Desperate Women and The Ordeals They Go Through

 

In the dumbest move I've seen in years, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation withdrew their funding from Planned Parenthood during the Planned Parenthood political storm. They said they don't fund organizations that are being investigated but their new Senior VP for Public Policy, Karen Handel, ran a 2010 gubernatorial campaign in Georgia on the platform of defunding Planned Parenthood especially their breast and cervical cancer screenings. So go figure. Also the founder of Komen is also a longtime GOP donor.

I mean, just the fact that a foundation to have a women's disease as a cause but not supporting women's rights is completely mindboggling. I guess they let their political agenda blind them on everything. To think that a non-profit that largely depends on donations to actively seek out a controversy and let its fate decided in the hands of the public. Last year, Planned Parenthood received $650,000 for 170,000 screenings, that's less than $4 a pop amongst other additional things they provide. Oh did you know that the annual salary of the CEO at Komen is at about $460,000?

Within 24 hours, Bloomberg and other folks already made up the lost funding. Thousands of celebrities and us regular folks had sworn off Komen. Sure they've reinstated the funding and apologize but I think it a bit too late. Way to discredit a well-established organization in the shortest amount of time possible.

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I know I don't need to but I do feel bad for Madonna. Her hunger for fame and recognition seemed never had faded; even after becoming the unrefuted Queen of Pop. There's a smell of desperation, as seen on the leg spreading cover of Hard Candy, the jeans commercial for GAP with Missy or the recent cheerleading song with teen star Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. You're 53, Madge. A teenage cheerleading song should be reserved for your daughter's debut. L.U.V Madonna, Y.O.U. You wanna? Sorry, but my answer is no!

True, she gave a very decent performance on the Superbowl Half Time show. It's obviously lipsynched, but she looked great and the music arrangement was superb. She better have a kick as album to follow up on her act. Acting young and do what the kids like is really not the way to go. Cher had her farewell tour that lasted forever and now still performing in Vegas occasionally. I think Madge should follow suite and age with dignity.

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Henri David Halloween Ball 2010

This marked the third consecutive year that I've ever wore costume on Halloween, before that I didn't really celebrate it aside eating some candies or handing tons out one year because I didn't know how much I was expected to give out. Well, since I've actively dressed up for it, Halloween has become one of my favorite day of celebration.

Since I was introduced to Henri David Ball two years ago, it had become THE event for Halloween in Philadelphia. People attending the ball invest on their costumes and since we don't have a parade like LA, SF or NYC. The Henri David Ball is pretty much it for us and I, for one, am glad to have it around. The strange thing about it is that Henri David is the owner of a Jewelry shop in town called Halloween and he does not do any form of advertising, his business depends on his reputation and word of mouth, and apparently so does the Halloween party. I have to go to the Jewelry store for information, so I can post online to tell the others. Til this day, the store doesn't have a single computer, website or email address. 21st Century much? Anyhow, once I got the information, I posted the event on Facebook, a local gay website and Yelp. I think I should get a cut of the proceed, no?

The event itself is entertaining, we always managed to have a good time and get elated by the creativity of others even though I lack the tenacity to stay until 2am watching all the competitions and performance. Though I always manage to take pictures and share:



This is my look for this year. I can't exactly tell you what it is but it is inspired by Kabuki Noh theater and Oni. The outfit is something that a blue collar Japanese vendor would wear. I was surprised that one person knows that I'm an Oni and a few people yelled Kabuki, so I'm relief that it wasn't too out there. A lot of folks liked the hair and the face paint. Next to me of course is DC's Black Cat, one of my favorite DC characters of all time.



The boyfriend this year opted to wear a Bavarian costume and as Nina and Michael Kors would say, he's very "On Trend". Not only did we see lots of Bavarian looks, of all the lederhosen costumes we've seen 3 others wearing the exact one as he did. Of course, my boyfriend looks the cutest.

The two of us formed the Axis pre-WWII and it seems like another couple had a similar wavelength but did it in a flashier, shinier version. Pretty gorgeous, I've to say:



Other than lederhosens being popular, I noticed a lot of Alices and Madhatters, superheroes, robots and people with their dick out. Despite my assumption, there's not really that many Lady Gaga and there was no meat dress, there was also no Christine O'Donnell witches. There's also a few Na'vis around:



There are quite a few witty people who's up on recent events:




The Henri David Halloween Ball is very drag heavy:



I put the rest in this Flickr album but here are the other good ones:



We also managed to take a picture with Governor Ed Rendell and the Democratic candidate who's running for the very same position Dan Onorato who came to be contest judges. Not really into politicians but whatever.



364 Days before the next Halloween...

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Entertainment Round-Up (May 2010 Edition)

There's a whole list of shows that will be canceled coming this fall:

The Wanda Sykes Show, The New Adventures Of Old Christine, Cold Case, Numbers, Miami Medical, Accidentally On Purpose, FlashForward, Better Off Ted, Scrubs, Happy Town, Romantically Challenged, Gary Unmarried, Heroes, Mercy, Trauma, Sons Of Tuscon, Past Life, Til Death

I have heard of probably less than half of them. I will probably miss Numbers even though it was on a slot that I have other things to watch. Scrubs should have been dead a few seasons ago. Sons of Tuscon was an awful idea for a show, so is Mercy, the copycat for Nurse Jackie. I liked Heroes, but I guess the story was too skewed for the sake of surprising the audience that it's a bit nonsensical now, though I do appreciate the special effects and it being different.

The last episode of Lost will be aired this Sunday, I think, but I have never seen a single episode of the series. I also haven't followed this season's American Idol, usually I'll tune in for the last few episode every season when the singing is bearable, just enough time to pick a favorite. Maybe it's the fact that they change judges or maybe it just got tired after a while, but I'm not watching it either. All I'm really tuning in for is United States of Tara, Nurse Jackie and perhaps Top Chef Masters. Though even in Top Chef Masters, I can't stand how stereotypical Chef Susur Lee is acting with his "Red is such a good Chinese color", "I've never seen a single episode of Simpsons" or "In our culture, we don't eat carrot cake." Occasionally, I'll watch Glee and it's not until today that I've learned Kevin McHale who's playing Artie in the wheelchair was actually one of the singer of a boy band called NLT (which stands for Not Like Them), my mind got blown after watching one of their video. I would have never guessed.



Obviously I'm mega-excited about True Blood coming back for a third season. I've read all of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Series and I'm reading the newest ones so I know most of the stories but I like how Alan Ball make those little changes that keep things fresh and interesting. I'm also very excited about Alcide the Werewolf getting introduced this coming season and played by very hunky Joe Manganiello. I guess the audience will be treated by another half naked hunk.



Movie-wise, I have some inkling to see Prince of Persia because I was a fan of the video game franchise and Jake "Yil-En-HOO-Le-Hay" Gyllenhaal, even though not quite my type, is not that hard on the eyes either. I'm also intrigued by Sex and the City 2. Yes, I've watched the entire series and developed feelings for the show. And even though the ladies, especially Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall are getting rapidly older, I still want to follow through. After all, it's a gay man's story in heterosexual form. Of course, flashing scenes of sexy men in their full monty doesn't hurt either. The boyfriend wants to see a French film called Micmacs, which is directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet who also directed Delicatessen and Amelie, I'm sure it will be very interesting.

Music-wise, I'm looking forward to hear Janelle Monae's sophomore album Archandroid and Christina Aguilera's coming up album Bionic. Even Asian YouTube celeb David Choice has came up with his second album and a neat video to go with it. Enjoy.

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On Chatroulette

After watching all the hype on Chatroulette, it made me want to see what all the fuss was about. So I went and checked it out.

The site was launched by a 17-year old from Russia, and it is basically an application where they link random people with or without video cams together and form an often very temporary connection. You get to see who you're chatting with and what their environment is like and they got to see you too, and if you don't find each other particularly interesting or the conversation is over, there is a button where you can press for the next random encounter.

Within the first 5 minutes, I saw 3 screens asking me to show them my boobs. The world of Chatroulette is filled with bored teenagers drinking, lying on coaches or older gentlemen that are trying to show their junks. It's like stumbling in a dorm of highschoolers all bored with nothing to do, hoping the next person passing by will entertain them somehow. That and pleas for boobs and older gentlemen's junks.

There were a few groups of teenagers having Chatroulette parties using the site to find something to laugh or gross out about and that seems to be the best utilization and attitude about the site but I cannot find a place for me on it. The few people that saw me yelled out "You're Asian", "Chink", "Do you want to be on Jon & Kate?" or "Hell, no!", like they have never saw an Asian before. Or maybe they haven't but my prediction is either the site will be so filled with porn that it will lose its original purpose or "Adults" will start using it and it would be soon deemed uncool. We'll see.


A bit on the lame side but the end is surprisingly poignant

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Trivia Night

This week is decidedly a game week for me, after reminiscing about an old game I liked on Monday and then talking about all the games and apps I've been playing these days, I went to Trivia Night with the boyfriend last night. The boyfriend is a big trivia game fan, regularly we get together and watch Jeopardy almost every night. He's surely a smart cookie and knows almost every answers, while I'm more of a word puzzle, Wheel of Fortune kinda guy. Though we're both big fan of the show of Discovery Channel called Cash Cab and wish that we would bump into Ben Bailey and have the ceiling of a cab light up all discotheque like. (Though neither of us are fans of taking cab especially while we're in New York.)

Trivia nights used to be held at the local leather bar, it is designed to draw more customers in on the quieter nights. I remember on the weekend when he agrees to make our relationship official, we actually won a basket of gifts from the trivia game, but it has discontinued somehow. So I was very excited when I found out that trivia night is returning with a different locale. Our friend, James from MTV's Can't Get a Date, is back to host it with 4 rounds of 10 questions. The winner of each round get a gift bags containing certificates from various local, restaurants, beauty salon, haircutter, thrift shops and video stores, there are also some sex toys. Prizes total to about $250 for the whole night, and wouldn't you know it? The boyfriend and I and two of our friends won all four rounds.

To be fair, it was only the second night after trivia night restarted and there were only 2~3 other teams who were playing. The rules were that if two teams answer the same number of questions right, whoever get their answers in first wins. So we kinda raced over to hand in our answers, also, we were kinda familiar with James' style and we know a lot of trick questions were involved, so first timers might be playing on unfair grounds.

Here are a few examples of the questions and answers of the night:

Q. Of Barbara Streisand, Bette Midler, Cher, and Elton John, who is the oldest?
A. They are respectively 67, 64, 63 and 62. So the answer is Barbs.

Q. How Many States in the U.S. starts with the letter M?
A. Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana counts 8.

Q. How many children do Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne have?
A. Actually, other than Jack and Kelly they also have Aimee who's the eldest. She refused to appear on The Osbounes. I just thought being the druggies that the Osbournes seemed to be, they have every reasons on the book for a miscarriage (or two).

Q. Make "Red Wood" into one word.
A. I was proud to figure this one out and it's pretty much one of the few questions I got right. The answer is "one word".

Q. Was there egg first or chicken first?
A. Since eggs are not exclusively from chicken, it'd be eggs first.

Anyway, we had a pretty good time. The gifts between us two total approximately $100, though later on I felt guilty because the other teams didn't win anything. The last round, the host actually came over and said we won but ask whether he could make another team the winner since it's mostly girl sex toys. We agreed but the winners actually left, so he had no choice but to give it to us. We gave out four $20 off beauty salon coupons to the team of six NJ lipstick "Jersey Shore" lesbians so as to share the wealth. Not a lot of people had heard about the event yet, so our chance of winning was much higher than usual. Selfishly, I'd like to go back and get more gift certificates before it got too crowd or canceled again. The last thrift store certificate lasted us for a whole year, so getting another one wouldn't be too bad.

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Music Alert: Lady Gaga's "Fame Monster" and Addams Family The Musical

Time flies, Lady Gaga's debut album was released more than 18 months ago and chasing The Fame at the end of this month is an 8-track sophomore called The Fame Monster. Her first video from that album was released two days ago and the song is called Bad Romance.



It is bad enough to deserve a music slap. I'm not talking about the video itself. Everybody would agree that she had maintained quite the impeccable attention-grabbing image with all her fabulous costumes, make-up and postures. One can't surround themselves with enough capable gay fairies. She IS fierce and not afraid to shock. She's no looker but she keeps it interesting and I have yet to see her wear something twice. She reminds me of the short-lived music career of Vampire Lestat.

But Bad Romance is so bad. There's no substance to it whatsoever. Echoing Kyle's sentiments, what the fuck is she singing about? What the hell is the song about? She used a runway segment as the bridge of the song that does not has anything to do with the rest of the song and "Ra-ra-ah-ah-ah, Roma-ro-ma-ma, Gaga-ooh-la-la..." is just plain lazy, made up, baby talk, nonsense. Worst of all, the song is not even catchy. Though if you hammer it in my head by playing it 50 times real loud in a club (hopefully mixed by some skillful DJ), I'm sure I'll be humming and even convert to liking it, but right now it's really doubtful. The other leaked song Dance in The Dark sounds a lot better:



Who would release an 8-song album anyway? Wait for 2~4 more. I'm sure the record company will pull a stunt 2 months after the release and rerelease another version of the same album with a few extra songs anyway. I hope getting famous doesn't make her think that it gives her the right to go back to her sing-a-song Lilith Fair past. That kinda don't work for me.

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Here's something to be excited about:


Via Vanity Fair

Addams Family - The Musical!

I love the Addams Family sooo much, I'm really hoping that the music written for it is good. It'd be very disappointing if it's not. Nathan Lane is playing Gomez while Morticia is played by the amazing Bebe Neuwirth. I wonder if and how Lurch sings. The show will start in Chicago and arrive in Broadway later in the season. I'd love to see it.

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Halloween 2009

Halloween has become, without questions, one of the most exciting holidays for me. I just officially start celebrating Halloween last year for my very first Halloween party wearing my very first Halloween costume. Since the boyfriend also likes the festivities a lot, I have an excuse to dress up yet again and venture out and celebrate.

The evening started quite stressfully with unexpected shortcomings during the production of my duct-tape costume. I had this crazy idea of making Colossus out of duct tape but then I didn't count on it being cast-like and it would be so hard for me to move once I was in it. So a lot of work depended on the boyfriend and we spent around 4 hours taping and taping. It's a bit extraneous and it's probably something we'll never attempt again. But when it was done, we went out to the streets merrily.

During the earlier evening, I also attempted making some Jack O'Lanterns pumpkin pies with puff pastries. We thought there will be extras to give out, but it was pretty good and it didn't turn out to be a lot, so we finished them ourselves.



There is a big Halloween parade in New York but in Philly, we have an annual Halloween Ball at Sheraton hosted by the gay uncle of Philadelphia Mr. Henri David. I was sure that we'd find the most outrageous costumes over at this Henri David Ball and we weren't disappointed.


Yours truly and The Boyfriend.


Betty Boop and her zombie prom boys. I was quite impressed how she turned a cartoon into a real life person.


The belles of the ball. The white gown is really full on the back, it was like a giant cloud the size of an entire elevator.


Couples: Lego complete with Lego flowers purse and backpack, Popeye and Olive Oyl.


Most Common: Six sets of people that we knew of were Mario Brothers (including my good gaysian friends and the boyfriend's buds who headed to Vegas), we also seen 4 Dorothys and 2 wicked witches but this black and white Dorothy with her own tornado and flying house was by far the best. (I kinda hope for a flying cow though. lol)


The Bizarre: Urinal stall guy with attached walls (Tons of people stand by him for a picture but hopefully no one actually peed.), Guy with a hundred eyes (The eyes looked like modified fleshlights.)


Most Horrifying: Zombie diner quartet with fried finger baskets.


Most Amazing: Kali - Goddess of destruction. Can you not love? I jumped up and down when I saw her.

I quite thoroughly enjoyed my night out, the extra hour after 2am just added to the fun. After the ball, we went out to meet some more friends to show off our costume and see who they turned out to be. It was great fun. Surprisingly with our sorta obvious looks, some people still thought I was either Ironman or Cyclops while the Boyfriend got mistaken for Edward Scissorhands. Still, it was nice to be asked more than a dozen times to be in pictures. We did appreciate the attention. Hopefully next year we'll get to do it all over again.

Hope you had a great time too.

I hope you had a fun Halloween!

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Let's Go, Phillies!

Philadelphia had been buzzing with the news that our baseball team, the mighty Phillies are almost at the point where they will make the World Series. By the way, what makes that the 'World' series? Not very worldly if you ask me, there are people playing baseball in Japan and Taiwan and... Um, whatever. Well, Philadelphia is quite excited about our team making such prowess. It seems to be THE topic that everyone has lingering on and I don't blame them. Even a person like me who doesn't know much about baseball had learned something and quite proud to acquire some butch facade.

Last year when 'we' won the world series, car were flipped, stores were looted, fans were celebrating like pirates. So since the economy had gone so downwards, I'm thinking about my needs so the time comes, I know which stores to stand around. Too bad we don't have an Apple store in Center City, I would love an air book, a couple of iPhones and iPods if not for the resale value. I'm sure the luggage store learned their lessons from last year and got insurance and some metal gates. To my surprise, they are have helicopters, riding cops and painting lamp posts and tree with grease as a prevention mechanism.



Store front were encouraged to board up their windows on night where there are matches. Out new street corner solar compacters (trash bins) were picked up and replaced by cheaper, harder to climb metal trash baskets that get chained to aforementioned petroleum jelly-greased up lamp posts. All on a night that is not even the World Series finals. I guess we are just looking for an excuse to lash out and riot.

Maybe during the World Series, I can go watch the game at the local bear bar. It's always so much fun to feel the testosterone around you and feel excited along with everyone else. Besides, I should really get something out of the deal if I can't get any looted merchandise for sale. Drunken, excited baseball fan and petroleum jelly on posts should be a killer combination.

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Aren't You Hard 'N Phirm?

The Boyfriend and I watch a G4 show called Web Soup which is sort of a new spin off of E!'s The Soup. Web Soup take the same concept with VH1's Web Junk 20 or Comedy Central's Tosh.0 which is just showing funny and interesting amateur clips found online and show it to the TV audience in a categorized format like The Soup. These clips shows are like some sort of news program to me, capturing what happened online during the week, since the Internet is such a big part of our lives now. The Boyfriend and I like them. Chris Hardwick, the host of Web Soup, was coming to Philadelphia for a stand up show, so the Boyfriend and I got tickets to go see him at the Trocadero last night.

I guess you can say the Trocadero is an institution in Philly. Located in Chinatown, they often host underground rock and punk concert which seems odd at times when the attendees are so un- and non-Chinese, wearing black T-shirt and wearing goth make-up lining up to go into the venue. In the past 10 years of my time here, I've never got the chance to go and see inside, so I'm glad to have the chance to do so.

Honestly, I wasn't quite excited to see Chris Hardwick perform, I much rather go see Joe McHale but I guess it is that I didn't know much about the guy but that was probably because the guy's porn-staresque name escaped the me and I didn't recognize who he is until the opening act person turns out to be Mike Phirman, which I've just seen a Comedy Central special with them two together and referred themselves to be the comedy group Hard 'N Phirm which they like to perform odd ball comedies and do funny songs together.

They are essentially two nerds who made it big, both funny and witty, we were pretty entertained. Some of the bits include singing a song about Pi and reciting digits down to the 50th place, singing a song in Spanish about the real functions of the heart, dinosaurs, girls and other nerdy topics. My favorite is when they did some Harry Potter jokes in a session called the Hogwarts Snaps:

"Your momma so fat, the sorting hat put her in all four houses."
"Your momma so fat, her wand is a Slim Jim."
"Your momma so fat, her patronus is a cake."

Go see them if they stop by in your area.

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Wanna Take This Outside?

It's already the first week of October, so I guess we can call it Fall now. It's not beating down sunshine and the weather had cooled down, going out had became enjoyable again.

The past Saturday there was a great street fair in Philly with a weird name, it's called the Fourth Fall Festival in the Midtown Village. After living in Philly for nearly a decade, I've just started to find out that the center city part of Philadelphia had little districts with names that I've never heard of. A few weeks ago, the boyfriend and I stumbled on a sign saying French Quarter around Rittenhouse Square and I thought that was a New Orleans-only reference. Anyhow, in the past 4 years or so, Midtown Village had been bought up by a developer and transformed the two block area into various shops, bars and restaurants. A lesbian couple has opened up 2-3 ethnic restaurants and a corner prepared food store called Grocery. One of my favorite home goods stores are also located in the same block. It's all brand new and very exciting. The street fair provided an excellent occasion to get people into the area and promote the shops.


The Japanese restaurant brought out the big guns to attract customers.

I guess it's partly because of the weather but I haven't seen that many people out in a while. Also due to the occupants of the block, this fair turned out to be more food and drinks related than anything else which I really do appreciate. Mexican, Indian, Japanese, various BBQ food, chocolate, gelati, baked goods, all lined up in one for purchase. I had an order of pulled pork tacos from one of the Stephen Starr restaurants, which was good. An Indian spiced chili dog which tasted great but require a spoon to eat after the flimsy bun got too soggy to hold itself up and a mango lassi that wasn't quite cold enough to be refreshing. I was tempted to get a $2 pork slider from the Marriot restaurant but I guess I was full by then. The side streets were crawling full of booze vendors, though I did not have a single drink. It was a great event on a great day.


Cute, but I think I've made tastier tacos. (Lol, everyone is a critic.)

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This Sunday is the National Coming Out Day and in Philly we have OutFest which is a GLBT street fair that happens once a year in our Gayborhood. It's the less commercial version of Pride and what it's used to be before setting up camp elsewhere and charging a $10 admission. Different organization having booths to recruit members, different causes excepting signatures and donations, corporate sponsors building alliances and relationships. Gay guys who likes to see and be seen. You know? The usual.



At the same time, DC is having the National Equality March for us gays to raise awareness and demand our rights. Since we seems to have a competent president in the White House this time around, maybe showing up in numbers will do some good. Though I have to say the recent health reform efforts had been quite discouraging, but it maybe politicians no matter which party they're in will always choose the side of money and it might not have to do with the competency of the president. (Eh, did we just put the abstinence only sex ed back in place?) Anyway, I'm always cynical on what good will a protest or a march could achieve, but then I know sitting on my ass won't do much good either. Besides, it could be the biggest GLBT march in our generation, if it's not for the historic side of it, think of the potential number of hot guys and celebrity sightings. And if it's not for the march, what about the cruising of bars after the march?

The only problem for me is as always - transportation. While there is a relatively inexpensive bus going to DC from Chinatown, they only operate 3 times a day and if the march starts at 12:00 noon, I may have to rise in a good awful hour and still be late for the event. I couldn't possibly afford to stay overnight and it could well be all booked up by now. So my best bet is to find a friend who is going to drive down and see if I can bum a ride, or maybe hitchhike down to DC, maybe I could get a sense what Woodstock was like.

Go to the site to learn more. (Honestly though, it seems like the site and its message was put together in a hurry, doesn't it?)

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The Hardest Working Asian In Hollywood

Lately on TV, I can't help but notice the face of Dr. Ken Jeong appearing in various movie trailers. Indeed, since his role of Dr. Kuni in Knocked Up, everyone has been jumping onto Dr. Ken. Just this summer, he had been in The Hangover, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard and now All About Steve. It's such a rare thing to see an Asian guy face in movies that he just jumps out.

I remember a few years back, I've seen Dr. Ken Jeong on some show on Comedy Central. Must be one of the Comic Remix episode or something like that and he killed. Dr. Ken came out with all his Asian demure and politeness and then start flashing gang signs and talking black and then suddenly jumped back all shy to say "Thank you..." I laughed so hard, I couldn't catch my breath.



Since then he has had small roles in MadTV and Mind of Mencia, and now all the movies even appearing in a WWE match? He's like an Asian Chris Tucker, a funny loud mouth that people are using as a minority token. At the same time, he's breaking a lot of stereotypes. I can't remember the last Asian male star who started and made it big in Hollywood, maybe Bruce Lee or... William Hung? I also can't remember the last Asian star that speaks so eloquently when being interviewed.



Hopefully he doesn't get overexposed and have a longer career.

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The Voca People

A friend just sent me this clip:



While it is still pretty impressive, isn't that what the Blue Man Group supposed to be? I haven't seen the Blue Man Group, so I wouldn't know. It looks like you could probably achieve the same effect if you get the voice actors of The Simpsons together. The number of performers in the group seems to diminishes its impressiveness, it'd be cool if each of them have different costumes to add some personality of the whole show. Some acrobats can also be cool.

I remember going to watch The Puppetry of The Penis with best bud DC, while it's a bit taboo and interesting. One can't just sit there and watch the guys playing with their own ding-dongs for 60-70 minutes.

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Memory Lane is Now Available Online

One of my most vivid dreams when I was a kid was riding a magic carpet roaming the streets of London. Why London? I don't know, I've only been there once in my childhood, but I guess it must have made quite the impression in my mind. That's what I really like to do, roaming streets at night, places that I've visited before and places that I've never been. It's just thrilling.

That's what I like about Google Maps. It doesn't provide you with a night view but it let you roam free. I was looking for the street where I lived in Paris, and all the sudden I realized that there is a street view function to it. So I immediately clicked on it, I find that after 23 years, the building I lived in still look pretty much the same.



I lived on the first floor unit on the right hand side. I remember one time, my mom forgot her keys so we went up to the bushes and she held me up so I can climb up the railing and go in the apartment and fetch the keys.

The neighborhood looks much improved. Some new buildings here and there. The patisserie across the street where a bully took my handheld electronic game is no more. I traced the street where I walked to go to school and find my old school still intact. I wish I could have took a peek inside.



I also found the shopping mall where my father's restaurant is located and another place where my mom's friends lived and the restaurant they owned and where my mom went to play cards and Mahjong after hours. I wonder if they're still there. I remember they had a Chinese shrimp and black fungus salad that tasted very good. In fact I might try to recreate it later. It should be good for my low carb diet.

My old place in Providence is painted anew, I wonder my landlord still lives there. I remember his crazy bunny farm which produce dozens of bunnies annually and the kids in the neighborhood would climb in his yard to "take" some. Cute animals really, little baby bunnies set loose to terrorize the whole garden. I also found the restaurant that had the best Buffalo Wings I've ever tasted, I do wonder if it's still the same quality though.

Too bad they don't have Asia set up for viewing, or else I'll be able to see where my friends live and maybe show you guys where I lived.

Google Maps is really lots of fun.

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King of Games

I'm so exhausted.

After a 4-hour Mahjong training session for new learners on Saturday afternoon, me and my friends drove to Delaware to another friend's place for our X'Mas party, after dinner we did our pollyanna that involved picking names from a hat and stealing other people's gifts. Since there's a rule that the gifts have to be $5 or under and most people there are tennis players, there were a lot of tennis balls around. Fortunately I was the last one picked, so I get to steal a gift-wrapped $5 bill but got stolen later and I chose an etch-a-sketch for my second option. Other gifts also include a $5.99 digital camera, a 3-piece set of X'mas figurines, some interesting decorative masks, chopsticks, chocolates and the pear-shaped candles I bought. I even made a gift bag out of wrapping paper and used some ribbons and all to make it real pretty. At the end, the gift itself is not really important, but we had lots of fun. I end up giving the etch-a-sketch to one of my friends' nephew.



CL brought a fun party game with him called Apples to Apples where each of us are given 7 red apple cards with a noun of the card, it could be a person, a place, a thing, or an incident... And a green card is selected randomly with an adjective on it. And people are suppose to choose the most appropriate noun for it with one of the players being a judge and see which noun is the most appropriate for the adjective. The winner will take the green apple card and be the next judge, the first one who gets 4 green apple card would win. There were 13 people playing and yours truly wins with Hillary Rodham Clinton (for Heartless), Giant Squid (for Legendary), Sunset (for Magical) and Asians (for Smooth). It's really funny to see what people come up with for different categories and also see the different value system for different judges.



We played some more Mahjong and some Wii games and turn around it's 6:30 am. Sleep for 3 hours and then it's more Wii. Our favorite is the tennis game in Wii Sports. Four people playing doubles. By the end I can feel my forearms aching like I had lifted weight for the past hour. Not my shining moments, since everybody else are really into tennis, but I'm also a lot better than a lot of non-gamers. SV played so violently that I was afraid for the host that he might break something. We played Mario Kart for a bit, and I'm actually better at it than even people who own a console.



Another Wii game called We Cheer where we were supposed to imitate cheerleader and use our controllers as pom-poms, dancing to C&C Music factory's Everybody Dance Now. We took a lot of pictures while other people were doing that for blackmailing purposes later.

Time flies when you're having fun. After some Mahjong, it was 5:30 in the morning. Some needed some sleep, but a few of us were still playing Wii for another hour. And then we played some more after 3 hours of sleep. Went out to a mighty cool dinner (Lucky's Coffee House?) for a late lunch and then drove back to Philadelphia and go to another friend's house and played some more Mahjong and got home just before 9pm.

I never felt so in need of a shower... It's a good thing I can stay in bed for as long as I want. Since I have some leftover Chinese takeout in fridge, I don't think I'll move much for the rest of the day.

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