Summer TV isn't all crap

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

The weirdest combo

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

Thanks to AC who forwarded me this youtube clip.



Hoping to provide all you oldies with fond memories.

Happy Father's Day!!

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

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

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

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

The start of my metrosexual-ness

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

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

For Windows users

1. Click on My Computer
2. Click on C:
3. Click on WINDOWS
4. Click on Media
5. Click on onestop
6. Listen

Just trust me. 

The intersection of God and Marriage

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

You gotta admire good writers and crazy eyebrows

And I also found this....

Worky worky

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

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