Guess what this is

Here are a few hints:

• It has the same letters as GOD, but unlike God, this could be your best friend.
• It rhymes with COG, FOG, HOG, JOG and LOG.
• It's the reason why there's so much crime in China (because they ate McGruff!)
• It taste like beef brisket, but with a lamb texture.

First person who guesses correctly gets a pair of chopsticks in a silk wrapper.

Booyakasha!

Happy Year of the OX!!

GONG HAY FAT CHOY!!

Tomorrow Barack Obama will be the President of the United States

My Obama doll with Ur and Peter's Obama bobblehead

I cannot wait. In the meantime, enjoy this song I discovered at 4 am in the morning at Kramerbooks in Dupont Circle. I actually can't find the newest version so this is the old one that encourages you to vote. Thanks to all who have.

Best MLK day EVER

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Yesterday, 2 million spectators, Christy and I congregated between the Washington Memorial and Lincoln Memorial to watch the start of the inaugural ceremonies for President-Elect Obama.

The two hour event featured speeches and music by many high profile celebrities, a majority of them were African American, such as Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Usher, Forrest Whittiker, Samuel L. Jackson, Tiger Woods, John Legend, Herbie Hancock and more!! I thought to myself, wow, this must be the first time ever that so many African Americans were asked to perform and celebrate with the incoming president... and, as a result, this must be the first time it's so much fun! I mean, Jamie Foxx did a shout out to Chi-town, even hollered Chicago's area code "312" at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. How awesome is that? I am so happy that we finally have a black president. Let's keep it real and keep it going!

Our Puffies and We

You need to have a Puffy in cold weather. You will die without one. Here's DBB and I modeling ours. It is the best purchase I made this winter. I love it frankly. I brought it to Washington DC with me and thank God I did.

Best Food Court EVER

can be found at the Yuyuan Gardens in Shanghai. Here's a little video of the splendor and it keeps going... I should have kept recording but I would have ran out of space!

Here are more pics. Beautiful huh?

Here is what I ordered:

And of course I don't waste food:

Me so happy:

Pictorial of how XL and DYY became BFFs

Pictorial by: Design Director DBB.

Entitled:
"Friendship Has No Boundaries, Shares One Language, Sings in Amazing Chinese Unison."

Also known as:
"No Cab in Sight at 2 AM While Zero Degrees in Shanghai, Fuck that Shit, Let's Stay Home and Party."

XL, DBB and DYY wish all you bitches a happy new year!

Ancient Chinese Secret straight from the Motherland

Despite being a person of Chinese descent (and Cantonese to boot!), it is a known, accepted and sad fact that I do not know how to spit up (aka "hauk") mucus and/or phlegm. Throughout my life, I either blew my nose or remained stuffed up, while admiring my brother's expert hauking skills and clear passageways. Interestingly I accepted my lot in life and never questioned my inability to hauk... until a few weeks ago when Divinestyler rocked my world. He was the first person in my life who actually explained the act of hauking to me: essentially, one would inhale the mucus upward into the nose and then downward through the back sinuses to the bottom of the throat and up the throat again by spitting a loogie out of the mouth. It's a basic circular motion.

I responded with wonder... and also with disgust. I was like, Joe, are you serious? That sounds fucken gross. That must be why I've never tried it... somewhere in my girlie subconscious, I must have suppressed even the desire to learn how to hauk. And now that I know, I refuse to do it. Yuck.

But both my primary care physician and friends disagree. They all say it's important to remove the mucus/phlegm before it turns into something worse. No one can tell me exactly what that worse would be... but if you think of hauking in a survival-of-the-fittest context, I would not evolve. I would just die off. And that's not cool.

So you think the Ancient Chinese Secret for ridding phlegm is hauking? WRONG. That's the harsh unnecessary unsanitary old school way. The aristocrats in Shanghai drink pig lung soup. Yes, you read it correctly... pig lung soup. Why would one need to hauk when there's plenty of pig lungs everywhere to consume! Be Chinese and don't waste any part of the animal, you know? Especially if it's medicinal, i.e. get rid of phlegm.

I did indeed boast to friends prior to my trip that I had planned to eat all the funky meats available (eg. dog, cat, raccoon, snake, whatever) in Shanghai and Hong Kong before returning to the US as a devout lacto-ovo-pesco vegetarian for the rest of 2009 after Chinese New Year.

Pig lung was not on my list of funky meats, but DBB said that it's good for eliminating mucus... he noticed my phlegmy cough once I arrived to his apartment in the French Concession. So I said what the heck. And you know what? It wasn't so bad. It tasted like bland gelatinous fat.

So I had the soup for lunch today at 4 pm. By 1 am this morning, the phlegm was gone! For real! It's crazy dude. The medicinal value of pig lung -- one of the many ancient Chinese secrets I will discover during my stay in the Motherland. I will share them with you all if you believe. But you must believe.

Pig Lung Soup yo -- Shanghai, China

Jesus Christ Superstar

In celebration of Josh's belated birthday and Jesus's upcoming birthday, we went to see Jesus Christ Superstar -- the live musical. I watched the film version like 10 years ago and remember really enjoying it. I mean - the story of the new testament in song and dance... what can you not love? Now that I've seen the musical, however, I am surprised to feel that the movie was better.

I suppose it should be a treat to have Ned Steely perform our show. Ned is the original cast member who played Jesus in the original Broadway musical in 1970. But dude. Just look at the picture above. Grandpa Steely is an octogenarian trying to play a 32 years old Jesus. It was the most awful casting ever. The age difference was even more apparent when 70's electric guitar singer Ned sang in duets with Judas, who was played by a thirty-something African American gay man with a soulful R&B voice.

Speaking of Judas, who is my all-time favorite apostle as you all know, I had no idea that his dissension with Jesus was because his uncompromising dogma. Judas was a fucken ideologue dude. I always knew he was more than just a traitor, that his dissolution from Jesus was from a deeper disappointed place. But goddammit. Ideologues are so annoying. Still, I'm going to overlook what would normally be a fatal flaw. My admiration for Judas remains. He's still the best apostle ever. Judas was the only one who really questioned authority, even if the authority was the son of God. Peter, Paul and the rest... clearly Jesus' bitches.

"Oh yeah, I got a cool black guy to play me."

Mandatory Quarantine

For the most part, I have been home-bound and isolated from the rest of society due to pink eye. The doctor said I'm highly contagious and should not return to work until Thursday. For a hardworking cheap chinese laborer like myself, three days away from work is a long ass time. Though I need the break so perhaps it's a blessing in disguise? Of course I worked remotely still. But calling into meetings wearing pajamas and without showering is somewhat gratifying to me. I think I enjoy working from home. I also learned that, if by any chance in the future or at Armageddon, I am detained and/or forced into mandatory quarantine or solitary confinement, I believe I can do it.

I entertained myself by baking cupcakes, watching back-to-back episodes of The Wire, gardening, flipping through magazines at Rite Aid, eating junk food, organizing my guestroom, napping, surfing channels and the internet for anything Blagojevich-related, reading about Michelle Obama. It is from reading her biography that I realize that Michelle and I have much in common. As if we are kindred spirits.

Both Michelle and I love Barack Obama. We are both public-interest minded lawyers. We both grew up in the South side of Chicago to working-class families. We both attended Whitney Young H.S. We both went to prestigious colleges. Michelle went to Princeton while I attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (it's ranked #2 in the nation for engineering...). Michelle's senior thesis is entitled, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community". This was the controversial thesis that caused people to call her a "black militant" just because she critiqued the lack of support and services for black students at Princeton.

Reading about this reminded me of the final paper I wrote for my Asian American Jurisprudence class in law school. I wrote about how the interests of Asian Americans were subordinated by the interests of other ethnic minorities in a perceived (or actual) zero-sum game manipulated by The Man. I used the LA Riots and the cabdriver situation in NYC as examples. Although I still stand by my arguments, I would be horrified to have my law school paper scrutinized and misinterpreted by like everyone. Totally, completely horrified. I remember having to do an all-nighter to write that paper because I had procrastinated all year. I would hate people to judge me on a paper I wrote when I was cracked out at 23 years old. Poor Michelle had to defend herself for something she wrote for a class in college at the age of 21.

Ten years later, I wonder where my paper is... and could it destroy me or my credibility? I assume one physical copy is with Professor Kang while an electronic copy is on a floppy disk somewhere. Maybe it won't resurface when I get my appointment from Obama? Let's hope.

My next post? Perhaps similarities with Gov. Rod Blagojevich? He and I probably have more in common actually.

PAY TO PLAY, BITCH! No one rides for free.

Pink Eye = WMDs

Yes, it is true. I have been slowly assembling an army of cybersoldiers in preparation for robot uprisings and armageddon in general. However, now that I have been demobilized by pink eye, I now believe I should assemble a guerrilla group of bio-terrorist combatants also. I would recruit my two nephews, who transferred the highly contagious virus to me by coughing indiscriminately in my food and my face, all the while staying cute and lovable, disarming me and my better judgment to maintain some distance away from their bio toxic germs. I can't believe I allowed those little fuckers to get me.

Since I am not as cute and lovable as my nephews, my friends are not as disarmed and have maintained their better judgment. Even though I promised not to cough into anyone's food or face, a couple of us made the right decision for me to leave a baby shower early and quarantine myself so I don't spread the infectious disease to the expecting mother and unborn child. In fact, there was another pregnant friend on the scene so I finally left because I couldn't bear the responsibility of something later going terribly wrong. It's not like you can deny spreading pink eye at a party when you're the only one with discharge oozing out of your eye sockets. Thank god I had my sunglasses on. Although no one could tell, I started feeling paranoid. I was reminded of a Bloodhound Gang episode (from 321 Contact) about pink eye. The story was about this school cafeteria employee who had contracted pink eye, yet neglected to wash her hands before she prepared sandwiches, causing a number of teenagers to become ill. She wore sunglasses the whole time to cover her itchy, irritated red eye. But the Bloodhound Gang found her habit of wearing sunglasses indoors, in a dark cafeteria, to be a bit odd. I don't remember exactly how the Bloodhound Gang busted her, but I do remember the moral of the story is to wash your hands frequently... and to never contract pink eye.

Twenty-five years later after watching such an important and informative show, it is clear I have not learned from my childhood lessons. Or perhaps bio-terrorists (ie. children) are far more powerful and deadlier than they were when I was growing up? All I know is that none of my peers growing up ever had pink eye or lice or mono or peanut allergies. But now I have one of the four. OMG. I need to assemble a guerrilla army as soon as possible! In the meantime, I will be an army of one and follow what this guy does.

Children say the darnest things

I heard some great one-liners this past weekend.

I attempted to engage in a conversation about Barack Obama with my 6 and 4 years old nephews. If Auntie loves Obama, the nephews surely will also.

So I described to them how Sasha and Malia are going to get a new dog when they move to the White House.

Christopher announces, "I want to get a new dog. But we have to wait for these (points to dogs Gabby and Sally) to die first."

Nice. Good to know he's a honest little fucker.

I offered to eat the dogs but the boys then shrieked like little girls. Little tortured girls. It didn't sound good.

Then while we started to over-decorate the tree...


...and were looking for hooks to clip the ornaments...


... Elliot announces, "I NEED A HOOKER!"

Awesome. Good to know he's a degenerate like Auntie.

And finally, Christopher makes a racial remark. It's kind of funny so it's okay. Plus, he's just a child. He doesn't know better.

Quote of the Day

It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.
— Dolly Parton

Another Silent Auction!!

So I'll be attending yet another industry event tonight... a fundraiser for the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment. I am going as a guest of Fox's diversity department and will be sitting next to.... BOBBY LEE... and JOHN CHO!! I'm pretty stoked.

But I also learned that there will be another silent auction tonight! I still haven't paid for my Krav Maga lessons, so I doubt I will participate. Or maybe I should? Here are the prizes I'm considering to bid on:

• Custom Hello Kitty Electric Guitar plus accessories (oh yeah!)
• The Sword of Hiro from HEROES (for protection during Armageddon)
• Framed autographed poster from House (for sister)
• 25th anniversary Star Trek Wrath of Khan ship to be signed by George Takei (Might need this ship for Armageddon as well)

I played Wii for the first time ever

Instead of participating in Black Friday this year, and potentially risk my life being trampled by crazy mad shoppers like that poor seasonal employee at Wal-mart, I used my time and energy to further my study of virtual reality. I played Wii Sports. Specifically, I bowled, boxed and played tennis. I also raced riding a cow and shot targets in the air. Not all at once, mind you. That's not even possible in virtual reality, at least not yet.

This is what I learned. I am a much better athlete in virtual reality. I bowled a 114. And my backhand in tennis is awesome. I wasn't very good at boxing, but I think that's because I'm a pacificist, unlike JaneInsane who continued to knock me out even when I was down (ie. I didn't know how to use the controls, not that she cared as she continued to punch me to a pulp). Also, I'm a pretty good cow rider.

What was encouraging is that playing sports on Wii inspired me to play these sports in real life. After virtual bowling, I wanted to really bowl. And after virtual tennis, I pledged to myself that I'm going to play more tennis in 2009. But I wonder, do others have this same feeling of inspiration to pause playing virtual reality and play reality reality? I assume not. I mean, if you're really good at Wii, why would you want to suck in real life? We all want to be winners. For example, I hardly exceed a score of 100 in real-life bowling. So you can imagine my elation when I bowled several spares and strikes in Wii. What would happen to my newly-developed confidence when I put on those tri-colored shoes and hit those lanes? Why would any kid who excels at Wii would want to participate in the sport in real life, especially if they lack true athletic skills like myself?

The "W" in Wii stands for "Winner". There's no W in "Reality".

Is that fucken deep or what?

Another message to me from the Obama-Biden Administration

Dear DYY, Thank you for submitting your application to serve in the Obama-Biden Administration. As you can imagine, we are receiving thousands of applications during the transition process. We will initially be focused on the most senior positions in the Administration. If you do not hear from us for several weeks or months, please do not think we have lost your information. You may update your application at any time by clicking on the link below and using the email address you entered on your application as your login. We will receive and record the changes you make.Thank you again for your interest.

Cross your fingers for me, bitches!

Holiday Update

I'm up north visiting my family for the holidays. So once again, I must be wholesome and pure. That is why I'm wearing a pilgrim hat and showing off pilgrim art, both made by my younger nephew Elliot. Part of being wholesome and pure is immersing in the holiday spirit. For reasons I never quite understood, celebrating Christmas the day after Thanksgiving is a tradition in America. And what is good for America is good for my family. We shall not be exempt from such celebrations.
Here we are at Downtown San Jose. We were suppose to go ice skating, but the rink was closed. So were all the children's rides and the public library. Yes, Downtown San Jose was booty overall. But we still remained in the holiday spirit and took pictures with the many Christmas decorations scattered throughout the main street.

Here is a Christmas tree decorated with pictures of missing children. Above each picture is the word "VANISHED".

Um, can you say downer?

And here is a lovely nativity scene. But where is Baby Jesus? He must be VANISHED. Perhaps we'll find his picture in the tree above...

We celebrated a little bit of Christmas at home too. We assembled this gingerbread house puzzle and glued the pieces together.
There's glitter on the puzzle too, but you may not be able to see it in the photo. We also put together a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur puzzle, but it kind of got messed up when we tried gluing the pieces together. I doubt we're going to fix it. With young boys and an ADD aunt, we've moved on to other activities.
Activities such as Jenga and Twister. The boys liked them okay. I think they'll like them better when they get a little older. I can't wait. So instead we focused on some wooden toys I had also purchased for them. I added a couple of stickers to each and they insisted to add more. How awesome is that?!

Here is Christopher's helicopter:
Also to my delight, the boys have learned to make funny faces!
Speaking of toys and funny faces, I'm going to take this moment to digress for a bit... can someone please explain this to me?
There are two big shelves of stuffed bears at my sister's friend's home where we celebrated Thanksgiving this year. I don't mean to be disrespectful, since she fed me and all, but I just don't get it. I mean, I have seen and heard of adults having huge collections of dolls and stuff animals, but I just don't get it. Of course I had to inquire about her collection. They are specialty bears from all around the world. I certainly appreciate the diversity, but it's a little strange, right? I guess I shouldn't poo poo it during this time of wholesomeness and purity. I presume a collection of stuff animals is part of that. Indeed I complimented her bears and smiled cordially in the most purest and wholesome way, supressing my naturally sarcastic thoughts. See, I'm all about the holidays yo.

Now back to funny faces... Happy Holidays!!