But not in the taking candy from them way. I'm about to drop some knowledge, but just like my previous post, I really know nothing but a G thang about what I'm going to say.

But yet you keep coming back.

You know, I didn't even intend for this to happen, but what I'm going to say actually ties in with the introductory paragraph. This post just got a lot more complex.

When deciding between two restaurants in unfamiliar territory (think traveling, because I am now a pseudo-travel-expert), always choose the one that is celebrity endorsed.

What's that? You mean neither of your choices are celebrity endorsed? Please, do some research.

*Extended Sidenote* Speaking of celebrities, check this, fast forward to the 40 second mark, and listen for the, "please". That one word singlehandedly made the entire song for me, and blew up sassy scales everywhere. Go ahead and take a bow Rihanna. *End Sidenote That Wasn't As Extended As I Thought Would Be*

I make my statement after experiencing both celebrity endorsed and non-celebrity endorsed restaurants. When I say celebrity endorsed, what I really mean is that on there exists a picture on the wall depicting the celebrity posing half-heartedly with the eatery's owner. Any restaurant fulfilling such a requirement has proven, and may I be so bold to say this, will always prove to serve good food.

Don't believe me? Here's my scientific backup. It worked 3 out of 3 times for me on my past roadtrip. That's statistically significant methinks (actually, me only guesses). Publish me!

No? Well, let me tell you a story about the time we walked into a Chinese restaurant in downtown Washington that was not celebrity endorsed.

You mean there ARE celebrity endorsed Chinese restaurants?

Please.

*Sidenote Alert* Rihanna actually overemphasizes "please" again at the 1:47 mark! Amazing! What a show! Has me really going! *End Sidenote*

So we walk into this restaurant and we notice that the only people in the restaurant are the husband/wife duo who run the shop, Casper the ghost, and us. At this point, our minds aren't working because of our insane hunger coupled with a need to desperately evacuate our kidneys (you dig?).

When we finally came to our senses, we realized the whole place reeked, AND, we had to turn on the lights to the hallway housing the restrooms ourselves. The restroom itself was poorly designed, and the toilet was up on a platform. So much so that if you sat down, your feet would probably be dangling. On hindsight, we should've noticed the Casper the ghost factor and never walked in. But the damage was done, and the wife owner had already started pouring tea for us.

Have you heard of dine and dash?

Well, what happened next, I will call pee, tea, and flee.

We took one disapproving look at one another, and the message was clear. No words needed to be said. We chipped in 3 dollars (no easy feat because we're all cheap Asians), then in a coordinated fashion that would've made most military units proud, we up and left Iraq the restaurant. On of our braver souls blurted out, "Thanks for the tea and the washrooms, here's three bucks, sorry we can't eat here."

I was the first out the door. And first in the restaurant next door.

To wrap up, if a Chinese restaurant is endorsed by Michael Douglas & Catherine Zeta Jones (no joke!), you're probably safe. I implicitly and explicitly trust celebrities with the finer details in life. Just like you, my readers, trust me to to tell you about traveling.

"Slow down, I just want to get to know you".

There are some things in life that just need to be eased into. Like this blog post, for example. I'm not here to talk about relationships, but that's what the above lyric led you to believe I was going to talk about.

But I'm not. For me, this topic is a much more difficult topic to discuss than relationships. And that's sayin' something, you know what I'm saying?

No, because even I don't.

Flashin' flashin' flashin' flashin' lights lights lights lights.

Also not what I'm writing about, but flashin' kinda sounds like fashion, which brings us to the lecture at hand. You see, anybody that knows me (if you're reading this, you comprise just about 24.3% of that specific subset of the world) knows that I know not a worthwhile thing about fashion, about matching colors, about what's hot (MIMS!), about pricing and in general, about style. Which is why the following should make for such a painful fun read.

Now that you've clicked the magical read more button, I should probably warn you this is going to be real long.

It was recently brought to my attention that I'm turning twenty three in the near future. Yet, I insist on donning outfits fit for sweet sixteen year olds. Pretty sad.

Pretty comfortable, but pretty sad.

Once again, I am far from an expert on issues regarding clothing, but I'd like to think I have some not-so-common sense. Conventional social pressures would probably lead you to believe that if you ever wanted to change your fashion style, you should probably walk into the new style brimming with confidence. Don't just buy one new outfit, switch up your whole wardrobe to reflect this new style.

Nobody try this with polka dots. I don't care how much confidence you have, trust me, that confidence make like Casper and disappear.

Sometime during the roadtrip, Beyonce decided she would do her whole Upgrade U thing to my clothes and accessories. Except it felt getting one of those pieces of paper that's supposed to be a temporary placeholder until your real drivers license arrives in the mail in 4-6 weeks.

I might win some, but I just lost one (you).

My wardrobe now consists of all articles previously owned (I have a problem throwing things out, word to my TTC transfer collection, just kidding, that collection doesn't exist like Santa Clause), an Ecko United hoodie and a green NY Yank's hat. It's kinda like evolution (you know, the way the world wasn't created). I'm trying to fit in these new articles of clothing with my existing style, to gradually, seamlessly, and invisibly shift into a new style. Nobody will even notice.

Unless they read this. Or point out that I grew up in a predominately white suburban neighborhood, and that wearing even a single article of "urban-ish" clothing makes me stand out person of middle-eastern decent unfairly biased against in an airport security line.

Does anybody wonder where I get this stuff sometimes?

Either way, I'm slowly migrating my dress code from a 15 year old, to that of a 20 year old white rapper. It's called progress, and Barack told me that yes, I can.

Flippity flops are one of the worst inventions ever. They aren't comfortable for walking (unless you spend unnecessary amounts of money for the "good" ones), and when you want to lounge around, you end up taking them off anyways. I will not buy another pair of flip flops.

Of course, if you, friend, want to give me a pair, I'll find use for them.

Did you get that? Get your shop on. Thanks.

In Atlantic City, you have to be about 65 or older to gamble during the month of May. If you are under the age of 65, you are NOT IN ATLANTIC CITY BECAUSE IT IS TEH GHETTO.

What in mysteries of mysteries happened to Clay Aiken? How do you go from that to this? And how did he go about accumulating all this middle-aged women as a fan base?

Snakes on a plane.

I can live off the dollar menus offered by fast food chains. Just today, I ordered 5 of the 8 possible items off a McDonald's dollar menu. For lunch.

Unfortunately, they don't do "sweetened" iced tea. Or as I call it, ICED TEA. Here, it either has to be unsweetened, or sweetened, but with a raspberry flavor.

Raspberry is so not the flavor of love.

That's it. I have to go to sleep in preparation for a long day of lying under the sun on Virginia Beach tomorrow.

I'm in America, boy, living as an American boy. Hitting up Broadway, chilling out at cafes, on my way to Philly (pronounced Phil-lay, just so that the words rhyme a tad). I credit this entire paragraph to Estelle.

I have much more to say, but no time to throw up pictures that make my words make sense.

So either sit tight and wait for my update (might want to go grab a book to read in the meantime, because the more you read, the less you age...according to some ad), or, on the off chance that you might be a genius or extremely lucky, go invent yourself a time machine, fast forward into the future, and enjoy my vacation babbles.

That title could've had double meaning if things turned out differently tonight. But that part comes later in this story.

Any graduation road trip must start with a bit of confusion. Complete disarray is then gradually achieved over the course of the excursion, but I'm getting ahead of myself with the anticipation of getting lost, violently turning on each other, awkwardly sitting in silence, emotionally reconciling, and then continuing on the path of "fun".

My precursor to the trip started with a realization that I did not have enough boxer shorts to last 15 days. My mother, in the spirit of trying to skim some money off what is amounting to be a very expensive trip, suggested I try disposable underwear. It'd save room (they come packaged as tiny little rolls) and came six for $1.49.

Don't try disposable underwear. 20 minutes into the trial run, I disposed of my first pair due to the uncomfortable paper feeling against my lower body regions.

And you thought that was the good part of this story. Welcome to the utter breakdown of the precursor to my trip. And the rest has nothing to do with underwear. Instantaneous transitioning period. My specialty.

A quick 2 hour car ride brought us safely up to Kingston. Here, we were supposed to get a good nights sleep, and then set out early morning for New York.

Big apples are delicious.

A send-off package was being concocted for us, consisting of mocha chocolate chip cookies. Lots of them. Batches were prepped, pans were greased and ovens were preheated.

Then.

(you may want to sit down for this next part)

The oven caught fire. And Ryan didn't start it (this is foreshadowing for tomorrow, but only I know it; including inside jokes for myself on my own internets space is slightly ridiculous).

Turns out, the preheating oven contained two greasy pans, and 3 oven mitts. Oven mitts = extremely flammable when grease is in play. Who knew, huh!

I did.

Two brave souls (not me) managed to pull the greasy pans out, and toss the oven mitts into the sink (the walls almost caught fire...which probably would've been very bad) and douse the flames with a big bag of flour. By that time, the white smoke was up to our waists. With our eyes starting to tear up from the smoke, we set up 5 fans to push the smoke out of the apartment unit.

THEN OUR FIRE ALARM RUNG.

You know, after the fire was good and out.

So, I'm considering this day one of my adventures. Who knows what happens next.

Parting words. Get it?

The second toe on my right foot fell asleep while I was watching television earlier on tonight.

In the history of medical science, has that ever happened? Just one toe? Am I on track for a half-heart attack? Do I need to stop eating my mother's home baked desserts? Am I developing minute spidey-senses?

I don't even require medical explanations. Please, someone, just tell me something that'll make me feel better.

In the meantime, it's back to demolishing this tiramisu.