Another day, another dreadful visit to the Rice Queen. Another
bunch of fortune cookies. I've been trying to save them up,
well, not intentionally, but I try not to eat them because
they're extra calories.
So I get this little pile of fortune cookies in one corner
of my desk.
I've been sending out resumes again, I'm cyclical, I start,
look for a week or two, and I stop and wait for answers. If
I get answers I stop until things fall through, and a couple
weeks later I'll start again.
This is one of those weeks when things fall through.
Well, except this one.
The phone rings, I pick it up, it's some employer. They want
to meet with me for some weird position. I say yes, knowing
it'll probably lead nowhere.
To celebrate-- you guessed it. Rice Queen!
"For one meal or two?"
"Two." I lie, again.
She puts things in a bag and I asked, in a celebratory mood,
"Can I have an extra fortune cookie?"
She eyes me and eyes me. Her lips pursed. I smile my charming
smile.
She turns around and tosses in an extra fortune cookie.
"Don't eat too much lah!"
Thanks, mom.
I go home and eat my rice queen, I open the fortune cookie.
The first one says "You'll accomplish great things."
I laughed. Darn right, I got a fortune cookie with my smile
today. For kicks I open a second one.
"Mail merge"
Huh? Did somebody fell asleep at the keyboard when they were
typing this or something? What the heck is a mail merge?
Ha. Somebody somehow got a Microsoft Word action onto a fortune
cookie.
For kicks I opened the 3rd cookie.
"Ari Hest"
Someone down at the fortune cookie factory is so fired.
For kicks (I'm on a kicking streak today) I go online and
go to Ari Hest's website and find out that he's playing in
town next week.
Chelsea would want to go. I call her, she says yes, I order
tickets.
Thank you, fortune cookie.
Ari Hest next week! wOOt!
10/09/05
"I wish I knew"
There's this
one boba place that I've been going to for a long time. Not
really for the Boba, I eat so much at regular meals already
that I can't really afford any more caloric intake, but I
just can't resist going.
Yeah. I go for the boba girl.
She's about 5'5", slim, nice shoulders, and best of all,
her smile never leaves her face. Every time I go, she stands
right under the light, glowing like an angel. I would walk
in, my mouth dry from nervousness, and she'd say hi and I
would instantly be floating an inch off the ground.
If only I knew what to say to her besides "Can I get
a Taro Slushy, please?"
Still with a smile she'd fix me a taro slushy. Not great,
but still, cute-girl-made-drink, I'm happy.
"$3.24, please."
I give her the money and she digs into the cashier machine.
I try to sneak in some conversation.
"So..." I say with my face flushed, "you ah..."
(ahem) "go to school?"
"Yeah."
"... whic-- um, where?"
"El Camino."
"Oh," I tried my best not to sound too excited,
"I went there."
"Oh... cool." There's that smile again.
"So... What are you studying?"
"Oh, I'm not sure... teaching or nursing."
"Oh, that's good, that's good."
I raise the cup to her in what I think is a classy, gentlemanly
gesture, "thanks."
I sit down and pretend to do some work, keeping my ears poked
for her conversations with coworkers.
There's free Wifi at the Boba place, I got bored but don't
want to leave, so I poke around the internet for fun, and
suddenly feel guilty. "I should be doing something productive"
I thought to myself, using my father's voice. So I go on to
Monster.com and look for jobs. Lousy, lousy jobs.
I come and go and it's always the same. It's always the same.
It's always the same.
I wish I knew what to say to boba girl. I wish I knew what
job I want. I wish I knew my place in life. It's been more
than two years since I graduated and I have no idea where
my future lies.
Jinny knows what it's like.
"Hold
On," Jinny
Kim
"I keep searching for some answers that will satisfy
me
Cause it's in this human nature, You know.
I keep telling You to come on down take me over
I'm admitting that I didn't mean it though
'Hold on,' You said to me, 'cause I'm never changing'
'You know this life's too short so start believing'
That I can, I can do it, and you can, oh you can endure
Through whatever comes your way..."
10/5/05
Pray for me. These are tough days.
10/4/05
"High on a hill was a lonely goatherd
Lay-ee-o-lay-eeo-lay-hee-hoo..."
A few blocks down PCH
in a run-down plaza is "Rice Queen," a similiarly
run-down but cheap enough place. I go there 'cause it's cheap
and 'cause the teriyaki chicken has generous portions and
is pretty good. I've long suspected that the owner lady hates
me, though. She never speaks in Chinese to me, and there was
that one time when I asked her if I could have extra veggies
and less rice and she got mad and said no.
Anyway, I get my usual combo and come home in my stupid uncomfortable
suit. I sit down at the computer and eat my food while browsing
through the news sites. Before I knew it the food was gone
and all that's left were the fortune cookies. The owner lady
gave me two. She always does this thing. We have this exchange.
"Can I get a three item combo, please?"
"For one meal or two?"
"Two." I lie.
"Smart boy! Three item too much food for one meal!"
She tosses in two fortune cookies. "Save money-ah!"
I go away. Dreading the fact that I'll probably come back
some other day.
So here I am, two fortune cookies on my desk. I tear open
one of them and read the fortune.
"Soon you will be pleasantly surprised."
Trying not to be cynical, I force myself to think that it
might be true. Yes, pleasant surprise coming soon. Maybe I
can take a nice nap this afternoon, maybe if I can manage
to put some sort of curtain over the blinds on the window
I can avoid the afternoon sun and get a nice nap...
A car pulled up in the driveway and someone honks. I look
out the window.
"Kevin!" It was Chelsea, standing next to her beat-up
minivan looking at me.
"Yeah!"
"Wanna go to the Hollywood Bowl tonight?"
"I was gonna take a nap!"
"We don't have to leave NOW, you can still take your
nap"
"What are you going to do in the mean time?"
"I'm gonna come up and hang out."
"... okay!"
Chelsea was a girl, but beneath the surface, she very much
a guy. No maintenance. All chill.
She rummaged through my shelf of DVDs and put on the 6th episode
of Band of Brothers, she's that much of a guy.
Episode 6, Bastogne. Easy Company is surrounded in Bastogne
and endlessly pounded by the Germans, they stubbornly hold
back the Germans for weeks, huddled in their half-dug foxholes
in the freezing cold.
It's how I feel sometimes, as if this rut won't end. As if
relief will never come and I will die here, jobless and alone
in my tattered cheap business suit. Sometimes you wish for
a shell to hit you, end the nightmare or just get wounded
to be sent off the line.
I doze for a few minutes between artillery strikes and ended
up not really napping. Chelsea didn't like the episode. "Too
hard to watch" she muttered when she shuffled the DVD
box back into its hole on the shelf, and we leave for the
music of Hollywood Bowl. I didn't know who was performing,
she knew it was Sing Along to the Sound of Music Night and
roped me into it. I ended up singing along.
We're such dorks.
9/26/05
"My bitterness knows no bounds"
I sat across the round meeting table from the HR director.
She's maybe 40, dyed blond hair with black roots an inch long
showing. She sifts through a stack of resumes to try to find
mine.
"So you say you're Kevin..."
"Yes, Cheng, C-H-E-N-G." I spell it out habitually.
It's sad when the only way your last name can sound different
from the other Chinese peoples' is to spell it. There's the
C-H-A-Ns, the C-H-E-Ns, (both plus or minus a G) the C-H-I-A-N-Gs
and whatever else is out there.
"Kevin, got it."
It's also very sad when you're a Chinese guy with a historically
Irish name like Kevin. It's like a German guy who came into
the country and naturalized with the name "Jose."
Bad, bad bad bad.
"So Kevin, why do you want to work here?"
"Well," I said, trying to sound like I mean it.
"This company offers me an opportunity to make use of
my administrative skills and also allows me to put my economics
background to use."
"You do know that this is a sales position."
I nod.
"For the first six months you will be handling the sales
orders. Your performance is judged on how quickly and how
accurately you enter the data into the computer."
Yes, people, I went to college, and here I am applying to
a monkey job.
"That's fine, I'm willing to pay my dues."
She eyes me after I said it. I don't think that was smart
of me to say. I divert my eyes elsewhere, but the room was
too blank for me to find anything interesting to fix my eyes
on.
"Kevin, where do you see yourself five years down the
line with this company?"
"Well, I'd like to be in a position where I would have
more responsibility, where I can see the bigger picture and
contribute to the company in a greater extent..."
Yes, folks, 4, no, 5 years of college and that was my answer.
Truthfully? I don't want to be at this company. This is a
freaking chicken farm where all I will be expected to do is
be the chicken laying egg, clicking a 10-key keyboard for
8 hours a day.
"Kevin, what do you want to do?"
I felt like I just woke up, my eyes opened when I heard that
question. Not because I knew an answer, but because I heard
that question a million times inside my own head, and truthfully,
I had utterly no idea.
I walk out of the building knowing that the interview was
a complete waste of time.
I almost jogged to my car, "Goodbye, drones, goodbye."
I wanted to mutter under my breath.
My bitterness knows no bounds.
Is that I get to cook dinner!
This week started with a bang as I commandeered the Indian
Curry powder my mom bought (but never used) and went crazy
on a 3 pound leg of lamb. It's been a dream (more of a goal)
of mine to cook some SERIOUS HARD CORE Indian lamb curry.
It was my first time but I think it turned out okay. Next
time we'll kick it up a notch. Thanks to the Stef for encouragement.
Coming up this week: Stewed
pork rice（魯肉飯）, Ketchup Beef Stew（貴妃牛楠）, which
tastes better than it sounds, Pork meat balls with sweet rice（珍珠丸）and
vermicelli with pork（螞蟻上樹）.
08/22/05
Everything is wearing me out...
... and I don't want to deal
with them anymore. At least, not right now.
On another note, two new pictures
have been added to the random rotation up there, hit refresh
a few times if you haven't seen them.
One of the most pleasurable
things I get to do so very rarely is to take a long drive
at night with a good soundtrack. Tonight I got to drive from
San Diego to Los Angeles with Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach's
Painted from Memory, one of the best pop-jazz albums in the
last few years.
It's just so rare for me nowadays to sit down with good music
and really listen to some good music. There are constant distractions
for me while I'm at home or at the office, and now the only
time I have to listen to music is while I'm driving. And as
the miles go by with each song, I get to listen carefully
and get through the long drive while appreciating good music.
(AKA: Singing along loudly in the car while drumming on the
steering wheel.)
08/06/05
"What happened to chivalry?"
I think this is the harshest
thing I'll ever post on this blog.
Today I went to the beach for
the church youth bonfire, and my primary responsibility today
was to secure a fire pit for the evening. So I wander around
a bit, find a pit. 15 minutes later this lady comes walking
by, going towards the next pit which was maybe 30, 40 yards
away.
"Why didn't you take that pit over there?" She said,
"so we don't have to walk this far?"
I didn't know quite what to say. There's 20 youth on the way.
We got bundles of wood and coolers and bags of ice and tons
of food and I've already told them where the pit was. The
next pit was plainly in sight, 30 yards away.
"What happened to
chivalry?" She asked pointedly. Accusing ME of being
rude and inconsiderate because she was blatantly too lazy
to walk another minute to the next pit.
I still didn't know quite what to say, "I'm sorry,"
I muttered. I was so dumbfounded.
But the more I thought about it, the more I got over it. And
I realized how lazy and rude that woman was to me.
See, there's absolutely nothing wrong with chivalry, I open
doors and hold elevators and serve the women around me all
the time. And it's a good thing to serve. But when a woman
expects preferential treatment, and in turn DEMANDS it, like
this woman did today, that crosses the line, and it really
irks me.
So here is my response, here
is what happened to chivalry.
Chivalry is dead, lady. And it's women like you who killed
it.
7/26/05
"For YOU, my friend..."
New iBooks are out, I'm selling
the old one. Who wants it?
iBook G3 900Mhz 384RAM 40GB
HD Airport
Under Apple Care warranty until Sept 4th, 2006
Battery retains about 2 hours of running time
Includes power adapter - be advised that one of the notches
for wrapping the power cord has fallen off from regular use.
Will ship in original packaging.
Includes clean install of Mac OS 10.4 and iLife 04
"How many years has it
been?
I've lived in Your house
But I've lived in my sin
A stone heart won't feel a thing
What will I say when it's done?
When I'm face to face with the Son
And the King
Who died for me
So now I'm on my knees
Laying all that I am
All that I'll ever be
'Cause You open Your arms
Unconditionally
And I sing
Hallelu Hallelujah
Lord of All Heaven and Earth
I bow and worship at Your feet
Hallelu Hallelujah
Your mercy and grace we receive
May Your will be done in me
I love you my Jesus Christ
For my sake you gave up your life
You deserve no less than mine."
-"Take you, for example," Nathan Huang
7/12/05
Today was the day...
Yes, at long last. I got to
work on my favorite episode of the Simpsons. "Homer the
Great" for the Season 6 DVD.
In case you didn't know, this was the episode that guest starred
Patrick Stewart and had Homer join "The Stonecutters,"
a secret society obsessed with perks and beer, and become
"The Chosen One" and basically take over. That is,
until everyone hated Homer for his philanthropist ways and
created their own secret society to get away from Homer.
All: Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!
Karl: Who leaves Atlantis off the maps?
Lenny: Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
Alien: We do! We do!
All: Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do! We do!
Skinner: Who robs cavefish of their sight?
Homer: Who rigs every Oscar night?
All: We do! We do!
Yup. One of my favorite episodes ever, and now I've translated
it to my satisfaction... all in a day's work.
7/1/05
I am theologically a...
You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.
I thought I'd end up being Jewish.
But okay!
It's also a lot of fun to go nuts on the test and TRY to get
a score of Modern Liberal or Charismatic. Though I ended up
being Emergent / Postmodern when I tried to pretend to be
a Liberal.
6/23/05
Be right back
Going off to Northern California
tomorrow. (Where people says "Hecka.") Be back Sunday
night.
6/18/05
Why do we love the people we love?
"Why did you like her so much?" She asked
me. Point Blank.
I stood in the bright sunlight, momentarily stunned. It was
a question that was so very blunt, it was exactly what she
wanted to know. Even better, it was exactly what I've been
dying to tell someone.
Her spirit, her ready smile, the way she carried herself,
utilitarian but not without grace, the way she always sought
to live life to the fullest.
But really, I could name things I really like about the people
I liked, or loved, even. But ultimately, I don't know why
I chose those people or what "got" me.
Later, talking to Matt:
"The thing about love is... you can probably name a dozen
other people with qualities you wish she'd rather have...
but when it comes down to it, you don't really want anyone
else."
and so it is
just like you said it would be
life goes easy on me
most of the time
and so it is
the shorter story
no love no glory
no hero in her skies
i can't take my eyes off of you
i can't take my eyes off of you
i can't take my eyes off of you
i can't take my eyes off of you
and so it is
just like you said it should be
we'll both forget the breeze
most of the time
and so it is
the colder water
the blower's daughter
the pupil in denial
i can't take my eyes off of you
i can't take my eyes off of you
i can't take my eyes off of you
i can't take my eyes off of you
did I say that I loathe you?
did I say that I want to
leave it all behind?
i can't take my mind off of you
my mind
'til I find somebody new
6/11/05
I feel like what the Beetle is pushing...
6/01/05
Goodbye, iBook, goodbye
After 4 trips to the repair
facilities for the faulty logic board, (All under warranty
/ recall) I've decided that it's time to let my precious iBook
go. I plan on selling it on eBay for hopefully $550 and then
buying a new iBook G4 1.2 for around $950 + Tax.
It's a bit sad for me, actually,
this iBook has been with me for the last 21 months. Let's
do a little review of the history of me and my iBook: (Along
with corresponding blog entries)
9/03/03: Purchased at UCLA for
$999
9/06/03: Flew with me to Taiwan
10/31/03: removal of wisdom tooth
11/24/03: I enjoyed great eating in Taiwan
12/03/03: having Da Mike come visit me in Taiwan
12/20/03: 70 pound drop in weight
12/27/03:Returned with me to LA
1/26/04: Gone with me to San Diego
4/02/04: Gone with me to visit Granma in NY
5/29/04: With me when I wrote my first song
7/29/04: Gone with me to my first job
10/19/04: Saw the Incredibles with me
11/3/04: Vegas, baby, Vegas
5/02/05: Saw Episode 3 with me
6/05: To be eBayed to the next
lucky owner.
Goodbye, iBook. We've been through
thick and thin, love and loss, Taiwan, New York and LA...
but all good things come to an end and indeed, you have always
been a good thing.
5/24/05
This is my prayer for you:
May God bless you with...
Comfort on difficult days
Smiles when sadness intrudes
Rainbows to follow the clouds
Laughter
to kiss your lips
Sunsets to warm your heart
Hugs when spirits sag
Beauty for your eyes to see
Faith so that you can believe
Confidence for when you doubt
Patience to accept the truth
Courage to know yourself
Love to complete your life.
Thank you all for a great birthday.
I am 25... and never more loved.
5/23/05
"Her grades are really good."
I went back to Taiwan once in
1997 or 1998 and my family went off to one of those log cabin
villages in the mountains. It's like a park for tourists,
stay in cabins, eat "mountain" food (a variety of
interesting wild game like boars and chicken and indiginous
agricultural products) and go hiking in the area.
They also had a Karaoke room.
Gotta love Taiwan.
Over some tea and snacks we
met the owner of the mountain resort, a man in his 40s who
publicly had two wives. Well, obviously it's not legal but
he freely shared that fact with us--in front of his 16 year
old daughter. He "keeps" the "big wife"
in the city and the "little wife" in the mountain
resort... listening to him share about his setup was very
disorienting for me.
But what really stayed on my
mind was this-- he tried to set me up with his daughter.
"Her grades are really good." - He said, as if selling
a product. Like, "The Civic gets 35 mpg on the highway,"
or "Wifi is built in." He told me the primary feature
of his daughter, "her grades are really good."
I thought to myself "First
of all, no way am I going anywhere NEAR your 1. Psychologically
damaged 2. Cynical and man-hating daughter, I don't care how
good in school she is."
He went on to talk about how
well she writes calligraphy.
Well, a part of me was impressed,
calligraphy was hard, and I was never good at it, you have
to be really anal, I've always thought, accountants and engineers
are good at calligraphy, like one is good at needlework or
something.
But what I realized recently
was that all these things that Chinese parents try to get
their kids to do, all the calligraphy, ballet, violin, piano
lessons... and then I suppose if the kids were good at it
they would go off to competitions or be nice to show off to
guests who come over. (I've had more than one expereince where
we would visit, the parents would get the kids to play something
awesome, I'd be marveling at the piece, and then the parents
would resume their conversation with my parents with total
disregard for the music. You KNOW they're ust showing off
'cause it's obvious they don't care about the music at all,
it's just for the background, as if you've put on a record
in the sitting room.)
Anyway, back to my realizaion.
All these things that parents get their kids to do, none of
it was meant for the kids to actually be creative or be an
artist. It's as if the entire thing art form they were working
on was for something else. I remember the slogans the music
schools in Taiwan had: "Kids who play piano won't go
bad!" or "Learning music helps brain development!"
or "Learning music helps you in other subjects!"
Look, people. If all you're
doing is sending your kids to music class, to competition,
making them practice so they can be "good" or "educated"
or for your own damn pride, stop it. If your kids (Or even
you yourself) are not enjoying the music you're making, if
all you ever do is play music written by someone else or if
all you're doing is following the notes on a page, then all
you're doing is sitting down to paint someone else's Mona
Lisa over and over again.
Imagine that. You go over to
someone's house and they show you their kids' drawings of
the Mona Lisa. Imagine that.
5/18/05
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" - Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Apparently I'm a Sith.
Dang it, Obi-Wan. You were cool until the moment you uttered
that. See, absolutes divide the universe into good and evil,
like the light and dark side of the Force. You yourself are
a master of the Force, you know the difference between good
and evil, Sith and Jedi. And yet, when it comes to this "absolutes"
issue, you totally ignored the fact that there is a great
divide between what is right and wrong. How did you, a Jedi
Master committed to fighting the evil Sith, forget that only
by having an absolute standard can there be true dark and
light? And once we ignore that gap, the "absolute truth"
that separates the two sides, then we are "truly lost"--which,
if memory serves, is what you called Anakin.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, you flip-flopper.
You're a man who doesn't live according to what you believe.
I hereby boycott your movie--even though I've seen it 8 times
already.
Christians deal in absolutes -- absolute truth and an absolute
standard. Are we all evil now? LIke the Sith?
Nice try, George, but we're not all idiotic fan-boys. You're
anti-Christian and Anti-Bush, we can all see that. Some of
us have minds, you know. And you just fumbled the ball for
the third--oh, I'm sorry, I almost forgot--your LAST time.
5/12/05
One day, I wanna...
write a musical.
5/10/05
Vienna Teng
I finally got a night out after
a busy week of work and youth group stuff. So I spent it in
a cozy (tiny) little cafe listening to independent artists
rock out on a stage half the size my room. Vienna
Teng was the main act I went to see, and she was fun to
watch live. It's amazing what you can do with just a electric
keyboard and a viola. The coolest thing about these small
venues is that the artists just stick around after the show
and you can talk to them, Vienna actually came and stood next
to us to watch the next act following her.
Of course, I scored a CD signed
in beautiful handwriting by Vienna. I'll scan it sometime,
but now... I need to conk out.
5/02/05
Episode 3
Yes, #1 perk of the job. I saw
Star Wars a good 17 days early.
I shouldn't talk about it, they
made me sign a statement when I was hired... plus it takes
the fun out of going to the movie theater, you know? If you're
a fan, you'll love it, it brings everything full circle...
if you're not a Lucas fan (like me), you wouldn't care about
what I said here anyway... but ugh, I think I'll get sick
of it by the middle of next week.
4/30/05
Gas Pump Blues
Today I went to the gas station
to fill up my car, and when I got out of my car to swipe my
card at the pump I saw the previous patron's purchase still
left on the pump's LCD screen.
For the film "Taking Back
Her Choice" By Caitlin Rafferty, Loyola Marymount University.
Vocals by Lindsay, lyrics and music (guitar) by Kevin, violin
by Katie.
4/13/05
88,888 miles with me
Tonight I celebrate a momentous
occasion. My car has hit 88,888 miles. I photographed the
event at the parking lot of the local YMCA (Whose swimming
pool is unfortunately shut down this evening)
Ah, my good old civic. It's
been around the world a few times with me now, and I did all
the miles with the exception of maybe a few hundred when my
parents took it when they're in town. I love my trusty civic.
It's never broken down except this one time the oxygen sensor
went psycho and the engine went funky at a stop light.
It wasn't a huge, spectacular
movie, it certainly didn't go Titanic at the box office, but
for some reason it spoke to me. And I think above everything
else, it was the characters' struggle to be unique in their
own ordinary lives that hit home for me. I want to be unique,
I want to feel special and original. That feeling holds a
particular value to me.
When I work on these projects
that I love and adore (The Simpsons, Star Trek, and of course,
Garden State) I take extra care, I do quite a bit more research
online and talk to people to discuss the minute variations
in meaning that the slang and grammar in the subtitles impose
onto the characters.
And it's always surprising what
could cause problems. Today I spent about 10 minutes trying
to find the Chinese phoenetic name of Wolf Blitzer. Trying
to come up with the perfect non-technical, colloquial term
for (Silent) Velcro took a good 10 minutes. I spent a good
half hour on the 5 lines of dialogue where Largeman confesses
his love to Samantha.
Hey, if Zach Braff can spend
months laboring over his project, I could spend 6 hours doing
a good translation for it.
It's a good movie, Zach. I did
my best on the translation, and I hope that it's good enough
that the people in Taiwan would discover you as a talent to
watch. In the mean time, here's to our common struggle to
be unique and creative.
3/31/05
Sick day / Fun with Smarterchild
For those of you who don't know,
Smarterchild is a bot on AIM. You add him to your list and
he's useful (to a certain degree) for information such as
movie times, weather, stock quotes, stuff like that.
Sometimes I get bored or sick
and demented (literally sick, demented meaning slightly insane)
and... I get a urge to mess with Smarterchild, to see how
good his programming is.
So a conversation went like
this today:
8:40 PM
Foster0524: hey smarterchild
Smarterchild: Kevin! Welcome back. Where have you been? It's
been forever! What's up?
Foster0524: I think I have a cold
Smarterchild: Oh yeah? Maybe you're right, you have a cold.
Foster0524: I'm sick
Smarterchild: Really?
Foster0524: yes, I'm sick.
Smarterchild: Really?
Foster0524: yes
Smarterchild: I'm very sorry to hear that.
Foster0524: me too
Smarterchild: You too. Well that's nice.
Stupid Smarterchild. No sympathy at all.
Moments later:
Foster0524: What movies are opening this week?
Smarterchild: Movies playing in or near Torrance, CA (90505)
on Thursday, March 31st:
1 Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous [PG-13]
2 Sin City [R]
3 Guess Who [PG-13]
4 The Ring Two [PG-13]
5 Robots [PG]
6 The Pacifier [PG]
Type "more" for the next set of results.
>>> Sexy, Rich Singles - Date Hundreds of
Thousands of Sexy, Rich Singles and Friends.
Singles, eh? Smarterchild might
be useful after all. (sneeze)
3/30/05
Welcome to the Bright Side (I'm so proud of him)
A warm welcome to my old friend
and big brother Arex, who has bought his parents (So he claims)
a Mac Mini.
Welcome! Your party starts when
you invite your friends over and open the box together, when
you hear the beautiful chime of the Mac booting up. I think
you (or, sorry, your PARENTS) would also be pleased with the
system-wide Unicode support and how beautifully OS X renders
Chinese fonts.
These are brighter days ahead.
3/26/05
Film360
I spent this past thursday
and friday working on a small film project for my friend Caitlin,
who's in film school at Loyola Marymount. I won't go too much
into the details, but the film is about a young woman who
was raped and impregnated by her attacker. I had the pleasure
of writing the music, playing the role of "The Doctor,"
assisting the Director of Photography in setting up lighting
and shots, and also being the on-set photographer for this
film. It's been a great learning experience, plus I got some
shots that I really liked. Seeing as how the film will probably
never see wide release and is still weeks away from finishing
post-production, I can only offer some photos from these past
couple of days. There are 3 shots that I did for publicty
or posters. They are here,
here and here.
A selection of the on-set photography is here.
Thanks to Caitlin, Gavin, Talya,
Sassan, Alli, and Lex for a great on-set experience, as well
as Mr and Mrs Rafferty for feeding all of us.
I think both Carsten
and I are both having a little writer's block for lyrics in
our songs.
Mine's probably worse, when
I try to think of lyrics they're all coming out in Chinese.
So... NO LYRICS TO THIS SONG!
3/22/05
Team Coin
Thanks to Daichi we've had a
little revival of "Team Coin" this past weekend.
What is "Team Coin," you ask?
"Team Coin" is a team
sport where 4 players take turns flicking a spinning coin
(a quarter) on a large rectangular table, trying to keep it
"alive" (spinning) for as long as they can. Score
is kept according to the number of flicks the team managed
to pile upon the aforementioned coin until it either stops
spinning or the coin falls off the table.
We're aiming to be an Olympic
Sport by 2008.
Unofficially, the game can be
played on any sized table with any number of players. But
in order for your score to be recorded, you must play with
4 in your team and take turns.
3/18/05
It sucks to be me
March: No work, twisted ankle,
got nasty rash from stupid Chinese herb patch applied to ankle,
lost $1200 Wedding Photo assignment because of neglegent clients,
found out today that I did not get the new job I interviewed
for last week.
Explicit Lyrics Warning: Single
occurance of the F word at 2:08.
From the Broadway Musical "Avenue Q."
3/13/05
One day with a Canon D10 (Pro Digital Camera)
D10 to iPhoto in minutes. A
slideshow ready to go before dinner is served. 160 pictures
in an afternoon with no development costs. Sounds pretty tempting,
huh?
It's hard to give up film, though.
Especially when you see that the skin tones are off, gradation
and colors are not as rich and pleasing. Plus you shifted
the color and exposure correction work from the lab techs
to yourself. There's still a ways for digital to go. In the
mean time, I'm going to have to mentally accept digital as
a new tool. (To help me shoot film better.)
I suppose the common consensus
is that digital will replace film in the near future. I dread
that day. Film is so beautiful, simple and straightforward.
I dread the day that I won't be able to buy film in a supermarket.
Maybe I should buy a freezer and stockpile my favorite films
before they reach the end of production... gosh, I'm turning
into one of those people who loved their record players so
much that they won't get a CD player, it seems. Well, they're
right, records do sound better than CDs... and I'll always
love my Fuji Superia.
3/11/05
Insanity Week
What started out as a boring,
uneventful week has turned into a emotional rollercoaster
and real-life drama of jobs, duties, unforseen opportunities
and tests of character and will.I still
don't know how it'll end and the suspense is killing me...
I'm just glad I have God to look to.
3/11/05
George Lucas is getting Episode III as a freebie...
He could've shot it entirely
in his garage and people would still go see it.
Anyway, for those of you who are fans, here's the trailer.
3/05/05
Taxes
Ugh. Taxes are nasty. To reduce
headaches for everyone else who doesn't want to pay money
to file taxes, here are free resources to filing your taxes
online.
I used H&R
Block's Free E-File option for my federal taxes. And then
used Calfile
to file my California State taxes -- For FREE!
Why pay someone else to do simple
taxes when you can do it yourself for free? Of course, if
your taxes are more complicated it just might be worth it
to hire someone to do it for you... but if you're like me
(one W-2 and one 1099) then these tools should be plenty good
for you.
Happy refunding.
3/03/05
The Gimp
Yeah, it was really just a matter
of time, I guess, what with all this basketball playing going
on. I fell and landed hard on my ankle Tuesday night and now
I am the resident gimp at casa de Rothenberg. Boooo. This
really makes me appreciate what God has given me, you know,
arms, legs... and in particular, this stupid swollen ankle.
2/24/05
This one has my name on it...
I AM SO TEMPTED!!!
2/19/05 Cleaning out the past
"Every relationship
has at least one really good day. What I mean is, no matter
how sour things go, there's always that one day. That day
is always in your possession. That's the day you remember.
You get old and you think: well, at least I had that
day. it happened once. You think all the variables might just
line up again. But they don't. Not always. I once talked to
a woman who said, "Yeah, that's the day we had an angel
around." - Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love.
So I was cleaning my room, which
is an unusually happy task for me today (Because all of a
sudden I want to rearrange things) I was cleaning out my stack
of business cards, movie and concert ticket stubs, when I
came across this.
It's the ticket to a concert
I went to in Taiwan almost a year and a half ago. (See entry
on 11/15/03) I was going to toss it out like the rest of my
ticket stubs, but for some reason I couldn't. I stood in my
room holding this piece of paper until I got tired and wanted
to sit down. I said to myself, "It's just a piece of
paper signed by the band, it's worthless, it's useless. Toss
it." But I just wanted to hang on to it. It's the last
remaining piece of my one perfect day.
I should toss it. I really should.
It was a great night but it's all over and done with and the
people I remember from it I would probably never see again.
Toss it toss it toss it. One of the reasons I want to clean
out the room and rearrange things a bit is to have a bit of
fresh start at things. A little change to shake up my life
a bit. New challenges and new trails to blaze... that is,
if I can clean up my room.
That's it. It's going into the
trash.
2/11/05
When I'm down and out--
I just have to remind myself
that it won't always be like this.
Jetblue
My oh my, what can I say... Jetblue and its onboard DirecTV
is so great.
On my way from LA to New York I managed to catch the 3rd Season
Finale of 24. (Great great great show, so very, throughly
entertaining.) A good hour and a half of hilarious Celebrity
Poker (With Chris Kattan, Allison Janney, Jason Alexander,
et al) a concert by Counting Crows, one of my favorite bands
from the 90s, and then followed directly by a concert from
Jaime Callum, one of the rising stars of pop jazz who I missed
in concert just a few months ago. I haven't had this much
fun (nor had the time to) watch TV in a LONG time and the
programming was stacked so well that I barely have time to
pop open my iBook to write this. (I'm writing as Jaime Callum
is singing and hammering his piano with his chair... freak.)
Over Chicago
Lake Michigan had some big chunks of ice floating on top of
it, Chicago is blanket white. The snow on the ground surprised
me a bit, I thought it was thick clouds at first, but it turned
out to be a metropolis covered with snow on the edge of lake
Michigan. Followed by checkered white countryside and the
suburbs of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Whenever I fly I always like to look out the window and ponder
about the people who live down there. I think about what their
lives could be like, What kind of house they'd live in, where
they would go to school, what their drive to work would be
like, what time of the year has the best weather for them,
how far I usually am from them and yet for a few minutes I'm
just 7 miles above them.
Ohhhh... off and off to New York JFK I go, to familiar old
faces and constantly changing young faces.
"These are the days that
I've been missing
give me the taste, give me the joy of some wine
These are the days that bring you meaning
I feel the stillness of the sun and I feel fine"
- These are the days, Jamie Cullum
One hour to JFK.
1/30/05
Computing 2.0
So tonight I brought my parents
over to the Apple store to show them the Mac Mini. Seeing
my parents trying to use something that's so familiar to me
and yet completely foreign to them is a bit stressful, like
seeing your kid batting at a baseball game, I guess. Would
the Mac hit a home run with its easy interface and brilliant
localization? Or would it strike out to my parents as something
cryptic and indecipherable and utterly confusing? Can computer
illiterate people without any prior computing experience be
able to manipulate things instinctively to accomplish things
they want to do?
With my parents (and with anyone
trying to set up a computing solution for older people) I
see three areas that worries me the most.
1. Localization: They HAVE to
understand what the computer is saying, this could be challenging
even if the error message is in their native tongue. But good
localization is essential for even solving the tiniest issues
that may arise in a user session. The technical words used
has to make enough sense to computer-illiterate people for
them to figure out what the problem is or what question is
being asked, and what steps are required to solve the problem.
2. Interface design / Ease of
use: The interface must be logical and intuitive to inspire
confidence. Confidence is essential to a comfortable computing
experience. The learning curve must not be so daunting that
the users (older and more demanding now) are turned away.
3. Ability for remote maintenance
and administration: So if they do mess up, their son won't
have to fly overseas to fix a software issue.
My poor parents. They might
have felt old and powerless tonight, even when they're surrounded
by incredibly powerful tools and gadgets. Ultimately I wish
I could be with them as they go on to learn to use their new
computer. I do wish they can see how good these tools are
and be excited for the great things we can do with these machines
now. It's super exciting just to hear their first impressions
of the iPod, to video conference with them across the Apple
store. There's a computing life for them after all, and tonight
was our first baby step.
Oh, man, it's been a while... I'm returning to FOB music
after a long absence, in part because of nostalgia, in part
because I have a new appreciation for their song writing.
(Not all of it is bad, okay? Just the bad ones...)
Once or twice a day I'd run
into a word at work which I'd scratch my head and really think
about how to translate in a good way, and I think it'd be
interesting to compile a list of what words I've had trouble
with or KNOw I would have trouble with. This is just what
I have off the top of my head.
1. "Empowerment" - I have NO idea how to say that
in a short, concise way, and I'm dreading the day that I am
confronted with it.
2. "In fact, (insert rest of sentence)" or "you
know," "I mean," "et cetera"- Just
annoying and really weird to put into a Chinese sentence.
3. "According to Hoyle" - This one is not too bad,
but I'd suspect it'd be tricky to make it short enough.
4. "Pinata"
- "A decorated container filled with candy and toys suspended
from a height, intended to be broken by blindfolded children
with sticks, and used as part of Christmas and birthday celebrations
in certain Latin-American countries or at children's parties."
Yeah, try to fit THAT and the rest of the sentence into 34
characters.
5. "Selsun blue" - Featured in "Ocean's 12,"
I Googled for it for half an hour, and could not find it in
mentioned in any Chinese-speaking area of the world, substituted
with "Head & Shoulders" instead.
6. Any slang for reproductive organs. Besides being vulgar,
it's really hard to localize precisely, since different regions
have different slang for them. Also, it's hard to match the
level of vulgarity / slang-y-ness.
7. "Mandarin" - This is hard because depending on
the region / culture, there could be 6 different ways, and
each region has one or two ways of saying it: Taiwan(1), Hong
kong(1), Singapore(1), Mainland China(2), General overseas(2).
These things make the job interesting,
though, and it's really part of the reason that I like the
job.
