Instead of an endeavor to cook 536 recipes in 365 days, I’m starting smaller.  Much much smaller.

Also, the likelihood of my experiment being turned into a book/movie is far less likely.  If somehow American cinema reaches a new low and every movie idea on earth has been officially been exhausted, I reserve the right to pick who gets to play me in the film adaptation.

Anyways, the premise of the experiment is simple.  101 days of writing.  That’s it.  I just have to make it through 101 days.  I might follow a specific topic.  Maybe several.  Maybe none.  Who knows.  I just have to write, largely to retain whatever creative capacity I have remaining in this dull logic-processing brain of mine.

Want to follow along?  You’ll find me for the next 101 days here:

http://101daysofwords.wordpress.com

I’ll try to do some guest spots on this blog in the next 101 days, but if I’m MIA, you’ll know where to find me.

Till then, take good care of this place for me.

I shall call it, for a lack of better terms, the cycle of fatness.

You see, this is how the cycle begins.  First, you eat.  This is simple enough.  I am actually a certified professional in this field.  If you need professional advice on what you should be eating, you should be coming to me.  Surgeon General’s Warning: Strictly following my advice can result in obesity, diabetes, unpopularity, and in most cases, death.

After a period of such eating, there will be the need to counteract all the deliciousness.  This can stem from a variety of reasons – body image consciousness, a significant other, health issues, or just plain difficulty getting from the bed to the couch to watch TV without being complete exasperated.  Let’s not even discuss any kind of side route to the kitchen for a snack.

So, in order to fulfill such need, you decide to hit the gym.  A noble decision indeed!  You throw on some exercise clothes, grab your iPod or an alternative non-Communism-supporting portable media device, strap on some running shoes, and you feel like you’re ready to take on the world and pare down your collection of stretchy pants.

At this juncture, one of three things will happen.

1) You will go to the gym, walk inside, and be completely intimidated by all these crazy medieval torture devices.

2) You will go to the gym, only to find that the place you pay an exorbitant amount of money for on a monthly basis has been rented out for something ridiculous like a high school swim meet leaving you with nowhere to park and excessively high blood pressure from your wasted dollars.  In your fury, you head home and/or your nearest cheeseburger purveyor and eat away the anger. (note: this has only happened to me twice.)

3) Someone calls you to see if you’re ready to throw down all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue.  Federal law dictates that it is a felony not to comply.

It becomes obvious that the cycle comes around full circle if situations #2 or #3 were to occur.  That was easy.

But what if you find yourself in situation #1?

You feel like your very presence in this mausoleum of calories is already the victory that you came to reach.  You stroll through the gym convincing yourself that you totally belong there with your unwaivering confidence.  Any fear is masked under a guise of looking at no direction in particular, yet avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone.  You hope and pray that something – anything – looks even vaguely similar to the gym equipment you have in your prized virtual mansion as a result of countless hours of The Sims 3.  Finally, out of the corner of your eye, you see something that is both recognizable and not so daunting..

A bike!  It looks bolted down pretty well, so there’s really not much risk in finding yourself careening uncontrollably at that somewhat cute girl/guy that you tried not to stare at as you walked in.  Besides, you learned how to ride a bike when you were a kid, and you never forget, right? RIGHT?!

Hop on that familiar machine, you fitness guru you.  What’s this?  Buttons and screens and lights?  While unlike the Huffy you used to cruise the mean neighborhood streets with, you leverage your adept logical reasoning skills to master this technological behemoth in front of you.

Start!  The only button you really needed to press, because let’s face it, you totally lied on your weight for calorie calculations and maybe even your age if you got that desperate.  You take off pedaling, reliving both your bicycle-based adventure-seeking youth and your equally blissful dream of donning the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.

Wiping sweat off your brow, you take a big swig of water from your newly purchased “This may be overpriced but it proves I really work out a lot” water bottle.  The intensity is so high at this point that you wonder if it’s bad form to just pop open the top and douse yourself with the rest of the water.  You glance over at fellow cyclers near you, giving them a sly grin as your imagination visualizes them as competitors on a winding mountain road.  You know you have to keep pressing on as they’re neck and neck with you, though that probably has a lot to do with how the gym sets these machines side-by-side in a line.

Muscles aching, you look forward to the end of this strenuous workout, thinking about the washboard abs you’ll have to show off once you get off this devil-possessed machine.  Eventually, your legs give out from under you and you collapse onto that blinking, taunting screen, with the following blurry text scrolling across your now-somehow-tired eyeballs.

Elapsed Time: 2:30
Remaining Time: 27:30
Calories: 14
Average Heart Rate: 184

Awesome.  Simply awesome.  Your hard work can now be rewarded.  No, MUST be rewarded.  You drag your tired body back to the car, thinking about what to reward yourself with.  A new TV?  Hmm, no.  A new car?  Eh.  A new water bottle?!  Maybe.

Then suddenly, it comes to you.

As you shout your order through that drive-thru speaker box, you sense that sweet gratification that this double cheeseburger is going to be 14 less calories than usual.

2010 was kind of weird.  On the upside, it was the first full year of being married.  On the downside, it’s the last year I got to spend with my grandmother.

I realize that there has not been a lot of literary genius gracing this page in the past year, though every year I’m swearing to “post more, write more, express more, etc etc etc”.  It would be so much easier to just let this go completely, but this blog is my labor of love.  It’s my outlet.  It’s the virtual antithesis of my Chinese upbringing for me to say what’s on my brain and unload what’s on my heart.  The best part is, the more controversial or judgmental my rants are, the more random readers tend to respond.  They may not be the greatest of responses, but at least it gives the warm fuzzy feeling that someone out there is reading this.

In fact, this is the outlet that has caused the rift between me and the woman who birthed me.  I don’t regret it for a second.  Some people have asked, “Well, do you ever wish that you never wrote that stuff and published it online?”  No, I really never have.  On one hand, it may seem terrible that she’s disowned me and expressed her hatred towards me.  On the other hand, this has really exposed what the real situation is in my family – not just to the public, but also to me.  I was just as blind to everything as the next person, and I’m the oldest son.  How terrible is that?  Besides, knowing my temper, something like this would have exploded at some point in the past 5 years anyways.

Anyways, here’s to 2011.  Who knows what will happen this year?

I think I’m hitting my limit.

All these weekends away are starting to take a toll on me.  I feel like I can go into hibernation mode for a few weeks with no problem.

To give you perspective, I’ve been in 3 different states the past 3 weekends.  One of those states is not Georgia.  We’re staying put this coming weekend, and then we’re off to the semi-annual training.  5 of 6 weekends not in Georgia.  Add in the 40+ hour work weeks of stress sandwiched between these weekends and you’ve got a inevitable mental revolt on your hands.

I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining (though it’s probably coming out that way) – I’ve enjoyed all my trips for their corresponding reasons.  I like my job, even though it makes my brain explode sometimes.  I’m just tired, that’s all.

It doesn’t look like I’m going to get a bona fide vacation this year either.  One day I’ll get enough vacation days (and salary!) to account for conferences and trainings AND a real actual vacation.

I’m not seeing what the issue is here with the following law.

834b.  (a) Every law enforcement agency in the State shall fully
cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization
Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is
suspected of being present in the United States in violation of
federal immigration laws.
   (b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected
of being present in the United States in violation of federal
immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the
following:
   (1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen
of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent
resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time
or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of
immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not
be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and
place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding
documentation to indicate his or her legal status.
   (2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien
who is present in the United States in violation of federal
immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal
justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or
leave the United States.
   (3) Notify the Attorney General of the State and the United
States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal
status and provide any additional information that may be requested
by any other public entity.
   (c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city,
county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with
jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent
or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly
prohibited.

This means that I need to find myself an office away from the office.  The real office is just too far of a drive – and too quiet, if there was such a thing, and working at home is far too distracting with all my little toys and whatnot.  No, what I need is a chair, a table, some ambient noise, preferably coffee, and a subtle distraction every now and again.

My ex-go-to-places have started to get overrun by…outsiders.  White Windmill, Maum as a desperate second, even Library Coffee despite them having all of 4 outlets for the entire place.

What I need is a new hidden gem.  Somewhere where I can hide that no one else really knows about.  Somewhere like White Windmill a year or two ago.

Anyone want to share their secret place with me?

Or do I really need to go open one up for myself?

- bagelicious
- bageltastic
- bagemazing
- inbagelable
- the bagel-diggity
- round and toasty

“If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will … wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all,” a dispatch from the official Korean Central News Agency said.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Better turn over the kimchi now, Kim Jong-Il.  Don’t forget, we’ve got Barack Obama.

With that, I leave you this little glimpse of what we’re up against:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0hk9vaqWUg

We hereby declare war on Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, also known as “IE6″. Our people have been suppressed under your tyrannical rule for the previous 8 years, and still many of our more ignorant and incompetent brothers are deceived by your aging technology. It is our determination that we can no longer withstand your oppressive hold on our people, forcing our developers to tirelessly accommodate for your lack of adherence to even the most basic of CSS2 standards.

Your crimes will not go unforgiven, plaguing us with diseases such as the double margin bug and your inability to handle multiple CSS classes. While your successors have marginally improved on your shortfalls, you and your governing power, Microsoft, have been unwilling to relinquish your market share grasp by ignoring the repeated requests to replace you through a required upgrade via Windows Update.

Such crimes against humanity will not go unpunished, and it is far more than a guarantee that once we, as a collective whole, have achieved independence from * html { }, you will be cast judgment by a consortium of your peers (Mozilla, Safari, Google) to an undetermined fate worse than uninstall.

Any terms of your surrender are dependent on the validity of your successors. Though our intentions are strong and our determination stronger, we inevitably harbor mentally incompetent users who are still brainwashed by your default installation schemes and continue to pine after your family of products. However, there will be no negotiation – your surrender must be absolute. You must relinquish all market share.

Our faith is in proper object model rendering and the Acid3 test. Our victory is thereby inevitable.

Signed on this 16th day of March in the year 2009,
Every person who has ever opened a web page in a web browser

He likes to come talk to me when he sees me. It doesn’t matter if I’m running out the door or in mid-sentence with someone else, he’ll just start talking.

I can tolerate that. I’ll attribute it to a lifetime of social ineptitude. I can’t expect everyone to develop social skills at a realistic rate. That point, I’ve conceded.

But it’s the same conversation over and over again. Not merely the same topic, but it’s literally like dejavu each and every time. Here’s what happens:

Him: “Hey man, how are you doing? What are you up to?”
Me: “Not much, same ol’ same ol’.”
Him: “Alright. Cool, man. Are you in school or something?”
Me: “Nope, I’m working.”
Him: “Oh, for [a guy's name he gets wrong every time]?”
Me: “Nope, I don’t work for him. I work at an IT firm.”
Him: “That’s cool. What do you do there?”
Me: “I develop software applications.”
Him: [confused look] “Okay. It’s like we never get to talk, man, I feel like I don’t really get a chance to know you.”
Me: “Uh, I have to go.”

Now, this conversation wouldn’t be so bad if it’s like the first time he’s really talked to me or something. But this conversation has repeated itself (almost word for word) no less than 5 times already. I’m thinking, man, if you really cared, you would remember who I am and what I do. But obviously you don’t.

I should really just start making different stuff up each time.

“Oh, I’m a professional chair stacker. I engineer the most efficient ways to stack chairs.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qtKyBaJ6jM

By far the most commented post on this entire blog is my rant about Tuscani Pasta.  I even have my own I’m-the-smartest-person-on-the-internet comment thread argument in there.  It’s quite amazing.

So I only feel obligated to report that Pizza Hut is BACK.  Apparently pretending to deceive New Yorkers wasn’t nearly shameful enough; this is a population who heart large flat pizzas.  No, the Pizza Hut marketing gang knows they have to step it up.  So they went to Italy.  Or so they make you believe.  The new victims to Pizza Hut’s palate-shocking pastas all sound pretty Italian.  They even speak Italian!  They really shelled out the bucks for this one.

Only $14.99 gets you this “vivacious” pasta.

I can’t wait to take frozen Costco lasagna to Italy and completely blow their minds.

Fireworks.  Really?  Maybe with some of the newfangled napalm fireworks.  Does the Chinese government really think that their people are so dumb to believe FIREWORKS lit a SKYSCRAPER on fire?

I even went to the gym!  Can you believe it?  Me neither.

To reward my dedication, I went to Starbucks and got myself a small coffee.  I’ve relegated myself to rewards to less than $2.  And, in this case – burnt.

I get in my car to get to work, and as I ease my stiff-suspensioned car over a speed bump, *WHABLAM* coffee flies everywhere.

Stupid speed bumps.

It leaks.

I’m sad.

I was really hoping to get a few thousand more miles out of these exhorbitantly expensive tires.  But noooo.  I have to get 2 tires replaced because of my differential.

It was nice knowing you, $500.

I’m thinking about getting a used one of these:

…only because I can’t afford one of these:

They will go great with my forthcoming new SmugMug account!

Is there hope for me after all?  Can I overcome a ridiculous amount of laziness to write something more often than once a month?  Do I really need to come up with interesting stories to uplift myself to blogosphere fame?

There’s only one way to find out.

So today, during lunch, I had to go return a movie from the Redbox near my office.  Redbox may be the greatest thing to ever happen to occasional one-night new-release movie renters like me.  It doesn’t hurt that people online help maintain an entire database of codes for free rentals.  That’s not the point of the story.

The point of the story is that I almost died today.  Okay, well, maybe not that dramatic, but my little car would have suffered some pain, and that’s almost like dying.  I’m pulling in the parking lot to get a parking space, and there’s this big ol’ white Mercury headed directly towards me.  I have my eyes on a spot further up and to my left, and in a moment of weakness, I actually WAIT for the other car to pass me before I claim my parking lot stake.

So I stop.  I wait.  And this BIG WHITE DETROIT-BORN BOAT STOPS RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SPACE.  Wow, annoying.  Before I could even think about what’s going on, the cruise liner starts moving again, headed back towards my direction.  My spidey-sense goes off, realizing that there is very little room on either side of this moving hunk of metal, and this guy is barreling straight towards the grill of my car.  I drop it into 1st and step on it, very narrowly squeezing between the white behemoth and a fatefully parked Honda Fit, giving me maybe centimeters of clearance in a fraction of a second.  All I could see inside was this amass of wrinkles, with those super-cool blocky sunglass things that fit over your existing glasses.

Man, that guy was ancient.  When he was my age, he probably high-fived dinosaurs.  Might have dated a stegosaurus.  Or maybe a raptor, if he swung that way.  Prop 8 probably was not even a thought back then anyways.  He probably planted the giant sequoias and dug the Grand Canyon with a spoon.

So I go return my movie, replaying my near-death experience in my head as I do.  I walk back out, fearing for my life, keeping an eye on any other killer senior citizens.  And there he was.  My potential murderer.  Hobbling slowly across the parking lot, fully depending on his cane for movement.  It takes him 5 steps for every one I take.  I could do nothing at that moment but cry for humanity, realizing that killers like him were on the loose even in nice upscale suburbia where I work.

I’m not an ageist.  I do, however, have a problem with people operating large white motor vehicles under the influence of decrepitness.  If you or someone you know suffers from constant decrepitness, please, get help somewhere.  And stay off the road.  Even if you’re in a car.  I don’t even care if you’re not the one driving.  Just stay off the road.

Join me in keeping murderers off the streets, one feeble old person at a time.  Preferably with baseball bats.

Granted, working in the field, technical support is the equivalency of fry-o-lator operator at McDonald’s in our world.

But even the fry-o-lator operators get paid their wages.

You can call me selfish, you can call me greedy, you can call me a lover of money – but the I stand behind every word of the following rant.

I get selflessly volunteered a lot by people to fix their computers.  Many people I know.  Some people I don’t.

When I was in college, I used to do IT-related stuff for this rich Jewish guy.  I no longer remember his name, but I do remember he owned all kinds of beachfront properties and he was Jewish.  Hence, he was affectionately titled “Rich Jewish Guy”.  The best part of RJG was that I felt like part of his little Jewish mafia when I worked for him.  I’d get this call – sometimes from him, sometimes from one of his “people” – to meet him at his house (read: mansion) or his office.  I’d show up, I’d get my instructions, I’d do my job, and then he’d pay me – always in a sealed envelope, despite it being check or cash.  I was never disappointed when I opened the envelope.  It always averaged to about $40-$50/hour, which is ridiculous for a college student.

I’d also get volunteered for people I know.  Those were done out of favor – there were never any sealed envelopes on my way out the door.  A requisite comment of gratitude and I was out, anxious to get home to try to salvage the 3 hours of my evening I just donated.  Sometimes meals were given for “payment”, but I really didn’t consider them as payment as I was usually sharing that meal with 5 other people; people who didn’t spend hours trying to rescue their computers from the deep unknown.

I was actually pretty okay with this through college, and even some into the training.  Today, I’m working in the industry.  I’m no longer trying to rescue people’s computers from the evil clutches of malware and spyware and the like, but the people who do that don’t sit too far away.  This is my job, my making of a living, my livelihood.

We all have our jobs.  We have our skills.  We’ve been blessed with something that we’re good at, or learning to be better at.  In my eyes, my job is no different than a doctor, a chef, or a janitor.  Even if what we do for a job isn’t always our first choice, we’re only still doing what we’re doing because we’re good enough at it not to get fired.

So after all this, here’s the conundrum: Why is it that people don’t expect doctors to come and treat them for free just because they’re good at it?  Why is it that it’s awkward if I asked a chef to come cook for me as a favor because they know how?  Why would it be offensive if you called your janitor friend over to clean your mess because he has the skill and ability to do it well?

Think about that for a second.

Now think about this:

Why would it be okay for you to call me over to fix your computer?

Yeah, it never got done.

You know how I had mentioned before about new things coming down the pipeline?

Yeah, it never got done.

You know how I had mentioned before about writing more?

Yeah, it never got done.

You know how I had mentioned before about not being a slacker?

Yeah.  It really really never got done.

Let’s talk about the most controversial of topics: Chinese gymnastics.  Partly, because it’s probably a popular topic and I like to watch to see who comes here from weird Google searches.  The other reason being that the Chinese women gymnasts are uglier than sin itself.  They have singlehandedly made me ashamed of my heritage.  I hope you’re reading, Hu Jintao. *puke*

It’s been suggested that my disdain for the “women” gymnasts for China sprouts from something very shallow.  Fact of the matter is, out of almost all the Olympic women gymnasts competing, the Chinese are by far the hardest to watch, strictly because, well, they’re ugly.  It doesn’t help that they get ridiculously high scores for doing stuff like…falling off beams.  Let’s not even talk about screwing over Nastia in the uneven bars FOR A TIED SCORE.

Anyways, back to ugly.  It doesn’t help that they’re like 13 years old.  Every commentator that fields any gymnastic event has been talking about it.  Come on, China, heavy makeup isn’t going to hide something like, oh, let’s say, puberty.  It’s intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that you collectively, red China, are implementing the modern day equivalent of child slavery.

Please direct all your complaints to 21st century human rights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/dining/23yogurt.html?_r=1&ref=dining&oref=slogin

“There is, it turns out, a great deal more than yogurt in those costly white cups.

The ingredients list for Original Pinkberry has 23 items. Skim milk and nonfat yogurt are listed first, then three kinds of sugar: sucrose, fructose and dextrose. Fructose and maltodextrin, another ingredient, are both laboratory-produced ingredients extracted from corn syrup.

The list includes at least five additives defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as emulsifiers (propylene glycol esters, lactoglycerides, sodium acid pyrophosphate, mono- and diglycerides); four acidifiers (magnesium oxide, calcium fumarate, citric acid, sodium citrate); tocopherol, a natural preservative; and two ingredients — starch and maltodextrin — that were characterized as fillers by Dr. Gary A. Reineccius, a professor in the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota and an expert in food additives.”

It’s not like they’re putting toxic waste in it.  Since when did people freak out about eating corn syrup and emulsifiers and *gasp* “fillers”?  Steer clear from packaged foods then, my friends, because you’re going to be in for a huge shock.  Yes, I know the argument is about it being “all-natural”, but the fact of the matter is that all that stuff that is in there is synthesized and extracted from naturally occurring things.  No one used black magic to create “emulsifiers”.

News flash: mustard is an emulsifier.  Better steer clear from that Grey Poupon.

And don’t even get me started on the fact that it has to be made off-site to qualify as actual approved “frozen yogurt” under California law.

With all that said, Pinkberry and Red Mango, whoever opens first here in Atlanta (and I mean Atlanta ITP – I’m looking at you, Juicy Green) gets the official georgechang.net endorsement.  Believe me, it’s a higher honor than that AmEx Plum commercial.