Brilliant, But Depressing

Courtesy of Justin (no idea what the original source of this is). If you can't click through to read the text at the bottom, try here.

Dishwasher Addendum

Apparently, Asian people not using the dishwasher is a previously chronicled phenomenon. Take a look at this Washington Post feature from 2005, which notes that appliance companies and retailers don't even bother to market dishwashers to ethnic minorities.

The article also includes this line:

"Kitchen historians speculate that the dishwasher lies at the heart of what it means to be a family."

The article proceeds to quote one of these "kitchen historians". Maybe this is my "immigrant" mentality, so I do apologize, but kitchen historian is not a real job. Go get a real job, kitchen historian lady.

Asian Adventures, Vol. III

For a variety of reasons, there is this stereotype/factual belief that Asians are really into all things technological. I've been doing some surveying recently, and learned that there is one modern (not even that modern, really) advancement that Asian people have adamantly refused to embrace.

The dishwasher.

The dishwasher in my parents' house has been broken for at least 17 years, yet not only do they not fix it, there's not even a moment's thought to fixing it. This despite the fact that my dad complains about doing dishes every single time he has to do the dishes, which in his case, is every day. The dishwasher serves only one function - to store dishes when there isn't enough space in the regular dishrack or in the cabinets.

I used to think this was just a quirk of my own parents, but I learned that Wendy, Julie, Richard and frankly dozens of my friends grew up the same way. As a result, a lot of us don't even know how to use the dishwasher. If you do use the dishwasher, you might be thinking, "What are you talking about that's so stupid. All you do is put the dishes in, put the detergent in, and then turn it on." And to that I really have no counter-argument other than to say, "Look, I don't know how to use a dishwasher." You might then say that is not a very intelligent response. I suppose you would be right.

As an aside, my buddy Ido is from a very Jewish family, and also grew up under the same anti-dishwasher parental regime, and struggles with the dishwasher to this day. The more I learn about very Jewish families, the more I see commonalities with Asian families, but that's another topic for another time.

If you have experienced this anti-dishwasher mentality (or are even anti-dishwasher yourself) I'm curious as to why. Leave a comment explaining your theory. I would really like to understand this better.

Asian Adventures, Vol. II

My white friends are always surprised to learn that a lot of Asian guys don't wear deodorant. I myself do not wear any, because I hardly sweat, and even when I do, I smell like a fresh meadow.

At dinner the other night, Ben (an Asian guy) was telling a funny story about how one time on a date, he totally misheard a question and responded with, "No, I don't wear deodorant." Katie, who is white, immediately had a combo surprised/appalled look on her face, and interrupted to ask, "Wait, you don't wear deodorant?" Without even the slightest hint of embarrassment, Ben replied "Nah, don't wear any." I quickly chimed in that I also don't, and a third Asian guy at the table coolly confirmed that he also never wears deodorant. The barrage of confirmations definitely startled Katie, and Ben continued on with his story, but I could tell Katie was still deciding if she was okay with the sudden realization that most Asian guys don't wear deodorant.

I would like to take this moment to confirm that 1) it's true, most Asian guys don't wear deodorant and 2) it's because we always smell like fresh meadows, regardless of the situation. (Except for really fobby Asian guys, who have that really fobby smell. I never knew what it was from, but Steve informed me that it's due to mothballs.) So if you're a non-Asian girl out there, and you've been hesitant around Asian guys for fear of BO, rest assured. We smell great.

Man Tries To Pay Bill with Spider Drawing

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=665847

More On Sea Kittens

Stephanie urged me to mention the "Sea Kitten Stories" on the PETA website, which you can access here. I hadn't even seen these when I wrote the earlier post, but they definitely bear mentioning. It's an illustrated book, with stories of sea kittens and the cruel things humans do to them. Here's one tale, reproduced in its entirety:

Tony the Trout is the smartest Sea Kitten in his school. Already litter-trained at 2 months old, Tony went on to double-major in neuroscience and environmental studies at Clamford University, eventually graduating with honors. (Accompanying this is a drawing of a fish throwing his graduation cap into the air.)

When Tony is caught and fed to a precocious young child who, having eaten one mercury-filled sea kitten too many, falls to the bottom of the class, the irony is not lost on him. (Accompanying this is a drawing of a sad kid, staring at the skeleton of the fish he just ate, and for some reason the aforementioned graduation cap is also on the table.)

That isn't even the best one. I encourage you to look yourself.

I Need A Business Idea Like This

Take a look at this website, Beauty Holding. Here’s the premise: Invest in stock of a fledgling model. When the total capital raised hits $10,000, the website/model management company takes this girl under their wings, and pays for her to get a portfolio. Theoretically, international superstardom ensues, and investors receive 45% of her next 12 months earnings. Yay! Everybody wins!

It takes about ten seconds worth of math to realize this is horrible as an investment. Here it is quickly – if a model from this site can somehow earn $60,000 (which she won’t do) in the first 12 months, $10 invested (which I hope you won’t invest) returns you $27 (which you’re not going to get). Which means you need 2 out of every 5 models you invest in to be $60,000 earners literally right off the bat. So yeah, no. This may not fund your retirement.

That being said, it’s pretty ingenious as a business idea. If the website doesn’t gain much traction, you just collect all this cash, $10 and $20 at a time, that has been theoretically allocated to the models by (presumably) a bunch of horny guys sitting at their computers, vainly believing they might actually earn money this way. But since most (all) models will never hit $10,000, whose cash is it? That $1,400 sitting in the account for Lisa from New Zealand? Effectively it’s yours, clever business owner. That’s the brilliance of it; because you haven’t committed to doing anything until the $10,000 mark, you’re almost instantly cash flow positive. And if the business really does somehow take off, and a lot of models hit $10,000, there’s really no way for investors to verify that you spend all $10,000 in services or check what the model ultimately earns in those 12 months. So it’s really easy to skim off the top, not that I can prove they would do that. (I’m just saying that if I ran this business, that’s what I would do.)

Creators of this website, I salute you. This is brilliant. Simply brilliant.

Sea Kittens!

Navid alerted me to PETA’s latest campaign, which is so ridiculous that I don’t even think I need to make any jokes. I think I just need to state it. Here goes:

PETA has launched a campaign aimed at getting people to stop fishing and eating fish. This is the premise – people don’t eat dogs and cats because they are considered cute and friendly. People don’t think fish are cute and friendly. The reason, for the most part, is the name “fish”, which does not connote any warm and fuzzy feelings. So the way to fix this “problem”? Change the word “fish” to “sea kittens”, and develop an extensive “sea kitten” marketing campaign with graphics of anthropomorphic “sea kittens” doing things like reading books. Once you have effectively removed the word “fish” from the national vocabulary and replaced it with “sea kitten”, people will stop eating “sea kittens” and causing “sea kittens” to feel pain.

The campaign is so ridiculous, when I sent the link around, some people asked me if it was a joke website meant to mock PETA. Seriously, people need to eat more fish, not less, and if certain practices help bring fish at a lower cost to the obese masses, I am all for it.

Making fun of PETA is, to paraphrase Chris Rock, “Like calling double dribble on a retarded kid. You just gotta let some shit slide.” But I can’t completely resist, so I’ll end with this one, from Navid.

"I'll have the sea kitten. Grilled."

I Need To Know

I totally don’t understand this commercial for the 2009 Nissan Versa. Watch it first (with sound, sound is the most “important” part here), and then I’ll get to why I am hung up on this.

The most obvious problem is of course the music, but let me come back to that.

My takeaway from this commercial: I should buy the 2009 Nissan Versa if I am a married father with multiple children who has no qualms with looking like a dork. The car would be a good fit for me if I had a suburban residence but inexplicably lacked either a garage or driveway, making it vital that my car be easy to park on the street. Also, I am the sort of guy who wears pants to the beach.

Another source of confusion for me is how the narrative randomly transitions to the old guy on the bench at the very end of the commercial. Who is this guy? Am I supposed to buy the Nissan Versa because old dudes sitting on benches will be pleased with my frugality? “The 2009 Nissan Versa! It’s not going to impress chicks or your friends or anything, but maybe a senior citizen waiting at a bus stop will approve!”

So far, I can only conclude that the commercial is going for the rarely-pursued “look-we-all-know-you’re-not-that-awesome-so-let’s-not-kid-ourselves-you-should-have-a-lousy-car-but-at-least-this-one-isn’t-expensive-and-gets-good-gas-mileage” marketing angle. Which, I mean…okay, whatever. But then, for goodness’ sake, WHY THIS CHOICE OF MUSIC?!? It’s not subtle either, Marc Anthony’s “I Need to Know” completely dominates the whole commercial. The song is so horribly misplaced I can’t understand what could have prompted the choice. It’s almost like they assembled a focus group of mediocre guys who wear pants to the beach and their favorite song was Marc Anthony’s “I Need to Know”.

Ad Exec 1: “Hey what song are we going with for that Versa commercial?”
Ad Exec 2: “The focus group’s favorite song, hands down, is Marc Anthony’s ‘I Need to Know’. I say we go with that.”
Ad Exec 1: “What? But that doesn’t fit the commercial at all.”
Ad Exec 2: “It’s their favorite song by a mile. No other song is even close. When I mentioned this song they all just immediately started singing and trying to salsa with each other.”
Ad Exec 1: “What? How did you assemble this focus group?”
Ad Exec 2: “I went to the beach and rounded up all the guys who were wearing pants, just like you said.”
Ad Exec 1: “Alright well if the focus group says so…”
Ad Exec 2: “Oh, they do. They definitely do.”

As an aside, the song has such an annoyingly repetitive chorus that no one can remember the verses, even though it was a big radio hit. I challenge you to remember any lines that aren’t from the chorus without looking it up. This effect is so strong that Fu (somewhat reasonably, I should add) contended that the song didn’t even have ANY verses, and was just the chorus on repeat plus some “ohhhhh” ad-libbing. That turned out not to be true, so Fu owes me $5 now. I digress.

I should end by saying that this is not a personal attack on any 2009 Nissan Versa owners, just the makers of this commercial. If you own a Versa, congratulations on your good gas mileage and approval by the elderly. But if you made this commercial, you should probably be fired.

C is for Cookie

Hemanshu sent me a link from the Consumerist the other day, with a picture of a Kentucky restaurant that devised a clever little way to disguise its “C” health rating.

Reminded me of a time back in 2002 – LA County was one of the first places to require publicly posting health ratings. I was in the Century City mall food court, and the pizza place there had a “C” health rating. An elderly Hispanic lady walked up to the counter, and the following conversation ensued with the pizza shop owner, translated from Spanish:

“What is that letter on the wall?”
“What letter?”
“The big ‘C’ there.”
“Ohhh! That! The ‘C’ is for Jesus Christ!”
“Ah! How wonderful, of course it is! I will have that slice there, to go”

Awesome.

It's A Sad Day

If you know me well, you'll know that today is a very sad day.

The Most Popular Entry On This Blog

I perused the Internet traffic statistics of “Things I Type” on Google Analytics today, and was surprised to see that one post on this blog was by far the most popular. It has almost two times as many pageviews as any other entry. Care to guess which one it is? Don’t bother, because you’ll never figure it out.

It’s this one. That’s right, by a factor of two, my most popular posting ever was a nonsensical bit about whether LeBron James or Spencer from “The Hills” would become a billionaire first. Since it’s not even a particularly funny or interesting post, I did a little more digging. Turns out, my blog is the #1 result when you enter this into the Google search engine.

And indeed, people who want to know more about “Spencer Pratt wealth” continue to drive most of my blog’s traffic and ad revenue. In the spirit of capitalism, I think I should make all my future entries about Spencer Pratt – the public’s desire to know more about this guy appears to be insatiable. Appalling, but insatiable. I could devote whole entries to totally fictionalized accounts of Spencer Pratt’s childhood, or invent rumors about Spencer Pratt cheating on Heidi, or randomly speculate on Spencer Pratt’s sexual prowess. If you’re wondering if I wrote that last sentence solely to generate web traffic, you know me well.

Last weekend, I was at dinner with Ali, his sister Anita, Rich, and three girls I was just meeting for the first time. Ali asked, “If you could kill any celebrity, who would you kill?” Even though Ali adamantly wants to rid the world of Kathy Griffin (a stance I eleventy million percent concur with, by the way), that answer was met with shocked gasps from the ladies at the table. “What??!?!” “Why?!?!” “But she’s so funny!!!!” After recovering from my initial shock, I countered with my distaste of Dane Cook, but alarmingly, that too was met with, “What?!?!” “Why?!?!” “But he’s so funny!!!..and he’s kinda hot…”

I racked my brain to think of someone all people disliked. After a few seconds, I had my answer. “You know what, I think I would kill that guy Spencer from The Hills,” I suggested.

We had a winner. “Oh I HATE HIM!” “Great choice, that’s definitely who I would kill!!” “He’s such a sleazebag!!” Ali was kind of mad at me for taking us down this path, because he (1) hates talking about anything connected to The Hills, a show neither he nor I even watch and (2) this effectively killed the whole game, because it was unanimous (except maybe for Ali) that there is no one in the universe more worthy of killing than Spencer Pratt. In an entirely open-ended hypothetical question, I had actually managed to come up with a definitive answer. Nobody wants Spencer Pratt to live.

As the economy continues to tank, I may be forced into changing the content on this blog. For now, I’ll close with the inspirational Spencer Pratt quote of his that prompted the original billionaire entry.

“Well, I'm trying to be a billionaire before 30. Once you find an open market, that's where you can make billions to trillions of dollars. Every big product, from Proactiv to the Internet—these were things that were just ideas. And I'm a free thinker. There is no box. I'm thinking about ideas that people might think are crazy, and I'm like, this world is crazy, where do you think we are? You want to tell me there's a planet and there's a universe, and gravity holding us down? It's like, okay, I'm crazy then.”

That’s the kind of stuff you can look forward to on “Things I Type” in the future. You might say, “Eric, that’s crazy”, but you know what? This world is crazy. I’m crazy. All ideas. No boxes.

Celebreality, Continued

If you missed #10-#6, start here first. If you enjoyed those, here’s the rest of the list, but first...

The Hottest Celeb I’ve Seen: Christy Turlington. I was never a big fan of hers until I saw her, pretty much without makeup, in a Tribeca restaurant. Then I had some trouble forming words for about 5 minutes.
Biggest Douchebag: Rod Stewart. He was wearing this ridiculous shiny silver suit and had a mediocre blond slut on each arm. If they were hotter, I would be impressed. But they were mediocre, so, tacky.
Looks Most Like He Does On TV: Ben Stein. Saw him in DC, or “Hollywood for ugly people”. I recently found out he is hardcore about intelligent design, and hates evolutionists. Don’t really know what to make of that.
Favorite Celebrity Encounters By Friends: Sara seeing Kevin Connolly on the subway (Way to save your money, Kevin Connolly. Also note how affectionately Sara is holding his shoulder, I think Sara thinks he's really hot. Also note the really creepy look of that Yankees fan on the left - that is actually Kevin Connolly's friend. He might want to stick to hanging out with Jeremy Piven.), Justin’s rendezvous with Zhang Ziyi, Min-Taik getting in the edge of a paparazzi picture of Eva Mendes, then later finding it online, and of course, Ali’s dad trying to get an autograph from “JT” on “Step by Step”.

5. The Homeless Man
I’ve mentioned it before on this blog, but I was at lunch with Shawn, Ido and Amy outside Bubby’s one day, and was surprised to see that the table next to us had 3 “ladies who lunch” and one homeless man. Even weirder, it was like the women knew the homeless man, and everyone was getting along just fine. The homeless guy was wearing a ragged gray t-shirt and gray sweatpants, was in desperate need of both a haircut and shave, and didn’t look like he had showered in months.

Then Shawn suddenly lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “Hey, that’s Harvey Keitel over there.”
Me: “Over where?”
Shawn: “At the table next to us.”
Me: “Dude, that’s 3 moms and a homeless guy.”
Shawn: “That’s Wolf from ‘Pulp Fiction’!”

I spent another 45 seconds or so struggling to comprehend, and also see the guy’s face through all the facial hair. Finally, I concluded it was Harvey Keitel, and was either (1) actually homeless, (2) incredibly disgusting, or (3) method acting for a role as a homeless guy.

A lot of people I know don’t seem to know who he is, but that’s only because they watch crappy movies. If you watch good movies, you no doubt have seen him in his illustrious film career, highlighted by his roles in The Piano, Reservoir Dogs (Mr. White) and Pulp Fiction (Wolf). He was also in National Treasure, which I refuse to watch, even though people keep insisting to me is a good movie. There’s a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence!

4. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michelle Trachtenberg
Bonus points here because it was a 2-for-1. I went to lunch with Amy and there was an empty table an awkwardly close 2 feet from us. Soon after, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michelle Trachtenberg sat down at that table. First, let me say that Sarah Michelle Gellar is extremely attractive in person, much more so than I would have anticipated. Michelle Trachtenberg, well, no. But she was awesome as Nona F. Mecklenberg on The Adventures of Pete & Pete, so I can’t be too critical. It was also kind of nice to see that Buffy and her sister are friends in real life.

Of course, being friends in real life means talking about things friends talk about. For women, that means relationships. Amy and I honestly weren’t trying to eavesdrop, and actually talked about other things the entire lunch, but it was impossible not to hear them, since they were practically spitting on me. (Also, they have nasally voices which are always hard to block out). Sarah Michelle Gellar was dispensing wisdom left and right, trying to explain to young Michelle how difficult relationships really are. She spoke plainly about all the effort needed to keep the romance alive in her marriage to Freddie Prinze, Jr., and how difficult that’s become since his career has become a total train wreck. (She didn’t really say that last part, I just wanted to see how that would look in print).

My favorite exchange of the lunch:
MT: “I want to call him, I think I should just call him.”
SMG: “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
MT: “Really??”
SMG: “Trust me. You don’t call him. Wait for him to call you. That way you’re in control.”
MT: “Okay, I trust you.”

Oh, Sarah Michelle. You sly fox. You play the game so well.

3. Jim Cramer
If you don’t know the story, read about it here.

2. Foxy Brown
A few years ago, I went on a recruiting dinner (yes, improbably, people were trying to recruit me) at Mr. Chow, which if you don’t already know, is a comically ridiculous upscale Chinese restaurant with branches in Los Angeles, New York, London, etc. You don’t get menus there – the waiters just bring you whatever they feel like, and the restaurant charges whatever it feels like. As a lifetime eater of Chinese food, I feel qualified to say that the food was only marginally better than what you would get in a good Chinatown for $16. Our meal (which did include a few rounds of vodka shots) was well over $200 per person. Of course, you’re there for the scene, not the food. And while celebrities of every ilk flock there, Mr. Chow has reached stratospheric levels of popularity with the hip hop community. On our way to the dinner, I was treated to breathless excitement from 40-year old investment bankers.

“Last time I was here, I saw Ludacris!”
“That’s nothing, my last time there I saw Nelly!”
“Please, I went last week and DIDDY came in.” A awed hush fell over the car. That’s because Diddy is really the only hip-hop personality that 40-year old investment bankers can recognize on sight. They love to tell stories of times they saw rappers (even bankers want street cred), but almost always someone else has to explain to them who they’re seeing. Not Diddy, though. When it comes to middle-aged bankers, he needs no introduction.

So as we’re eating, we notice two black guys come in and start talking to the maître d’. The table gets excited – surely a rapper is on the way! About 10 minutes later, those two men come back with another guy and a woman, and the foursome is seated at the table next to us. I recognize the woman faster than I do some of my own friends – it’s Foxy Brown. A hip-hop star right next to us. The bankers are all excited and our table is abuzz. With just one small teensy minor inconsequential caveat.

They can’t figure out which person is the famous rapper.

But they’re excited nonetheless! I suppose there are few thrills in life that compare to seeing a group of people, one of whom you infer must be famous because you’re in a very expensive restaurant and all the people you’re looking at are wearing Phat Farm. After I sufficiently swallowed my laughter, I (and another guy who knew who Foxy Brown was) explained to the rest of the table that the woman was the famous rapper, not the guy she was sitting next to. Then people spent a few minutes debating if she was hot, and eventually our table made some dorky conversation with Foxy Brown that my mind seems to have blocked out.

I learned later that Foxy Brown probably doesn’t think the prices are egregious at Mr. Chow, not because she’s so rich, but because she’s a master of the old dine-and-dash.

As a final note, Lizzie Grubman (unattractive publicist to the stars) was also in the restaurant that night. She’s not really famous in the traditional sense, but you might know her if you (1) have no life and read Page Six all the time, (2) have no life and saw her MTV publicist reality show "PoweR Girls", or (3) are familiar with when she got wasted in the Hamptons and ran over 16 people in an SUV. I accidentally kinda bumped into her ass on the way out, causing her to spill some of her drink on herself. She thought it was some other guy, though, and started yelling at him. Good times.

1. The Chuckster
By a wide margin, my favorite celebrity sighting ever is Charles Barkley, who I saw in the Bellagio in 2006. He was in a designer suit, and he was pissed off. He looked about as angry as the Chuckster can look, and was storming through the hallway very, very quickly. Everyone says his real height is less than 6’5”, but with that look on his face, he sure seemed a lot bigger than 6’5”. I assume he must have just lost millions of dollars. My love for the Chuckster, combined with seeing him in his natural element (losing a ton of money in Vegas) would alone have made it a top-3 celebrity sighting for me. But what really put it over the top was that as he stormed down the hallway, he was being chased by two of the hottest, most scantily clad women I’ve ever seen. I started laughing out loud as I watched the two women chasing Barkley, struggling to stay balanced on their 4-inch heels. I should stress again, though – they were not just run-of-the-mill Vegas sluts. These women were extraordinary. Victoria's Secret model-esque, but minus whatever modicum of class a Victoria’s Secret model possesses.

A valet pulled Barkley’s Hummer up to a special side exit, and Barkley burst through the door, the ladies right on his heels. I could see Barkley mulling over just how he intended to blow off some steam after his night of gambling losses. Then he looked up, and saw the two sluts he had no doubt been with the last several hours. The two women hopped into the car, and it's hard to say for sure, but I think I saw Barkley's anger dissipate, and he smiled ever so faintly.

I love Chuck. He is my hero.

Celebreality

Just for fun, my favorite celebrity sightings and encounters. Part 1 of 2. (Another two-parter, I’m writing so much longer these days.)

Honorable Mention - The Guy Who Won Season Two Of “The Apprentice”
You likely have no idea who this guy is; by definition then, he’s not really a celebrity, so I had to relegate him to honorable mention status. His name is Kelly Perdew, and he was at Princeton shortly after winning season 2 of “The Apprentice” for some entrepreneurship session. I happened to be in the right building at the time, and decided to wander around, assuming (correctly, I might add), that there would be free cookies at this thing. As I was eating my cookies, I noticed Mr. Perdew just standing there, hoping someone would talk to him. He looked kind of sad and lonely. I hope someone eventually noticed him.


10. Jamie Lynn Sigler
In the summer of 2002, I was reading a magazine at Barnes and Noble in the Century City mall. As I’m reading, a bookstore employee approached me.

“Sir, are you in line to meet Ms. Sigler?"
I look around. No one is within 8 feet of us. “What? What line?”
“The line for Ms. Sigler’s book signing. If you’re not here for the book signing, you’ll need to step out of the line.”
Total confusion. “But there’s no line.”
“This is where the line forms.”
So…am I the line? If so, I can’t really leave the line. You can’t win a battle of semantics with a Barnes and Noble employee, so I just concede. “Okay, where can I stand?”
“You’re welcome to stand right over there.” She points to a spot 3 feet away from where I’m currently standing.

At that point, a fairly cute brunette walks in and takes a seat behind a folding table. It finally occurs to me who she is. “Oh, you mean Meadow Soprano! Why didn’t you just say that?”
“Sir, you’re going to need to step out of line.” There are still no other people anywhere.
“Can I just stay ‘in line’ and meet her?”
“You have to buy the book to do that.”
“Oh. How much is the book?”
“$24.95, sir.”
"Oh." Not that cute.

9. The Time I Did Not See Justin Timberlake
In 2004, long before the success of Futuresex/Lovesounds, I was out with some friends in New York. Cyrena knew about a party through her boss that supposedly Justin Timberlake and Tyra Banks might show up at. Sounded like we could get in, especially if we went early, but we decided not to bother. Later, on our cab ride home, her boss called to say we should have gone to the party, and that Mr. Timberlake (as well as Ms. Banks) did in fact make an appearance. Everyone in the cab went “huh, interesting” and we resumed talking about other things.

Back at my friend’s apartment, her roommate (who hadn’t gone out that night) inquired as to how our night went. “Oh, nothing much. Although we could have gone to this party that apparently Justin Timberlake and Tyra Banks showed up at. But we didn’t go.”
“What? WHAT? WHAT?!?!?” Her roommate was incredulous, red in the face, and totally overcome with emotions.
“Uhhh…”
“YOU HAD A CHANCE TO SEE JUSTIN, AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME?!?!?”
“Oh I would have if we went, but we didn’t go to the party.”
“WHY DIDN’T YOU GO??? AND WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?!?!? DON’T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH HE MEANS TO ME?!?!? YOU KNOW HOW MUCH HE MEANS TO ME!!!!”

At this point she was literally in tears and left the room crying. And yes, before you even ask, this is a true story. If Justin Timberlake were a stock, I would have bought a bunch of his shares immediately.

8. Mike Tyson
This one just happened a few months back at the Bellagio. We passed a crowd, and Weili turns to me and says, “Was that Mike Tyson? I think that was Mike Tyson.”
Couldn’t have been Mike Tyson, so I decided to use the opportunity to make fun of Weili.
“Look, not all black guys are ‘Mike Tyson’, okay?”
“I really think it was though. And he had some kind of tattoo on his face.”

Oh shit! It probably was Mike Tyson! Steph and I immediately turned around and I dialed up to my maximum walking speed (which really is quite fast, so I blew by Steph) to walk past him, turn around, and walk back the other way to get a look. Sure enough, Iron Mike. He looked a bit out of shape and strangely subdued. The face tattoo is seriously insane, but it’s not intimidating. In fact, I was generally struck by how unintimidating he was, relative to my expectations. Anyways, my bad on that one. Sometimes a black guy is Mike Tyson.

7. Lil’ Wayne
For Game 5 of the 2004 NBA finals, Jin, Inhwa, Rich and I decided to watch the game at ESPNZone in New York. Jin wanted to get a table, but during a night with a major sporting event, everyone at your table has to spend like $60 or something. But I was only 20 years old at the time, and let me tell you – spending $60 at ESPNZone without alcohol is almost impossible. “I’ll start with the chicken fingers with fries, then the full rack of ribs, then a chocolate sundae, then nachos, spinach and artichoke dip, the chicken fettuccine, with extra fettuccine…”

As I attempted to consume 12,000 calories, a large posse comes in to fill up two booths that have been reserved the whole night. In one booth is Lil’ Wayne, another guy, and 4 women. The other booth had 5 guys and no women. It was a lot of fun watching the social dynamics of an entourage, like how only one guy got to partake in the ladies with Lil’ Wayne. You could see the all-dude booth also had a de facto head, because he was able to sprawl out and take up a lot of space, while the other 4 guys had to sit a little too close to one another. Fascinating.

6. The Kid From Jerry Maguire With The Giant Head

I was at UCLA with Emilio and John, and we decided to go get burritos. Unbeknown st to us, the street had been blocked off for the premiere of the Lil’ Bow Wow (I think he still had the Lil’ back then) basketball/magic movie, “Like Mike”. Lil’ Bow Wow’s co-star in the movie? Jonathan Lipnicki of “Jerry Maguire” fame. He had this ridiculous spiked-hair, sunglasses, and a general aura of “I’m famous, I’m cool, chicks love me”. He was a little too old for that to be cute, plus his demeanor suggested he really did think he was badass, which, let's face it, is plainly preposterous. I wish you could see how ridiculous he looked. Oh wait, I found a picture! You can see too, look! He's ridiculous!

Part 2 of 2 (Numbers 5-1) here!

In Case You Were Wondering

Just an FYI, because I've gotten a bunch of questions about it. I don't delete any comments - when it says "this comment was removed by the author", that means by the author of the comment itself, not me. The only things I censor are pure spam, and sometimes I don't even censor that.

On another note, Google AdSense has placed some interesting ad banners and text ads that you've no doubt noticed due to the content of some of the recent posts. A sampling of the fun, below. In an indirect way, Jessie, this is all your fault.

The Rich Genius Society

Last month Justin sent me an article about Samir Patel, the “Dan Marino of spelling”, who never won the National Spelling Bee despite coming close on a number of occasions. Now Samir is 14, and he appears to be moderately interested in what life has to offer beyond reading the dictionary. This is a humdrum article, but what caught Justin’s eye, and mine, was this passage at the end.

The first few weeks of the spring semester, his government professor, Lou Bradizza, didn't know Samir was so young until he saw the boy walking out of class one day…If Samir were 18, he'd stand among the brightest in the school, Bradizza says, and the fact that he's 14 gives him "potential to be a real star."

"He told me he wanted to get into the [technical] field, but I'm hoping to change his mind. I think a really bright kid like that should be steered into the humanities. If you look around the country, you'll notice our planes are well maintained and fly and don't normally crash, our doctors are competent and we've made big strides in computer technology. But my view is when you have an extremely talented person, the last thing we need is one more computer programmer. The fact that I am thinking this way about him is an indication of how much promise I see in him."

Although it bothers me, I’ll choose to ignore the mildly racist overtones of “Professor” Bradizza thinking so highly of Samir that he might be able to succeed as something other than a computer programmer. What bothers me more is this ridiculous (and sadly, all-too-common) disregard for science.

We all think and say dumb things sometimes, but I can hardly imagine saying something more fucking stupid than the above quote. Has the good professor has ever stopped to wonder how the hell we were able to make planes that don’t crash, or why his “computer technology” improves in capability and accessibility every year? While this guy might be perfectly happy with his current ability to fly without dying and then stream porn on his laptop after landing, it’s assuredly not the right long-term view for the rest of us. America no longer has a natural resource advantage. We certainly don’t have a low-cost labor advantage. Our only potential advantage is technological innovation, and, as such, it needs to be pursued full force.

I say this without an ounce of self-propaganda. I work in finance, after all. I am useless. And I also have no idea if Samir Patel will be able to make a meaningful contribution to technological innovation. I’m unconvinced that being able to spell words nobody ever uses translates into “talented medical researcher”. But if Samir is indeed a talented medical researcher, but also a superb scholar of Matisse, suffice it to say we’re probably a little bit better off if he gets into medical research. And please don’t be offended if you did a 500-page thesis on Matisse. Even though you're not multiplying the GDP, I still think you’re a swell person.

Now, how do we actually pursue innovation “full force”? Well, I’m glad I asked myself that question. The ideal situation would be something like the space race of the 1960s, which used large federal investments to dramatically increase the science and engineering workforce, and ultimately contributed to major innovations in the subsequent decades. Unfortunately, nobody seems too interested anymore in using fluid dynamics to defeat commies and then indirectly boost our GDP. So I thought of something else, an elegant, low-cost solution to the American brain drain. I call it the “Rich Genius Society”.

The “Rich Genius Society” will consist of 500 of the world’s most talented scientists, research doctors, engineers, physicists, etc. It’s a misconception that people in those fields are just pure dorks who love textbooks and only need a little money to support their Dungeons and Dragons and LARP habits. They want a LOT of money to support those habits. That’s why this isn’t going to be the Genius Society. It’s going to be the Rich Genius Society. They’ll all be on 3-year contracts at a minimum guaranteed salary of $5 million per year, tax free. That’s right kids – tax free.

A member of the Rich Genius Society can pick any university, research lab or corporation in the country to be headquartered out of. Actually they can work out of their own basements if they want. If you’re international (as most of the society will be), we give you 10 green cards to bring over your family and loved ones. If no one loves you, you can sell those green cards on the black market to a non-terrorist, and make a killing.

The whole goal here is to create a lottery system, sort of like drug dealing. Only a select few people become wealthy as drug dealers, yet lots of people deal drugs. That’s in part due to lack of other viable job opportunities, but it’s also because of the visibility and massive cash generation of the select people at the top. My mission is to reconstruct science in the mold of drug dealing. What that means, then, is that we need to fire up the national propaganda machine to make these people stars as well. We’ll have a massive ad campaign showing Rich Geniuses with hot female and male models, swimming through a giant pool of $100 bills. We’ll get them access to the high life, exclusive parties, courtside seats, private jets, plastic surgery. Maybe they don’t want that. Maybe they want to orbit the Earth or have a one-on-one dinner with George Lucas. Frankly, I don’t know what these people want. Neither do you. But we’ll ask, and then make that happen. And then, more importantly, tell everyone we made that happen. Science can be something aspirational for materialistic people; we have to stop thinking of it as something for nut jobs who don’t value money, status or perks.

My plan is relatively cheap, I estimate this can be accomplished on a budget of about $5 billion a year, peanuts to the American government. Obviously I have high expectations of the 500 Rich Geniuses, but the real value is in the effect it has on future generations. In 15-20 years, we should really start seeing the impact, as more and more people enter the American scientific community, whether they’re born here or abroad. In 40 years, we will have asserted ourselves as the world leader in basic science, engineering, medicine and alternative energy. GDP will be up massively, we’ll be politically stronger, safer and richer.

This is gonna work. I only need like 200 billion dollars and 40 years to make it happen. But it’s gonna work, trust me.

Eric Goes To The Doctor Again

If you missed part 1 of "Eric Goes To The Doctor", start here to get caught up.

Back in the office, I attempted to impress my coworkers with the fact that I had, all on my own, scheduled a doctor's appointment and then managed to actually go. Since I didn't have the results of my body fat measurement, I asked people what percentage body fat they thought I was. Sujit guessed 10%, Cristine went with 10% before revising to 12%. They are either trying to not hurt my feelings, or have never heard of a body fat measurement, and are just making up numbers to humor me. In either case, I appreciated it.

Truth be told, my bigger (and really only) concern was cholesterol. My dad has bad cholesterol - if this was a genetic thing, I might be forced to change my diet, which would be a complete and utter disaster (oatmeal, here I come). My favorite foods include beef, dungeness crab, cheese, oysters, bacon, french fries, scallops, pork, clams and butter. I mulled over the situation - in a week, I would know what my cholesterol situation was. If it was good, hey, who cares what I eat, cholesterol can't faze me. If it's bad, then my last chance to eat high cholesterol foods totally "guilt-free" would be this week.

My dinner consists of two bacon cheeseburgers from Five Guys. Mmmmm. If only they also had sides of deep fried oysters.

If I were a comic book character, my primary weakness would have to be "bruises like a peach". I noticed that the spot they drew my blood sample from had grown into a bigger-than-a-poker-chip-but-smaller-than-a-coaster size purple bruise. That was okay, though - that happens all the time, and was at least explainable. But then two nights later I slept on my elbow on some hotel sheets in a funny way, and awoke to find that my elbow now contained a pattern an ordinary person would not characterize as a bruise. Either I had joined some sort of gang which required members to tattoo their elbow with an abstract picture of a blue waffle (what a badass gang, right?) or I was a desperate heroin junkie who had run out of needle spots on my arm.

I returned to the Islamic fundamentalist/proudly gay/postcard salesman doctor's office the following week, this time ready for literally anything. They send me into a patient room, which I am told is the "Disney Room". (I am now forced to retract my earlier statement, because I was most definitely not ready for that.) Sure enough, one corner of the room has about 50-60 stuffed animals, with a bias towards Mickey Mouse, the Nemo fish and Winnie the Pooh. The walls have framed photos of Epcot Center and the Magic Kingdom. Other paraphernalia abounds. This would all be okay if this were a pediatrician's office or the gift shop next to Space Mountain but alas, I am in neither of those places.

In comes a guy who looks like he's my age, wearing a tie. He says that he's a medical student on rotations, and asks if I would mind if he conducted the survey portion of my exam. I'm fine with that, although I am starting to wonder if I will ever actually meet this doctor. He nervously asks me 100 or so questions, and then starts to look even more nervous.

"Umm...so...uhhh....are you...umm...sexually active?" Ah, I see. I have never gotten this question at the doctor before, since my last checkup was at 16. And if you knew me at age 16, you can attest that it was probably not necessary to ask me that question at that point in time. You could just check the box and move on to the food allergies section.

"Okay, now I'm going to take your blood pressure."
"Okay." The blood pressure thing is hanging on the wall, but unfortunately for this medical student (and maybe me, too) hanging over that is a Winnie the Pooh necklace and a large Pinocchio book with a chain attached to it. The medical student seems very wary of not messing up the "Disney Room" and tries to remove the blood pressure reader without disturbing Winnie the Pooh or Pinocchio. He is, as you might guess, having a hard time.

"Uhh...hang on just a second, sir...I just need a moment here.." He continues to fiddle with the Disney merchandise, and swears under his breath.
"I'm sorry sir, just a moment...uhh...I'm sorry normally this Pinocchio book is not on top of the blood pressure reader..."
I am at a loss for words. "It's okay man, just take the necklace off the hook and then put it back on later."
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."
"Sure does buddy, sure does."

The student starts walking me through my results, and has good news galore. I'm not anemic, I'm probably not diabetic, my blood can clot, nothing weird happened on that EKG, and in the biggest news of the day, I have high good cholesterol and very low bad cholesterol. My body fat percentage is 20.0%, which is a few percentage points too high for someone my size, but forget that, I'm eating another bacon cheeseburger for lunch to celebrate this whole cholesterol thing. Bacon is just so good.

Finally, I get to meet the doctor. It's a meeting that lasts less than 5 minutes. He's wearing an untucked linen shirt that would be professional if he were a member of the Buena Vista Social Club. (I wonder if the medical student feels like an idiot in his white shirt and tie.) I decide to ask some questions.
"So, this is the "Disney Room"?"
"Yes it is." There is a pause, which the doctor decides not to fill with an explanation of why he has a Disney Room.
"Why do you have a Disney Room?"
"Oh, I just like it." I can think of no follow-up to his concise answer, and abandon the 100 other questions I have.

It's not that obvious he's gay, other than the fact that I'm in a room with 60 stuffed animals and the lobby has 30 or so gay magazines and newspapers and his male receptionist sounds like a woman. But without all those hints, I'd probably only be 65-70% confident he was gay. It doesn't look like he shaved his face this morning, which is either out of laziness, or is day 1 of his plan to grow a beard so he can hang out with the radical jihadists and not get made fun of. There is some talk about a hepatitis A vaccine and some other assorted pleasantries, but soon after, I am on my way. All in all, a somewhat anticlimactic meeting. He doesn't even bother to try to sell me any of his postcards. I wonder if he is assuming I am cheap.

Although I gained some peace of mind, the real net result of going to the doctor was that I become unhealthier by 3 bacon cheeseburgers. I'm told by a variety of friends that most trips to the doctor are somewhat different than mine and that I should change doctors. I don't know though, I got a lot of stories out of my $10 co-pay, and I'm very curious to know if there are other theme rooms. Realistically though, I probably won't get another checkup for at least 2-3 years just due to sheer laziness.

Perhaps on that visit, I will finally learn how tall I am.

Eric Goes To The Doctor

Do you go to the doctor every year for a checkup? I don’t. Or rather, I didn’t. As of early May 2008, it had been almost nine full years since I’d been to a general practitioner for a routine exam. My reasons for not getting annual checkups, despite having had them for 16 consecutive years, were numerous and compelling.

1. I generally felt like a healthy person.
2. My mom stopped making the appointments for me, and I am a lazy and ineffective individual without such assistance.
3. Who wants to co-pay $10? Not this guy, that’s for sure.
4. I am averse to doctors and medication, preferring to let my body build its own immunities naturally.

Nonetheless, after nine years, self-doubt had begun to creep in. People who knew of my long layoff were nagging me to get a checkup. Lipitor ads were playing every 10 minutes on TV, and my dad’s high cholesterol only added to my concerns (“Cholesterol can come from fettuccine alfredo, but it can ALSO come from your Uncle Alfredo!”). So I bit the bullet and called one of the closest doctors in my coverage network, a (name changed) Dr. Mahmoud Ayoub. What nationality was this guy? Was he going to have a lot of facial hair and ban me from eating pork? This was off to a dubious start, but at least his office was really close by. I scheduled a physical with the nice lady on the phone, who, based on my admittedly limited knowledge, did not sound like a jihadist.

Visit 1 of 2: Bloodwork

The first appointment was just to get my insurance information, blood and urine samples, and run some on-the-spot tests. I walked in and was greeted by a short bald man. A short bald man who had the exact same voice as the nice non-jihad lady who made my appointment.

Ohhhh, okay, got it. Nah, nah, it’s totally cool man, nothing wrong with that.

I sit down to fill out some insurance paperwork, which I whiz through in no time. I might have just set the office’s insurance paperwork all-time record. I proudly smile to myself, because I am a complete idiot. Looking around for a magazine to read, I spot an Elle Magazine and a U.S. News and World Report. Lame. I continued searching. I find a Radar magazine, a local gay and lesbian newspaper, and some other magazine with a dorky, yet shirtless Asian guy holding 17 different forms of sporting equipment under the tagline “Big Gay Summer Sports Spectacular”. My confidence that Dr. Mahmoud Ayoub is something short of a raging Islamic fundamentalist continues to grow.

My name gets called, and I am directed down the main hallway into a patient room. The walls of the hallway are literally jam-packed with personalized autographed photos from every “diva” beloved by the flamboyant. Cher, Madonna, Celine Dion, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey. Maybe Bette Midler. (An aside: my indifferent-yet-mildly-negative stance on Bette Midler changed on a recent visit to Vegas, where a Bette Midler impersonator at the Imperial Palace inexplicably dealt me 4 blackjacks and two 20s in 7 hands.)

After a moment, a medical assistant comes in to start the physical. “How tall are you?”

I am slightly flummoxed. I have not been measured since age 16, and can’t say with 100% confidence how tall I am. “Well, see, when I was 16, I measured 6’2”, and I personally think I’m probably the same height, especially since I wear the same length pants. After age 17, a lot of people kept telling me I got taller, but I think maybe that’s just better posture on my part. But I could be 6’3”, it’s possible.”
“So…you don’t know how tall you are?”
“Well, I mean, no...but I know within a reasonable range.”
“Uhh…okay, I’m just going to put down 6’2” and a half.”
“Can you just measure me?”
“We don’t do that here.”
“What, really?”
“Well, this is a general practitioners’ office. Most of our patients already know how tall they are.”
“Oh. I see.” Isn’t a doctor’s office supposed to be able to measure you? I bet this guy was lying. We were already off to a poor start.

“So when did you last have a checkup?”
“Almost 9 years ago. I like to build my own immunities naturally.”
“Uhh…okay.”
“That works, right?”
“I mean, it could.” Whatever. This guy’s not even a real doctor. I’m not taking any eye-rolls from this jackass.

I proceed to get weighed, give blood and urine samples, and get some kind of body fat measurement (though they don’t tell me the results). Then an EKG. (Holy shit! An EKG? Is this normal? They can’t measure how tall I am but want to give me an EKG? Am I dying? What’s happening here? Fortunately I say nothing, have the EKG, and continue to live.) And then – I’m done. That’s it.

As I walk back to the lobby to schedule my “actual” physical, it occurs to me that I still haven’t met the doctor. I now notice that he is also a photographer, and the lobby is selling postcards of city and nature shots he’s taken all around the world. People always tell me not to have my tailoring done by a dry cleaner – you want your tailor to be only a tailor. I wonder if this also applies to doctors. Is it bad if your doctor is also an amateur photographer and postcard creator? I schedule the return visit for the following week, and head in to work.

It is safe to say at this point, my curiosity about my bearded raging Islamic fundamentalist/flamboyantly homosexual/artistically entrepreneurial doctor has reached an all-time high.

On to Part 2...

Love Story

A love story for the ages.

A4 Papercut

Not sure if most people have already seen these works, but Peter Callesen does some incredible work where he takes a single A4 piece of paper and "[explores] the relationship between two and three dimensionality." It is pretty amazing though. You can check out all the A4 works here, and to see his more complete collection, click here.