Et tu, Elise?

Having the physical features that I do makes me no stranger to being on the receiving end of mistaken identity (Panera Employee: "You're the [Asian] guy who just ordered the coffee, right?" Me: "No. I'm the [Asian] guy about to order a bagel, though.") and mistaken ethnicity ("Can't you read 'dem Chineez pictures?"). 

And who can blame people, really... I mean, it's a common enough occurrence that websites like AllLookSame.com and its "Exam Room" exist, right? East Asians all kind of do look the same, and we all get a Discernment FAIL -- myself included -- when asked to say who is Japanese, who is Korean, or who is Chinese.

I've learned not to get upset about it or take it personally, for the intent to offend is not there, and I don't personally know any of the people. Most of the time I just wryly smile and chuckle about it, and make sure to log it away for storytelling purposes, because I might as well have my friends laugh about it.

Another case of mistaken identity struck about a month ago. Only this time it came from someone I knew. All of my family was in town and at the mall. I was out picking up a friend from the airport. When we all met back up, Papa D had a story to share:

"So we're all at the mall with the kids. Elise [my niece] then walks up to a young, Asian man with gelled hair, and glasses with frames shaped like yours..."

...oh, no. She didn't...

"...and she just walked right up to him and asks him: 'Are you my Uncle Josh, I think?' And she kept asking him and jabbering away at/with him, and would have continued, had we not pulled her away..."

Like I said, when I'm mistaken for another Asian man or vice versa, I'm usually not offended because I don't know the person. But this was different. I should have felt a sense of betrayal at the hands of one my own, right? Like Caesar with Brutus?: "Et tu, Elise? You mistook a random Asian man for me?"

But then I remembered that my niece is 5-years old, and so I laughed. And laughed. And appreciate that in a random and strange mall, my niece went looking for me.

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Weekly Selects #29

catching up correspondence from two weeks ago...

-Via Facebook from a friend who asked to remain Anonymous, after I posted on my Facebook wall that I had just finished watching Mortal Kombat:

I don't have the courage to post this on your wall, but because I have a history of telling you embarrassing stories of myself I will divulge that Mortal Kombat holds a special place in my heart because when I was in 8th grade I won a cheerleading competition (solo) dancing to the Mortal Kombat theme song.

In my own defense, I promised to watch the movie with JMill when she was laid up with her broken leg. I figured when your leg's broken in three places, you need to know that there are worse things in life, and starring in a movie based on a video game is one of them.

I'm afraid I can't come to my friend's defense, though... The "she was young!" excuse would be nice to use, but that doesn't absolve me of the embarrassment I should feel at the bowlcut I sported from ages 12-14.

Ok, fine, 12-15.

-Via Google Chat status from Jay Z, my boy from high school who is quitting smoking, quoting our friend TP:

plus, as educated, and otherwise privileged white kids, quitting smoking is likely the most adversity we'll ever have to overcome

TP may have a point. He, Jay Z, and some other friends had to start The Upper Middle Class White Male Heterosexuals club in high school. See, when you grow up upper-middle class, white, male, and heterosexual in WA, you need a forum/support group of peers you can relate to; with whom you can gather and talk about the disenfranchisement you feel at the hands of all of the other upper middle class, white, heterosexuals you go to school with. Nothing makes the homogeneous majority feel unique than having a club based on their homogeneity.

Interesting side story: I was told I could join the club but that I would only be 3/5 of a vote. I wasn't upset so much about the racist overtones of their condition on my membership, but rather about the condition's inability to mask which way I voted on issues: "Let's see. The tally is 5 votes for, and 3/5 of a vote against. Nice job, JD."

-Via Email from sister Jen, zentai, a Japanese practice I was unaware of:

The Japanese strike again

photos and article from here; all of them are worth a view

Zentai is "the practice of cocooning one's self from head to toe in a skin-tight bodysuit," a practice I normally associated with superheroes like Spiderman and other fictional characters. Another quote from a zentai-er: "It’s like a portable safety blanket...like you’re pulling the sheets up over your head." I'm not extremely claustrophobic, but being encased in skin-tight spandex would feel like I was wrapped in saran wrap, or had a plastic bag tied around my head, and that I was being choked to death -- NOT like a safety blanket. But what do I know? I'm the weird one that wears stuff like t-shirts, jeans, and hoodies.

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A Leprechaun Tale, or Two

St. Patrick's Day reminds us once a year to be proud of our Irishness -- infinitesimal as it may be for some of us -- and then we promptly forget about it for the other 364 days of the year and make fun of "those crazy Irish." Today's a great opportunity to remember the charming, uniquely-Irish contributions those crazy Irish have made to society: (1) Brawling (2) drinking (3) passing out from drinking (4) harvesting potatoes (5) being Catholic (all of these established facts were taken from The Onion's atlas, thank you very much).

A skill often forgotten amidst the slurred confusion of (1)-(3) is the Irish ability to tell stories. I have a beauty for you here, courtesy of Waffles*, who went to school in Arkansas for a bit and heard this story from some friends that live there. Coincidentally enough it involves a leprechaun of sorts.

Brought to you by Google Voice, and well worth the 3-minute listen. Just hit the play button:




Oh, what the hell, it's St. Patty's day. Here's another good one from JMill: "Give me the gold...i want the gold!"



*From Talledega Nights, obviously: "Me and Ricky, ever since we were kids, man...we go together like cocaine and waffles." Yup, you guessed it. I'm cocaine. He's waffles.

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More From the Ewok Era

Back in my Ewok days, I not only bore an eerie resemblance to the plump-faced, furry little creatures from Return of the Jedi. I also spoke English like one. Yes, my first four years of existence and the spoken English language were at odds with one another, as my attempts at verbal communication were really just a flowing cascade of blathering, inane nonsense. Either I was being lazy (probable), or somewhere in the back of my young, innocent mind I was already trying to frustrate those around me (more probable).

Either way, bless my dear sisters, who were my interpreters and communication medium to my parents. I imagine it's what negotiations at the UN are like. Let's compare the two scenarios:

UN Security Council, 2003
Colonel Qaddafi, dictator of Libya: (Arabic) اذا كانت الامم المتحدة يفرض مزيدا من العقوبات على ليبيا ، وسوف نستمر في تطوير اسلحتنا من برنامج اسلحة الدمار الشامل.
/Qaddafi looks to interpreter to translate/
Interpreter: Colonel Qaddafi says that if the UN imposes more sanctions on Libya, we will continue to develop our weapons of mass destruction program.
UN Envoy: The Security Council finds this unacceptable.

Dalton Household, 1985
Me: Mawm, i jwio weh3 hoh& goerre ehre?
/mom and dad look at Jen and Juli/
Jen or Juli: He says he wants green M&Ms.
Mom or Dad: Not until after he finishes his dinner.

Seriously, there are home videos where Pops will ask me an innocuous question like "And what did you get for Christmas, Josh?" -- mind you, this is a question he already knows the answer to -- and then I will spout some slurred combination of sounds that will be met by my father's befuddled, non-comprehending silence. You can almost HEAR his puzzled look and agape mouth from behind the camera, and his eyes looking pleadingly at my sisters to interpret his little boy's Ewok tongue. It's pretty classic.

End of story, according to Shigeko, is that one day when I was four I came upstairs and spoke flawless English. I guess with some it just takes time.

Anyway, Sara Boo shared something with me on Facebook that reminded me of this story:

Saw this and it reminded me of the story you told about your Christmas video where you didn't say any english words and spoke Joshese. Enjoy!

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Oh, the Dichotomies of Youth

So I was in the Post Office, waiting to mail a Disney Snow Globe to my niece. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The lady standing next to me in line wanted to chat about the "cute Disney gift" I was packaging up.

Lady: "I have an 18-year old daughter who still loves Disney princesses."

Me: "Never too old, I guess, right?"

Lady: "Haha. Yeah, half of her room is covered in Disney. The other half is Hooters and Playgirl stuff. Haha!"

...
Me: *internal* What is the proper response to this? "Uh...Never too young, right...?"
Me: *out loud* ...............
Lady: "Yeah for her birthday party at Hooters, she had Disney Princess balloons on her chair. Isn't that funny?"

Hilarious. Disturbingly so.

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Ham, Illegal Drugs, and Iraqi Diseases

You might be wondering what those three have in common, and I hope nobody was thinking "Christmas dinner with the family."

Yesterday was a strange day. Someone brought in a whole ham left over from a family dinner party and left it in the kitchenette next to my cubicle. My coworkers converged like vultures on a dead carcass (I suppose that technically, it was a carcass -- albeit a honey-baked one). Now, I would be a hypocrite to call it strange to capitalize on free food -- when people bring in jelly-filled donuts I'm the one at the front knocking old women out of the way. The strange thing was watching coworker after coworker leave the kitchenette with a handful of ham wrapped in a paper towel -- apparently there was a shortage of plates.

Next, there was the office-wide email with directions for the holiday gift exchange. It listed the prohibited items, two of which were "illegal drugs" and "knives (with blades exceeding 2 1/2 inches in length)." You know what this means, right? This means that SOMEONE HAS TRIED TO DO THIS BEFORE. "Man, Scott has been such a good mentor to me this past year. I'm thinking he would enjoy a fruit basket and some angel dust."

Finally, Ben called to inquire about my recent illness and the sequence of my symptoms. When did I have a sore throat? How long did that last? Did I have a fever at any point? It was like an episode of House, only Ben didn't insult me, and I didn't have a gruesome symptom like blood gushing out my eyes -- instead, he told me that he had been sick with similar symptoms, and then the surpriser: "[Based on the unique symptoms] I think we have an Iraqi bug of some sort." Ben's an MD, so I'm guessing I have been infected with some sort of Middle Eastern virus.

Wait -- what?

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My New Summer Pasttime

Summer is over, and while I will NOT miss the stifling humidity and resultant SwampA**, or large women wearing disproportionately small clothing (OMG MY EYES ARE BURNING I AM SCARRED FOR LIFE), there is a huge list of things I will miss about summer.

Some fun activities that are essential to every summer? Here's a short list: BBQs; swimming; disappointment in more overhyped blockbusters movies (ahem... Wolverine, Terminator); watching Wipeout!; watching the "will he /won't he?" fiasco that is Brett Favre's (non)retirement; eating ice cream and other flavored frozen goods; reading outside in my double-wide fat-person camping chair; wrestling grizzly bears, only in my case I get the bear to submit with an armbar, and I do it shirtless; you know, standard summer stuff.

The new love I discovered this summer: Wiffleball. It's simple. Anyone can play. You don't need a lot of people to play. You try to hit people with a ball. Very rewarding.

More important to me, though, is that wiffleball has helped me reconcile with a long lost friend: baseball. My complaints with baseball are well-documented. It's boring. It's slow. These dudes aren't athletic. Baseball slang is just a bunch of thinly-veiled innuendos. Whine whine whine. I actually loved baseball growing up, but somewhere along the way we had a falling out (partially due to his solid decade and a half of heavy steroid usage).

Wiffleball helped me remember why I enjoyed baseball in the first place by taking me back to being a kid. It reminded me of playing catch with my pops. Of smelling freshly cut grass, watching The Sandlot, and especially of playing Little League baseball.

In Little League, just like every other kid, I imitated the batting stances and the mannerisms of the famous players. I tried to swing my bat like Griffey, tried to crouch in fielding position like Ozzie Smith, and itched my crotch like Cal Ripken Jr. Did I know what I was doing at 9-years of age? No. But hell, these guys were my heroes, and somewhere in the back of my head I thought emulating the greats would help me be great. This thinking, of course, pre-dated my knowledge of things like natural talent, work ethic, syringes, and the Dominican Republic's baseball farm system. So if Cal was going to go to town on his cup region, I would, too.

I write this because when I played wiffleball for the first time this summer, 18 years after having played in Little League, I picked up right where I left off. I looked at my bat contemplatively before stepping into the batter's box, dug in my feet with my non-existent cleats, took a wide stance and tilted my bat slightly back, just like Albert Pujols.

Even if it was only for a few hours, I was a kid again, imitating the greats. And while the sound of the plastic wifflebat hitting a ball doesn't have quite the same ring that metal on cork does, it still made me smile like a 9-year old as I ran the bases.

Man. Now I want to go watch Field of Dreams.

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Photo of the Week 21 Sept 2009

Walked out of Best Buy with this beauty, and thank goodness for that -- it was the only thing to console me after the BYU game on Saturday. Past experience with rewatching cartoons from the childhood had me fearing that it would disappoint, but I was pleasantly surprised.

See, a few years ago I came upon Thundercats while flipping channels. I loved the show as a kid, so was excited to watch it. I immediately regretted that decision. Dialogue was horrendous; the voices were unbearable; the plot line had no connection with what we call "coherence" or "quality." The cartoon was a confused, jumbled mass of storytelling crap -- basically cast in the Battlefield Earth mold before that mold even existed.

At that moment, I was like Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo when he found out that Fernand had betrayed him. Thundercats and I had been friends since childhood; I thought it was upstanding and good quality. But no. Like Fernand, Thundercats sucked. And it betrayed and demoralized me with the severity of its suckiness. (I will concede, however, that Dantes may have gotten the shorter end of the Betrayed By Childhood Friend Stick. In a lucky turn of events for me, I was not extrajudicially sentenced to an island-prison to be annually tortured by a deranged prison warden and left to do nothing but stew in my own human waste and vindictive thoughts. Hey, I'm just trying to be optimistic here.)

That experience turned how I viewed my childhood upside down. Was pulling girls' hair really as enjoyable as I remember it being? Was kickball even fun? The Book Fair was worth all of the time I put into circling the books I wanted in the catalogs they gave us, wasn't it? All of my past experiences were under evaluation.

And so I purchased X-Men with some trepidation on Friday and went home to watch it. I attempted to re-create an atmosphere similar to my X-men-viewing from childhood, just so I could get the most out of it: I may have put on some MC Hammer pants, set a Super Soaker next to me on the couch, and poured myself a large bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Something like that. And after watching a fair amount of episodes, I will admit that while the cartoon is not better than what I remember, there certainly isn't the precipitous dropoff between expectations and reality that there was with Thundercats. It's pretty decent.

The lesson: Tread carefully when revisiting pleasant childhood memories. At worst, it will be devastatingly disappointing; at best, mildly gratifying.


Happy Monday, everyone. You'll have this song stuck in your head the rest of the day:

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The Addiction and Teacher That is Speed Scrabble

Thanks to a scarring game of Risk ("Ukraine is not weak!!") back in 2000 I tend to avoid board games; the exception, of course, being the occasional game of Mah-Jongg. Who doesn't want to place vital organs as collateral for a $10,000 bet every once in a while, am I right?? Anyway, regardless of my professed dislike for board games, I have recently become addicted to Speed Scrabble.

What's Speed Scrabble, you ask?

Speed Scrabble (SS) is to nerdy board-gamers what cocaine was to 80s celebrities: It is fast-paced, exhilarating, addictive, and the source of numerous unnatural nosebleeds. In the case of SS, the reason is either because the game got so intense participants came to fisticuffs, or the breakneck pace and overexertion from the game melted their brains. (***If you're bored enough to read the rules, I will put those at the bottom***)

Let's just leave the Speed Scrabble-Cocaine analogy there.

One friend, whom I will anonymize, put it this way:

This is utterly ridiculous to admit, but I dreamed about Speed Scrabble last night. I actually awoke to myself arranging words beginning with "q". Kinda weird.

Lessons Learned

SS has even taught me some valuable life lessons. The two that come most readily to mind are "pride cometh before the fall" and "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."

Let me share a story that illustrates both. In the first game of what would become a 3-hour SS marathon, I came storming out of the blocks -- jumping out to a quick lead and catching my opponents at unawares. I foolishly declared:

"I guess you could call that my Pearl Harbor."

I guess it seemed like an apt analogy at the time, what with the quick strike and my Japanese heritage and all. For all of you not familiar with the Pacific Theater of WW2, however, here's the major problem with my poorly thought-out analogy: Japan LOST WW2! It was decimated!! Japan may have "won" Pearl Harbor, but even Admiral Yamamoto said afterward: "I fear all we have done is awakened a sleeping tiger." And he wasn't talking those pansy circus tigers that jump through hoops. He was talking the mean ones that want to tear your limbs off and eat you (avid PETA supporters being no exception). Pearl Harbor was really just the beginning of the end for Japan.

And so it was with me; my initial victory accomplished very little except to "awaken the tiger" (read: gave Mitch a reason to shut my gloating mouth up and decisively trounce me and everyone else under her feet). It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I doomed myself to suffer the same fate as the Empire did in WW2 because I declared victory too soon.

So, chalk one History Comparison FAIL for me. Sigh.


***Speed Scrabble Explained***
You lay all of the scrabble tiles facedown in the middle of the table, everyone takes seven, then tries to build their own set of words as quickly as possible, using all tiles. Once they have used the seven tiles in their own hand, they say "go" and everyone draws two from the pile and so on until all the tiles are used up. Then you count up points based on the points on each tile, subtracting points for the tiles left over.

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Kitchenette Run-ins, Fashion Discussions

We have a kitchenette at work that I was practically running through last week (my new job is what I would call "demanding") when I almost turned a co-worker into roadkill. We'll call her Carrie. Carrie is the mother of young children, very nice, and most relevantly to this narrative, never sarcastic. So I know that what she was saying to me was sincere.

C: Oh, Josh, hi! I've been meaning to ask you about your hair.
JD (internal): Oh crap. Oh no.
JD: Um, yeah...what about it?
C: Did you style it differently?
JD (internal): Lie, dammit-- Lie! Say the humid summer is wreaking havoc on your hair! That's what girls do! Say it!
JD: Um, yeah. I, uh, So I... got a perm...
JD (internal): Idiot.

(At this point in the conversation I realized that the kitchenette is central to a dozen or so cubicles occupied by coworkers that I see every day. And that they've likely heard that I permed my hair. So I feel like I have to explain -- in a noticeably louder voice so all can hear -- the circumstances of my getting a perm.)

JD: ...I did it as part of a bet with a friend -- this is not something I would ever do on my own.
C: Well, I think it looks good.
JD (internal): She's messing with you! There's no way you look good. You look stupid, and you know it!
JD: Well, that's nice of you to say, Carrie. But really, you don't have to lie. I realize it looks pretty ridiculous.
C: Where did you get it done? I've been thinking about doing a perm myself.
JD: I, uh...my friend just bought a box of stuff from the store.

It's a bad sign for me when women are asking me for fashion-related advice. Almost apocalyptic.

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A Work Bathroom Tale

Odd stuff happens in the work bathroom: Guys suddenly become uncomfortably loquacious; my ongoing run-ins with bathroom awkwardness are made possible thanks to me inadvertently becoming the "pee buddy" -- someone with whom you share the same "pee schedule" -- of one of the big wigs at work. It's uncomfortable. I mean, he's not good game butt-slapping while I'm at the urinal like Alec Baldwin does to Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly; but it's uncomfortable, nonetheless.

Anyway. I have a work bathroom war story from a friend that tops all previous ones.

Here's how the dialogue went (I don't if there's any unwritten, Protect The Shield-type code amongst men and sharing bathroom stories, but in the interests of my friend's safety, I will anonymize him.):

Anon: dude i just had the weirdest bathroom experience ever
Me: i like where this anecdote is going
Anon: you may regret saying that when this is over
so get this. i'm sitting in the stall, taking care of business
there is another guy in the stall next to me, doing the same thing
so he gets up off the can and i think he's wrapping up
but no
he turns the other direction, pants completely down, and squats
bare a$ showing underneath the stall, and wipes that way
multiple times
like ten times
for all to see
yeah, i don't even know how to explain it
so he's facing the toilet
Me: i need a diagram
Anon: squatting down so his bare a$$ is almost touching the ground
Me: sketch something up in MS Paint and send it to me
Anon: and proceeds to wipe
ok one sec
Me: i was completely joking
Anon: no, it will enhance the experience
Me: you do know i'm going to blog this
Anon: this needs to be shared with the public

And here was the sketch:

My friend wanted to clarify it is not his "best work," and he is "actually trying to burn my eyes out with the acid. not drink it."

Regardless, his courage is admirable; for pushing through his PTSD and coming forward to share his story.

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Optimism Poster -- Photo of the Week 9 Feb 2009

Back with PotW. Sorry about the hiatus last week. My extremely limited concentration and writing powers were being focused elsewhere.

This reminds me of the time JT set the large dumpster outside of our apt complex on fire with a checkbook. See, before the invention of the paper-shredder, JT burnt his unused/old checkbooks. And then, after putting out the checkbook flames, he would throw them in a dumpster full of other combustibles. One night at the end of a semester, we were cleaning the apartment and I looked out the window to see that something was burning in our complex's large dumpster. Fast. I yelled at JT to grab some water and we rushed out. I dove in headfirst and began pouring water in while sucking in toxic burning styrofoam fumes. It was like Backdraft and Ladder 49 mashed all into one.* The source of the inferno? You guessed it: An old, burnt checkbook.

I still "joke" that I am going to sue JT if I develop lung cancer.

*Seen neither of these movies.

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Random Thoughts From Wednesday

--You ever have something produce an unintended result? Let me explain a bit. A few years back, TME and some other roommates and I went to watch Miracle, the story of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team that overcame "Amy Winehouse will never use drugs again" odds to beat a powerhouse Russian team. When the film was over and we were walking out of the theater, everyone was feeling positive, inspired, proud to be American, etc. TME? "Where're some Russians?? I want to hit one!" Probably not the intent of the movie.

Now that I think about it, this episode may have been the reason I subconsciously avoided watching Pearl Harbor with TME. That, and it's just not that good of a movie.

--Horribly bad timing of the week: For the birthday, my buddy Banker got me tickets to a Monster Truck show. And not just any tickets. Backstage passes to get up-close and personal with the trucks AND the drivers. Problem: I had to WORK that Saturday. I haven't been this mad at myself since I watched Battlefield Earth. Banker did keep me updated with periodic texts ("ps: This is ridiculous") and pictures/videos:

Oh, the "what ifs"...

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Why I Would Suck As a Diplomat

Remember that integrity thing I was talking about earlier? Why don't you just go ahead and toss mine out.


The other day I was talking with my sister Jen on the phone, doing some catching up. She told me she just got back from running 13 miles. An immediate alarm went off in my head.

JD: Wait, Jen. Are you--? **deep breath** ...Are you training for a marathon?

Jen: Yeah. I was thinking about running one at the end of February.

**Insert crotch-punched-feeling here**

See, for the past few years, I have slowly been getting boxed in on the Endurance Sports Front. Various family members and friends have -- unsuccessfully -- attempted to persuade me to run marathons or other distance races. I was always against long-distance running. All that self-discipline, goal-achieving, and sense of accomplishment was for snobs. Being the stubborn person that I am, the more people suggested I participate, the more I dug in my heels.

Jen was my last hope. Although Jen ran a half-marathon this year, I felt like she had yet to cross over to join my sister Juli and her husband Ben on the endurance sports side. Yes, 13.1 miles is more than I've ever run and is extremely admirable, but the operating word there was "half." She was still with me; not with them.

It all changed with that fateful phone call. With that conversation, I became the pariah of my family; I am the North Korea/Iran to my family's international community. I am isolated, becoming marginalized, and my family is tightening the grips on me. Am I being passively coerced into doing a marathon?

I'm afraid I might go against everything I've preached for the last few years and choose to run a marathon. Something tells me I would suck at the negotiating table in international politics -- I'd buckle before the other guy even said anything.

It's all politics.

As for everybody else that contributed to the pressure, you know who you are.

Folsom, CA -> Sacramento, CA. Bring it.


Endnote: My family has never tried to manipulate me into doing this -- This must be my competitive side kicking in.

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Memories From The Grudge -- Photo of the Week 17 Nov 2008

With Halloween having recently passed and the release of Saw V -- the latest iteration of a movie series that easily falls under the "Survivor"** classification -- I present this week's photo.

The whole Halloween season reminded me of a very simple fact that I readily admit: I don't do scary movies. I just can't handle them. Especially ones with freaky children. I think deep down for a very long time I always knew this, but the manly side of me would never fess up to it.

But it all became glaringly apparent a few years back when some friends and I went and saw The Grudge in the theater.

My friend Casey is an emotional guy. It usually manifests itself in hypercompetitiveness, but it also translates into the amplification of emotions while watching movies. In the case of The Grudge, that emotion was FEAR. Granted, had I not sat next to him, I still would have been scared. But sitting next to Casey sucked me in emotionally and multiplied my fear threefold.

Afterwards, my roommate, Rye, wanted to drive his girlfriend home, but I wouldn't let him leave me alone. Casey's wife, Jenna, just made fun of us for being scared.

And I think as a way to rub it in, Jenna rented The Exorcism of Emily Rose some time after that. You can imagine how the dialogue went as I was over at their apartment late one night:

JD: Well, what're our options [of things to do]?
**Casey remains silent**
J: I rented The Exorcism of Emily Rose. We should watch that.
JD: Oh no no no. I'm not watching that thing.
C: Come on, man. You gotta stay and watch it with us.
JD: No freakin way. Who has to drive home by himself after it's over?
C: Fine, fine. How about this. We watch it in the middle of a huge field in the middle of the day.
J: Okay, that's lame! No way we're watching it that way.
JD: I am not watching that movie. Period.
C: Well, I can't watch it by myself!
JD: You'll have Jenna here with you, dude.
C: She can't protect me!

I think Jenna -- understandably annoyed at our cowardice -- ended up having to send it back to Netflix, unwatched.

*The "Survivor" stamp is derived from the TV show and can be applied to anything -- athlete , celebrity (Paul Walker, Keanu Reaves), business (McDonald's), country (Canada) -- that held very little to no promise from the outset and should not survive, but somehow continue to defy intelligent reasoning by attaining some measure of "success" (based on no merits of their own, mind you). Saw V? Really? In a country that claims a literacy rate of 99%, I ask: How is this possible?

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Still Holding Strong

I like to think I'm a man of commitment and integrity. When I say I'm going to do something, I make an effort to follow through and do it.

I was recently put to the test.

In order to alleviate boredom when things get slow on a weekend shift at work, we change the channel on a couple of the TVs in the office to watch football, movies, etc. A week ago, during a particularly slow Sunday shift, my shiftmates decided to watch Titanic on TNT. I suppose this isn't anything extraordinary, considering the movie grossed more than the GDP of most African countries.

However, I promised myself long ago that I would never watch this movie, because I loathe it like Seinfeld loathes Newman. It's weaselly. It thinks more highly of itself than it should. And it keeps showing up at my door, wanting attention that I don't want to give it.

You know the opening 30-minutes of Saving Private Ryan? And how you as the viewer are completely drawn in, your eyes glued to the screen because you are entirely engulfed by the brutal reality of it all? Titanic is the antithesis of Saving Private Ryan for me. I'm repulsed by it. Somewhere between Kate Winslett getting naked and a love story crammed with more cliches than a "Grey's Anatomy" script, I developed a less-than-zero desire to see this movie.

And so when faced with the choice of watching Titanic or 4+ hours of boredom (the commercials for movies on TV are ridiculous), I chose boredom. At least I kept my integrity.

But seriously, that ship took forever to go down. I kept looking up at the TV, hoping the movie would be over. It kept dragging on.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to wipe up the venom I just drooled all over my keyboard.

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Inside Jokes

In college, roommates are a roll of the dice. They can become best friends because you share all kinds of experiences with each other -- shooting ducks with paintball guns, playing Mariokart until 3am -- just to name a few. The flip side to that, of course, is you can end up getting your own personal Newman.

Aside from a roommate who had a semi- to completely disturbing obsession for "That 70s Show" -- the irony of this was his uncanny resemblance to the Fez character in the show* -- I was incredibly lucky. My college roommates are still my best friends. We laugh and reminisce about experiences, and still share those inside jokes/handshakes/greetings that bond us together and annoy outsiders.

Here's one inside greeting that never really panned out.

A few years ago, one roommate, Tim, was telling me about how his dad meets with some Japanese businessmen at a big meeting every year. At the end of the meeting, his dad always asks the businessmen where they want to go eat, and they always yell in Engrish "Fuh-wuckas!!!" (Fuddrucker's). It was a funny story, and we both had a good laugh.

Me: "Oh man, that's funny..."
Tim: "...yeah... Hey, we should do that."
Me: "Yeah, sure... Wait, do what?"
Tim: "We should yell that to each other as like a greeting when we see each other on campus or walking home or whatever."
**Substantial Pause**
Me: "You mean yell 'Fuh-wuckas!!!' really loud? When other people are around?"
Tim: "Yeah. C'mon, it'll be sweet."
Me: "OK. Fine." (my common sense had apparently decided to check out at this point)

A few days later, I spotted Tim on my way home from campus about 50 yards ahead of me. I looked around, hoping that no one was around, but had no such luck. Oh well. "Fuh-wuckas!!!" I yelled. Tim continued walking; everyone else in the vicinity turned to stare at the crazy Asian yelling weird phrases.

He is up there a ways; maybe he didn't hear me, I thought. . "Fuh-wuckas!!!" I yelled again. Nothing from Tim. People around me started taking out their cell phones to text their friends about the kid with Turret's that just walked by.

I got to the apartment and walked in to see Tim sitting on the couch, pretending to watch TV while trying to shield his face from looking at me. I held out my hands as an appeal for explanation. Tim continued to try to ignore me. "Timmy, what was that?? Did you not hear me? I bet our neighbors have called the mental hospital to tell them one of their crazies escaped."

"I'm sorry, dude. I was too embarrassed. I just couldn't bring myself to turn around or reply."

"Wasn't this thing your idea?"

"Yeah... again, sorry."

The betrayal was akin to Caeser being stabbed in the back by Brutus.

*So much so that my other roommate, White Josh, accidentally called him "Fez" to his face a few times.

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The Story With the Charmin -- Photo of the Week 20 Oct 2008

A quick, secondhand story that kills me every time, and demonstrates the power of what my group of friends has come to term "the one-liner." Admittedly, I haven't actually heard this story directly from the horse's mouth (where did this idiom come from?), so the story could have gained stature of its own over time.

When he was younger, my Mission President worked security at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. One night, a man was harassing a couple, waving anti-Mormon literature at them, and becoming quite animated. My Mission President approached the man, stated that he was on private property, and told him that he should leave. The man waved some pamphlets in his face and yelled: "What do you think of this?!? What do you think of this??"

Without missing a beat, my Mission President calmly replied: "I prefer Charmin."

"What??"

"I prefer Charmin. It's softer and gentler on my butt."

The man stormed off in a rage.

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Asian Talent -- Photo of the Week 13 Oct 2008

Location: A freeway somewhere in CA or Nevada
Year: November 2005

Who says I don't have talent? When confronted with a box of leftover Chinese food and no utensils, I improvised some chopsticks: A ballpoint pen and a highlighter. I don't like to brag, but my own resourcefulness reminded me of Macgyver.

...'course, the argument could be made that despite my proficiency at multi-tasking, I lack the requisite common sense to stop me from doing all of this while also driving at 85 mph.

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Random Hobby #2 -- Ping-Pong

Feeling some guilt after attending the AAA Conference and realizing that my Asianness was probably wavering at a running-on-life-support 3 (it was all those summer BBQs; what a non-Asian activity), I needed to pick up something new in order to bolster my Asian half:

This is a picture of my ping-pong blade.

In response to your impending and incessant questioning:

"Yes,
...I just referred to my ping pong paddle as 'my blade.' It's proper terminology. Using 'paddle' and 'racket' automatically label you as a know-nothing wannabe.

...our blades have protective cases.

...it was custom-made in and brought back from China (thank you, Dave, for bringing it back -- I owe you any vital organ you stand in need of in the future). I may or may not claim that it contains carbon fiber / ancient magical powers...

...my fellow pongers and I have matching uniforms.

...I remove the plastic coverings from the paddle when I play, then replace them to preserve stickiness.

...my friends and I scoured craigslist for ping-pong tables, drove around the Washington Metropolitan Area to scout the quality of prospects, bought a table for $35, and now store it on the stage at our church.

...I have referred to ping-pong time as "our equivalent to the black man's barbershop." A huge appeal of our ponging is being able to sit around and talk about whatever, however we want. I guess the only drawback is that Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer aren't around to shoot the breeze with. The upside is that there will be no crappy sequel.

...I do bring my gym clothes with me everywhere, just on the off-chance I will need to suit up to play some pong.

...at any given time if you glance in my direction, you may see me swinging my arm in a methodical motion...that's right, practicing my swing...

...we know we take ourselves too seriously."

A quick illustration of how ridiculous we are. My buddy Dave and I were cleaning the inside of the church one Saturday morning. Bryan ("Banker") -- also a ponger, but who we didn't expect to see that morning -- comes storming into the church and gets a relieved look on his face when he sees us cleaning.

Banker says: "Man, I saw your guys' cars out in the parking lot and I thought: 'Those SOBs came to play without me!' I was so pissed!"

We're sort of intense. But you probably realized by now that me being intense about random things is pretty standard.

More stories to come on the ping-pong front, I'm sure.

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