I sort of have a reputation among my graduate school classmates of putting on…interesting presentations. I had a big presentation that I did yesterday night and it was no different. In the past, I’ve done a lot of videos to express my material (for some examples, click here). I actually did make a video for last night’s presentation as well (you can see me interviewing, well me, by clicking here). Being as this was one of my last presentations, I wanted to take it up a notch by doing something I haven’t done before. But what?
An idea came to me as I was in the car listening to music. Katy Perry’s E.T. came on and I noticed how the beat was pretty simple and the vocals weren’t too crazy. It suddenly came to me: what if I sang this song but changed up the lyrics to fit my presentation? Ah ha!
There was, of course, the slight problem with the fact I’m not a good singer. However, I do love to sing for fun and my classmates/professor were expecting me to do something unique…
So, I actually went through with it (hope your ears don’t bleed too much!):
(Make sure you have YouTube annotations on to see the new lyrics I created)
It ended up sounding more like a rap, but whatever. Judging from people’s reactions, it looked like it went over well! Watch until the very end of the video to hear my professor being too stunned to grill me with questions on my presentation, like he was doing with the presenters before me. Whew!
There’s a strong chance that my school will start showing this video and other presentation videos I’ve done to incoming students. Those poor souls!
On April 16th, 2011, I hosted the 2nd big NYC Xanga meet after the one we had last July. Overall, it was a CRAZY, memorable, wild weekend and I’m honestly still not completely recovered from it. I miss you all already.
Hosting a meet up takes a lot of work. There’s so much planning and coordinating you have to do in order to get it going successfully. I’m not complaining though. As stressful and time consuming as it can be, it was all completely worth it. It’s always happy to hear that people had a wonderful time. It makes me want to hurry up and get the next meet started! I will probably write a post in the near future about things I’ve learned from hosting multiple Xanga meets.
Here’s my perspective of how the Saturday went down (HUGE POST AHEAD):
Lincoln Center
We arrived at Lincoln Center around 12pm to begin the meet up. I was so happy it was not raining just yet! We just kind of hung out there, waiting for people to stop by. At around 12:45pm, we began our walk through Central Park to get to the zoo.
It took some time, but eventually we found the entrance to the zoo. I had most of the people go in first while I waited outside for some stragglers. The zoo visit was brief, but nice. It started raining at this point, but luckily I had my trusty swordbrella! Hiya! Unfortunately, because of the rain we had to cancel the flash mob and the free food event in Central Park was canceled. It was okay though, more time to eat before we headed off for karaoke!
Save those tickets. In the future, it will be worth .02 cents
We did karaoke at the same place as the last meet since they have a large room, a nice bar area, and was a block away from our next destination. This time we had a much more crowded room, but it was all good! The two hours of singing (and for some folks, boozing) was really fun and relaxing. However, my ears might have been bleeding just a little. Others too, after hearing me sing.
OH OH OH OH OH OH OH MY GOSH
Paparazzis! We’re such a famous group
PARTY OVER HERE!
Air guitars?? YEAHHH!!
They love Miley Cyrus!
Where did this come from?
Uh oh…
WUT!! I thought I was just letting someone walk through!
All together now! Man, there’s never enough Asians…
VaneDave’s Comedy Show at Maui Tacos
Apparently, VaneDave ran into some technical difficulties as there was no mike and speaker system like he had expected. It was fine though as we could hear him loud and clear. Unlike last year, he brought 4 other comedians with him to help do the show. I’m happy to report they were all funny, except for VaneDave (just kidding).
Notice the empty mic stand? Haha, just noticed there’s an arrow in the background pointing at it
We be a lovely audience
Dave & Busters
At this point, the meet up was officially over. However, that doesn’t mean we ended! While some people parted ways, others continued to hang out. We split off into smaller groups, with some of us going to Dave & Busters for a little while. Fun fact: SerenaDante is AMAZING at ticket games. She had what looked like hundreds of tickets while I had maybe 20 tickets. Fail!
The power…IS YOURS!
Hotel 41
We met up with the rest of the group at this lounge/bar near by. Just a heads up: the martinis here are deceptively strong! Er, you’ll see. Thank goodness there weren’t any videos taken here.
Started off very nice and chill…
Hello_Bianca was already gone by the time I grabbed a drink. Sure, I had an empty stomach and I’m a bit of a light weight since I’m allergic and don’t regularly drink, but what can martinis really do?
Oh…
Here, I was freaked out when litlkittykat seemingly appeared out of nowhere from under the table. Notice the empty drinks? Ruh roh.
Yep, here we go. By the way, my hand was reaching for my phone in my pocket, not up her shirt!Meanwhile, Cakalusa is in the back amazed by the candy ring.
“WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT! I’m thinking of something, but I can’t quite figure out what I’m thinking about…”
SerenaDante/NimbustheDragon’s Hotel Room
Once again, our group split up. Half went out clubbing while the other half chilled at the hotel room. I was mad tired by this point, so I found a place to lay on the bed and didn’t move for hours. People started appearing on the bed with me as the night went on. Hey, what can you do? The night eventually ended around 5am or so. I didn’t sleep a wink, but then again who really needs sleep?
Soooo comfortable
We were engaged in a finger battle. Yeah, I don’t know how this started.
Pile up!Ignore the face I’m making. I don’t remember doing that…
That was my Saturday for you guys! I’m sure I will be doing another big NYC meet up, probably next year. Come join us then! It will be a big family reunion all over again.
(Thanks lcrazyaznl, whotakethmycoke, cakalusa, and airborne_muse for letting me use your pictures!)
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Other 2011 NYC Xanga Meet Posts
It’s not over yet! Being only one man, I can only cover so much. Feel free to check out the following posts for more NYC meet goodness!
In case you didn’t read any of the 302841 updates around here, there was a large Xanga meet up in NYC this past weekend. So much happened this weekend that I know I won’t be able to cover everything in one post. Luckily for you all, there was a lot of Xangans that were there taking pictures and are in the process or already started posting about the weekend. I will start collecting all the updates and put it all in my next entry for your convenience.
I will save the actual Xanga Meet on Saturday for next post. For now, let me tell you about FRYDAY!
Everytime I come to NYC I always plan on visiting Xanga HQs, but it just never worked out…until this weekend. I coordinated with Eugenia to make sure it had to happen this time around, and it did!
I met up with John (sorry for missing your text! Don’t shut me down!), Bob, Marc, Jessica, and Eugenia at their office briefly before we headed off to Bon Chon Chicken. Why? To get ready for our happy hour!
It was actually Eugenia’s idea to do a happy hour for the Xanga Team and Xangans. Originally, it was only going to be a small gathering, but some how it ended up being 25+ people =O!!!
FlipGuy31O (ever so serious) and me with Marc (yes, he’s really tall)! It was great chatting with you and hearing about Xanga from your perspective. I’m glad you were impressed with the meet!
Random group shots:
Once everyone settle in, it was time to really get the party started!
Bob was quite the bad influence on us Xangans! That guy sure knew how to guzzle down the drinks and he made sure to encourage others to keep up with him. By the end of the evening, I would say more than a few of us were having a good time. What do you think? (Some shots borrowed from lcrazyaznl, whotakeththecoke and Cakalusa):
It’s starting! Partyin’ partyin’ YEAH!
That chicken tasted SO good
Even the TV guy had to watch and go damn!
To the left to the left!(wait, I mean to the right?)
OMG, an empty drink! MUST FILL UP!!!
I guess we just turned this restaurant into a club!
In just a few more days it will be about time for…
***The New York City Xanga Meet!*** (Saturday, April 16th, 12pm-7pm)
Basic itinerary as followed (for more specific details, please see previous post here):
12pm-1pm = Lincoln Center Note: Feel free to arrive earlier. We will be meeting near the fountain. Around 12:45pm we will start heading over to the zoo.
1pm-2:45pm = Central Park Zoo+ Tavern on the Green Note: Tickets are $12. This would be a good time to grab some food in the area. Apparently, there’s an event at Tavern on the Green where there’s live music and (more importantly) the food trucks are giving out free food! Click here for more info.
3:30pm-5:30pm = Karaoke at Duet 35 Note: Price will be $11 per person. Singing is not mandatory, but encouraged! I recommend picking songs that are more well known and upbeat so more people can sing along! There’s a small bar right outside of our private room by the way.
6pm-7pm = VaneDave Comedy Show at Maui Tacos Note: Tickets are $10 person at the door. This is also a good time to grab dinner from this place.
Other Notes: *Nothing else is officially planned after 7pm, but some of us will probably continue on into the night *Weather looks rainy and around lower 50s/upper 40s this weekend, so prepare accordingly *PM me if you need contact information from me or one of the other hosts.
Note: List does not include other guests coming and attendees are subject to change. I’m predicting that while we have over 50 people that are coming throughout the day, we will most likely have between 30-40 people at any given time.
When you arrive, find me (or any of the other hosts) so I can mark that you’re with us! Let me know your name and screenname, especially if we haven’t met before.
Anybody that knows me knows I love joking around. It’s fun to mess with your friends and vice versa as long as it’s all in good spirits and everybody is in on it. However, there is a line that we have to be careful crossing when we rib one another. We may not always realize it at the time, but there is a point where it becomes more than just harmless kidding around to something actually rather hateful and mean-spirited. I’m sure a lot of you know what it feels like, dealing with someone that didn’t know when to back off. Unfortunately, I also have some first hand knowledge with committing that error in judgment myself.
Back in high school, a good friend and I were in a prank war with each other (we were probably inspired by the show Punk’d, which was becoming popular at the time). It started off small, but soon we were seriously pulling off some major gags. He had made the last move on me when he thoroughly convinced me that my car was stolen. Long story short, he managed to distract me long enough for his girlfriend to take my keys and moved my car out of the parking lot. He had me seriously freaking out, especially since it was a new car and the chances of it being stolen in our particular area wouldn’t have come off as a big surprise. He made me wait one of the longest half hour of my life before he finally told me what really happened.
Man, did I want to get revenge on him! He made me look like a total fool with his brilliant joke, so I had to come up with something huge to really one up him. Knowing how much he cares about his girlfriend, I came up with an amazing plot. I got a bunch of people to spread gossip to him regarding his girlfriend getting drunk and making out with a mutual friends of ours. To make it more believable, I got his girlfriend and the mutual friend to play along too. When my friend tried to confront them about it, they acted suspicious and guilty before walking off.
It worked like a charm! By the end of the school day, my friend was devastated thinking that the girl he loved had cheated on him. In fact, he was so depressed and heartbroken that he refused to talk to anyone the whole day even after we tried to tell him it was all just one big joke. Wait, this wasn’t part of the plan. What just happened?
I’ll tell you what happened: I became THAT guy, the douchebag who pulled a malicious “joke” on his good friend. Urgh. It’s fair to say that was not one of my greatest moments.
After that day, I apologized profusely and called off the prank war. Even though he said he was fine later, I felt way too horrible being the cause of that pain for him. I never wanted to be responsible for doing something like that to a person I care about ever again. Where was the fun? It just sucked for all those involved.
As a result of that incident, I am now a lot more conscious and aware of my jokes and who I joke around with. It’s one thing to play around, but it’s not worth the hurt feelings that can come from going too far.
As some of you may know, I’ve been thinking about hosting a contest since the beginning of this week. It took me a while to figure out what I should do exactly, but after hearing your responses I decided the contest will be for an exclusive date, with me!
Well, if the the speech bubbles says that then it must be true!
That’s pretty amazing by itself, sure. However, it isn’t going to be just that! I’ve also recently found out I have enough frequent flyer miles to purchase a ticket for free or for very cheap. Instead of using it for myself, I’m going to spend it on you! That’s right, if you win this contest I will fly you over to me. Near, far, wherever you are! I will unite us, all expenses paid by yours truly.
You know you love me, I know you care. Just shout whenever, and YOU’LL be here
Oh, but it’s STILL not over yet! A month ago, I bought this Groupon deal for a nice romantic weekend getaway to this fabulous hotel by the water:
When I fly you over, we will be spending a couple romantic nights here:
Doesn’t that look inviting? We so excited!
Did I mention this place comes with complimentary chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne? Of course, I will be feeding them to you myself. You’ll like it, trust me.
What will we do on this weekend trip? WHATEVER YOU WANT! Want me to give you personal tennis lessons? You got it! Want to go boating all weekend? You got it! Want me to give you a full body massage the entire time? You got it! Want me to *insert anything you can think of*? YOU GOT IT! I’m quite open-minded, so I will probably not say no to any request you may have!
So, how do you win? Quite simply…
WOO ME, HARD
Whoever can turn me on the most (be it a guy or a girl) will win!
There are many ways you can go about this. You can write a flirtatious comment below, send me a saucy private message, deliver some titillating pictures, etc. The possibilities are endless! You’ll probably have a lot of competition, so go all out for me. I have high expectations, so better give me your all!
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