when the cat's away, the mice will play. many summers ago, we used to go to warner springs, this old people's retreat with no television. what did we do you ask? well, there was horse riding, ping pong, tennis, basketball, a hot springs pool, and general outdoorsy stuff. as many as ten chinese families used to convene at these things every summer and inevitably the kids would be dragged along. at twelve this kind of stuff was semi-boring. but at seventeen, with a chance to rent out bungalows for a weekend with minimal supervision, warner springs is the shit.



invariably, without adults around, kids get rowdy. and you forget how young you look, even at the wise old age of seventeen. one night, during what must have been a eardrum splitting game of hearts or something, a huge banging comes at the door of one of the cabins. this is maybe one or two in the morning, tremendously late by adult human standards. nobody answers the door, instead, the pounding was so fearsome that everyone ran to the corner of the cabin and proceeded to ignore the banging. mind you, there were maybe six guys and six girls inside at this point, what could possibly be that threatening? finally, the smallest youngest guy gets sent to open the door. he opens it and an infuriated adult (no description available, all adults looked the same back then) grabs him and yanks him out onto the doorway. the crazed adult demands to see the parents in charge and then drags our representative over a few cabins to confront "the adults." door opens, it's my mom in her nightgown. the man ignores her and tells her that he wants to speak to a male -- from this action we can surmise that he was a white male, probably in his mid forties. my dad did not come to warner springs this trip so the only male "supervising" is my grandfather. my mom explains to the man that my grandfather is visiting from taiwan and doesn't speak any english, did the man still want to speak to him? at this point the angry man cools down and asks my mom to control the kids and to keep us quiet because heavens, he needs his beauty rest.



my mom, of course, freaks out and locks everyone down and demands that we all go to bed. i wasn't in the cabin during this whole ordeal since me and some of other kids were doing something else outside. all this was related to me after it happened. my mom was so angry with us that she made jimmy (and maybe others) go sleep in her cabin to prevent further outbreaks of noise. when i came back to the cabin and asked why none of the bigger guys had opened the door, i got responses such as "well, such and such a girl jumped on me so i couldn't get up." what were you doing already on the floor to be jumped on anyway jimmy? and what was josh doing? our superstar football stud? he was protecting the girls and the children he said.



the next year, we are again at warner and engaged in a war of water balloons. at one point i pick up one of the chairs (it was plastic duh, like i could've picked up anything else?) and threw it over a low railing. shouts and screams are heard behind us. we have been caught yet again by adults. they are upset at our misuse of community furniture and at the absolute craziness that results in kids throwing water around. "what about the balloon pieces? isn't that littering? and you can't throw the public chairs around like that. who's in charge here? where are your parents?" um, we have no parents, but i'm in charge here. at this point i have a sun-burnt face and two racer stripes shaved into my head from the day before. they demand to see our warner springs ID card and tell us that they will "report us to the authorities." boo hoo. the authorities. adults are so gay. get a life old people.



flash forward to two days ago. gene, will and i are standing outside james' house smoking. an irate middle aged man dressed completely in matching striped pajamas comes storming up the driveway. "do you live here?" um, no actually i don't, did you need something? "i want to speak to your parents, where are the parents of the house?" i go into my rote explanation of "there are no parents here, sorry we're being loud, have a nice night, we'll keep it down, your daughter is kinda hot, is she of age?" anyway, after the diplomatic talks were over, i realized that pretty much since the age of then (seventeen) and now (twenty five), i've yet to pass for an adult. and you wonder why i have trouble fitting into the world of reality and work. if you don't treat me like an adult, i won't ever be one. or was that, if i don't ever act like an adult i won't be treated like one? whatever. adults really need to chill out.

we are not alone. i have found someone who has eerily similar taste in famous women who just happen to be hot. out of his top ten, i'd say i agree with most of them. his top ten go like so. (10) charlize theron (09) uma thurman (08) kirsten dunst (07) elisha cuthbert (06) katie holmes (05) jennifer garner (04) natalie portman (03) kristen kreuk (02) keira knightley (01) scarlett johansson



i'm only in the habit of going top five but if i had to expand the list, this guy has got most of them. my top five go like this (in order): portman, kreuk, holmes, jennifer connelly, eliza dushku. scarlett johansson and keira knightley would certainly make my top ten. i'm bitter over scarlett because i've liked her ever since ghost world before she blew up. she was my "unconventional" hot celebrity, but now she's everyone's "it" girl. bitter bitter. she was mine mine mine!



and obviously, charlize theron (does anyone not think she's beautiful? she's the one person, in my experience, that all males and females agree is beautiful), jennifer garner and elisha cuthbert are gorgeous. although he is very right in saying that elisha is annoying, and i'm not even gonna say only slightly. and garner's fundamental problem is that i've seen her in felicity; i can't shake that mental image, sorry. the only problems i have with this list are at nine and eight, uma and dunst. they are way overrated. i'm sure they're very nice people but really, let's be shallow here, they are not hot.



but still, this guy and i agree on maybe seven out of ten of the hottest women in hollywood. is this not amazing? i thought me and gene had similar taste in barely out of reach celebrities. but now i discover, via the power of the internet, a guy who has almost the exact same taste. do i smell competition here? who will win scarlett or natalie's hand? only time will tell. cue gladiator music.

i've decided to exclusively release my top ten list. yes, a top ten. five more than a top five. that's double the names if you're counting at home. are you ready? do you feel exclusive? you betcha.



(10) keira knightley (09) jessica alba (08) angelina jolie (07) monica belluci (06) eliza dushku (05) katie holmes (04) scarlett johansson (03) jennifer connelly (02) kristen kreuk (01) natalie portman



yes, scarlett has jumped up high, pushing eliza off the top five. and katie holmes has dropped two spots. this is incredible stuff. i feel like my entire life is so different now. wow. i feel like a new man. i feel like you gave up caring about what i had to say twenty seconds/years ago. true?

hugs not drugs. i'm taking a quick poll here. how many people here think they have been emotionally stunted as a result of their upbringing and their non-affectionate parents? i guess i'm speaking mostly from the perspective of an asian family, but i'm sure this can apply to any family. however, certain ethnic families -- usually immigration families -- tend to be somewhat cold and emotionless. how many people barely spoke to their parents growing up? didn't feel loved? didn't know how to express love? didn't get hugs, kisses, slaps on the back? how many people didn't get words of encouragement? only words of rebuke and questions about life updates? how many people aren't even sure if one or both parents even wanted them?



what might this treatment translate into for a young adult? first off, maybe you don't know how to be close to people. your parents always held you at arm's length, so you hold people important in your life at arm's length. there is a phenomenon nowadays of people who aren't dramatically "i don't feel close to anyone" but still exhibiting the same sentiments. these people have a wall up and can't really connect with anyone on a really deep level. they feel like nobody knows the real them, or they are afraid to expose the real them. in old movies in the 80s this might have been categorized as the tough guy who finally breaks down once he realizes the power of love. in our subsequent savvier days, these people are able to function fine, but they withhold a part of themselves from human contact.



endless amounts of friends have remarked to me that "i don't know how to tell someone i care about them." i feel like i may have this minor affliction also. i just assume that people who i really care about just know. how? i dunno, they should just figure it out. but i've had a few conversations in my day about where someone's friendship stood in relation to my life. i'm always surprised because i thought i made it startling obvious that this person was one of my best friends. it made me think, "am i not conveying my feelings for people enough? am i giving them the impression that i don't value them?" many of my fine feathered friends also suffer from this problem. they sometimes have no problem telling others how much they care about someone, they just can't tell that particular person. is this due to affectionless parents? you tell me.



i know some people who cringe at the thought of a hug. where does this come from? sure people aren't all huggy and certain people just don't like body contact but can this be attributed to cultural traditions and more specifically, the inability of asian parents to hug or express affection? i know people who position themselves precisely so that they can avoid goodbye and hello hugs. ludicrous i know. but it's true, not everyone likes hugs. sometimes i can see the fear in someone's eye(s) as they are about to be hugged. is this somehow related to non-huggy parents? i bet it is.



what other emotional stunting have people suffered under the harsh totalitarian rule of their parents? i will find out. i'm on the case, don't worry. the best anecdotes will be duly shared and distributed. feel free to um, send me anecdotes. thanks. oh, and spare me the happy stories about how your parents hugged you a lot and showed you endless amounts of love and support. we're not interested in those tales. save that shit for oprah.

i lean toward my interpretations out of respect for the fact that people rarely change, and when they do, they tend to do it for themselves. unromantic, yes -- and cheerfully so. the notion that lovers can change each other, or for each other, or even should, best dwells under six feet of dirt.

-miss manners-



the notion that anyone can change anyone is outdated. when was the last time you saw someone change another person? never i say. all change that is made for someone else's benefit is fake change. the only real change is from the inside. but then, what about those people who say "well, i changed for them but i wanted to do it." bullshit. i disagree with this. all the changes that you induce in yourself should come from only selfish impulses. wait, contradiction coming. what if you want to make your wife happy (a selfish impulse) and by doing so you must give up something you really like? is that a selfish impulse (make wife happy) or an unselfish impulse (give up something for someone else)? i'd say that this type of change is not "change" at all. welcome to the world of compromise. that's the buzzword as you approach marriage age: compromise. learn it, love it, live it. but don't confuse it with actual change.



can friends change you? they can certainly influence you, but can they really change you? i doubt it. friends are people who are usually just as lost as you are, why let them change you when you haven't reached that conclusion yourself? as badly as you may want a friend to "learn" or to change some aspect of themselves, you can't rush it or force it. you can however, leave them on the wayside and off the cell phone roster.



the problem though, is that you can't do this in a relationship. or rather, you can but it's much harder. you've already worked this hard to find someone who likes you, the prospect of cutting the cord because of some minor disagreements seem too harsh. most people are incapable of accepting a significant other just as they are and want also what they have the potential to be. and so, you want to take a bit of the good and change a bit of the bad. sorry hon, this doesn't happen. i've yet to see solid evidence of any change that has occured as a result of true love.



i also think "change" is a term that should be reserved for conscious change. subconscious change just happens, it doesn't qualify in my book. you may naturally progress out of certain stages of your life and thus become different, but to "change" is to provide thought, fuel and effort.

it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. i'm a big believer in the idea that some people are just idiots. i know, you may not agree with me. "everyone has some redeeming value!" actually, in my experience, some people have no redeeming value at all. i am not advocating the tar and feathering of these unredeemable people, i'm just saying that not all men are created equal. we should be treated equally as far as laws, justice and freedoms are concerned, but when it comes to opinions and brains, nothing is equal.



some people are under the impression that all opinions matter. if you have three people talking about something, three distinct opinions should be taken into account and respected. however, the rule i go by is not that "everyone matters" but rather "everyone matters only if they know what they are talking about." i'm quick to pass judgement on someone's opinions and to dismiss them as foolhardy or unworthy of (intellectual) respect. for example, someone might say "my favorite color is ." bam, sorry, wrong answer, gone, go home, you know nothing about colors. i would never again ask you for color advice, like ever. this in no way implies that you are worthless as a person, just that your color schemes and mine will clash violently. and i don't mean that metaphorically.



here's another example. if you say facts that are blatantly not facts, thereby posterizing as a fact poser, i will disregard anything else that might come out of your mouth on the topic. "i think simbabywei is pretty cold during the summer, due to its position in the northern hemisphere." whatever you might say about geography or the weather will forever be suspect in my eyes. i would also question your spelling and pronounciation of "zimbabwe." see how this works?



everyone has an opinion, not everyone has a worthwhile or valid opinion. you know this, i know this. but sometimes people try to pretend this isn't true. we are the world and all that. forget it. some people just have no idea what they are talking about. these people can be placated by a simple nodding of the head and talking over, under and through them. it's also helpful to remember what was said by this person, in order to pass along the story to your friends so that you can all laugh at how ridiculous a thought he/she had that penguins could actually fly.



class dismissed.

oh, ricky, you're so fine. you're so fine you blow my mind. ricky williams, one of the most talented running backs in the league has retired at the age of twenty seven -- after two record setting years with the miami dolphins. like barry sanders, ricky leaves in his prime and kills his team's chances of becoming a winning football team. more importantly, ricky williams' retirement has killed my chances of winning a fantasy football championship.



let me tell you, it hurts. my roster is stocked with has-beens and nobodies. two years ago i was the champion, now i'm on the floor (literally) looking up. somewhere a higher power is laughing at me, giggling at me and stomping over my life. i was so excited to draft this year, now i'm crushed. you could've told me a girl thought i physically most resembled a hairless babboon and i wouldn't have cared half this much. i mean, girls diss me all the time, i'm used to it. but losing my franchise player in a keeper league? oh the tears and the heartache.



professional athletes retiring in their prime is becoming en vogue these days. jim brown the great did it, the aforementioned barry sanders did it, many football players have done it. usually running backs for some reason. robert smith left after a career season in 2000 and has never looked back. michael jordan did it in basketball, sort of. it's something kind of to be respected; to leave at your very best, knowing that you don't want to suffer through the indignity of a torturous career slide. there's something to be said about a man who can step away from the game that he's played since he was a kid. there's something to be said about a man who can walk away from millions of dollars just because his heart isn't in it anymore, or if the game no longer provides him any challenges. there's something to be said for these people: stupid stupid stupid.



do you know how many of us would die to play professional sports? but we aren't all athletically blessed so fantasy is our chance. why ruin it for us by cutting short your careers? why ruin it for me? do you know how little i have to look forward to every day? do you know what it's like to be dominated on the field of reality, but yet go home smiling because you know you coulda whooped that man on nintendo or via mathematics? do you know what i'm talking about barry sanders? do you know what i'm talking michael jordan? do you know what i'm talking ricky williams? you feeling me? obviously not. have fun traveling in asia ricky. i hope you catch SARS.



if ricky decides to un-retire, i take all this back and will make banners that read "run ricky run!"

in his book, the wisdom of the crowds, james surowiecki demonstrates myriad situations where the many are smarter than the few.

"if four basic conditions are met, a crowd's 'collective intelligence' will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. 'wise crowds' need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions."

the idea is this: that a large group of people are ultimately smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant the elite. have i been muddling about the world all wrong? have i been wrong to trust that my brains will be enough to take me through the harrowing steps of life? should i toss aside my innate elitism and try to listen to the plebeian opinions of others? if what this book is saying is right, then maybe spiderman-2 and lord of the rings 3 really are great movies.



um nope, i'm right. they both suck. sorry mr surowiecki, i'm gonna have to throw my money in with the elites. groups are retards, individuals rule.

schadenfreude. what do you do when you show someone something -- something that is special to you -- and they spit on it? say, a favorite poem, passage, painting or um, movie? you hype it up, confidently driving up expectations, assuring them that they'll love it. then as you unwrap your faberge egg, you watch their faces expectantly, searching desperately for any sign of enjoyment or fulfilled promise. and you slowly realize that you will get nothing from reading their poker face, only a blank emotionless stare. at the end of the movie, you think you know what they think but you ask anyway. "so, what did you think of the movie?" they respond with comments like "i thought the concept was poor, the respect i had for so and so really dropped, i really thought kangaroo jack was a superior film."



what do you feel then? a sense of betrayal? anger? a part of you dying? are you reluctant to share ever again? do you suddenly feel like an island? despite all your best efforts to build a land bridge? all of the above i'd say. this is why favorites are really "personal" favorites. you can't expect other people to love what you love. they didn't have the same experience, the same background, the same mentality heading into it. you can only hope that what you connected with can be reflected somewhat in their experience. because you don't really want to throw out the friend with the bath water if you can help it. but if things don't work out, you must bravely soldier on. climb your own mountain and ride your own melt. because there's no point to any of this. it's all just a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes.



on the flip side, when somebody names a favorite of theirs that is an obscure favorite of yours, isn't that cause for celebration? you grew up thinking for years that only you knew about this gem of a song and then suddenly you discover that you were not alone. somebody else listens to the magic that is "return to pooh corner." how can this be? is fate really this generous? did kenny loggins tour the world when i wasn't looking?



doesn't this type of feeling restore your faith in (wo)man-kind? doesn't it make you feel like you have an intimate connection with the aforementioned person? doesn't similar taste in one superior thing signify that possibly their tastes are similar to yours in all respects? oh happy day. zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay. should we immediately elevate this lovely person to true friend status? most certainly i'd say.



my rationale behind this is simply that even with an overall-y bad man like hitler, if he had great taste in things like i do, there must be some redeeming qualities in him right? and so, if i could HAVE befriended hitler i can certainly give you a chance. i mean, if someone can appreciate the same things you(i) do, they must be somewhat like (me)you, and thus worthy of respect and admiration right? my logic and worldviews are clearly worthy of enshrinement.



oh but what happens if -- totally and i mean totally -- hypothetical "situation a" and "situation b" occur with the same person, on the same day, in the span of the same encounter? are you left in friendship limbo? at an equilibrium between hate and love? on one hand you have this thing that you deeply connect on -- kenny loggins -- but then on the other, they rejected something that is close to your heart -- xmen 2. what do you do? can you really go with one feeling over the other? should you even try? i feel torn and shattered. like a man who has lost his head. help me. help you. then help me some more. simply, help.

broken arrow. when chicken little cried that "the sky is falling the sky is falling," he must of been referring to my world and my sky. peep this gentle reader. jack black as the green lantern? jessica simpson in x-men 3? no bryan singer to helm the third installment of the x-men movies? jessica alba as the invisible woman of fantastic four fame? what in the super powered world is going on here? what next? ashton kutcher as the punisher? oh they already made that movie. phew.



for those of you who don't know why this is the end of the world, let me help you out. i'll tackle these travesties one by one. first, the green lantern is not a pudgy hairy short guy. he is a super hero who possesses the greatest weapon in the universe. he should not be reduced to a film that is described as a "zany comedy version a la the mask." the villain will invariably be some yellow haired blonde chick that will reduce mr green's lantern to a mere mood ring. oh lord. maybe they should cast jessica simpson to be the villain. oh wait, she's already been cast in x-men 3! jessica simpson was reported to have been cast for the role of x-woman songstress and superheroine, the dazzler. thank goodness that was a rumor and a lie.



speaking of blondes. isn't the invisible woman a blonde? why yes she is. isn't jessica alba the "dark" angel? why yes she is. why would she be cast as sue storm? sure she's hotter than hot but it might be better for this movie if she actually were invisible instead of super powered invisible. the only good thing about her being cast in the fantastic four is that i might get to see her (and eliza dushku) at the san diego comic con. a small victory i know, i'll just have to make the most of it -- by using my non-zoom powered camera.



now for the most disheartening news. x-men 3 has yet to be penned or cast but already the steadying hand in the director's chair has bolted to do the new superman movie. bryan singer is often credited for making the first two x-men movies as great as they were. what will happen now that he's jumped ship? where will the next movie -- and the tease of jean grey's phoenix -- take us? will the final chapter disappoint? i'm sure all of young hollywood will be clamoring for mutant cameos in this next x-men film, what with singer's singular x-vision gone. shit is life. life is shit.



i'm having some trouble breathing. someone call a doctor. or at least a professor. preferably the bald one. sorry for the x-men humor, it's all i have right now to keep me going.



and spiderman 2 is now available on IMAX. do we really need to see tobey maguire's emotive eyes stretched to fifteen feet tall? i mean, really? didn't we go over this "with great power comes great responsiblity" dilemma in the first movie? give it a rest. isn't the two hundred million dollars the film has grossed so far enough to end the tears? stop crying tobey, end the tsunami.



some malicious being is working overtime to doom the comic revolution, i just know it. if i still had my marvel stock i would be selling selling selling. instead i'm just cringing a lot.

a gaggle. why are there groups in the first place? isn't that so middle school and childish? aren't we past cliques and groups? news flash. life never evolves past middle school, ever. but aren't groups pretentious and exclusionary? aren't they mean? what does it mean anyway, to be part of a group? shouldn't we do away with social clumping as we get older?



the short answer is: no. as we get older, (i think) we probably tend to clump more. i feel that as we learn more about ourselves and our people likes and dislikes, we are more efficient and less forgiving; we learn to actively discard the dislikes and keep the likes hanging around. call it social evolution.



on this topic, lilly had this to say.

"childhood and adolescence lend themselves to uncensored communication with others, friend or foe. few are the tweens who can separate themselves from someone they don't like and be quiet about why they did so. thus cliques and whatnot."

i agree but disagree. i think that as we get older, we learn to vocalize our dislikes more -- perhaps in less dramatic ways and with more subtlety but effectively worse. i think lilly was driving at the idea that as we get older, we are forced into situations where we have to hang out with people we don't like very much, and we learn to keep quiet about it. but i think that we eventually realize that life is too short to be hanging out with people that aggravate you. and we learn to express our displeasure very well.



why do we even hang out with these people (affectionally referred to as "extras") in the first place? there are millions of reasons, number one being that your treasured friend wants them around, thus creating social passivity, obligation and dissonance in you.



partly for this reason, we have groups. having an insular environment gives you a good foundation for rejecting/shunning people. having a group gives you that luxury. those who have, can reject; those who have not, most often do not. also, people are designed to be grouped together. we tend to congregate with the people to whom we have the most in common, or with the people we feel most comfortable around. this will result obviously in cliques, groups, herds, tribes, what have you. groups aren't inherently bad or evilly exclusive, they are just a fact of life. you need to know not only what you stand for but also who you are standing with.



i find that life is most often not static enough to support any one group for an extended period of time. shit happens so groups are torn apart or fade away or just deform. so we are all really just clumping temporarily. which means as good or bad as your group has it, it'll probably change. i think the over under on groups staying together happily is two years. without an infusion or transfusion of new blood, things will inevitably break down. i will put together some data on this theory and present it in 2005. meanwhile, feel free to send grant money.

crash test dummies. i've never had the pleasure of crashing an established group of friends. for some reason or other, i've always been able to start hanging out with a group just as they form. which means that i'm never in the position of trying to figure out the connections (or lack thereof) between people, the inside jokes that run rampant in conversations, the social mores that the group has adopted. i haven't had to meet ten new people at the same time and try to get to know them. in short, i've always been pretty comfortable and never had to feel intrusive, excluded or intimidated from facing a brand new bag of people.



for someone to meet a group of established friends and then proceed to hang out extensively with them, i'd imagine it could be somewhat difficult. for one, you aren't privy to all the insider knowledge. the basics of who's dated whom, who is judgemental, who is two faced, who is nicer than they appear. it's fun to learn and observe all this of course but you have to fight conversation apathy. in my experience, i don't think DDTs are as en vogue within a group that already knows (too much) about each other. so this makes it difficult to engage in group conversations that enable you, as the outsider, to get to know everyone.



the only way to attack this problem is to hang out in pairs or trios. but it's hard to gauge sometimes how open someone is to (a) hanging out (b) moving outside their social sphere to hang out. it's like transferring into college as a junior. everyone already has their friends and they are lax to meet new people, or are too busy to spend significant amounts of time befriending other folk. so while you may be very open to meets and greets, the other party may not be.



the closest i've ever been to crashing a social group was in high school, when i hung out with all the mt carmel people. they were definitely an established group before i hung out with them. but even in this instance, i grew up with frank, victor and josh so i knew them pretty well. plus, i was more of an outsider and only around for random functions, as opposed to eventually becoming great friends with everyone. so aside from this taste of the wild side, i've never had to encounter a whole group of people on my own. this may lead to some personality deficiencies i feel, or at least experience deficiencies.



so, given that meeting a group of new people can be a difficult experience, why bother? because maybe the rewards are worth it? perhaps you are at the end of the line and up against a wall. you've moved to a new city, a new school, you have to find friends somewhere right? maybe this group of people are actually cool and you want to hang out with them. they entertain you, are nice to you and they want to hang out. that's great, but it still takes some time to get to know everyone. how fast can someone integrate themselves into a group? will i ever find out?

i don't know that i'd be able to move to a new city. i've forgotten how to make new friends. when was the last time, outside of school, that you met someone totally independent of your circle of friends and got to know them and hung out with them on a regular basis. it's really hard, i think.

-excerpted from a friend's email-



the last few "new" friends that i've met have all been through the usual channels. i didn't have to meet them, they were connected to me through one degree or less of friendship separation. galvez, mike, may, christina, lilly, and gene. connected by (respectively) eric, lynn, gaga, hong, amit and hong. well technically i met christina at school but apparently, an in-class meeting is not comparable to an at-the-club meeting. the only friend that i might take "credit" for is my friend sara from multiple classes at ucsd.



i've made no significant work friends, i've not ventured out and met any random friends, everyone i hang out with in san diego are established friends or friends i've gotten to know better or friends that i met through other friends. boring isn't it?



but this is how it works. friends of friends. the circle of life is dependent on your people knowing other people. the advantages of this method are clear. less effort, more trust, more insider knowledge before you commit. but what happens when your friends run out of friends? when the circle collapses in on itself and nobody knows anybody else new? at this point, some brave soul will have to be shipped off to go in search of new people. this should be a requirement actually. like missionary work. every two years, have everyone split up so the waters of friendship don't remain stagnant. ideally, this would be naturally occuring because life shouldn't be so permanent that everyone sticks around for an extended amount of time anyway.



i suppose there are worse things in life than running out of (new) friends. what they are i don't know but i'm sure there are worse things.

the second to last crusade before the finale. we just watched the third indiana jones movie. it's freaking spectacular. i think the only other time i watched it was when it originally came out. it's really very good. spielberg made a tight, streamlined popcorn movie. and having sean connery as harrison ford's foil just makes the dynamic so much better. i'm realizing that much of the plot of the da vinci code could conceivably be ripped (inspired) from this installment of the trilogy. maybe it's just the similarities between the searches for the holy grail but the backstabbing and plot twists seem to be eerily familiar.



i can't wait until the da vinci code movie comes out. it will be ron howard directed and possibly starring russell crowe and kate beckinsdale. could be hot. i wonder if it'll hold up to the indiana jones movie, which just breezed by and sucked me in. will the da vinci film be able to translate most of the excitement of the book? when you read da vinci code, it seemed like it was tailor made for the silver screen. i wonder if the religious folk will be up in arms when this movie releases, or if the idea that it's just a fictional tale will have settled in and secular folk will mobilize to watch it.



auto-fail alert. the da vinci code is one of the books that immediately grants a golden ticket to auto-fail status. if anyone states that the da vinci code is their favorite book or "piece of literature," auto-fail. sorry, no exceptions.



and was there ever an uproar about the left behind series? i've read many positive articles about it being used as an evangelical tool and as a popular series among christians and the like. but how come nobody is raising a fuss about this obviously over-dramatized version of the apocalypse? there was no screaming and yelling about the left behind series (or the omega code stuff) was there? did i miss something here or are only negative, non-evangelical stories attacked?

"why would a hollywood star, accustomed to having her every move watched, her every wardrobe change scrutinized, risk stealing thousands of dollar's worth of clothing for which she could have easily paid? in the case of winona ryder there are plenty of easy answers. just look at her screen roles, which range from the disturbed ('beetlejuice' and 'girl, interrupted') to the homicidal ('heathers' and 'the crucible'). or consider her loopy childhood in a northern california commne with parents who smoked a lot of pot and chose timothy leary to be her godfather."



this is excerpted from an old issue of time magazine. i don't know who timothy leary is but how much does it suck that his being named winona's godfather is comparatively just as bad as having pot smoking parents? not that pot smoking parents are a terrible terrible thing in my book. but if it were the worst thing ever, then timothy leary must have been a hell of a person. are pot smoking parents bad?



by the way, a textbook kleptomaniac will steal an item and immediately throw it away. it is the rush they crave, not the object itselft. most kleptomaniacs steal regularly -- at least once a week -- and often suffer from other mental disorders such as anxiety or depression. use these helpful guidelines to diagnose your friends. and then find out where they're ditching the stuff so that you can get your hands on it.

like bringing a knife to a gun fight. poseurs, so easily exposed, not so easily identified. poseurs are people who look like they should know what they are doing, who look like they belong, but clearly do not. before we get into why some people "affect a particular attribute, attitude, or identity to impress or influence others," we must identify some possible poseurs. i find that it's commonplace to see poseurs in the sporting arena. basketball for example. when a guy comes onto the court wearing a throwback jersey, matching nike socks/shoes, and a gallon headbands/bandanas, my poseur alarm rings.



the rationale here goes: if you can play, you don't need to dress the part. if you can't, well then, you might as well dress like mike. pretty in defeat, ugly in victory is the mantra i go by. i'm always wary of the guy who wears teal shorts, cankle high socks, giordano shirt, original la gears, and smells like moth balls. in my head i'm always like "this dude might be a player, look at how terrible he dresses, he must be good." i always choose to guard the guy who dresses like he just walked out of an and-1 commercial. chances are he'll be really good and just wipe my ass (no shame in that) or that he'll suck and i can hold my own against mr model. this is otherwise known as the "jordans test." if a guy walks in wearing signature mike jordans, he's probably super amazing or super suck. the moment of exposure for a basketball poseur is when he takes that first couple practice dribbles or goes up for a jump shot. you can kind of tell immediately if they are any good or not. don't be impressed by the shoes, it's the game that counts.



the other category of poseurs in sports is skaters/surfers/boarders. pretty much any sport where image is part of the appeal will have a plethora of poseurs. this works in life too. if the image of an activity is "cool" then there will be people who try to get the cool without actually knowing how to do the activity. how do i know this? first hand experience. when i walk onto the beach carrying a surfboard, wearing a wetsuit and staring at the waves, i feel like a surfer. at least i think i feel like a surfer. when i start to struggle with the weight of the board, the crotch tightness of the wetsuit and then proceed to run screeching away from the freezing water, i am exposed. many people can look like surfers, few actually are. i would say the percentage of poseur surfers to actual surfers in the water at any one time is seventy to thirty. yeah, i'm a super poseur surfer, want to make something of it?



the same goes for skate and snowboarders. you can wear the brands, rock the over-priced gear, make the talk, but how many people can actually carve up a slope or a street? not many. but marketing agencies have done their job well and everybody wants to look the part of boarding fashionista. the only people who will believe that you actually can skate or snowboard will be your adoring kids who will eat up anything you tell them -- because you are their sole source of dietary nutrition. the rest of the world can tell when you're faking it.



in defense of some people who aren't actually poseurs but just look like poseurs. some people are not poseurs but they do things in an odd way so that they resemble poseurs. awkwardness is a factor in all of this. some people are great at surf/skate/ball but they just look funny doing it. don't confuse awkward with posing.



so how can a poseur transform into the authentic thing? practice practice practice. just about everybody is a poseur at the beginning. but given time and effort, they start to shed the poseur label as their skills and comfortability increase. why do some people ooze authenticity? because they are comfortable. they are at ease with what they are doing and exude an aroma of naturalness. the way they walk, they way they carry themselves, they way they don't have self doubt, the way they fit right in. you can't cut corners on your way to achieving this authentic swagger. you just have to work hard and educate yourself and know that the time will come when you are no longer posing.



if you have to ask yourself "am i a poseur," then it's already too late. welcome to the club.

beauty is in the eye of the...beholder, which is a mythical creature that looks like a giant eyeball suspended in the air. armed with ten smaller eyeball stalks -- each possessing a power ray such as charm, death, disintegrate, sleep or telekinesis -- the beholder was one of the more dangerous d&d creatures to run into. so dangerous in fact that i often thought of it as way too overpowered. how can one creature have the equivalent of ten attacks and an anti-magic ray to boot? totally unfair isn't it?



and it's not just the beholder that is overpowered and seemingly invincible, beauty is too. you can get anything with good looks. trust me, i've tried and failed so i know the converse must be true; if i get nothing then beautiful people must get everything. it's all very logical and rational so don't try to refute it. thirteen percent of my whole existence is spent ogling beautiful people and wondering what benefits might be bestowed upon me were i suddenly brad pitt-like hot. i would hope the prize would be more than a jennifer aniston, but that's very subjective. really though, who would win in a "your face or mine" scenario, brad or jennifer? i rest my case.



i would love to go on "your face or mine" by the way. it's the easiest four thousand dollars i could ever hope to make. i would go with the hologram every time and not even try to pretend that the audience will side with me. just gimme the money dammit. and how long before mtv starts a FMK television show? three months? should i be marketing FMK to viacom right now? and how often are you shocked by who the contestants pick as "hotter"? the audience is like never wrong but some of the contestants sure are.



in mr pitt's recent movie, diane kruger was (mis)cast as helen, the "face that launched a thousand ships." critics, and terrible human beings, have deemed ms kruger not good looking enough for the role. imagine how that feels. ugly people -- inside or out -- saying that you aren't up to par physically. it's not that ms kruger was wrong for the role or a bad actress, she simply wasn't "pretty enough." ouch right? what can a girl do? her choices basically come down to attacking gallons of ice cream or reaching for a serrated butter knife. in interviews that i've seen addressing this issue, ms kruger takes a very admirable stance about it all, citing the right of ugly people to their opinions and freedom of expression. it's hard for me to believe however that there weren't at least a few nights when ms kruger went to bed a little teary eyed after reading a particularly scathing review of her less than perfect features.



honestly, being one of the aforementioned ugly people myself, diane kruger's face wasn't worthy of a thousand ships setting sail, at least by our current standards of beauty. she is somewhat run of the mill and a dime a dozen. i've heard that actresses such as angelina jolie or catherine zeta-jones would have been much better choices. oh well, what can you do? make everyone look past the skin? stop, you're making me laugh. judging people's looks has been a pastime since the dawn of man. it's biological and it's necessary, we are genetically attuned to attractive things. fruit, babies, gems, breasts, fat wallets, etc. beauty is not just in our eyes but in our blood. we have to stare and drool, it's a natural human function like breathing or blinking.



you know where i'm going with this: a long winded defense of why guys have to check out girls or vice versa. and that's where i would go if i didn't already know that this was common fact and in no need of my feeble defense. instead i'm more interested in what mtv has done with the "your face or mine" and "am i hot or not" phenomenon. what they've been able to capture in thirty minute installments is the thing that has been the engine of human creation: evaluating someone's desireability. sure it's crude to judge someone's desireability based solely on looks but it's only a half hour show. and really, it's very telling to see people get all addicted to watching which person is better looking than the other.



don't we all just want to know how similar our attraction-o-meter is to other people's? or where we might rank on it? isn't this what the superficial life is all about?

the habit of making resolutions is itself a paradox: if we had the discipline to keep them, we probably wouldn't need to make many in the first place. but goals are different, not a heavy chain but a bright challenge, better suited to summer because both are finite. resolutions are forever -- you're not supposed to gain weight, start smoking or live off your visa card ever again. summer goals last only as long as it takes to meet them and then set the next one.

-time magazine, "made your july 1 resolutions?"

i don't think i handle adversity well. i have a minor sickness, a case of the fever maybe. not even a full blown fever, just a little bitty one. and all i can do is sit around, complain and sleep. sick jon and healthy jon bear an uncanny resemblance, this is true. anyway, today, i moaned and groaned and begged for "life saving panacea" or "home remedies that taste good." is melodrama fun or what?



i can't imagine being perpetually sick. i've been told that you just get used to it. if your migraines have been with you since you were a child, you just learn to deal with it. if you have rabies you just deal with it. when you get old and creaky, you just deal with it. pamela anderson has a life threatening case of hepatitis C and she seems to be having lots of fun. after all, isn't life worth living even if you are no longer fully functioning? however, i say that there is a definite point where the pain of life outweighs the joy of life. i'm guessing that this tipping point for me is lower than the one most people set. for example, i might be inclined to toss in the towel when i lose a limb or something. in an informal poll of random people (aka friends) -- conducted around a table at cheesecake factory -- i was definitely in the minority. apparently the idea of prosthetics is enough for most people to carry on. i'm not sure i could handle it. or leg it or arm it or whatever. i'm so going to hell.



a stunning admission to the world while i am slightly above ninety eight point six: sometimes paper cuts intimidate me. that's why i carry band aids, because i know that other people can be comforted through the power of pinky sized colorful gauzes. for me (and i'd guess most of you), thinking about how fast a piece of paper must be moving to inflict a paper cut is excruciating. think about the razor sharp edge of paper slicing over and into your body, then whisking all the way through. and then slow down the process in your mind. ouch. could anything be worse? like really?

adam versus eve. my theory on games such as taboo and catchphrase is that girls are naturally better at it. my rationale is basically that girls are more attuned to each other and better able to pick up non-verbal cues. girls know how to attack the senses in more than one way. case in point, the eye contact, arm touch, giggle, perfume combination; we all know how effective this can be. girls are also more accustomed to trying to guess what someone else is really saying, as opposed to guys who just want to be told with no gray area. guys scream alot and try to hammer something into you, girls are trying to get ahead of the story.



i also noticed this weekend -- while playing catchphrase -- how much girls gesticulate while they are talking or describing. while the arm/body/eyebrow movements may not make sense individually, combined with the correct verbal cues, girls can get to answers very quickly. then again, how hard is it to finger the nose and have people guess "nose." but i'm not bitter. for the record, i failed and went down in flames when my fellow y-chromosomes (actually, just gene but he's a good representation) most needed me. redemption will be mine, if not in this lifetime then when i reincarnate as a lower life form. i've always wanted to be a girl anyway.



the other pillar of my theory about why girls are better at taboo/catchphrase is that girls tend to talk faster. so when they play a game based on words per minute, they are inherently at an advantage. luckily for us males, i think girls, in general, are more susceptible to the pressures of time contraints and the insistent beeping produced by the machine. unless of course, they practice and practice till they are honed to a razor's edge. there are two people -- i won't name any names -- who have been known to practice catchphrase via telephone. you may call that crazy but i just call that staying ahead of the competition. remember, every moment you rest from catchphrase is another moment that someone else is practicing. the heart of a champion is not enough, you need a fully functioning brain too. how did i miss "little league?" how? shit fuck bitch me. moving right along.



christina says that she thinks guys should have it easier playing games like this because guys tend to think along similar lines. guys have sports and video games and usually very common guy interests that can be referenced at any time. cleveland is not just a city, it's the hometown of the football playing browns. the lion for detroit is a "logo". in my opinion, sports-speak is the only clear advantage that guys have over girls in taboo situations. christina contests however that girls are more likely to be on different wavelengths since interests can vary so much from woman to woman. if a group of girls are on the same wavelength, they are really on, but if they are not, they are at a serious disadvantage. i've only been introduced to this theory today so i'll have to observe it in action. but for now, i still contend that girls are more socially equipped to succeed at catchphrase. which will just make it all the sweeter when we dominate the next time.



is there a better way to figure out who hangs out / talks / is on the same level with whom than to see two people click in catchphrase? inside jokes and stories and references are key.



big winners

(1) galvez getting "sid caesar" after only having "sid" figured out.

(2) karen and her sister, kat, screaming out "yentl" when "barbara streisand movie" was part of the description. yentl!

(3) james clue-ing "final haha" for "last laugh." concise and to the point. excellent job mr wang. now if only we could work on that team morale.

(4) the girls in general, score one for title ix and feminism. knowledge is not just half the battle, it's the whole damn war.

(5) x-men as cultural reference. un-catchphrase related but very important part of my night. katherine said "he got huge like colossus" when the he in question started working out and got all muscular. this opens up whole windows of coolness for me. i can drop phrases like "she just pulled a jean grey on me (read my mind)" or somebody was "untouchable like rogue, hairy like the beast." the list goes on. i feel cooler than bobby drake right now, for reals.