It's not eating...It's snacking...

What what?!?!?

2012-01-23T20:04:00.000-08:00

The Japanese love American things. Sometimes they like the wrong things

The double down, like Gojirra, has landed in Japan. Like Gojirra it will crush the tiny Japanese with its breaded chicken bacon cheese.

You know what I find most astounding? It's only 588 calories. How is this possible? Did the Japanese somehow invent low calorie fried chicken? Is this thing only 2 inches big? I guess I'll find out in about a month when I'm back in Japan.

From the files of INTERWEB v2.3

2012-01-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

Couple of vids floating around the 'net that I thought were funny.

For those not fluent in web-lingo - Donkey Punch.OMG the wikipedia .gif is hilarious

Hello from ant1mat3rie on Vimeo.

What in the world WON'T Steven Spielberg do?

2012-01-17T18:22:00.000-08:00

While I was walking home I saw a billboard for a new show on ABC called The River and noticed that Steven Spielberg was proudly listed as an Executive Producer. Let us first discuss the premise

The River follows the story of wildlife expert and TV personality Emmet Cole. Emmet set course around the world with his wife, Tess, and son, Lincoln, while filming what would become one of the most popular shows in television. After he goes missing deep in the Amazon, his family, friends and crew set out on a mysterious and deadly journey to find him.

So basically each episode will have the main character looking for this lost person and then near the end of the episode *cliffhanger* a clue is discovered that gives hope that Emmet is not lost. Rinse, repeat and cliffhanger season finale where they find a video or recording from days before showing Emmet still alive but perilously close to death. Is he alive or isn't he? Stay tuned for season 2.

Why even watch something like this? I guess you could say the same for countless other movies and TV shows but something like this is so generic and so easy to figure out there's really no need to sit through 20 hours of shows. I lament the lack of creative, original programming but the unfortunate economics of current entertainment necessitate the greenlighting of mass appeal programming.

This got me to my second point. Is Steven Spielberg an Executive Producer of everything? I thought he was also the Executive Producer of the horrific Dino-Time Travelling trainwreck of a show on Fox, Terra Nova.

In the year 2149, the world is dying. The planet is overdeveloped and overcrowded, with the majority of plant and animal life extinct. The future of mankind is in jeopardy, and its only hope for survival is in the distant past.

W--T--F.

So then I started checking Steve Spielberg's IMDB page.

These are the films where he's listed as a Producer or Executive Producer.

2013 Robopocalypse (producer) (pre-production)

2013 Untitled Diablo Cody Project (producer) (pre-production)

2012 When Worlds Collide (producer) (pre-production)

???? The Talisman (TV mini-series) (executive producer) (pre-production)

2012 Lincoln (producer) (post-production)

2012 Men in Black III (executive producer) (post-production)

2012 The River (TV series) (executive producer - 1 episode) (post-production)

2012 Smash (TV series) (executive producer - 14 episodes)

2011 Terra Nova (TV series) (executive producer - 12 episodes)

2011 War Horse (producer)

2011 Transformers: The Ride - 3D (executive producer)

2011 The Adventures of Tintin (producer)

2011 Real Steel (executive producer)

2011 Falling Skies (TV series) (executive producer - 10 episodes)

2011 Cowboys & Aliens (executive producer)

2011 Transformers: Dark of the Moon (executive producer)

2009-2011 United States of Tara (TV series) (executive producer - 36 episodes)

2011 Super 8 (producer)

2011 Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero (TV series documentary) (executive producer)

2011 Locke & Key (TV movie) (executive producer)

2010 True Grit (executive producer)

2010 Hereafter (executive producer)

2010 The Pacific (TV mini-series) (executive producer - 10 episodes)

2009 The Lovely Bones (executive producer)

2009 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (executive producer)

2008 Eagle Eye (executive producer)

2007 On the Lot (TV series) (executive producer - 4 episodes)

2007 Dance with the Devil (short) (executive producer)

2007 Transformers (executive producer)

2007 The Big Bad Heist (short) (executive producer)

2006 Letters from Iwo Jima (producer)

2006 Flags of Our Fathers (producer)

2006 Spell Your Name (documentary) (executive producer)

2006 Monster House (executive producer)

2005 Munich (producer)

2005 Memoirs of a Geisha (producer)

2005 The Legend of Zorro (executive producer)

2005 Into the West (TV mini-series) (executive producer)

2005 Dan Finnerty & the Dan Band: I Am Woman (TV movie) (executive producer)

2004 The Terminal (producer)

2004 Voices from the List (video documentary) (executive producer)

2003 Burma Bridge Busters (TV documentary) (executive producer)

2002 Catch Me If You Can (producer)

2002 Taken (TV mini-series) (executive producer - 1 episode)

2002 Men in Black II (executive producer)

2002 Price for Peace (documentary) (executive producer)

2002 Broken Silence (TV mini-series documentary) (executive producer)

2001 We Stand Alone Together (TV documentary) (executive producer)

2001 Band of Brothers (TV mini-series) (executive producer - 2 episodes)

2001 Jurassic Park III (executive producer)

2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence (producer)

2001 Evolution (executive producer - uncredited)

2001 Shrek (executive producer - uncredited)

2001 Semper Fi (TV movie) (executive producer)

2000 Shooting War (TV documentary) (executive producer)

2000 Eyes of the Holocaust (documentary) (executive producer)

1999 Wakko's Wish (video) (executive producer - uncredited)

1999 The Haunting (executive producer - uncredited)

1998-1999 Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (TV series) (executive producer - 9 episodes)

1995-1998 Pinky and the Brain (TV series) (executive producer - 70 episodes)

1993-1998 Animaniacs (TV series) (executive producer - 93 episodes)

1998 The Last Days (documentary) (executive producer)

1998 Saving Private Ryan (producer)

1998 The Mask of Zorro (executive producer)

1998 Deep Impact (executive producer)

1998 Toonsylvania (TV series) (executive producer - 1 episode)

1997 Amistad (producer)

1997 Men in Black (executive producer)

1997 Freakazoid! (TV series) (executive producer - 1 episode)

1997 The Lost Children of Berlin (documentary) (executive producer)

That's just going back 15 years. In all he's listed as a Producer or Executive Producer in 131 titles. What in the world. Does he just slap his name on anything now? I can't believe people haven't dismissed him as a credible creative mind.

I don't know why I got so upset about this. It's one of those trivial things in life that really bother me. It's like the post I had about the stupid Barcelona subway cars. The torment. Dinosaurs and time travel. Seriously?

Musical cues

2012-01-12T23:33:00.001-08:00

I'm bored and stuck on a cross country flight to LA. Tis not a bad thing because I'm flying back to celebrate the SO's big birthday milestone and the wedding of one of my closest friend.

After sitting through the rock n sock n robots movie I ended up listening to the wonderful American Airlines R&B channel. What did they have on the playlist? Tevin Campbell.

Man that really brings me back to the early 90s. A wave of memories flooded back while listening to him croon about teenage love.

It's funny how smell and music are so strongly tied to memories. I can still recognize the smell of the cafeteria of my elementary school in Japan. I remember the song that I listened to on repeat on Winamp when I was hopelessly in love with my first crush. Don't worry SO I associate our first dance For Once in my Life by Stevie Wonder with one of the happiest days of my life.

I'm just glad that most of my memories have been positive. Either that or I have a super human ability to block out bad ones.

My life has been amazing. The nostalgia of my past experiences is truly positive because of all the amazing people who have allowed me to call them friend and family. I look forward to everything else that life may throw at me because I know that no matter what I have a wonderful network of awesome people.

I get like this when I'm on planes. Must be the cramped confines and sinus pressure. It's causing my brain to try to fart out positivity.

The lunatics are running the asylum.

2012-01-05T19:14:00.001-08:00

The SO left today for LA. She'll be there for work until the 16th and I'll be flying to LA on the 12th to join her. This means that I have been left to fend for myself for the next 6 days.

Noo...of course that's not how I feel. It's been only 8 hours and I already miss her.

Prior to the SO leaving she left me a couple of things to make sure I don't starve, burn the building to the ground, kill the plants and/or maim myself over the next 6 days.

The SO left me a couple of notes on the fridge. The left was a list of foods in the refrigerator and the right was a list of tasks that I needed to complete before I left for LA.

The food in the fridge was arranged so that things next to each other were supposed to be combined or eaten together. For example, on the bottom shelf there are tomatoes and grilled onions, buns and turkey patties. The SO is quite the amazing wife and I must be completely hopeless if I need someone to do this for me.

On another note, I got my Xmas/Bday/You did a great job in 2011 gift for myself.

It came in a box

which housed another box.....

which housed another box....... When does this end?!?!?

Oh god another box? The madness!?!!?

Finally got to the watch. Panerai 111 Luminor Marina.

I was tired removing the box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box that this watch came in but absolutely love it now that it's on my wrist.

Any case. Beer and videogames await. Faux bachelorhood commencing in 3...2....1...

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T18:28:00.001-08:00

We celebrate another year here on It's not Eating It's Snacking. 2011 has been a spectacular year so I'm hoping this entry is the start of many awesome entries for 2012.

Here's to you 2012. Please treat me well. I beg you.

The Xmas countdown

2011-12-14T19:07:00.000-08:00

We are now counting down to Christmas and soon the end of the year. This year was a big year in that there were some significant changes.

I moved from Barcelona to Michigan to New York. Graduated from B-school and landed a gig in NYC. Got married, went on a honeymoon to Africa and started living the domestic life with the SO.

I gotta say I don't have a single complaint with how 2011 has turned out. I pretty much accomplished everything I ever wanted and 2012 is already looking good.What does bother me is that I'm not blogging as much. I don't know if it's that I'm not doing anything interesting or that I'd rather do other stuff aside from blogging but the posting frequency has dropped significantly.

Well in any case an early Merry Xmas folks.

Gobble Gobble in NYC

2011-11-26T19:05:00.000-08:00

I've been blessed to have been able to spend Thanksgiving in different countries and different cities throughout my life. This first Thanksgiving in NYC made me feel so thankful for my life and those loved ones that surround me and could be my all-time favorite Thanksgiving.

After three weeks of buying furniture, decorating and painting our apartment is finally close to feeling like our home. Because of that we decided to have my parents as our first guests to our apartment and to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Before we even got to the turkey we spent half of Wednesday prepping for the big day. The SO tasked me with the turkey prep and cooking so I knew I couldn't screw this up. A bad turkey on Thanksgiving is like rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you've already paid. That song never made sense to me.

I had to flip the bird multiple times to get the sucker lubed up properly.

Our selection of wines for the big feast. The top Primitui Priorat wine was what we drank and it was absolutely amazing. Thanks to my groomsmen DL for the wine.

Giacomo may be the best impulse buy I've ever made. He doesn't mind having a hand stuck up his butt. Because he's a puppet you sick freaks.

Our back wall. It's an "accent wall", according to the SO. That couch becomes a full size sleeper so all guests are welcome.

The wall color was called blue smoke. I was told not to call it purple.

We have a small alcove which the SO is supposed to use as an office. She calls it the cave and pouts when I tell her to use it like we had set it up for.

It's not Thanksgiving without the Lions on TV.

The table all set and ready to go for the feasting.

My dad checking out the living room. NYC living forces you to consolidate all social areas into about 100sq feet.

I really like our place because it's good for entertaining. Most people end up hanging out in the kitchen. Now everyone can hang out in the kitchen, dining area and living room because it's all right on top of each other.

Our first course was shrimp cocktail and fig/mascarpone in a filo dough pastry.

Salad and shrimp cocktail. Salad courtesy of the parents.

Loved this wine.

Awwww yeah.

The full spread. From closest to farthest: Mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing, string beans with bacon, turkey and honey glazed carrots, mac and cheese.

Mmm..

I really tried to eat more but I was stuffed. We barely put a dent in all the sides and we had half a turkey left but that just means more leftovers for us. The fatties will feast for days!

After the main course it was time to set up the mood lighting for dessert.

The sunset was beautiful. I love the view from our place. The tall lit up tower to the right is the Freedom Tower aka 1 World Trade Center.

Fruit trifle that the SO made. Probably my favorite dessert of all time. I don't even like dessert and I loved this dish. My dad actually took some home and made a milkshake out of this. I wasn't sure if I should be appalled by his laziness and awed by his genius.

That concluded the first annual Thanksgiving hosted by the SO and myself. I'd say it was a success but I can't take credit for anything. I just basted the turkey. Partly because I like saying basted. Master baster.

Airborne toxic event

2011-11-18T22:52:00.001-08:00

Tonight we witnessed the airborne toxic event. No it wasn't a case of bad flatulence but an indie rock band from Los Feliz. The SO is a rock music wannabe hipster so she's always trying to introduce me to new bands. Since my music taste ranges from pop to really bad pop I'm usually clueless to all these new bands hitting the scene.

The show was pretty interesting and the music fairly decent. They had an Asian guy in the band who played piano, guitar, and upright bass. I'm sure his parents would be proud of his musical ability but I'm sure they wouldn't approve of him screwing around in a band. Hello I bet even if he were in U2 they would rather have him be a doctor like the Kim's son across the street.

Anyways nyc is full of stuff to do and tonight was no different. In the city that never sleeps we saw an airborne toxic event. As I sit here and write this I think I just released my own version of such event. It did sound quite amazing. The smell was definitely not rock n' roll.

NYC weekend

2011-11-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

After several weeks of furniture and household goods shopping, this weekend was spent doing NYC-y stuff. Whatever that means. For us that means stuffing our faces everywhere we go.

Friday evening was spent in a closet of a Japanese restaurant called Taisho. Great food for dirt cheap prices. Definitely recommend if you don't mind feeling like an underutilized broom. Saturday evening we hit up a place Luke's Lobsters. Lobster and other seafood imported straight from Maine and into our stomachs. I just have to occasionally beat my heart to get the blood flowing properly. Totally worth it.

After a heavy meal of lobster rolls and clam chowder we decided to have a light dessert. The new desert craze in NYC is rice pudding. Rice to Riches offers a variety of rice pudding flavors and toppings at the laugh at recession price of $7 per single serving.

Granted the single servings can easily serve two AND you get to keep the cool tupperware spoon, bowl and lid set but still, $7 for rice pudding makes you think twice about going there multiple times. I felt like the price was primarily to pay for the fancy store and the 8 employees working the counter.

With any new fad place the place had ironic or snarky messages sprinkled throughout the store.

Sunday was a wonderful Fall day and we had a long day of eating ahead of us again. Before that it was a nice stroll through our neighborhood.

The SO got us tickets to the Chocolate festival so we met up with some friends to sample the delectable cocoa delights.

The first booth we encountered after walking in was a spice booth so we got off to a bit of a Rocky Road here....Yup. Haven't lost it.

I have more pics but of course my gmail mobile decides to act up. Sooo for now you get spices and a lion pic from our honeymoon.

Mmm domesticity

2011-11-11T06:07:00.001-08:00

The SO works from home. This benefits me immensely as personified by the image below. Dinner is always ready by the time.I'm home. No better sight than coming home to a wonderful meal. They say a road to a man's heart is through his stomach. Since we are married and technically she already has my heart then she must be trying to fatten me up.

What we do on weeknights

2011-11-08T22:04:00.000-08:00

Instead of going out to the clubs we sit in our pjs listening to lmfao. Then our love for lmfao grew exponentially after watching this.

Everyday we're shufflin'

Day 2.5

2011-10-31T21:12:00.000-07:00

It's day 2.5 of co-habitation with the SO.

We're not divorced. Yet.

Just kidding. It's been a fun couple of days as we've unpacked, settled into the new apartment and started buying furniture to complete the place. Unfortunately our movers destroyed a couple of dressers, a mirror and various other furniture so we'll have to buy those as well.

All in all it's coming together slowly but surely. We'll see how long blissful domestic life continues.

Blogging on hold

2011-10-28T03:42:00.001-07:00

Sorry about the lack of posts but its been such a pain moving. It's just stacks and stacks of boxes. It's amazing how much stuff you accumulate over the years. Anyways once we are settled in ill resume posting on a more regular basis.

Honeymoon Post 1

2011-10-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

Well the past 2 months have given me enough blogging material to keep this blog going for at least till the end of the year. A lot happened. Got married, went on a honeymoon, SO is moving to NYC. Craziness. I should have spread this all out a bit.

Anyways, I was tasked with one thing for this wedding. Book the honeymoon. So, with such great responsibility, I decided to let the pros deal with it instead of potentially facing the wrath of the SO if I screwed up.

A couple we know used PremierTours to book their honeymoon and had a great experience so I thought why not. They did an amazing job and the itinerary they put together for us was everything we wanted.

After a 9 hour flight from LAX to LHR, we had a 4 hour layover, and then an 11 hour flight to Cape Town. Jacques, our driver/guide/bodyguard picked us up from the airport and drove us to our hotel, Kensington Palace located in the foothills of Table Mountain. Although we were a bit tired after such a long flight, we were refreshed after seeing the view from our balcony.

The room was quite large. Probably can fit our entire NYC apartment in this one room.

The weather on Table Mountain was supposed to be decent so Jacques rushed up to the base of the mountain. It was a 5 minute cable car ride up to the top.

As one might expect, the view from the top overlooking Cape Town was impressive. You can see Robben Island in the distance. Given more time, I would've loved to check out the former prison site but our time in Cape Town was limited to 2 days and we had a lot to see.

The top of Table Mountain was eerie. The cloud cover made this place look oddly desolate.

Don't know why they built this hobbit house here. I guess I could look it up but I'm lazy.

Jacques then drove us to the Bo-Kaap community in Cape Town. Originally settled by the freed slaves, Bo Kaap eventually became a huge Malay society (mixture of ethnic societies from Southeast Asia, blacks and whites). Cape Town kinda reminds of me Long Beach. A laid back coastal town with a lot of immigrants, its fair share of sketchy areas and lots of drugs. Throw in some Snoop Dogg and Cape Town is repping the CPT. Anyways, the story Jacques told us is that one guy got sick of his boring walls and decided to paint his a bright color. Soon it became the hit of the neighborhood. I'm sure the rich folks down the street scoffed at the poor immigrants and laughed at their loud, poor colors. Well, take that rich folks, these houses are now a historical heritage.

The next place we visited was the old fort. Jacques got us there just in time for the noon canon shot. Now I imagined the cannon to be somewhat large. It was about the size of flute. What a disappointment.

The solider loading up his wussy cannon.

Sucker went off like a M-1000. I shouldn't have judged the cannon by its size. Hehe. Yes, I turn 31 this year....

This was a corner of the dungeon. I was hoping to capture some paranormal activity. Hey what's that weird shape.....did you hear that? Was that tapping? It's coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!!

Lovely hook thingie.

The obligatory artsy shot. I bought this camera about 3 hours before we got on our flight so4 this first day was trying to figure out all the functions of the camera. Or I could be like my dad who bought a $1000 camera with a $1000 lens only to use it shoot everything in auto.

After the fort, we were hungry so Jacques took us down to Camps Bay for lunch and sightseeing. Kinda looks like my hometown, PV.

I still remember when all this land was empty and there were no houses this side of PV.

Anyways, after that it was off to the South Africa museum. Our final stop for the day. The SO was not very pleased to have to go on an educational tour especially since this would've been like hour 40 of travelling.

Some early graffiti.

Tagging about the mad hunt yo!

An African medicine/shaman. They had a picture of the pope next to it too. I guess it was just showing the different types of religion.

The SO with Jacques. You can see why we called him our driver/guide/bodyguard. The man was massive. He said he actually lost about 50 pounds too. We saw him get mad and I was about to crap myself

I don't even know why I took a picture of this pot. What compelled me to think hey this would be a good picture. Probably so I could write this sentence in the blog and waste everyone's time. Lose-lose.

I'm guessing another medicine man. Horrible Sean Connery movie btw.

I rag on the SO for liking turtles. This was supposedly evidence that turtles can be cool too. I still think they're pretty boring and slow.

Whale skeleton. I swear in every natural history museum they have a whale skeleton or a life-size whale model. Yes, I get it. They're big. I'd rather have them show me other animals where you're like wtf they're really that big or small? Like I never knew eagles were so damn big until I saw one in Alaska.

That man is normal sized.

Anyways, after a wondrous 8 hours of sleep, it was breakfast time at Kensington Palace. Fresh squeezed juices and an assortment of breakfast choices. I love being on vacation.

First stop was Boulders Beach, a penguin preserve.

The penguins had some nice digs.

The middle penguin is a rebel. Fight the power, penguin! Don't let the man tell you that you need to face right. Occupy Penguin Street!!! I'm gonna have to link to an Occupy Wall street wiki so I remind myself later what the heck I was talking about.

The adolescent penguin was losing its baby fur and heading into adulthood. Soon the penguin parents will look longingly while the mom cries "they grow up so fast" while the dad puts a reassuring arm around the mom penguin. I think I watch too much TV.

Next post: Day 2 in Cape Town.

Preview of the Honeymoon pics

2011-10-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

I have approximately 1200 pictures from our honeymoon. That's just on my camera. I think the SO has another 400. We also have about 60 minutes of HD video. Soo...there's a lot to sift through. I finally got through the 1200 pictures from my camera so thought I'd give you all a preview of what I hope will be the honeymoon post extravaganza.

Cape Town was a lot more interesting than I expected. It reminded me a bit of LA. It's super diverse but still got the beach-y laid back feel. The Malay people are the mutts of South Africa. They're a combination of Black, Indian and everything in between. One guy decided that he'd paint his house in wild colors and it caught on. The result is now a tradition in the Malay neighborhood.

Just beautiful scenery in Cape Town. Too bad the ocean is FULL of Great Whites and I'm not talking Larry Bird. Ferocious, man eating sharks. Our last day in Cape Town there was a shark attack where a man lost his leg. It's Shark Week every week in Cape Town.

The Dassi is actually a giant rat. It was cute when I first saw it but now that I know it's a giant rat, somehow the cuteness wears off.

We were so freaking far from home. To get to Cape Town it was a 9 hour flight from LAX to Heathrow. A 4 four layover in Heathrow and then a 11 hour flight to Cape Town. Yeah, pretty brutal.

Just awesome views at Cape Point.

The SO enjoying the views from Chapman's Pass.

For our safari we stayed at the Sable Camp in the Mala Mala Reserve. Just an amazing experience. I really can't describe how awesome the safari was. The camp was spectacular, Ryan our ranger was so informative and the meals were just superb. I wish I could live there but I'd go broke around day 2.5. Oh and we saw the Big 5 and then some in the 3.5 days we were there.

Leopards during mating season mate every 15 minutes for 4-5 days. We must've seen these leopards mate about 8 times. I have about 100 pictures of them mating in different locales. It's like I shot leopard porn.

The main camp had some skins from when the reserve was a private hunting lodge.

The giraffes have a really bad staring problem. They just stand there and stare at you. Since they have such an advantage in vantage points they end up staring at you from like 1000 yards out and keep staring at you as you get near them. All the shots I have are them just looking stupidly into the camera. This is honestly one of five where they aren't looking at the camera.

The lion pride on the reserve consisted of about 4-6 males and a whole bunch of lionnesses with 4 pups in the midst. We caught the pups in the middle of a feed.

Female lion with some battle wounds.

So I have many more pics to go through. Stay tuned!

Home sweet empty home

2011-10-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

I suggested to the SO (still applicable since a wife is also an SO) that we could live with my parents to save money. This was said jokingly, but the thought of all that extra cash from no rent did make me think for a half second longer than I should that this could be a good idea. Needless to say, this idea was rejected by the SO and my parents, who are desperate to get me out of the apartment.

Anyways, to appease everyone, I've been apartment hunting for the past three months. The criteria was 1) the building was nice, 2) the location was good 3) open floor plan 4) floor to ceiling windows 5) washer and dryer. In NYC, this leaves about 3 buildings. Of these 3 buildings, 3 were out of our price range. So the weekend apartment hunts went pretty much nowhere till I found a building that I liked. But, once again the unit I wanted was a bit out of our price range. I noticed a particular unit, which I liked had been sitting unrented for about 3 months. The SO suggested I see if they'd negotiate. I thought "Noo. This is NYC. Demand is sky high." Well, as with a lot of things, the SO was right. Got an email the day after our wedding saying that they'd lower the price to something that's within our budget. Kinda.

So last night I signed the lease papers, handed over the checks and obtained the keys to.....

our new apartment. Guests will be welcomed through this front door. So white and square.

The living room and kitchen where I hope to regale guests with awesome puns and boring historical trivia. Did you know that...

View of the living room and the entrance to the bedroom.

The "designer" kitchen. Uh yeah so lots of granite and some stainless steel makes anything designer these days.

Full size refrigerator. To be stocked with lots of beer and cheese. We like cheese.

View from our living room at night. The apartment faces south so should have a good amount of natural light. The natural light will hopefully make the place feel a bit bigger than the 730 sq. foot that it actually is.

As of now we have no furniture and we won't have furniture till probably about November so the move will take some time to complete but at least it's a start. Now the SO just has to get to NYC. Until then...bachelor pad!!!

It's forever.

2011-10-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

Over the past 2.5 weeks I got married, went on my honeymoon in South Africa/Mauritius, got a new apartment in NYC and went to a wedding in SF. I'd say that deserves a huge blog update.

Well, it'll happen sometime later this week. Combining the pictures from the wedding and honeymoon we have something like 2500 pictures to sort, edit and upload to Picasa. Once I get that all squared away you'll get MEGA ULTRA WEDDING HONEYMOON SUPER DELUXE post.

But, in the meantime you get this picture from our wedding.

In the future we print with water

2011-09-13T21:34:00.001-07:00

There is still hope for humanity

2011-09-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

We are always busy with our own lives. Our surroundings sometimes are a blur as we try to keep up with everything that is going on in our personal circle. It's easy to forget that the nameless seemingly soulless people around you have the same dreams, hopes and aspirations. It reminds us that we are all human.

When men were real men and women were objects to serve man

2011-09-02T19:10:00.001-07:00

Get shot 9 times and go on CNBC

2011-09-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

When I read that 50 Cent made 140 million after Coca Cola bought Vita-Water, I thought damn he's a lucky investor. Street smarts still means you gotta be smart.

Wedding Season

2011-09-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

It's wedding season. I'm at an age where weekends from June-September are spent attending weddings. In a 5 week period I'll have attended 3 weddings. One of them my own. Funny I say that I'm attending a wedding because I do feel like I'm just a guest at my own wedding since the SO has basically planned everything and I'm merely an accessory to the whole ordeal. I don't mind being the nice handbag to the real deal. As long as I am a Hermes Birkin.

This past weekend was the wedding of one of my long-time friends. I've known the guy since we were in Junior High. I remember him being the lanky blonde kid who would play handball during our lunch break. Now he's a radiologist at UCLA and is marrying another radiologist at UCLA. They make the perfect Aryan nation couple. All blonde, tall and smart.

It's funny how successful some of my friends have become. We were such nerds growing up. Friday nights were spent playing GoldenEye or going to Rock N' Bowl at PV Bowl. I still remember the stupid stuff we did like lighting fireworks or playing tape on tape and getting scolded by the PVE cops. I still don't think we've truly grown up. Evidenced by a table of friends being scolded for irking another guest due to their obnoxious behavior.

The wedding was held at La Venta Inn in my hometown of PV.

It's views like this that make me miss living in SoCal and especially PV.

The sun setting. Beautiful orange haze thanks to the smog. Cancer and beauty all rolled in 1!

That's pretty much all the pics I have on my phone because as the night wore on I couldn't be bothered with taking pictures as my main priority was "enjoying" the wedding.

Due to ~~Apocalypto Storm~~ ~~Hurricane~~ ~~Tropical Storm~~ rainshower Irene, my flight got cancelled on Sunday. As much as it sucked having to take an extra day off to fly back on Monday, I did enjoy the full weekend in LA instead of my usual 40 hour turnaround.

With that much time on my hands you know what I had to do.

Appetizer....

Main course. Oh yeah. Love Las Fuentes in the Valley. I am truly going to miss Mexican food while in NYC. I actually go to La Salsa here in NYC because it's the closest thing to Mexican food I can get. Let me present you that comparison pictorially.

Mila Kunis = La Salsa. Very good and you know what you're gonna get. Can surprise you sometimes with something really good. Started off kinda boring but is growing to be a very good alternative. Especially when talking about Mila Kunis, it's quite the transformation she had from That 70's Show

to now. It's like she told her plastic surgeon "Make me look like Angelina Jolie". And for the female readers, I admire the same transformation with Joseph Gordon Levitt. No pictures of him. You'll have to look that up.

Speaking of Angelina Jolie..

Angelina Jolie = Las Fuentes. The real deal. Lot of imitators but still leaves the young upstarts in the dust. Kinda crazy with all the kids running around*

*applies to both AJ and Las Fuentes.

Anyways, I have this weird thing where I have to eat at the airport or on the plane. Virgin America had a nice breakfast box so I bought it to find this Chernobyl fork.

I don't know what happened to it but it was incredibly hard to stab fruit with a dulled edge like that. It's like it was sheathed for protection.

Well, we are now down to 16 days till the Big Event. Nervous, random postings to ensue. Am I ready? Is this it? WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT!!!

I need that stupid squirrel looking shocked video again.

How true

2011-08-29T17:52:00.001-07:00

Cats are uhh....interesting

2011-08-24T18:35:00.001-07:00

My next dining destination

2011-08-24T17:49:00.001-07:00

I'm amazed that this place is able to stay in business. It's right on Park Avenue as well.

On another note I downloaded the Blogger mobile app. More periodic but shorter posts to occur.

Derp Fox

2011-08-21T17:01:00.000-07:00

If you can watch this without laughing you have no soul.

Rorraparooza Day 2/3

2011-08-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

....and we're back.

On the way back to Grant Park we walked through Millenium Park to check out the Bean.

The Bean. It's so shiny.

I don't really get this whole Bean thing. Why a Bean? I read the wikipedia article and there's no mention of the reason for the design. Maybe I should stop using wikipedia as my sole source for information. I'd be a horrible college student given the current availability of wiki articles.

Lollapalooza actually consists of something like 7 different stages for bands to play on. Two main stages and several smaller side stages for up and coming artists. The Playstation one was host to a number of good bands like Cage the Elephant the Deftones.

The main headliner for Saturday night was good ole Eminem. Oh and btw the other headliner on Friday night was Coldplay. I kept yelling "where's Chris Martin" and "When does Coldplay" start at the Muse concert and people kept giving me dirty looks. I think it was funny for the first 2 minutes. Too bad I did it for about 8.

The Recovery album being hyped. We didn't bother getting close to the stage.

I don't get the E being backwards. is Eminem going the Toys R' Us route?

This just reminds me of the scene from Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom.

Shot of Eminem from the big screen. He's starting to look like Elijah Wood. Well, after rocking out to the King of white rappers it was time for dinner.

Fish and chips for the SO's sister.

I wanted some sausages in my mouth. Oh yeah. Juicy sausages in my mouth.

What time is it?

Guinness time!

I don't even remember what the SO got. I think there's a picture of it somewhere but I forgot to download it and I'm too lazy to go and re-download it so you get a picture of dessert.

Some weird fig concoction.

Full of food and tired from the day we crashed and got ourselves rested for Day 3.

Once again, the early day lineup of Lollapalooza was just mediocre so it was sightseeing time.

I read online about the Chicago architecture tour so we headed off on a 90 minute tour. This might get boring for those of you not into buildings.

The Trump Tower. Even the tour guide was surprised it turned out pretty decent. She was telling us how people wanted to dislike it because of who it was associated with but couldn't.

More buildings.

A-Ha. A bridge. Just to spice up the tour.

This place would look perfect in Amsterdam too. Bet it looks funnier when you're high as a kite. You know, like when you're really high up in the air.

The late 90s and 2000s saw a huge real estate boom in Chicago and a lot of old warehouses were converted into condos.

You can immediately tell which buildings were conversions because they always tack on a balcony. Some of the balconies don't look very safe but whatever, at least they look nice.

The Sears/Willis Tower in the background. Looks like Batman.

Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh Sears Tower!!!

Marina city. Looks like a giant corn on the cob.

The Chicago skyline from afar. Definitely a beautiful site and a MUCH better downtown than LA.

Yeah. I think some cities in the midwest have better downtowns than LA. We can boast that we have like 5 freeways all intersecting at downtown. The 60, 10, 110, 101, 5. Oh wait that's a horrible idea.

Anyways, that was the Chicago weekend. In about two weeks I'm back in LA and then two weeks after that it's the wedding of the century for me. Mine. Wedding of the century because I'm hoping to only have one. *Crosses fingers*.

Did you miss me?

2011-08-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

I hope you did. It's been a crazy week at work and this blog is currently #4 on the priority list. 1-3 tangentially related to wedding stuff.

Anyways, to mark the return of the blog post, it's a full pictorial tour of my Lollapalooza weekend.

Since I'm lazy, here's the wiki info on "Lollapalooza".

Lollapalooza (/ˌlɒləpəˈluːzə/) is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedyperformances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. Lollapalooza has featured a diverse range of bands and has helped expose and popularize artists such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, The Latin (Manny and Gil), The Cure, Primus, The Killers, Rage Against the Machine, Arcade Fire, Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction, Metallica, X Japan, Soundgarden, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Smashing Pumpkins, Muse,Alice in Chains, Tool, Hole, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Strokes, The Foo Fighters, Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue, and Green Day.

It's basically a big ass music festival and since 2005 it's been held at Grant Park in Chicago.

Side note: The word Lollapalooza, a shibboleth, was also used by the American Army to ferret out possible Japanese spies. Apparently the "L's" were too hard to pronounce and it sounded like Rorraparooza. I'm totally raffing out roud.

Anyways, I bounced out of work at 1pm to head out to Chicago to meet up with the SO and her sister. I've mentioned it before but the SO is a gigantic Muse fan. She's been to like umpteen concerts and keeps talking about Matt Bellamy. Apparently I'm still #1 but the margin between Matt and I keeps shrinking. That bastard.

It was the 20th anniversary of the festival so the nifty wristbands made sure to let us know.

The Rorraparooza, ahem, I mean Lollapalooza sign outside the main entrance.

The Chicago skyline. This was my 2nd visit to Chicago and we've been pretty lucky with the weather. This time around it was humid but highs topped out in the mid 80s and it was pretty spectacular until Sunday afternoon. Chicago in the summer is amazing and I love the city. It's too bad 90% of the time the weather sucks harder than a Dyson.

AMERICUHH*!!

*Courtesy of the Belgians and Brazilians.

Because we were primarily there to see Muse we made sure to line up early to get a good viewing spot. The roadies were doing the sound check while desperately hoping that some groupie comes up to them for some "backstage access".

The crowd was starting to get bigger as we approached showtime. It was a LOT of white people. Now I know what it feels like to be the white guy at UC Irvine.

In case you were wondering what event this was. With the amount of weed wafting through the air I thought it was the Up in Smoke tour.

We were were pretty close to the stage but if you wanted to check out the pores of the artists they had huge HD screens.

And the show begins.....

Matt Bellamy admiring his work.

Clap Clap Clap Clap. Everyone in unison!!

Turn down your speakers on this one. We were so close to the speakers that it totally overwhelmed my phone's mic.

I wasn't a big fan of Muse before this concert. To be honest I thought their music was just okay and I made fun of the SO for liking them so much. This concert totally changed things for me. I absolutely loved their music. I set my Pandora station to include Muse and I'm totally digging songs like City of Delusion. Anyways, it was an awesome concert and as the SO put it, "Best Muse concert ever". Since it was the only one I've seen I guess I have to agree.

To cap the night we had some healthy food. Steak quesadillas, buffalo wings, nachos and beer. Why? That's how we roll. Fatties through and through.

The day lineup for Lollapalooza wasn't spectacular so we combined a walking tour with lunch at Gibsons Steakhouse.

You can imagine where most people stood when they took a picture. The best was an older gentleman who decided to look up and open his mouth real wide. Why would you want those juices?!?!

The Chicago Tribue building has these rocks from various famous sites. Basically the reporters from the Tribune stole historical pieces and brought them back to be incorporated into the building. Nice.

Hey look Egyptian government. Here's a rock from your Great Pyramid. What are you going to do about it? Cry and whine? The Tribune is like the douchebag frat brother taunting the Tri-Lambs.

Finally arrived at Gibsons hungry and ready to chow down. But first...

A ginger beer and vodka cocktail. Delicious.

Goose Island beer.

Some sort of mint infused cocktail. I forgot what it was. It was sweet and vodka-y.

Started off with some oysters. You know, to get the appetite going.

Guess which fatty decided to get a filet mignon at 1pm. Yeah the SO.

I, of course, was not going to be upstaged by the SO and the SO's sister's French Dip sandwich so I got a steak sandwich.

5 minutes later...

After "lunch", which probably had enough nutritional value for two days, we were off to Grant Park to start the 2nd day of festivities....To be Lollapalooza'ed till midweek.

What happened to our music?

2011-07-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

The other night I happened to catch VH1's top 100 hip hop songs while running on the treadmill. I caught it from Top 15 to Top 1 and ended up running 20 minutes longer than usual.

I'm a sucker for nostalgia. I love 80's and 90's pop culture and still think that stuff from that era beats out anything produced in the 2000s. My feelings about music is the same. The SO makes fun of me for listening to current pop but it's really just filler music for me. My favorites come from the 80's and 90's and VH1's list did not disappoint.

15 Eminem - "Stan"

14 Tupac - "I Get Around"

13 Wu-Tang Clan - "C.R.E.A.M."

12 L.L. Cool J - "I Can't Live Without My Radio"

11 Jay-Z - "Hard Knock Life"

10 Kurtis Blow - "The Breaks"

09 Salt-N-Pepa - "Push It"

08 Snoop Doggy Dogg - "Gin and Juice"

07 Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy"

06 N.W.A. - "Straight Outta Compton"

05 Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five - "The Message"

04 Run-DMC ft/ Aerosmith - "Walk This Way"

03 Dr. Dre - "Nuthin But A 'G' Thang"

02 Sugarhill Gang - "Rapper's Delight"

01 Public Enemy - "Fight the Power"

What struck me most while watching this was the number of songs that actually had really relevant messages. Jay-Z's Hard Knock Life may use a sample from Annie but it's really a story about the hard knock life of the 'hood. When you get into N.W.A and Public Enemy, these songs were all about the hard life of poverty stricken neighborhoods and the oppression faced by African Americans.

I'm aware that there are current songs that have messages and all but what's important to note is that these rap songs were mainstream popular, Billboard 100 singles.

The SO went to LA Rising to see Muse and Rage Against the Machine so I went to Youtube to watch some RATM songs. I absolutely love RATM. I saw them in 1999 right before they broke up and I still consider them my favorite rap/rock band. RATM is all about left wing activism and sticking it to the man.

Killing in the name of ends with the chant "F*!k you I won't do what you tell me" An angry outburst that signifies our refusal to follow the norms of society and promotes individual expressionism.

You know what's popular right now? #1 on the Billboard 100 is Party Rock Anthem. The inspiring and deep lyrics of the song are such.

Party rock is in the house tonight

Everybody just have a good timeAnd we gonna make you lose your mind

We just wanna see ya shake that

In the club party rock, lookin' for your girl? She on my jock

Nonstop when we in the spot, booty movin' weight like she on the block

Where the drank? I gots to know, tight jeans, tattoo 'cause I'm rock 'n' roll

Half black, half white, domino, game the money, op-a-doe

I feel like this ties in with the continual discussion of the age of entitlement that has set in. To summarize, researchers and academics have characterized a growing sentiment by the millenials (those born between the 1980's and 1990's) that they deserve everything and don't need to work hard for it. Self-fulfillment is more important than anything else. This coincides very well with the onslaught of rap and pop songs that laud the glamorous party life artists lead. Pop champagne bitches! Hell, this even coincides with the glut of reality TV in the mid 2000's that catered towards showcasing the wealth and riches of celebrities. MTV Cribs. Real Housewives etc.

Our generation has lost the ability to look into the problems that people face. Before, we used music and art to bring to light the ills and injustices of society. Nowadays the focus is on making it rich and getting the F out of the 'hood. But really, what am I to say. I'm a guy that was raised in a nice suburban community where people had pools and tennis courts in their backyard. I can only lament that as a generation we've lost the ability to translate the important messages in our society into meaningful prose that could move millions.

Encapsulate your relationship in 2 minutes

2011-07-31T08:23:00.001-07:00

Every Argument Every Couple Ever Has EVER. from Casey Donahue on Vimeo.

I love Bill Nye

2011-07-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

His facial expression as he realizes he's talking to a moron is hilarious. *Deep breath* Science is good for you Fox News.

Not a chameleon

2011-07-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

I pride myself on being able to adapt to almost every situation. Being the small Asian man I can usually blend into the background and not really "stand" out.

For the very first time in my life I came across a situation where I felt so out of place I didn't know what to do.

Last Sunday I had dinner with my roommate from UM-Ross and his gf. After catching up with them and gorging myself on all you can eat pizza it was decided to have a drink at their go to Brazilian bar.

Trudging across 14th street past Broadway, 6th and then finally near 9th avenue we stopped outside a indiscriminate looking bar. No real sign outside but the bouncer and doorman gave away the fact that this was indeed a bar. So far nothing out of the ordinary. Descending down the steps and to the bar my eyes cast a glance across the bar area. Something was off.

All the girls seemed really tall. I'm not tall by any means but these girls made me feel Lilliputian. What the hell. All the girls were ridiculously beautiful. Tall, beautiful girls at a Brazilian hangout. I was starting to do the math in my head when my roommate, noticing my bug eyed look, said to me casually, "This is where all the Brazilian models hang out." Oh. My. God.

I stood there by the bar and watched my roommate and his gf chat up the crowd. It seemed like they knew everybody in there. Surreal. Look over to the side. Hey, that guy looks familiar. Oh it's international soccer star Thierry Henry WTF.

The samba music boomed in the bar and I couldn't stop thinking that this was nuts. This is a world SO outside my normal social network that I just felt starstruck and dumbfounded or dumbstruck. I've heard that places like this exist but it was always part of some bad TMZ article so I kinda blew it off as society merely creating these fantasy worlds to support their celebrity worship. This was real. I got into a quick chat with one of my roommate's gf's friend and asked her "Are you a model too? Why of course she is. How stupid of me to even ask.

I don't belong in bars like this. My self confidence can't take beatings like that when everyone, male and female, is perfectly proportioned and looked like they came out of a Diesel ad. I think I'm happy with my $5 Bud Lights at TGIF and slightly rotund men in their khakis and polos. But, I guess if there's ever another opportunity it would be rude for me to say no. You know, Brazilian hospitality and all.

Did I mention it was hot in NYC

2011-07-24T13:40:00.001-07:00

This is happening. Well, I guess even if it wasn't hot this could still happen.

I'm melting

2011-07-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

It's hot. It's so hot that as I look outside there's nary a soul walking on the streets.

The last 3 days in NYC we've seen record temperatures. Hot enough that the government issued an extreme heat warning. This dog sums up the feelings of New Yorkers.

Car hot? Let the Japanese take care of it

2011-07-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

Translation

Hot car?
Open passenger side window
Open and close drivers door 5-6 times.
Instantly cool
Look around to see if anyone was watching you do an uncool thing.
No one around? Stay cool.

Getting punched in the face

2011-07-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

Living in NYC is seriously like getting kicked in the face repeatedly. It's just sensory overload all the time. From the ridiculous amounts of people walking around, car horns, fire trucks, police sirens and random bums yelling all over the place it just seems like there's something going on all the time and that's just on my walk to and from work.

Add in the bars, restaurants and social scene it really is a go-go-go place. I can see why people really enjoy the pace of life here and how they truly feel alive. I spent some time in LA two weekends ago and while I truly enjoyed my relaxing lunch on an outdoor terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I couldn't help but feel like my brain was going to mush from the lack of stimuli.

Never have I been more aware of the difference between the East Coast and West Coast. I love LA because of its casual, relaxed feel. I love NYC because I feel like I'm part of an extended washing cycle. NYC being the washer and all its inhabitants being the dirty clothes just tumbling around and around.

I know I'm gonna get tired of NYC and look longingly at those shots of Santa Monica and downtown LA when they show Lakers games. Until then its back in the washer I go.

This is absolutely hilarious.....

2011-07-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

if you're from LA and particularly, the Westside.

Dun Dun Duuunnnnn

2011-07-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

I'm getting married in September. This wedding has always seemed so far away. We got engaged 2 years ago right before I was to head off to ESADE. A bit of planning here. A bit of planning there. It never really felt like there was this huge gigantic, life-changing event in front of us.

I got my tux today and tried it on. Bowtie and everything. Seeing myself in front of the mirror it finally hit me.

OMG I'M GETTING MARRIED?!!?!?!

Posting to resume once I return from my whirlwind LA weekend.

Corporate Social Responsibility aka Please Don't Hate our Company

2011-07-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

To combat the laziness I've been feeling lately, I turn to my blog to get the mental juices flowing.

Like many other corporate entities, to appease main street America, my company sponsors and organizes a city-wide community outreach event. It's mostly for PR boosting and to stop people from gathering their torches and pitchforks when prices are raised or god forbid, the company makes money. I guess our situation is not as bad as banks though. I highly doubt cosmetics caused the global financial crisis. More like a certain Calabasas-based mortgage firm, which is now part of an evil banking empire. I kid, I kid.

Anyways, our day starts off bright and early at 9:30 as I head off towards the Lower East Side Ecology center, part of the 52 acre East River Park system.

Walking along the East River Park is actually quite nice as long as you don't mind a freaking highway right next to you.

Nothing like a 6 lane highway next to your park. Only in NYC.

In our company provided free t-shirts we were a noticeable group in the park. Ready to do some volunteer work. There were like 5 activities to choose from. Painting a mural. Planting trees. Weeding and planting. Mending fences. I figured the LES eco center didn't want a Picasso-esque (not in a good way) mural I chose to weed and plant a garden.

An even scarier, crappier version of that would be what a drawing of a girl would look like if painted by yours truly. Seriously, I got a C in sculpture in high school.

All activities were grouped into small teams of 10 and thus I headed off with my team. As usual, I was the only male on the team. It is very different working in a mostly female company. Now that I think about it, over the last week I've been in about 8 big meetings, of which there were probably only about 6 males total across all meetings. I can't pinpoint exactly what is different but it's definitely not like my old job where there were no females working except for admin. Anyways,

As the first stage of our activity was weeding, we were told what to yank out and what not to. Amongst those pictured above is the one you're not supposed to yank out. I'm glad they made it painfully obvious for us city-folk.

We got lucky and the weather was beautiful. I was a bit worried because the week prior to this we had a couple of days of 100+ degree days. With the Williamsburg bridge in the background it made the day quite enjoyeable.

I wish I had taken a before picture because it was pretty crappy. Weeds everywhere and there was no semblance of a real garden but we turned it into an area worthy of our overall city beautification project.

After 4 hours of hard, physical labor it was time for me to head home.

Along the way I passed under the Williamburg bridge. Apparently one of the few free bridges connecting Manhattan to the outlying boroughs.

In this shot you can actually see the UN building. It's the white rectangular building.

I found this neat trail but it was only like this for about 100 feet. I can't figure out why they built such a small section. I guess by Manhattan standards this is like Yellowstone though. Old Faithful replicated by the homeless gentlemen peeing all over the place while yelling obscenities at me. I love NY.

So this weekend it's back to LA to celebrate the wedding of one of my closest friends. I'm only gonna be in LA for about 40 hours so it'll be filled to the brim with stuff. Exciting.

TODAY IS OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

2011-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th everyone.

Oh the horror our kids face

2011-07-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

The younger generations are growing up to be gigantic pu!%^es.

Glad that even that the lowest demographic of internet social network, youtube commenters emphatically dislike it as well.

Summer TV isn't all crap

2011-06-26T21:03:00.001-07:00

It's like 99% crap but the 1% that's cool is pretty legit.

The weirdest combo

2011-06-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a seminar and networking session organized by the ESADE New York Chapter. The seminar was on the changes in communication methods brought about by the digital age. Pretty interesting stuff but what I somehow honed in on was this topic about how messages travel.

Another alumni mentioned how certain messages are somewhat nebulous in nature and how Obama's political slogan of "Hope" was a perfect example of how such a message is quite strong.

We live in a day where we are constantly force-fed messages and slogans. The constant input of messages from corporations and public figures are designed so that the message is ingrained into our brains. McDonalds: I'm Loving it. George Bush. No New Taxes. But, these aren't powerful, lasting messages. They are catchy phrases that cater towards the lowest common denominator.

What happens with these generic, mass produced messages is that it creates a lack of attachment to the message. People do not identify themselves with the message. They identify the message with the person or business, but that's it.

What is great about messages like Obama's Hope slogan is that a simple message like that can be analyzed and individualized for a person. I will hear the message of Hope and immediately create imagery and scenario that will match what Obama's Hope is supposed to entail. You will do the same. Every person who has hope for the future, unless you're a stone-cold robot, will craft a story about how Hope fits into their lives. You now believe that Obama will bring Hope, whatever that is. A simple message has transcended into a powerful, meaningful, personal story for each and every person who hears those words.

The SO is gonna once again think that I'm a closet Twilight fan, but Stephanie Meyer does the same thing with the Twilight series. The Oatmeal did a brilliant analysis of Twilight stating how Edward Cullen is painstakingly described while Bella is a shell of a character, which is exactly what makes Twilight so popular with girls. Because Bella is such a shell, girls can live vicariously through her and be with Edward. They live the romance, they live the angst, they live the godawful vampire-werewolf-Volturi-human ~~crap~~ story.

The danger with these types of messages/stories is the lack of cohesiveness. What one message/story means to one person will not be consistent with another person's interpretation. A weak link amongst the message receivers. But, as the message grows and spreads, people identify with the other people who have heard the message or read the story. Hey, you've read the book. Hey, you're an Obama supporter. What brought you together was the original message. What strengthened the bond was that you had your own identification with that message and are now believers of the message. A collective.

I can't believe I just connected Obama to Twilight. I'll never be a respected writer.

Reliving my childhood one video at a time

2011-06-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

Thanks to AC who forwarded me this youtube clip.

Hoping to provide all you oldies with fond memories.

Happy Father's Day!!

2011-06-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

The pops and I are gonna get our seafood and steak on in a couple of hours. We keeping it manly fo' sho'.

Couple of videos to pass away a lazy Father's Day Sunday.

Sadly this actually makes me miss West LA. I guess I'll always be a SoCal kid no matter what. Westsiiiiiiide bitches

Crazy Japanese and their sandwiches. How do you say sandwich in Japanese? It's actually just sandwich just said with a Japanese accent. Sandowichi.

I miss 80's and 90's sitcoms

2011-06-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I'm pretty sure if I rewatch old sitcoms like Perfect Strangers or Family Matters I'll realize they aren't that great. Maybe they are though? I'd rather not find out and keep that sense of nostalgia so I can always tell the young whippersnappers how sucky their generation is.

In any case, found this youtube clip of The Office recut as an 80s/90s sitcom. It's perfect.

So after watching this I went on youtube to hunt down the intros from my favorite shows of my childhood. No particular order.

I'd post more but embedding has been disabled on a bunch of the shows. I was hoping to put up Alf and Saved by the Bell but couldn't find a good video. God I miss my childhood.

Don't question my sexuality

2011-06-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

I love musicals. The production, the costumes, the music. It's really quite fabulous. I've seen Miss Saigon, Les Mis (LA and London productions), The Phantom of the Opera, Damn Yankees, Lion King, Wicked, Spamalot. Now that I live in NYC I really hope to catch more.

Thank god NPH let everyone know Broadway is not just for gays anymore because I was starting to get worried.

OVERLOAD OF CUTENESS

2011-06-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

Stuff like this makes me look forward to being a dad.

The start of my metrosexual-ness

2011-06-11T11:32:00.001-07:00

I just added the Kiehls tinted moisturizer with SPF 15 to my morning routine and three nights a week I use the Kiehl's Epidermal Re-Texturizing Micro-Dermabrasion to get "smooth, radiant skin".

This might get out of hand very quickly.

No, I am not plugging my company's products...

Return to sender

2011-06-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

I've been busy getting adjusted to my new job and other related and unrelated crap. Life's been good in NYC but it's hectic. Maybe I'll have more time in the future but this summer may be pretty minimal in decent blog content. So you're left with random internet crap.

If my kid ever did this I may just send him back to the manufacturer. I mean come on...

I promise its not disappointing

2011-06-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

For Windows users

Click on My Computer
Click on C:
Click on WINDOWS
Click on Media
Click on onestop
Listen

Just trust me.

The intersection of God and Marriage

2011-05-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

I am not religious. The SO jokes that if I put my finger in holy water, the water would start bubbling. I sometimes call the Holy Bible the greatest fiction story ever told. That's the kind of non-religious person I am.

The SO on the other hand is fairly religious. She's been baptized and did her First Communion, Confirmation and Reconciliation. Thus, we're getting married in a Catholic Church.

I really have nothing against religion. Before I was staunchly against organized religion and felt that it was used as a system of power to oppress and subdue the masses. This was partly driven by my History education, which gave me numerous examples of Church utilizing their God-vested powers to subjugate and exploit the uneducated masses. Having met the SO, talked to her about religion and attended several Masses my views have changed. I feel that religion, more specifically, faith is actually quite helpful. It serves to provide values in a person's life, offers support in times of stress and pressure and provides a community of friends who are more than willing to provide aid in times of need. Anyways, I'll still never really be religious so I was quite anxious when I had to attend....

I don't even know why I was anxious. It was probably because I wasn't sure what we were gonna do for the 44 hours we were supposed to be there. Were they gonna try to brainwash us? Was this some sort of secret cult meeting? What kind of food were they gonna serve? Jesus cakes?

So we got there and didn't realize there were gonna be so many people. 58 couples attended our session and they came from all over LA County. We met couples from Pasadena, the Valley, Palmdale, etc. How uur accommodations were gonna be was another big question.

Turns out the DePaul Center is?/was? a large seminary so they had two buildings that were dorms. This was my "room". They had like 20 of these pod like rooms on each wing of the building with the bathrooms/showers in the middle. There is no ceiling above my room so you can hear the wonderful cacophony of sounds from all your other male dorm mates. Luckily our wing did not have crazy loud snorers.

The hallways of our dorm looked like this. Hence, I did not go to the bathroom in the middle of the night for fear of A) seeing a tiny little girl standing at the end of the hallway B) a skeletal zombie hand shooting out of the curtains C) a priest standing there waiting for me (I kid, I kid)

The days were filled with all kinds of talk with topics like "How to Argue Fairly", "Natural Family Planning", etc. Basically the weekend is designed to get you to open up to your SO and discuss how you feel, what your expectations are and how much you love each other. Of course this openness does lead to issues and we heard from another couple that the previous week 3 couples left after the first day after they realized they weren't ready for marriage. Kudos for them. Better that they realize this now than after they're married. Although the thought of losing all of our deposits makes me think maybe divorce is cheaper. Do you have to return wedding gifts if you get divorced? Haha...

The SO is just as bad as I am at taking things seriously so we weren't the best participants in this engaged encounter. Partly because we've discussed a lot of the big issues such as kids, financial management, living arrangements, parent care, etc. so no big issues came about. The only time I saw her genuinely excited and interested was when she heard the ice cream truck go by. I've never seen that girl run faster.

I don't even know what that is. It's like radioactive ice cream. I'm never feeding my kids this. Only organic, soy ice cream with no preservatives and non-natural ingredients. Haha jk. Go ahead offspring. All the chemicals only make you stronger.

The one thing we did discuss that we have never talked about was "What do we do if we can't have kids" Scary thought but I'm glad that the weekend encounter made us think about our contingency plans if this ever happened: We're adopting.

In the end the encounter was pretty enlightening. The SO called it couples therapy since there was a lot of clapping, group discussions and people opening up about their feelings for each other. I also realized that the Bible really was like Pirate Code, they're more what'd you call guidelines than actual rules. The influence of religion on this whole encounter weekend was fairly minimal. Yes, they had Mass and they did suggest to pray as the first step before making a decision. Other than that, it wasn't intrusive. I'm glad.

Marriage is a scary thing. It's supposed to be a union of two lives FOREVER. Seems pretty crazy when you think about it. FOREVER. I can't emphasize this enough. F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

After this weekend encounter and now more than ever, I feel like marriage is just a giant problem solving case. It's a continuous series of questions that are thrown at a couple. How successful they are in solving those problems is how well their marriage will work. Who will take care of the kids? Where will we live? How are we going to afford this? When will we decide that our kid is just leeching off us and not providing any benefit (question my parents ask themselves) Why did I marry you?

It's why, to put it realistically, you need a good teammate and a partner. One who is smart, capable and flexible enough to work through all the issues life throws at you. The care and affection that you have for each other just makes you want to work harder together to make things work. But, in the end, the forward progression of marriage and life cannot be made without those decisions made with your partner. I'm hoping that our marriage is more like Warren Buffet's management committee and less like Enron.

This is so intense I couldn't watch it all the way through

2011-05-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

You gotta admire good writers and crazy eyebrows

2011-05-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

And I also found this....

Worky worky

2011-05-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally returned to the workforce. My 2.5 year vacation is over and I've got a lifetime of work ahead of me. During orientation today I learned that I wouldn't be receiving my retirement benefits until 2045. That sounds so far into the future it's kinda depressing. By then we better have hologram conference calls and flying pod people movers. I want to spend my pension and 401k money on cool stuff that I'll probably complain about while telling my grandchildren that we had it so much better thirty years ago.

Anyways, I'm still too lazy to write up a post about the Catholic Engaged Encounter Weekend so here's an ad from Target where Asian Americans aren't doing kung-fu or driving badly or other stereotypical things.

Crazy Japanese games

2011-05-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

The name of the game, translated literally, is Knock Down the Pole. Boutaoshi

My kind of dad

2011-05-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

Stay At Home Dad Channel
Tags: Atom.com | Funny Videos | Tournament | Upload

Hipsters, PBR and a wedding

2011-05-18T14:57:00.000-07:00

Hipsters. They seem to be everywhere these days. Drinking their PBR and smoking American Native cigarettes. They condescendingly reply that they first heard Arcade Fire when they played in some grungy bar in Brooklyn after you excitedly ask them if they've heard of that new band Arcade Fire. They love taking pictures of their fixed gear bike on their iPhones using the Hipstamatic app. It's analog but still digital. So hip.

I don't loathe hipsters or hate them. I find the whole movement funny. I understand that like many other sub-cultures such as goth, punk, skater, etc. hipsters want to disassociate themselves from mass culture because mass culture is uncool and definitely not hip. Ironically, the hipster movement has shifted into the mainstream. Stores like Urban Outfitters and American Apparel cater to hipsters with their striped shirts, cardigans and vintage looking sweaters. You know you've gone mainstream when you have an entire hotel dedicated towards your niche group but the main point of this post was not a discourse in the hipster movement but to go over my Palm Springs wedding weekend.

Wedding season is upon us. The first wedding of the summer was for my two UCLA friends and took place at Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. When I first saw that they were getting married at Ace Hotel I thought it was a perfect location for them. Very cool and hip. Something that the SO and I are not so we were intrigued as to what hip people do and like. As noted in the previous paragraphs, hipsters (I'll use the term loosely here) like retro stuff. Well the Ace Hotel is quite retro. It was an old Howard Johnson motel that was updated to its current iteration. Some of the words used to describe the hotel are "minimalist", "desert chic", "hip", and "cool". I'll let the pictures....and my commentary do the talking. Nice looking pictures courtesy of another wedding guest.

Wood signage. Wood is so hip now. So organic and natural.

So faded. So cool.

The commune. Hipsters apparently share interests with the hippies.

For 159 bucks a night I expected a bit more from our room. I did love the bed though. The mattress was incredibly comfy.

I thought sepia tone would make the room look cooler. It just looks dirtier.

Retro radio/alarm clock.Still has the hookups for the iPod though. Can't be hip without an Apple product.

Snacks. I thought I took a picture of the $30 box wine they had as part of the room's drink bar. Guess my camera refused to take part in the irony of it.

It's a USPS mail bag turned into a laundry bag. It's hip to recycle.

The wedding itself was simply beautiful and it was great to see old UCLA friends again.

The wedding took place in the "commune". I'm simply amazed that no one fell into the pool. The other cool part of the commune building was that the entire glass side of the building opened up like a garage door. I want something like that for my future house....when I can afford it in like 40 years.

The food was simply amazing. It was served family style and there was more than enough food for everyone. We ate lunch, dinner and then another lunch at Ace Hotel and each meal was really delicious. Of course, all food was locally sourced and/or organic. I swear hipsters are like hippies with more money, equally horrible fashion sense, and a disdain for the "establishment" whatever that means.

Seeing the newly wedded couple enjoying their first dance while a slideshow of old UCLA pictures played in the background was quite surreal. It's been over ten years since I first met my UCLA friends and now a decade later we were gathered to celebrate a marriage. Simply amazing when you think about life, growing up and getting older.

So when we were checking out I saw this flyer for an event taking place at the hotel. If you can't read the flyer it says...

"Happening every full moon 6:00PM to 9:00PM on the Moroccan Patio. Desert Rhythms Drum Circle Courtesy of Crystal Fantasy"

Yeah....I definitely don't belong here.

All in all a wonderful wedding and the SO and I got to feel cool for a fleeting moment. Upon returning back to LA we went back to our bland, traditional ways. It felt good to be home.

I don't know if they'll let me take pictures but this weekend is the Engaged Encounter Weekend. Yay for Catholic church administered marriage counseling. The SO reassures me that this is just one weekend and it won't kill me. Yeah and the Spanish Inquisition was just so that the church could talk to certain people.

When I have kids this is what I'll be doing with their toys

2011-05-16T12:00:00.001-07:00

As funny as the Avatar/Pocahontas connection

2011-05-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

"For over two decades, Kenobi has been the Jedi rebellion’s leader and symbol,” the Lord of the Sith said in a statement broadcast across the galaxy via HoloNet. “The death of Kenobi marks the most significant achievement to date in our empire’s effort to defeat the rebel alliance. But his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that the rebellion will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi is Dead says Lord Vader

Vegas Bachexoplosion

2011-05-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

My college buddy is getting married in July. Like any red-blooded West Coast male, he decided that Vegas would be where the debauchery would happen. The goal of the weekend, to mourn the loss of another brother to the soul-sucking shackles of married life. Just kidding....

We got suites at the Vdara Hotel. Simply amazing hotel room and I'll recommend this hotel to everyone. The only downside is that the hotel doesn't have a casino on-site but all you have to do is walk over to Aria and you've got 150,000 sq.ft of casino floor where you can lose your paycheck 15x over.

The hallway leading going past the dining room and heading to the living room.

The dining room. Seating for 4 or at least 1 tiger.

Our suite had a 270 degree view of Vegas but it was the crappy part of Vegas without the fake Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Great Pyramids, etc. Hmm...maybe it was the better part of Vegas.

The suite was 811 sq. foot, so can comfortably fit about 3 of the NYC apartments that are in my price range. Depressing.

Rub a dub dub. A tub. With a view.

In case you needed to get the stripper tears, baby lotion, hooker blood off your clothing they had a washer/dryer. It may or may not have been used over the course of the trip.

Friday night we all got in and did some bachelor stuff for the rest of the night. You know, just good 'ole fashioned clean bachelor fun.

The first manly activity of Saturday was to shoot guns. In "I hate freedom" California, we can't have automatic weapons but Nevada loves America and its Constitution so we were allowed to fire automatic rifles.

The wall o' guns.

The cabinet o' handguns. For the ladies they had some pink guns for sale. It's funny because it's so cute but yet so deadly. Like a baby with ebola.

In one of the Vegas coupon books they had this Get Dirty in Vegas experience. Since it's Get Dirty for kids it's a literal Get Dirty and not a "Get Dirty" it involved bulldozers and other construction equipment. The joke was that they were making people pay to do the leftover construction work for City Center.

The bachelor taking aim at the target. He's got an AK-47 in his hands and danger is his middle name.

He promises it was self defense.

I chose to shoot the M-16. Even though I live in America, home of the free and land of the guns I've never shot a gun before. I figured, well if I'm gonna shoot something might as well shoot something cool.

Look at that grouping. All those years playing Call of Duty actually translated into something.

Later that night we headed over towards Lagasse Stadium to watch UFC 129.

We got a nice little corner area and proceeded to devour $762 worth of bar food and alcohol. It was spectacular. After that it was off to Lavo nightclub. By sheer luck we got a table right next to a bachelorette party and I definitely have to thank them for making the evening fun for the bachelor and friends. The funniest part of the night for me was when some dude walks up to me and asked, "So, are you guys internet millionaires or finance guys." Since most of us worked in some area of finance, I answered "Finance". He replied, "Sweet. I bet my friend that you guys worked in Finance." Sweet. So added to the myth of Asians are good at math, have Tiger moms and can't drive we can add we all work in finance or on the intarweb.

The bachelor party ended successfully and without a casualty. We didn't lose the bachelor or mistakenly kidnap a small, naked Asian man. We did make some great memories, eat tons of greasy food and feel more manly than masculinely possible. Vegas is the wonderland of bachelor parties. I can't wait to go back.

The gears are slowly turning

2011-05-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

Lot happened this weekend. Was in Vegas for a bachelor party (not mine) and then on my JetBlue flight home found out about Osama's capture/death. Big stuff for my brain to process. Vegas party post will come tomorrow so stay tuned. Don't worry it's rated PG-13 for mild violence, crude language and adult humor. The NC-17 version will only be available to select audiences via Director's commentary and in Real 3-D aka real life.

I'm a master of packing

2011-04-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

I'm back to packing again. Tomorrow I leave Ann Arbor and close another chapter in my MBA trek. It's the final chapter as now I have to head into the real world. Scary stuff.

As I look back over the last two years, a lot of crap happened. Lately though, I'm thinking about how this process has really molded my perspective. First, I need to acknowledge that I'm blessed that I was able to have the financial ability and understanding of everyone around me to partake in my grand adventures.

My dad has been really good at reminding me to live life without regret. Hell, he was the one that told me to buy the S2000 because once I have kids it'll all be over. So it was with that same mentality I decided to go abroad to try to fulfill my dream of living and working in Europe. It was a gamble but I never wanted to look back on my life and think to myself, why didn't I do that?

I had a handful of offers for full-time employment. Two offers were very safe options. Good pay, good visibility, decent geographic locations and an opportunity to be within an MBA leadership development program. I didn't go with those and ended up choosing an international finance rotation program for a cosmetics company. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. 1) I didn't really want to be back in Finance 2) I don't really know where the company will send me after my 2 year rotation is over in NYC and 3) cosmetics?!? but deep down inside I knew this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to work abroad and utilize the cultural knowledge imparted on me while in business school.

Life is full of the expected. People always tell you what you should do and what you shouldn't do. Go to college, make a stable living, have a family and live your life accordingly. But, why do the things that everyone expects you to do? We all hate labels but we have an overwhelming urge to normalize ourselves. Risk management is so critical in our daily lives that it clouds our thinking. The Chairman of AIG visited our class the other day and his parting words to us were to do something you're passionate about or have fun doing. Do something that pushes your boundaries and makes you feel alive." With risk management, we dilute the passion and substitute it for the comfort of stability. I applaud all those people who pursued their passion. Mine was history and I never could push myself to be a history professor. It just wasn't the safe choice.

But, our passion, our gambles, our failures and our successes comes through our pursuit to push ourselves beyond our boundaries and that is how we learn and develop. Hmm....I feel like I just wrote a response for my previous post. I might be bi-polar.

Hamster in a loop

2011-04-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

A typical argument with the SO pans out as follows:

I say something that upsets her.
I don't really catch on to the fact that she's annoyed.
I do catch on but now am annoyed that she's annoyed over what I consider petty things.
She gets upset
I get defensive
She gets irritated and hangs up/leaves.
We realize we are stuck with each other, apologize and move on.

I was thinking about how this relates to personal development. I would say 98% of our arguments follow that path. I know what I need to do differently and change, yet somehow each time it follows the same pathway. You could argue that only the general framework is the same and that each issue is actually different, but I don't think that's true.

So, if I know what needs to be done and how I can fix things why don't I? I don't know.

In my leadership development classes, transnational manager classes, negotiation strategy classes, pretty much any soft skill classes we learn the academics and the framework to be a better leader, negotiation, manager, etc. We practice with live cases, role playing and other introspective exercises. At the end, given that we know what we can improve and what we should strive for, we should be able to develop. But is that even possible? So many times I've found myself thinking, "You know, I should fix that about myself" and then realize that I'm seemingly back to my old habits.

Our negotiation strategy professor did an amazing exercise. In our last class, after we've gone through 7 weeks of pretty intense mock negotiation cases and exercises we thought we knew it all. We no longer had a fixed pie mentality and were brimming with ideas of value creation. She asked us to do one final negotiation exercise. With our partner sitting next to us, we were asked to get ourselves into arm wrestling positions. Whoever got the other person's hand to touch the table wins a piece of chocolate. When she said "Go" I immediately tried to strong arm my partner to get him to "lose". I didn't and thought that was it. Actually, she never said we both couldn't win. She never said we had to use strength to get the other person to lose. We could just go back and forth, both "lose" and get pieces of chocolate.

I just spent 7 weeks and in the end, I felt like I hadn't learned anything. It's the age old concept of strategy is one thing, implementation is another.

Things like this really make me wonder. Is personal development really possible? Can we change who we've become? Years and years of culture, external influences and biases have crafted us into who we are. We know what the traits of leaders are but if we didn't have those traits before, can you develop them? Emotional self-awareness is one thing but once you realize that you're doing something wrong can you change it? It's a tough call. Maybe we're just stuck being who we are, for better or for worse, and hope for the best.

I hope my professor understands my humor

2011-04-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

We have to write a journal for our leadership class. I figured, why not make it interesting and wrote this journal entry for February 14th, 2011.

February 14, 2011

It is Valentine’s Day and personal leadership examples abound. In a way the qualities of an ideal partner is akin to the qualities of good leader. Well at least to me it does.

Create a vision: What do you want from the relationship? Is it marriage or a long-term relationship?

Clarify big picture: Do you want kids too? Can I be a stay at home dad?

Set strategies: So how are we going to make this happen? Do we have dinner/drinks. Go to Vegas to elope?

Communicate: I’d like to know what is going on instead of just “nothing”

Seek commitment: Pretty self-explanatory

Build teams and coalitions: I want you to become friends with my friends and vice versa.

Inspire and energize: I don’t want a person who is boring and not active. Interests have to align and I have to be energized every time I am with you

Empower subordinates. If we are now married then as the subordinate I’d like some power. Xbox/golf every 3^rd Saturday

Satisfy unmet needs: Self explanatory

I think my biological clock is ticking

2011-04-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

Finding all these kid-related vids lately on Reddit. Kids are only cool when you can return them once they're not cute, smelly or crying.

This may be my favorite Family Guy clip ever.

2011-04-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

Family Guy vs. Street Fighter

They got everything down perfectly. Oh...those many hours playing Street Fighter II. Gotta place the quarters on the cabinet to get your spot in line.

My list of blogs to read grows

2011-04-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

I'm Asian. I'm Asian-American. I'm American. Whatever I am, it's sometimes confusing to be not white in America. Anyways, to relieve my identity angst in a non-Twilight way, I read Angry Asian Man.

Good way to remind myself who I am and what's going on in AA land. Funny, because the Caucasian equivalent of this would be a KKK website. This is Ameri-cuh. Land of the free and home of the white man's fear of antagonizing the minorities.

Why is the Dark Side so enticing?

2011-04-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

VW had an awesome ad with a mini Vader....it seems that more and more are tempted by the Dark Side.

The story of how Bizzle met his SO

2011-04-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

Why do I have this video on my blog? Well, get yourselves comfortable folks because I have a story for you...

September 2004. It was my first job out of college and I was excited to be part of the Deloitte team. It was the first week of training and from 9-5 we were barraged with the do's and don'ts of our new jobs. Amidst all this we had icebreakers and other get to know you type activities. We had one game where we had to tell 1 truth and 2 lies. Fun game. My truth was that I was in a music video back in college. I'll save that story for another time.

Anyways, people in my class had actually seen the video and we got to talking about it. The not an SO at this point SO said to me "oh cool you were famous" or something of that sort. Supposedly I curtly replied "I know" (SO's version of the story). I don't recollect saying that to her but I also thought she was an Ice Queen due to my previous interaction with her. Great start to our friendship.

The Friday before we were to head off to NorCal for our off-site training, we were warned by our HR team to not be that guy/gal. You know that person. The person who does something foolish or stupid and becomes known only for that act. Oh yeah I know XXX. Wasn't he the one that barfed on the partner? I didn't think much of it and just laughed at the people stupid enough to become known as "that guy/gal"

Tuesday night. Oh, I distinctly remember being in that hotel room and drinking up a storm. Apparently I was shouting at everyone. It was a good time. That night. Not a good time. I spent the entire evening in my bathroom throwing up.

8am. Somehow I made it to our class. For the past 3 days I've been at a table of 4 that included the future SO. Today was the same. Well, not really the same, because I was ridiculously hungover when I got to class and my body felt wrecked. I desperately tried not to be "that guy". 8:40. We start our first group assignment. I forget what it was but I remember I was tired and I needed to yawn. Staring at the ceiling, I yawned as wide as I could. My brain needed oxygen. Ahh. Yawn over and feeling a bit better.

Wait. How come my mouth won't close. The brief bit of panic turned into chaos in my brain. What was going on? Why won't my mouth close. I didn't hear anything pop or break. It's just stuck open. I tried to keep cool and massaged my jaw right under my ear. Maybe it was out of place? Pushing it left and right didn't do anything. My tablemates were engrossed in their work. Damn them and their working jaws. For 5 desperate minutes I tried everything to get my jaws to move. Nothing. Won't go up or down.

It was time for action. I bolted to the assistant proctor and tried to explain my situation. Well, have you tried to talk to a person without being able to move your jaw? Yeah you end up sounding like that girl. "Uah. Uah. Uah." To this day I thank god the proctor immediately asked. "Are you okay? Is something wrong with your jaw?" An enthusiastic head nod along with another "Uah!" was all I could do.

They rushed me to the lead proctor and "Dean" of the training. The situation was immediately explained and I was rushed to hospital via hotel shuttle bus. I thought the worst was over.

I sat in the waiting room for about 2 hours while the doctors were helping other people. I sat there next to the Dean with my mouth agape, reeking of alcohol and looking like shit. By this time my mouth had completely dried up. The beauty of the situation was that by now I wasn't feeling hungover anymore. I guess panic and fear causes your body to normalize itself pretty quickly.

After about 2.5 hours I was ushered into the emergency room where I waited another 15 minutes until the doctor came over. The doctor casually walked over and started asking me questions. "Is your jaw stuck? How did it happen? While eating? Yawning?" By this time I didn't bother trying to vocalize my thoughts. Gestures would suffice. The doctor started talking about how this happens to people eating burgers all the time and that once your jaw becomes dislocated, it's easy for it to happen again. DISLOCATED. How embarrassing. I just managed to dislocate my jaw by yawning. That's like hurting yourself in a padded room.

The doctor slipped on some gloves and stuck his thumbs into my mouth. He pushed down gently and my jaw popped back into place. The first words out of my mouth were "Thank you so much Dr. That feels so much better" After 3.5 hours, FREEEEDOOOMMMMM.

I headed back to class and had to explain my story to my tablemates. For the rest of the training session I had to tell my story. Over and over again. My story became widely known throughout the class. Did it hurt? What was it like? Why did you yawn so big? Throughout all this I had become "that guy".

In the end did I win the heart of my SO with my antics? No. Actually her thought was what a dork. Ah, yes the seed had been planted. The seed had been planted...

They make this look so easy

2011-04-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

ESADE Graduation Weekend - non sentimental version

2011-04-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Now that I've gotten the hokey sentimental stuff out of the way it's time to review the ESADE graduation weekend. Quick ad from our sponsors of this trip. Dad Inc. "Please. Get a job son. "A message brought to you by Dad Inc.

And back from our commercial break. My dad was in the midst of his busy season so couldn't attend so it was just me and my mom for this trip. My mom lamented that this would probably be the last time we'd travel just the two of us. I think the only thing that would cheer her up these days would be a grandchild. I fear her guilt-tripping is enough to accidentally cause a pregnancy.

In any case, as my parents had already come to visit me in Barcelona last November we saw no need to stay in town. The first full day we had we were off to Girona, a town about an hour outside of Barcelona.

The Onyar River cuts through Girona and separates the old town from the new town. Very similar to how Prague is laid out. The river keeps the riff raff out and maintains the character of the city, mumbles the yuppie Gironian while drinking his PBR. Oh wait, that's Brooklyn.

Wedding table card holders. The fact that I even noticed these must mean I'm somewhat paying attention to my wedding planning.

Once you get into the old town the streets get narrower and the buildings get older. Yes, I realize this is obvious.

Some of the streets were pedestrian access only so it gave you the comfort of knowing you could look around without fear of getting run down by an irate Spaniard.

Duck-fish?

When we got there around 2pm the stores were shutting down for a siesta. The only stores open were restaurants so we decided to have lunch at Draps.

Funky-cool restaurant.

Everything was served family style but the servings were gigantic. We still finished the entire plate.

I went into an carb/olive oil induced food coma and forgot to take pictures of our main dish but gained consciousness in time for Catalan ice cream. It just tasted like cinnamon or as I like to call it Christmas-y

Cafe con leche with enough caffeine to jump start a car.

My guess is that during the weekends and holiday times Girona gets packed with people. Because RyanAir uses the nearby airport as their Barcelona gateway there apparently are a lot of stag/hen parties organized in Girona.

Architectural shots ahead.

The old city is like one giant Stairmaster. Those old Gironians must've had amazing glutes. I'm jelly.

The main attraction in...well any medieval city in Europe...the church. Built on the foundations of an old Roman temple, this current iteration still has portions dating from Roman times.

My mom blazing the trail.

Next to the church was this idling brook. It was very peaceful.

In America this would be 1) a lawsuit waiting to happen. 2) completely enclosed so that people wouldn't fall off the bridge or slip under the handrails and fall into the river and 3) have signs posted everywhere about the cobbly nature of the bridge. Darwin cries at the lack of population thinning.

My mom was amazed at this tree. I don't know what's so special about it but maybe I should have listened to her when she was telling me why.

Shot of the church and the surrounding gardens.

Wish I had taken an exterior shot but this is the Roman wall that surrounds the city. You can actually walk along the top of it.

I love lamp.

More lamps.

My mom insisted that I take a picture of this.

The day of our graduation was a typical beautiful Barcelona day.

After the official graduation ceremony we headed off to Hotel Arts to attend our graduation dinner. Because this is Spain our dinner was to start at 10pm.

11:15, when our entrée actually showed up. I got a beef dish that consisted of 5 slices of beef on top of salty risotto. At that point we were so hungry that people just gobbled up anything that was put in front of them. I'm surprised a riot didn't happen. The food was the only lowlight of our graduation activities.

The next day was a free day but I signed us up for calcotada. Everyone arrived to ESADE on time to head out to the restaurant. Amazing considering the previous night most of us were out till 6am.

Calcotada is the "gastronomical event held between the end of winter and March or April, where calçots are consumed massively." Calcots being green onions. Basically, it's a Catalan bbq.

The former barn/villa that has now been converted to a restaurant.

Our giant bus to accommodate the 41 people attending the Calcotada. The bus driver demonstrated amazing technical skills. The road leading up to the restaurant was probably only half a foot wider than the bus. Once we got there we broke out into applause because the driver managed not to kill us or destroy other vehicles.

That was the road that the bus had to navigate. Cars on both sides. If it wasn't a car on one side it was a cliff.

The Calcotada menu.

When i was uploading all my photos I noticed this menu was kinda odd. Why is the building burning? Is that the Eye of Sauron looking down upon us? The artist seems troubled. We just want some bbq man.

The gigantic pieces of bread they give you. Since the calcots are kinda all-you-can eat so the crafty restaurateurs made sure you got full from cheap carbs. Sunglasses to show scale.

The calcots finally arrived after about an hour.

The remnants of the calcots. You're supposed to peel the outer burnt layers of the calcots and eat the delicious inner portion. After the peeling it's dropped straight into the mouth for your consumption. Since the outer skin is burnt your fingers get all charcoal-y unless you wear gloves. I'm a real man so I didn't wear gloves. Definitely felt like I asserted my masculinity there.

View from the back terrace. The many different looks of Barcelona.

Of course the calcots weren't the only thing on the menu. This is a BBQ. This is Spain. THIS IS SPARTA!!

We had pork, lamb and mysterious sausages. It was delicious. The rest of the night was one long goodbye to all my classmates. Cramped into a tiny bar in El Born, we reminisced, talked about our futures and planned the next reunion. Just more memories to cap an amazing 2 years. I'll definitely miss everything about it.

Real life ahead.

ESADE Graduation Weekend

2011-04-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

The dream is over. For the past 2 years I've been shielded from the harsh realities of the real world and have been safely cocooned in the shelter of business school. From Barcelona to Ann Arbor, Michigan I've burrowed my head in studies, socializing and pontificating with my classmates about the failures of Spanish bocadillos. Now that I'm done, what did I learn? Well, in no particular order and in a very superficial introspective view.

I am absolutely lucky to have such a wonderful and amazing SO. She is everything I am not and more.
I am highly dependent on Japanese food to survive.
There's always a reason stereotypes exist. I'm looking at you, you Germans.
I cannot make a solid presentation without making people laugh.
You cannot beat a solid American/English breakfast as a way to cure a hangover.
Spanish food is only good for about 3 weeks. After that you just get bored of eating oily, salty food.
Apres ski. My new favorite thing.
The Midwest is freaking cold. Really freaking cold. Think cold and multiply that by 100.
I've retained a bare minimum of academic knowledge from my classes. This includes my classes at Ross. I was never a good student.
Life sometimes just works out. There really is no sense in freaking out and obsessing over the details. Gotta adapt to the changes and just maintain that big picture view and prioritize your needs/wants.

Over the course of the past 1.5 years my ESADE classmates and I have gone through a lot. "Moral hazzard" - "Once you go black..." "Innnnovation...hehehe"...*pointing to Spanish person* Who was the CEO of ____ from 1967-1972. How do you not know this? You are SPANISH." and everything in between.

All the experiences bonded us over time. We started off as complete strangers from across the world and now we've all dispersed to the far corners of the world, but as family. Our emotional goodbyes and see ya laters were tough. I get teary-eyed thinking about it. But, as I head off to my new adventures in NYC I know that everyone is still out there. My family. Waiting for the next time we all meet again and relive those memories of our time together. I will miss you all. Thank you for everything.

To hold you over till I finish writing my ESADE graduation post

2011-03-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.foddy.net/GIRP.html

Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun

2011-03-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

After the awesome song posted in my previous post, here's one to absolutely kill all faith in current mainstream music.

"Ohhhh. Ching chong ling long ting tong"

2011-03-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

My undergraduate alma mater has been in the news lately thanks to a video that was uploaded by a UCLA student. She complains about the hordes of Asians in the library who talk loudly on their cellphones in their mysterious ching chong dialogue. As expected it sparked a multitude of angry responses and the pitchforks and torches were brought out to crucify this girl. I'm not gonna get into a debate about racism so I'll keep my thoughts to a minimum.

Personally, I feel that what the girl said was idiotic and represents the problems of having gross generalizations of other races. But seriously, everyone does that. As noted by a friend of mine (paraphrasing here) "If youtube and video uploading were given to our parents, people would be appalled as to what Asians think about other races." Admit it. Deep down inside we're all a bit racist. We say stuff about other races. We've probably done similar gross generalizations of races that this girl did. We just weren't dumb enough to post it on youtube.

I like this guy's response to the whole thing. Instead of writing a lengthy diatribe about the evils of white society and the perils of racism, why not just write a funny song.

A Taste of Tennessee

2011-03-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

So my job search has taken me to some interesting places in the US. Two weeks ago I found myself in Nashville, Tennessee for an interview with a multinational CPG company.

I was put up in the ALoft in Franklin, Tennesee.

Really nice place. The guest profile did not match the demographic that they were trying to cater to. The place just seems appropriate for some fist pumping doucheness but it was full of middle aged men who think Ed Hardy is one-third of a crime fighting sibling unit.

My room. I question the interior designer who thought cowhide would be a cool headboard.

I chatted up the person at the rental car counter and got her recommendation as to where to get some good ole Tennessee BBQ.

Her recommendation was Bar-B-Cutie. Go to the link and click "Locations". Notice anything strange? Seemingly normal geographic distribution of restaurants. Smyrna, Tennesee. Actworth, Georgia. Allen, Texas.Valencia, Spain. Uh....what? How do you go from the mid-Atlantic and South to Spain? There's 2 locations! I swear the owner's kid must have studied abroad in Valencia for a semester and the owner decided, hell let's find a franchisee there.

The food was good. I managed to get over the Spain thing and enjoy my copious amounts of meat. It's all meat. I swear the potatoes and beans were made from some meat by-product.

Manners and decency go out the door when you're eating BBQ. Hands and large paper towels. That's all you really need.

After my interviews I had some time before my flight so I decided to check out Music City aka Nashville.

Large selection of cowboy boots. Perfect for some honky tonk line dancing. Yee-haw!

Plenty of record shops and music bars to delight any country music fan. All 10 of them.

Another place I was recommended was Jack's BBQ.

The man at the counter was gruff to say the least. Whatever happened to Southern hospitality? It's funny because it's one of the complaints on Yelp.

The menu. A minimalist BBQ menu. I love BBQ joints' definition of vegetable sides.

From Jack's menu:

Potato Chips

Cole Slaw

Baked Beans

Potato Salad

Vegetable and Salad Du Jour

Mac & Cheese, Corn

Green Beans, Apples.

Growing up I would've never had a problem eating my vegetables if those were considered vegetables. I'd also be disgustingly obese but that's another matter.

I got the Texas Beef Brisket sandwich with green beans and mac and corn. The brisket was amazing. So soft and tender. Everything else was just okay. The corn looked like someone ate corn and then threw it up.

Me living in Tennesee. When pigs fly! Damn.

The eclectic interior decor of Jack's. It's doing that inside/outside thing that has become a staple in so many kitschy restaurants.

On my flight over I was reading the American Airlines magazine and it did this profile of a cool print shop called Hatch Show Print. Started in 1875, the company has been making posters for movies, circuses and most notably, concerts.

Everything is hand-pressed and rolled off these gigantic wooden printing presses.

Some of the posters on the wall.

A Hatch Show poster. This style has become iconic and can also be pointed to as the basis for the Obama poster.

Hope is not what I have for this couple's fashion sense.

Where Vince Young pouts and tries to live up his hype and expectations. About as successful as Kim Kardashian's music career or the Nintendo Virtual Boy.

The Nashville skyline. It's kinda skyline-y. It has tall buildings here and there. Sort of.

So this recruiting trip actually took place during my spring break in LA. On the way back from LA to Detroit I made the disastrous decision to fly with Spirit Airlines. I will never ever fly them again. Spirit was exactly the opposite of what I had when flying on on their planes. I wanted to shoot myself. I will go over my list of complaints.

1) No airport kiosks. You had to actually wait in line, see an attendant, get your passes and check your bags. Who does that? A company that gives you an option to print out your boarding pass online if you pay an annual fee to become a Spirit member. I'd rather donate money to Osama Bin Laden's campaign to wipe America off the planet.

2) Their "terminal" at LAX.

It's depressing. It's small.

And the absolute kicker.

What the fuck is this? I'm 5'7. My knees should not be touching the back of the seat in front of me. I couldn't even open my laptop because the tray wouldn't flatten because my legs were in the way. I'm short and this was bothering me. What happens if you're medium hit and medium build? Do you just squeeze yourself into the seat and pray deep vein thrombosis doesn't kill you before you land? God, I hate this airline. I honestly hope it declares bankruptcy and the people who run this shit airline are forced to sit in their planes and fly back and forth from LA to Sydney.

Okay I think I feel a bit better now. Yeah so that was my Tennessee trip. This week I'm off to Chicago for my last interviews and then it's B-A-R-C-E-L-O-N-A for graduation.

A little humor

2011-03-12T11:03:00.000-08:00

This is so spectacularly awesome I honestly have no words to describe it's awesomeness.

Some highlights

"I'm not afraid to get sand in my tuxedo if you don't mind let the wind mess your hair up a bit when I take the top down"
"No fatties"
"I'm a 25 year subscriber to Playboy and the New Yorker"
"My favorite food is pizza...and sugar and spice and everything nice."
"I will cry at a commercial"
"I am interested in all phases of data processing"

Video of tsunami

2011-03-12T09:47:00.000-08:00

Some of the shots look like it came from the movie 2012

The power of communications.

2011-03-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

You don't want to be waken up to messages asking about whether your family is okay or not. Early morning EST a 8.9 magnitude earthquake shook Japan. Since pretty much my entire family lives in Japan this is really not fun news to wake up to.

Call my mom in NYC and she is already hitting the phone lines making sure everyone is okay. Tells me that my dad isn't picking up his phone and not answering his emails. He was on business in Tokyo/Nagoyoa. Awesome.

Get a call a couple minutes later from my mom that my mom's side has all been accounted for. No injuries. Helped that they weren't near a coast but since they live 2 hours from Tokyo the earthquake did shake them quite a bit.

Text at 7:30 stating that my dad finally checked in and my grandparents in Tokyo are fine. They were actually vacationing at a seaside resort called Izu but weren't affected by the tsunami.

Thank god. Watching the news and video footage it's amazing that more people weren't injured or killed. My thoughts are with everyone in Japan who is still trying to find out news about loved ones. 日本の皆さんお大事に。

I'm BAACCKKK

2011-03-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

After a lengthy delay thanks to my 1.5 year old Dell laptop refusing to boot, I am back with posts to provide you with visual and textual delight. That's TEXTual delight you sick freaks.

The past 2.5 weeks saw me in Mammoth Lakes, Los Angeles, Nashville, LA again and now back in Ann Arbor. Throw in two take home finals during that time too and I was somewhat busy. Only somewhat though. I'm a 2nd year MBA. We're in coast mode.

Anyways, after an uneventful trip back to LA, my first weekend was spent in beautiful Mammoth Lakes, CA. Our friends booked a wonderful cabin about 10 minutes from the slopes. 4 bedrooms, 3 bath with an outdoor hot tub. The place was ridiculous. The only thing it lacked was heat. More about that later.

The dining room area, which we actually used to eat dinner. Aren't we civilized?

The living room. I'd say the decor could be characterized as cabin-chic? Or rustic luxury? I should write for Log Cabins and Mountain Homes Magazine.

Where the magic doesn't happen.

When we first arrived on Friday night, the first order of business was to turn the heat on so that the cabin could be warmed up. With the introduction of centralized heating, this would've been an easy task. Flip the switch and Voila! heat. Unfortunately, the Voila resulted in just cold blasts of air. Numerous calls and emails to the owner went unanswered so we resorted to warming ourselves up the old fashioned way. Fire. Lots of it. Needless to say, this only warmed up the living room area so the bedrooms were mini refrigerators. The maintenance people came to fix the furnace on Saturday so it was fine afterwards but it was a fun way to start the trip.

In any case, on Friday night we gave up on trying to warm ourselves up and headed to dinner with some friends who were also in town.

We figured we'd keep with the fire motif and order some flambe for dessert.

So Saturday on the slopes was a bit rough. Snow and wind limited visibility and it was pretty damn cold. I didn't even bother taking pictures because my concentration was on staying warm and not getting frostbite. How I stay alive in Michigan I have no idea.

Sunday was a different story. Blue skies and minimal wind. A truly epic day of snowboarding. As the cool kids say it, it was a day to shred the gnar.

Looking up from Eagle Express.

Check out how much snow there is. The eagle is NOT life sized.

The SO in full gear. I definitely need a helmet for next year. I've concussed myself at least twice while snowboarding and I don't think I have many brain cells left.

Wide open runs. It's what I love about Mammoth. The mountain is so damn big that it distributes everyone to a point where you're not slamming into people left and right. Allows me to catch an edge and eat it at my own leisure. SHRED THE GNAR!!! I don't even know what that means.

After a day of snowboarding I treated myself to some glorious Bud Light. Not to be mistaken with urine although it looks similar and *supposedly* tastes similar. I don't get it when people announce that things taste like piss or crap. Have they eaten/drank it before and thus can use the experience as a worthy barometer to the beverage/food? Why would they admit such thing? I know it's not literal but at some point someone has to wonder why that phrase even originated.

They had flags. Lots of flags. Colorful flags.

The Mammoth Mountain mascot. As you probably guessed, it's a mammoth.

Well that was post 1 after my long break. I agree that it was definitely not a very funny or witty post. Hopefully, the next one lives up to your expectations. My suggestion is that you don't expect much and imagine a trained monkey bashing keys together to magically come up with words and sentences.

Broken

2011-03-01T14:32:00.000-08:00

My hard drive went kaput so I'm without my laptop. On a loaner one so posting will have to be temporarily interrupted until I get a new laptop. Lo siento folks. I am now accepting paypal donations for a new laptop.

This is why I can't really watch futbol.

2011-02-24T10:09:00.000-08:00

Prepare to be frustrated by the hardest game ever made

2011-02-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

If you don't rage-quit this game then you must be a god.

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

This guy sure agrees with me.