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Day 8: Zombies at the Cafe

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Continuing from yesterday’s post on zombies, here are three other zombie-related things I like that I failed to mention:

  1. The Cranberries “Zombie.” I can make people laugh when I bust this out on karaoke night. Not sure if they’re laughing at me or with me.
  2. White Zombie. Okay, I don’t like all of their music, but I used to kick butt on their song on Guitar Hero.
  3. Zombie Dice, a game from Steve Jackson.

I came across Zombie Dice last year at the mind-blowing Game Haus Cafe in Glendale, California. The game was easy to learn and fun to play. A quick summary: you are a zombie. The 13 dice represent your would-be victims. Randomly pick three dice and roll them. A brain is good. A shotgun blast is bad. Footprints mean your victim got away. You can score the brains and end your turn or you can press your luck, get more dice and roll them for more brains. If you roll three shotgun blasts, your turn is over and you score none of the brains. First to collect 13 brains wins.

I wish I lived closer to the Game Haus Cafe. It’s a wonderful place, perfect for gaming, and we’ve brought my niece and nephew twice since it opened after a successful Kickstarter campaign in June 2013. Parking can be a pain, but the place is still worth five stars (read my Yelp review here) and they offer 1,000+ board games, along with some decent food and drink. It costs only $5 for unlimited play during your visit. The game selection is staggering: all of the classics are available, along with newer games, popular Euro-style fare, and obscure titles. Shelf after shelf of games, arranged by content, will make any gamer’s heart happy.

Two things I love about this place: first, there’s no wi-fi available, so you’ll have to talk (gasp!) to your buddies and/or opponents over games with actual pieces, dice, and tokens. Second, happy hour is Tue-Thu until 4pm: you’ll pay only $2 for unlimited play.

View of Game Haus Cafe’s shelves below (click the image to enlarge). There are two shelves around the corner that aren’t shown. It’s a large space, with lots of big tables, comfortable chairs, and, most importantly, friendly employees.

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Day 7: Zombie-fied

 

The Walking Dead on AMC.

The Walking Dead on AMC.

As far as horror sub-genres go, zombies are probably last on my list, next to lovestruck teenage vampires. I always found zombies to be boring. Gross, yes. Fascinating? Exciting? Cool? No, no, and no. I liked the original Night of the Living Dead, but all of the other classic Romero films did nothing for me.

In fact, my most memorable zombie movie moment had nothing to do with the actual film itself (the remake of Dawn of the Dead). I was living in Santa Barbara at the time and my roommates and I went to see the Sunday matinee showing. About 20 minutes into the movie, a drunk guy walked in and started harassing the people in front of him. Words were exchanged, then fists were flying. The film was stopped, the drunk guy was tossed out, and order was restored. I remember laughing with my roommates and recalling how people freaked out years earlier when Boyz N the Hood opened, thinking gang violence would mar the film’s opening weekend, especially in urban areas. Obviously, those worries turned out to be for naught, since the real troublemakers came out on lazy Sunday afternoons in tourist towns.

It wasn’t until two weeks ago that I became a zombie fan. My wife and I don’t watch much TV, except for the local news and Jeopardy. However, we are notorious Netflix binge-watchers and after Breaking Bad, House of Cards, and Orange is the New Black (she finished it, while I ended up re-watching The Wire), we finally gave The Walking Dead a shot. We’d heard a lot of good things about the series, but I wondered how each of us would react, given my indifference to the genre and her preference for rom-com and feel-good movies.

The Walking Dead has been excellent. We’re finishing season three soon and we’re both surprised how much we’ve enjoyed it so far. It’s another reminder that we’re living in a golden age of television since another generic zombie film wouldn’t have made me care, but the long format of a television series suits the source material well. Watching these characters evolve from one season to the next, as the story has moved from surviving the apocalypse to rebuilding communities, has been utterly fascinating and engrossing.

Now that I think about it, I’ve probably overstated my indifference to the zombie genre. The Edgar Wright film Shaun of the Dead is something I can always sit through if I find it while flipping through channels. Dead Trigger was a game that I played constantly on my wife’s Nexus 7; the second she finished pinning things on her Pinterest account, I grabbed the tablet and started blast thousands of zombies.

So, upon further review, I’m bumping up the zombie genre in my rankings of horror sub-genres. And I’ll be watching every episode of The Walking Dead from the comfort of my bedroom: it’s much safer than a Sunday matinee in Santa Barbara.

 

Day 6: Get There

Nice day at Los Feliz.

Nice day at Los Feliz.

This year marks the fifth year of my golf career, which means I wish I would’ve started playing at least 25 years ago. Like my newfound love of running 5Ks, the aches and pains I suffer through now would’ve been more bearable as a young man. Every day reminds me that middle-aged healing takes much longer.

I learned to play golf at Los Feliz Municipal Golf Course. One day in 2010, I asked my brother to play a round with me. I’m not sure why I decided to do it and I don’t recall his exact response, but it was along the lines of “what the …?!” Neither of us had ever picked up a club before; the only sport we played in our younger days was basketball (with a smattering of football and baseball).

It’s no coincidence that the course was featured in one of my favorite movies, Swingers:

That movie and that scene in particular was a huge hit with me and my buddies, so I thought it was appropriate that I played my initial round there. I’ll have to dig out my scorecard from the garage someday for a good laugh: I scored either a 62 or 63 … on a par 27 course.

Still, Los Feliz was the beginning of my love affair with the game. In the years since (when I haven’t been dealing with a bad knee, back, or Achilles), I’ve played rounds all over Southern California and a couple of courses in Las Vegas, getting both of my brothers into the game and meeting lots of great people along the way. I’ve volunteered a few times at the L.A. Golf Show, won a putter signed by Ben Crenshaw, and was a walking scorer at the Soboba Golf Classic, where young pro Russell Henley was turning heads before making the leap to the PGA Tour.

Now that my nephew has taken a liking to the sport, I find myself revisiting some of the par-3 courses where I honed my skills. It’s been a blast, not to mention confidence-booster, hitting greens again on some of the shorter holes. It’s been meaningful sharing the game with him, teaching him the rules and etiquette as we bond at the courses that I learned at with his dad and other uncle.

I failed to reach my goal of breaking 100 last year, but I’m giving it another shot in 2015 and if I don’t do it, that’s fine. I’ll gladly settle for the quality time with my nephew on a golf course.

 

 

Day 5: Elite

Ruel G. s Reviews Inland Empire Yelp

Pictured above is part of my Yelp profile. Just two days ago, I wrote about my love of Yelp, how I’d started a Write-100-Reviews-in-a-Year challenge, and my desire to score my 2015 Yelp Elite Badge. Well, the badge showed up on my profile today!

I wear my Elite badge proudly. Okay, I virtually wear it proudly. Still, I like being held to a higher standard and being a Yelp ambassador. My friends and family know how much my wife and I love using the site and we always get a kick out of sharing Yelp-related stories.

One of my favorite Yelpish stories happened last spring. A buddy checked-in to his storage space (for those not familiar with Yelp-ese, users “check-in” to businesses via the phone app). He posted two photos from his storage unit of his-and-her beach cruisers with a caption that read, “For Sale.” A few messages and two hours later, my wife and I were proud owners of two almost-new beach cruisers and we rode in our first CicLAvia the next week.

We were blown away by CicLAvia, an open-streets event in Los Angeles inspired by the original Ciclovia in 1976. The city shuts down a few miles of streets and bicyclists, skateboarders, runners, and walkers (and the occasional unicyclist) are the only ones granted access for most of the day. It’s an amazing, inspirational, and transformative event, with plenty of smiles and laughs from everyone involved. For someone who hasn’t ridden a bike in over 20 years, it was a few hours of pure joy. Our first CicLAvia was along Wilshire Boulevard and it was strange not seeing a single car on this well-traveled street through Koreatown and beyond; we likened it to riding on the biggest and coolest bike path ever.

Of course, I reviewed CicLAvia for Yelp, rating it five stars. If I could, I would’ve given it an additional five stars, thanks to the great deal on my bikes the week before.

Below: In less than a year, our bikes have traveled throughout L.A. We got a kick out of parking them next to the motorcycles in front of Urth Caffe in L.A. before the October 2014 CicLAvia.

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Day 4: Suffering

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As the NFL playoffs get underway, it means only one thing to me: another season of suffering is over for Raiders fans. It’s been miserable watching my favorite football team go from a Super Bowl appearance to the laughingstock of the NFL. It’s been over 10 years since the Raiders have been relevant, but it seems a lot longer.

Growing up in the Los Angeles area during the ’70s, we had the Rams. I sported a Rams jacket as a child, but my dad always rooted for the Raiders. On game days, I’d fetch him a beer from the fridge (sometimes Coors, usually Michelob) and we’d watch Ken Stabler lead the Raiders to victory, something they did a lot more back then. If the Raiders were losing early in the game, Pop would tell me not to worry because the Raiders were a second-half team. More often than not, he was right.

I like to think that he was drawn to the Raiders’ image as the outlaws of the NFL, led by their maverick owner Al Davis. I don’t view my dad as an outlaw, but as a Filipino immigrant to the U.S. in the late ’60s, he certainly had that maverick spirit to leave his home country to start a new life.

One day in the late ’70s, my dad took me to my first NFL game. It was a preseason matchup between the Rams and the Raiders at the Coliseum (a few years later, the Rams would move to Anaheim before finally leaving for St. Louis). I don’t remember much about the game, but one thing I’ll never forget is watching the Raiders play in real life. The game seemed much faster than on TV. There was something about seeing the Silver and Black in person, though. Call it an epiphany or a calling, but after that game, I had suddenly outgrown my Rams jacket. I was now a member of the Raider Nation.

The Raiders would eventually move to Los Angeles and win their third Super Bowl in 1983. They continued to be successful for years, before moving back to Oakland and making their last Super Bowl appearance in 2003. Since then, it’s been nothing but embarrassing losses, wasted draft picks, and questionable management.

I still believe that things will turn around, especially with the Raiders’ salary cap issues being cleared up and young talents Derek Carr and Khalil Mack leading the team. The Raiders might not be the outlaws and mavericks they once were, but I’ll settle for a team I can be proud of: a team that I enjoy watching with my dad over a few cold beers.

Day 3: One Down, 99 To Go

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Like most people I know, Yelp is my go-to site/app for finding a place to eat. Back in the day I would thumb through the Yellow Pages’ restaurant section, going through each listing until something piqued my interest. A few years ago, Yelp changed this, giving me access to restaurant information and reviews as well. As I used it more, I noticed that there were all types of businesses reviewed on Yelp and I used it to plan some cool dates.

I received my first perk from Yelp in February 2011, before I even had a Yelp account: two tickets to the L.A. Derby Dolls, thanks to LA Community Manager Katie B. tweeting about a giveaway. My girlfriend and I went on our date and had a fun night of roller derby and food truck eats.

I created a Yelp account a few months later and wrote my first Yelp review, giving three stars to the Colton Golf Club. Although I wasn’t exactly prolific in my review writing early on (I had a grand total of 11 reviews by the end of 2012), I was slowly but surely becoming a Yelper. My reviews weren’t James Beard material, but I was honest and tried to be as informative as possible. I also used the site to plan a few more date nights with my girlfriend (who eventually became my wife!).

This all changed in 2013 when I signed up for a write-100-reviews-in-one-year challenge. My wife and I attended our first of many cool Yelp events. In November of 2013 I became a part of the Yelp Elite, a few weeks before I completed my 100th review for the year. In 2014 I was a Yelp Elite again, and pushed my yearly total to 120 reviews.

My Quest to Blog Every Day in 2015 has been partly inspired by my reaching my Yelp goals. I hope to be Elite again this year and I started another 100 reviews challenge today. Here’s my first review of 2015. Only 99 more to go!

Day 2: At the Movies

Original Theatrical Star Wars Poster

Greatest. Movie. Ever.

Over the next 365 days, in addition to blogging every day, I’m going to watch every movie on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Greatest American Films. I’ll write about each film I finish, sometimes a review or some trivia, but hopefully something more personal and interesting.

Why watch these 100 films? Well, I’m a cinegeek and my love of movies goes back to my childhood, when a little film called Star Wars changed my life. I remember standing in line with my parents at The Academy in Pasadena, California, years before the theater was chopped up into a multiplex. The Academy then was a magnificent palace for the cinema, with plush balconies and a ceiling so far away that it seemed to touch the sky.

I remember standing outside in line with my folks, eagerly awaiting my first true movie-going experience. Once the film began, I was mesmerized, joining the crowd to boo Darth Vader’s first appearance on screen and cheering two hours later when the Death Star was blown to smithereens.

Mostly, I remember how I jumped at any chance to Star Wars again; 22 times over the next few years, long before my family had a VHS or DVD player. Repeated viewings on Spike TV were light years away, so my elementary-school self ended up going with every friend and cousin I knew to watch George Lucas’ masterpiece.

Now here I am, a lifetime later, eagerly awaiting December 18th for the release of Episode VII. Instead of gorging myself on all things Star Wars in anticipation of The Force Awakens, I’m going to watch the other 99 non-Star-Wars films on the AFI list. It’s actually something I’ve wanted to do for years, but never committed to doing so. I have a handful of these movies on DVD and Blu-ray and I’ll use Netflix, Amazon Prime, and my local library to complete my quest. I’m hoping, though, to see more than a few of these classics at special screenings done occasionally at the old-time movie houses in L.A.

By my count, I’ve seen 45 of the films on this list and I’ve caught bits and pieces of another 20, but like my elementary-school self, I’m just as excited to watch a movie for the first time as I am for the 22nd time.

Notes:

1. The movie poster image above was taken from here.

2. There’s a small bit on the history of The Academy in Pasadena, CA, here.

Day 1: The Quest Defined

View More: http://bycherryphotography.pass.us/ruelandmichelle

Happy New Year! Learn more about me here. I’ll wait.

Done? Great! Let’s cut to the chase: this is Day 1 of my Quest to Blog Every Day of 2015. Welcome!

I find a lot of inspiration on Chris Guillebeau’s blog, especially from the people he interviews. Each one has a unique quest or journey and I thought it would be fun to do my own in the form of this blog.

In addition to my quest, these are my four goals for 2015:

  1. Write 100 reviews on Yelp.
  2. Read 26 books and review them on Goodreads.
  3. Break 100 on the golf course.
  4. Watch all of the AFI 100 Greatest American Films of All Time.

My 2014 goals were Nos. 1-3 on the above list. I reached two of my three goals: I wrote 120 reviews on Yelp and I read 48 books and reviewed them on Goodreads. I was particularly proud of my reading this past year, since it was the most I’d read since my college days (any UCSB alumni out there? Go Gauchos!). Unfortunately, due to a bad knee and a busy schedule, I wasn’t on the golf course as much as I wanted and breaking 100 was never in danger. I hope to change this in 2015, in addition to watching 100 great movies and blogging every day this year.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ll check in often. Follow me on Google+ or Twitter.

What are your goals for 2015?