Hulkmania, 40 oz., and the Hamptons.

My first week as a 25 year old man has just concluded and it has been one helluva roller-coaster. Las Sunday night I was a bit in the dumps for various reasons even though I had an excellent opportunity arise from my GILAS project. I just felt like hating the entire world and I had nobody to blame for any of my problems, not that I had any. That Monday I turned 25, I really had no reason to celebrate other than the fact my famz took me out to dinner at one of my favorite Cuban restaurants in Queens. That was all I wanted, a nice dinner with some good drinks and awesome food. If you ever have the chance, the chuletas at Cabana on Austin St. are top notch.

I had the big parties and had the elaborate foreign trips for my previous birthdays. Something about this year just made me want to lay low and have my birthday quietly pass by. Everyone said that 25 was a milestone and kept prodding me to plan a big shindig like I did for my 23rd birthday when my party got raided by the cops (for being too wild?). Anyway, I couldn't be bothered with planning a party because I was too busy with work and side projects and balancing all of that with my daily routine of the gym and social life. It was just another day to me.

But what I did plan was a weekend back in the Hamptons because of my previous experience earlier this summer. I had to make my way out at least once more and soak in the experience while ballin' on a budget. Endless e-mails, several reservation changes, almost everyone dropping out or changing their minds last minute...I could have just planned a party and told everyone to show up at one place at one time on one night and it would have been easier than a weekend out on the beach.

So that's what I had expected. Dinner with my family and a weekend in the Hamptons with a handful of friends. That is until Mo and Danica wanted to take me out to dinner for my birthday. I told them I'd be free the Wednesday after my birthday and even planned to go see Swizz Beatz spin in SoHo after dinner. They refused to tell me where they were taking me but they told me to dress up. At this point, I was already suspicious but I played along.

Hmm. There were signs but I started to piece it together. I was accidentally included in an e-mail planning "something" for me. It could have been a gift or the actual dinner itself, I had no clue but I took it as it was and put it in the back of my mind. Then the Saturday before, drunken Mike spilled the beans and said he'd see me on Wednesday at dinner. DING! The guys were going to be at the dinner. Drunk Mike just spills everything, it's the best.

HA! I caught them... but as Wednesday rolled around, I decided to "test" the boys and ask them what they were doing that night. I had all sorts of answers and diversions. It even crossed my mind to "cancel" because I was "sick" and see what they'd say to cover up the secrets. Well, they played the game well and even had Lats call me after I left the office to invite me somewhere Midtown for drinks. I smartly declined and told him I had dinner plans and wouldn't be free until after that. Sneaky sneaky...

Surprise me they did. I knew the guys would be there, but I wasn't expecting the Stony heads to be standing there too. They had some of my closest college friends come and surprise me for my 25th!! So my jaded, sarcastic, smart-alecky self was actually surprised after all that.

As for the dinner itself... There was a LOT of sangria, mojitos, double shots of horsemen, wisemen and everything in between. As people started leaving dinner, the fellas made it a point to keep me out all hours of Wednesday night and keep it gangsta by drinking 40s on the sidewalk in the middle of SoHo. Talk about throwback. I haven't sipped on a 40 in a long ass time. At one point in the middle of the night, I got paid back with all the slappin' I handed out the past few months...I managed to walk around the village shirtless after ripping off my tanktop Hulk Hogan style...and I stepped up to a very pretty girl as she was having dinner with her very big bulk of a man she called her boyfriend. I don't call it liquor, I call it liquid courage.

I will let the pictures do the talking.

SURPRISE!
The face I was practicing for when I get surprised.

Scrapbook reading.
Nancy's gift.
Yes, that is a candle.

Lats and me, the Elmhurst boys.

Danica, Mo and Annie, the organizers of the whole night.
Stony girls.


That wasn't a candle, that's a firecracker.
40s.
Almost all my boys. Can we photoshop LJ, Vince and Marty in here?


"I know Kenny Choi and I can prove it."
Kung Fu fighting.
I apparently lost to the Korean.
Hulk SMASH!

All that was just one night of last week. We'll get into the other nights another time, but you can see the rest of the pictures (these aren't even the embarrassing ones.) on my MySpace.

Off the wagon and Jesse's bbq.

Once again, the boys and I were out causing trouble, this time for Vince's birthday happy hour at NYU bar, Off The Wagon. Beer pong, a fus-ball table and lots of $10 pitchers of various beers made for a good time that DID NOT end up with one of us getting inked or pierced. I stated that I was going to be in charge of the camera this time around, but I ended up just as bad as the birthday boy. All this on a Thursday night. Friday at work was not fun at all for any of us.

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon, we gathered again for Jesse's bbq. It wasn't even the official start to summer but it seems like we've been at this whole summer party mentality for a few months already. Fire grilled meat, good people, sappy mp3's and more beer pong! It was great to see some of the old FIND heads in one place after graduating from it years ago...

Shake Shack.

Hunger makes me crave the strangest things. As I was sitting at my desk, hard at work doing market research on MySpace, ahem, I started to think about how I hadn't had fast food in a while. I thought about how making my lunch everyday prevented me from enjoying the wonders of processed meats and high sodium sides. Then the thought evolved to the places I haven't visited in quite some time. And after that, my mind distinguished what was "good" fast food and what was "bad" fast food.

Until finally I thought about In-N-Out, the California fast food chain that, in my opinion is the king of burgers because everything is made fresh. And by fresh, I don't mean that it's brought out from the freezer, I mean it's fresh. A juicy burger straight from the grill, washed down with a creamy milkshake is what I wanted to get my greedy hands on all day. But alas, us New Yorkers don't have In-N-Out here on the east coast.

That is...until I found out about Shake Shack. It's pretty sad that I found out about this place not from a fellow New Yorker but from the girl who just moved her from California. She was actually shocked that I hadn't been to this spot, knowing the fatass that I am. So after work, I met up with her and we lined up...well she lined up and I met her once she was about the fifth person in line. I left work late, what can I say?

But anyway, this place has burgers that are just as good, if not better than the food from In-N-Out. Still, if there is anyone headed out west in the next few, let me know so that I can give you tupperware to put my order in.

And on a final note...LJ, unlike Kenny, I don't do shotgun weddings let alone propose to someone at a place called Shake Shack. I'm no where near next in line. Foo. Don't mess with the King.