CaBrewin! & Relay for Life!

So yeah, I know these were a while ago but I’ve been meaning to post about them!

Like a month ago on one of the first super sunny days this quarter about 8 of us Phi Delts went down to the boat area of beautiful UW campus and rented out a couple o canoes to row around Montlake area with the intention of drinkin’ a couple beers and enjoying ourselves.

Well that we did, that we did.

Here’s Peter, Brian and Sean havin a few and about to watch Joe jump off the bridge.

There’s Joe up on the 40 foot high (ish) bridge. Yes He jumps. Yes he was ballsy enough to do it before I was ready to take a picture so I didn’t get one of those awesome midair shots.

In case you’re wondering why we would jump off a freeway… It is pretty much a tradition that everyone go do this at least once in their 4 years at UW. Rent a canoe, paddle out to a certain spot, jump off the old abandoned freeway… I’ve done it like 3-4 times now probably in my visits taking younger Phi Delts there? I’ve only landed wrong once and really smacked my ass. It was a bit painful…. =P

OH BTW. On our way back we were a little stupid and tried to race……………Until 2 of our boats flipped over (mine included). VERY Stupidly, I had my iPod Nano and BRAND new cell phone in my pockets. Peter didn’t know how to swim but had a life jacket. Alex and Julian both had their cell phones in their pockets too ( who knows why we brought so many damn electronics out on the water with us….). Fortunately, both my ipod and my phone made miraculous recoveries and are now working perfectly. Unfortunately no one else’s stuff worked anymore… = \. It was definitely super funny though. I was so shocked we had fallen in I just couldn’t stop laughing my ass off. Hats off to everyone one that came! We’ll cabrew once more!

One more thing, I had gotten a speeding ticket and right when we were leaving to walk down to the boat area from our fraternity, I was like I’ll just drop it in a mailbox. So I stamped it and everything but didn’t find a mailbox. It disentigrated in my pocket in the water. Big hassle. =*(.

RELAY FOR LIFE!!

I’ve done this every year I think for like the last 6 or 7 years! This year was a blast! Sandra organized almost the entire thing and we actually ended up raising a lot of money too which is not very usual for us! Anyways, we spent most of the extremely cold night playing Mafia in one of the large tents. It was amazing.

UW Football stadium at night. Beautiful.

Byong and Kelln in the tent during Mafia. These 2 are hella good!!

Just in case you don’t know the rules of Mafia, here they are. This game is SOOOOO freaking fun! I love that you can play with just a small group of 5-6+ people and how it can keep everyone entertained and involved for a long time! Not only that but it is awesome fun manipulating and lying and convincing and deducing. I think the type of thinking you do in this game is really REALLY good for real life interactions in the workplace or in the classroom where you will often have to be prepared to sound or appear a certain way. Its kind of hard to describe but if any of you have not played, it is super fun and you should try it out!

Hilarious Mafia Music!!
Mafia by Azrael

One Piece Anime Review!

So for the last couple weeks/months I’ve been kinda getting back “into anime” and after seeing the conclusions of 2 of the best animes I had ever seen, I decided to pick it up as a hobby again.

I’m about 60 episodes deep into One Piece and I gotta say so far it is very entertaining. In a nutshell, One Piece is a fabled treasure left behind by the greatest Pirate of all time. It is often considered to be “everything in the world”. Enter Monkey D Luffy a goofy, lanky aspiring young pirate. He’s a one man crew and the only 2 things that set him apart from all the other pirates is his golden heart and his rubber body. In the world if One Piece, there exists many magical items including “devil’s fruit” which, when eaten, will give the “eater” a special power at random. Luffy’ happens to turn him into a man of rubber (more on this later). Luffy wants to be the greatest pirate ever, also known as the pirate king, and get the One Piece.

The anime is actually pretty kiddish in terms that the story lines are simple, the colors are vivid and the characters aren’t exactly multidimensional or complex. However that should not stop anyone from enjoying this lively show. Though often “immature” seeming, the themes are definitely mature, the storylines are engaging, the fight scenes are exciting, and the voice acting is great!

One of my favorite story arcs so far is a short one about Luffy’s voyages where he and his crew (which he picks up as he goes through his adventures) combat the most feared pirate in the entire East Blue (the One piece world is split into 4 “blue” seas) whose crew is 50,000 men strong. What I loved about this storyline was both the heavy foreshadowing that happened for the future of the show in addition to the 3-4 episode fight at the end against the captain of the enemy crew. The anime takes careful care to “set up” the battle field in a very clear way so even though the battle is unfolding before your eyes as you watch you really feel like you are on the sidelines and know who all the spectators and settings are. It’s not at all like Dragon Ball Z’s super bland desert battlefields that seem to stretch on forever no matter what happens in the fight.

In comparison to other similar animes, Naruto in particular, I think this show holds up very well. It does a very similar thing in the way it takes an idea that everyone likes (pirate world) and creates a fantasy world out it and allow the user to experience the whole world one episode and place at a time. I still think Naruto is better in pretty much every way at this point in time but One Piece is almost 2-3 times longer than Naruto in series length so it must be doing something right! Even my Anime Conosieur friend Joshua Yoo has told me on several occasions that he likes One Piece better.

I’m on episode 60 out of the 3xx something episodes out right now. It’s drawn me in really well so far so I’m excited to watch more!!

And here is a fitting song about pirates!
Pirate by The Ethiopians