I need a Pensieve like Dumbledore

Over the course of the past month, I effectively killed half my brain cells studying for final exams and killed the other half in the drinking process afterward. So I'm pretty surprised that I'm able to remember these two moments at all. I point out these two moments because they remind me of how, for lack of a better description, "cartoony" some people can be. By cartoony, I mean not that they have jaws that drop beyond physical possibility or are seemingly immortal. I mean that as soon as you mention a name, an image and a personality and all the little catchphrases and quirks belonging to that person instantly pop to mind. Bugs Bunny, Homer Simpson, Dwight Schrute, George W. Bush - the instant kind of recognition that really makes these people stick in your mind for long after you've lost contact.

Moment #1: At UCLA in May, Boyer Hall - my second day on the job. I walk into a conference room and meet my PI and her lab for the first time. Not many people - a white girl, a Chinese girl, a nerdy-looking FOB Chinese guy, and a white guy. I sat down nervously at the end of the table waiting for each lab member to present their weekly findings; my PI told me to pay close attention, because I would eventually have to start presenting my own findings in the coming weeks.

It was the most distracting hour and a half of my life, because I swear to Bruce Wayne that the white guy I was staring at was Brett Haas.


The greatest American leader of the 21st century.
(Source, kids.)

Cue Captain Kirk monologue:
"But...no. It. Cannot be. He...LOOKS just...like...Brett. Minus the wife-beater and. The. Extravagant amounts of Lakers fan gear. Also. No...iPhone. NO iPHONE! But he looks EXACTLY. LIKE. HIM."

Just as I was about to tell myself "There's no other explanation for this: I guess I DO have a drinking problem," this Brett Haas doppelganger spoke up. I breathed a sigh of relief as I reassured myself that I could indeed continue to drink to my heart's content: this guy's voice was much higher than Brett's.

It was only after the lab meeting was over did I dare to ask this Brett impersonator what his deal was. He introduced himself to me as Blake Haas, Brett's older brother. Small world. Turns out that he's on UCLA's Bridge team, just as Brett was on Cal's Bridge team. No, not bridge-building like the CivE folks seem to love so much. Bridge, as in the card game universally embraced by old, retired Jewish women living in Florida. I thought it was peculiar that they had taken up interest in a game typically considered an old fogeys' pastime, but I appreciated the educational time afterwards that he spent teaching me about bridge and how difficult it is to do well in the game.

Moment #2: In Haas Pavilion on Nov. 24, 2008, watching the Bears take on North Carolina A&T.

(aside: band locker room before game.
"Who are we playing today?"
"North Carolina."
"...we're fucking playing UNC? Like, the Tar Heels? The number one team in the country? The team with GODDAMN TYLER FUCKING HANSBROUGH?"
"...A&T. North Carolina A&T."
"JESUS THANK YOU")

It's fairly early in the game, and the refs are making some pretty bad calls ("my eyes, I cannot see, I am a Pac-10 referee..."). The band present is a decent size - thirty people, maybe. There's the usual smattering of complaints and boos and random taunts towards the referees, but some third and fourth years and I looked around and felt that something was off. I couldn't quite put my finger on it though, and Greg corroborated the feeling: "I feel like something is wrong or missing." We shrugged it off and continued to watch the game.

Towards the end of the game, Cal was winning by a boatload, and North Carolina A&T was getting obviously frustrated. Their coach was a pretty animated guy who kept jumping off his chair and stepping onto the court to yell at the refs. One of the players on the A&T team hard fouled one of our guys, seemingly out of frustration at being down by 30 points (that, or being two letters away from being the #1 team in the country). It was a pretty blatant foul, and the Cal fans got fairly rowdy but quieted down because short of going to the scorekeeper's board and literally changing the numbers, nothing A&T did could help them win at that point.

But what's this? A lone voice dared to fight the mob mentality. That voice chose not to quiet down when common sense would dictate that it should have already shut up. The bold, the audacious, the foolhardy Robin Hood of sports arena taunts and borderline non-PC insults - who was this brave soul who chose to rise above the rest?

Who, of course, but KNak. All of us turned around to find him spitting his usual smattering of insults, half of which was indiscernable and the other half of which came with a free side of flying saliva.

Suddenly, it occurred to us who had known KNak for the past three or four years that we actually had NO IDEA that KNak was at the game until this very moment, especially because he was standing in the very back row. All at once, the band stopped paying attention to the basketball game and turned its attention toward the man of the hour, as if he had just called a press conference:

"Are you sick?"
"When the hell did you get here?"
"Why haven't you said anything until now?"
"Where the hell have you been?"
"What the fuck did you just say?"
"Can you stop spitting on me?"

I swear, if Cal Band would only put all its talents toward mass entertainment, we'd make a damn good group of TV sitcom writers. Untapped gold mine, swear to Tedford.

My mom thinks I am the Palo Alto Institute of Technology

The last time my father was here in the U. S. and A., the week of Big Game (I made him come watch me in one of my last performances on the field since he had never done so), he also brought along a laptop that he bought for my mother. I checked it out for them and it's a very impressive piece of hardware - FAR more powerful than anything my mother will ever need: 4GB RAM, 120GB HD, four USB 2.0 ports, Windows Vista, Bluetooth integrated, pretty good graphics card/accelerator, all that jazz...except that it's an Acer laptop, which means it will probably break within a year and she will freak out and call me for tech support and I won't be able to help her.

(Also, my father claimed that he got it for a jaw-dropping $450 USD. Either I was raised by a liar or he's in cahoots with some very dangerous people in Taiwan.)

The other important thing my father purchased along with this brand spankin' new machine is a Chinese freehand writing accessory. You can input Chinese characters by writing on this little pad with a stylus; he bought it so my mother can write emails in Chinese.

Unfortunately, therein lay the root of the problem. She didn't know how to use email. Or a mouse, for that matter.

So yesterday I gave my first in a series of one-on-one lectures on the basics of computing. Lesson One: The Mouse took a solid fifteen minutes, and in the end, my mother decided that she simply won't mess with Right Click. She spent a solid 45 seconds moving the mouse back and forth over a site link so that it kept turning from an arrow to "the little cute finger" and vice versa. Forty-five seconds that I could have spent doing something far more valuable, like eating a cheeseburger or scratching the inside of my ear deeply with a rusty knife to keep myself sane.


Source giantbomb

Lesson Two: Firefox Basics actually took ME a little bit longer to figure out because she wanted the Chinese version installed, and since I have the Chinese reading competency level of a fifth grader, I had to grab the Chinese-English dictionary to figure out what the hell was going on. But eventually I helped my mother set up some bookmarks so that she could quickly and easily visit some of her favorite sites: SinaNet (a Chinese news portal), Gmail, and, much to my surprise, YouTube.

You know those little lessons that life teaches you but you don't really want to learn? This was one of them. Much in the very same manner that I use YouTube to kill time and watch mind-numbingly entertaining videos of cats chasing laser points or babies getting kicked in the face, my mother uses YouTube to watch Korean and Chinese soaps. NONSTOP. This is all thanks to my sister who introduced the wonderful technorogy of YouTube to my mom, a bored housewife in her mid-60's who spends most of her day alone, so that she would have something to do in her spare time instead of bugging my sister while she's at work. Two birds with one stone in her eyes, I guess.

I wonder if this is a gateway for my mom to eventually start watching videos of retarded cats chasing laser points or babies getting kicked in the face, like me. (Answer: probably not. I feel like she's more of a retarded-babies-chasing-laser-points or kitties-getting-kicked-in-face videos type.)

And finally, Lesson Three: The Greatest Inventions in the History of the Universe Part I, cross-listed under Gmail Basics (Part II is Internet Pornography, a class that I'm 98% sure my mom isn't too interested in). I showed her the basics and let her try sending a test email, all on her own. And she did it without blowing anything up! My baby's all grown up and off to save the world.

Moral of the story: my mom needs to stay away from technology. And I need to stay away from my mom.

GO BEARS BEAT THUG U

Truly, the best policy

My estranged friend from Georgia Tech, in an email to me after discovering this blog:

"You're a lot funnier on paper than in person."

I had to agree.
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Genetics final at 8am. I still don't know what's going on.

Bear's Lair at 11:01am. A glass or two of Hefe.

Bear's Lair at 11:31am. Glass of Red Spot.

Music final at 12:30pm. I REALLY don't know what's going on, but it's okay. Mr. Jupiter Hefe will be whispering all the answers to me.

Bad News, Bears

I am a creature of habit, and this is never more true when it comes to exam days. Since I usually have evening tests, here is my ritual for exam days.

0730: Wake up. Feel like shit while freaking out.

0736: Bathroom routine, includes vomiting. Not kidding.

0740: Eat breakfast, which is ALWAYS one of the following: 1) cereal, 2) leftover Nude Sushi from staying up studying the night before, or 3) leftover Round Table Pizza from staying up studying the night before. (Why doesn't Subway deliver? Goddammit.)

0800 - whenever test time is, probably 1700: Park ass in VLSB library, 2nd floor, left side study carrels. Panic while reading through everything. Think about doing problem sets, then realize that I still don't know enough information to do the problems anyways. Problem sets are consequently neglected.

1900: Come out of exam hall feeling shitty with fingers plugged in ears so I don't have to listen to my classmates talk about all the problems that I definitely got wrong.

1930: MMMMMM HEINEKEN/BLUE MOON/PARTY-LEFTOVER-COORS-LIGHT
2000: MMMMMM WHITE RUSSIAN
2002: MMMMM WHITE RUSSIAN NUMERO DOS

I haven't really changed my routine in the past three years. Normally, my mother call me to tell me that it's not healthy and that if I would just study regularly instead of cramming everything in the two days before the exam, I wouldn't freak out like this and my GPA would look more like a square number. I usually expect her to do the whole "keep your grades up, go to med school" brah brah brah overbearing Chinese mother schtick, because, well, she's old and Chinese and barely speaks English. It's nothing new, and usually, I just tune her out while playing Solitaire and just utter "mmhmm" every few minutes. I tune back in when she gets to the important stuff, like when I'm getting picked up.

Last night, I called my mom to figure out when she's going to come pick me up after finals, which eventually turned into her telling me to start finding a job and study for the MCAT, to which I said "fuck it," to which she said "don't use bad language," to which I said "...you understood that?"

Apparently my mom knows more English than I thought.

Anyway, as I braced for her usual "try hard in school" lecture, she pulled a 360 degrees a la Jason Kidd (+5 points for reference) and said this:
"Just go to bed. Your grade's not going to get any better, so you might as well get a full night's sleep."

Bricks were falling out of my jeans.

My mother has finally given up all hope on me. Free at last!

Obligatory "End-of-an-Era" Post

There's really nothing I can say here that can do justice to how I feel about the end of my four years in Cal Band. I could write a 20-page term paper about all the people I've met, all the places I've seen, all the friends I've made, all the assholes I tried my best to avoid, and all the things I've learned, especially in the Department of Creative and Devastating Heckles (see: Desma Stovall, Oregon State volleyball, 2005) - and I probably wouldn't net any higher than a C- on the paper. There's just too much to be said and not enough time or electronic ink to write it.

I also don't have the kind of attention span to write a 20-page term paper anyway. So instead, I'm going to break it down into user-friendly bullet points devoid of necessary grammar.

-My Second Year Mug has lead and/or cadmium. Memo: don't use it to drink if I ever get pregnant
-Can't believe I wanted to join Stanford Band more than ANYTHING when I was in high school
-Football fans in the state of California tend to be bigger assholes than in other states, myself and KNak included
-"Shoot him like a horse" needs to come back
-I need a shirt that says "I spent four years in Cal Band and all I got was this lousy blanket"

VH1's Best Year Ever

We got The Axe back. 24 is back (FINALLY). Obama won the presidency. Tom Brady is injured forever. Ohio State is not going to the national championship game. With such a string of amazing events occurring within such a short period of time, this can only mean one thing:

This will be the BEST YEAR EVER. With all the stars aligned, I am 126% confident that the following things will happen:

-We will continue to keep The Axe for a long time, or based on this year's fortune, at least for another year.

-Cal will go to the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2010 and win.

Corollary: Joe Kapp will taste tequila for the first time in 52 years, but as a result of not having tasted the drink in so long, will go crazy, strip naked, and streak through the streets of Oakland howling like a hyena.

Addition: the homeless in the streets of Oakland will mistake his howls of insanity for springtime mating calls and gravitate to his location.

Additional addition: Kapp will assume a new superhero identity as Homeless Man, utilizing his newfound powers to drink tequila and summon the homeless at will to do his bidding.

-I will ace all my classes, get into med school at Harvard, graduate in three years, and use my charm and wit to convince the powers-that-be that I am so brilliant I don't need to go through residency and can begin practice immediately. Shameless plug: Look for Dr. Gordo's Super Amazing Gynecology Clinic, coming to Telegraph and Parker in August 2013. Clinic hours 10pm-3am, CASH ONLY. Prices negotiable.

So to sirs and madams Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Oops-Sorry-We-Don't-Like-You, thank you for guiding your lines and finally getting things right.

My blurb for the North Tunnel Echo about the Maryland trip

"I didn't know our trip destination got changed to Taipei."

That was the first thing I thought of upon exiting the doors of the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. The other band members around me similarly pondered why we had flown into a tropical rain forest instead of Maryland. Standing outside waiting for the bus to pick us up, I literally watched a layer of sweat form on the skin of my arm within five minutes.

Quite a welcome for a bunch of spoiled coastal Californians.

Aside from the three-showers-a-day degree of humidity and heat, our trip to Maryland was definitely one of the more memorable trips I've been on, mostly because there were actually things to do other than waste time watching TV in the hotel room (I'm looking at you, Pullman and Corvallis).

Taking the Metrorail into the National Mall area of DC was an adventure in an of itself. A warning: if you ever find yourself getting onto the Metro from the Rosslyn station in Arlington, DO NOT LOOK DOWN while on the escalator. You'll lose all sense of balance and stumble to a horrifying, long-term-hospital-stay-inducing state, because it's the longest escalator in the world (I haven't looked it up on Wikipedia to confirm, so it's probably not true, but you get the point). The ride from the top to the bottom took a full two minutes and three seconds (margin of error: three seconds caused by the initial shock of how freaking scary the ride was). The other shocking part? The Metro ride took all of six minutes. For comparison, it takes about 15 minutes for a BART ride from Downtown Berkeley to San Francisco.

Walking around seeing all the famous national monuments at night for the first time in my life was a pretty incredible experience, especially because we made the rather poor decision of walking all the way from the Lincoln Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial and back around, making our total walking distance for the night about five miles.

This blurb, of course, would be incomplete without mention of the actual football game itself, so I'll say this: the stadium was small but homey, the Maryland fans were warm and welcoming, and the general atmosphere of the home crowd after the game was, "Did we just win?"

What made this trip truly memorable, however, was the sheer number of recent Cal Band alumni - I counted about thirty, but there were probably more - who attended the game, many of them now East Coast transplants. Many of us were graced with the opportunity to revisit with bandsmen whom we had not seen since our first year in band. Every one of them was just as passionate and excited to be at the game as when they were in the band - it's always reassuring to see a familiar face in unfamiliar territories. If that kind of networking and dedication doesn't say Go Bears, I don't know what does.

Responsible Parenting, a la Sarah Palin

Growing up in one of the major liberal fortresses of America, I was always taught that it is considered "irresponsible parenting" to not allow one's children to chase their dreams to their fullest extent. To force the parents' now-bygone childhood dreams onto their children is not only irresponsible, but downright inappropriate. That is what I was taught in school.

Then, of course, my parents raised me in the entirely opposite manner. It's the whole Asian filial piety "Oooh my son goeeng to be a doctah, what YOH son do? My son go to Hahfahd, wheh YOH son go?" type of bullshit. (Actually, my parents have been much better about this kind of stuff recently, but only because I'm convinced that they've given up almost all hope regarding my future.)

So on Saturday, as I was sitting outside the California Science Center in Los Angeles, eating lunch and getting ready to play for a Cal tailgate/rally that was neither really a tailgate nor a good rally, I watched a happy, beautiful, decidedly European family of four walk past us. The couple couldn't have been older than thirty. The father had his young son on his shoulders while the daughter waddled across the grass with her tiny hand in her mother's. Other than the fact that they were decked out in what looked like discount USC garb, they were damn near perfect.

That gorgeous painting of the Great American Dream was shattered as soon as the father opened the cumdumpster that he likes to call his "mouth."

In a very pointed, I'm-compensating-for-my-subpar-educated-ass manner, he said loudly to his son while looking at me, "You see this? This is what happens when you go to a state school. Sitting on the ground eating bad plastic box lunches. Sweetheart, promise me you'll never go to a *ahem* STATE school."

He walked off, giving us the ol' stink-eye and had his two fingers up in the air. Undoubtedly, those two fingers smelled of runny, undigested-corn-and-nut-embedded poop from picking at his hemorrhoids all day. That, or he started self-testing for prostate cancer twenty years too soon.

Which brings me back to my original point of what is considered responsible parenting: if, for whatever ungodly reason, it becomes my child's greatest and only dream to attend USC, would it be wrong of me to do my very best to make it as difficult as possible for my child to do so? Much in the same way that I feel about sending my kids to private school for education levels below that of a bachelor's (plenty of great public schools out there), I don't really feel like wasting my money on an educational experience that costs four times as much and produces half a man, especially if the degree name itself doesn't even hold that much clout in the workplace or academia. (Superficial, I know, but the sad truth is that, as much as we'd like to say "So what if you went to Harvard, you were last place in your class," it's still a Harvard degree, and the degree name is still a real point of consideration when it comes to the job market.)

Would my child hate me for obstructing his greatest dream, which if unfulfilled would probably destroy his faith in humanity for all eternity and definitely lead to a life on the street, hiding in back alleys and sucking dick for crack? Probably. But I think in the end, it would be better for him in the long run to leave his dream unfulfilled and end up a drug mule than to end up a terrible excuse for a human being, as exemplified by my friend Poopy Fingers.

I believe in Barack Obama.

Five hours ago, I was sitting in 10 Evans taking my Immunology midterm, racking my brain, designing torturous experiments to fuck over mice and deplete them of any chance of surviving a bacterial or viral injection (and having fun doing it, natch).

At around 7:45pm, one of the proctoring GSIs let out a little squeaky yelp, as if someone had stepped on a mouse (if you ever have the fortune to happen to listen to Sisi sneeze, it's about like that).

"OBAMA WINS!" she exclaimed. "OOOH MAI GAAAWD OBAMA WINS!"

The rest of the class cheered a little bit and goes back to their exams. I was pissed that she broke my concentration, but I went back to my exam with a smile on my face.

I could also barely concentrate for the remainder of my exam because thoughts of sugar plum fairies and thriving small businesses danced around my head. As a result, I didn't finish two of the nine problems on the exam. So it is now official: I am blaming President Barack Obama for my soon-to-be poor grade in MCB 150.

President Barack Obama. Say that a couple of times to yourself. President Barack Obama of the United States of America. I'm going to keep saying it, especially because my mom is still sad that Hillary Clinton isn't the president.

Not your momma's arithmetic.

After convincing SRS to haul my fat ass over to downtown Walnut Creek, I finally got what I had been eagerly awaiting for three long months. At 3:32pm today, I became the proud new father of a five-pound, pudgy, joyfully round, blue-and-gold baby:


He has his mommy's eyes and his daddy's blood type: Twist-Hook Pain Train Beast Mode.

You can't tell, but that's Marshawn's autograph. And yes, it is just as beautiful as every oh-so-sweet glistening drop of sweat that comes from his body.

Here's the unfortunate part: EVERYTHING that he signed that day was signed #23, his current number with the Bills. Why he chose that path instead of signing his famous #10 on the Cal paraphernalia and reserving #23 for the Bills is beyond me. It's easier, I guess, but less satisfying to the fans.


23 is the new 10.

So I guess now whenever I do any sort of arithmetic, if I see the number 23, I have to replace it with the number 10. (Also, if I see any copies of "The Number 23" on store shelves, I have to buy them and melt them slowly with a magnifying glass. That's the kind of respect that movie deserves.)

Life Without Cal Band: A Primer

It's been quite some time since we have been allowed to experience life without Cal Band, and because there are no rehearsals at all this week, many of you may be asking, "What the fuck do I do with myself?"

Here's a short list of suggestions to help you pass the time instead of sitting in the corner crying and pulling your hair out while picking away at your eyeball with a dull knife to keep your sanity:

1. Drink.
2. Like, a lot.

High School Band Day: fun yet frustrating.

This was the second year that I served as a Band Aide for Sierra High School's marching band, hailing from the Great American Little Town of Manteca, due just northwest of Modesto, the crown jewel of California. I've gotta say, I'm glad I chose to hang out with these guys again. I recognized a few of the faces from two years ago, but what really impressed me was that all the students who were here two years ago actually remembered me. And of course, Rick "The Hammer" Hammarstrom, their band director, was as prudishly awkward, witty, and hilarious as ever. (What else would you expect from a BYU grad who doesn't drink or curse yet loves listening to KMEL and Wild 94.9?)

Looking at the twenty-something high school bands in attendance yesterday (amounting to a disgustingly high ~2300 students), I think Sierra was one of the most unique bands present. They're a small band - forty or so students - without a drum major and without a whole lot of history or experience (Sierra opened in 1994); Hammer is the only band director they've ever known. After my first time helping them two years ago, I thought to myself, "Well, that was fun, but wasn't quite worth the trouble. I don't think I'll do it again."

And because I have the memory capacity of a turnip, I decided to be a band aide again this year, and rubbing together the two brain cells I have left through all the alcohol poisoning I've exposed them to over the past couple years, I somehow managed to recall what a fun, ragtag group of kids they were. Therefore, I decided to go with Sierra again.

This year, however, made me realize something entirely different about their band: they are the marching band equivalent of the Gutty Little Bruins. They have pretty nice-looking uniforms, but it's clear that the uniforms are kinda old and tattered. The students aren't precise or disciplined in their performance, nor are any of them particularly magnificent musicians. They're a competent marching band. But man, do these guys know how to have fun. I learned a few damn good jokes from them. All of them seemed to be friends - they didn't seem clique-ish or anything, and that's probably because the band is so small. Their drum cadences are upbeat and just plain fun. They're not the best marching band in the world, but it's definitely clear that they're very proud of what they do. Who could ask for anything more than that? (Other than a Rose Bowl)
----
Tom and I were cracking a joke about how Colorado State was probably playing so poorly because they weren't used to the low-altitude air and getting hit with all this oxygen. They were probably high off all that O2.
----
Hey $C fans, be careful not to break your legs jumping off the bandwagon.

And I thought piccolos were bad.

My roommates + Cynthia are playing "Dirty Little Secret" on Rock Band while I'm studying for my genetics quiz.

Not saying who, but Santa is gonna pay each and every one of them a very special visit tonight.

They will experience what my first Christmas was like: nothing but coal in the stockings. If by "stockings" I mean pillowcases. And by "coal" I mean poop comprised of chicken chow mein from Lotus House.

Satan paid me a visit while I was in Maryland

Upon returning to glorious Berkeley from more-humid-than-Frankie's-armpits Maryland, groggy and possibly still drunk from the night before, this poor sight is what came across my blurry (because I was tired and have astigmatism and possibly still drunk), letterbox field of vision (because I have sranty eyes. Seriously, I see life as if I were watching Conan on a standard 4:3 television):



Here's what I'm guessing happened: Beelzebub was coming up from his penthouse suite in the Flaming Slutbucket Palace apartment complex in the mirror equivalent of Westwood to come claim my wretched, cheeseburger-clogged soul, because if you take a look at His Evilness' naughty list, I somehow managed to get my name on there twice. Paul the Apostle ain't got nothin' on me. (1 Tim 1:15. Screw you Wikipedia, I cite my shit.)

Unfortunately, the brilliant men who work for Refuse Collection for the City of Berkeley failed to notice that the recycling bin was sitting directly on top of the invisible, for-demons'-and-Karl-Rove's-eyes-only super double secret elevator entrance to the nether-regions of the spiritual world. When His Wretchedness' elevator surfaced to the glory of Europe's "The Final Countdown," the vessel struck the innocent recycling bin....which melted the crap out of it and everything inside.

That, or a bunch of drunken tards thought it would be HURHUR FUCKIN AWESOME to set random shit on fire.

I like my conspiracy theory better. I'm off to eat a couple more cheeseburgers.

The Internetz is for porn NOT

I'm not typically one for political commentary because, knowing damn near nothing about the history, mechanisms, and landscapes of American politics, I risk emulating 99% of the talking heads on TV who think they know jack shit about politics. Instead, I prefer to nitpick at all the other little things that usually have zero impact on the real issues at hand.

(Wait a second.)

...Anyways, I'm going to put politics aside for the next five minutes and let the world out there know that Sarah Palin is smokin' hot and I have a creepy Google Images crush on her. Sexy librarian from my por...I mean, DREAM REcollections: despite what Juno MacGuff may claim, I don't have to be a bonehead jock to love Palin and her all-too-distracting, hotter-than-Tabasco-doused-Alaskan-King-Crab-legs pictures acquired from a simple search on Google.

Some argue that with the selection of Palin as VP candidate and his marriage to Cindy, John McCain has now established a track record of being an old, dangly-skinned/-cocked creeper. I take personal offense to that comment. It's clear that these people attacking McCain are simply 1) jealous, 2) lonely, and 3) overweight Asian who can't get a date to save his life.

(Wait a second.)

...Anyways, McCain made an executive decision based on the most educated and knowledgeable part of any man's body: his dick. Using that parameter, McCain made an excellent decision and is well on his way to proving that he has what it takes to lead...based on his penis. I mean, Hillary has her moment from certain angles and certain lighting, but she really can't shake that certain Bitchface McGee aura that has unfortunately plagued her since her husband Bill "Horndog/THE MAN" Clinton was in office.

Palin, on the other hand, looks like the sweet young mom next door (yes, looks, as in present tense) who hires a steaming hot gardener and then, one hot summer day, invites him in for lemonade and then fucks the bejeezus out of him.

(Wait a second.

Yes, that's correct. Fucks the bejeezus out of him. I have to stop doubting my train of thought.)

...Anyways, scratch that. She's more like sweet cheerleader girl next door who got into a career of insanely shitty chart-toppers and being the most expensive/widely televised stripper on the world and one day decided to marry one of her backup dancers. The difference is so small that it's basically negligible.

I do, however, feel a little sorry for McCain. It's just too bad that ol' General McCain and His Undersecretaries won't be able to carry out His duties to His fullest extent without some extra assistance from a lot of Blue.
(+5 extra credit if you can catch all the completely retarded puns I just made.)

I'm also glad I vote with my brain instead of my member. Sure don't want those hanging chads ending up in places they don't belong.

The 90's were amazing, and don't you forget it.

At our first ever Bear Family bonding, PSo, Koo and I took the bus to go bowling in Albany, and when it hit 9pm, the disco lights started turning, the blacklights started frying, and the sadly outdated music started pumping. About half an hour into the playlist, *NSYNC's "Tearin' Up My Heart" started pumping and PSo and I started singing along to every single one of those damned poorly-conceived words. We looked over to Koo to see if he was enjoying himself just as much.

Koo had the most confused look on his face. And PSo and I cried a little bit inside.

"How old were you when this song came out? Do you know?" we asked.

"I have no idea who this is. I don't think I've ever heard this song," Koo emptily replied.

I swear, I shit a brick and a half when his answer hit my ears. John McCain, my heart reaches out to you. We're fucking old. But the best part:

"DUDE. This is *NSYNC, back in the day, man."

"...you mean that really gay boy band?"

Old men:dangling sacs::clarinet section:old women

Pretty good first game to start off the season, and props to all the Michigan State fans for being so well-traveled. 38-31 was a bit scary, but that was one of the more exciting fourth quarters in recent memory, considering that both teams scores double digits in the fourth quarter but only ten or fewer points in each of the previous three.

But I'm not a great football analyst; we'll leave that to the greats at CGB. I do, however, have a contributing moment. (Pre: If you know anything about KNak and how he acts during sporting events, the following description should be no surprise to you.)

The band is standing on the sidelines waiting for halftime to begin (by the way: down at 5:00? Really, though? We were there longer than fucking 'Nam). Nate Longshore just threw his second pick. The crowd boos, and as usual, KNak opens his oft-used The American Standard Dictionary of Swears, Curses, Obscenities, and Miscellaneous Verbal Dickslaps and really piles it on poor Longshore. We're standing literally ten feet away from the football team, and I'm trying to get him to shut up, but to no avail. Eventually he calms down and instead just mutters to himself as if he were a schizo locked up in a dark corner somewhere, like John Forbes Nash or Britney Spears.

But then Kevin Riley gets put back in under center and immediately turns the momentum of the game around, throwing for 42 and 24 yards, eventually leading to a TD run in by Jahvid "The Jet" Best...all in the course of 54 seconds.

KNak immediately begins the loudest personal "KEVIN RILEY *clap clap clapclapclap*" chant I've ever heard a single person produce. The problem/fucking hilarious part is that nobody else did it with him. He was a lone soldier in a sea of "dude shut the fuck up." Regardless, KNak kept this up on his own for a good two minutes. I was laughing my ass off with my back turned to him, and so were a few of the fans in the stands right next to us. And so, with much flourish and aplomb, KNak introduced his true self to the frightened newman class of 2008.

Small moment it may be, but these are the little things that I like to keep in my memory.

Semantics be damned

A conversation in the car, driving down Telegraph.

SRS: "We should go get Ethiopian food again sometime."
Me: "Sure. Speaking of which, at Davis, the Coke that we got had the special Olympics edition cans with "Coca-Cola" written in different languages, and one of them was Ethiopic."
G-Unit: "You mean Olympics Special Edition cans."
Me: "Isn't that what I said?"
SRS: "No, you said special Olympics edition."
Me: "Oops. I meant Olympics Special Edition."

A couple minutes pass.

Me: "I was hoping China's can would say the normal "Coca-Cola" on one side and "Coca-Cora" on the other."
SRS: "Except Chinese Coke would probably have some actual cocaine and some leftover girl fetus parts."

Another minute passes without speech.

Me: "I wonder what would be written for the Special Olympics edition cans."
G-Unit: "Dude. That's fucked up."
Me: "Probably 'duhraewrhuCOooOOoca CeahREAFooragh.'"

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of Patrick Chung's slow-ass face

I left this town in 2005 with the idea that nothing new or exciting ever really happens around these parts, which is why I decided to come back as little as possible. Palo Alto is to great place to grow up and great place to retire, but not a good place for someone in the prime of his life to hang around - kind of like salmonella living in your colon. (Salmonella, the bug responsible for typhoid, is transmitted via the fecal-oral route. This literally gives the phrase "Typhoid Mary: a lady in the street but a freak in the bed" a new world of meaning.)

Surprise, surprise: I've been back in Palo Alto for all of eighteen hours and already some spongeworthy things have happened.

Exciting happening number one: the UC Berkeley presence in the heart of downtown Palo Alto apparently has increased fifteen bajillion-fold. Walking down University Ave. with long-lost pal Jugant, we passed by The Sports Gallery. It's a nice, high-end sports memorabilia store that, growing up, I had always seen while in downtown but never really cared about, since most of their stuff was about teams or sports I didn't really care about, i.e. beisbol, U$C, ice hockey, Stanford (well okay a little bit, but not enough to buy the stuff), and all those other unimportant teams not named "The San Francisco 49ers."

On this sunny Bay Area day, however, as we casually strolled by The Sports Gallery on our way to Pizza My Heart, blurry familiar images flashed just outside the periphery of my right side, definitely enough to make me do a double take.

Script Cal...? Blue and gold helmet? Whaaassa haaappen?

It was a "BEAST MODE-AUTOGRAPHED MEMORABILIA ALL OVER THE WINDOW DISPLAY AND THE STORE SHELVES wait I think my pants are damp and warm yep there it is" moment.

Long story short, with the help of a little government tax return, I am now the proud new owner of my favorite moment of Cal football 2006, except this time it's actually WORTH SOMETHING:


Gordon: 1, Patrick Chung: still -$12,974.72 for mandible surgical repair and psychiatric therapy.

AND! The day goes on! I also put a down payment for a BEAST MODE-autographed replica full-size helmet.

But all would not go as planned for the day. Unfortunately, having just returned from LA, I had not yet done all my laundry, and so the only clothing I had left was one of my UCLA shirts, a simple gray shirt that writes "University of California Los Angeles." Simple, unpretentious, non-bombastic (I love that word).

After making my order at the Starbucks on this very same street that finally gave me a reason to love downtown Palo Alto, my love shattered in pieces like the skull of a newborn Chinese girl against hard concrete.

THE DOUCHEBAG BARISTA AT THE STARBUCKS WROTE "GO TROJANS" ON MY CUP. This was, of course, unacceptable, and so, with my ever-handy mini-Sharpie, I made the world right once again:




I can see the conference talk now:

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this afternoon. In collaboration with a number of many of the best universities in the country, we would now like to present the conclusions of our twenty-year study on the correlation between the quality of tertiary education and post-graduation careers in the United States.

Among the most prominent examples of considerable success came from the University of California, Berkeley, widely cited as not only the best public research university in the country but the entire world over. What does a Berkeley degree mean in the country? We have found that it results in highly-sought attributes such as eternal leadership of prime marching bands, freaking hot/top-flight athletes, and the eventual ability to become hotshot dentists who can establish themselves in Santa Monica and purchase really, really badass cars, like a Mercedes C63 AMG.


(No, you can't tell that's an AMG, but trust me, it is, it's fucking sexy, and it belongs to my cousin, MCB '91.)


Unfortunately, we have found that the spectrum for this correlation is rather wide. On the other end of the spectrum, we now list a prime example from some school in the Los Angeles vicinity: nothing more than a minimum-wage barista working for a company rapidly shutting down hundreds of locations across the country.



The Trojan Network: your gateway to crappy coffee and steamed milk.

When the Moon is in the Seventh House

Did a couple of planets line up wrong today or something? Did Pluto decide that it had had enough of all the other planets bullying him around, making hm feel all inferior and shit?


"Fuck you guys, let's see how well your God-almighty alignment bullcrap works now, assholes!"

Today is my last day in The City of Angels, and all of these events occurred today:
-While packing, the books on the top shelf toppled down, resulting in a superficial gash of three inches on my right upper arm
-The 2008 Olympics in Beijing opened with a show that Pat Forde of ESPN.com claims was "the great show in Opening Ceremony history"
-Min, the woman in the lab bay next time mine, gave birth today a healthy baby boy via caesarian
-The apartment four doors down from ours, with the magic of a bug bomb and microwave technorogy, somehow managed to make both the bug bomb AND the microwave explode...at the same time. The resulting explosion was what led to said books toppling, leading to said gash on said arm.

I was getting my personal belongings together when, at around 1:30pm, the apartment gave me one bigass, motherfuckin violent shake-down and a rather loud, frightening boom. My first instinct was, "Hey Gaia, give us a little break, will ya?" I stopped and stood under the doorframe, getting ready to stabilize myself when I realized that there were no more tremors. One big shake, and that was it. "...not a quake. So what the hell was it?" As I wiped the proverbial poop out of my pants, Brett comes back into the apartment and asks, "Dude, have you been here the whole time? How come I didn't see you outside?" Inside, I was thinking, "Well, we're not really friends at all; as a matter of fact, I kind of hate you, so why would I bother looking for you," but the Microsoft Word editing program in my brain changed it to, "Nope. Why?"

Brett: "There was an explosion on our floor, dude. I've been standing outside for the past ten minutes because the fire department evacuated our floor. It was, like, fucking epic. Epic."
Me: "...shit. I felt and heard it, but I didn't know what it was, and it was over pretty quick, so I just didn't worry about it."
Brett: "There was an alarm. You didn't hear it? It was pretty fucking epic."
Me: "...no."
Brett: "Wow, dude. But it's okay now, they let us back in."
Me: "No shit."

[edit 7:14PM]

Upon taking out the trash, I walked by this gaping hole in the wall. This was about 40 feet away from the door of our unit.

Like a girthquake of 9.0 on the Dickter scale. In the butt.

Sitting in lab waiting for my gel to finish running, I fell into my usual routine of perusing through my GReader subscriptions. Among them is the funniest football blog to nail your crotch to the wall, Every Day Should Be Saturday, winner of multiple CFB blog awards, home to Gators superfans Misters Orson Swindle and Spencer Hall (they have sort of a Jekyll & Hyde/"Wonder Twins powers activate" thing going), home of the Philip Fulmer Cup (registry of infractions and crimes attributed to any college football team in the country), and home of the world's smallest big-screen TV. AND! He updates multiple times a day, ensuring that every day when I wake up, my first thought will be "I wonder what stupid kid on what famous football team got arrested?" followed by "Need to scratch" and "aaaaah."

The countdown picture for today was this searing sight:


November Tenth, Two Thousand and Seven The Year of Our Lord.

That was the day my sax died, after standing in the rain for 4 hours, our brave little band standing shoulder to shoulder, huddled close trying to get as warm as possible. But I can still vividly remember Hawkins' amazing touchdown when he did this amazing horizontal leap. Through all the blur of the rain and the cold, for a second, it looked as if he were literally flying through the air. "The Hawk can fly! The Hawk can FLY!" we exclaimed, as if we were Wendy, John and Michael after snorting that sparkly shit that Tinkerbell gave them and told them to "think of the happiest things." But, by George, what a game. Looking back on the Note I wrote regarding that game, I stated then,

"But every single one of us stood there in the cold rain looking down on our Golden Bears and believing with every last ounce of our bodies and minds that we could pull it off. We stayed until the end. We always will.

We may have lost tonight, but tonight, I have never felt more proud to be a Cal Bandsman or a child of this fair mistress by the sea.

GO BEARS."

And then I spent a week with Lewis Black's drug of choice, NyQuil. I bought the bottle and threw the cap away because who the fuck needs measured volumes? The more the merrier, I say, when NyQuil is ever involved.

Unstoppable Force, Meet Immovable Object.

Every once in a while, you will hear or read something so perplexing, so baffling in the ass-backwards-ness of the logic attempted, that you can't help but think, "What if the Nazis were right?" (Not that I'm endorsing anything the Nazis did, except perhaps invent the Volkswagen.)

Murphy: "Dark Knight sucked."
Me: "What? Why?"
...blah blah blah...and now the punch line:
Murphy: "The Joker had no depth."
Me: "Did you listen to anything he said?"
Murphy: "Yeah, he talked WAY TOO MUCH. He says he's an agent of chaos. So why did he spend so much time talking about it? Why didn't he just do it? His too much talking made him a shallow character."

And before I could respond, he left. Here, then, is my concise dissection of the argument: if you think The Joker had no depth as a character, how does taking away his dialogue and his well-portrayed, well-organized mind games, and therefore making him MORE one-dimensional, add depth to him? I didn't even have to say anything to contradict what you said. You contradicted yourself entirely within twenty seconds. Making The Joker a single-layered killing machine makes him more one-dimensional, therefore making him a more shallow character. He's not meant to be a random mysterious force of pure death; the dialogue is IMPORTANT to The Joker's character and who he is. He doesn't just create chaos on a macro-world level; he wants to break down people from within as well, which was the entire point of enacting his incredibly roundabout plan to reach his ultimate goal of corrupting Dent.

Thank God you're not a real film major. You'd fail out so fast.

"All I Wanna Do Is (BANG BANG BANG BANG)/

...and (CLICK kaCHING) and take your money" - Paper Planes, M.I.A.

I'm sitting in lab on Thursday, bored out of my mind because I have to wait for this three-hour water bath incubation to finish. I'm on 1.5 hours and I didn't realize watching the second clock buzz away (yes, buzz, not tick - we roll with Rolex, motherfuckers) could be so much fun. I mean, at least if I'm bored in lecture, there's still somebody constantly dispelling information that I might find useful at some point.

At around 4pm, our good ol' non-oxymoronic German-Jew friend Murphy calls me and says, "Hey, two things: 1) I'm drunk right now (he just finished his finals for summer school) and 2) the premiere for Pineapple Express is happening in a couple hours at the Mann Village. Wanna go check it out?" I figure, why the hell not? I'm not doing anything with these two hours anyways, might as well go see some skanky-ass hos and starstruck morons ripping each other to shreds for maybe a hope of a chance to get their pinkies within five feet of a celebrity and consequently claim the Holy Right. Right?

And here...we...go: [click on any picture to enlarge]


The scene at around 5:00pm. Not too many folks yet.


Judd Apatow. One of the first guests to arrive, surprisingly early (the bigger names usually don't arrive until later, close to the time the movie starts). Also, super genius.


LLOYD!!! of Entourage in the jeans and white/green shirt, Rex Lee.

Murphy: "Looks like he's put on a little weight."
Me: "So has your mom, but that hasn't stopped me from loving her daily and nightly and ever so rightly."
Murphy: "...so basically you're saying you would fuck Lloyd."
Me: "...No. Bad joke on my part."
Murphy: "Yeah, don't forget to close the door on your way out of the closet. We don't want Tom Cruise roaming the streets unchecked."
Me: "Douche."
Murphy: "Queer."


STANLEY! of The Office.

Me: "Mr. Baker! Mr. Baker!"
Leslie David Baker: continues walking right past me.
Me: sad.


The worst picture of Leslie David Baker ever taken. There's 6.7 billion people in the world; somewhere out there, there HAS to be an award for this, right? Isn't it the American way to celebrate every little thing, no matter how mediocre?


Me: "Mr. Voight! Mr. Voight! My cousin went to Beverly Hills with Angelina! They were in the same graduating class! (True story.) That makes us, like, practically cousins, right?"
Murphy: "Shut...the...FUCK...UP. God damn, I'm sobering up."

[Picture of James Franco should be right here, except that since we went to the same high school and had a bunch of the same teachers, I'm basically his long-lost, unattractive, nerdy brother. So no need.]


And of course, the man of the hour, Seth Rogen. The crowd literally EXPLODED. This one dumb bitch standing next to me sounded EXACTLY like what I am writing right now: "OHMAIGAWOHMAIGAAAAAWD ITSETHITSETHITSETH ILUVHIMILUVHIMILUVHIM" and so on and so forth. She went on for a good thirty seconds. Without breathing. I want to punch her in the gut for her own good. A girl needs to breathe once in a while, ya know? Wouldn't want an ambulance to ruin the whole event. And she just needed to shut the fuck up. I'm basically the best teacher some of these people have ever met.

I'm still beyond myself how I managed to get such a great shot of him, considering 1) I had to reach as high as I could for this angle and 2) it was literally a mosh pit of people pushing, clawing, and swearing like sailors, trying to get Seth to sign pictures and posters.

Murphy: "Seth! From a Jew to a Jew!"
Me: "What does that even mean?"
Murphy: "It's a Jew thing. You wouldn't understand."


And so Murphy and I were about to leave. We figured that since all the big stars were here and it was around 7:15pm, that was the end of the red carpet event. But just as we were about to turn and walk away, another car pulls up. "Who the hell?" we asked each other.


Jonah Hill. Last to show, longest car. And this would have been a much better shot were it not for MURPHY'S TARD HAND BLOCKING HIS FACE.
Murphy: "Jonah! Let me shake your hand! Can I please shake your hand? You're my hero!"

Ignored entirely. He was practically in tears (at least, on the inside, I hope).

And so, at the end of the day, we had gotten to see some pretty big stars, and we were happy especially considering these were stars we actually sort of care about because we love their movies so much. But I wasn't crying over not having gotten an autograph or not having gotten a picture with some stars, like some of these girls were. Really, a red carpet premiere is sort of cool, but ultimately pretty pointless. These people don't look any different in person than on the screen because this is such a highly public event that they'll of course come out looking their Sunday best.

One more week left here in Los Angeles.

The Earth doth quaketh.

"Come on, Bobby, move faster! ...Bobby?..."

11:42 AM: in my apartment (being lazy and not yet at work), third floor. Building just started shaking like Shadowfax's nuts while he's running through the forest.

15 seconds of legitimate fear. My books have fallen on the floor, a plate fell and broke in the kitchen, and I was panicking for a second. Car alarms up and down the entire street blaring like a symphony performed by morons, starring Moby as the surprise guest.

Then I remembered all that bullcrap that they taught in elementary school about standing under the doorframe because it's one of the strongest structures you can find in the immediate vicinity. The quake continues on for about two minutes. It feels like half a lifetime.

A quick Google search tells me that it was a 5.8 magnitude quake that reached Los Angeles, Chino Hills, San Diego, and a little in Las Vegas.

Dick housemate in the other bedroom evidently slept through the whole quake.

I love California with all my heart.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker are human.

I was watching South Park last night on SouthParkStudios (full episodes, HQ!) and, not knowing what episode I really felt like watching, since I've seen pretty much all of them, I hit the Random Episode button. Fortunately, the little Buddy Holly airplane, The SPS, in which I was flying crash-landed on one of the older episodes, episode 4 of season 3, "Tweek vs. Craig." Also fortunately, it's one of my more favored episodes (the newer seasons are way too hit-or-miss).

As with any South Park episode, Stone and Parker throw in some sort of preachy, didactic lesson at the end of the episode in which the boys learn some important life lesson as they go through adolescence and ultimately A) accept their lessons or B) decide that the aforementioned lesson is retarded (or secret answer C) Cartman makes fun of them anyways). But one quote that came from this episode was "Saying goodbye doesn't mean anything. It's the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it."

It's cheesy and stupid, but as soon as I heard those words spoken, I thought about how many farewell lunches and dinners I've attended for people in both of the labs for which I work.

Four. Four farewell meals thus far, and I will attend another one this Friday intended for Christine and...um...myself. (It's a bit like Tom Sawyer attending his own funeral, isn't it?) And here's the free side of fries for playing along: three of them were buffets.

I've been here since the Twenty-Third of May in Two Thousand Eight The Year of Our Lord and two of those farewell meals were within the first two weeks of my arrival. The turnover rate here is just too damn fast.

But that is neither here nor there. My ultimate point is this: I wish more people would leave the lab so that I can have more excuses to eat at buffets.

I kind of miss the Bat-nipples. Anyone?

I managed to get two tickets for The Dark Knight Thursday midnight preview showing at the Mann Village theater after some vigilant calling of theaters and harassing of theater websites for a full week prior to the release. (Every time I think about how awesome it is when I get some really rare crap I think about Dave Chappelle sucking dick for crack. But that is neither here or there. Moving on.)

We figured that 3 hours would be plenty of time for us to get in line and get great seats. We figured, "Who the hell is hardcore enough to get there at some ridiculous time, say around 6pm? Nobody, that's who."

How incredibly wrong we were. Not wrong like "2+2=5" wrong. We were wrong like a certain Dora the Explorer toy is wrong.

If Mittens chose to save baby penguin based on his beliefs, and Mitten's beliefs are not in his direct control, does Mittens really have free will?

By the time we got in line at 9pm, we were already two block lengths away from the theater entrance. Turns out that the people at the very front of the line got there at - wait for it - 3pm. They were willing to sit there for a full 9 hours for this. The best part is that they didn't even bring anything fun to do, as far as I could tell. No cards, no games, no portable DVD players, no computers, nothing. These four Batfans (har har har shoot me) were so hardcore and were so focused that they wanted zero distractions.

But for all intents and purposes, this movie opened my eyes, most importantly in new possible uses of an ordinary #2 pencil. All those awesome reviews you read? Totally true. Point: I'm sorry, but Aaron Eckhart was a dull choice for Harvey Dent. He was good in Thank You For Smoking, for sure, but he just wasn't super convincing in this rendition of Batman.

So overall a pleasant and very, very satisfactory experience. But now that I've had a taste of the nectar, I need to go for the honey jar (or whatever shitty analogy you prefer). IMAX!

Here's the kicker: remember those guys at the front of the line who got in line 9 hours ahead of time? They sat right in front of us. One of them nodded off in the middle of the movie.

My brain got Garrett Cross'd (Zack Folletted?)

A 6:30 PM dinner at the Corner Bakery Cafe turned into the strangest philosophy-academia discussion I have ever been involved in. Which begs the question, what the fuck happened last night?

Oh right, 99 BANANAS happened last night. And somehow 99 Bananas, Malibu, and Jim Beam led to a 5-hour long debate about Buddhism, the state of academia in the United States, American hegemony, cutting-edge Jesus professors, why public schools rock and private schools are le suck, how the Greek system at UCLA is ridiculous, why midwesterners are the damned nicest people ever, and 3/4 of a can of Scrubbing Bubbles foaming spray being used, like, EVERYWHERE.

And I woke up with sunflower kernels - not seeds, kernels - all over my bed and in my hair.

Binge drinking with band-geeks-turned-frat-boys: just like cheesing, except legal.

Frailty, thy name is fish-out-of-water (and vice-versa).

"So pick ME. Love ME. Choose ME.

Here's the thing about fishing: it's not fun.

What's so fun about sitting around for HOURS and waiting for some stupid creatures to get tricked into biting into the shiny, completely unnatural hook with some little piece of dead squid or shrimp or worm or, better yet, a fake, plastic, ENTIRELY unnatural piece of plastic that just LOOKS like it could be yet another mysterious yet unquestioned piece of free lunch just sitting in the water? Nothing. There's nothing fun about it. Perhaps if you had a good buddy or two with whom to crack open a couple of beers, sit and chat the times away, look at the beauty of the water and the coast. But then again, you could do that in a cool summer backyard evening. And at least home would be nine steps away from the backyard porch swing.

But here's why I love fishing: Remember in Cast Away when Tom Hanks' character, Chuck Noland, finally successfully made fire after trying fruitlessly for days on end? Remember how incredibly overjoyed he was and how he celebrated like it was 1999 B.C.? Remember the look in his eyes that told the audience that his faith in life was rekindled and that, thanks to this major step forward in technology, he decided to take a step away from giving up his life? Remember his pompous yet grateful declaration to nobody (or was it to himself?) that "I...I! I have made...FIRE!" Remember that? Sure you do.

Of the seven or so previous times that I had gone fishing, I had never caught a damn thing. I have spent hours upon hours of just standing on the pier, enjoying the sun, but feeling frustrated that the fish had somehow figured out beforehand that I was coming and therefore decided to collectively piss me off by ignoring me intentionally. Of course, this is not a new experience for me - it's basically middle school all over again, except this time, the people ignoring me can't speak English, so I was spared the searing pain of a repeat of all the ridicule of my glasses...and how I dress...and my weight. Um...excuse me while I call my mother.


Just like Tom Hanks, minus the beard and that stupid volleyball.

But I. I have caught mackerel. Six - count 'em - six mackerel on the first day that I successfully caught anything - I have decided to commend the day by naming it "Bloody Thursday." In tandem with my cousin and DKao, we collectively captured and slaughtered fourteen mackerel.

There is, however, one possibly tear-jerking part of the process: when you drag the poor fish's rapidly decaying body out of the water, it fights. Oh, does it fight - like Maximus for his chance at vengeance, like Ali to prove his invincibility, like Marshawn for those last few yards - it fights for precious, priceless, perspiring life. I hold its body down for a few seconds while it struggles to live. In the final seconds of this David versus Goliath battle (except Goliath destroys David, who evidently now has gills), it makes one final desperate gasp. And it is an audibly loud gasp.The first time I heard that final gasp for life, I actually felt bad. For four seconds. Why? Because I was fucking hungry, that's why. Stop it with your silly questions.

But alas, I deny it the chance to continue its sad, short little existence. Why? Because I am a man, and I must be pleasured.

(Wait a second.)

Okay, I can't think of a better way to put it. I am a man. And I must be pleasured. I will hunt these fish down for my entertainment and to shower myself in LoCal (or Lower California) aplomb. I will kill them for that last adrenaline rush and to remind myself that, yes, I am a man, and I can hunt for food, albeit using advanced modern technology to do so. But I am Chuck Noland without, well, the shittiness. Sorry, Chuck, but Wilson sucks. And I think he might be coming on to you.



And today? Four yellowfin croakers.

And oh, they are succulent. A little salt, a little fresh-ground pepper, some garlic powder, a little soy sauce, an overnight in the fridge, and 45 minutes in the oven later, be our guest.So suck it, Venice and Malibu. I may never be able to afford to live in your precious high-cost homes and your pompous reputations, but at least I have taken a minor victory in this pompous, much-too-sunny area known as LoCal.
(Photos courtesy of DKDog)

Chinese police, for the win

In a stunning hilarious AP photo released by Xinhua News Agency of China, we see that the Chinese police have upgraded from walking like us common chimps to utilizing the next wave in military technorogy, the Segway. Running be damned! Using the legs are for suckers and athletes.

To be honest, it really isn't that intimidating when you're dressed in all black with a badass suit but you look like you're on a amusement park ride at the age of 6, you have to pee really badly, and you're holding what appears to be a toy gun that goes with the new line of "Ghetto Barbie."

So come on, champs. Protecting the public and ensuring that the olympic games run smoothly is great and all, but just stop this. Please. The Segway really can't go much faster than a person running, and you guys especially are SWAT-trained, so stamina should not be a big deal for you.

Segway PT: $5,145.00

Human legs: Priceless (like a mother's love, not the good kind of priceless - BS)

There are some things money can't buy. Sometimes those are the best things.

But I only see one Starbucks!

It's cold down here...but hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock (ICHIROOOOOOOOOooooooooo) up in the Bay Area.



I look to my left...

and I look to my right.

There is indeed a Starbucks to my left.

There is, however, no Starbucks within sight to my right side.

I sure as hell ain't in Seattle or in Houston, TX. So where the hell am I?

How is it possibly colder - yes, COLDer - down here in subtropical desert climate than up in The Bay?

Speaking of hot, it looks like the Cal Athletic PR Department actually put a decent amount of effort into the advertisement/highlights video. Check it out at www.CalBears.com.

EVERY BEAR COUNTS.

I'M BACK IN THE GAME

EDWARDS, YOU HOBAGS!

If Disneyland is the Happiest Place On Earth...

...then why do people commit suicide there?

For our 66-dollar-entry worth 12 hours of plastic costumes, superficial family unity, and make-believe magic, I must admit that this trip to Disneyland was the happiest time I've had in a long while. Normally the "Joy" slot in my heart would be filled by Cal football wins, but since "Nate Longshore" is to "field general" as "MTV" is to "music" (as "KFC" is to "chicken" - LB), guess that can't really happen. But heavens, the fireworks show was fantanstic. I can't believe that they have that fireworks show every night - it's insane how much effort they put into every detail, into keeping the park pristine (there is NO litter ANYWHERE), and most importantly, keeping up the image of the Magic Kingdom, the place where wishes do come true and magic is everywhere. Or something like that, I'm not sure, because they only blared those messages over the park PA system about fifty billion times, and I usually need something repeated to me fifty-one billion times to really sink in.

As we watched the Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams (presented by Sylvania, I might add), David pointed out that among all the park attractions, the costumed princesses walking around, and the costumed princesses on the float waving hello to all, Mulan does not appear among any of them. I argued that most would not consider Mulan one of the classic Disney princesses, as 1) she is a war hero rather than a damsel in distress, 2) she has yellow skin and slanted eyes, which Walt would never approve of as an American role model, and 3) she's probably a lezza, having mixed in among men without any problems for a long period of time. God knows good ol' true blue American Walter Elias Disney wouldn't want to promote THAT kind of anti-Christian, un-American behavior (perhaps blaming the Jews for all of America's problems and banning bagels from Disney movie sets are more his cup of tea).

We went on Space Mountain five times. FIVE. Because, damn it, if I'm paying sixty-six dollars to relive my childhood dreams, I'm going to beat the horse to death, beat it some more after it's dead, cook and eat the dead horse, crap out those remains, and then beat those remains some more.

What is Americana?

A true American. He's, like, just beneath George Washington and Jack Bauer.

There are new strangers sleeping in our apartment. I have no desire to meet them.
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I tried PinkBerry for the first time yesterday. It is, without question, the shittiest froyo I have ever tasted. I took one bite and just left the cup with the cashier and shot him a look of disappointment and anger, turned around, and walked out.
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Being an immigrant from a tiny East Asian island nation whose governmental structure is basically modeled after that of America, I thought I had it all figured out. After spending 16 years here in the good ol' U. S. and A., I am, for the first time, whoring myself out to the patriotic nature of America.

I am paying $15 to feel patriotic at AmericaFest 2008 at the Rose Bowl. AmericaFest. Subtle (read: "SUB-tul").

So what is Americana? What makes us who we are as cheeseburger-chomping, hot-dog-inhaling, horse-piss-beer-brewing, guns-a-blazing, freedom-fries-declaring, big-stick-waving, hegemony-pushing, too-fat-and-lazy-to-do-jack-squat Americans?

Hell, I don't know, but here's a gem:

(11:03:20 AM) Yatin: hey i like to think in some instances i am actually lazier than a normal american
(11:03:55 AM) Yatin: altough like a true american i am on my second drink of the day
(11:04:43 AM) Gordon: a true american would be completely wasted by now

What would Jerry say?

Here's what I have decided after living in Westwood for about two months:

Los Angeles is basically the more attractive, less intelligent younger sister of the Bay Area.

Confidence, good day.

Upon returning from the weekend in Manhattan Beach/TheFinerPartsofLA with Doc, Whale Juice, and Taradactyl, I discovered that, thanks to a gorgeous day in the sun by the beach and his pool, I got sunburned.

I thought I had myself pretty well covered in SPF 79208440, but Helios has an odd sense of humor.

My nipples are thoroughly burned. I now understand FULLY how Andy Bernard felt during the Fun Run.

The idea of going shirtless until my sunburn heals crossed my mind, but the little angel on my right shoulder suggested to me that I not do so out of public decency and to prevent mass hysteria from how fantastically nauseating my unclothed body is. The little demon on my left shoulder proceeded to kick the little angel's ass and told me to go for it, but then I took off my shirt. The devil said that I should put my shirt back on if I wanted to keep my Chief of Staff and his Undersecretaries.

An Irresponsibly Early Assessment of Bowl Games

ESPN's Mark Schlabach has already released a preseason projection for bowl games in 2008.

Are you kidding me?

Never mind the fact that not even the preseason rankings have been released. On what basis is he making these ridiculous predictions? Based on LAST year's records and what MIGHT happen at over the ENTIRE UPCOMING SEASON? That's just really pointless journalism and, frankly, an absolute waste of time.

Stupid is as stupid does, I guess.


Schlabach in his best and brightest years.
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Thinking of ways to get more traffic to this blog. Suggestions?

I feel like Indiana Jones

I slept at the lab last night because it was just too damn hot in my bedroom, caused by the fact that it's on the top floor of the building, so over the course of the day, the temperature rises like a bitch in heat but never really dies down enough as the day gets cooler. So it was about 90F in my bedroom at 11pm.

Before you read the next sentence, close your mental eyes. Think of something nice, like the ocean, or a carnival, or laughing babies surrounded by bunnies, flowers, and cotton candy. Got it?

Even laying in bed wearing nothing but my underwear, I was sweating my ass off, and my bed was literally soaked halfway through with my high-sodium, high-sugar perspiration. Even my underwear was soaked through with sweat. I just couldn't sleep. So, at 4am, I got up, changed, and walked to the lab to sleep under my desk. George Costanza has taught me well.

Today, my roommate and I were discussing whether or not our air conditioning unit even works. We took a look at it and flicked that little plastic switch from "Off" to "Fan." We heard a machine whir and air move through some pipes.

I prepared myself for some sort of booby trap to spring up and swallow the two of us whole or if random Mayan warriors from 4,000 years ago would pop out and shoot poison darts at us. A discovery like this was simply too good to be true. Much to my idiot-schoolboy glee, nothing bad happened, and we live to see another day to enjoy the air conditioning. Good timing too; I was getting ready to move into the lab.

Beast Mode: WHY?

Marshawn "BEAST MODE" Lynch is going to plead guilty to the hit-and-run accusation from a couple weeks ago.

You damn right, you better plead guilty, because it's two years later and Patrick Chung is STILL feeling it. That's called the Boomstick, son.

In all seriousness, though, what the hell, man? Come on. You're the shining golden Mama's Boy who hails from the crown jewel of The Bay, The University which produced upstanding Americans, the likes of Deltha O'Neal and Joe Ayoob and Chuck Muncie and...hmm. Wait a second...

Valuation: better than you.

So really, the only thing keeping The University (capital T, motherfuckers) from building the SAHPC is figuring out the value or worth of California Memorial Stadium? How much could some stairs, a beam, and some other cosmetic crap cost? Surely not more than a million.

How about PRICELESS? ("Priceless like a mother's love...or the good kind of priceless?" = 5 bonus points)

This stadium was built to honor those from the university who served and sacrificed during World War I. The place is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, for cryin' out loud. Sure, it's old, dirty, kind of greasy, and is long overdue for a thorough tune-up (not unlike our good friend Britney Spears), but its significance for the Bay Area, both symbolically and financially, is too much for any true, singular amount of money to be applied to the structure. Placing a monetary value on the stadium would be an insult to the names, honor, and integrity of those incredible souls who served and fell in the war.

But an argument like that probably won't win in the court of law. If we look at it from an investment point of view, then, the lawyers for The University may be able to argue that, due to revenue gained from football games and INCREASE on that revenue made possible by having brand-new facilities, the stadium is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

There are many other ways of arguing it, but believe me when I say that the lawyers for the Dark Side will try to cheapen the value as much as possible, trying to make a convincing case that, due to the degradation of the stadium over time, the building is pretty much worthless.

Shame on you.

Forgive me

There are few errors in life that I have truly, honestly regretted. Most of those mistakes involved social or relationship issues, and a couple of them were academic. But today I made a choice that surfaced and solidified because I was not thinking clearly. I did not think my actions through, and as a result, one part of my life has turned for the worse. And for that, my friends, I am truly sorry.

Today, I chose - CHOSE - to eat at Burger King instead of In-N-Out, sitting a mere two blocks away. The sheer hunger of a day of work blinded me and The King - oh, The King with his devious smile and his soulless, plastic eyes - pulled me away from staying my true path.

I am a traitor to my name and to the majestic country of California, glory be to Her name.

June the Ninth of Two Thousand Eight The Year of Our Lord

By the graces of Tint and KNak (NO idea they went to the same high school until today), the two of them drove up from Irvine to take me out to dinner and to drink the night away.

So CPK it was. I whipped out my license ready to order a drink...except the waiter looked unimpressed and even confused, as it took him a while to figure out that, yes, I was of legal age to purchase alcohol. (The waiter had one of those Tim Taylor/chimpanzee looks of confusion while looking at my license). After perusing CPK's rather limited drink selection list, I settled on a Sam Adams lager. Happy with my decision, I prepare myself to enjoy the first drink that I myself have purchased...only to see our waiter return thirty seconds later to inform me that they were out of the Sam Adams lager. Frustrated, I flipped open the list again. Unable to find anything truly satisfactory, I settled for a Bud.

I went from a Sam Adams lager to a Bud. Beyonce would not be happy (hint: Comcast commercial).

From there we shared a Long Island Ice Tea and then, unable to stand up to my standards of manliness, I ordered a Peach Breeze. I ordered the girliest drink on the menu and I POUNDED THAT SHIT DOWN.

The rest of the evening was spent with a handle of Malibu and playing Rock Band at some random guy's dorm room. That, and making incredibly immature, stupid prank calls to Greg, one of which involved a Jeopardy and the other a series of voice mails that, when pieced together, depicted...exactly what our Jeopardy said.

Malibu is not that good for straight shooting all night long.
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UCLA's bluebooks are intense. On the cover of every one of them is stated the following:

"I understand that academic integrity is highly valued at UCLA. Further, I understand that academic dishonesty, such as cheating and plagiarism, are violations of University policy and will be pursued by the appropriate campus administrator. Finally, my signature below signifies that the work included is my own, and that I completed this assignment honestly.

Signature:_________

Sanctions for academic dishonesty include suspension or dismissal from the University. There are alternatives to academic dishonesty. Please see your TA, professor, tutor, the Ombuds, or the Dean of Students to discuss other choices."

Really, though? Really? Is that really necessary? This is a world-class research institution with one of the best medical schools in the entire world. And, according to the CollegeHumor Cheating Survey, 41.5% of students at schools WITHOUT an honor code cheat. So save yourself some of the ink and intimidation, treat your students like adults, stop insulting their intelligence, and assume that they won't cheat. If you do catch them cheating, the solution is simple: DOMINATE them. Dominate them in every thinkable orifice.