Tuesday, February 28  
(on the money back guarantee, introduced in 1865)
"all shoppers have had the experience of regretting a purchase, and worry that they will do so again. the money-back guarantee meant that the possiblity of regret was evaded, a tactic that very likely moved many items, only a small percentage of which was returned.

moreover, the policy made husbands feel less worried about their wives' purchases, because they could exercise a veto. and the gentltemanly tone of the promise, with its implicit affirmation that the store's customers were trustworthy people, flattered the customers and made them feel that they were dealing with a high-class merchant.

money-back guarantees have largely disappeared during the last half century, probably because shoppers no longer need so much reassurance. but they have recently resurfaced on the internet, a new retail environment in which shoppers are not entirely certain that they trust the seller, the merchandise, or themselves."
-i want that! how we all became shoppers-
[ pen name | 4:22 PM | ]






Thursday, February 23  
my space, our town. most level headed people i know (all three of them) have sworn off friendster and other social networking tools. they've gone so far as to delete their accounts. i've sworn friendster off but keep my account around in case my long lost friend from third grade happens to find me. or if some celebrity decides that we can be friendsters. or if i meet a nice friend of a friend of a friend and we decide it's necessary for us to be linked by less than three degrees. it's also good for keeping up to date on people's love lives. friendster has, and always will have, its uses. here's what i had to say about friendster in 2003:
"but the cool thing about this is that you can see who you are connected to through your friends. so after you sign on and do the requisite question blank answer fill in thing, you can see galleries of who you're connected to. how cool is this? it's pretty darned cool. so sign up everyone and let's see if we can be a whole new world. i will spread the gospel of friendster this week so we can determine decisively if it will be a short passing fad or a life altering experience. so tell your friends, to get with my friends and we can be friends!"
clearly, i was an idiot. or maybe friendster just turned idiotic, taking me down with it. once friendster started mass sending me updates about everyone's blogs, tracking where i went, providing "he/she/it updated profile/pictures/etc" announcements, when someone last logged in, it had clearly landed in the "this is evil" category.

then i found myspace. or more accurately, i was forced to find myspace. it was research for work, i swear. no sane person over the age of twenty(-five) would willingly get myspace nowadays. i had always avoided myspace just like i had avoided xanga. it was ugly, it was popular, it was populated by annoying people and ugly site design. but then i dipped my toe into the myspace world and what did i find? that the realities of myspace were even worse than my preconceptions.

first off, myspace is just garish. there's no other word to describe it. you should not let people choose their own backgrounds and color combinations when invariably they lean towards something utterly ridiculous and an illegible blend of pink and puke. myspace and xanga are the two ugliest widely used internet sites ever. it disgusts me. everything looks like a home page made during computer science 101. it's nasty. and it doesn't help when everyone is leaving their idiotic messages, pictures, logos, giant fonts and stuff all over the place. ugh. kill me now.

and i don't understand this whole public messaging phenonemon. i mean, i sort of get it. some people wanted two hundred friendsters; okay, got it. some people like to talk to each other publicly; okay, sorta get it. but what's the point? i realize i'm being a bit hypocritical here since i blog all the time but really, is exchanging "hi, how are you!? no, how are you?!" messages back and forth really that exciting? nobody is saying anything of substance on these messages and you're basically left with a giant mass of ugly messages that don't go beyond "have a nice day!" i don't get it. at least friendster testimonials kind of made sense -- in a weird easy to make fun of way. but public emailing? it makes no sense at all.

myspace is the ultimate stalking site. you can pretty much figure out what a person does, or likes to do, by sifting through their myspace pages. i can't even begin to tackle the question of "why stalk?" everyone stalks, it happens. but more importantly, with a site like myspace, you have to wonder about the mentality of the people who enjoy the stalking. why are people having public one-line email exchanges? because it fills an attention void? because it's something to do? i'd understand if it was a form of entertainment, but i can't see how it would be that entertaining after awhile. what does it do that keeps people coming back for more?

this quick peek into the world of myspace really makes me question the people who live and die by the site. i am not above a little online social networking for shits and giggles but really, stop the madness, stop the myspace. not that this message will really reach anyone to help them out since everyone is already on or off of the myspace bandwagon.

useful myspace facts to be dusted off at parties:
  • myspace was founded in july 2003
  • it was bought out in 2005 for $580 million by rupert murdoch
  • it's regularly top five in traffic rankings for english websites
  • it has 54 million registered users, compared to 24 million for friendster
  • myspace accounts for 10% of all internet advertisments viewed
[ pen name | 12:18 AM | ]






Monday, February 20  
the eye ball's connected to the..... i've done it. watched the entire first season of the show that has taken sunday nights by storm: grey's anatomy. this is a show that i had dismissed as another flash in the pan that i would consciously avoid. of course, part of that reasoning was because people around me loved the show so much. my sister made it a point to drive from los angeles to san francisco in time to catch the show last weekend. my ex-roommate, whom i used to watch many a tv show with, watches the show. and she barely has time to eat, sleep, and fly off to foreign countries every few days. our three new england transplanted educator friends watch it religiously, and they go outdoors any time the thermostat hits sixty five (day or night). many others either are addicted to it, or follow the show obsessively. i can understand why. with only nine episodes in the first season, you either blinked and missed the show, or you followed it very closely. the infamous "code black" post-super bowl episode had my personal television watching circle of friends buzzing.

so, what do i think of the show? after i watched nine hours of it in essentially one sitting? it's pretty good, but far from great.

first off, the actress who plays the main character meredith (ellen pompeo) looks great in the part but doesn't have enough facial range to pull off the emotions that are required to make us really love her. does anyone love meredith? she kind of has two facial settings: forlorn and semi-sad, or chesire eyed with quirky grin. that's about it. she does benefit from really superb back lighting in certain shots, but that should not be confused with great facial expressions. she needs more face work. i can't tell if it's the character who is given nothing to do with her face, or if it's pompeo's fault. from pompeo's google images, i'm gonna go with the latter. she could probably star in one of those poker face ads just as effectively.

i'm not saying pompeo's entirely ineffective in the role, but she's not exactly the show stopper. you end up liking all of the peripheral characters more, which is strange for this kind of show. i mean, did you have to struggle to feel a kinship to felicity or angela chase (i mean, as a perfectly hetero male)? not really.

the show is less ER and more sex in the city than anything else -- a comparison that has been made by many reviewers. with a female-centric cast, episodic themes, and handy voiceovers, grey's anatomy is pretty much ripping out a page from the carrie bradshaw and friends playbook. one big difference, sex in the city is a far superior show. the supporting characters of sex in the city are essentially stock archetypes, but they flesh out very nicely. the supporting characters from grey's anatomy seem to just be one-dimensional caricatures with a sprinkling of "fun" quirks thrown in. to be fair, the show has only had nine episodes to introduce us to a large ensemble cast. but still, the characters in grey's anatomy don't seem to be all that well rounded -- yet?

also, the general plot archs and episode to episode continuities seem to be missing. i feel like we learn nothing about the characters (what really makes them tick), despite having spent a full season with them. one revealing tidbit is given to us at the beginning of one episode and then totally ignored the rest of the season. izzie bakes when stressed...but this fact is only shown to us in one episode. izzie is a pin up model, hello kitty underwear wearer, trailer trash, and misses her mom -- all revealed in separate incidents with no episode after effects. izzie has a boyfriend, now they just broke up, whoops. side plots (and characters) are flown in and out of every episode willy nilly, with no set up or follow through. it feels as if the writers were creating episodes on the fly, often losing sight of each character's themes and facts revealed from previous episodes.

and guess what? that's probably how they did it. i'm willing to give the mainly female writing team -- close to seventy percent of the writing team is female; a fun fact revealed in the making of documentary -- a pass on this point as they were probably experiencing unanticipated huge success and thus facing looming deadlines all (half) season long. but they better pick up the slack and have each episode seem less stand-alone than they they are now. the only thing that currently carries over from episode to episode is who got together with whom (and so far it's just two couples, neither of which are all that interesting).

the show recaps before certain episodes kind of highlight this problem. what do you need to know about grey's anatomy from week to week? a likes b, b likes c, c and d slept together, etc etc. the show is marketed as a glorified soap opera, but it doesn't really seem like one until you watch the oddly jarring "this is what happened before" segments. the reason for this? the show wants us to care about the romantic relationships, but the compelling relationships are between a bunch of friends and doctors, not who likes whom this week. the strong point of this show isn't about mcdreamy and mcnasty and the mc-romances, but the interns going through residency. am i right? at worst, this show will devolve into a less trashy melrose place; at best, this show will evolve into a cohesive "sex in the hospital" focusing on the growth and transitioning of friendships.

other things to mention since i've captured your unwavering attention:
  • the show shows the resident intern as wild west cowgirl and heroine. look at how the pretty ladies flaunt hospital rules and regulations to do crazy ass shit but then ultimately save lives. if i was in charge of training actual future doctors of america, i would ban this show for my students. seriously. every "good" thing the interns do is immoral, illegal, or done without their supervisor's permission.

  • the large number of minorities in central roles: on the surface a boon but it's almost too many. the entire senior staff of the show is black (the chief of surgery, the senior surgeon, the old scrub nurse, "the nazi"). coincidence? if you're gonna be all "we have so many minorities in our cast," at least put in some asians, indians, middle-easterners, even old white people up on the screen. you know, represent the other people who really run shit at the hospitals. put some more slanty eyed or brown people in the background at least. i have a filipino nurse friend from oregon, i know what's up. what hospital have you gone to all staffed by black people? i know, i'm racist, what of it?

  • "the nazi" isn't a fitting name for the no-nonsense senior resident, played by webster lookalike chandra wilson. the nazi is not only a totally unoriginal tv name (hello soup nazi?), it doesn't really fit the character. i feel like the nickname was put in early on during the show's creation and just never switched out. it's a bad nickname, and the writers know it too, since they stopped using it.

  • the sense of time in the show is all blurred. did the entire first season happen over the course of two weeks? three months? six months? i have no idea. sex in the city does an excellent job of giving you an idea of how much time has passed between episodes, without showing you an actual clock or forcing the issue. grey's anatomy: a month in the life? or one long ass day? hard to tell.

  • the whole romance thing with meredith and doctor mcdreamy: it's already boring. does anyone really care about them? the season one cliffhanger could make things interesting, but this is not an epic level romance like ross-rachel or angela-jordan. the scenes between them are really the most boring ones of the series. well, the most boring scenes next to.....

  • the whole "my mom has amnesia alzheimer's thing." ugh, talk about utterly boring. it was kind of interesting for a second but the mom is reduced to nothing more than a token amnesiac old person. meredith's visits with her mother are as painful for her as they are for us, the viewer. give it up already, kill her mom off. free meredith, free us.

  • the opening credits part of the show is just terrible. the music is memorable, but the actual credits part is pretty bad. i mean, fun idea, we get it (dressing up as a girl on the town versus dressing up as a doctor), but it's not memorable or executed well. and no show should start off each week by showing two bare feet caressing each other on a gurney. it just shouldn't.

  • for a show that i found myself enjoying immensely, the dialogue was kind of "sub-par." it wasn't rapid fire like gilmore girls, introspective like mscl, hilarious like freaks and geeks, pun-y like sex in the city, or otherwise all that clever or memorable in any way. which is almost refreshing. i mean, a show that actually goes against the grain of all characters being witty, smart alecky, and chandler-ish. not a bad change of pace.

  • the entire season was only eighteen bucks at costco. at first i was wondering how they fit an entire season on two discs. now i know. short season. great deal though. and fun show to watch. i give it a high recommendation despite all my griping. i gripe a lot, it's what i do okay?

  • last thing. sandra oh. seriously? i mean, i know i'm going to asian-american hell for slandering our most prominent asian-american actress but, seriously? she is not attractive. she in fact, repulses me. she's like one of those chicks you see at the club and your buddy says "oh yeah, i really dig her" and you immediately grab the keys and head for the exit. he's clearly drunk beyond the point of comprehension. i understand her sexy role in sideways, she's married to director alexander payne. but in this show? inexcusable. this is the latest, and greatest, clarion call for the idea that any asian woman, regardless of her actual looks, can be portrayed as an object of desire by (blind) non-asians everywhere. don't you see what what's going on here? orientalism people, o-r-i-e-n-t-a-l-i-s-m! congrats to ms oh / mrs payne though, for going from arli$$ onto much bigger and better things. go asians.
    •
    [ pen name | 4:13 PM | ]






    Friday, February 17  
    kung fu hooey. i had a dream where i got into physical fisticuffs with an old chinese man. he wasn't that old, maybe fifty, but he was definitely a father figure type. in my dream, we argued, he started pushing me around, and then i spit and hit him. and then hit him again when he was down. apparently i fight dirty.

    i woke up wondering if this reaction would be okay in real life. are old men, like women and children, exempt from physical altercations? i'm sure confucius didn't support the hitting of elders, even if there's a good reason involved. i wanted to use the rule of "he was bigger than me" to justify my dream actions but if that was the rule, then many women and children could be hit by me -- i'm not that big.

    i had this whole elaborate scenario where i hit this guy and then rationalized it out to not only my parents, but my friends and the chinese community. strangely, i would not have felt the need to rationalize anything, or defend my actions to anyone, had this older man been non-asian. why this is i don't know. perhaps filial piety has been ingrained in me.
    [ pen name | 12:08 PM | ]






    Wednesday, February 15  
    "punks, jews, and old folks have always been my natural constituency. all three groups are hopelessly sentimental, longing for some lost, mythical past. they are steeped in tradition and ritual, with bizarre rules dictating every tiny little aspect of how to properly live. they have jokes no one understands and a grudge against the world for picking on them. luckily, a keen sense of irony and self-mockey keeps them from being too depressing at parties."
    -aaron cometbus, chicago stories-
    [ pen name | 3:45 AM | ]






     
    if i could find the spot where truth echoes
    i would stand there and whisper memories of my children's future
    i would let their future dwell in my past
    so that i might live a brighter now
    now is the essence of my domain and it contains
    all that was and will be
    and i am as i was and will be because i am and always will be
    that nigga
    -saul williams, sha clack clack-
    [ pen name | 2:51 AM | ]






    Tuesday, February 14  
    nike: goddess of (romantic) victory. i have this pair of oft used basketball shoes. they were given to me by my then roommates in new york maybe five years ago. this particular pair of shoes lost its tread long ago and when i run in them, i can feel the soles of my feet scraping the floor. the rubber sides of one shoe can be peeled almost entirely back starting from the top end.

    it hit me recently that these shoes have seen me into, through, and out of three (and counting) relationships -- keep in mind i've had four and a half relationships total. this seems to speak well for the quality of nike manufacturing, if not so well for my ability to sustain romantic relationships. i must also not be playing basketball very hard (or well) if one pair of shoes has lasted me nearly half a decade. i believe it's time to replace my shoes.

    happy valentine's day.
    [ pen name | 5:03 AM | ]






    Friday, February 10  
    "who is that girl i see,
    staring straight back at me,
    why is my reflection someone i don't know,
    somehow i cannot hide
    who i am, though i've tried,
    when will my reflection show who i am inside?
    when will my reflection show who i am inside?"
    -reflection, mulan-
    mirror, mirror. unbeknownst to me, there's a rumor going around that i'm opinionated. and difficult. i added that difficult part, but it might as well be there. in hip hop parlance i'd be labeled "a hater." apparently i have an opinion -- often bad -- about everything. this was pointed out to me, not kindly, and since then i've been trying to take mental notes of the comments i make. people are right, pretty much all of my comments start with me talking about someone/something and then ending with "i don't like that" and then listing reasons why.

    i'm also picky. about where i go, who i go with, what kind of entertainment will be available, when things will end, what kind of reassurance i'll have about a non-wasted time guarantee. everything. i had no idea.

    i thought i just an idea of what i prefer, and that i had strong opinions about things. i mean, i like opinionated people. i liked myself. now my entire self image has been shattered. i'm not amusingly dismissive with an eye for truth, i'm a prima donna. it's disheartening. i thought i was one of the most flexible people i knew, down to do anything and go anywhere. but no. it's all a lie.

    my only consolation to myself is that i have good reasons for disliking things. maybe they aren't great reasons, but they're at least well composed and well thought out reasons. and that should count for something right? i don't irrationally hate things. that would be silly.

    with this torch of truth now shed upon me, i'll understand when people don't want to hang out with me. i mean, i'm opinionated. i've had friends like this. they say something, i disregard them because they're just being difficult. i scoff at their stupid likes and dislikes. but now i've let my own negative attitudes seep into my daily life. i didn't think i did but apparently my cover is blown. don't opinionated people deserve friends too? work with me here.

    actually. i hate things okay? i admit it. i'm picky, i'm opinionated, and i don't give a damn. i hate dim sum! ok, sorry. just letting it all out. instead of taking the path of a normal person, i will not back down from my opinions but will instead fashion them to be stronger and more forceful in order to convince the people around me that i'm right. because i am dammit. go find a vanilla friend if you don't want me around. i have my sidekick and my blog, and they're more reliable than any of you anyway. i hate humans, go electronics.

    other statements made about me in the past week. "you're more woman than both of us combined." "i think you'd want to out-sass anyone you were with." even taken out of context, these statements don't really bode well for my perception among peers.

    my other annoying habit is asking lots of questions. well not a lot. just the same one. over and over. try me sometime. even when i know the answer or just asked the exact same question five minutes ago, i ask it again. i also tend to answer questions with questions. someone will ask me "what is bobby's email address?" i'll answer quickly with "bobby?" knowing full well which bobby (since we only have one in common) and then returning with the email address. i'm not sure why i do this. maybe i repeat things in question format to buy me some time. so i can form some sort of opinion. "oh that bobby, i don't like him. here's his email address if you really want but he's such a loser."
    [ pen name | 3:13 PM | ]






    Wednesday, February 8  
    (chinese) new year's resolution. i've made a major life decision and i think from here on out, my life will be better. i'm quitting. i'm going to go cold turkey and stop the fascination with top ten lists, best dressed, 500 awesome-ist people ever, and award shows -- although i am going to a grammy awards gathering today. along with that i've decided to restrain myself from cruising the internet for useless articles that only provide sustenance temporarily.

    it used to be a godsend, to have something to read about sports (or whatever) online every day -- every few hours even. i would cruise around a few sites and keep on refreshing in the hopes that a new article would pop up. then i would instantly devour the five hundred word morsel and immediately search for more. it's a waste of time. it's all a waste of time. i can spend hours cruising around, link to link to link, trying to scratch that information itch. but it's useless. who cares who the most underrated players are? what the latest trade rumors might be? it's all designed to cunningly make us (me) go back to the site. well, i'm out.

    same thing with lists. i'm bitter that much of my time is spent fascinated with lists. people undoubtabley love lists but for the good of my productivity life, i'm giving them up. the new rule is that if it won't help me in trivia games or flippant conversations, i'm not reading it. if it won't stay with me for at least one week, the information needs to be avoided or skimmed.

    it's a tough challenge i've set before myself. magazines, bookstores, a million online sites lurk around every corner. but i think i can do it. won't you join me?
    [ pen name | 4:53 PM | ]






    Monday, February 6  
    brought to you by my extensive middle school and professional video game industry experience: oregon trail: edu-taining the masses.
    [ pen name | 2:06 PM | ]






    Thursday, February 2  
    from diego to the bay. a few words before i begin. there are a few songs that i refuse to dance to. i will straight walk off the dance floor when these songs come on. number one on that list is "california love." number two is "nuthin but a g-thang." i can't recall the other three, but i think it's all tupac and dr dre songs rounding out the list. yes, i realize these are all songs evocative of the west coast. the "gangsta hand sign flashing west coast." and that's precisely why they should never play these songs in the club. sure they're classics, sure everyoneunu knows the last two words of every line of the lyrics. but really, have you ever seen anyone dance well to these songs? have you ever danced to one of these songs and then thought "man, that was so fun!" never.

    i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that no dre or tupac should ever be played anywhere near people who are in the mood for dancing. now, i like gangsta rap as much as the next middle class whitebread guy, but give me a break. these songs are not fun to dance to, the beats get super repetitive, and it's all over-played. why the crowd even "oooh's" when "nuthin but a g-thang" comes on is beyond me. you've heard it a billion times at a billion clubs, you'll hear it a billion times more at another billion clubs. what are people excited about? it's even worse ever since the internet taught every idiot how to c-walk, poorly. sure it's the only thing you feel like doing during these songs, but actually do it. it's just stupid. stop it, tupac is dead. let him be. and people who are "gangsta" attitude-ing or dancing or making those glowering faces during these songs, stop it. for your sake if not mine. you have a midori sour in your hand, stop pretending like you're hard.

    apologies for that. i just had to get it out. i really shouldn't go out to clubs anymore. it's bad for my mental health. good for venting material though.

    anyway, i'm off this weekend to the bay area for a magic tournament. you heard it right, a magic tournament. it's not a "real" magic tournament (i'm underprepared and don't have the proper cards to join one of those) but it'll be a tournament nonetheless. a few friends whom i used to play with are hosting a little tourney so i've decided to go. actually, it was fated that i go, and probably decreed by the gods of geekdom. how can i pass up a chance to recapture my high school years and possibly re-kindle my desire for one of the best games ever?

    i feel sorry for people who dismiss games like magic and role playing games and maybe even chess, just because geeks/dorks/nerds played them after school and during lunches. it's like the mere association with dorks is enough to taint a game's reputation. people don't know what they're missing out on.

    don't people realize that everything cool now was first touched by the hands of dorks years ago? you think lord of the rings fans were cool before? how about star wars fans? even certain comic books fans (excluding cultural icons like superman, batman, wonder woman, etc)? they're multi-billion dollar entertainment behemoths and it sure wasn't the popular kids pushing them along all of these years.

    so i'm waiting patiently for stuff like magic and ad&d to hit the big time. to become not only accepted as a cool club member, but be voted in unanimously as president. of course by the time this happens i'll likely be in my late middle ages, but i'd still play. once a dork, always a dork. my deck can beat your deck any day. this might turn out to be one of the best weekends ever since i turned technically adult.
    [ pen name | 3:00 AM | ]