Short trip report thread

[MagicNinja]

whoiam; don't you feel like a huge gangsta in lao tho with a huge roll of kip just to buy a lao beer?

[cbloom]

Went to Sequoia for 3 nights, last Wes - Sat, with GF. Lots of hiking, saw a few bears (one mom and cub), marmots, got totally lost and wandered off trail for a while which was fun. Went swimming in the 33 degree water.

One big photo of the alpine area near Heather Lake :

http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/1...ropsizedi7.jpg

One tip : if you stay at Lodgepole definitely reserve ahead and get a spot in "upper lodgepole" near the creek. We're lazy and didn't reserve and had to stay down in the [censored] lower area full of RV's one night.

[Los Feliz Slim]

Had my company's Eighth Anniversary shindig Friday night at Parao, a karaoke bar in Koreatown in Los Angeles. I've always wanted to go to one of these places, and this one was recommended on Citysearch. With employees and their spouses/significant others, it was about 30 people and we had Parao's large private room.

Obviously, people go to these places to get their drink on, which we did. The food wasn't too bad, though, especially these pot-sticker style things and some fried shrimp. We got a package for $999 that included 5 bottles of hard alcohol, some wine, 25 beers, and some food (plus the room for the night). We got a ton more food for another $200.

There are a ton of songs available for karaoke, and the system was relatively easy to use even when hammered. In the big room there's also a pretty awesome disco light thing. I sang The Gambler, Total Eclipse of the Heart, I Walk the Line, Living on a Prayer, and it gets hazy at that point.

While you're singing, on the video screens strange-looking Korean videos play. Then at 10PM, all of the sudden instead of videos it was Korean soft-core porn. We were all like WTF? I can imagine that NOT going over well at some company functions, fortunately we've got a laid-back group. If anything, the women thought it was funnier than the men.

One thing I'm curious about: the bartenders are all hot young Korean chicks, and we definitely got the impression they were selling more than drinks. At the very least, they're supposed to flirt hardcore, I dunno if there's more to it, but the odd and unsolicited porno kinda made us think.

At the end of the night while we were walking out an older Korean gentleman was calling the absolutely enormous black bouncers [censored] over and over (I'm sure that word is censored, it's the n-word). I had become friendly with the bouncers during the evening, and drunkenly decided I needed to keep them from killing the Korean guy because they'd go to jail for it and it wasn't fair. Fortunately they didn't let me get involved and were wise enough not to get baited into a race riot, so kudos to them for that.

All in all a great time, and it turns out I love karaoke, which isn't surprising considering I don't mind making an ass of myself. I'll definitely go back.

[StevieG]

Another Philly one:

Fight Night at the Legendary <font color="blue">Blue Horizon</font>

Entertaining night of boxing this past Friday night at the Blue Horizon in North Philly.

There were 9 bouts on the card, most scheduled for four rounds, with a couple scheduled for 6 and the main event at 8 rounds. As the fights got longer, they also got better, and the ring girls wore skimpier outfits.

Best bout of the night was the main event. Light middleweight Harry Joe Yorgey landed plenty of punches against Edson Aguirre, and was in clear control the entire way. But Aguirre withstood the punishment and Yorgey had to settle for a unanimous decision.

Quickest was in the last bout when heavyweight Farug Saleem landed a fierce uppercut early and sent his opponent to the mat. Ref called it a TKO at 1:01.

The $2 hot dogs and $6 16 oz beers worked just fine, but it was too hot in the ballroom to drink more than a couple. So afterward we hit Chinatown for some midnight eats.

Looking forward to going again, or maybe Michaels 8th Avenue closer to Baltimore.

[El Diablo]

LFS,

"The Gambler, Total Eclipse of the Heart, I Walk the Line, Living on a Prayer"

That is a hot set.

[samjjones]

[ QUOTE ]
LFS,

"The Gambler, Total Eclipse of the Heart, I Walk the Line, Living on a Prayer"

That is a hot set.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed. However, given the fact that this was a "couples" event, I'm wondering if LFS didn't leave some equity on the floor by passing up such panty dropping duets as "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and "Time Of My Life" from Dirty Dancing.

[Los Feliz Slim]

My wife refused to participate but I forced her to get involved in Living on a Prayer.

My employees have informed me that I performed a rousing Jeremy by Pearl Jam, Sweet Home Alabama, and closed with something by the Monkees, either I'm a Believer or Daydream Believer, depending who you ask.

Also, it turns out that someone DID turn on the porno, it wasn't automatic.

EDIT: I did not sing these all at once, it was during the course of the night (which is also why I can't remember the last ones, because they came at the end when I was shellacked).

[samjjones]

[ QUOTE ]
My wife refused to participate but I forced her to get involved in Living on a Prayer.

My employees have informed me that I performed a rousing Jeremy by Pearl Jam, Sweet Home Alabama, and closed with something by the Monkees, either I'm a Believer or Daydream Believer, depending who you ask.

Also, it turns out that someone DID turn on the porno, it wasn't automatic.

[/ QUOTE ]

Jesus...so you ended up singing like 8 songs? Your title needs to be changed to "The Bruce Springsteen of Karaoke".

[WhoIam]

[ QUOTE ]
whoiam; don't you feel like a huge gangsta in lao tho with a huge roll of kip just to buy a lao beer?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure when you went, but they now have 50,000 kip ($5) notes, so it's not as bad as it was. Still there were a couple times when the ATM ran out of them and I withdrew a million kip in 10 and 20k notes. It might as well be a million dollars given how cheap everything is here. I stayed at a pretty nice hotel my first week here and paying the bill with a huge stack of bills felt pretty balla.

A bunch of crazier stuff has happened the past few days, but it's probably better suited for OOT.

[corndog]

[ QUOTE ]
Good meal, but the dude tried to (inadvertently?) rip us off on the wine by charging us the wrong price, then correcting it to a different wrong price. I wonder how often this happens. I'm checking my restaurant bills more often now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just a quick comment on this. You should always check your bills, especially with large parties or more expensive tickets in general.

We had a guy in our town who recently got arrested for adding expensive bottles of wine to larger parties, then would take the wine home for himself. Apparently he had gotten away with this for over a year before getting caught. Goes to show how easy it is to get away with something like this unless the customers are carefully checking their bills.