I am Jack's bloody, undesired children.

One thing that really fascinates me is the innate human desire to leave behind legacies. Be it literary, musical, kinship, or notoriety, we all want to leave our mark on this earth, to let prosperity know that we were here and we made an impact. [I think that this blog is my way of beginning that journey; this, and my lifelong dream of an international food tourism trip.] Of course, I am always excited when I can contribute to the greater community and inspire others to contribute, and I am especially excited when they follow the same vein. Welcome a co-worker of mine, henceforth named AsianShaq (you'll be hearing about him quite frequently), to the blogosphere. He's ten times funnier than I am. Find him here. Read him. Love him. Pet him, feed and walk him twice daily. The following story can be found in his perspective here.
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"You are a walking, talking Murphy's Law."

That has been the central dogma of the past month. The next few stories will revolve this theme of unfortunate timing and coincidence, soaked, battered, and deep fried in schadenfreude (served on a hot corn tortilla with fresh mango salsa and a chipotle aioli).

Most recent major incident: we were all in the kitchen during lunchtime, enjoying much-needed sustenance of corn dogs and Eggo waffles (or whatever the heck was there). AsianShaq, who had just started his blog after reading mine, mentioned blogging and leaving his mark. I quote, "...and someday, just maybe, they can follow in my footsteps." He mentioned a mutual hero of ours, the infamous Tucker Max, creator and star of the famous stories which can be found at TuckerMax.com. By leaps and bounds, the best story in his very impressive arsenal is the "Tucker tries buttsex; hilarity does not ensue" story.

Take a ten-minute break from reading this blog right now and hop on over to his site to read that story, linked above for your convenience. The story's not actually that long; ten minutes' allotment is suggested because it'll take six minutes to read, three minutes to stop laughing, and one minute to change your underwear.

Back? Got your ya-yas out? Got new skivvies on? Good. Now that we have established context, let us sally forth.

Of course, when people have a common moment of sharing movies lines or music or whatever within mutual knowledge, we tend to repeat the best lines, if anything as proof that we actually know what we're talking about and not just pretending to know it for the sake of building friendship. If you've read Tucker Max's story, then you know that the best line in the whole laugh-a-second product is "DID YOU JUST...SHIT ON MY DICK?"

I happened to shout that line out loud because it was so damn good. I also happened to shout that line out loud right as FDU, one of the team leaders and senior scientists here, walked by.

FDU stopped and gave me a somewhat stern look. He looked around at the other interns who had suddenly stopped laughing.

FDU: "You know what I love about this company? The thing I love about working here is the professionalism in a public area that we keep, a public area that an investor or public official might be visiting at any given moment."

Everyone else looked at me and was dying not to crack up. I was dying to dig a hole and bury my head to save myself from the shame. By the way, that hole gets smaller and smaller every time - At the rate I embarrass myself publicly here, I figure I'll be immune to all this shit I do to myself within, oh, a month.

I am a walking, talking Murphy's Law.

Fresh Mex, Indeed

Sincere apologies for the long absence. Science beckons, and that frequently means going in on weekends so my E. coli, every single one of them conveniently named Bobby, won’t die from self-competition for nutrients from bacteria soup.
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For Teeks' birthday two Sundays ago, a few of us went to the Chevy's in Emeryville. Sombrero, pitcher of margarita, embarrassing birthday song, free ice cream - not a big deal, just a pretty good night with one very distinct and what could have been a potentially fatal highlight:

In the middle of the meal, Teeks suddenly exclaimed, "What the hell is this?" and proceeded to pull out a tiny little metal ball from her mouth. Pinoy nearly gagged on his food, the look of absolute surprise and bafflement on his face priceless. [Ed. note: There's a really bad slut joke somewhere in there about the surprise of seeing Teeks pull something other than a penis out of her mouth. But that's all water under the bridge - we won't revisit that side of history, because she’s nice and actually NOT a slut, etc. etc. etc.]

Of course, being the jerks we all are, none of us were seriously concerned about Teeks’ well-being. the only thing on our minds was that she had somehow coughed up a FREAKING METAL PELLET. Also, being the cheap bastards we all are, we immediately started thinking of how we could milk the situation for all it was worth. Compensated meal, of course, but what else? Another margarita, on the house? How about five shots of Gran Patron Platinum, which is $250 a bottle? Maybe just everything at the bar, no? Because we sure as hell don’t want any more of your metal-BB-laden cuisine.

Eventually the manager came over, looking quite embarrassed but ended up being very nice and funny about the whole thing. Teeks got an extra watermelon margarita and a comp’d meal. We were quite disappointed in her for several reasons: 1) being too nice, 2) not taking advantage of a fantastic opportunity, and 3) being nowhere near as Asian as she should have been, because if she were TRULY Asian, she would have milked the poor manager dry until the restaurant went under.

Best line of the night, by far, was our super chill waitress telling us, “Oh, don’t worry about the BB. That’s how you know our pork is fresh – we’re killing them out back.”