Chicago visit

Here, finally, are photos from our trip last week. I went to the APAGSO conference to present a paper while Simon made a visit to a datacenter. We managed to do some sightseeing and eating before and after I made the 3 hour trek down to Urbana-Champaign for the conference and campus visit. It was great to be able to walk to all the major sites in the city but it was hovering around -1 C plus windchill. You don't actually feel a lot of wind but trust me, something was making it feel a hell of a lot colder than -1. I had leggings on under my jeans and five layers of shirts on top. We had to buy touques (what the hell do you call those in American, wooly hats?) and mits and ear muffs. I think I'm definitely more of a west coast kinda gal.

Dinner our first night in Chicago at a Brazilian Churrascaria, i.e. all you can eat meat

Next morning I headed down to UI Urbana Champaign for the APAGSO Conference where it was "Unofficial St. Paddy's Day" AKA day that students go to classes drunk at 9am

After day 1 of the conference we went out for drinks in Urbana. Here's me with Dean, my panel respondent and fellow SF State grad student (Ethnic Studies) and Ryan on my left, University of Chicago (History)

The night I got back the first thing we did was grab some deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's

The crust is buttery and flaky like pie crust

This is Wells Street at night. We did a self guided midnight walking tour of the city in freezing temperatures. Good thing we found the South Loop Bar at the end of it for a drink.

Sunday was all about sight seeing. Here we are at Millennium Park checking out the kidney shaped reflective structures

Here I am at Millennium Park in front of the huge fountain that displays the faces of folks from Chicago. It's kinda creepy.

This is Michigan Avenue, the main drag. Architecture here is crazy!


And the only souvenir we brought back. It's a doormat in case you can't tell.

ORD

I'm writing this from Chicago O'Hare where my plane home is delayed 2 hours because it snowed today. It wasn't sticking but there was a good layer of slush on the ground and probably enough to mess up the flight schedules. The guy sitting across from me is reading Voltaire's Candide and is holding up the book to make sure everyone can see what he's reading. I dunno but if that doesn't scream of "I'm trying so hard to pick up chicks it hurts" then I'm not sure what does. Another guy sitting next to him saw the Canada patch on my backpack looked up and told us that he and his wife used to put Canada patches on all their luggage for international travel and it got them through airports a lot faster. I thought that was kinda funny.

I can't write too much more because I'm hogging the laptop but it was a good trip both through Chicago and Urbana-Champaign and I'll write more and post photos when I get home.

customer service etc

So I'm simulataneously grading student work, reheating food, watching the rain pour down outside, and sitting here listening to Blue Cross's awful fucking hold music borrowed from an elevator somewhere back in the 1970s. My estimated wait time to speak with a representative is 30 minutes. How is that acceptable? How can you even call that service? And the other thing that pisses me off is that when I dial the number, I have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get put into the queue. Push 1 for member services, enter my date of birth, my policy number, push zero to talk to a breathing human being. After half the day passes and someone finally answers the phone, s/he asks me for the same damn information. Shouldn't all that crap just pop onto her screen or something? What was the point of my entering a gerjillion digits into my phone to begin with? Argh, anyways, that call is done now. I've confirmed that they canceled one of my insurance plans (even though they sent me all this mail about how my premium would go up by $40 as a reward for turning 30, asses).

Anyways, I was chatting with Egan the other day on IM. He got on my list after sending a sympathetic IM in response to my post about all the hate mail I was getting for trying to get Spencer Gifts to pull their shirts with the racist Asian caricature. I got to asking him who on his blogroll he actually knows in real life (IRL). I don't converse in real time, online or off, with any other bloggers I don't know IRL. More than 3/4 of my blogroll are strangers IRL but we read each others blogs regularly. So I'm curious, have you ever met up with someone IRL, after knowing him/her only from reading his/her blogs? If so, how many times have you done this? Was s/he what you expected based on reading his/her blogs? Was it weird?

** addition to this post **

Would YOUR blog accurately reflect you IRL? For me, I use this as a space to unload all my bitching and complaining. You know, stuff that people don't like to listen to but, for some reason, is funny when read rather than heard. So IRL, I'm really not this negative and hostile. Okay, well I am a little. Most of you get it, but from reading some comments ("oh the world's not so bad Vanessa bla bla bla") from a couple people who don't know me well, I've learned that not all of you realize I'm being sarcastic/facetious. I think a blog that looks at the world through rose coloured glasses is boring and, for me, induces a violent fit of projectile vomiting.

media and food weekend

With Simon just back from business in Vegas (which typically demands late nights of drinking and gambling after the conferences in the day), we decided to stay in all weekend. Friday, after I picked him up from Oakland International (the airport from hell that requires a drive on the 880, the highway from hell), we grabbed some Thai food and went home to watch Primer which was awesome. It was a Sundance winner and was made on a $7K budget but had a great plot, decent acting and was generally fun to watch. It required a lot of thinking and later we read online that most people watched it a couple times with notebook in hand to keep track of what was going on. It was about time travel and I won't say anything more or I'll spoil it.

Saturday was carwash and gym/steamroom/jacuzzi day. It was also the day our beloved Tivo got upgraded from 40 hours to 224 hours of recording time. Hell yeah! That night we had a friend over for raw oysters, duck, and homemade chicken soup and then watched another movie while the friend took off for the Marina for drinks. I had to be coerced to watch Jarhead because I hadn't heard of it (not a big movie goer normally) and Simon tends to love watching stuff that is usually black & white and has any or all of the following: tanks, machine guns, grenades, helicopters, fighter planes, people in military uniforms shooting each other, bloodshed and suffering. When I heard war, I went and made myself a couple drinks to help pass the time but it turned out to be a great movie. Funny (the last thing I expected), irreverent, and well-paced.

Tonight I used the Macaroni Grill gift certificates I got from facilitating a workshop for Girls for a Change last month (great organization and super alternative to Girl Scouts, that's for damn sure). Starters were okay, caesar salad was not cold enough, lobster ravioli was not hot enough, penne was good. Overall not that memorable. Gonna try and squeeze in another indie film I borrowed from the library now so much for getting to bed early.

Yay gold

Belated congrats to the Canadian women for hockey gold. Too bad we were too excited about the men's game to pay attention (it seems) and all for nothing. *sniff sniff*

But another big one today was gold in curling. Kids in Newfoundland even had the day off school to watch! How cool is that. I watched the game but I had no idea what was going on except there was a lot of shouting and you're supposed to get your rock in the middle of those circles. I think. I have no clue how you figure out the points.

annoying office people

I haven't worked an office job in a few years so it's funny to hear about weirdos at work from my friend. I have to share this IM conversation I just had with her:

friend: that stupid ghetto chick that sits behind me is annoying me
friend: this is her phone conversation "yo, she's got the hookup for the hookup, so just call her and tell her i sez to call her because she can hook you up"
me: OMG this person has an office job?
friend: YES, accountant. cannot wait til she leaves
friend: "you better get on your girls over here, ya know"
friend: i have NO clue what she's saying sometimes
me: oh i know what you mean
friend: "i sez to her to get on her girls..you my doggy"
friend: wtf? and did i tell you she sings the Mickey Mouse song to herself?

Sometimes you can't even make this stuff up.

I have to admit when I first moved here, I wasn't accustomed to this nasal lazy-sounding San Jose drawl that some of the teenagers here speak with. And, no, it was not an accent. It came from kids of different races who seemed to speak English as their master language. I'd go up to a fast food counter and have no idea whatsoever what the person was saying and they'd get all pissed off when I had to ask them to repeat themselves.

Irvine

Thanks to all my blog friends out there for the birthday well wishes! After a week of being 03, nothing has fallen apart yet. I've got some more pictures up on my Flickr, which I just started using because everyone else seems to love it. Pics of Simon trying to take apart the wireless mouse packaging are in there and so is a photo of us liquor shopping ghetto style. I figure I will put up my publicly viewable photos there and keep the ones of my friends passed out, throwing up, and engaging in borderline illegal activites in my Kodak Gallery. You also have to check out Cute Overload. Oh my, if you love any sort of animal you will love that site.

So I got word that I've been accepted to UC Irvine's Phd program in social cultural anthropology which means free trip to Irvine in a couple weeks. Yahoo, more free shit!! I'm pretty excited about this one because a couple of the profs there were really responsive and just seemed darned interesting and supportive. Good vibes count you know. It's going to be a nerve wracking couple of months as I wait to hear back from all the other schools. I still have between May and I guess September to work as I'll have my post completion practical training visa which lets me work up to a year after graduating. College teaching gigs would be ideal but seem really hard to come by. If anyone hears of anything in Asian American studies, mass communication, or cultural studies, please let me know.

raw food

So I decided to test out a raw food diet at least for dinner tonight. People into the raw food diet thing claim all sorts of things, it clears the skin, reduces cholestrerol, makes you live longer etc etc. OK the real reason I tried it tonight is because Simon is away and I'm too lazy to cook and I need to lose the pounds I gained between Valentines and my birthday. After eating this huge stalk of broccoli which I dipped into a yogurt dip I made (fat free yogurt, honey, mustard, dijon mustard), I started working on some nuts for protein. Verdict: I cannot do this on any sort of regular basis. My entire skull hurts from chewing. Raw food is just damn crunchy. How the hell do they do it?

good day sunshine

Sun and warm weather always makes a day better. Strange how it hovers above freezing at night and then warms up to t-shirt weather in the day. I got word that UI Urbana-Champaign is going to reimburse me up to $100 in travel expenses for the conference I'm going to next week (I'm scheduled for 10am or something on Saturday). Woohoo, free money is always good money. I can't wait to give my first conference presentation and see Chicago for the first time. I have only Sunday to see the sites so what should I be shortlisting? The only things I have on my list so far are to eat deep dish pizza and check out the architecture so I need some must-see suggestions here.

I finally got the hang of Tivo'ing the Olympics. Man it's a pain. It records 7 hours of competition which I have to fast forward through to get to the good stuff (hockey). 3 Canucks are on the Swedish team so I watched that. Unfortunately, our guy Ohlund hurt his shoulder and ribs. Now I'm watching Canada v. Russia. I don't have a good feeling about this one. Our goalie had a stiff leg and we haven't scored in two games. Oh yeah, and I hate it when the camera person focuses on someone in the crowd. If it's not someone with a huge sign or making an ass of him/herself, it's ALWAYS some young blond chick. And I always secretly hope that the woman doesn't know she's on TV and picks her nose. That would be sweet.

fixing stuff

So after the mystery of the server error on my blog comments, followed by the disappearing birthday blog post, something finally got fixed for once. Well, not fixed but worked around. My trusty Canon S600 which I've had since I moved here 5 years ago stopped printing in black ink last week. Printing anything in color no problem, print test page, no problem, printing a simple Word Doc....problem. Being a firm believer in fixing stuff myself I Googled and found http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/16844 and there was almost too much advice there to follow. I replaced the cartridge, held the power button down for ages, deep cleaned a million times, cleaned the printer head, uninstalled and reinstalled the driver, shut down and restarted the computer... still nothing. I was able to print if I set the black to 80% instead of full black (another suggestion on that forum) but then you get dark grey and not black. Finally at the bottom of that forum, someone suggested changing the paper to photo paper pro instead of plain paper. All of a sudden angels began to sing and a light shone down from heaven as a full page of black text magically pumped out of my little inkjet printer. What would we do without the Internet? Now my shoebox full of about $50 in ink cartridges will not go to waste.

the abyss

Somehow the post from my birthday on Friday disappeared into the abyss. That's probably why the commenting feature wasn't working for that post. Now the whole post is gone and I didn't delete it. Told ya bad/weird shit like that happens on my birthday. Oh well, it was all just bitching and complaining anyways. Why don't I post up a few photos from that evening instead. We had dinner at Turtle Bay near my house to celebrate my turning 03. The seabass and fresh oysters were awesome and the live jazz was nice too. The owner came over to the table to say hello and by the end of dinner the restaurant regulars and staff were dancing, some on top of the bar. All of them were older than us by at least 20 years. It was an impressive sight to see.

After dinner, Simon and Shannph headed to Safeway to get some warm up drinks to do what they call car bar. Yes drinking in a parked car is totally ghetto and something you do when you're 19 but now we're 30-something and not rich like we expected to be when we all moved to Silicon Valley so screw it. Car bar ended up taking place back at our place a couple blocks away because we decided to break out the Absinthe that Simon brought back from Toronto. The stuff is 70% alcohol and originally was made with wormwood which is some sort of hallucinogen that made Hemingway and Van Gogh a little wonky. You are supposed to light a sugar cube over it and then add water to lessen the bitterness but it doesn't work. It tastes like crap and burns your throat. After some Absinthe, more drinks, and an hour or so of watching the Olympics we finally headed back out to a swanky neighbourhood bar called Stinger Lounge. It was a little embarrassing to go there and not rack up a huge tab like we usually do (John the owner loves us because we're thirsty people) but we had arrived pretty warmed up from
drinks at home. Anyways, we stayed a while and then headed over to IHOP for eats. It was the most fun we've had hanging out within 4 miles of my own home.

Oh yeah, so one of my gifts was a wireless mouse for my laptop. What is up with the packaging of electronics lately? It took a swiss army knife, a pair of scissors, and a lot of brute strength to get all the pieces out of that package. It protects the product well but there's no way that we need that much plastic going into landfills. And half the time when I'm trying take it apart I manage to cut my hands.

Anyways, last night we did celebration round 2 by going to see Paul Van Dyk at 1015. I'm not sure why these things always happen when I'm around, but some guy got shot in the basement while most people, including us, were upstairs or in the main room watching PVD. We didn't even know it happened until my friends tried to leave and the bouncers ordered no ins and outs while they investigated. I guess the panick was relegated to the downstairs. At the end of the night it took forever to get our coats because downstairs where coat check is located was roped off as a crime scene and they had to bring our jackets up one by one as we waited in a huge line. Weird tragic night. But the party was otherwise great. We spent the afternoon today wandering the mall to stretch our legs and get a free massage from the massaging recliner at Sharper Image before heading home to do some work and watch TV. I'm so glad it's Presidents Day tomorrow. I need a day to catch up on my work and lament the passing my 20s.

MSNBC

I hate the fact that most of the Olympics coverage is on MSNBC because that means it's reported by that annoying pest Tucker Carlson. Hmm, let me share a Tucker Carlson quote:

"Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada."

I'm also sick of the American commentators in general. They talk about the American team even when they're reporting on a game/race where no American athletes are involved. Get with the program and talk about what's going on onscreen. Jeez. I miss CBC.

I was so sad to hear about Michelle Kwan withdrawing. Sarah Hughes's little sister was the alternate. In an interview today Sarah said something about how Elvis Stojko skated with a groin injury but Michelle made a personal choice not to, but it's been done before. I found it a little rude of her to infer that Michelle was wimping out. Her sister's interview made no mention of Michelle. All she did was babble about how exciting it was for her and how hard it was for her to keep it a secret during her dinner. Bleh. Little sister Hughes needs to get some media training from the folks who work with NHL teams. Hockey players are big, sweaty, rough, and toothless but get them in front of a camera and rarely will you see them speak without first praising their opponents and then keeping their comments about their own team rather humble (for the most part).

winter sports

So I was watching the Olympics and realized I never watch any of these sports except when the Olympics roll around every 4 years. Watching the games also brought up a bunch of questions for me. Like, why in the world do people do skeleton when they can do luge? I mean careening down an icey track feet first is dangerous enough, but doing it head first? Wouldn't your first injury pretty much be your last? Can a helmet really prevent a broken neck? I don't get it. And how in the world do these athletes get into sports like luge, bobsled, and skeleton in the first place? Just think of how we get into sports. You're say 5 years old and taking some recreational lessons in say skating. Maybe you learn faster than the other kids and the coach bumps you up a level. Maybe then your parents try you out in figure skating where, again, you excel quickly and begin taking up the sport competitively. Kind of all happens naturally right? But how many of you even know where the nearest bobsled track is in your town? What in the world would compel you to (1) find such a track (2) let your kid try the sport? It's just not an activity that you stumble into or discover a hidden talent in because the opportunities aren't there (and it's dangerous as hell). Someone fill me in here.

screwed

It appears I'm getting screwed by every corporation I deal with today. I can't login to my online banking. When I do, I get a big blank screen. That's always reassuring.

Those DMV bastards sent me my registration payment form and I paid it back in December before I went away. Now I have a letter that says NOTICE OF INCOMPLETE RENEWAL because I need to get a smog check (that's the same as AirCare for you Vancouverites). Well it wouldn't be incomplete if they had sent me this stupid smog check thing with my registration renewal papers in December. They JUST sent it to me and it says that it might take 30 days for my registration sticker to come after I pass smog check. Sooooo doesn't that mean I'll have a gap wherein my car won't be registered. I HATE YOU DMV!

And finally, Amazon. I ordered a bunch of books at Christmas time. December 6th was when I put in the order. One of those books was for a newly engaged friend. Not only did it fail arrive when she came to visit in December.... It still hasn't come. I ordered this over 3 months ago, what the hell??? I think I need to cancel this. They're going to be married by the time they fucking ship this.

Items Ordered	Approve
The Unofficial Guide to Planning Your Wedding, Eileen Livers Updated Shipping Estimate: March 10, 2006 - March 24, 2006 Updated Delivery Estimate: March 14, 2006 - March 28, 2006 Your approval required by: February 17, 2006

Mutiny at the cafe

What do you do when you have a mediocre hourly pay job, love your coworkers but collectively hate your boss?

http://www.beyondrobson.com/city/2006/02/mutiny_at_the_cafe/

I had a rather shitty day today but this made it a teeny bit better.

I can think of a job I had where we all hated my boss, but the only one with guts enough to up and leave was me. Not exactly collective action but I sure gave HR an earful at my exit interview. No one makes me attend THEIR meetings and takes credit for MY work without ME getting some revenge. I heard that after I left she no longer had any direct reports except some co-op student who was an even bigger pain in the ass for the company than she was a waste of money.

Vancouver in film

So the last few days Simon's been glued to the computer watching the entire Battlestar Galactica TV series starring Grace Park. I'm hardly a fan of sci-fi/fantasy (fell sleep through Lord of the Rings, don't understand Star Trek, saw Star Wars for the first time only 2 months ago) but Battlestar from what I've seen of it isn't too hard to watch. The fact that it stars an Asian Canadian woman and is shot in many recognizable places in Vancouver makes it even more bearable.

I get all giddy when I see my hometown in movies even though it happens pretty frequently. I used to work a block from the Vancouver Public Library and we often got notices saying that shots would be fired for a movie and, well, not to call 911. X-Files was filmed both outside my office and at my school (Simon Fraser University served as FBI headquarters) and who could forget Rumble in the Bronx (ah yes, New York with mountains). Unfortunately the only stars I saw in person in Vancouver were David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson when they were shooting in a lane down by West Pender (and all my damn coworkers were out there watching too) and the cast of 21 Jump Street when I was on a school field trip to the acquarium. With all the action, it's no wonder my childhood friend, her dad, my gymnastics coach, and half the people who were in my acrogym class are stunt performers by trade. If you're ever in Vancouver look for small white rectangular signs on utility posts with neon arrows and a series/movie title written on them. Follow the arrow and you'll find the set where they're shooting. (But do not disturb)

Here are some more lists of movies featuring Vancouver:

Darren Barefoot
Wikipedia
IMDB

Palmolive

I think writing to companies to praise or criticize them is genetic. My dad does this all the time. I, too, cannot help myself especially when it's so darn easy online. My latest:

Dear Palmolive,

I love your Spring Sensations detergent. I do have some feedback though. Once the bottle is half empty and not easily weighted down, the bottle tips over really easily and it drives me nuts. I'd recommend designing the bottle so that it is shorter and wider and thus more stable and less likely to tip over and fall into my sink. Short and stout in a stylish container (like the Target Method line of products) with a pump would be even better.

Sincerely, Vanessa Au

BTW, whatcha think of my new layout? My old one was hurting my eyes and I needed a late night diversion from working on the thesis.

food weekend

3 short workouts a week is not enough to burn off all the damn food I eat. Friday night I ended up making dinner and had Shannph over too. Boiled spinach + ground turkey + seasoning salt and garlic power + mushroom alfredo sauce made for a great pasta sauce. It actually tasted more like sausage than turkey. I used the water from boiling the spinach + shitake and enoki mushrooms + lentils to make a nice healthy soup. Salad included more spinach, mandarin slices, almond, cheese, and balsamic vinagarette. My butt was glued to a bar stool at Alpha Bar that night so I burned 0 calories, plus we went to Denny's Japan Town for loco mocos after (they have special stuff like Hawaiian food and kimchee)--- two eggs over easy atop a hamburger pattie on rice with a couple scoops of gravy on the whole thing. Yuuuuummy!

Saturday was work out and steam room day but we stayed in and munched on armloads of chips and chocolate and watched Kickin and Screaming (Will Farrell movie) that night. Not easy on the total calorie count. I blame the UK Cadbury's that Simon brought back (way better than any American chocolate).

Sunday was Superbowl day of course. I don't watch football but we went to a friend's house and I brought my laptop and feasted on barbequed beef, prawns, home made sushi, home made salsa, toffee (my friend will be launching J&S Toffee soon, watch for it), chicken wings, and shots made of sake, raw quail egg, uni (sea urchin), and salmon eggs. Decadent and all washed down with beer. I had to have a nap after the half time show. Man the commercials were lame and...sparse this year, no? So many network commercials. I guess most companies are too poor this year. My favorite was the horses helping the baby horse (a calf right?) push a Budweiser cart. Not funny but sooo darn cute. Not so sure it connected with their target demographic but I sure liked it.

100x100

I'm going to help my friend Will milk his fame a little more by pointing my readers to his post about he and his friends polishing off the In-and-Out 100x100 burger. Will has gotten so famous, he's gonna be on the damn radio! There's absolutely nothing wrong with gaining that 15 seconds (or days in this case) of fame for eating lots and lots of cow, grease, and sweaty cheese. Go Willy go!

Hmm I have nothing else to talk about today. Apparently I accidentally pissed off a person or two and the person I'm pissed off at happens to be in town. Oh and my new Blue Cross plan doesn't include coverage for vision care and I can't see too well right now and I'm running low on contact lenses. And also when I (or Simon) uses this nifty wireless optical mouse, I can't fucking type on my wireless keyboard because signals get crossed. Oh, and my brown hamster pissed all over my white hamster again so she's yellow now and I'm scared to clean her because she bites. My life is clearly a well-balanced combination of unexciting and shitty. Hmmm.

Blue Cross idiots

I just got off a long call with Blue Cross customer service that accomplished nothing. I'm trying to cancel my individual plan and go only with the coverage that I'm getting from Simon's work which is also from Blue Cross. The woman, Mary, says she can't cancel my individual plan and has to put me through to another number. This is after 10 minutes of mucking around in the account and, well, doing nothing. She goes to "put me through" to another customer service rep. The phone rings twice and a guy says "hello?"

Me: Hi, I was transferred to your line to get my individual PPO Share 5000 cancelled please
Guy: Uh, what?
Me: I was transferred to your line to get my individual PPO Share 5000 cancelled please
Guy: Uhhhhh, I called Blue Cross this morning too but hehe I'm a patient too. She said she put you through to another line at Blue Cross?
Me: Oh my God. Yeah. You're a customer?? She connected me to a customer?!
Guy: Yup, and she put you through to my cell phone no less [laughs]
Me: Oh my God, be careful next time you call Blue Cross. Obviously their reps screw up big time!!
Guy: [Laughs] Yeah! Alright you take care
Me: You too

Hello privacy issues??? How does a mistake like that happen?

groceries

I like to shop but not for food. I hate grocery shopping almost as much as I hate going to Home Depot to look at lumber and tools (a deep rooted hate that is, well, rooted in frequent childhood trips to Lumberland as my parents spent years and years renovating our previously dumpy flea-infested home). While Simon was away in London last week I decided to see how long I could go without buying groceries. Aside from a quick trip to Trader Joes to get a sushi roll before hitting the gym, I managed to not go at all. Yup, no bumper cars at the Ranch 99 parking lot for me. No freezing my ass off in the produce aisle or carrying 5 bags of food from my car parked a block away from home. I was perfectly fine eating damn near everything in the freezer and then going out for dinner and eating the doggy bag leftovers over the course of 3 days. This weekend we had Mexican for lunch which meant no room for dinner which meant no need to buy groceries. Tonight dinner will be steak (last one from the freezer) and, um, peas (also frozen). After that we're in trouble.

good things

I witnessed two simultaneous random acts of kindness that have restored my faith in humanity. I was at Trader Joe's grabbing some bananas, blueberries, and an unagi roll. The express line for 15 items and fewer was long but I figured it would go fast and I was in no rush. One lady in the express line went over to one of the normal check out lines with a small armfull of items. The woman in front of her with a big cartload of food let the lady in front of her. At almost the same time, the same thing happened at the check out line one row over. Some guy let another person with fewer items in front of him. Not only have I never seen this, I've never seen this happen twice at the same time. Awesome. So people in this world aren't all hateful and selfish.

shame

All I can say is, Canada, you should be ashamed of yourself for allowing this to happen.

Conservatives win Canadian Election

Relations with the Bush administration will likely improve under Harper as his ideology runs along the same lines of many U.S. Republicans.

The Conservative victory ended more than a decade of Liberal Party rule and could shift the traditionally liberal country to the right on socio-economic issues such as health care, taxation, abortion and gay marriage. Some Canadians have expressed reservations about Harper's views opposing abortion and marriages between gays and lesbians.

The Liberals have angered Washington in recent years, condemning the war in

Iraq, refusing to join the continental anti-ballistic missile plan and criticizing President Bush for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions and enacting punitive Canadian lumber tariffs.

I'm back

Sorry for the blog break. Getting back into town last week was hectic. House needed cleaning, hamsters needed cleaning, bills had to get paid, and I needed to go out and bask in the glorious sunshine. I've turned comments back on but for now they're going to be moderated because I'm kind of sick of seeing my blog turned into a rant fest for a bunch of bozos.

Anyways, a little over a month until I head to Champaign, IL to present my yet-to-be-written paper. Taking one day in between flights to visit Chicago increased my airfare (paid by my school) by $200 so I think I'm going to take Amtrak ($17) from Champaign up to Chicago for my lone day of sight seeing. That way my flight stays under $400 and my department chair wont freak out. So what are the must-sees for a one day trip in the windy city? And where the hell do you check in a piece of luggage for a day so I don't haul it around with me? I hear there is a check in at Amtrack Union Station but I'm not sure. Anyways, I'm excited and it's actually motivating me to work on this paper.

Today's election day in Canada. According to the local news, there are indications that Bush's church groups sent up helpers for Tory leader Stephen Harper. Several ridings like Coquitlam, Richmond etc are backed by the churches. For all those Americans who joked about moving to Canada when Bush was elected...what do you do now when Bush's wannabe becomes Prime Minister? I guess you move to Sweden or somthing. Well hope is not all lost. Vote Liberal. Layton is wonderfully presentable and the best I've seen come out of the NDP, but (among other issues not worth mentioning) he won't have enough to win and would just take votes away from the anti-Conservative effort. You know, the same reason why you don't vote Green.

Tolerance.org

I was planning to keep all Spencer stuff on the other blog (http://wearingracism.blogspot.com) but this is a rather notable accomplishment http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_tol.jsp?id=1348 which is linked from their front page.

finally back

I'm finally back in the Bay Area. We came so damn close to setting that rain record. Apparently the weather station where they check for rain is located at the Vancouver Airport and on Sunday it didn't rain there (it rained elsewhere that day, like my house, but not there). If a few drops had landed at the airport, we'd have broken that 28 day record. For all that pain, you'd expect some sort of prize at the end but nope, it rained every day of my 28 day stay in Vancouver. Yay for me.

But there are things that I miss in Vancouver: Not doing laundry, not making dinner most days, good cheap sushi (how do you beat $6.95 for lunch?), hockey on TV every single damn day, hockey coverage on the news, funny commercials, Whistler. But there are also things I don't miss: twin bed that I or my blankets fall off of each night, parents making comments about everything I do (including going to bed late, getting up late, going out late, etc.), living deep in the suburbs separated from downtown by a maze of side streets because we don't have a decent highway system, no Tivo, and the damn rain.

On an unrelated note, check out this ACLU Pizza video. With the Bush administration demanding records from Google, it's not too far fetched.

no not the conservatives

Oh my God, the advance poll results show that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives leading. The man is a former Reform party MP who glorifies the Republican party, supports the war in Iraq, described our country as a welfare state, and has his wife sending memos to Christian churches to drum up support for him. While I'm pissed at the Liberals for the (overblown, old news, let's get on with things) scandals and I'm mad at Paul Martin for not handling the Head Tax issue effectively, that is something we can deal with again once he's in office, it's not a good enough reason to support an extreme right-winger. Trust me, Harper doesn't give a flying shit about the Chinese in Canada (since when did anyone from the former Reform party give a shit about anyone who wasn't rich and white?), he's just saying whatever it takes to get our vote.

We need to examine the leaders' platforms. A 2% GST cut is (1) insignificant to us (2) going to take money away from the great things that Canada puts tax money towards -- Childcare, healthcare, education. Trust me, I live in the US now and I miss things like subsidized tuition. I did not like doing math in my head to calculate my potential medical bill as blood poured out of a gash in my finger (and I ultimately decided I couldn't afford stitches). I see the mess that is the US public school system. Canadians who have never lived elsewhere take for granted the benefits they enjoy from the high taxes. We don't want to be emulating the United States where everyone, rich, poor and poorer is left to fend for him/herself. I used to complain about the taxes and GST too, but after living here, I'd take the current Canadian system in a heartbeat. His promise to give families an extra $100 a month for childcare is a joke, that would cover less than a week of childcare. Better to put the dollars into subsidized programs that are used by people who actually need them. We don't need an ultra conservative Bush wannabe running our country. Harper would turn around everything that makes Canada a great and liveable country. I agree that we're choosing the lesser of the evils (that's politics afterall), but please, whatever you do, don't vote Conservative. While his image consultants trained him to seem less cold hearted and angry, his ideas are the same. He does not "stand up for Canada."

Need an intro to Canadian politics? http://www.blindeye.net/index.php?cat=4 and start at the bottom of the page where he introduces the parties and leaders. The author seems to lean slightly towards the Green Party (they're not so bad but haven't a chance in hell) but his commentary is funny and he's equally critical of all the parties. Like I said, it's voting for the lesser of the evils, the Conservatives (do not forget the Reform party is rolled in there) being most evil! Please don't fall for the "we need a change in government" rhetoric and remember the NDP (while Layton is charming and an impressive new face for the party) also don't have a chance.

hanging out with kids

So last night was a good time. We had some eats at Steamworks and then made our way over to Shine for the second to last '80s night called White Lies. Tragically, they are going to stop throwing this party and next time I visit I'll have to go find another party that plays '80s.

Anyways, it was a renunion of sorts with some friends we haven't hung out with in years. I tend to like to call everyone out when I'm here to catch up and stuff. We danced our asses off. So a friend of mine, we'll call him O, is sorta seeing this 21 year old on the side whom we'll call C.

O is 31 but very very young at heart. O was catching up with my good friend Mandy and I since we used to hang out pretty regularly especially the summer of 1997 when C was, well, 12 and in elementary school. Back then we were partying 3 nights a week or more, without fail. O is still partying 3+ nights a week but that's another story. So O was chatting with Mandy and I and C wanted him to dance with her. Engrossed in conversation, he told her he would later. She stood there for a while and then all of a sudden she picked up her cocktail glass and threw it at him. The contents of the glass landed all over O, while the glass itself smashed on the glass table top. C stormed off onto the dancefloor and picked up the first single guy she saw there. She danced with him for a while as Mandy and I laughed hysterically at O and the shit he has to put up with when he dates kids. I don't think our out-of-control laughing was C's intended effect and I'm sure that infuriated her more. Anyways, C comes up with a plan to make O jealous, thereby getting back at him for talking to us old ladies. She grabs some innocent dude she met on the dancefloor, brings him back to the table and announces to all of us, "isn't he hot?"

Innocent dude is dumbfounded at this point. He says to O, "is she with you?" Yes, he replies. Innocent dude looks like he feels totally stupid in this situation because C had picked him up and brought him to a table to show her date and his friends. Uh, WTF?? He shakes O's hand, apologizes (even though it was that dumb bitch C's fault), then comes back with water for Mandy and I as if to remedy the awkward situation that C created. Mandy gets up to explain to innocent dude what had transpired in the mere minutes before he got dragged over to our table like a piece of meat and tells him he's very much a gentleman for shaking hands and buying us water and all those nice gestures. Innocent men, I apologize in advance on behalf of all women, for the actions of stupid little girls like C. We're not all like that and girls like that serve only to make the rest of us look bad.

juvenile

So this is all getting a little juvenile with the vile name calling, the hahaha that's not what he said comment, and the "ching chang chong." This is not an intelligent exchange of thoughts or ideas, this is elementary school playground mud slinging. I'm going to turn off comments and leave you with this for now, from
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/archive/2002/04/23/eguillermo.DTL:

"There's already some backlash against Asian Americans, who are seen as
anything but fierce champions of freedom, fighting racism wherever they find it.
Instead, they're now being portrayed as humorless scolds -- politically correct,
even -- as if standing up for some moral principle could ever be considered
wrong or shameful.

Hey, I can take a joke. Most Asian Americans can. But maybe what's
needed here is an updated lesson on ethnic humor. For example, if I want to call
myself a slant-eyed laundry boy, that's okay. That's funny because it's
self-deprecating. (Even President Bush is good at this style of humor, though
sometimes unconsciously so. We don't just laugh at him because he's president.)
The beauty of self-deprecatory humor is that it gives people permission to
laugh. It makes the teller the butt of the joke, and invites us all to be in on
it.

But if a non-Asian makes references to Asians as caricatured slant-eyed
laundry boys, then we have a problem. That's not self-deprecation. That's just
denigration imposed by another."

-- Emil Guillermo

ergonomics and such

First off, all updates on the Spencer Gifts campaign will now be posted to http://wearingracism.blogspot.com going forward. So if you want to sign in anonymously and call me an overdramatic cunt as someone already has, please do so on that web site instead. :-)

So we're on day 24 (I think) of rain, just 5 more til we break the record. I'm almost excited about it because I'll forever remember this as my one month visit where it rained every fucking day.

I watched About Schmidt yesterday. I thought it was a funny movie, not the antagonizing bore that one critic described it as. My favorite line, "when I die and everyone who knows me dies, no one will even know I ever existed." So that has inpired me to leave some sort of a mark on the world before I leave. If I can't come up with anything good, I'll have to tackle one of those stupid stunts in the Guinness Book of World Records.

I've been working from my laptop here this whole visit home and it's starting to cause me some pain. Back when I worked for a start-up, we had monthly visits from an ergonomics expert. What I learned from him was that the monitor should be centered at eye level and your keyboard positioned so that your forearm and wrists slope down. If you have your hands bent back to form a V with your hand and forearm, you're going to get carpal tunnel in a big way. Now if you use a laptop, there's no way to have the monitor centered at eye level and your arms sloping down, unless you have really strange proportions. I'm very fearful of carpal tunnel so I've got my seat adjusted high but now my neck hurts from looking down and my shoulders hurt from having my arms hoisted up on my desk a bit. I sure wish I had a docking station and 2nd monitor and keyboard.

who links to me

I finally got around to adding the who links to me thingy to my blog template (below the Rice Bowl Journals logo) and discovered that someone who posted an article on online writing linked to my post on the grammar epidemic. http://magazines.fasfind.com/wwwtools/m/2653.cfm (scroll down to language, usability, and learning). Cool huh?

So here in Vancouver we're up to 23 consecutive days of rain. The rain started the day I arrived in Vancouver. If the rain keeps up until the day I leave (next Tuesday), we will have set a new rainfall record for consecutive days of rain. Why do the gods hate me so? My regular readers and friends know that I HATE RAIN.

So we're up to 138 signatures on the Spencer Gifts petition and while it's still getting passed around, I really need people to repost this issue on their sites. AngryAsianMan, AsianMediaWatch and AsianMediaWatchDog -- I need your help!? I most certainly cannot turn in a petition with only a hundred some odd signatures. I haven't even heard back from Spencer Gifts. Typically those companies will at least send some generic "we're sorry you're pissed" type email, but no nothing nada. I also have yet to hear from media. So please link to http://vanessa_au.blogspot.com/2006/01/boycott-spencer-gifts.html and keep up the pressure.

OK gotta get back to my thesis. It dawned on me that I have to present some version of it at that conference in Illinois in early March. That's two months. TWO MONTHS. Crap.

election

Canadians, please don't forget that our election is coming up. There was interesting article about a Chinese Head Tax redress becoming an election issue. The very fact that this made the paper already makes me giddy. I cannot wait to submit my early vote before I head back to California. Remember the Leaders' Debate takes place 5pm Pacific on Monday. It is so interesting to tune back into Canadian politics after living in the US and watching the Democrats and Republicans battle it out. I think if the Republican party were transplanted in Canada, they'd just be some crazy way-too-far-to-the-right fringe party. Anyways, I have some political research to do so I know I am making the right (I mean correct, hehe) decision. Canadians, please do your homework before you vote...and please vote!

life...and campaign update

Yesterday was hockey day in Canada and what a glorious one it was. I feel for the Russian team. They are good. They deserved the one goal they scored that wasn't seen by the linesman and had the score been 5-4, I would've felt really guilty...but it was 5-0. And so I say WOOHOO TEAM CANADA!! Leafs fans, you guys are so lucky to get Pogge! I also watched a bit of the Canucks-Blackhawks (terrible team name) game but I'm mad at the Canucks right now so I turned it off even though we were winning.

After the games, I headed out to Guu Gastown for authentic cooked Japanese food, tapas style. It was tasty though not as good, in my opinion, as Guu Robson. Then over to Subeez, an old favorite, for drinks. Aside from a birthday Saturday night I have no plans for the weekend but would love to catch some local theatre and this Korean film over at the Pacific Cinematheque but I have a feeling I'll be hardpressed to find someone to accompany me since everyone else wants to see Narnia :( bleh. I need new friends to catch theatre and indie/international flicks with. Anyone? Might also trek up to Whistler on Sunday. Maybe, we'll see.

I've got 2 more weeks here which I should be spending on my thesis and some reading but it's tough to focus when I'm working on this Spencer Gifts campaign and praying (to whatever Gods are out there) for snow on the local mountains. Anyways, the campaign, the other key focus of my time right now, is going well. There are over 100 signatures on the petition and many people have forwarded my email to their friends so keep it up! AngryAsianMan, AsianMediaWatch, AsianMediaWatchdog, ModelMinority -- when are you guys going to repost on your sites? Please help!

Special thanks to the following for their efforts:

GT:
Brought up this campaign with a legal association

Jun Zuniga:
posted this on several APIA oriented boards and forwarded the email notice to AsianWeek, Audrey, and AAmovementZine, and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

Please keep up the communications, blast those newsgroups, repost on your blogs, and point people to http://vanessa_au.blogspot.com/2006/01/boycott-spencer-gifts.html until there's a better home for this campaign (if I use my own domain I'll have to pay for bandwidth overages for sure and, well, I'm POOR!)

boycott Spencer Gifts

** for all updates on this campaign please go to http://wearingracism.blogspot.com ** (they've apologized and pulled the shirts but go to the link for details, thanks everyone!)

Thanks to my observant friend Jong who was doing some shopping at Mayfair Mall in Victoria (with his camera phone close at hand), we got some photos of some very offensive t-shirts being sold at Spencer Gifts. Obviously the execs at this company weren't paying attention when Abercrombie put out their line of racist shirts. Please take a look and email/send a letter/call Spencer Gifts to express your rage. The contact info is listed below along with my own letter. (If that's too much work, at the very least, sign the online petition http://new.petitiononline.com/APA911/petition.html)

To Spencer Gifts:

You obviously learned nothing from the Abercrombie & Fitch debacle. I am appalled and disgusted by your line of “Asian-themed” t-shirts featuring stereotyped Asian caricatures and offensive text. The shirt that reads “SUK MAI COCK POULTRY FARM” is an obvious mockery of the Chinese language and sophomoric jab at Asians and their supposed difficulty with English spelling and comprehension. The shirt featuring the likeness of Buddha, which reads “I MAY BE FAT BUT MY COCK IS HUGE,” demonstrates blatant disrespect for a religious deity and the religion’s followers. One need only replace the image of Buddha with that of Jesus Christ and swap “fat” with “skinny” to see how offensive this would be to the Christian majority. Finally, the shirt that reads “HANG OUT WITH YOUR WANG OUT” features a caricature of a slanted-eyed, buck-toothed Chinese man wearing a queue and rice paddy hat and childishly holding his penis. This image is demeaning and painfully reminiscent of racist images in popular culture in the early 1900s.

Whether you intended to offend or be funny and irreverent is not the issue. The issue is that the shirts are plainly offensive. Images like those on shirts sold by Spencer Gifts serve to promote the misleading notion that Asians are exotic foreigners to be insulted and ridiculed without consequence.

The shirts are not funny, innovative, novel, or edgy. They are racist and degrading and I demand an official public apology and a recall of the aforementioned shirts. Until then, I vow to boycott all Spencer Gifts stores and encourage others to do the same.

Respectfully,
Vanessa Au

Email the execs:
Steven Silverstein
President and CEO
Isaac Silvera
EVP and CFO
Michael D. (Mike) Champion
Manager, Promotion and Publicity

Call or write to corporate headquarters:

Spencer Gifts, LLC
6826 Black Horse Pike
Egg Harbor Township, NJ 08234
Phone: 609-645-3300
Fax: 609-645-5633

Website http://www.spencergifts.com/

Company Profile from Hoovers.com

Teen years are peppered with trips to mall-based Spencer Gifts for lava lamps, posters, whoopee cushions, and the fuzzy dice dangling from your rearview mirror. Other products include apparel, jewelry, room decor, and seasonal items, including Halloween merchandise. The retailer is expanding its home products selection to appeal to young people looking to adorn their dorm rooms or apartments. Founded in 1947, the novelty gift retailer was acquired in 2003 by Gordon Brothers Group from Vivendi UNIVERSAL Entertainment. Spencer Gifts operates more than 640 shops in the US and Canada, as well as about 130 seasonal Spirit Halloween Superstores in the US.

new years predictions

I've yet to hear this station live (my mother listens to the program nightly), but last night Coast to Coast AM had a bunch of mediums, astrologists, and psychics on with their predictions for 2006. Most notable (for me) include 3 earthquakes in San Francisco, terrorist attacks in the US, and change in the Bush administration. http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2006/01/01.html#recap

Anyone know of a site where they review the predictions from last year to see if any of them were right?

what's in a name

Happy new year everyone! I spent my NYE at a friend's fiance's sister's house in the British Properties. She was kind enough to let us have full run of her place while she and her husband are away at a resort. We had some drinks and stuff and lots of munchie food. I think I ate most of a sourdough bread bowl by myself. We karaoked and watched TV until 3am, crashed for the night, and then headed to White Spot for breakfast where I easily packed away about another 800 calories on top of the thousands I consumed last night. Over breakfast somebody asked why the wealthy neighbourhood was named British Properties. I recalled it had something to do with excluding people of color but I had no idea that it started with the family that brews Guinness! from
http://www.thealders.net/blogs/2004/11/page/1/

Well it looks like the long tradition of institutionalized racism in West
Vancouver is still going strong . For those of you younguns and those with
short memories West Van is the home of the infamous British Properties, large estates built on the side of the mountain with spectacular views of the harbour and Vancouver. This development was built by the Guinness family (yes the brewers) in 1931. They also built Vancouver’s famous Lions Gate Bridge so that people could get to the Properties. Each estate sold in the properties carried covenant on the land title that prevented the owners from ever selling to jews or non-whites.

From http://www.discovervancouver.com/GVB/place_names.asp I also
found the histories of many place names in the lower mainland. My hometown of
Coquitlam has an interesting history too:

Coquitlam • From the Halkomelem Indian word meaning "stinking of fish slime".
During a great winter famine the Coquitlam people sold themselves into slavery
to the more numerous and prosperous Kwantlen tribe. The new slaves, while
butchering large quantities of salmon for their masters, got covered with fish
slime—hence the name.

white lies

So I managed to drag my ass out of the house thanks go Jane who invited me out to Martini's for dinner with her girlfriends. After much food, chatter, and a sprinkling of toilet humour, Jane I headed out to Commercial Drive (our version of the Mission District, but smaller and tidier) to meet up with Bob and Candace and Joe for more food and drinks at Havana. Those 4 took off and I met up with Lonny and an old friend while they were settling their bill at Marcello's and then Lonny and I took off to meet up with his roomie and friends at Shine, the only happening party in town. I couldn't believe it when I drove downtown. Thursday night in a supposed party city during the holidays and all the clubs were closed or totally dead. Unbelievable. I thought Vancouver would've picked up a bit with the increase in population and healthy economy.

But luckily they found the party at Shine...


White Lies has apparently been going since '02 and I had a blast. It's '80s night much like PopScene at 330 Ritch in San Francisco, but with a little more North American 80s music and a little lighter on the UK pop (I didn't hear any Joy Division or Morrissey). Still I counted 3 Cure songs and a New Order oldie which made me happy. The girls there seemed a bit young but the crowd was pretty friendly and there is a small backroom for hip hop for those too young to appreciate the greatness that is 80s music. Can't wait to go back next week. Who's coming with me?!

in other news

Thought I'd redeem myself with a non-self-pitying post of a mish mash of stuff:

- I just found this on some random blog. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ It's a little hack that uses Google Maps to chart the distance of your running routes. It took me forever to figure out how to use it but it is awesome. First zoom in on your neighbourhood. Then you click the Start Recording button and then double click on your starting point on the map. Each time you double click you draw a straight line from the last point you marked. Continue double-clicking until you've traced out the route that you ran. Who needs a GPS pedometer when you can just trace your route online afterwards for free? You can switch from metric to English and enter your weight to get an estimated calorie burn (probably not very accurate but cool nonetheless)

- I heard on the radio about a week ago of a parking ticket Santa in Vancouver. This mystery person goes around slipping a $50 bill under the windshield wipers of people who have parking tickets. Is that crazy or what? How come there is no parking ticket Santa or fairy in San Francisco where we collect all our tickets?

- Some guy on the Chinese news set fire to some building somewhere (I can barely understand Chinese news hence the lack of details). The arsonist then got his arms and legs burned in the process and had to call 911 to the scene. Brilliant.

- When NHL hockey and junior hockey aren't on, there is always the Spengler cup. I had no idea there was so much damn hockey to watch. I cannot get enough.

- words of wisdom for the new year courtesy of Waiter Rant and all his readers http://waiterrant.net/?p=249

NYE?

I've learned not to get all excited about NYE anymore. It kinda started in 1999 when I paid a bunch of money to go to a dinner dance in Richmond that was totally lame. And that night one of my friends stepped on my foot with her high heel. That hurt. Way to ring in the new millenium. I don't even remember 2000 or 2001. Not because it was good, more likely because it sucked. In 2002, we went to a big party at the Cow Palace where Paul Van Dyk was spinning but it turned out we were the oldest party goers there by almost a decade. The party ended by 2am and we had to trek out to 1015 to party the rest of the night which was a big huge hassle. In 2003, it snowed so suddenly and heavily that it wasn't safe for me to leave home. It's not so much that there was a lot of snow, but my neighbourhood is hilly and slippery until the snow plows come, which takes at least 24 hours. That year I rang in the new year in my parents' basement by myself and Dick Clark. Last year I went to a house party which is always a good thing. However, I think I was the only one who had too much to drink and the rest of the party of mostly non-drinkers whom I don't know very well spent the night watching me act stupid. I almost want to stay home this year just to avoid the hassle of making plans and figuring out how I'll get myself home because I totally don't like crashing at other people's homes (especially when it takes me an hour to get home the next morning). Well that wasn't a very cheery post. Not to worry, my mood improves as the weather gets better and the days grow longer. I should probably move someplace tropical.

ready to go back

So I'm glad Christmas is finally over. I haven't liked it since I was a kid. Even then it sucked because I never got the long list of gifts that the other kids at school got. Those little bastards had to brag about all the shit they got too, just to rub it in. I was hoping that on this trip I'd at least get a chance to hit the slopes but the rain that has been coming down every fuckin' day since I got here has washed away the snow on the local mountains and high winds closed the mountains all together yesterday. So feeling a little under the weather + constant shitty weather + living a few lightyears from everyone I know + no money = me staying at home doing nothing but watching hockey. I watched the junior hockey game at 4 pm and then the Canucks game from 7 - 9:30. So minus a half hour break, I watched 5 hours of hockey and spent 0 hours on my thesis or anything constructive. Canada beat Finland 5-1 in the jr game but Canucks lost (AGAIN) 2-1 to Calgary. Thank you Carter for your one goal but, damn Canucks, please deliver some better games for me to watch while I'm here.

Now I'm too bored and miserable to get any work done so yeah. New year's is this weekend but if you don't wanna spend money and don't feel like going out because there's nothing to celebrate, there isn't much to do eh? The only thing that I'm enjoying here other than the little time I spend with all my (blissfully-engaged/married-and-happy-not-that-I'm-bitter-or-anything) friends are the Telus commercials http://www.telusmobility.com/coolstuff/advertising.shtml Thank you Telus.

I think I'll wander the mall aimlessly by myself tomorrow. I need out of this house even if it means spreading all my sick germs to others.

Get together at Relish

On Friday night, we held our annual get together with friends (the ex pats living in SF) and their friends. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a small turnout this year because a lot of people got in late while others are leaving Vancouver early and there is a competing get together in between. Oh well. The highlight was having Tasha and Shel drop in for a visit. You might remember their photos from the Banff wedding. It was funny because Will recognized them from that wedding blog post ("you're the bride who was tackling groomsmen on the dancefloor!") and Tasha recognized Will from his blog ("hey, you're the guy who slaps cars and pretends they hit you!").

So after Relish shut down at midnight we headed to El Furniture Warehouse where there are free peanuts and peanut shells all over the floor. Some folks ended up at Tokyo Lounge and Tim's friends headed to some afterhours drinking place in Richmond. Despite the fact that I Skytrained down ghetto style with Tim so that no one would have to drive home, we got separated when he met up with his friends at the afterhours and I got taken to Joe's and Jane's. Lucky for me because Tim got into a minor altercation when some guy sucker punched him for calling his friend a bitch. Messed up thing was that the guy he called a bitch was not the one who started it, was no longer mad about it, was playing chi mui with Tim all buddy buddy when it happened and then stayed behind to make sure he was OK. So in other words the guy had no motive for messing up his face. The guy also punched a female friend of Tim's who got in the crossfire and she is PISSED. All we know is the guy's name is Michael, he's half Chinese, and he's going to have his face rearranged some time this week. Happy holidays Michael you piece of shit, you're so dead.

potluck karaoke pics

So we didn't get to watch the Canucks game that night but they lost anyways. Here are some of the photos from that night. Merry Christmas and all that.

enjoying my early Xmas gift - the Debbie Gibson themed karaoke mic - at Joe's and Jane's

this is what happens when a Lindt chocolate ball unknowingly rolls into your crotch and you sit on it for an hour. nice job Alex :)

Alex singing Material Girl with Joe his back up dancer

sigh

So I'm back in Vancouver. Last night was fun. My closest friends got together for a little potluck. It was more pot than luck since the host neglected to tell us he didn't have TSN so we couldn't watch the hockey game. Oh well, the Canucks lost anyways damn them. Instead we watched Napolean Dynamite, chowed down on pizza and nachos and then I busted out my Xmas gift from Simon. My karaoke mic with 200 songs built in and 100 additonal songs on a chip inserted in the mic. Man was that ever a hit. It's a lot like the ones you get at the Asian stores but minus the Chinese or Tagalog songs. We sang until 1:30am. The drive home sucked because it was raining like hell. Not the sheets of rain we sometimes get in SF, more like big huge drops that came down hard. The fact that certain areas like the part between the East West Connector and the Queenborough bridge got totally rerouted pisses me off. I got lost last night. I ended up in the parking lot of a new outlet mall that wasn't there before and had to find my way back to the bridge. I could've stayed over at my friend's place but I just prefer the comforts of home even if it is out in the sticks.

I'm really hating the fact that my parents live out in the burbs and all my friends live in Vancouver or Richmond. It's been the story of my life. Me driving out 45 min to an hour by myself to meet up with people and then driving my ass home by myself. To make things worse, my dad is now retired and has discovered eBay which means I can't even escape by getting online. So I just wander the house aimlessly thinking about the thesis I'm supposed to be writing and blocking out the nagging and annoying questions about why I go out so late. It's like being a teenager all over again.

Christmas shopping on Amazon

I thought I was really clever doing my Christmas shopping on Amazon. I've always believed you can never have too many books. So I put in my orders December 6th thinking they'd all be here in plenty of time. So I bought enough books to qualify for Super Saver (free) shipping and that method of shipping supposedly takes 5-9 days. December 19th, the books aren't here, I'm leaving for Vancouver soon. WTF. So I wrote a nastygram to Amazon customer service because my account says the books wont be shipped until mid January. That's not 5-9 days, that is more than a month. The books I ordered from other merchants on Amazon Marketplace arrived a week ago already.

So apparently, what they don't tell you is what the service rep told me by email. Here it is:

To qualify for free Super Saver Shipping you must choose the option
to "Group my items into as few shipments as possible" when placing
the order. We have several fulfillment centers across the United States, meaning
the items in your order may be stocked at different locations. 
Whenever you place an order, we display an estimated shipping date
based on inventory's proximity to your delivery address, as well as
how quickly we can obtain and assemble your shipment.  This estimate
takes into account the fact that available items may be held for
shipment until we have assembled the rest of your order. 

But she said that just this once she'd change my shipping so that the items ship separately as they arrive from their suppliers so that makes the estimated delivery December 21, 2005 - January 6, 2006. Gee thanks. Bastards. They really could've done a better job explaining that instead of just showing Super Saver Shipping Usually Takes 5-9 Days. I'm pissed off now.

In contrast we did some last minute shopping at Target. The place was so busy they were madly trying to bring the abandoned shopping carts from the far end of the parking lot back into the store. But the check out was sooooo ridiculously quick. They even had more cashiers on hand than they needed and several of the checkouts were empty. The cashiers ran around getting people who were standing in short lines to come to their checkout. Total check out time, 2 minutes max. Bravo Target!

hot pot city

Ever eat so much over a few weeks that you actually get sick of eating? Went to Hot Pot City tonight in Milpitas. Way too much damn meat. I don't actually understand how people get obese. I can pack away a big meal but after I do that a few days in a row, I seriously feel like fasting. I can even be hungry but my body tells me not to eat. I think that is my natural mechanism to prevent me from gaining more than say 15 lbs, which is the most I've gained over a short period (and with that I had to buy new clothes). Yeah not cool.

missing

People go missing once in a while, more often than you think. However, if you're not a young cute/hot white girl (Laci Peterson, Nathalee Holloway), it's not likely you'll get any media attention. If you are a girl next door or sexy co-ed type, you get all the headlines until something, (like an entire US city getting wiped out by a hurricane) pushes you out of the headlines. Even war in Iraq took a second place spot to the Holloway case. So I'll do my part here to give this case a little attention. Tang has been missing 2 weeks now and is the CTO of a tech company near my home in San Mateo.

If you see Jerry, please call his name. He may not respond if he is post-ictal from a seizure (confused, disoriented, stares into space). He may have had a stroke and is weak. He has a visual field deficit (blindness) on the left side, so don't approach him from that side.

Call 911, (you will be asked, "Police, Fire, or Medical") say "Medical", identify yourself and state your location. Then describe Jerry to them. He may have had a seizure, stroke, and may be hypothermic.

Then call Ingrid (family friend) 415-793-6248.

Jerry Tang (loving father of two) is Asian American, 6’-1”, 160 lbs, 39 years old, with black hair and brown eyes. He has been missing since 11/29. He is prone to seizures, and is without his medication.

If you see him, please call the SFPD Missing Persons immediately: (415) 558-5580. Police Case # 051347730

http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/jerry_tang/jerry_tang.cfm

http://seedwiki.com/wiki/jerry_tang/media_links.cfm

Christmas cards

Does anyone actually send out Christmas cards anymore? I remember we used to string them up in front of our fireplace and every year we got fewer of them. My parents' friends would send them as a minimal keep in touch gesture. I used to send them to friends, acquaintances, and former coworkers just so that I could do the whole keep in touch thing at least once a year. It had little to do with Christmas, a holiday I'm not really into, but more to do with using a certain time of year as a marker. Kinda like changing the batteries in your smoke alarms every daylight savings. But you know what? Few people ever sent me a goddamn card back. So screw that idea. No more cards from me. Maybe I'll just send an e-card to my whole address book. Hmm wait, there are still some weirdos in my address book that I don't care to write to but whom I might need in the future (business contacts and such). A bulletin on Friendster will have to do. It's sad, the Christmas card thing that worked in my parents' generation was kinda fun because they often came with photos of people I hadn't seen in years who lived in different countries around the world. But then again the Internet does more than make up for lost connections, so hooray for Friendster, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

a tale of 3 parties

It's holiday party time but this weekend the parties got started with some birthdays. Jane and her girlfriends came down from Vancouver to celebrate their 30th bdays. The party started at Mochica for tasty eats. From there we went to Loft 11 and then half of us left to meet up with some other friends who weren't about to pay $10 to go to a packed hip hop party. So Jane and my friends spent the rest of the night at Holy Cow which was pretty (surprisingly) fun.

Jenn, Jenn, Christine, Jane, me, Clara

The tacky looking but delicious cake (and oops, I didn't realize it was only Jane, Clara, and Christine's birthdays, not the Jenns)

Me and Willy being stupid

Jane and I in front of Crepes-a-Go-Go

So that was Friday night. Yesterday I served as Denny's volunteer escort to a couple of holiday parties he had to go to that he didn't want to brave alone. Now that was interesting. The first was the party of a classmate of his, whom I found out I knew as well. OK so I don't know her but I thought of her as pay check lady because she works in the dean's office and I see her for my checks. She is also an interior designer in the making and her place in Nob Hill was gorgeous. Everything looked like what you see in magazines and design shows. And the guests were also all decked out with their perfect coifs, designer clothes, polite conversation, the whole nine yards. Everything on the table matched. EVERYTHING. Even the dog was wearing a nice sweater. I realized that I don't find myself at parties like this very often with everything and everyone looking so perfect... and I get urges to do or say something stupid just to entertain myself. But no need. I made an awesome faux pas completely by accident but I don't think anyone saw. As I was refilling Denny's punch, I tipped his cup and all his backwash at the bottom of his cup got dumped into the beautiful silver punch bowl. Oops. So to be polite I scooped up all the punch so that no one would be drinking his backwash. But I couldn't scoop it all and before I knew it, someone came to refill the bowl. Oh well. Hehe, that was funny.

So after we got out of there we headed to party #2 which was his coworker's friend's party. What a contrast. We walked in and it smelled of liquor (instead of scented candles). Two nice fellows who knew Denny came to greet us and I noticed both of them were wet. Like their shirts were soaked. Apparently they were playing a game where you hold your arm up straight and pour champagne on yourself and try to get as much into your mouth as possible. Most of it ends up on the floor or on your shirt. The photos on the fridge were of drunk people some with no shirts on and there was no silver punch bowl here. No siree bob. Instead, a recycling bin lined with a garbage bag held the punch which you scoop up with your own cup (obviously no concerns about backwash here) and most people just drank liquor straight out of the bottle. Despite some high school flashbacks (it was a bit fratboyish and I think I only counted 3 nonwhite people), I somehow felt like we fit in better there than at that last party.

Party #4 is my Toastmasters potluck. Gotta go make my deviled eggs now.

machine

I am a machine. Somehow in the last week I have completed all but one Phd application, made some jewelry for the people who wrote me letters of rec, finished Xmas shopping (I love Amazon), organized a big birthday bash, and almost finished grading midterms. Yay me. Unfortunately all this comes at the expense of getting regular exercise. I am living proof that working out once a week is NOT enough. Especially if you go drinking on the weekends and eat like it's still Thanksgiving. I am getting mega chunky. Drinking beer and eating more fried food at Old Pro in Palo Alto last night is no help. Oh well. I'm super excited Old Pro is expanding. This place has these big beer tap things that you can take to your table to serve yourself. They also have ping pong, pool table, some old school arcade games, pinball, foosball and, my favourite, air hockey! Next summer they'll be expanding into the space next door and, get this, Bucky the Mechanical Bull! Yee haw, I cannot wait to try that out. I've only seen them on TV! I don't know what they do about liability issues with one of these in the place.

a funny thing that happened

I've been dying to write about this but waiting for Will to do it since it happened to him. So he does this thing that one of my profs also claims to do when cars cut her off when she is jogging. Will likes to slap cars going by and pretend they hit him. (My prof said she likes to also scream "you hit me motherfucker" but that's another story). Will got in trouble for this little trick on Friday night after we all went out on a bender.

http://whatupwilly.blogspot.com/2005/12/evan-is-doing-my-job-for-me.html

Congrats Will for being black out free for a whole month and not getting fired for getting plastered and silly at your company party!

stuff

I have 40 minutes before I have to tutor kid #1 of the evening and what do I do? I sign into blogger. What the hell. First off, thanks to everyone who left encouraging comments to my last post. Much better response than I got when I sent messages on Asian Avenue to recruit interviewees. Much unanticipated hostility there from people who felt they were getting a "real" MA degree because it involved math and engineering. Second, the person with the handle "your ex-gf" who left me a comment, your thesis sounds interesting too how do I contact you?

So on the weekend, I had a rough night that required the rest of the weekend to recover from. Drinks followed by more drinks followed by late night eats at New Sun Hong Kong where a cockroach the size of a goddamn cat skittered about makes for a queesy stomach. As does helping a new mom to pour HER breast milk into a feeding bottle the next day. It kinda dripped down the side of the bottle and smelled more cheesey than cow milk and I am still gagging a bit just thinking about it.

Saturday night was a chill evening at Gi's where we had leftover turkey cooked into a pot pie. Oh and I watched my first Star Wars movie in its entirety (episode 1). I watched Empire Strikes Back when it came out but I was 5 and hopelessly hyperactive and didn't actually sit still to watch it. I think I was probably too busy running around chasing my younger cousin and pulling off his socks. Did I tell you that until a few months ago I thought a light sabre was pronounced life saver? Anyways, I borrowed the set of DVDs. I have a lot of Star Wars to catch up on.

what the hell is she writing about?

So, a lot of people have been asking me what my thesis is about and, despite all my Toastmasters training, I have a really hard time articulating it without sounding stupid. E.g."Like, um, import models and web sites and shit." I just don't have my elevator pitch down yet. So I figured I would paste the abstract that got me into the conference at UofI Urbana-Champaign. It's at least somewhat articulate, though more than I can manage to explain verbally. I still need to work on that. But, anyways, here's the answer to "what the hell are you writing about in your thesis?" I tend to get mixed reactions - excitement and interest from the ethnic studies/cultural studies type folks, disgust and scorn from people who think an education in anything other than science and engineering is a waste of time - I guess that's to be expected.

Import car culture is a predominantly Asian American youth culture that
typically involves young Asian American men displaying elaborately modified
Japanese cars at conventions while their female counterparts pose suggestively
with the cars for pictures hoping to be discovered and hired as event
spokesmodels. Namkung (2000) explains that young Asian American men use import cars to reclaim and assert their masculinity, but concludes that the women who participate in the import scene as “import models” are simply exploited. Since
aspiring import models frequently extend their performances at car shows to the
Internet by authoring personal web sites, it becomes quite evident that there is
more going on than mere exploitation. This paper reveals the results of in-depth
interviews conducted with a selection of these young women and demonstrates the
variety of ways in which their web sites reflect their efforts at negotiating
their cultural identities, asserting a sense of personal empowerment, and
challenging dominant stereotypes of Asian women as bookish, conservative, timid,
and cold. While there are the numerous theories that explain how media are
oppressive and marginalizing forces for ethnic minority audiences, this paper
attempts to demonstrate how young Asian American women have instead become
active empowered users and producers of new media by carving out a very public
space and establishing a voice on the Internet.

Friday's Feast

Appetizer
When was the last time you did something you would consider courteous, what was it, and who was it for?

Well....the class I TA is instructed by a person who constantly has "technical issues." This week he couldn't provide an electronic copy of the take home exam which is already being assigned 2 weeks late. Many students couldn't make it to pick up a hard copy and were freaking out so I re-typed the whole damn thing and emailed it to the class. It was a favour for the students. I found out later the TA for the other section has also done his share of re-typing hard copies. In our section the undergrad assistant has been scanning hard copies of these things to post on our class web site. Yeah, ridiculous huh?

Salad
If you were to have a painting done of you alone, what would you want the background to be?

A beach at sunset. Shit that's so cliche but I like beaches at sunset.

Soup
Describe your voice.

I hate my voice. I sound like I'm 12.

Main Course
What is something you would like to do, but you're afraid of the risk(s)?

Scuba diving and sky diving.

Dessert
What was the last television show you watched?

Food Network, Top Five Foods Named After Places. They were making chicken kiev and I had to see how they do it.

scary story and other stuff

So the good news first and then the scary stuff. I got accepted to present at my very first academic conference. I'll be going to the Asian Pacific American Graduate Students Organization conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in March 2006. I've never been to Illinois and I actually applied to that school's Communication Research program so I'm excited. Yay!

So I was IMing with my dad last night about hockey and somehow we got to gossiping about family because that is all we talk about being an uptight non-communicative Chinese family and all. I found out that my cousins, aunt, and uncle on my mom's side who lived in Willowdale, Ontario lived many years in a house that was haunted. They moved out just within the last few years or something. Like each of them had seen the same damn ghost on several occasions and got used to it. How the hell do you get used to that shit and continue living there? It seems like everyone in my family has seen crap like this. It's kind of disturbing. OK I don't want to talk about it anymore because I get scared typing about it. But it's just so fascinating. I admit sometimes I feel guilty about trashing religion because I believe in ghosts but haven't got the God(s) stuff figured out. I left the Catholic Church behind after our priest threatened we'd go to hell for missing mass (dammit I had gymnastics meets on Sundays sometimes, jeez), told us that gay people have a disorder, told us that girls can't serve as altar girls and then explained that only men could be priests (and could thus be closer to God than could women). Even at age 12 I figured that this was rather sexist, homophobic and generally extreme (duh). While religion provides guidelines for being nice to other folks and all that, it also spawns hate, causes wars, prevents people from thinking independently, and divides families (and countries). I've always figured you can make your own rules for being good to yourself and people around you without having to worship someone/something and follow a bunch of arbitrary rules and archaic customs. I believe in a higher power but what form s/he takes I don't know. All I know is my future kids will not be forced to go to weekly mass and catechism. A little independent learning about Buddhist philosophies maybe. But that's it man.

EhClub Thanksgiving

Every year our crew of Canadians usually gets together for Canadian Thanksgiving. This year most folks were out of town in October (when our Thanksgiving takes place) so we got together for a U.S. Thanksgiving potluck instead. Luckily most of my friends here are darn good cooks so no KFC here. We had salad, bacon cheese mashed potatoes, butternut squash, yams, cucumber yogurt salad, stuffing, sausages, deep fried sushi, and, of course, turkey. This year I was thankful for good friends with great culinary skills.


Denny's very unique (read: weird) heart-shaped sausages with syrup


Ben's awesome signature deep fried sushi atop a cylinder-shaped block of rice and corn

Gi (gracious host) and Simon working on the turkey

eating while watching the Canucks beat the Sharks 3-2

some karaoke

and getting ready for the Black Friday (U.S. version of Boxing Day) sales (does this look ghetto or what? we're not even talking to each other but that's probably because someone, maybe me, is singing really loud and off key)

a little dessert including Denny's belated birthday cake (cheesecake by Gigi) on the left and it's off to CompUSA for some midnight shopping

the serotonin re-uptake hoax

Found an interesting article on nomorefakenews.com referencing several other articles that explain that there is no evidence for the whole serotonin re-uptake theory of depression. I swear I learned this theory in my "Feeling & Emotion" psych class in university but there's nothing to say that a book is right just because it weighs several pounds. Scientific half-truths have been reproduced as fact for as long as people have been around.

Here's a quote from one of the articles:

How did so many smart people get it so wrong? Medicinal chemist Derek Lowe,
who works in drug development for a pharmaceutical firm, offered an explanation
in his "In the Pipeline" blog. "I worked on central nervous system drugs for
eight years, and I can confidently state that we know just slightly more than
jack" about how antidepressants work.
http://www.nomorefakenews.com/archives/archiveview.php?key=2892

I don't doubt the fact that depression is real. Not for a second. But it is interesting to read how they came up with such a theory (you can't actually go into a human brain while the person is alive and take a count of serotonin levels). I also don't doubt that the drugs work for some people, but I do believe that drug companies turn vague theories into stories complete cartoon characters when the scientists themselves aren't sure how the drugs work. Storytelling helps to simplify things which in turn helps to sell more drugs.

sunny days and Thanksgiving

I can't remember how many consecutive days of gorgeous sunshine and t-shirt weather we've had now. God, I love the weather here. Can't be beat. I'm going to wear my flip flops to school today. I just have to do some research and work at my little writing lab for 2.5 hours and I'm out. See, it's Thanksgiving week here in America. It's not just a day because people tend to cancel out of a whole week of work. I have no classes to attend or TA, so I get to leave early and get some grocery shopping done for our little EhClub (my Canadian friends living in the Bay Area) Thanksgiving potluck tomorrow. I'm making mediterranean cucumber yogurt salad (diced cucumber, mediterranean yogurt from Trader Joe, mint, cilantro, garlic, squeeze of lemon juice). I think Simon will be making candied squash (slice it up, throw tonnes of brown sugar, nutmeg, and butter on it, bake until soft). I better hit the gym sometime today too.