geeks, nerds, and dorks. the dictionary definition for these three terms all center around words like “foolish, inept, stupid, unattractive, socially stunted.” while these descriptions may have been all true at one time or another, these terms need to be updated for the twenty first century.

a geek is someone who is really into technology, gadgets, and computers – including videogames, but real geek videogames, not sports or halo or popular stuff like that. geeks know not only what your device does, but also how it works. geeks might have once been the laughingstock of society, but we all know that geeks now beat out hunks any day of the week. now that thick black eyeglasses have come (and gone) into fashion, now that every third grader walks around with an ipod and a pda, “geeks” as we once defined them are nearly extinct. if you are hip with technology, you are a geek. and that’s not a bad thing. in fact, if you are man enough to set up the dvr or the tivo, that can make a girl swoon and lust for you, albeit momentarily. geeks nowadays are on equal footing with jocks -- well, once they get out of high school. geeks rule the planet and they have assimilated the rest of humankind through the cunning implementation of electronic things we can’t live without.

an alternative definition for the new geek is someone who is really into one particular subject, not just something technology related. you can be a guitar geek, a photography geek, a chess geek. geek is the new term for someone who is really really into something.

of course, the new classification of “uber-geek,” the ones who can’t talk to anything non-digital or non-glowing, are still shunned by all. they might be the brains behind our appliances and our spaceship dreams but damn it all to hell if we’re gonna have to hang out with them while they’re doing it. hire a geek for your company, just forget to invite him to the company parties.

a nerd is someone who is typically bookish, socially awkward, and did well in school. nerds are long on the brains, but light in the social calendar. classic nerds banded together to do weird things like study and play two person board games while the normal kids went out to get fake drunk on strawberry wine cooler and play “just the tip.” nerds are also a dying breed as people are realizing that it’s cool to be both smart and drunk simultaneously. the true nerd is rarely seen these days as all “smart” people tend to overcompensate by making asses out of themselves at your local bar; proving that yes, brains really don’t matter. it’s getting increasingly harder these days to tell between the dumb drunks and the smart drunks, if such a difference ever truly existed. is it even a shock anymore to find out that the idiot who was slurring his words and pissing on himself last night was voted “most likely to succeed” by his law school classmates? no, not really.

the nerd population is in steep decline as society continues to push even the most studious of people to get out once in awhile. i've heard rumors that even ivy leaguers indulge in the occassional zima or two. caring about your grades and your alcohol tolerance are no longer mutually exclusive. it’s almost obsolete to call someone a nerd when terms such as “homebody,” “boring,” and “weird” are so much more descriptive – and appropriate.

i feel like the genocide of classic geeks and classic nerds has really been pushed along by the invention of the internet, and more specifically, aim. even the nerdiest of nerds and the geekiest of geeks can have a social life on the internet right? if you can’t be social on aim you pretty much should just give up and lose the will to live. if you can’t type and pretend to carry on a conversation for five minutes, you are truly a lost cause. you have the entire world wide web at your disposal to come up with something to say, and you still can’t do it? dork.

keep in mind who invented the internet in the first place. that's right, some combination of nerds and geeks, all of whom were obviously looking for a way to break out of their social shells. before the internet, geeks and nerds couldn't learn the nuances of being social unless they actually tried it or watched lots of tv. now they can google for what the "right thing to say/do" is before they field test it. "geeks + nerds = internet = aim = social life for everyone." check the math. who had more to gain from the invention of the internet? geeks/nerds or the (relatively) normal people who now use it to haunt myspace? exactly.

dork still pretty much means the same thing it always did. a dork is a loser. nobody wants to hang out with a dork. the dork brings no technology or brainy skills to the table. getting labeled (correctly) as a dork is pretty much irrefutable evidence that you have no chance at a normal social life. dorks don’t even band together to do things with each other. when was the last time you looked at a group of people and said “oh, look at those dorks over there, look at them doing those dorky things dorks do.” dorks don’t really do anything, they’re just dorks. geeks and nerds band together for (faux) acceptance and safety, dorks just hang around and try not to get run over by the tonka trucks of life.

realize that the way “dork” is often used in our vernacular is not an accurate description of what a dork actually is. you probably call your friends and siblings dorks, but i doubt they are really dorks. a true dork wouldn’t even warrant you calling them anything to their face. a dork is just…i dunno, a dork.

these are not the end all be all of the definitions for these three terms. i’ve only given these new definitions a night’s thought so maybe with the light of dawn i’ll realize that i’m terribly mistaken. however, i think what i’ve suggested here should be a good guideline for accurately defining the people around us/you.

hungry hungry hippos. what would you say to me if i offered to take you out to lunch at a place that had these qualities: (1) unreliable service (2) an extremely noisy ambiance (3) 80% of the dishes are based on one ingredient (4) you might end up leaving the restaurant unsatiated. what would you say? you would say “fuck that, take me to mcdonalds and super size my happy meal” right? well, what if i said i was taking you to dim sum? would that make your perception of the upcoming meal change?

it’s a well known fact that i am not dim sum’s number one fan. i don’t get all the fuss over it. inevitably, whenever dim sum is suggested as a weekend destination, positive oohs and aahs immediately follow. “dim sum, let’s do that, i love dim sum!” love dim sum? what’s to love?

here are my “issues” with dim sum. one, it’s crowded, two it’s noisy. fine whatever, you’re heading to the local china town, these two issues are taken for granted. plus you toss all sanitary concerns out the window. you might turn your nose up at a b-rated hamburger restaurant but suddenly a d-rated chinese establishment seems delicious? take a close look at the aprons of the cart pushers around you next time. count how many stains and food particles are freshly ingrained on those pearly whites. whatever, the best chinese food is dirty, i’ll let this one slide.

how about the actual dim sum food itself? eighty percent of dim sum is pretty much shrimp enveloped by something fried or slippery; all blasted with soy sauce. i mean, unless you really like shrimp, does this sound all that appetizing to you? what’s the difference between shrimp fest at sizzler and dim sum? not much right? but i guess the food at dim sum must be good enough for most, so again, i'll let this complaint slide.

let’s turn the focus onto how dim sum actually works. little carts full of random food wander from table to table, oftentimes skipping your area entirely. half of your dim sum experience is spent looking around hoping that the lady with the shu mai will come around soon. and when she doesn’t show up, it’s perfectly acceptable. you’ll just keep on looking around the room and staring into little stacks of pots.

does this sound like fun? do you sit around at regular restaurants and hope/pray that your waiter will arrive with the dish you wanted? i doubt it. but somehow this is okay. the first few times you go to dim sum, the excitement of seeing what new foodstuffs are coming your way can be titilatting i guess. it's a bazarre for all five senses i'm sure. but after a lifetime spent looking for little ladies pushing that one special shu mai cart, it can get a little annoying.

by the time carts actually make it to your table and you’ve ordered all the food that you wanted, it’s been an hour and a half and you’ve eaten eight pieces of shrimp. yummy. dim sum is built around an entirely inefficient system of food distribution. there’s a reason menus and dedicated waiters are the norm at most restaurants. it works, it’s (ideally) efficient. and if it’s not efficient, you bitch at the manager or skimp on the tip like a college person. for some reason, there is no real outrage at the level of service you receive, or don’t receive, at dim sum.

i blame this casual acceptance of the inefficiency of dim sum on the “oriental factor.” dim sum is seen as a cultural experience first and foremost. one would have to be a bigoted racist to even ask “hey, why the hell is the food coming around so damn slow?” if i were a non-chinese person going to dim sum, i’d keep my damn mouth shut because i wouldn’t want to be seen as a defiler of centuries of chinese tradition. i’d be confused as to why i’m not getting any food, not to mention hungry, but i wouldn’t say a word.

it’s gonna take a chinese person to speak up about dim sum, and luckily, i am that chinese person. you think if denny’s started serving coffee and eggs in a dim sum manner that there wouldn’t be an uproar? but somehow a semi-mysterious and exotic culturally enriching experience is suddenly replacement for being fed on the regular? why is this? people get offended when they don’t get service within three minutes anywhere else but at dim sum it’s fine? blame it on orientalism i say.

beyond the gross inefficiencies that dim sum perpetrates, there are a few other things that upset me about the entire experience. like the “one piece that always sticks around” thing. because dim sum is served in tiny portions of three to four pieces, nobody wants to be the asshole who snags the last piece on a platter. so everyone just sort of lets that last piece sit around...and around...and around.

if you study your party’s faces, you can figure out who’s been eyeing what for the last thirty minutes. i personally prefer to be able to eat, and taste, what i want when i want it. i don’t want to have to wait until ten minutes before the end of the meal before people start divvying up the last pork ball or the last shrimp thingy. i want to just reach over and grab it when i want it. but i can’t. because that would be rude. and if you mistakenly grab the last whatever before you give sufficient time for someone else to grab it, you can’t even get more of that dish immediately because who knows when that particular item will come around again. you’re both rude and unthoughtful. it’s really a snowball effect, this inefficiency thing. it really fucks up the entire eating process.

ameer pointed out that he’s free from this “last piece” thing because he’s non-asian and really, he can pretend he doesn’t know any better. which is actually, a really good point. asian tradition dictates that you pretend to have some decorum and leave bite sized portions of all dishes around until the end, when the mom figure can assign who has to finish what. non-asians are exempt from this cultural edict apparently. go them.

basically, i’m saying that eating dim sum regresses us to a pack of hunters following fast moving animals hoping to get a kill. there’s a reason humans advanced towards farming and herding; so that we can get food when we want it instead of chasing stupid little carts around.

some people say that all these issues i have with dim sum would be solved if i went to a “good” dim sum place where all the carts came around like clockwork. and that i should eat dim sum only with friends since they don't care about the rudeness involved in grabbing the last piece(s). but here’s the thing, how many “good” dim sum places are there? i’ve had quite a bit of dim sum and i can’t even remember the last ultra efficient dim sum place i’ve been to. and since i tend to eat slow, and i tend to be around friends who eat fast, i end up just hoping for a burrito to fall out of the sky since clearly there will be no food left. and even if there were to be food left, how will twelve pieces of shrimp spread out over an hour and a half be satisfactory? don’t you realize mcdonalds gives you twenty pieces of chicken nuggets for a mere ten dollars? and you don’t have to go around rounding up the nuggets individually either.

this is turning out to be quite the long dim sum rant and for that i apologize. i feel very strongly about this topic and i could go on forever but i’ll spare you the rest of it. my point here is not that dim sum isn’t good, but that it shouldn’t be glorified to the point where people are salivating over it. what we should be glorifying and celebrating is buffets -- the ultimate statement in human food evolution. buffets, those are an efficient method of food distribution. very admirable. however, that’s another story for another time. the main point is, dim sum isn’t nearly as amazing as everyone makes it out to be.

my name is jon, i’m authentically chinese, and i’m against dim sum. sorry ancestors, i just couldn't hold it in any more. a thousand apologies.

"christmas can sometimes seem a great shakedown, in which you are coerced into buying presents for people you don't really know. the clerk's perennial question "how much do you want to spend?" forces the christmas shopper into assigning an economic value to every relationship. and it can be very embarassing if the person for whom you have bought a gift turns out to have spent either much more or much less than you."
-i want that! how we all became shoppers-

deck the malls with boughs of holly. my favorite christmas tradition? not getting presents for anyone. yes, i love it. it really frees you from the pressures of christmas. while everyone else is fighting crowds or lines, i can sit on the sidelines and snipe at bad holiday decorations and frazzled shoppers. you could say that this is very ungenerous of me, but i think it's quite practical. the grinch wasn't small hearted, he was just practical minded. he wasn't into the spirit of christmas, so what? don't we have enough holidays already?

from september until january we're bombarded with holiday spirit. not to mention the one major holiday per month leading up to september. it's too much. it's hard to get all jazzed up about something that comes around so often. i'd settle for bi-annual holidays. keep new year's annual, alternate all the rest. don't you think we just do too much forced celebrating anyway? sure christmas is the celebration of jesus' birthday, but give me a break, he won't mind if we skip every other year. it would be much more meaningful that way. you have to insert some negative space in the holiday calendar to fully appreciate it.

there is of course, the economic impact of the holidays (one-third of all retail spending is done during the two months leading up to and after christmas), which we need to keep in mind. but i'm sure we can figure out how to splurge throughout the year so that our award winning american economy will keep on churning.

on a sidenote, did you hear this stuff about the religious right threatening to boycott target (and other merchants) because they substitute "holiday" and other generic terms for "merry christmas" in their advertising? the worst part of it is that target decided to back down and use more religion specific phrases. score one for god, i guess -- not to mention money.

to be honest, part of the reason i don't indulge in christmas present shopping or exchanging has traditionally been that it's just too expensive. sure, tokens of appreciation were easily bought when you were in high school and you could get people some socks or random knick knacks ("a ceramic blue anteater! thank you!"), but now you know when you're giving junk. and giving junk sucks. as with talking, you realize as you get older (hopefully) that usually it's better to not talk unless you have something to say. i like to apply that principle to giving. why give unless you actually have something worthy?

i'm not sure how i feel anymore about the "i like to give things when i see stuff that fits a certain person" line anymore. although i can come up with no rational reasons against it, i just think this expression is used too much. but maybe only because it's valid.

one of the things i appreciate about my friends is that we don't indulge in gift giving at all. birthdays, christmas, festivus, whatever. presents are given on a need to give, have stuff to give basis -- which can oftentimes be never but that's awesome too. there's no pressure to give or to reciprocate. of course, i guess if you receive more often than you get, then you'll stop getting because that's how it works. but if you give only to receive, then you're fucked up anyway right?

merry christmas everyone.

"santa's coming down the chimney derives from the story of saint nicholas, bishop of myra in what is now turkey, who threw bags of gold through the windows (or down the chimney) of a poor family's house so the daughters would not have to become prostitutes."

question: i just got through reading an article about how brad pitt and angelina jolie are getting ready to visit pakistan to see the quake devastation, and i couldn't help but think this has to be one of the biggest cases of sucking up to a girlfriend/wife/significant other gone wrong in recent history. like how when you first start dating a girl, you do everything she asks, like going to crappy chick movies, her grandmother's 95th birthday party, picking her cat up from the vet, or stuff like that, just so she thinks you are actually sensitive and care about her interests, not just trying to get in her pants. except in this instance, instead of going to the crafts store or whatever to pick out yarn for the sweater she is knitting you, you get dragged all over war-torn countries to look at death and devastation, when all you want to do is lie on the couch and watch football. i know it's angelina jolie, but surely it's not worth the rest of your independent life. your thoughts?

sports guy: in pitt's defense, i think he's just completely out of his mind -- he probably thinks they're still filming "mr and mrs. smith." give him the benefit of the doubt here.

the walk of shame. pretty girls and celebrities don't tongue tie me, bank tellers and grocery cashiers do. having to make that small talk while waiting for a transaction to process or gross total to appear is just confusing to me. i start to think anything out of their mouths is directed at me. i'm standing in line, there's a pause while the teller's waiting for my check to cash, she says "i'll be right with you sir." i immediately answer back "oh, okay, no problem."

clearly, any intelligent person would reason that she was talking to the guy waiting in line behind me. but when faced with three minute conversation situations, i just sort of freeze up. i figure the interaction between me and them (them and me) is so short that i can pretty much say anything; so i kind of forget to concentrate about saying something.

i end up responding to "have a nice day" and "come see us soon" with non-standard unslick outros like "cool, see you later" or "peace." the correct response for normal humans is to say "thank you" and/or "you too."

then as you walk away, you feel kinda stupid for not following the standard outro procedures. but at the same time, you kind of already committed yourself to saying stupid things when you declined to concentrate on the task at hand. so really, in those seconds post-idiocy, do you get upset at society for having these meaningless yet brain draining outros? or do you get embarassed for yourself because you suck so bad at them?

help me, help you. due to my strange fascination with john f kennedy, i'd always admired anything that he started or was associated with -- for totally irrational reasons and as hindsight has proven, often misplaced loyalty. among the things i admired was the peace corps; established by jfk in 1961 to counter the 'ugly american' and 'yankee imperialism' sentiment in third world countries. basically, the peace corps was started so that america can say "hey look, we're not that bad, we do good things too!" this might be distilling the essence of peace corps down to a very negative statement, but somehow i can't shake that feeling.

now, i haven't had a ton of friends go to the peace corps, but i've had maybe two or three. and everybody i know has at least one friend who dedicates two years of their life abroad -- just like we all have that one [insert stereotype] friend, we all have a peace corps friend. so my "experience" with peace corps is very limited and gleaned only from their reactions or from what i've read and surmised. so as a disclaimer, all that i have to say about the peace corps could be totally off base, in which case, oh well.

from what i can figure, the peace corps is not so much about helping the people in other countries as it is about helping yourself (and the united states). there's a certain undeniable "i'm a good person" cachet to working in the peace corps. for certain types of individuals, going into the peace corps is pretty much a requirement before they can move onto successful careers in moralizing and doing good deeds.

and what i can surmise, most peace corps volunteers don't really end up doing a whole lot. for example. some peace corps volunteers are sent in to help with creating an irrigation system or some such task. what does your typical peace corps volunteer know about irrigation? not a whole lot i'd imagine. but off they go on a few weeks training and a "green thumb 101" handbook. now, i don't know how often farming is actually a peace corps activity, but the idea of sending in college-aged volunteers as so called experts -- often without the necessary skills -- is a bit ludicrous to me.

and let's cut to the chase here. going to the peace corps is essentially a big adventure and "finding myself" mission. peace corps volunteers take on the challenge of living in a different country, they deal with bugs, drugs, whatevers and they emerge out the other side as a better, more worldly, person. well, maybe not better, but more worldly for sure.

they take pretty pictures, they describe rustic settings, they revel in the breakthroughs they've had in learning to converse with the local baker, that kind of thing. but really, what are they doing? it seems to me that most peace corps volunteers leave our shores seeking something, with only an inkling of an idea that they're helping someone(s). which is fine i guess, as long as they realize what it is they're actually doing. humanitarians? i'd lean on the side of "no." then again, someone's gotta do it, misguided as they are. and if not me, then why not you?

"the peace corps has always had a problem assuring volunteers and itself that the job assignments overseas were real and meaningful. too often peace corps assignments have been marginal and sometimes nearly nonexistent — with ill-equipped young people having to fashion a job on the spot under the watchful eyes of local people."
-peace corps hurt by unwise policies-

i would imagine that girls who are skinny but constantly make remarks about “oh my god, i can’t believe i’m eating this (half a) fry, oh my god i’m going to be fat” would make a lot of inadvertent enemies. other girls must hate that. if people were given free rein to annihilate other people, i’m sure “girls who are skinny but act like they are sinning with each breath of air they inhale” would be among the first to go. you have to wonder if these girls are doing it because they are socially conditioned to think that a lady does not over indulge, or if they are just not-so-subtly sticking it to their more fleshy peers. i would like to think it’s the latter, which would be far more amusing. but somehow, i think it’s the former.

"ever since i was little, i loved basketball more than just about anything. randomly, inexplicably, coincidentally, the greatest team basketball player of my lifetime landed on my team, in my formative years, and i had the privilege of watching him, day in and day out, for 13 years. his work ethic and his competitiveness rubbed off on his teammates. he always rose to the occasion when it mattered. his passing was contagious. when you watched him long enough, you started to see the angles he was seeing; instead of reacting to what just happened, you reacted to the play as it was happening. there's mchale cutting to the basket, i see him, get him the ball, there it is ... layup! bird gave that to us."
-an apostle of basketball jesus-

“larry bird just throws the ball in the air and god moves the basket underneath it.” it's hard for me to justify my love for larry bird. in bird's prime, i was still in taiwan and not conversant in basketball or english. during the celtics' three titles (1981, 1984, 1986) i didn't really watch any sports. the only reason i liked larry bird and the celtics was because my dad liked larry bird and the celtics. that was enough for me apparently. with every other sport, i just decided to pick a player, a team, or a city (usually pittsburgh) and liked that organization until i found a better reason to like another organization.

i had all sorts of weird reasons for liking certain players. i collected baseball cards of players with mustaches for awhile and knew only those players. i didn't even really like mustaches, just players with mustaches. i liked the way "bonilla, bonds and van slyke" sounded together. i enjoyed how every team in pittsburgh had gold and yellow as their team colors. i admired the asymmetrical helmets of the steelers. i liked saying "roberto clemente" and was touched by the circumstances of his tragic death.

through it all, i only ever truly loved the celtics. which is odd considering i never saw any game in which the celtics were actually really good. i saw bird, mchale and parrish as they were declining. i never saw dennis johnson play. i saw danny ainge in phoenix and portland, but not in boston. i feel like all my "memories" of great celtic wins are only from (the same) highlight reels.

i've read nearly every celtics related book i could get my hands on, and have a respectable base of celtic knowledge, but i wasn't fortunate enough to be cognizant of bird when he was the living legend. it's not like i can honestly say that "those celtic teams were great" because i've never really seen them play. it makes me question just how much reason we really have to have to like anything. then again, if mustaches are reason enough to collect men, then why not any reason under the sun to like anything?

heard'em say. i'm about to become a taste hypocrite, this is my story. i used to dislike kanye west. not hate really, just dislike a lot. i thought the hype on him was way too huge, he was lauded left and right for his lyrical skills, his witty rhymes and his intelligent subject matter, he was the next coming of biggie. no such thing i said/say. i appreciated kanye's production skills, but as a lyricist, it bothered me that he was perceived by the public as the greatest thing since hip hop hit suburbia. kanye's rapping style was more comparable to nelly's sing-song than anything else i could think of.

plus, kanye's ego didn't really rub me the right way. i saw him on punk'd or something and there he was with his upturned collar and his pink polo shirt running around being an egotistical maniac. i couldn't dig it (him).

but people around me loved him, and my current roommate started to ride kanye's jock like he was kanye's original video ho. so really, i was surrounded by kanye all the time. but i'm a man of willpower and character, i did not turn. i enjoyed kanye's work during my infrequent forays into the night life, but never in my mind. i stayed true to my initial impression of kanye despite being bombarded by "kanye is great" opinions all around me.

i must say however, that during all of this, i had the utmost respect for kanye's "through the wire," which i thought was just the greatest song. that was a track that i could get behind, in thought as well as execution. but that was it.

more kanye hating moments came after i found out about him teaming up with common, and then his work with john legend. i was never that high on john legend, thinking him highly overrated and really annoying after a few songs. again, his "ordinary people" was an amazing song, but that's about it. trudging through john "legend's" full album further reinforced my idea that kanye was ruining things and not deserving of his lyrical accolades, since it sounded to me like he penned most of mr legend's lyrics -- which were disgracefully shallow and utterly boring. kanye's work on common's new album was also just so-so in my opinion. i took it a bit personal that an ultra magnificent emcee such as common could only gain popularity as the sidekick to some flash in the pan. i'm sure common was insulted too, although i'm sure he enjoys the money he receives from being associated with kanye.

then i read about kanye in time magazine. about his struggle making it as a non-ghetto, too suburban, rapper. about his professor mother, his pastoral marriage counselor father, about kanye's struggles and dedication to his craft. kanye may be one cocky fool but he had to be, because everyone shut him down everywhere. the real turning point for me was watching kanye's "driven" episode on vh1. i watched it three times over one weekend, and i got sucked in each time. i started to see where kanye was coming from, and i could get past his braggadocious demeanor. plus his music was growing on me.

i found myself listening to kanye's first album over and over, and a few tracks (all falls down, spaceship, got'em high) started getting lodged in my head. i was getting kanye-fied. heavens me, who was i? kanye was also immortalized in his "bush doesn't care about black people" speech, and that was just a ridiculously great moment. then, during an early thanksgiving dinner with some friends, we discovered that his "family business" track was really the best hip hop holiday music. try it, i dare you.

and now, with kanye's sophmore release, "gold digger" is just an infectious dance song, and "heard'em say" is fun to sing along to. so yeah, i guess i like kanye. dammit. i still don't think he's the greatest thing since dinosaurs roamed the earth, but he's better than i thought he was.

i doubt anybody cared about this, but i feel like i owed it to kanye. if i'm gonna dance or sing along to his stuff, i might as well retract my previous negative opinions about him. this isn't a love letter however -- most of his songs still suck -- just a statement of taste hypocrisy. i think i have better things i should be doing, but somehow this was important to me. thanks for listening. and thank you kanye, i guess.

this is a request mr radio man, just one desire from a hip-hop fan. what has "east coast rap roots, funk influences, syncopated beats, duo rapping and the heavy use of slang?" yes, that's right, gangstarr. thanks to a heads up from superlum, i fiddled around with pandora today and i was amazed. my life changed, seriously. pandora is a web service that lets you find music that you like based on what you already like, and then they play it for you. sounds ridiculously great right?

other sites let you rate certain songs and they'll select upcoming songs based on those selections, but as far as i know, pandora is the only service that analyzes a song and then matches up that song's criteria -- thanks to the music genome project -- to recommend additional songs. so it's not like "if you like nelly you'll like lil'jon" or whatever, it's matching up the songs based on "has similar east coast rap roots, the heavy use of chordal patterning, a tight kick sond, barebones arranging and an electric bass riff" type stuff. is this crazy or what? heck, it's fun just to see what they say when they break down the songs. i didn't even know that i liked "melodic part writing and busy synth hat." but i do!

when i put in gangstarr as my first selection, pandora played a gangstarr track, "skills," and then it started to play other songs. you can thumbs up or thumbs down the songs to give pandora a better idea of what you want to be listening to. the first selection pandora made for me after the gangstarr track was "proceed (live)" by the roots, one of my all time favorites. i was hooked. the next few selections gave me songs that i already loved or introduced me to artists that i didn't even know i loved yet:

radioactive - large professor
wherever you are - mic geronimo
lyrics to go (tumblin' dice remix) - tribe
moving to my beat - j boogie
crush on you - mr cheeks
6th sense - common
no comparison - 9th wonder & buckshot
all over again - raekwon
the way you do it - little brother
incredible - krumb snatcha
remind my soul - akrobatik
the movement - inspectah deck
bluebird - one self

by the time digable and dj jazzy jeff rolled around i was already aim-ing and emailing everyone to try pandora out. i'm in heaven. the only "bad" song that pandora recommended me was "balla babyz" by chingy, but i can forgive that since i started adding in criteria other than gangstarr. after i dialed it back to just gangstarr, pandora didn't miss. not once.

and because i didn't want to be unscientific, i started a new station and tried out pm dawn, to some mixed results. apparently pm dawn -- "hip hop roots, rap influcences, r&b influences, mild rhythmic syncopation and acoustic rhythm piano" -- is similar to marques houston, n'sync, mariah carey and brian mcknight. not exactly what i was looking for. but who am i to argue? this pandora thing is amazing -- plus they have an interesting blog. go try it out like right now.

rejoice people, rejoice!

"some scholars contend that pandora's 'box' may have been a mistranslation, and her 'box' may have been a large jar or vase, forged from the earth. in fact, there is evidence that suggests pandora herself was the jar. in ancient greece jars commonly bore images of women. the jar was said to have been in a jar form because of the similarities between a jar and a woman's uterus."

a special report dug up by an ex-cupertino area closet friend (not to be confused with ex-closet friend):

"monta vista high school's parent-teacher association, recently dissuaded a family with a young child from moving to cupertino because there are so few young white kids left in the public schools. 'this may not sound good,' she confides, 'but their child may be the only caucasian kid in the class.'

...some asians believe that the resulting lack of diversity creates an atmosphere that is too sheltering for their children, leaving then unprepared for life in a country that is only 4 percent asian overall. moreover, many asians share some of their white counterpart's concerns. both groups finger newer asian immigrants for the schools' intense competitiveness.

...'it does help to have a lower asian population,' says homestead pta president mary anne norling. 'i don't think our parents are as uptight as if my kids went to monta vista.'"

so sowwy. i used to try to explain to my white friend why there's this seemingly intangible bond between asian american kids. at the time, i broke it down to similar parental attitudes about child-rearing. a few assumptions i could make when talking to a fellow asian american kid. one, their parents were strict and highly concerned about the state of their education. two, they had parents/grandparents who spoke poor english. three, they brought weird lunches to school. four, they were not cool and were in fact dorky and nerdy. five, they were shy at a young age. six, they played an instrument.

these handful of assumptions about fellow asians were enough to establish a familial bond with any dark haired brethren i might meet. of course, as my world widened, i started to encounter asian kids who didn't have strict parents, whose parents actually spoke perfect english, kids who played and starred in school sports (besides badminton or ping pong), kids who sucked as much in math as i did. i met kids who, god forbid, didn't ever take piano or violin lessons. i must confess, these types of asians confused me. the japanese americans especially. because japanese americans have typically resided in the united states longer than the other asian ethnicities, one could call a japanese friend's house and be greeted with perfect english on the other line. it was most confusing.

my perfectly constructed asian world was falling apart.

then i went to college and met asians who didn't speak their native tongue. like at all. "wait, you think you know how to write your chinese name? what?!" i met asians who didn't grow up around other asians. they grew up fitting in perfectly with their non-asian friends and then went to college and magically got asian-fied. it was a very exciting time for them i'm sure; to be able to loiter in front of restaurants and stand around on random street corners with people who looked just like them. how thrilling those moments must have been.

i started to realize that yes, asians didn't just come in one stereotype. there were many of us, and some of us had childhoods that were not reflective of the typical immigrant experience. there were asian households that focused on well rounded social lives and not just grades? it sounds ridiculous but it's true. i don't think i had any asian friends in middle or high school who were allowed to stay out past five pm on a week day, there was always homework and kumon to do afterall.

all of this ethnic revelation did quite a number on what i had previously thought bonded asians americans together. if it wasn't about parents or the piano, what was it that made us asian? i came to food as my next final answer. food was what made us asian. being able to eat foods that everyone could identify at a glance without curious eyebrow raises was what bonded asians together.

this theory was put to the test as i wandered confusingly through the world of kimchee, lumpia, and pho. surely this was what set me apart as chinese. i never had kimchee, lumpia, or pho before college. just like i had no (close) korean, filipino, or vietnamese friends. this theory meshed perfectly with the world i knew, since i knew nothing about persian, indian, or even white people foods. meatloaf? casserole? what's that? i had no persian, indian, or non-jewish regular white people friends in high school either. the food theory was a success.

but it bothered me that what makes us asian (or any ethnicity) is apparently just food. i mean, i don't want to be defined by dim sum, i hate dim sum. plus this theory also opened the door for other people to "buy into asian-ness" by simply ingesting our culture. food was too simple of an answer and totally unacceptable to me as the reason for asians being asian.

so, stripping away language, food, childhood experiences and everything else mentioned above, what makes an asian american an asian? the answer? nothing really. just our slanty eyes and black hair. so it is all skin deep. depressing isn't it?

and really, how to explain that i'm more comfortable meeting an asian person as opposed to a non-asian? am i subconsciously inclined to be comfortable because maybe we will have foods, language, english-challenged parents in common? i doubt it right? if i walk into a white bar that serves chinese food and everyone there had strict parents, wore thick glasses, played the piano, would that make me comfortable? or just scared? and why am i automaticaly more comfortable walking into an asian club where i probably have nothing in common with anyone, except the fact that we're asian? maybe it's just because i hang out with mostly asians so that when i meet other asians, that sets up a comfort zone? this way, it has nothing to do with ethnic math at all, it's more about what you're used to. yes, i'll go with this one: "asians, we're used to each other."

thanks. when asked if most people would prefer to experience a beautiful "moment" alone or with someone, usually they reply "with someone." the experience of seeing a breathtaking landscape or partaking in a once-in-a-lifetime trip is supposedly more powerful if it can be shared. some people value the bond that this creates between two people, some people value being able to poach another person's pictures. sometimes when friends go off to distant lands or have great weekends and try to relay the amount of fun they had to me, i kind of don't get it. i mean, i understand why they had a good time, i understand that universal feeling. but when i see the pictures and listen to the stories to get an approximation of what they experienced, i've found that it's just not possible.

and so when i have an extraordinary moment or experience i'm forced to try to share, i just kind of throw out a platitude or two to placate the masses. "it was pretty good, no, actually great." i realize that you really can't convey even ten percent of what makes your weekend great, or your trip to fiji amazing. these moments really can't be shared with anyone but yourself, or maybe the people you went with. so what you get is this build up of amazing moments that nobody knows about, that you can't explain, and then you're left feeling like nobody knows what you just did.

the solution to this problem is either to (a) get better at describing moments or (b) bring everyone along with you everywhere. i infinitely prefer option (b) simply because option (a) seems like a lot of work and even with work, i'm unconvinced that you can do moments justice by simply showing a few pictures or regaling people with some highlights.

looking at pictures and sharing stories of something great you just experienced is like trying to describe great scenes from a movie when the other person's never seen the movie. it's just frustrating. i say just give up until they've seen the movie.

real men wear tight britches and possess tongues of silver. having just watched "pride & prejudice," the thing i'm most amazed by is the sheer articulateness and eloquence of the period. sure it took half an hour to get used to the english accents and the big words used on-screen, but after i figured out what was being said, i loved it. those british really had a way with words back then. for example, which phrase is more likely to earn your lady love's forgiveness?

(a) "i've been an unmitigated and comprehensive ass."
(b) "i'm, like, really sorry i slept with your best friend. i know, i'm a dick."

not even a contest. i'll take "unmitigated and comprehensive" for effectiveness and depth of feeling. there's no doubt that our language has degraded over time and -- despite it being initially jarring -- to hear english spoken so well is enough to make anybody swoon. i think i'd rather learn to speak well than to do gravity defying back flips or shoot guns out of moving cars. is that so wrong?

imagine if you were suddenly able to completely express yourself, to use words that actually meant something -- words that carried weight and had precise definitions. how in awe would the people around you be? how easily could you convey exactly what you were thinking or feeling? sure, informal speech peppered with disyllabic words is much easier on the brain (and the tongue) but sometimes it would be nice to say something that didn't involve "like" or "um." "do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?"

i was on the phone yesterday for a business type conversation and one of the first things i said was "awesome." i'm pretty sure that's a word not often heard in business related talks. i guess i should just be thankful that i didn't follow up with a "cool" or a "dope" after my initial gaffe.

what i would give for a nineteenth century english vocabulary and the impressive wit that apparently accompanies such knowledge. keep it real, i love jane austen. you should love her too.

non-tourage. i think sometimes, often, about what a sudden rise to fame will do to a relationship. and not a romantic one, just a relationship/friendship in general. watching j.k. rowling's latest movie adaptation tonight, it dawned on me that she is probably the most powerful woman on the planet now. sorry to have to qualify that with a gender difference there. anyway, mrs rowling (she is married right?) has two more books in a series that will pretty much be the best selling books ever. i can't even imagine what could top the harry potter's books financially. anyway, the point here is that up until a few years ago, mrs rowling was probably just writing her little books on the side, with her husband and children doing their own thing. suddenly, potter gets huge, j.k. gets rich, and her words are like gospel to millions of people around the world.

how's that make her husband feel? his little suggestions and encouragements to her wizard stories are suddenly totally pointless right? i mean, j.k. came up with all of this stuff on her own before, and it was obviously hugely successful, so now what role might the husband play in her creative endeavors? none probably. do you think he still has any real say on what the family does now? highly doubtful. the whole dynamic between them is changed because of her success right?

this is all made up of course, i have no idea if mrs rowling is indeed married or with children. but say you have a group of friends. you have the dumb one, the hot one, the funny one, the whatever one. suddenly one of them gets famous and that person becomes the focal point of your group -- at least to the outside world. that person is automatically given alpha male status right? lebron james isn't playing second banana to anyone in his friend circle, he's definitely the alpha male. bad example maybe, since lebron's most likely always been the alpha male in his group.

but what happens when suddenly one member of your friend circle is "the one?" maybe nothing, maybe it'll change everything. but how do you know till this happens? i can't wait till someone i know gets super famous to see where this all goes. will i get jealous? will i get annoyed with all of the attention he/she receives? will they suddenly be too good for me? will i be able to finagle my way onto their coattails? will i get a cushy job as a handler and personal assistant? one can only dream. someone get hugely famous and successful, quick.

"and finally, every woman wants to have a beauty to unveil. not to conjure, but to unveil. most women feel the pressure to be beautiful from very young, but that is not what i speak of. there is also a deep desire to simply and truly be the beauty, and be delighted in. most little girls will remember playing dress up... ...she'll put her pretty dress on, come into the living room and twirl. what she longs for is to capture her daddy's delight. 'do you see me?' asks the heart of every girl. 'and are you captivated by what you see?'"
-wild at heart: discovering the secret of a man's soul-

doing it and doing it and doing it well. i found out recently, as in yesterday, that a friend of mine/ours just got married in vegas. eloped! i finally know someone who eloped. all along i've maintained that eloping is really the best possible option for two people who want to get married. it's quick, it's virtually painless, and it's so sudden that you can't regret anything. the point of marriage is to be together and sometimes having to wait and plan a wedding can get in the way of that. eloping is really the answer to marital bliss. not that traditional weddings can't lead to marital bliss, but you know what i mean.

of course, this might not have been a technical eloping, since both sets (i think) of parents knew what was going to happen, and if anything, they agreed to it since a real post-marriage ceremony will be conducted in taiwan at a later date. but still. suddenly one week your friend is engaged, and then two weeks later she's already married. how do you say "you go girl" without sounding gay? it's virtually impossible.

now that the precedent has been set, i expect many friends and close acquaintances to run off and get married in vegas. the things i want to know now are exactly how quick and painless is this insta-marriage process? and in the event of a change of heart, how many days/hours do you have to annul?

i also need to know which chapel my friend used? i mean, what is the thought process behind choosing a vegas wedding chapel? do you go for the cheapest one (how much is it anyway)? the nicest one? the one with the shortest line? the one that's closest to your hotel? what? these are the types of things i need to know.

"the equal opportunity dating policy was implemented this year as new year's resolution #1. my friends always accuse me of not giving guys enough of a chance, so this was my response to it. i will go on one date with any guy who asks me out. because if someone screws up the courage to actually put themselves on the line, the least i owe them is an hour of my time. and i get dinner. if the first date doesn't go well, then i feel perfectly justified in turning them down, conscience-free. however, if the results of the first date are inconclusive, then i may agree to a second date. in case the guy was nervous the first time around. the only thing that will lead to a third date is if the second date has a positive outcome. i think this is pretty fair."
-eidolon ink, 11.09.05-

the butter on your breakfast toast. apparently a soft rock band from the seventies channeled my entire relationship philosophy within four minutes and a few verses. amazing. i was driving around listening to the official old people's radio station and this song comes on and i happen to catch the line "it don't matter to me, if you take up with someone who's better than me..."

i was like, "hey, this doesn't sound like a normal love song! this sounds great!" so i kept listening and suddenly i was ready to elevate this song to number two on the list of relationship songs i can believe in -- right under alanis' "not the doctor." of course the song eventually devolves into an "i'll be waiting for you forever" aesthetic but i guess the band had to sell records right? so after a look-through of the lyrics, i've decided i really only like this one verse. do non-happy ending love songs not move units or something? oh well, i guess my career as a singer songwriter is over.

it don't matter to me
if you take up with
someone who's better than me
'cause your happiness is all i want
for you to find
peace ... your peace of mind
-bread, it don't matter to me-

hobbies: eating, sleeping, breathing, shopping. i'm currently reading this wonderful book about, of all things, shopping. it breaks down and provides a history of how we became shoppers while at the same time revealing how consumers have been trained to buy their way to status. the book "explores the minds of shoppers in the quest to nourish and feed fantasies, to define individuality, to provide for family, and to satisfy the needs for celebration, power, and choice -- all of which leads us to malls, boutiques, websites, and superstores."

"is our shopping an exercise in freedom and self-definition, a consequence off the expansion of powers and insecurities of the individual that began during the renaissance? or is shopping a kind of compulsive behavior that helps compensate for the fact that our lives are meaningless and unsatisfying? do we fill up our homes with stuff because we are empty within?"

sounds intriguing no? i feel like if you like to shop (and who doesn't), you might as well read all you can about it so that the next time you walk into the mall, you can analyze what's really going on, aside from burning a hole in your wallet. the act of money exchanging hands over an item you'll only wear once has never possessed so much intellectual cachet.

thomas hine's other works read like a laundry list of must-read books: "the rise and fall of the american teenager," "the total package: the secret history and hidden meanings of boxes, bottles, cans and other persuasive containers," among many others. i love this guy already. how does one apply to be a cultural historian? this must be the greatest job ever.

"advertising helps create insecurity by convincing its targets that there is something missing from their lives that only the product being offered can satisfy. but, to a considerable degree, we choose the insecurities to which we care to respond. and we create insecurities of our own that induce us to buy things because we crave change, progress, excitement, and a feeling of accomplishment."
-i want that! how we all became shoppers-

we, the chinese delegation select the GZA, the RZA, and the ghostface killa...the wu tang clan! flipping through the cable guide a few weeks ago, i came across a channel marked "AZN." i passed over it thinking it was just an unfortunate acronym, after all, would there actually be an asian channel that was monikered AZN? that's like a bad joke. however, much to my chagrin, the AZN channel touts itself as "the network for asian america."

heavens (and ancestors), a television channel dedicated to asian americans? one that doesn't involve terrible accents and subtitles? well actually, subtitles and terrible accents are in abundance on the AZN channel. but you know what i mean. the AZN channel is no international channel at least.

then i did some research. in fact, the i-channel has cunningly rebranded itself into the AZN channel -- first generation asian parents and grandparents must have collapsed as their favorite channel suddenly morphed into a mtv knock-off. this shift in branding and philosophy must explain why this peculiar channel appears on my cable subscription package. i mean, there's no way i willingly agreed to have asian americans lurking on my tv at all times right?

looking at it one way, the fact that there's now a channel dedicated to asian americans is kind of a coup and a step forward for APAs everywhere. finally, we have landed on planet america and have legitimized our coolness with a television channel that will soon rival BET for trend setting and late night viewing. on the other hand, everyone knows that the word "AZN" brings up the worst sort of connotations about asian americans. azns are into import cars, not smiling, repping fake gangster cred, and alternating capped letters when they type. self-respecting asians squirm at the sight of the letters a-z-n.

but so be it. we have an azn channel, let's see what we can do with it -- and how many people will watch. my initial forays into the land of the azn were unsuccessful. nothing captured my attention. then today i caught a documentary about the vietnamese-american experience, a show about tracing family trees, and the clincher: a show about yao ming in the nba. i was hooked. i found myself thinking that maybe with a little bit of work, the AZN channel could really be something. maybe i could volunteer, maybe i could make films, maybe i could host a show or something. i mean, i'm asian right?

then i saw the ads pushing uncensored anime as a selling point to watching the AZN channel. we're using our one mass media outlet to push animated porn? what? maybe the yellow peril-L isn't quite ready for the big time. i somehow don't think that the target audience of non-asians watching the AZN channel should be repressed men of all ages, sizes, and ethnicities. for god's sake, at least show real life seductive oriental women, that seems to work for hollywood.

then again, how else would i get to watch documentaries about the asian immigrant experience except on the AZN channel? now that ang lee has totally forsaken us by making a gay cowboy movie (not to mention a crappy comic book movie), don't we need to sow some other azn oats? i've decided to tentatively become a fan of the AZN channel in the hopes that the programming will get richer, and that one day, "AZN" will no longer be a derogatory term. i'll be sure to skip the anime programming though.

i'm saying,
let's give them
the melting pot
america's always talked about,
and watch hair get darker,
eyes get smaller,
and everyone fuck
that much better.
-beau sia, the asians are coming-

there's never a wish better than this, when you only got one hundred years to live. let's say by the grace of god or some minor miracle of technology, i were to survive until i were a hundred. people at that point would ask me things about the 21st century, because really, all we ask of our old people is to remember what their youths were like. when people live to to be a hundred, rarely do we ask them about their opinion on events of the day -- since we seem biased towards our youthful version of the present -- we inevitably ask old people to reminisce and to tell us about "way back when."

assuming that i was still somewhat lucid and capable of intelligible speech as a centenarian, people would ask me things like "so what was y2k like? was not being able to teleport hard? how was watching 2D movies? was monogamy boring? did you celebrate when the red sox won their last title? what was living through 9/11 like? did people really wear denim on denim? was earth pretty? did milkshakes really bring the boys to the yard?"

and what would my answer to these questions be? in my old age, desperate for attention and conversation, would i go with the truth? would i offer boring accounts of "well, i spent the turn of the new century in front of my tv in jersey city, alone and doing nothing." or would i make up some dramatic story about how i had hunkered down with my friends, family, randomly assorted refugees, water, spam, and sardines, waiting for the world to end? would i tell eager ears about the potential disaster that was the y2k bug? would i regale them with stories about those crazy automobiles and airplanes and how much noise they made? would i pretend that red sox baseball was important to me, just because it was a moment in history? simply put, would i make up shit about my twenties and thirties just so that people would keep listening?

old timers have it rough man. may i never live to one hundred.

"we met at starbucks. not the same one. they were cater-corner from one another. we just noticed each other from across the street." what confounds me (in movies) is this concept of love happening in a split second. i'm not talking about love at first sight -- optimists and romantics will fight to the death over that quaint notion, so i'll leave it alone -- but rather the situation in movies where you see a couple sharing coffee and then suddenly they're declaring undying love and devotion to one another. what? you met each other five minutes ago, where did all of this cloying sentiment come from? i didn't even get a musical montage of shared moments and experiences to partially explain why the characters are in love. i'm so confused.

i don't need my movie romances spelled out for me step by step, or even a rational reason for love, but give me something to cling to. give me a reason, a whim, a montage set to uplifting music. give me something.

it's a true wonder that people accept this. i think it's a very subversive way to pander to the audience's ideals about love. "look, you too can have coffee and then instantly fall in love. see how easy it is?" i think it's the fault of the filmmakers' for being lazy with the concept of love. filmmakers' have run out of good reasons for two people to fall in love so instead they throw in a "coffee scene" and expect that that's reason enough to woo the audience.

this works until discerning viewers are left to exclaim later in the movie, "wait, they just met over coffee! why are they doing this?" "this" being anything from eloping with one another to jointly saving the world.

somewhere along the way, romantic comedies decided to disregard the relationship part of love and to skip right to the "i'll love you forever part." and we, as the audience, eat it up. what does that say about us as a society? what does this say about us as a nation of romantic comedy watching fools? we've been had but we keep going back for more. the depth and power of building and understanding a relationship has been reduced to a three second meet and greet. we won't stand for this as single americans, we deserve better.

then again, come to think of it, this cliff's notes version of love isn't all bad. one can over-emphasize and over-think love actually. love is like faith, it's a decision. just leap and find out what happens. and if you're lucky enough to be watching the right movie, then what happens is a hokey, cheesy, but ultimately happy ending. if it's all a matter of faith, why not let five minutes over coffee be the substitute for a building a relationship? you may wonder how you got there in the end, but hey, at least you got there right?

no one mourns the wicked. celebrities and pseudo-celebrities of all shapes and sizes have web presences. i'd bet that at a certain point in their careers, every actor/musician/reality person googles their name to find out what sort of homepages have sprung up about them. some celebrities get awesome pages maintained by web-savvy fans and designed beautifully. some celebrities get crap pages, designed by bungling amateurs who hardly understand the intimate connection between mouse and computer screen. notice that the correlation between how talented a celebrity is versus how well-designed and maintained their page is is nil.

take for example what happens when you google "freddie prinze jr." good looking and charming as he may be, freddie prinze is hardly worth dedicating two pages to, much less entire websites. but lo and behold, freddie has a number of fan pages that are well designed and maintained. to contrast, consider the case of ana gasteyer -- of snl and wicked:chicago fame. her official fan page looks like someone from her family -- a young cousin or maybe a geeky uncle -- put it up. and ana gasteyer is certainly more talented and accomplished than freddie prinze jr.

then again, you might argue that freddie is more famous than ana -- he did star in both scooby doo's -- and thus deserving of more fan pages. still, it must really suck to be an accomplished celebrity and to google yourself, only to find two craptastic fan pages, neither of which are associated with your personal domain name and all of them still hosted by geocities or some outdated service like that.

something in me makes me want to dedicate my life to making semi-decent web pages for celebrities like this, the ones who are overlooked and underrepresented on the web. then again, i guess i could do something productive with my life. it's a real shame that all of my instincts always lead me towards pointless occupations and hobbies.

steal this book. if you get the opportunity to hear anyone(everyone)'s life story, would you become sympathetic to their plight? i mean, say a guy is a straight up asshole. does learning about his "behind the music" or "true life story" make his asshole-ness an easier pill to swallow? once you get the reasons and motivations behind why someone is the way they are, can you forgive them for their less than impressive traits?

i say no.

if someone is an asshole, regardless of reason, i feel like there's enough evidence right then and there to warrant dismissing them as a person. of course, second, third, and additional redemptive chances are possible, but why would any particular behind the story allow someone to be a jerk? i say this full well knowing that i'm a total sucker for shows like "behind the music: kanye west." i dislike kanye but after seeing his vh1 special a few times, i came to admire his drive and passion. but he's still a conceited bastard.

having a bad day? treating other people around you poorly because of it? too bad. you're an asshole. just crashed your car and fucked up your finances? too bad, that's not an excuse to be an asshole. in fact, i can find no reason for anyone to be an unapologetic asshole. and apologetic assholes only get one mulligan. and only if that one time involves death, permanent injury, and/or heartbreak.

traditionally, i say that i've really ever hated only one person in life. this particular guy was pretty much an infinite asshole to everyone around him -- save family and a few select friends. i will name no names here. anyway, his "excuse" for being an ass was that he'd been the first to find his mother after her suicide. he was a young child at the time. traumatic and incomprehensible as that must have been, i found/find it hard to give him a lifetime "be an asshole" card.

at a certain point, you can choose whether to be nice to people or to be an ass. i don't need you to be nice, but don't be an ass (unless that's what you want i suppose). and especially don't be an ass just because you think you have an excuse for it. the reason you're an ass is because you're an ass, period. end of story.

unless, of course, somehow you become a great success and get a behind the scenes special, in which case you'd become a rich and famous ass. which is better than being a poor and overlooked ass i suppose.

five alive. i've been doing this for five years, this blogging thing. i started blogging post-college in 2000, on october 4th to be exact. at the time i was interning for a-magazine (now defunct) and in the middle of a one and a half year existence in new york (fine, new jersey). since then i've started probably a dozen blogs and semi-blogs. most of them died but i always had my personal one. and that one has evolved from a conversation with myself, to an incredibly boring record of day to day events, to whatever this has become. and through it all, my dedication to blogging has never wavered. if anything, it's been the one constant. it's saved me during horrifically boring times and it's kept me occupied/distracted when i needed it to. i would say that my blog has been my best friend, but that would devalue the humans in my life, and it might be an offensive statement to my sidekick.

i wrote in june of 2001 that "i'm not really sure why i spend such exorbitant amounts of time doing all this webpage stuff. i'm not getting skilled at it enough to actually land any jobs so basically i'm doing it for my own amusement in the hopes someone will enjoy it." i guess that doesn't hold true anymore, since i've got a semi-job doing this stuff, and it's no longer just for my amusement. which means in the big picture, i've come pretty far in life, and with this hobby. i think to some people, i've pretty much become synonymous with the word "blog."

which is strange to think about because it's hard to remember what my name was synonymous with before that. imagine if blogging had been a big hit during my college years and that i was blogging then. i would have liked to have a record of my college years, instead i've only got pictures and sporatically clear memories. at this point, college was so five years ago -- i'm a super senior in life now -- isn't it time to let college and times in college go? never i say.

i've watched my personal blog community dwindle down to a few hardcore bloggers, and most of my friends' blogs have long since died. which is fine i guess, but i can still remember the glory days when blogging was the thing to do among the bored and recently graduated demographic. i've stopped trying to get everyone around me to blog. i've seen too many enthusiastic bloggers fall to earth in a few short months. by now, i figure people'll gravitate to blogging by themselves. no sense pushing them. okay, maybe a little.

the blogs of random people i follow are, for the most part, still around. so i've essentially been stalking these people for four to five years. i don't really feel like i know them, but the ones that i still read, i feel like i'd want to know them. but only from afar.

somewhere along the way i lost interest in talking about religion.
somewhere along the way i got more detached, but more amusing.
somewhere along the way i became less of a phone whore.
somewhere along the way i got more self-conscious.
somewhere along the way i acquired a persona and a caricature.
somewhere along the way i started and stopped writing.
somewhere along the way i stopped buying k-swiss shoes.
somewhere along the way i've passed up all-nighters.

i've toyed with the idea of making this blog more personal, or taking it in another direction; less observation, more insight. but then i realized that insight and personality are not my forte. but then i start to run out of things to say. and i have to wait until i read something, or meet someone, or watch something, to become flooded again with things that need addressing. i'd like to be able to document growth or a journey of some kind, but apparently this isn't one of those stories.

and many of the same issues, good or bad, that concerned me in 2000 are still there now. nothing has drastically changed about my life in the intervening five years -- even though lots of things have happened. you know what i mean? i've shifted some, but my lifestyle and general attitude have not. and i'm not the least bit disappointed. in fact, i'm pretty delighted at how things have worked out for the most part. i've always preferred stasis over growth anyway.

since oct 2000
1 - knee surgery
2 - girlfriends
2 - fantasy sports championships
2 - jobs that paid money
3 - deaths in the family
3 - drunk/puked times
4 - cities lived in (even if briefly)
4 - babies from peers
5 - important friends lost/diminished
5 - people i've made cry
8 - classes taken to finish up my degree
9 - weddings attended
27 - new friends
6,070 - songs

i feel like five years of anything should be a significant milestone. five is traditionally a very important number. so i feel the need to acknowledge five, even if i'm not entirely sure what the point is. so yeah, five acknowledged. moving on.

c'est la vie. a reader requested that i tackle the topic of cheating. it could just be my mom posing as a reader, but i'll assume it's someone i don't know. my stance on cheating is that it happens. sure it's unethical, unbelievable, and entirely despicable but it happens. cheating is almost never a point-a to point-b proposition. "i saw him and right then and there i decided to cheat on my boyfriend/husband." cheating usually involves a series of steps and half-steps. business lunches lead to casual dinners lead to hushed conversations lead to cuddle buddies lead to cheating. if cheating were as easy to avoid as "stay away from so-and-so," no one would ever unwillingly cheat. however, people do cheat, and i daresay that more people cheat than one would think. i want to say that around tweny-seven percent of all couples have had an instance of cheating at some time or other.

so how do you stop cheating? well, if it's true that "you are only as faithful as your options," then you stop cheating by cutting your significant other off from everyone and everything around them. i'm against this of course, but i must say, it would be the most effective way to stop cheating if it were done properly. however, this type of caging just causes too many headaches and emotional strains. do you know how hard it is to keep up with someone else's emails, phone calls, who called when's, etc. playing private eye takes too much effort, and hiring a real gumshoe is just expensive. so really, it hardly makes any sense to be a jealous insecure freak.

much better to just live with the fact that cheating happens. cute baby seals get gobbled up by cunning killer whales, shit happens okay? this "i can't believe he/she cheated on me thing" is just overrated. talk about melodrama. lots of things are unbelievable, is it really that hard to wrap your mind around the fact that someone was more attractive (in all senses of the word) than you -- for at least a split second? loyalty is nothing to scoff at, but we're human and we're fallible. that's what the bible tells us anyway. so yeah, cheating happens, deal with it. earth-crushing as that revelation may be, why's it such a shock? what's harder to imagine, green aliens from mars or cheating? cheating happens every day, you should be forewarned by the world around you.

and the thing is, everyone who's in a relationship realizes this. you can't be jealous without knowing what it feels like to be on the other side. people understand how common having mixed feelings for two people are. guys know what bastards they -- and all other guys -- really are. girls understand how they can use their wiles to seduce men. everyone knows the capacity and the opportunity for cheating that everyone else possesses, because we are fundamentally all the same. we take what we can and try to get away with anything we can. would you cheat if you didn't have to suffer from self-induced guilt or the fear of being caught? i'm gonna say "yes."

i mean, haven't you ever had similar romantic feelings for more than one person at a time? you think it's fate that's pulls two people together? not really. sometimes choice-1a falls through because of some circumstance, so then choice-1b ends up being the "winner." taking a very non-romantic view, do you realize how arbitrary love is? it's a matter of timing, chance, luck, and a dash of "this is what i want (now)."

nobody really intends to cheat, at least nobody would say so out loud. something about voicing things makes them way too permanent; as if suddenly the air around you might be called to testify at your trial. cheating first occurs in the mind, when you think nasty dirty thoughts and then reprimand yourself for thinking these things. slowly these thoughts turn into intentions and then into "wow, if i just sit right there, or touch her now, i think something could happen."

the opportunities for cheating are infinite, and to fight against this sort of thing is like bailing water out of a leaky boat. i figure you just have to trust that the other person won't cheat and be done with it. my take on it is that if the other person does cheat, i'll give them one "get out of jail free" pass, just like in monopoly. after that, they'd have to choose between me or the other person. if my significant other wanted to be with someone else, so be it. see ya. there's no sense in fighting for someone that doesn't want to be there.

if it sounds like i'm pro-cheating. i'm not. i just think that cheating is a fact of life. it's not always relationship threatening nor something i'd hang a break up on. while i do think cheating is a very valid reason for breaking up with someone, i understand (and could quickly forgive) how cheating can happen. "i can't imagine ever cheating on my girlfriend." well, i can. and i think most people can too. and i don't necessarily think "once a cheater, always a cheater." in fact, many one time cheaters are so mortified by their transgression that they're scared straight, and end up being less likely to cheat than the norm.

vigilance and an expectation for the worst are the best ways to combat cheating. note i said vigilance and not suffocation. i personally hate having to answer a significant other's questions about "so, do you like so-and-so, could you like her? why not why not?" there are varying degrees of attraction among all people, and if you want to hear the truth, you have to be able to separate reality from possibility. what kind of answer is acceptable here? will you tell the whole truth? no way, because that'll just bring up a shitstorm. so you kind of white lie, and soft-shoe it. or wait, that's just me, sorry.

anyway, my final thought on cheating is this. if you do it, you are responsible for it. you have to own up to it. there may be many circumstances surrounding what happened -- you may not be happy, you were crying out for attention, she was really hot, you might have been drunk, he was really persistent -- but ultimately at some point, you made a choice. you decided to become a cheater. you cheated. so stand up straight and deal with the consequences. there's nothing worse than a cheater who then grovels and says "i didn't mean it...." you cheated, you got caught, face the reaper with some dignity at least. own up to your actions.


actually wait, some cheating i don't understand. like saved by the bell slater cheating on the doritos girl the night before they were to wed. are you stupid man? are you insane? that kind of cheating i don't understand or condone. like at all.

big league chew. when did gum make the change from candy to breath freshener? gum is probably the number one cause for my continuing battle with cavities -- well if you discount gummies, chocolates, skittles, cakes, pies, and genetics. if gum is hurting me, why not give it up you say? well that would require me to give up smoking, and giving up two nasty habits at once is just too much to ask for in one lifetime.

is it true that sugarless gum doesn't give you cavities? or that trident actually helps your teeth? i have a tough time believing any of that hogwash. gum is gum, it's not good for you. gum is candy.

but gum has seen its role in our society change drastically in the last decade or so. it's no longer candy. remember when bubblelicious was hot? or a yard of gum or whatever that was? bazooka joe, of course, has never lost its place on our shelves or in our hearts. these bubble gums were powdery, pink, sweet, and designed for maximum bubbling. children and teenagers chewed gum, adults ate three squares a day.

i recall trident trying to brand itself as the gum that was good for you, but everybody knew that trident wasn't really gum anyway. every parent i knew only offered trident, and if that wasn't enough of a turn off, the unappealing packaging killed any remaining desire for gum. carrying a five pack of wrigley's -- the staple gum-- was way cooler than being caught with trident. imagine the shame.

wrigley's, even with appealing flavors like spearmint and double mint, probably sold more juicy fruit than anything else. people wanted sweet juicy goodness out of their gum, not anti-tartar and blah blah blah. boo on trident.

gum suffered a bit of a down phase for me somewhere around high school. there was no need to chew gum then. i was too young to smoke, too oblivious to know that having fresh breath might help you "score," too uncool to carry juicy fruit in my pocket. gum kind of took a backseat to my other candy fixations. whatchamacallits and baby ruths were my trusty tooth decayers then.

the fat packs of gum never really appealed to me. although i did enjoy flicking a piece of gum out of the fatpack, it's like flicking a zippo but less dangerous (albeit slightly less awe-inducing). plus i got quite good at gum wrapper origami. i followed in the footsteps of the masters and made creative designs like "silver ball" and "silver stick." sometimes "silver ball tenously attached to silver stick" depending on how many wrappers were available. it was more impressive than it sounds.

then, maybe four years ago, hard chew gum started to appear in plastic packs with individual pieces encased in poppable bubbles. what an innovation and a triumph of design and engineering. gum could now be kept in your pocket for weeks, without fear of staleness or squishing. you could now sit on your gum without ruining the crisp corners of the packaging. gum was given an indefinite pocket life. pretty amazing technological advance i'd say. an ancillary benefit of this modern gum was that you stopped finding exploded pieces of sticky crap in your pants pocket after doing the laundry.

gum was also imbued with super strength along with super packaging. quaint minty names was suddenly replaced by monikers like "winter-super-blast" or "artic-avalanche-chill." do you remember chewing your first piece of this newfangled gum? i do. i mean, i couldn't taste shit for the next day. you would chew a piece of gum and have tears come out of your eyes. it was ridiculous. but people liked it. i liked it. i was never without gum after this.

i think my nickname among friends is "hey, you got any gum?" i would buy a box of dentyne gum at costco and be set for months. me and gum have had a good working relationship since the advent of the hard pack. like a druggie or a prudent cigarette smoker, i would hide almost finished packs of gum in my glove compartment, in my man-purse, everywhere, just in case i was in a gum jam somewhere down the line. i would mentally run checklists of how much gum i had left at any time. i sometimes carried backup gum for my backup gum.

out of desperation, i've even bought gum for the outrageous price of $1.29. what a rip off. think about it, gum used to cost about the same as gas before this whole three dollar gas bullshit started happening. you could drive for seventeen miles city -- or twenty five highway -- for the price of a pack of gum. then again, would you rather drive an extra twenty miles or have fresh breath? no question, fresh breath.

anyway, my point is this. the gum pendulum is starting to swing back towards sugary mixes and soft chews. i see ads on tv for gums that are both sweet and sour at the same time. "winter tsunami" has been slowly challenged by "jungle jam" or "very berry blast." i'm against this soft pack gum stuff, i'm pro the return to gum that tastes good. i think i may even go in for some juicy fruit, to make up for my middle school un-coolness, but the updated juicy fruit logo and packaging really bothers me. i'd prefer a vintage juicy fruit look -- if such a look exists. wrigley's shouldn't be attempting to appeal to the new generation of gum chewers, instead, they should be courting the people who grew up with double and spear mint. bring back those twins commercials i say. i think i'm deciding now to be a wrigley's guy. well, wrigley's for pleasure, dentyne and "armageddon ice" for post-cigarettes.

on the wrigley's website, listed under "benefits of gum" is the following: improves concentration, eases tension, freshens breath, provides a low-calorie snack, and helps fight tooth decay. bullshit. gum doesn't improve concentratoin or ease tension. people get yelled at for chewing gum, getting yelled at is never good for the concentration. and a low-calorie snack? really? i've never heard anyone say "i'm hungry but this piece of gum will tide me over." as for that tooth decay thing, go talk to my dentist. or check out my x-rays.

on a side note, japanese gum has always retained its classic shapes and tastes. round and fruity with a three second burst of flavor. and then totally useless. this is still the best candy gum by far. things like "melon flavor" just don't do well here in the states do they? i wonder why that is. are americans just not that big into melons? shame.

i think i've totally underestimated the role that gum has played in my life. how unappreciated it must feel. i'm sorry gum. i'll make it up to you.

ps. they sell vintage candy online. i can't decide if this is great or disgusting.

"i do know why guys like jordan cause such a stir in so many women's hearts... the reason why angela loves jordan, and why women always seem to fall for dudes like catalano, is precisely because he makes it so easy for us to project all of our fantasies about men and maleness onto him. jordan is both soulful hunk and empty cipher, or rather, he's a soulful hunk precisely because he's a cipher for girlish fantasy."
-jordan catalano: soulful hunk or empty cipher-

"i love brain precisely because i understand how sad you feel when you're trapped by a fear of being humiliated or rejected or that your words will be misunderstood--something i think everyone can identify with on some level, some of us more strongly than others.
-there's hope for brian krakow-

"i believe the crux of the show is the simple fact that the problems they face and wrestle with in high school are still our problems. their so-called lives are ours. turn this around and you get the, admittedly depressing, idea that we haven't made any real progress since high school. sure, maybe we went to college, got a job, dated, had sex, drank, took drugs, got an apartment, thought about marriage, and more.

we grew up, right? high school is far behind us. for some of us maybe. i suspect that these are the people who are puzzled by my fascination with the show. the rest of us, emotionally at least, are still fighting the same demons we were then: loneliness, loyalty, love, friendship, failure to connect and communicate, kissing, sexual confusion, how to relate to our parents, being good, being bad, and more.

if i'm towing some kind of theory here, it's some kind of updated psychoanalytic one. the emotional issues for your life are indeed framed in your youth, it's just not in infancy, but when you're a teen. as far as i can tell, i became pretty much the person i am now around sophmore year. ...when you turn fourteen or so, you have to start dealing with the stuff you will for the next, oh, twenty or so years. and no one tells you anything, except other people who don't know or whom you're constitutionally incapable of listening to."
-angela v. brian: a theory and a puzzle-

we could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about. in "love, actually," colin firth's character is a writer who falls in love with his foreign maid, aurelia. their feelings for each other develop despite a tremendous language barrier; he does not speak portugese, she does not speak english. their love language is "acts of service." she cleans his house and brings him coffee, he keeps her employed. obviously, romantic love was inevitable.

now, could this actually happen? could the inability to verbally communicate with each other really be just a traversable barrier? romantics might say that speaking the same language is not as important as the ability to really "communicate." there are hand and body gestures after all, and pictograms, and facial expressions. love is universal -- like math, music, and um, more math?

but honestly, could you imagine falling in love and sustaining a relationship where the two of you couldn't even discuss anything beyond the simplest of subjects? "how was your food? tres bien. ni hao ma? i'm feeling excellent today. how do you feel about the role of physical discipline in our child's upbringing? qué?"

do you see the potential problems here?

most people cite communication and openness as a vital part of a successful relationship. how can you really communicate with someone that you can't even talk to or understand? and what if both of you eventually learned a common language, only to find out that you disagree on everything? what do you do then? "the whole time i thought she was saying 'i love everything about you' when really she was saying 'i love cheese.'"

does love really conquer all? i somehow doubt it. but maybe talk is cheap and a real soul connection is what's important. after all, i've only dated english speaking females and eighty percent of the time we weren't successful in talking or communicating in the least.

thumbsucker. most people go through an initial coming of age period in their teens. they experiment with who they want to be, they try to shed or tinker with old images of themselves, they choose or reject things, they go out of their way to find out who they really are -- or at least, an acceptable version of who they are. most of my favorite movies/television shows revolve around this theme, this discovering of oneself.

i love these fictional creations not because i can relate to any of it, but because of the opposite; i can't relate to the characters' plights at all. i feel like i missed my first coming of age period, or i was too ignorant of what was going on to really give any coherent thought to the subject. if coming of ages were like birthdays, i feel like i missed the first nine because nobody told me about the concept of birthdays.

i never brooded, experimented, consciously adapted, or had the prescence of mind to want to be anything in particular. i just was. i felt normal, i felt typical, i felt like i fit in wherever i was. of course, in retrospect, i don't think it was really a matter of fitting in as much as a total inability to realize that the activities and distractions i enjoyed weren't always exactly in lockstep with the majority's. not everyone played the tmnt rpg during lunch hour? what?

and it's not even about being a total dork in school -- since my school's class sizes were so small that social class barriers were hardly impenetrable -- but just about feeling like i might be different. at that age, i never felt different. i never felt like i wanted to be someone else. i never consciously wanted to change anything about myself. i wasn't proud or ashamed of who i was. i just kind of went where i went, like a weed. i can't even really describe what i might have been like at that age. no accurate adjectives come to mind. i just don't really know.

nowadays, i often feel like i was "cheated" out of a teenager-hood. any memories of angst, transformation, or self consciousness doesn't exist from that time period. it's like a big blank. when i have to think about "how am i the way i am," and what life experiences might have shaped that, i come up empty headed. i feel like having a twin sister traveling alongside me should be helpful in discerning what i was like as a teen, but i made so much fun of her when we were younger that i'm sure all she remembers is me being mean.

where is my reservoir of teenage emotion and confusion? or at least a clarity of vision about why i didn't have to suffer through any of that. how can i create coming of age stories when i don't have any personal experiences with it? unfair i say, totally unfair.

"...sports is the ultimate cultural equalizer: i can't think of any subject that so many people know so much about. i feel like i personally know at least 100 guys who have a 'near expert' understanding of the nfl. if you watch the games each week (and especially if you grew up watching the games each week), you can easily have a 90-minute conversation about pro football with a total stranger in any airport bar (assuming said stranger has had a similar experience).

there is a shared knowledge of sports in america that is unlike our shared knowledge of anything else. whenever i have to hang out with someone i've never met before, i always find myself secretly thinking, 'i hope this dude knows about sports. i hope this dude knows about sports. i hope this dude knows about sports.' because if he does, i know the rest of the conversation will be easy."
-chuck klosterman-

as big a fan as i am of sports, i don't think i've ever had a ninety minute conversation about it. most of my sports conversations -- especially with strangers -- have lasted approximately ninety-seconds.

"oh, so you like basketball hunh? what's your team?"
"i'm a celtics fan."
"how about that larry bird? he was pretty good"
"yeah, he wasn't bad."
*silence*

the problem with talking to people about sports is that you're never really listening to what the other guy has to say. it's kind of a polite give and take of opinions without any actual conversation being exchanged. everyone has their minds made up about who they think is good or bad, which teams they like, which ones they don't. there's nothing enlightening going on during a sports conversation. nobody is going to suddenly be like "wow, i didn't know that, thank you for telling me." sports conversations usually just lead towards a dull ending with some sort of "well, player-a better do good tomorrow otherwise they're fucked." then the other guy goes "i hear ya, let's hope he does well."

despite all this, i still feel a tremendous sense of relief when someone i just met likes sports. the problem is, i'm usually never sure if a guy is a true fanatic or just mildly interested in sports and uses it as chitchat. i hate people who use sports as chitchat. guys who sit at the bar and keep on bringing up football topics just so they can hear themselves talk. "yeah, so, john elway... better than montana?" i've had this happen to me once, and it was fun for about five seconds, before i realized that everything he had to say was canned and anything i had to say he wanted to refute. so really, why are we talking again?

i need to know right off the bat if someone can talk sports all day long or if they're just talking about it because that's one of the first things two guys might connect on. sports is really better as an argumentative piece, as opposed to a conversation topic. you can argue sports for a long time, or play it, but you really can't conversate about it.

on the other hand, shopping, that you can conversate about. if shopping is to females what sports is to males, then i'd say that i'd prefer feminine shopping based conversations. when girls get together to talk shopping, they're showing their fellow females where to find the best deals, when to buy things, and what kind of excursions they can plan for the future. this is useful information. i wonder if girls get that sense of relief when they find out another girl likes shopping. "ah, here we have something to talk about and connect on (besides boys)." or maybe shopping conversations are actually just as boring to girls as sports conversations can be to boys?

i'm starting to suspect that almost all conversations with strangers are pretty boring, regardless of gender or topic. i'm gonna go engage some people in shopping and sports conversations to see which one is more capable of being drawn out should the occasion call for it. i'll be sure to report back.