Giving Thanks...

Well since it's Thanksgiving and I still haven't caught up on the blog (SEMA seriously set me back), I thought I'd just skip to the current date and write about what I'm thankful for. Originally, I planned on going to church to say thanks to God,(I'm trying to make an effort to go to church now) but that kinda backfired on me cause I'm an idiot and I woke up late. And mass was over. What an idiot. My bad.

I'm not really a super religious guy myself, although my mom raised me in a pretty religious household. I'm not even one of those "born-again" peeps, I'm just sayin... I feel as if things in life go a little easier if I go to church, or even make an attempt. I'm honestly making an effort to go. Come on, it takes just 1 hour a week out of my busy schedule. It certainly can't hurt. It's seriously the least I can do. The very least.

So here goes. This has been a really good year for me, career wise. A lot of positive traction. And actually, when it was time for me to sit down and write the Acknowledgements section of my book, I had to sit and think about who made an impact on my life, my career, and everything like that.

It's so crazy, cause I'm not an emotional person really (No emos in the Cipher Garage camp), but I got pretty emotional thinking about how much people have helped me get to where I am today. Sure I'm not super rich yet or famous or anything, but I just sat and thought about how there are so many people or other photographers or writers or whatever who would just love to be in my position. So I really consider myself lucky and blessed or whatever you call it.

First of all, I'm thankful to GOD for keeping me safe and taking care of me on all these flights all over the place, and especially for taking care of me at the track, where any car, any spin, or any loss of control could easily end my life, or leave me disfigured and dismembered, or permanently handicapped or something. **Knock on wood** Let's all pray that doesn't ever happen.

I'm thankful to my family- moms, pops, and especially my little brother David. I love that guy so much. I don't know if you guys took time to read the dedication and acknowledgements section of my book or not, but I dedicated the whole entire book to my little brother Dave, and that's from my heart.

Dave is my number one fan and supporter, he loves me and he loves drifting and he always has my back no matter what. He looks up to me, and he makes me strive to be a better person. You just can't replace that kind of unconditional love. My little brother is the best.

I'm also super thankful to my Uncle Ed, who has been soooo down for me and supported me when everyone else in my extended family pretty much abandoned me and told me to fuck off. Uncle Ed is like a dad to me, I totally love that guy too. He stood by me when the rest of the family wouldn't.

I'm thankful for the support and love of my crew. I have so many friends from different parts of the world, and we don't always get to see each other. But my real friends know who they are. I don't even need to start a list. But seriously you guys, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Seriously, the "top friends" on Myspace are kind of a joke. I can't even begin to put all my close friends on there, even though I got 24 "top friends" or something. There are so many people I'm close to, or people I admire... but it's cool, all my real friends know who they are, like I said. My Silverlake/Los Feliz crew, my Wesco crew, my Bay Area crew, my Diamond Bar crew, my Miami and SFL crew, my ATL crew, my friends in Japan, my San Diego crew, Vegas crew, my Seattle and Vancouver crew, my East Coast crew, Hawaii crew, and all my other friends in between. I really value all my friendships the most, out of all the things I gained and accomplished during the year.

I'm thankful to Nick Fousekis and the whole family at Falken Tire Corporation for working with me this year, and continuing to believe in me, and making so many things possible for me.

I'm thankful to Nobushige Kumakubo and Team Orange. I'm so glad that I was able to go to Japan this year and spend time with my close friends at Ebisu Circuit. I actually finished my book while I was in Japan, so I can't thank Kumakubo, Tanaka, Naoto, and the others enough. Also of course I can't even begin to say thanks to Akiyo-chan and Igusa for letting me crash at the crib. And I'm thankful to the Ogawara family, my home away from home in Tokyo. Word up.

I'm thankful to the people at Motorbooks for giving me the opportunity to make America's First Book on DRIFTING. Not only is it MY first book... it is the first book for the DRIFTING COMMUNITY. Created for the real drifting community by someone really in the drifting community.

I'm especially thankful to everyone in the drifting community that has shown support to me and Cipher Garage by supporting the book, or the clothing line...

Whether you guys showed your support by buying my book, rocking my sticker, helping me work and set up and tear down the booth, helping me ship out books, helping me get some publicity for the book, creating a commercial for my book, playing my commercial on the jumbotron, printing Press Releases and/or interviews in magazines, were a fellow photographer giving props, and 86 or drifting fan saying whatup at the track, or even if you just said a kind word in support of me or my book, I really really appreciate it all. THANK YOU.

Thank you so much everyone. You just don't know how much it all means to me. First and foremost, I'm a fan of drifting, and the whole lifestyle. Just like everyone else. The only difference is, God gave me the chance to document the scene and put my thoughts down on paper. I'm really no different than anyone else. I'm just trying to chase my dreams and be successful at it.

Thank you so much everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. Be safe!

Live The 86 Life!

Antonio Alvendia
Cipher Garage.

SEMA 2006: Day 4 - Drifting Changed Our Lives. Seriously.

I ran into my boys from the www.thespeedlounge.com and they hit me up for the hot new "Drifting Changed My Life" lanyards that all the cool kids were rocking at SEMA. Seriously, alot of people in the drifting industry were rocking this lanyard in support of DRIFTING. Thank you all, that was so dope.

Anyways, TheSpeedLounge guys and I decided to take some photos screwing around. See the guys in the front? All 86 guys. Well Chris (left) used to be an 86 guy. Dave (right) still has his black AE86 hatchback, and of course you know I Live The 86 Life. No doubt.

Bookmark their site, cause I told you to. TheSpeedLounge.com Make sure not to forget "THE" in The Speed Lounge. You guys and your difficult domains.






DRIFTING Changed Their Lives. Without a doubt.

These are my boys Joey and Andy from Slide America, along with Cody Wellons from S3 Magazine. Joey and Andy are super cool, but they're also pretty weird. They drove across the country in a rental van with stickers all over it, and shot video of drifters all over the country. The video will be coming out sometime in 2007, so look out for it! In the meantime, buy some stickers or shirts from their website ( SlideAmerica.com ) and help support the cause.






"Highhh...BRID!"
David Huang from Team Hybrid is super super cool. He is always down to support Cipher Garage and my mission to spread the gospel of negative offset wheels across the country. He is also ballin out of control, what... with a done up IS300 cover car and a done up IS350 show stopper and a done up Range Rover in the works??? And he says his money comes from his family's "importing business." WTF?!

Come on David. Makin all that cheddar, what the F is your family importing from China man?! Ohhh, I get it. OTHER CHINESE PEOPLE. Damn no wonder. Well your secret is safe with me.






Jay Lapid is a Formula D driver from San Francisco CA who just got married, and just had a baby! Forget "Drifting" I need to make him a shirt that says "My wife and kid" changed my life. haha!

But seriously, Jay is a super cool guy. He runs a sticker shop called Graphtech in South San Francisco. (Peep him out at gtstickers.com and tell him Antonio sent you.)

Jay made the super dope limited edition GOLD Cipher Garage stickers that we made famous on our last trip to Japan. Don't sleep. Jay can hook you up with custom printed and die cut graphics, and he's reliable. Graphtech prints and cuts the graphics for most of the Team FALKEN cars in the Formula D Series. Even the SF Police has Jay doing their stickers.






Drift Day was the foundation for grassroots drifting in the west coast. Here we have my very good friends, Professional Formula D drivers Taka Aono and Hiro Sumida, along with Koji Mori (Club4AG webmaster) who is working with the guys to manage the team and get sponsors. These guys are all hardcore AE86 guys. I respect them alot.

And I think Taka Aono is THE BEST AE86 DRIVER IN NORTH AMERICA. And he is super nice, super humble, super down to earth. Not only does Taka drive his car in Formula D competition, but he also trailers cars ( his car or other people's cars) to all the events! Dude, he trailered his GF Yoshie Shuyama's Formula D competition car from LA to Formula D Seattle!!! Now that's love! But that's not all! Taka fucking drove his truck across the US of A and trailered Yoshie's car (and Hiromi Kajikuma's AE86 Levin) to Formula D New fucking Jersey!!! Can you believe that shit?! That is soooo far. Maximum respect to Taka. We need more hardcore people like Taka in the drifting scene. Hardcore driver, and hardcore grassroots enthusiast. People like Taka are the reason why I am so inspired by DRIFTING. I mean it.

I am sooo puzzled as to why Hiro and Taka don't have more sponsor support. I mean, they do get support as part of Team Falken, which they are very thankful for, but I'm talking about they need other monetary sponsors to help them through the season. Also good lookin out to Owen and Brian, their mechanics.






DRIFTING Changed Their Lives. For sure!

This is (L-R) Hiro Sumida, Ray Nakadate, and Yoshie Shuyama. Yoshie is Taka's gf and quite possibly the top female drifter living in the USA. She has steep competition from Hiromi Kajikuma though, who is sponsored by Team Kaaz.

Ray Nakadate owns Team Kaaz, and is the President of Kaaz USA. Many of you might not know this, but Ray and I go back. Way back. He has been a good friend of mine since like 1999 or 2000. Wow that's nuts. Ray taught me what he knew about restoring old cars, because he had a shop called Newport Exotic Cars near Newport Beach CA. People from all over the world used to send him old Lotuses, Lancias, Ferraris, Mercedes, Shelby Cobras, and shit like that to restore.

So what do I do? My dumb ass brings him a red 1986 Toyota Corolla GT-S hatchback and asks him to help me restore the body and paint. Well the body was pretty clean to begin with, but Ray helped me out with the paint- we got a painter who specializes in shooting RED! (This guy paints Ferraris and shit. In fact, right when we were pulling my AE86 into the paint booth, they were just finishing up a Lamborghini!) Anyway red is a hard color to paint... if you spray it at different angles, and different distances from the car, you come up with different colors. Anyway we painted my AE86 with red lacquer paint (uhm.. it's illegal in CA) sourced out of the country, factory Toyota AE86 color 3E6. With extra gloss of course. The old hot rod guys always used lacquer paint because it would dry super hard like fingernail lacquer, and would produce a super brilliant gloss. That's why my kouki AE86 always looks glossy, even when its super dusty. That's the secret.






The Drift Alliance guys were showing support too! Drifting definitely changed their lives! If it weren't for drifting, they wouldn't be known as "DA." Maybe AA? Anyway, here's Ryan Hampton, Ryan "Hampshaa" Tuerck, and Chris Forsberg.






Richard Tran works for Formula Drift. He was showing his support by rocking one of my lanyards too, which says "Support DRIFTING" on one side. Richard is Formula D's official model handler. This guy is always pimpin the chicks.

More than one girl has told me in these exact words "Richard is a pretty good looking guy, for a Vietnamese guy." Seriously, more than one asian chick has said that to me. But the thing that strikes me, is why do they have to always add the "for a Vietnamese guy" part?! I would have never even thought of that- I'm a racer, not a racist!







Juan Henao is one of the best up and coming drifters to come from South Florida. Mark my words, you'll see more of him and his red S13 very soon.







Dan Pina is a good friend of Calvin Wan's. He is also known as "the other Mexican drifter." Doesn't it suck to live under someone's shadow Dan? LOL juuust kidding. Dan is a hell of a driver, Calvin says Dan was running touge in Northern Cali in a stock Ford Focus, and he was still passing fools! And the other cars out there were like... AE86, S13, S14, FD3S, R32 Skyline GT-R (Hubert Young).

Just ask Calvin Wan from Team Falken. He will tell you stories of how pissed he was several years ago, when Dan beat Calvin's time in an SFR SCCA autocross, driving Calvin's own FD. Man was Calvin pissed.

Eventually Calvin got Dan back, but still! I'm sure Calvin is gonna be like "damn fool! Why'd you have to write that shit in your blog?! Fuckin Antonio, dude..."

Haha. Go start your own blog then, Calvin. =)






Mike Maez is one hell of an up and coming photographer. Actually, no. He's not an up and coming photog, this cat has MADE IT. And by made it, I mean he has made tons and tons of covers... magazines like Modified Luxury & Exotics, Modified, Nissan Sport, etc... He is a friend of mine, and I really respect his work. Props Mike!

SEMA 2006: Night 3, C16 Party at Tao. If you missed this party, YOUR bad. Serious, you really missed out, kid!

Okay once me and the boys got back to the hotel from SEMA, we had dinner with my boy Kelvin Tohar from Falken, and some of his non-industry friends. Man those guys were cool, and they weren't even into cars really. It's weird, when we had dinner I noticed that almost all of my friends are into cars, or work in the car industry, or are somehow connected to it.






After getting ready, me and Char took the elevator downstairs where Tobs and the rest of the crew were waiting. We were trying to take a "Myspace pic" in the elevator, but then the doors opened and there were a bunch of people looking at us. haha we got moded.

Wait... is it "moded?" or "molded?" Dude I dunno. But we used to say that as kids. haha






My boy Nick and his wife Selina were downstairs, waiting for our other friends cause they wanted to go to the Dub Party to see Nas in concert.

If you guys don't know about Nick, he is one of the key elements in the success of Falken Tire Company in the past few years. Since Falken hired Nick and a whole crew of young people in the scene, they got involved in many things EARLY like drifting and vip style, while all the other companies were left scratching their heads trying to figure it out. For more on Nick, check out the current issue of DAYTONA MAGAZINE (Japanese) at Kinokuniya Bookstores, just google it. I shot a lifestyle feature on Nick, you can check it out in the magazine.

Man that's crazy tho. Dub really came through, they brought Nas and Ghostface and some other people out to do a show at SEMA. And it was free as long as you had a pass to the party. That's so dope. But I missed it, and went to the C16 Party instead. Nas is one of my favorite lyricists, but if Nas saw what was going on at the C16 Party, I'm sure he would have rather gone to C16 too.

So anyways Tobin rounded up the troops cause we had a party bus waiting outside! It was pretty bad ass, it was like a strip club in there, it even had a bar and stripper poles and stuff. Our bus driver was one of Tobin's friends, Porno Joe. Cool name huh! I asked Joe about it, and he said he's filmed porn flicks in his bus! Damn that's craaazy!






Here's some of our group... unfortunately I couldn't take a photo of everyone at once cause the bus was big. (L-R) Char, Amy, Reiko, Scott, and Tobin. We're all very good friends.






Go ahead and right click to save this, I know alot of you guys will have this as your desktop backgrounds for a minute. Just don't let ya girlfriends find out! haha

Here's another part of our crew... (L-R) Eri, Melanie, Elizabeth, Lily, Claudia, and Joyce. Dude we didn't even need to go to C16, this bus was already off the hook.






The band of brothers. Here's the sad section of the bus. There were so many girls there, these guys could have easily been the meat in the middle of a model sandwich, but they decided they would rather sit amongst a few good men. Well Robert (left) has a girlfriend, but Edo and Arnell? No excuse.






See, this is how you mix it up. Now that's a party!

Speaking of party, the C16 Party was seriously ridiculous off the hook. C16 always throws the best parties because the parent company, Overamerica Media, also owns a lifestyle magazine, a DJ magazine, and a record label. So no shit, they know how to throw a party. They had so many hot almost naked chicks all over the place, giving each other massages and stuff. Seriously, big ups C16.

We had a pretty big group with us, so it was hard getting everyone in, but me and Tobs coordinated it, and waited outside to make sure our whole crew got in. Clubs only let like 3-4 people in at a time usually, so we had to break it up cause we had like 20-30 people coming in with us.

We even had peeps trying to jump into our line that we didn't even know... so we had to cut em off. The best part was when some guy said "Hey man, can I'm come in with you guys? I'm ____ from _____ Shop..." and Tobin was like "What?! No, I'm sorry dude I don't even know you!" I guess people just don't wanna wait in line.






We got to the bar upstairs and surprise surprise, we ran into John and Dave from Speed Machine in San Diego. Speed Machine specializes in building RX7s and rotary engines, but John has a pretty good offset AE86, so obviously I think he's cool. Plus he was rocking the new "86LIFE" shirt to the club, which was pretty dope. See? Cipher Garage clothing makes you look fresh whether you're on or off the track.

It's no surprise that Gangsta Dave has a chick in on hand, and a drink in the other- when does this guy NOT have a drink or a cigarette in his hand?

Aside from totally wasting some chump on national television with his last minute built FC3S RX7 in an episode of Pinks (Speed Channel), Dave's other claim to fame is his infamous shirt which always gets him attention at the airport- "My drinking team has a racing problem."






I ran into my boy Mike Schneider, from Lookout Drift in VA. I know it sounds nerdy, but we used to email each other on this "Toyota Mods" emailing list way back in like 2000 or before that. (See? Told you it sounds nerdy. But anyway the Toymods list was a way for people to share their knowledge on the subject of modifying Toyotas, so we were both on it. And anyway this trip to SEMA was the first time we ever met. He has an AE86 and he's good at drifting too. Props to the Lookout Drift crew!






There were alot of half naked girls scattered throughout the party, giving each other massages. I tried to take a photo, but this C-blocker stuck his hand up and ruined the range of my flash. Idiot.






This is my boy Tony Brakohiapa. He is a driving instructor at Jim Russell Racing School at Infineon Raceway (Sonoma CA), where Formula D happens. He is super cool, and a skilled driver. He is getting his start into the Formula D series, but as for me, I wanna go to the Russell Racing School so Tony can teach me how to drive "grip" faster!






This is my boy Scott Herrick, "Ender-DI" from Club4AG... he has an addiction to both AE and TE series Corollas, just like someone else I know. He has an AE86 and a TE38 (is that the right chassis code?) wagon.






Let me introduce you to the evil genius minds behind the C16 Magazine and Daytona Magazine! (Numbered, L-R)

1) STEVE LEVY - Owner of C16 Magazine, Over America and Moonshine Music record label
2) KENTA OGAWARA - Owner of Tokyo Drive Productions (behind the bottle, and also behind the recent rise in popularity of Japan's largest magazine based on American lifestyle and car culture- Daytona Magazine)
3) ANTONIO SURESHOT - Owner of Cipher Media Group (I produce cover photos, content, and features for both magazines, and the others in the group do design and layout work for magazine ads, catalogs, and other marketing materials)
4) "KAGE" - The new Editor in Chief of DAYTONA MAGAZINE, who chose to work with me and Kenta produce content and shoot photos for Daytona in the USA.

Kage says that the first time he ran Kenta's stories and my photography in an issue of Daytona, it resulted in an immediate 30% increase in Daytona's news stand sales, which continues to rise steadily. The Daytona management was tripping! They couldn't believe it (either could me and Kenta) so Kage decided to do a "reader poll" to find out what it was that the readers liked in the magazine.

The #1 column that the overall readers liked were by this huge comedian in Japan (he's like the Japanese equivalent to Jay Leno, with a syndicated comedy/talk show every day on Japanese TV, and a huge car collection just like Leno)...

And Kage said the #2 column in Daytona was the section which contained content written by Kenta Ogawara, and photography by Antonio Alvendia. What a trip, that's soooo cool. Needless to say, Kage has us laced up into each issue of Daytona now- and he has Kenta writing 30+ pages of the magazine for each issue. (that's alot) The long haired Japanese guy must be a pretty damn good writer, cause since Daytona has so much clout in Japan, they could have chosen anyone, but they chose him.

On the other hand, the increase in newsstand sales and reader interest also resulted in increased interest from advertisers, for example, a large tire company from Japan, which also has a pretty big office in Southern California... even though I can't really name names. Pick up a Daytona, and you'll figure it out.

Good job Daytona. And good choice investing in PEOPLE. Because that's what makes a magazine successful. GOOD PEOPLE.

There are alot of people who can write articles or take photos, but Kenta and I specifically are laced pretty deep into the scene in both the USA and Japan. That's how we come up with cutting edge content and photos. Food for thought.






This is me and my boy Mark Arcenal. Mark is an award winning designer from San Francisco, and he works with several of the top companies in the industry. He even designed the cover of my book, DRIFTING.

Oh man, just wait until you see what we got in store for you next year. Me and Mark are gonna collaborate on a project together. I dunno what it is about creative Filipinos from the Bay Area, but they just tend to make shit hot.






This is me, Mark, and his wife Cindy.






This is Claudia, she's cute right? Hit her up, she works for Falken.






One of my favorite gangsters to chill with, my girl Joyce. She is hella cool.






The Chen family (Dominic and Kent, pictured in the middle) likes to surround itself with Filipinos who are good at creating stuff and designing stuff and marketing stuff. So that's why we took this photo, it's like... symbolic.

Haha but for real, Dom and Kent run Endless USA and AME Wheels in the USA. Super dope stuff for big ballers, but it's worth it. Shallen LX Diamond cut finish with polished lip, 19x10 is the SHIT. Ya heard me Kent!!! LOL

The other flip in the pic is John Pangalinanananananananananan. He made Speedwell Shoes popular right before they pulled the plug on the project. Dammit. I love my pair of Speedwells, the comfiest race shoes I've ever owned. Good lookin out JP Smoothe.






Here's DJ Steve Aoki, Kid Millionaire, with MC CB-One aka Ray David, Filipino Thousandaire. Steve Aoki's nickname comes from the fact that his pops owns the Benihana Japanese restaurants, and his sister is Devon Aoki, the chick from Fast & Furious 2. His pops also sponsors Tarzan Yamada's Benihana Viper, because he is best friends with the owner of the Viper's JGTC team. Man I bet you didn't know that, kids.

I dont know WTF is up with Steve Aoki in this pic, but he looks like a scared bunny caught in someone's headlights. Pretty strange looking dude. With one glove, fingerless. Serious. Well, we can't see where Ray's right hand is, in this picture. Maybe that's why Aoki has that expression on his face. LOL






I took this pic of Reiko, Amy, and Liz as we were dancing out on the floor.







As I took this pic, Joyce is saying "Hiiiiiiiiii" and Arnell's face is saying "daaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmnnnnnn! Joyce is poppin yo!" LOL!!! Seriously, I just laughed out loud right now. Fuckinarnell. You the man.






Tobs took my camera to take a pic of this guy. At first, I thought it was Joel Madden from Good Charlotte, then someone told me it was Travis Barker from Blink 182. I talked to my boy Ray David, and he confirmed that it was Joel from Good Charlotte.

Dude I don't know, I'm sorry. I'm a straight up hip hop head. Joel Madden, Steve Madden, Travis Barker, Bob Barker, Tony Angelo, dude I don't know. To be honest, these white rocker band guys kind of look similar to me cause I don't pay attention to rock bands much. I'm sorry LOL. But I do know the difference between Guru, DJ Premier, Q-tip, De la Soul, Mos Def and everyone else who matters to my musical taste.

But why does homeboy look like he's blowing a kiss to Tobin? I guess not only women find Tobin attractive. Scary.






Dancing with Melanie Tillbrook and Eri Moriyama is always a good idea. Of course they're super hot, but what's even better about them is they're both super down to earth, motivated, hard working, and have awesome personalities. Seriously, I think the world of these two. I mean it.

And Kage right here is saying "kampaiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!" Meaning, put the camera down, and DRINK.






Finally my friends from Minnesota show up, they had to wait in a stupid long line. Sorry bout that guys, but you came so late. These guys work at MBI, which is the publishing house that did my book on DRIFTING. Jim (left) is a super cool, ex rock band guy who toured the world with his band at one point, and he also is a pretty damn good competitive motorcycle rider. I wonder if Jim got those shirts on Haight and Ashbury at a Grateful Dead gathering.

Darrick Anderson, in the white shirt, is pointing at Jim's shirt, thinking "did you see Jim's shirt? He's dressed like a leopard!" while Darwin is standing back, wanting nothing to do with this band of nitwits. haha! All these guys are so cool, I'm glad I met them all. Especially Jim. He is hilarious to party with. We once went to Scores in Chicago, and... (I probably should stop here)






Good shit Scott! Dancing with Elizabeth is always a good idea. Yall match too.






In the middle of the club, there were some chicks chillin in a bathtub filled with rose petals, and they were massaging each other and stuff. I like their outfits. Always a good idea!






Good lookin out C16 Magazine! We weren't supposed to take any photos here, so of course, I shot pics with my little pocket camera I was downlow status until the flash popped off! haha






I'm sayin. Fresh outfits!






This is my boy JP Smoothe, rocking his fly ID shirt. He was faded I think, so he might not remember this pic, but now it's posted on the internet man! So gangster, this guy.






Right as we were leaving, I ran into my girl Thai!!! I lovvvvvvve her! She has the best personality, I'm serious. So sweet. Kage from Daytona was drunk as you can tell, he was jumping into all the photos! haha






Seriously, what's not to like about Thai. Looks are one thing, but this girl is the type of chick you could just chill with and do nothing, and you guys would still have a good time. Good company, for real.






It was pretty hard to assemble our group, cause we were all over the place in the club, but we had to take off sooner or later, even though we all had a ton of fun at the party! Here's some of the girls stumbling out of the club. haha!

The crazy thing was, as we were walking through the casino, our group was attracting so much attention, all the old white guys at the tables and slot machines, were sneaking peeks so their wives wouldn't notice, and even some guys busted out their cameras and took pics! Haha Crazy!






Here's Luscious Liz, Faaaaaded Char, Lily Wrong, and Joyce Boogie all having a good time after the club.

See my boy Scott in the back? He is hilarious. We all chill together all the time, and our boys Jay and Tobin gave him a Schikane/Sears/Falken collabo t-shirt, which looks super fresh BTW. Anyways Scott was just rocking the shirt cause we were all kickin it in Vegas, and since my friends and I all have our own clothing lines, we all rock each other's shirts.

Well Scott didn't even think anything of it, but he wore his Schikane/Sears/FALKEN shirt to a KUMHO company dinner, and the Koreans were all like WTF?! LOL What a dumbass, Scott! He had to change his shirt, and down 5 bottles of soju and 3 containers of kimchi to make it up to the company. Good job there Toshima. Eeeeeeeediot! LOL That move will get you an "Employee of the Month" parking spot real soon.






I'm tellin you, we roll with the hottest mamas! Not mamas as in Milfs, but mamas as in hot chicks. (L-R) Reiko, Elizabeth, Eri, Melanie, Lily, Joyce, Claudia, Char, and Amy. Hot like fire!






Aight so we were all waiting outside the Venetian on this bench, waiting for the party bus to pick us up (Good lookin out TOBIN for setting that up bro, that was the best idea you had all week!) and then peeps just started taking pictures... right here is Arnell, Robert, Liz, Eri, Mel, Joyce, and me.






So Tobs jumps in and started saying something, it was pretty funny... and everyone started taking pics...






And then some random people we didn't even know started jumping in the photo to take pics as they were passing by!!! We didn't notice at first, but then the girls were like, "wait... who the fuck was that?!" hahaha what an ass, this guy! haha






Aight! We got scooped up by Porno Joe and the party bus! Oh yeah, and nice legs, Lily.






Joyce is hella funny! We always chill in different states when we're flyin out to events! This girl's a jet setter, straight up. Always flyin out somewhere. Miami, ATL, Tokyo, Hong Kong, NYC, Vancouver, Hawaii, you name it. Funny thing is, we've chilled together in most of those places. Just dont get her mad, cause she WILL bust a cap in your ass. She has a rifle in her bedroom, chillin out next to the bed. I've seen it. She's crazy.






Gangster Dave and some of his crew from Speed Machine in SD rolled back to the Paris with us... unfortunately we had to regulate on some of the others who were trying to get into the bus, cause we had limited space, and couldn't let all our friends on the bus. We had to prepay the cost of the bus, so sorry guys, hope yall understand.

But yeah Edo wanted to take a pic, but then Gangsta Dave stuck his arm in there to grab something. And I have no idea where Melanie is headed, but it looks fun to me! haha

I would have even more pics from our night, but my camera's battery died. =(

Hey does anyone wanna teach me how to post video links on here? Cause I have a video of the party but don't know how to post it.

SEMA 2006: Pics of Day 3. VIP, Formula D, Tyson B, and DRIFTING.

Yeah yeah everyone has been hitting me up (Daryl, Fred, Char, Andy, and everyone else haha) saying "yo man hurry up and catch up to your next blog update, we're waiting to see pics of SEMA Day 3!" So I apologize, but yo I've been busy makin moves and handling biz.

I have soooooo many business cards from people I met at SEMA, and I wanted to try to contact them before they forgot who I was, or I forgot who they were. Remember, you may meet alot of new contacts at tradeshows, but if you don't follow up with them, your new contacts are worthless! Ya know!

It's like getting a hot chick's phone number, and then not calling. (haha but actually I always forget to call chicks cause I'm busy, my bad.) Sooner or later she will forget who you are if you don't call after a few days. Just don't call right when you get home, the same day after meeting her! If you don't get it, go to Blockbuster and rent SWINGERS you rookie!






First thing we did was go to the VIP press conference, where Falken explained to the automotive media what they were doing with all these gangster VIP themed black vehicles at SEMA. They had people from Falken, Junction Produce, AME Wheels, Air Runner, Tein, and some other peeps over there making announcements.

Even Taketomi, the President of Junction Produce (Osaka Japan) was there addressing the crowd in Japanese, with help from his new translator/overseas sales guy Fujioka. (The guys on the left side)

But what I thought was kind of funny... Taketomi was talking for like 3-4 minutes in Japanese, explaining his philosophy on VIP tuning... and when it was time for Fujioka to translate for him, Fujioka would only say like one short sentence in English. We were like WTF???

It was pretty much like "lost in translation!" Me and Joyce Lex were laughing about it. The next time Junction Produce does a press conference, it would probably make more sense for Taketomi to just prepare some notes for Fujioka in advance, so homeboy could just read the whole thing in English!

Then while Fujioka presents to the crowd in English, Taketomi could nod his head in approval, or smile and wave to the crowd. Or if he wanted to, he could even just say little things like "Ne!" or "Hai!" or "So desu ne! or even "Word up!" if he REALLY wanted to be vocal about shit.

Cause since there were only like 3 or 4 people in the crowd who understood what Taketomi was saying in Japanese anyway, having him talk was just a formality.

But nobody asked me for my opinion, so never mind. Not like they asked me for consulting or anything.







And what I thought was pretty dope about the press conference, was everyone was all suited up to match the VIP look, and my boy Dominic Chen from AME Wheels comes in rocking some brand new black & white Converse Chuck Taylors. LOL! Now that's gangster for real! While everyone else brought out their Kenneth Coles and Ferragamos, this cat was straight rockin Chucks. hahaha fuckin Dom! They were clean though, so I'm not mad at ya... it was just funny cause his shoes stood out so much while they were up on stage.






Tarzan Yamada with my boys from Miami, Jose (bald guy) and Juan. Tarzan was busy filming a Japanese TV show, but he stopped to take this pic with them. Tarzan loves the camera.







Next stop, Formula D Press Conference. I gotta say, I'm proud of the guys at Formula D. They're really taking the series to the next step and doing some big things. Big ups Jim and Ryan. It is difficult blazing new trails, and being the FIRST. Oh man I know all about that.

Anyway, here's Jim Liaw, co-founder of Formula Drift. DRIFTING changed his life.







Hallalujah praise the Lord! My boy Avon Bellamy is finally linked up on Cingular. Now the revolution can begin! And yeah, DRIFTING changed his life too.







In case you guys don't know what it is Avon Bellamy does, he is a partner in a company called Real Wheelz (I know, the Z in the name kills me), which makes die cast toys and trading cards. Here are the prototype sample toys of Calvin Wan's personal FD3S RX7. And his trading card!







This is Peter. He is the guy who made it all happen. Almost 2 years ago, he flew to Los Angeles to meet with me, and we talked about the commercial viability of a book based on DRIFTING. I presented him with the proposal and outline, and he pushed it through on his end.

Fast forward to November 2006, what started off just as a dream on my part is now a reality... and my book on DRIFTING is in every single major bookstore in the USA and Canada, and not to mention- a huge success. See? Told you so. To date, we've sold our whole year's supply of books in less than 3 months. And my book on the subject of DRIFTING has been getting tons of international press in print magazines, websites, and even television.

So yeah, DRIFTING really did change my life. And Peter made it all happen. Thank you Peter.






Then right as me, Jose, Scott, and Juan began walking towards the drifting demo outside...

Tyson Beckford walks up with his entourage and he told me he thought my book was dope, and he wanted me to autograph it for him. Wow, I was pretty surprised by that! Crazy. Big ups to Juan and Scott for the pics.






So while I was busy signing Tyson's book, he was telling me about this new project he's working on, and he was asking me if I wanted to do anything with it, or "guest appear" on the show or something... again, pretty crazy.






Uhmmm, even though it looks like our fingers are touching in this photo, they're NOT. There's a good 3-4 inches of space in between them, even though you can't see it in the photo. Ok just wanted to clear that up.






As we were walking out to the drifting demo, I saw this car. I'm not really sure what kind of Mopar this is, but it looks dope!






Later that evening at the drifting demo, my boy Robbie Nishida saw me and started taking off his suit... and I was like "dude how come you start undressing right away when you see me?! People will think you're gay or something!" but haha, he was just trying to show me that he was rockin his favorite Cipher Garage shirt, the infamous SSR Mark-III design.






This is Alex Pfeiffer's girlfriend Crystal. (the one with the longer hair) The other person in the pic is Rob Fleming from Enjuku Racing in Florida somewhere.






Awww it's Hiromi san!!! Hiromi Kajikuma lives the 86 life. She is the top female driver in Formula D competition, and she drives an AE86!!! Hell yeah. She is so sweet! And a hell of a driver! Actually, before she came to the USA to drive for Team Kaaz, I met Hiromi-san at one of the last "BM-Hai" events (Battle Magazine's Battle of Drift) at Tsukuba Raceway in Ibaragi Japan. It was so cool that she remembered me when she came to the USA! Hiromi-san is a good friend of Robbie and the Hey Man crew. I guess, most people who drive hachirokus get along. Well no shit, the hachiroku is a dope ass car, so we all have common interests. It SHOULD bring people together.

SEMA2006: Pics of Day 2. Halloween Party!

This was definitely one of my favorite vehicles at SEMA. It isn't a production car, it's a one-off "Retro Cruiser" project done for Toyota by the masterminds at Millenworks. They modified the body of an FJ-45 Land Cruiser, and put a new Toyota V8 in it, and newer body (maybe FJ80?) Land Cruiser suspension. I think it is bad ass, I'd love to own this thing! But it's only a concept/project. Damn!

For more info on this Toyota Retro Cruiser, check out the Millenworks Web Site. Millenworks is a company founded by Rhys Millen's dad, legendary Toyota/Pike's Peak Champion Rod Millen. Rod has taken his motorsports and fabrication background to the next level, and now he's making vehicles for the US government and stuff! Crazy!






Old school restored Toyota Hilux! Cool! If you own one of these trucks and need parts, call up my boy HerbrockOne at Cabe Toyota Parts in Long Beach, 562-595-7411.






Even older Toyota truck! Look at the crazy fender mounted turn signals. Dope!






Super old school Toyota Stout. These were the first Toyota trucks from the 1960s. Awesome that they brought out these beautifully restored trucks to SEMA! I'm all about restored vintage Toyotas!






I ran into my good friend Mercedes at SEMA! I haven't had the chance to see her in a long time, since we've been so busy. We used to travel together to all the Drift Showoff events, I used to love flying with her and hanging out in different cities together. But now we're so busy with our different projects and events! Miss you Cedes!






I ran into a couple of my friends, Andy Williamson and John Naderi, as we were passing the Konig booth. Andy was chillin out talking to the Konig guys. In case you don't know him, he was the original Editor In Chief for C16 Magazine, and used to be with TMR before that. John Naderi is obviously the Editor In Chief of the mighty Super Street empire so he's always busy, but now he's even more busy with a brand new baby at home! Congrats Nads!

They were both rocking my new "Drifting changed my life" lanyards at SEMA all week, even though you can't see Andy's lanyard- it's under his "cool guy Miami Vice" sport coat.






Dope! They brought this new rally version Land Cruiser KXR from Spain just for SEMA! It was upstairs near the media room.






Man! LAnd Cruiser KXR! That's hella cool.






Hmm, I don't know what's hotter, Courtney Day in this outfit, or the wheel fitment on Mickey's S13 convertible. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Courtney is always lookin good, but it's a tough choice, cause those wheels are pretty damn hot.






Oh snap! We were walking by the American Racing booth, and my boy Jose noticed this huge wall/banner with a picture of Daijiro Yoshihara's Pac Rim S13 on it. And he was like "Yo! Did you see the Cipher Garage logo on the banner?" What? I was surprised to see it, I didn't notice it at first! Dope! Thanks Jerry and Dai! Here's the banner behind us.






After the show we went to the American Racing reception at the Renaissance Hotel next door, which was put together by my boys Victor, Michael, and John from ID Agency. They had an open bar and hors deuvres there, but my boy "Pimpin Pete" right here didn't care about that, he had his hands full with the ladies as always!






After the reception, I headed back to Paris to have dinner. Here's Joyce doing her "Trademark Pose Number 2376-B" while I'm talkin on the phone with someone.






I know it looks like a scene from a bad porn, but here's the real story. The prime rib had some super spicy horseradish, and Elizabeth bet my boy Robert $5 bucks that he couldn't down a spoon of it. It was pretty spicy, but he did it. And I doubt Elizabeth paid up, but I'll have to ask him.






Even though we were having fun screwing around, Nick was just concentrating on his drink. As you can tell, he's always very focused on his goals.






Here's Eri, Melanie, and a not-so-cute big Chinese bunny.






I'm serious, Robert was down with the Chinese bunny uniform!






But then Eri got her ears back, and thank goodness cause they look much better on her. Then she jacked this coffee cup from the restaurant and went up to her room with it.






So we all got ready to go out, and on the way out, we ran into my man J-Brad and his girlfriend Anisia. Anisha? Anicia? Dude I dunno how to spell it homie. Thats a dope shirt though, J-Brad is always laced in the fly gear.






You can simply right click to save this pic. Here's Melanie, Joyce, Elizabeth, Eri, and Courtney at the Paris casino right before we headed out! Hot like fire!






And since we were all staying at the Paris, I had to wear my own "Paris" shirt to fit the theme. You dig?






This is me with my boy Tob-Roc. He is hella down.






We all went to Tao at the Venetian, and there was a big line outside... and I saw this dude right here. I have no idea who he is, but I thought it was so funny because we were like "oh shit, he's dressed as LANCE FELICIANO for Halloween!" LOL He must have been studying Lance, cause he got it right, even down to the Sparco suit, glasses, faux mohawk, goatee, and lines cut into the side of his hair. Damn, a fake Lance Feliciano! Hilarious!






Ok just in case yall don't know, here's the REAL Lance Feliciano, chillin next to his S14 competition car. Lance is my boy, and I'm proud of him cause he won First Place at the Formula D Pro-Am at Irwindale, just a few days before SEMA. And now he has peeps dressing up like him for Halloween! Damn Lance you comin up son! LOL






Back to the story, the bar inside Tao was pretty packed.






But then this chick started dancing on the bar, and I'm not hating on that!






Here's me and Eri chillin...






And Mickey was laughing his ass off cause Ross Petty came in with a ski mask and started saying some funny shit... but yo Ross really wears that thing! Dude we were walking through the airport security checkpoint, flying home from Formula D Seattle, and Ross took off his shoes, and was about to walk through the security thing with his ski mask on! Hilarious!






Colleen and Courtney were chillin... Colleen dressed up as a Japanese chick, but she used to live in Okinawa, so I bet she used to like, just walk around town with that outfit anyways. haha and Court was a naughty nurse. Cool!






Melanie had these big wings strapped to her back, and she kept bitch slapping people with them, on accident! Here's me getting bitch slapped with Mel's wings! It's ok though, cause she's hot. Anthony agrees, see he's smiling up front.






DAMMIT MELANIE! Is what Liz here is thinking! She got bitch slapped with Melanie's wings too! LOL






Eri was posing for a nice booty shot, but my friend Juan Henao from South Florida is a great drifter but a lousy lousy photographer, and he didn't capture Eri's booty in the pic. Dude she even had a cotton bunny tail, how could u miss that?!






Anyways, here's me, Melanie, and "Paris."

I really gotta thank my boy Ken Miyoshi from Drift Showoff, because he bought this shirt for me as a gift when he was in Hawaii for Streetcar Showoff this year. Everyone looks at my shirt, especially when I wore it in Vegas, they were all asking me where they could get it. So here's the 411:

You can buy this "Paris Hilton Coup De Grace" shirt at:

IN4MATION.
1050 Ala Moana Blvd B1 Bay 5+6
Honolulu HI 96814
808-597-1447
(Ward Warehouse in Honolulu HI or order it over the phone or on their website) Tell em you saw it on the Cipher Garage blogspot!

OR if you live in Los Angeles, you can get it at:

Fast Eddie's Garage.
1116 W. Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90015
213-746-9300







My boy Jonny Wong was responsible for educating most of the uninformed people on the east coast and midwest about JDM parts, through his articles in Super Street Magazine. He started writing about JDM stuff around 99 and 2000, and now look. Even Nopi has JDM cars there. Sheesh. It blew up.






Two of my close friends right here, Tobin and Kelvin. Tobin was responsible for making Enkei Wheels popular in the drifting community, and Kelvin is responsible for making Baccali a popular restaurant in Alhambra CA. They even have a private parking spot just for Kelvin, and they even have a security guard on call to watch his car when he's inside eating! Now that's some shit! High roller over here...






Eri and Joyce chillin with my boys! Hot!






I spotted Thai at the club and I was hella happy, she is one of my favorites for sure! She has the BEST personality. Love that girl.







Dude this was the waitress who handed over the bill. She was lookin pretty aight! But the bill looked pretty crazy. Oh well that's how it happens at SEMA!

SEMA2006: Best Vegas Trip Ever. Pics of Day 1

Seriously this has got to be the best trip to Las Vegas I've ever had. Everything was dope. The company of people I was with, the business connections and networking and deals we did at the show, and then of course the parties were off the hook!





Here's my favorite photo I took on the first night. It's a photo from the outdoor patio at MIX, which is in "THE Hotel" which adjoins Mandalay Bay. It's dope, Mix has a dope atmosphere and an awesome view of Vegas and the Strip, due to the glass windows surrounding the top level patio.

Not a bad photo for a small point n shoot huh.







I rolled up to Las Vegas with Jay and Joyce, and the fresh pimped out Lex. And when we got there at night, we met up with my friend James Bondurant. He was drinking a beer inside The Gap at Caesar's Palace Forum Shops. There's a pic of Jay too, saying "oh damnnn!"






Then we went over to Paris to link up with my boy Tobin. Here's a photo of Tob and Joyce in the elevator, as we were going up to the room.






Also met up with Elizabeth and Mickey...






This is Mickey with his gf Courtney. You might have seen her hosting episodes of Redline TV on Speed Channel, or in a book titled "DRIFTING" by Antonio Alvendia. She is in the umbrella girl section. She has an S14 and she's building it up. Mickey has a black S13 convertible with deep offset wheels.






We rolled out to this spot called Mix to link up with my friend Lyle, which was in THE Hotel, adjoining Mandalay Bay. Here's a photo I took inside Mix, but it was at the end of the night after everyone went home.






Super Street and C16 are some of my favorite magazines to work for. (L-R) Here we have my boy Carter Jung from SS, Ricky Chu, and Ray David, the super flav creative director of C16. Ray is hella cool man.






Tobin was laughing for a minute, cause our drunk friend Justin kept expressing his frustration with some of the guys who were here at the event, cause he hella hooked them up with potential leads on a silver platter all night, and they didn't handle biz. I feel you bro. LOL






Here's a shot of some of the folks we were chillin with up above THE Hotel, on the night before SEMA started. In the black jacket is my boy Julius from Orlando, in the Kangol is Ray David from C16, and in the white shirt is my boy Lyle from Dynasty Empire in Chicago. The rest are Lyle's entourage.






Yo here's Ray Ray gettin the digits. Ladies always love a man in a Kangol. Word!






THE Hotel is pretty dope. Here's the view inside the lobby, looking out to the parking structure as we left all our friends and began walking out.






These are my boys! James Bondurant after 5 too many beers, me, Tobin, and Scott. We're always chillin!

Making "Drifting Changed My Life" Lanyards- behind the scenes

Sunday before leaving for SEMA, I had to go to the shop because Julian and George were making the "Drifting Changed My Life" lanyards for me to pass out to certain people at the show.

Here's George washing out the screen for the lanyards.






I went to church after coordinating the lanyard print run with George and Julian, but on my way back from church, I saw this van on the freeway. It was hard to drive and shoot this pic at the same time.






Because I was laughing my ass off when I read the back window! Now that is some class!

Limited Edition for SEMA: DRIFTING Changed My Life / Support DRIFTING Lanyards

Okay can I get a show of hands?

WHO'S COMING TO SEMA???

For everyone coming to the country's largest show for automotive aftermarket, SEMA... I just wanted to let you know that I will be releasing a SUPER LIMITED RUN of "DRIFTING Changed My Life | Support Drifting!" Lanyards.







These limited edition "DRIFTING Changed My Life | Support Drifting!" lanyards will be available AT THE SEMA SHOW ONLY.

For SEMA ONLY, I will be letting people TRADE UP to these hot new "DRIFTING Changed My Life | Support Drifting!" lanyards for FREE.

HOW?
Simple. Just come up to ME directly, and ask. Or if you spot someone wearing the lanyard, ask them where they got theirs, we will have quite a few of my friends giving out lanyards at SEMA.

We will TRADE you a dope new "DRIFTING Changed My Life | Support Drifting!" lanyard for whatever free giveaway lanyard you are wearing.

But there's one condition:
You gotta proudly rock your new "DRIFTING Changed My Life | Support Drifting!" ALL WEEK at the SEMA SHOW.

Rock it everywhere.
At the show, at the buffet, at the casino, at the afterparties, at the strip club. Just rock it. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT OF DRIFTING!

I know drifting changed MY life...
Did it change yours too? If so, then show your support of DRIFTING and encourage other people and other car, tire, and parts manufacturers from SEMA to show more support of DRIFTING too!

Get a lanyard people. It will be the hottest thing at SEMA this year.

Formula D Pro Am pics

This event (last Saturday, exactly one week ago) was super busy. I had to do last minute SEMA preparations, so my boy Felix helped a ton and ran the booth while I picked up business cards and stuff.

THANKS AGAIN FELIX!






Here's Justin Pawlak and his girl (I think her name was Sandra), watch out for him, he is sick. He has a super sick green FC3S TurboII with perfect offset white TE37 wheels. And he can drive an FC better than you can. He is sick, watch out for him the future. He can drive his ass off.








This is Al and her bf David Padron. You pronounce it "Duh-Veeed." He has an AE86 hatchback and he is gettin pretty damn good at drifting. Al is a photographer, she shoots grassroots drifting ALOT. She is building up her rep as a photographer, and is coming up! So shoots at almost all the grassroots drifting events right now, so she definitely gets my respect for that!






Here's the DriftLive crew packed in the back of Daveed's AE86. I didn't know AE86s could be 5 seaters, but they proved me wrong!






Dan Pena (he says pronounce it Peenya, as in pina colada) has a CHP themed drift mustang. The back of his Mustang hit the wall at Irwindale but Dan's still smiling. He is one hell of a driver, Calvin Wan keeps saying that. Dan beat Calvin's time at an autocross when he was driving Calvin's own FD3S, and Calvin will never forget that, he was so pissed. So they went road racing, and Calvin beat Dan in Dan's own Volkswagen. Now Calvin feels better. haha






Taka Aono was at the event with his Cressida wagon, he has perfect fitment RS Watanabe wheels on the car, and even more in the trunk! Yesss! Even though the Formula D Pro-AM/Kumho Street Warriorz event was sponsored by Kumho, Taka represented Falken with big stickers on his car, and he even put a Falken sticker on his shirt.






This zenki AE86 hatchback belongs to my friend Roy Vizcarra from Sacramento CA. He was originally from the Bay Area, and worked at Auto Plus in South San Francisco. Roy was one of the OG AE86ers I met when I was first getting into AE86s. His hood is white cause it's a real TRD fiberglass hood, not a cheap carbon fiber knockoff piece of junk.






Here's Roy again! He is a super nice guy! Aside from racing his AE86, he is also a competitive shooter, this guy can take you out if he has a gun in his hand. So don't mess with his car! Lucky for you, he is super nice and isn't the type to put a cap in your ass. But he could definitely do it if he wanted to.

Oh but I think it's pretty funny... because of his glasses, don't you think Roy kinda looks like the filipino version of the Unabomber? Dude if you had him in a hoodie, with those glasses on, he looks pretty close! LOL sorry Roy!







Look at the scoreboard for qualifying points! Top Qualifier was "Mr John" from Speed Machine in San Diego, 2nd was Lance Feliciano, and 3rd was Patrick Mordaunt. Awesome to have three AE86ers in the top 3! Even though Lance is driving an S14 right now, I still consider him an 86er because he started out in an AE86, and still has the 86 in his heart. Good shit.

Another thing, look at Verena Mei's score! #4 qualifier!!! Awesome! She is seriously kicking ass! Verena is definitely a driver you better keep your eyes on! She has passion and determination! And her skills are definitely improving quickly.






My boy Jerry from Pacific Rim rolled through in his super pimp old school Ford station wagon. I'm not sure if it's a Fairlane or a Falcon, but I love it!






Pimp Jer rockin the bench seat, so his chicks have more room to lay down on his lap.






Even though Mr John beat him in qualifying, Lance Feliciano took top honors at the event in overall points, and in final competition! Here he is posing for photos onstage after they announced him the WINNER!

The guys up there are from Kumho, they just presented him with a new set of tires, and a big ass speaker box (I think it was from Cerwin Vega) and I laughed cause when Lance was up there, he said "THANKSS! But what am I gonna do with this?" Haha yeah your competition car doesnt need those big ass speakers man. Put it in your mom's SUV.






Justin and some of the other homies sprayed Lance with drinks when he wasn't expecting it! haha!






Here's Lance and his mom celebrating his victory! Sure is nice when your mom supports your involvement in drifting. It isn't like that for most people.






This AE86 looked dope!!! I heard it is owned by a pro drag racer. It looks dope with the wheel fitment and stance! I think they are RS Watanabe 15x8J wheels but I don't think they're Type Rs. Maybe RSW F8F?







After the event, me, Felix, Mr John, Martin, and Pat Mordaunt rolled over to Krua Thai in West Covina. My friend Dan hooked up some goooood thai food, thanks Dan! See us blocking all the parking spots with John's AE86? Hell yeah.






Work Equip 01 3 piece, 15x9J -25 offset.






The "touge slicer." Cause there are silhouettes of razorblades on the valve cover.






Silvertop 20v with ITBS. Lovely. And an ARC radiator for a Honda Civic.

Friday before SEMA is so hectic. But we're still goin out.

Dude we have been working sooo damn hard all week to get everything ready for SEMA, it's nuts. I don't even want to talk about it right now. Peep out these pics instead.






Before I went to meet up with the crew, Kevin from HSPN.com came over to pick up some boxes of my DRIFTING books from me. He will be selling them on his new website, www.drift.com

Me and Kevin went to grab a quick bite to eat at Chipotle, before we both went back to work again.

I was supposed to go to my friend Sharon's place cause she was having a party in Lakewood for her bday, and I was looking forward to going! Sharon is a good friend of mine, and she's hot too. And she has hot friends.

But the thing is, she told me that her party is a costume party, and we had to dress up... but me and my crew were all busy preparing for SEMA, we didn't have time to buy or make a costume. Man we had soooo many other things to do. Sorry I didn't make it Sharon. =(








I finished up with all my work much later in the evening, like 11:30pm. I decided to go out real quick so I met up with my usual crew and we went out to Hollywood, as usual. Love that place. This night, we went to Garden of Eden.

Here's the crew (L-R) Herbrock One, Kip from Green Bottle Hawaii, Tob Roc, Jay One, Antonio Sureshot, and Ganja Todd.






Here's Jay and Matt at the bar. Matt designs the promotional print media and movie posters for big Hollywood movie releases.






This is Amy on the left, she is from Hawaii. I just met her like 30 minutes before we got to the party. She told me she is building her modeling portfolio. Can't wait to see it! And you guys all know Char already, because we hang out like almost every single day! Damn, me and my friends see each other alot.






Damn that's OG. OG as in Ojiiiiiiiiichan. (Old man in Japanese) Ojiichan Jay is my boy! He's at the bar paying for drinks. I don't normally talk candle light photos of my boys. Haha ok you caught me. lol... JUST KIDDING.






Ganja Todd and Stan from Drift Over Grip. These guys seem to always look like this when they hang out together. Hmm...






Here's Kip and Amy at the outside patio of the venue, they're both from Hawaii. I LOVE Hawaii! Oh but Kip owns a video production company called Green Bottle Productions. I have one of their DVDs, it has a blue AE86 in it! Cool!

Wonder why his company is called Green Bottle Productions? Take a look at what's in his hand.






My boys right here are trying to look all hard and stuff in this photo, but I just think it's funny because Stan and Herb are ALWAYS over at Jay's house. I mean ALWAYS. Call Jay at any time whatsoever, and ask him what he's doing. He will always say "I'm just chillin at the pad with Stan and Herb." I wonder if these guys leave toothbrushes at Jay's place now! HAHA






Oh by the way, this party we attended was a costume party. But my boys and I don't roll like that. We're a bunch of grown ass men, we're not trying to wear costumes to the clubs!

But we ran into my friends Tweezy and Carla again. Carla is dressed up like a boxer. She even got the boxing gloves, so I know you wanna hit that!






Here's Jerry and Jay. Planning some big things for December mannnnn...

Drunk on a weeknight: S13 Stan Tran The Man's Birthday.

Okay well October 25th was our boy Stan's bday, so we all went out to celebrate. We were all slammed with work, due to hectic SEMA preparations, designing new business cards, getting flyers and lanyards and everything else printed up...






But Stan Tran The Man is our boy, so we put all the bizzyness aside and met up to celebrate his birthday. This is (L-R) Tobin, Stan, me, and Scott. I gave my camera to a drunk chick and asked her to take a picture. Crazy, this must have been what she was seeing in real life. haha (but the effect is caused by a quick pop of the flash, and a slow shutter speed.)

We were at some "tavern" called Red Lion in the Silverlake area of LA. And a tavern it was. Everyone in there looked weird as hell. I felt like I was in that one scene on Lord of The Rings where Frodo and the other gay hobbit were meeting up with Strider, or Aragorn. Oh man, I sound like a nerd now. LOL

But seriously, the people in the bar looked pretty weird to me. The way they were dressed, it really looked like some old 1970s or 80s English medieval-themed pub or something, it's like you couldn't tell we were in LA. Those peeps looked weird. From the clothes to their hairstyles and stuff... I seriously thought they all looked like they could be hobbits or something weird.






Scott and Reiko here are newlyweds! They are an awesome couple! I figured since they just got married, they must be doing it like rabbits, so I thought I should get in between to break up "the festivities" for just a little bit. But ya know what, they ended up leaving early because Scott said "Reiko has to work." Yeah right, you just wanna do it, you perv. It's all good, Reiko's cute, so you better do it as much as you can Scott! haha






Here's Reiko and her friend Peggy, who I met at Scott and Reiko's wedding! In case you guys didn't know, Reiko can drift and she has an S13, and she can drive better than most guys can. She is cool as hell cause she felt so bad that her new husband had an FF car, so she wasn't havin it... and she bought him an S13 as a gift. In Stockton or Modesto or some far place in Cali that nobody visits.






See?! What did I tell you! Scott gave Reiko "the look," and immediately Reiko faked a yawn, and then said her goodbyes to Bev and Char. See Scott smiling in the background? He's like "yo I'mma handle it in just a few!"






Here's Charlene Ann and Beverly Jane. But we call em Char and Bev cause their names are too damn long. They're both hella sweet though,






Rob and Tobs are chillin in a booth, and Rob is telling Tobs a joke, but it's one of those "I guess you had to be there" jokes, cause Tobs doesn't look like he's feelin it. Tob's nice though, so he did a courtesy smile.






Here's our crew. We kick it all the time. But Bev doesn't come out and kick it with us enough, cause she's at home waiting for Karl to call from Japan. They call back and forth using Vonage to save money. Man Vonage is the shit.






Stan had a shitload of drinks, and he picked up Char's sidekick and started texting all her female friends... see him smiling right there? Right now he's AIMing... "Deee Jaaayyyyy... I lovvvvveee youuuuuu..."






The guys decided the only way to make Stan stop drunk texting people is by getting him another drink, so Shannon bought another round. Here's Stan, Shannon, Tob, and Jay going "Kampaiiiiiiiiiii!!!"






Look at this guy! So money and he doesn't even know it! He's getting kisses on the side, and he's like "leave me alone woman, I'm drinking." Tobin you are so money and you don't even know it. Wordup! I'm gonna jack you for that dope ass HI hat one of these days.






Talkin bizzness. You'll see, just wait til December peeps! Oh and by the way, Jay is rocking Tokyo Drive, and so was I that night. Representing for our drunk Japanese friend Kenta, who is intoxicated and starting fights halfway across the world.






Bout to bounce out, Shannon took a pic of me and Bev! Happy Birthday Stan!

Too bad you threw up at Jay's house. hahahaha