment with the roomies and Ryan, Belle, and Lou. Good times making our own hand rolls, drinking beer, and taking shots of sake. Plus I kicked ass (almost) in Scene It. It was me versus all of them (Cat, Joesan, Karen, Ryan, Belle, and Lou) and I almost beat them. (FLASHDANCE!!! I'm a maniac...maniac....). Thanks for helping me ring in my birthday at midnight. Cat surprised me with some cupcakes from Sprinkles...MMMMMMM DELICIOUS!!!

Saturday was just a lazy day for me. It was my actual birthday but I really don't make a big deal over my birthday anyways...it's just another day. So all I did was just sit around, watch TV, and hang out. Pretty chill. But doing nothing on my birthday is a NO NO to Cat, since she is a professional party planner. We went out to dinner at Sorrento Grille in Laguna Beach. When we got there, everything was perfect. We got a nice table right next to the fireplace, the wine bottle was already on the table, once we got seated they gave us bread and then they brought out the oysters she had preordered! How awesome is this! The only thing I had to do was order my entre. Dinner was great and we were just gonna go out and walk around Laguna...or so I thought.

I thought we were just gonna walk around, look at some shops, head over to Main Beach or something...but we walked towards Ocean's, and then we were paying cover, and then I see my friends there...Tommy, Joesan, Karen, Yan Yan, Ryan, Lou, and Belle...SURPRISE!!! I was totally surprised. It was great. I had no idea and I didn't even see them until they yelled surprise! HA HA HA! And even more people showed up too! Fantone, Tin Tin, and Jeff arrived. I had a good time just kicking it with all of them and hanging out. Thanks guys for coming out and celebrating my birthday with me. Too bad I was blah on drinking....I was so full from dinner and the bottle of wine that we had at dinner had some effect also. But thanks so much for coming out!!! I have the best friends and also the best girlfriend...yes, I know I don't make a big deal about my birthday but it's nice to know that other people do.

Well, that's my birthday story. Pretty cool, huh? Thanks again for everyone that wished me (and Britney Spears) happy birthdays. Such is the life of Joe...