the so-called real world

NEW YORKERS: Call Battlegrounds Tomorrow!

2008-11-03T20:58:00.002-05:00

No We McCain't

2008-10-29T17:36:00.001-04:00

Phone Bank for Obama!!!

2008-10-26T00:02:00.001-04:00

RW08: DB&D

2008-08-01T17:10:00.003-04:00

Restaurant Week. Two beautiful summer weeks during which a vast array of sumptuous NY dining experiences become temporarily "affordable" to the average New Yorker. At $35 for a three-course meal, it's certainly not cheap (especially when you throw in wine--and how could you not?), but it's still a fun way to splurge and celebrate the dog days here in the city.

My friends and I went to David Burke & Donatella for dinner last night. Despite the 10PM reservation, the place was jam-packed. The space felt like something Alice in Wonderland would dream up, if she were going to create a New American restaurant on the Upper East Side... Ostrich eggs painted red and black, glass balloons hanging from the ceiling, paintings that look normal from far away but upon closer inspection border on the wildly bizarre... It was a fun space, and they had jammed in as many tables as possible in the two main dining areas (perhaps to accommodate the larger-than-usual crowds enticed by Restaurant Week prices, or perhaps to remain true to the eclectic decor of the place?) seated with a diverse clientele ranging from 20-somethings who could never afford the place on normal days, and salt-and-pepper-haired Upper East Siders who probably ate there every week because they couldn't be bothered with cooking their own food and cleaning up the kitchen.

But enough about the space--on to the food. "New American"--and this was true up to a point, except that the portion sizes were definitely traditional: huge. We all started with crab cake and shrimp, followed by entrees such as a salt water-soaked roast chicken (mmm creamy potatoes on the side!) and melt-off-the-bone short ribs with mushrooms and truffle mousse. We topped it all off with the desserts, which were the most memorable: a rich, chocolatey, decadent milkshake with quarter-sized cookies on the side; an apple tart with a lovely crisp crust, topped stylishly with an apple chip; and a chocolate mousse that was so dense it felt heavy on the tips of our spoons. We waddled out of there and I hailed a cab home, and I quite honestly thought that if the cab hurtled off the Brooklyn Bridge on the way, I'd die happy.

Midtown Mediterranean Mmm

2008-07-28T21:26:00.006-04:00

I've decided I don't qualify as too much of an adult because I still get really excited when friends' parents come to town for a visit and take us young'uns out for dinner at at a swanky restaurant. A friend from Seattle was in NYC last week and his lovely parents treated us to a delectable meal at Milos, a Mediterranean restaurant with a philosophy to always serve "the best the world has to offer: the best produce, the best honey, the best yogurt, and certainly the best fish and seafood." I read this description on their website and the first thing I did was pull out a dress from my closet--this being New York, after all, and not the chilled-out PNW where one can wear torn-up jeans to the nicest eateries in town--and the second thing was to make sure I was good and hungry by the time I arrived in Midtown.

Milos did not disappoint. Among the awesome items that were just out-of-this-world delicious were: grilled octopus appetizer; Greek spreads sampler; roasted beet salad; Greek tomato salad; and the baklavah (laced with the "best honey" in the world!) was just killer. The fish was fresh and fantastic (though we had some issues with their incomplete de-boning process) and the service was, unsurprisingly, very gracious. The funniest part was as we were getting ready to order, the waiter walked us over to the fresh fish selection for the night, laid out in a huge display of ice, and proceeded to pick up every type and give us an explanation of its origin and flavor. Since there were a good 15-20 types of fish on display, and none of us were taking notes, it didn't help anyone in the selection process of their entree--but it certainly was a colorful way to take Michael Pollan's sage advice about knowing where your food is coming from and appreciating it had a face at one point. (Btw, plug for The Omnivore's Dilemma: 464 pages of literary orgasm-inducing writing about food in America. Good writing about food, I mean, what more could you ask for?! Buy and read now--or borrow my copy!)

So if you enjoy seafood and are a) someone with money; b) dating someone with money; c) sleeping with someone with money; or d) know a McKinsey-ite who's working a NY project and has an expense account with some cushion--check out Milos. It was yummy.

A New Home in Cobble Hill (!!!!!)

2008-07-20T18:46:00.003-04:00

Alright, people. It's official. I am now a resident of Brooklyn.

My last post about housing was not a very happy one. The first apartment my roommate and I found was in Clinton Hill, and was lovely--but we discovered that the landlord was being indicted for Medicaid fraud, and decided to pull out of the lease. (Thankfully, there were no financial repercussions on this front, except that Corcoran has yet to give us our broker's fee back. Let that be a lesson to anyone who reads this to stay the hell away from Corcoran.) Needless to say, this was a complete debacle, immensely stressful, and it crossed my mind that perhaps this was was God's way of telling me: Go back to Seattle, wench. You no longer have what it takes to make it in cities with populations greater than five million.

So, we were back to Square One in our search. Thankfully, we managed to snag a beautiful apartment in Cobble Hill for about the same price, with a July 1st lease, after just one more day of real estate trekking. Move-in happened last Saturday, and voila! Home. I'd forgotten what it feels like to have a place to return to every night that is filled with my favorite things. Call me a homebody or sentimental or whatever, but the psychological toll of living out of a suitcase for nearly four months was quite significant. Or maybe it's the notion of living out of a suitcase and only a suitcase, that really kicked my ass, since this wasn't such a monstrous issue during my travelin' days at McKinsey. Either way, I'm thrilled with the new place (what up, central air!); crushing hard on the new neighborhood (mmm cute little brunch places); falling head-over-heels for Brooklyn (Brooklyn Brewery & BAM: 'nough said); and can't wait to invite people over (no guarantees on the quality of food served). There is also a backyard, which I am told must be leveraged for much bbq-ness, as some of our neighbors are doing even as I type type away...

Pics of the place are on Facebook, for those not in NY and unable to come take a look in person.

August: Osage County

2008-06-15T23:30:00.006-04:00

The TKTS booth where you can buy discounted Broadway tickets is always surrounded in this season (or perhaps, year-round) by a mob of tourists. Luckily, there is a way to shorten the time you stand in line considerably: go see a play. With everyone calling August: Osage County the front runner in the Tony nominations for Best Play this year, it seemed like a good idea to go see this show before it blew up at the awards ceremony tonight. "Partial view" tickets from TKTS got us in the orchestra, with a slightly - angled - but - very - much - able - to - observe - the - actors' - facial - expressions view of the stage in Row E.

A distinctly American play set in Oklahoma, August shows a distintegrating family as it faces the crisis of a missing patriarch, much-decorated poet and melancholic misanthrope, Beverly Weston. His wife--pill-poppin', fiery-tongued Violet Weston--is a shrill, manipulative woman who will do anything to prove her own strength and independence from a family she feels has abandoned her. As the story unfolds, we witness their deep-rooted dysfunctionality has been passed on to the next generation: their three daughters. The eldest, Barbara, struggles to take hold of the reins of responsibility in the broken household while reeling from her longtime husband's infidelity and her teenage daughter's rebelliousness. While family members come together to support Violet through this difficult time, what ensues is a heartbreaking yet laugh-out-loud funny portrayal of a family so broken there remains little hope for healing.

The matinee tonight elicited a standing ovation for good reason. The play is incredibly well-written, funny, acerbic without being alienating--and really touches a nerve with anyone who has ever experienced dysfunction in a family, which is to say, to some degree, everyone. There were moments when I could just feel my heart aching for Barbara as she desperately tried to make her family whole again; times when I wanted to punch some of the characters in the face for hurting each other so much, for lashing out to prove themselves instead of listening to one another; and just times when I had to sit and marvel that someone could capture in words and on stage the frustration, anger, resentment, hatred, and despair brewed by family fights. It's an inescapable poison; you can't get away, because they're Family, for God's sake--but sometimes everything becomes so unbearable that you have to wonder whether it's better simply to be alone, unbound by genes and responsibility. All of that, and so much more, was conveyed by this play. There's no way to do it justice here, so I won't try.

My only disappointment while watching the Tonys (well, not quite: I don't understand why the Rent original cast number was so short) was that I was rooting for Amy Morton to win the Best Actress in a Leading Role award, but it went to her on-stage mother, Deanna Dunagan, instead. Not to say Dunagan didn't deserve it; Amy just completely blew me away with her performance... The former more made me want to strangler her--which I suppose, could be construed as compelling also, but it's difficult for me to wish a character I find fundamentally soul-grating the best of luck. (And yes, I have trouble separating the actor from the character they play on stage.)

I'm not sure whether there will be any discounted tickets available going forward, but apparently the original cast is already on its way out, so go see it soon (within the month) if you care about that sort of thing.

懐かしき故郷よ

2008-06-14T12:41:00.006-04:00

Ah, Japan. You can be so endearingly misguided:

Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry... Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

First of all, it was important to establish a vocabulary that wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings:

“Before we had to broach the issue with the word obesity, which definitely has a negative image,” Dr. Sakamoto said. “But metabo sounds much more inclusive."

As with any Japanese "campaign" worth its salt, this anti-metabo campaign comes with a theme song:

At a city gym in Amagasaki recently, dozens of residents — few of whom appeared overweight — danced to the city’s anti-metabo song, which warned against trouser buttons popping and flying away, “pyun-pyun-pyun!”
“Goodbye, metabolic. Let’s get our checkups together. Go! Go! Go!
Goodbye, metabolic. Don’t wait till you get sick. No! No! No!”

And my favorite part of the whole story:

The mayor of one town in Mie, a prefecture near here, became so wrapped up in the anti-metabo campaign that he and six other town officials formed a weight-loss group called “The Seven Metabo Samurai.” That campaign ended abruptly after a 47-year-old member with a 39-inch waistline died of a heart attack while jogging.

Interviews with Gangbangers

2008-06-08T10:54:00.004-04:00

I watched my first cultural attraction in Brooklyn last night, catching a feature documentary called Made in America at the Sundance Program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. BAM has a beautiful screening center called the Rose Cinemas, and it looks like they split their programming between normal commercial releases (e.g., Indie Jones) and independent film. We even got to meet the filmmaker--world skateboarding champion-turned-filmmaker Stacy Peralta--after the screening, which was a real treat.

To sum it up: Made in America chronicles the violent history and current realities of Los Angeles' most notorious African-American gangs, the Crips and the Bloods. Using footage of contemporary interviews with present and former gang members, the film weaves the history of black oppression with the deeply personal experiences of those who cannot escape the confines of South Central, elucidating the social drivers behind the rise of a gang war that has lasted over forty years and claimed nearly 15,000 lives and maimed over 100,000 people. A commentary on American society's failure to take action against what is, in effect, an unending civil war in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, the film gives an unprecedented, humanizing glimpse of "gangbangers" and the violent toll years of marginalization have taken on these communities.

Given it was selected by Sundance as part of its official programming, it comes as no surprise the film kicks some serious ass, but allow me to add my own personal endorsement: this film was amazing. How often are real gang members captured on film sharing the intimate details of their lives and their desperate--albeit deeply buried--hopes for something better? Peralta said it's not yet been signed for release in theaters (woe for him, the company that was to buy the film after Sundance has gone bankrupt) but even if that doesn't happen, it'll be airing on cable and have a DVD release, hopefully very soon.

It's not just me: The Times loves Jollyship, too!

2008-06-06T10:16:00.002-04:00

Jollyship is: "diabolically sly, springing its jokes guerrilla style and making gleeful use of all those archetypal pirate characters" and full of "demented brilliance."

What more could you ask for?

Buy tickets now!

P.S. You can hear a clip from the show on their website here.

From Up Here

2008-06-01T22:12:00.004-04:00

This weekend has just been full of great theater. Today, I had the privilege of seeing From Up Here, a play by up-and-coming playwright Liz Flahive. It had been quite a while since the last time I saw a fully-produced straight play, and this was no disappointment.

The story follows a uber- dysfunctional American family in the aftermath of the eldest son's pseudo-violent outburst against fellow classmates a la Columbine High School. Ostracized by the school community and undergoing constant surveillance, Kenny struggles through school, with only his sister Lauren as a companion to sit with him during the lonely lunch hour. Their mother, Kate, is a rather OCD, incredibly Type A figure who cares deeply for both her adolescent children but doesn't know how to reach them; neither does her new husband, Dan, a bumbling, domestic man who wants nothing more than to have a child of his own with his new wife so that at least one of their children will love him. Her sister, Caroline, is a Peace Corps volunteer/mountain trekker who has made a career out of "wandering" and is one of the only adults whom Kenny trusts and looks up to. As he prepares a speech of apology to the entire school, the family is pushed to the brink of falling apart by a series of events that are simultaneously bizarre and yet believable, precisely because when it comes to crazy families, we've all been there.

Each of the characters was so distinctive and parts of them will remain with you even after you leave the theater; Kenny, who is so serious that can't help but take the weight of the world onto his thin shoulders; Lauren, who uses anger and sarcasm as a shield to protect herself from the trials of being a teenager, yet is poignantly loyal to her brother throughout; even Dan, who makes potpourri from scratch and packs lunch for the kids in a quiet effort to show that he can care, deeply, even if he is a stepfather. Tobias Segal (only 23!), who plays the tortured Kenny, gives a phenomenal performance, as does Tony award winner Julie White, who simply nails the role of his pained mother. These two alone would make the whole production worth seeing, but amazingly, the rest of the cast is strong as well. The show had the audience laughing out loud and then reduced me to tears in its final moments. It was heartbreaking while remaining hopeful; refreshingly honest and funny.

It's no surprise this production has garnered so many awards. Go see it at the Manhattan Theatre Club; the production is co-presented by Ars Nova.

A Pirate-Puppet-Rock-Ody-wha?!

2008-05-30T23:12:00.004-04:00

I love my new job. One of the things I like most about it is that going to see up-and-coming work in theater and film is actually written into the job description: "The assistant to the producers will go see cool new shit going on in NYC every week and report back about what s/he sees. Also, just so you don't go completely broke and starve to death and become useless to us, we've got you covered for tickets up to $25."

My two things this week were both at the Ars Nova Theater (ANT). On Tuesday, I caught a performance by Gabriel Kahane, a singer/songwriter with some seriously kick-ass music, on ANT's Uncharted series, which gives burgeoning musicians a chance to play their original music in front of live audiences. ANT is an incredibly intimate space and feels like just the right size for something like this; you can definitely see the artists' expressions as they're playing and they feel like they can crack jokes and talk to the audience because they're literally sitting two feet away. Kahane's music felt very vibrant; imagine an eclectic guitarist/banjo player/pianist with a much more diverse set of instruments interwoven into his songs than your average John Mayer-type (e.g., sax, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, etc.), combined with strong lyrics and quirky tempos and unpredictable rhythm. He's releasing an album in September--the show on Tuesday consisted mainly of songs from this record--and I'm excited to be able to add him to my iPod.

Second and even more magical was the current feature run at ANT, Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, which I had the pleasure of watching tonight. I can't even begin to encompass the sheer entertainment value of this show in words, but it's tag-line is "A Pirate-Puppet-Rock Odyssey"--which is, unlike most marketing, an extremely apt description of the show. There are puppets (and real people), both of whom are pirates, and the music is rock, and it is a zany epic tale of alcoholic/horny/offensive pirates on the sea, searching for the ever-elusive-but-undoubtedly-whore-and-booze-filled Party Island. Most of all, however, it is just fucking hilarious. (And there is a reason why I'm not beeping out the expletive. This show deserves it.) The comedic timing of the lead--Nick Jones--alone makes this show worth seeing, but there are a ton of other elements that come together to make it something special. The drummer is awesome. The set design is clever and painstaking in its attention to minute details that bring the tiny space alive. The puppets (especially the Captain, the crab, and the cabin boy) are hysterically funny. I mean, you'd think these guys studied with bunraku masters, they're so expressive. And the costumes and props that go with the puppets will slay you.

In the coverage reports I will begin writing for work as early as this weekend, the last line always sums up the whole experience (whether it be a live event, script/screenplay, book, etc.) with a recommendation. (Translation for my McK colleagues: Key take-away.) I was flipping through past coverage earlier this afternoon and there were comments like, "Track artist XYZ" and "Second read." One screenplay had garnered a "PASS" (capital letters in original report).

My rec for Jollyship? Go see it. Tix are on sale now for $25 at Ars Nova Theater. But take note, lest you think this is some Muppet-love-fest-on-the-pretty-blue-seas for toddlers: "[Jollyship is] For Mature Audiences. This is not a kid’s puppet show. Pirates are known to invoke mature themes."

A New Home in Clinton Hill (?!)

2008-05-18T12:06:00.005-04:00

The drama surrounding the new apartment simply will not subside. Unfortunately, the latest chapter is much more sinister than my previous post about Brooklyn's opinionated but ultimately harmless architectural defenders.

We went to see the apartment again on Saturday, and as we were chatting with our broker, we learned that the owner has a wide-ranging set of investments from real estate to a nursing business that services elderly in their homes in the NY area. Coincidentally, we had found a set of articles about a man who shared the same name as the owner of our unit just a few days prior. They date back to fall of last year, when said individual was charged with Medicaid fraud by inflating the volume of services provided through a nursing service. The charges this man faces include various degrees of grand larceny, identity theft, money laundering, etc. Given how unique the owner's name is, and his ownership of a nursing business, we had no choice but to come to the conclusion that he was indeed the same man. More recent articles dating from last week indicate he has pleaded guilty to some of the charges and will go back to court later this summer, and could face up to 15 years in jail if convicted.

We asked our broker to follow up with the owner about these articles, and the owner told her that he was indeed the man referenced in them. However, he told her their content "wasn't true"--despite the AP reporting he pleaded guilty as recently as just a few days ago. Our broker also informed us that there is a risk if he is jailed or fined that the government could seize the property, at which point it is unclear whether we would be allowed to continue residing there and what would become of our lease agreement. (Does anyone know anyone who knows something about NY landlord-tenant laws and the likelihood of this actually happening?) At a higher level, there is the question of just how much sketchiness is tolerable in someone with which one has a purely financial/business relationship.

Another wrinkle to this whole issue is the role of the broker. Our broker works for one of the largest real estate firms in the area--Corcoran--and one has to wonder what sort of background checks they are running on people if an easy Google search yielded all of this information of which they were blithely unaware. The simple fact is they didn't do their homework. (Shout out to BSK for really making me realize this.) It will certainly be interesting to see how they handle the situation moving forward.

The flip side to all of this is that we really love the apartment and the neighborhood, and it is highly doubtful--though not completely unlikely--that we will find a comparable place, especially with the rental market heating up leading into June 1st. The thought of having to go back to the apartment search and start over from square one, I will admit, is an emotionally exhausting proposition. It makes me tired just to think about it. Juggling this while starting off in the new job is also not ideal, to say the very least.

Wish us luck.

A New Home in Clinton Hill (!)

2008-05-15T10:40:00.004-04:00

It is official. I am a resident of the borough of Brooklyn.

But the hours following my last post were more drama-filled than I ever dreamed apartment-hunting could be. It all began when my roommate came upon a blog that serves as a local forum for discussing the architectural integrity of various Brooklyn neighborhoods. As I mentioned previously, the building in which we're taking up residence is pretty damn ugly. The contrast between this contemporary structure and the beautiful brownstones in the area is quite striking (nauseating to some, I'm sure); the colors and materials don't match its surroundings, it stands rather forlorn with small empty lots to both sides, it's rather oddly shaped, etc. It ain't pretty. I get it.

But I was completely unprepared for the virulently critical nature of some of the posts and discussion on this blog. There were absolutely valid points being made--for example, the presence of this building and its likely depressive effect on the value of the other real estate on this block--that if I were considering buying property in the area, would be things to take into consideration. Another interesting area of discussion was the nature of speedy development and what considerations are made about the value of a property vis-a-vis its ability to add value to a neighborhood by blending cohesively with the existing architecture--how often to developers take this into account? Are they in it to make a quick buck by building and flipping the property, at the expense of longer-term planning that keeps the neighborhood's best interests at heart? Certainly, topics of great concern and import for a forum dedicated preserving what makes Brooklyn what it is.

However, there were other posts and comments that were of a much less level-headed nature. Some called into question the structural integrity of the building, despite a lack of an architecture or construction license (though one cheeky individual posted back that people living in 80+ year old brownstones should be more concerned about what is hidden behind their own walls, which made me chuckle); others accused the owner of 'false advertising' on Craig's List when all he did was use sample photos to give an idea of what the units would look like upon completion. Another comment called the construction workers "illegal", though it appears they were inferring this from the fact that they "looked Latino." The number of unsubstantiated yet vigorously asserted comments was breathtaking; one wonders whether these people would feel comfortable making such accusations without the cloak of anonymity the Internet has to offer.

Hearteningly, there were also a few people who sought to temper the conversation. Some voices of reason queried whether the neighborhood would truly prefer the "rat-infested, trash-strewn lot" the building replaced, indicating that development, ugly or otherwise, was a good thing: the fewer empty lots, the safer the area feels. Others stated there was nothing to be done about it, because the developers were the one with the cash for investment, and the residents--despite their highly vocal indignation--were in no place to question the market at work. Others asserted that this was merely a question of aesthetic taste; some people prefer a contemporary style (both on the inside and the outside of a building), and this is simply a matter of stylistic dissonance in a neighborhood that has had a singular architectural aesthetic for many decades. The spectrum of responses (from expletive-filled one-liners to mini-treatises on the nature of development in historic neighborhoods) proves to me that if nothing else, Brooklyn truly is as diverse as it touts itself to be.

In light of these new revelations--and I will admit, completely unnerved and rather shaken by the intensity of feeling expressed towards our potential future home on this blog--I embarked on a mini due diligence to figure out what was really going on. The accusations about the structural integrity of the building were laid to rest with a call to the broker and much trolling of the NY Department of Buildings website, where it became clear the building had been inspected and signed off as sound. (I didn't have the time or energy to question the DOB process itself; that battle is for someone else to fight, on another day.) I also got on the phone with the former tenant of the unit we'd be living in to ask about their experience in the neighborhood (e.g., did the commentators on this blog throw rocks at them for residing in this architectural blemish?) and what the owner was like in terms of responsiveness, and whether there were any issues with the apartment itself. As it turns out, there were minor leaks in the upper floor bedrooms in early 2007--the owner has since re-sealed the rooftop--and we were able to write into the lease rider that we would be fully compensated for any potential water damage if this were to occur again. All in all, the former tenant was quite positive both about the neighborhood and the owner's responsiveness, and we felt comfortable signing the lease yesterday morning. Yes, we fully acknowledge the building is ugly. But we love the apartment, and love the neighborhood: every deal is a lesson in compromise.

This whole experience has gotten me thinking about the nature of blogs and the purpose they serve. Blogs are an incredibly useful way for like-minded individuals to discuss things in a forum that would be difficult to recreate in person. The blog that set all of this off, for the most part, appears both well-written and well-intentioned; it serves as a neighborhood watchdog to preserve the architecture that makes Brooklyn's neighborhoods historic and unique. That being said, the very nature of the blog and the people it attracts also has the potential to lead to a serious skewing of perspective that can quickly spiral out of control. This is especially true for political blogs, but I now fully understand that it holds for others as well. I am and will remain a huge fan of the medium; but perhaps will heap on a little bit more salt when I'm reading them in the future.

And so, having survived this trial-by-fire of an apartment search, I can now say with confidence and relief: It is official. I am a resident of the borough of Brooklyn.

A New Home in Clinton Hill (?)

2008-05-13T09:18:00.000-04:00

I don't wish the experience of searching for an apartment in NYC upon anyone. For the past two-and-a-half weeks, it feels like I've been riding the subway for endless hours, traversing Manhattan and Queens and Brooklyn to get to various neighborhoods people tell me are great places to live. The general rule became this: if I liked the apartment, I didn't like the neighborhood. (Exhibit A: Gorgeous, sun-filled, W&D included, 1,200+ square foot apartment in Central Harlem at 135th street and Lenox. Right next to a large hospital, with a handful of restaurants in the vicinity serving only one type of food: deep fried.) And if I liked the neighborhood, what rent I could barely afford wouldn't get me a place that would make me happy. (Exhibit B: Unit on the Upper West Side at 106th street with matchbox-sized bedrooms in a building with dilapidated common areas and likely an extensive rat/cockroach infestation, and a toilet that requires the frequent use of a plunger. Also: If you're trying to get someone to take your apartment, why would you share this information with a prospective tenant?)

Suffice is to say, on my way back up to my current borrowed shelter (Thanks, Fei-chan) from Brooklyn on Saturday, I was smack-dab in the middle of "I'm never going to find a place I love and can afford" blues. As my dad pointedly told me on Skype when I spoke to him on Sunday morning, the issue is not finding a place you want to live: "I'm sure there are plenty of places you'd love to live on 5th avenue--you just can't afford them." Big sigh. Thanks, Papa/Captain Obvious. So I started out on Sunday morning with a heavy heart, to meet up with my Craigs Listed roomie in Prospect Heights and embark headlong into another day of facing the stark reality of living on an artsy salary and not a corporate one. It was a beautiful, sunny, breezy day, but I was grumpy and about ready to throw my hands into the air and drag my suitcases under a bridge in Central Park (or Prospect Park, maybe, just so I could say I live, homeless-ly, in the "it" borough) and forget about the whole mess.

The broker met us and drove us over to the first place. As we walk up the carpeted stairs to the third floor, I realize this--unlike many others in a similar price range--is a relatively well-maintained building. And it is quiet, except for the kids playing basketball in a playground across the street. We step into the apartment, and I see a long hallway extending all the way to the back of the building, and the entire place is filled with sunlight pouring in from the large number of windows. I gasp at the size of the place. It's not perfect, of course, but here, finally, after seeing what feels like dozens of apartments in various safe and unsafe, savory and unsavory neighborhoods across the city, is an apartment I could actually picture myself living in. My heart lifts a little. Could this be it?

But the good day was only just beginning. After leaving this unit in Prospect Heights, we walk across Atlantic Avenue to Clinton Hill. The area is quieter, with picturesque tree-lined streets and brownstones that make you sick with envy and desperately wish you could afford to buy a shell for $1M and gut-renovate it however you damn well please. (Millionaires in NYC, look no further than me for your future wife!) We locate the corner we're supposed to meet the broker on, and look around for the address. Finally, we realize the place is the rather ugly, modern-looking apartment building on the corner. No historic brownstone for us, apparently. Bummer. The broker arrives and we hike up to the third floor, she opens the door (the key was left on the mailbox for four days with no issues!), and we walk in.

The third floor is a living room/open kitchen layout with enough space to have distinct areas for doing things. As in, there can be separate places to eat dinner and watch TV; no need to sit on the couch in front of the TV and scarf down your meals. There's a half-bath on this floor, and the kitchen has granite countertops and one of those fridges with the ice and water dispenser thing on the front. (You know how convenient those are.) I look around for the rest of the apartment and realize the bedrooms are actually up the stairs on the fourth floor. There are balconies to walk out onto in each bedroom, and a very pretty, recently-redone bathroom in between. There's a bit of an issue with the unequal size of the bedrooms, but we are loving the place; the fact that we'd get to pick the colors of the walls because the owner is repainting anyway is also a huge plus. Then the broker points up another flight of stairs and says, "That goes to the rooftop." We freeze. Rooftop? And lo and behold, there is a terrace that spans the entire length of the building that would be exclusively for our use at the top of the stairs. "The last guy made this into a garden," says the broker. I think, "Gardens are nice, but rooftop wine-tasting sounds stellar, too."

Now, I will readily admit that this apartment will mean that I'll basically be eating home-cooked meals until I get a raise. (Hell, maybe it'll force me to learn how to cook. That could be a valuable life-skill that eluded capture throughout my McKinsey days.) It's way more than I expected to pay in rent when I first arrived to this crazy city. (I've heard this is quite the universal experience.) Yet, somehow, I believe it will be alright. People are always telling me there are great things to do in NYC for free, so I'll have a real way to test out their assertions. Yes, I've been having minor panic attacks about whether I'll be able to sustain the monthly budget I built on Google Spreadsheets--but inexplicably and in the face of all evidence to the contrary, I think it will be okay. And if it's not, well, perhaps a second job will be in order, whether it's waitressing or bartending or teaching Japanese or making Power Point pages or throwing fish during god-forsaken hours of the morning for a few hundred bucks. (Man, that was a terrible movie. But I loved it anyway.) People seem to survive doing the craziest stuff around here.

Anyway, we are meeting with the broker and the owner to sign the lease tomorrow morning. (Brief plug: Our broker is awesome. Her name is Michelle and she went to bat for us on our behalf and took $200 off our monthly rent, and she talked to her supervisor and reduced our fee from 12% to 10%. If you're looking for a place in Brooklyn, I'd highly recommend her. Leave me a comment here if you're interested.)

I won't be able to relax until the deal's done. And Day 1 at the new gig starts on Friday.

The Next Move

2008-05-04T15:20:00.000-04:00

I started this blog as I was making the transition from college to the "real world" of business, living--but not always working in--Seattle as a consultant for McKinsey & Company. 125 posts later (none of which were written about my first job; the cause of this was 80% "I didn't have the time or energy" and 20% "I can't write about work because its protected by confidentiality agreements"), I'll be making another big change in direction, this time into entertainment. Last Sunday, I moved from Seattle to New York City; by the middle of the month, I'll take my first step (like everyone else in this industry, it seems) by starting work as an assistant at a production company.

As always during a time of transition, its important to take a step back and reflect on the bygone era. The good news is, I have zero regrets about having spent my last two years with the Firm (I wonder how long I'll refer to it as that? My guess: forever) as a BA and already greatly miss a lot of the people I worked with and became came to while I was there. I'll miss team room banter and ridiculous clients and extravagant boondoggles and the constant, never-ending stream of feedback that makes you simultaneously want to strangle the person giving it to you and hug them for caring enough to want to make you better; the "Oh, I'm starting to get this" moment that comes about 2 weeks into a project that finally allows you to overcome the terror of entering a completely new industry and being asked for advice from people who have as many years of business experience under their belt as the number you've been alive; the absolute feeling of accomplishment and relief that comes after a study you poured your heart and life into, helping clients who have become your friends and close confidantes, wraps up for good--and the utter satisfaction that comes from shredding all of the decks you no longer need, because they have copies of the work and it's theirs now, to do what they will with it.

In a nutshell, I'll miss the intensity of it all. It's addictive, and like any addiction, quitting will be marked by a series of unpleasant and unanticipated withdrawal symptoms. (For example, getting rid of the Blackberry and a data plan, a.k.a., the electronic leash, has already created numerous, near-fatal consequences such as ending up in not-so-savory areas of Brooklyn due to a lack of Google Maps.)

But it's time to try something else, to disembark from the intense roller-coaster of Corporate America and try a different ride in the Real World theme park. Welcome to Entertainment Land. Your first ticket is for a small Manhattan-based production company, with theme songs such as, "It's the Hard Knock Life" and "I Want to be a Producer" covered by the Underpaid Assistants, taking you through the glitz and grit of film and theater production in the insomniac city of New York. Fasten your seatbelts, keep your hands busy answering phones and your mind busy trying to remember all of the 'important' names you're supposed to recognize and don't, and above all else, enjoy the ride.

The Back Pain Chronicles II

2008-02-27T23:38:00.001-05:00

I feel vindicated. I was catching up on one of my favorite bloggers over at Opinionistas and she has back problems too!!! If someone as famous in the blogosphere as she can face such problems, then surely it can't be so bad that a mere mortal such as I had a very similar experience. Damn you, knowledge worker economy!

The update on my back is: much better! The contrast to mid-December is like night and day. Certainly not 100% cured, but I will be heading back to full-time client work in the next 1-2 weeks and will keep up the Pilates-esque excercises my lovely physical therapists have taught me and stretch every day. (Piece of back trivia: Did you know more than 40% of back pain is caused by tightness of the hamstring muscles?) I am amazed by how much progress one can make in physical endurance and strength if one pays attention. Excercises I couldn't even do four weeks ago have now been conquered--as in, I was literally falling off the yoga ball before because the muscles in my core were so weak, and now I can do five reps. (I know what you're thinking: Five reps, Em? That's it? But truly, this specific one is tough. Next time you happen upon a yoga ball, try getting in a push-up position with your feet on the ball, hands on the floor, and see how many sets of five push-ups you can do. Not so many, eh, tough guy?)

On that note, I think it's time for me to get away from this laptop and stretch.

My First Caucus!

2008-02-09T18:33:00.000-05:00

I participated in a caucus for the first time today. After confirming where I was supposed to go on the Obama website--Lowell Elementary School on Capitol Hill, two blocks away from my apartment!--and pocketing my driver's license in case they ask for ID (they didn't), I walked over at 12:30 to make sure I had plenty of time to sign in and figuring out what this whole caucus thing was about.

I'm not sure what I expected, but the whole thing was super low-tech, and ridiculously (but endearingly) inefficient. Taped to the entrance was a white piece of paper with precinct numbers and corresponding locations throughout the school. I panicked for a few moments because I didn't know what precinct my apartment was located in, but thankfully a helpful volunteer helped me navigate the nigh unreadable map and pointed me in the direction of the gymnasium, where Precinct 2016 was slated to caucus.

I walked through the moss-green lockers and pathetically cute displays of hand-crafted rainforest flora and fauna for 3rd grade science class to reach the gym, where beaten-up metal chairs had been laid out at either end of the space to accomodate voters from two precincts. 12:45. A few people milling around, a frazzled-looking volunteer looking over the rules, likely terrified he's going to fuck something up in this, his crowning moment of Democratic leadership. I settled down to read my new edition of the Economist.

At 1PM, said volunteer ("Kevin") called the voter group to order and we started filling out the sign-in sheets, which asked for basic demographic info, as well as the all-important presidential candidate vote. I printed "OBAMA" in all caps and handed the sheet to my neighbors, and it turned out the entire sheet was signed by Obama supporters. Sweet.

After an agonizingly long wait as they counted the ballots and poor Kevin explained the rules five times over because he somehow could not get his voice to carry to reach the 93 voters in our precinct at once, we learned the results of the first round--hooray! Of the 6 delegates alloted to our precinct, Obama had garnered enough votes for 4, and Hillary had 2. I felt warm and fuzzy about the good judgement of 66% of the folks who lived on my block.

What followed was an open forum in which any voter could speak for the duration of one minute to advocate on behalf of their candidate. This was the best part of the whole thing. Voter after voter stood up and spoke passionately for and against the two candidates, outlining key pieces of legislation, character strengths and flaws, pollster data about their viability in a general election, and of course, their visceral, emotional, and completely unrational reasons for supporting Barack or Hillary. There was some back-and-forth--two recent transplants from New York had very different impressions of Hillary's track record while serving as Senator--and every speech was followed by supportive applause from fellow voters. It was all very respectful; democracy at its finest. One could almost envision all of us wearing togas and engaging in spirited debate in ancient Greece.

The last woman to speak made a strong impression on me. She had an angular bob haircut, with matching square-rimmed glasses, and despite it being a Saturday, she was dressed in a dark suit and white collared shirt and looked every inch the business professional. (It takes one to know one.) She said:

"First of all, I want to say that we should all feel very lucky to have two stellar candidates to nominate this year. They are both amazing individuals, and there are very few material policy differences
between them."

Much cheers and applause and nodding all around. Then she said:

"I actually created a spreadsheet that assesses how Obama and Hillary voted in the past, and I found that I agreed with Hillary 87% of the time, and with Obama 93% of the time. I'm voting for Obama."

Ah, a fellow data junkie. You go, girl! (If conducting quantitative analysis to assess how one should cast a caucus vote seems overboard to you, you have a) never been a McK BA or b) have a life. Either way, it is doubtful our friendship will endure for long...)

Following a brief break to allow those who had reconsidered to recast their votes, Kevin and the impromptly drafted secretary and vote-counter of our precinct did the math and ended up giving Obama his original 4 votes, and Hillary her 2. (And yes, you are correct--there was no material change in votes as a result of our lengthy open forum. But hey, it's cool, who doesn't want to spend countless hours of their Saturday in the musty gymnasium of an under-funded public school?)

The most reasonable part of the caucus followed when the 8 volunteer delegates asked the voters if we wanted them to just "figure out who was going to be the main and alternate delegates by talking amongst ourselves." This was greeted by much cheering and a raising of hands and voicing of 'yay's to affirm this very practical approach to solving the delegate assignation, and the party adjourned.

All in all, not such a horrible way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Sure, I'm grateful I only have to do it every four years, but the caucus reaffirmed my belief that American democracy is alive and well--in all its ridiculously bureaucratic, stupidly time-consuming, yet curiously inspiring and uplifting, glory.

Obama Theme Song

2008-01-31T01:46:00.000-05:00

Obama's theme song should be Let it be me, by the Indigo Girls. (And yes, ootb, this is a direct result of downloading songs to review for Jam ;) Poetic, slightly cheesy, but appropriate--plus, the band is politicaly active and committed to many of the same issues he is. Added plus: this song is way fun to sing.

Sticks and stones
Battle zones
A single light bulb
On a single thread for the blackSirens wail
History fails
Rose-colored glass
Begins to age and crack
While the politicians shadowbox
The power ring
In an endless split decision
Never solve anything
From a neighbors distant land
I heard the strain of the common man

Let it be me (this is not a fighting song)
Let it be me (not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me
If the world is night
Shine my life like a light

Well the world seems spent
And the president
Has no good idea
Of who the masses are
Well I'm one of them
And I'm among friends
Were trying to see beyond
The fences in our own backyards
Iv'e seen the kingdoms blow
Like ashes in the winds of change
But the power of truth
Is the fuel for the flame
So the darker the ages get
Theres a stronger beacon yet

Let it be me (this is not a fighting song)
Let it be me (not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me
If the world is night
Shine my life like a light

In the kind word you speak
In the turn of the cheek
When your vision stays clear
In the face of your fear
Then you see turning out a light switch
Is their only power
When we stand like spotlights
In a mighty tower
All for one and one for all
Then we sing the common call

Let it be me (this is not a fighting song)
Let it be me (not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me
If the world is night
Shine my life like a light

The Back Pain Chronicles

2007-12-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

It's been a rather stressful few days here in Tokyo. I arrived after my 10 hour flight from Seattle with a considerable amount of lower back pain, and for the subsequent two days the pain had gotten worse and worse. There came a point yesterday morning where I couldn't stand without debilitating pain and literally being unable to hold back tears from it. My mom took me to the orthopedist at a local hospital, and they took an x-ray, and his diagnosis was that of "lumbar spine disk degeneration, almost reaching herniation." He suggested we do an MRI to be sure, but I didn't want to have any more medical charges outside of the official purvue of our insurance coverage and also wanted the specialist I'd be working with to get better to be in Seattle to run the rest of the tests, so he prescribed some pain meds (100mg of Loxonin and something called "Mucosuta" in Japanese, which apparently protects the stomach lining from the pain medication) and some Adofeed to put on the affected area, as well as a corset to wear when the pain got really bad.

There were probably a handful of factors that converged to make this happen now, as opposed to sometime between age 30 and 50, which is when most people who experience disk degeneration begin to feel symptoms. (Apparently upwards of 30% of the population faces this issue.)

1) I am genetically predisposed to having a weaker lower back. Specifically, the doc called out that people of Asian descent tend to have less of a curve in the lower spine, which means the spine can handle less stress. (Note that when he shared this he said, "We see a lot of 'half' folks come in here; they often get the worst of both worlds with their genetic heritage. A lot of foreigners have a more curvacious "S" in their spine, which is why a lot of them have that great gaijin ass." *Makes a motion with his wooden pointer thing around my x-ray indicating where said awesome gaijin ass should be* No joke.) My dad had back problems when he was younger as well, so I've got it coming from both sides of the family tree.

2) I haven't been excercising or taking very good care of myself for the past year.

3) The 10 hour flight from Seattle--apparently sitting is the position that puts the most weight on the disks at the lower spine. My flight home was, quite literally, the straw that broke my back.

So I'm not ashamed to say that my initial reaction was a great deal of fear and many tears, shed in front of a bewildered-looking nurse as she fit me for the corset. The doctor's response to my question about whether I'd get better was a noncommittal and rather cold, "Naka naka muzukashii desune," which translates to, "It'll be quite difficult." A phone call to my dad while we waited for my pain meds at the pharmacy and subsequent trolling of various spinal health websites and talking to the doctor friends I've garnered over the past six months I've spent in the healthcare industry have painted quite a different picture, for which I am very grateful.

The current thinking (in the U.S., anyway) seems to be a few days of rest--with pain killers/anti-inflammatories to get control of things--followed by a return to normal activity and gradual strengthening of the back and other muscles using a physical therapy program. The idea is to start with low-impact excercise and gradually get to the point where one can do light strength training to maintain the muscles. Both the docs I talked to have said there's a very high likelihood of recovery given a program like this... And, there's also my dad, who has managed to do something very similar for the past three decades and kept the pain to a minimum level, something to be managed but not debilitating. Interestingly, sharing my plight with many friends over the past 24 hours has lead to many of them sharing stories of people they knew who have conquered similar problems. All in all, I am feeling much more hopeful and encouraged than in the initial minutes after the doctor shared his perspective while pointing at the ghostly image of my maltreated spine on the x-ray film.

Three observations to be made here:

1) Don't underestimate the value of a 2nd or 3rd opinion when it comes to what a doctor tells you. Even if the initial diagnosis ends up being correct--it might not be, given he wasn't basing it on an MRI--I'm still appalled at the way the doctor I saw chalked up a recovery to the sentence "it'll be very difficult." Sure, he told me to go swim, but his attitude was profoundly pessimistic, and in stark contrast to what I've read and discussed with other folks over the course of the past day. S/he might be a doctor, but that s/he is still an individual with a personality and outlook on life that may or may not jibe with yours.

2) I'm not one to believe in a predetermined genetic destiny, but knowing what ailments your predecessors have experienced can help you actively manage your health. I know, this seems stunningly obvious, but how many of us 20-somethings realy pay attention when doctors are asking about our relatives' medical histories? I certainly haven't been, and have learned my lesson the hard way.

3) Putting one's health first every day really does matter, because it's all the little things that add up to make a huge difference. It wasn't some dramatic injury that caused this recent episode for me, but sitting (sitting!!!) on a plane after years of not doing anything to keep my body healthy.

I think this whole thing was a way for my body to tell me that the recent trend wasn't going to cut it. As my friend Heather said, it feels like "the most intimate betrayal when our bodies give out on us"--but at the same time, I was the one who was betraying my body on a daily basis. Part of the reason I'm posting about this is so that I can go back and read it and remind myself of how painful an ordeal this was, precisely so that I won't let this happen again.

Finally, f*** the doc and his doomsday attitude--I'll be damned if I'm going to let this get in the way of my life.

Thanks to everyone who's been listening and sending comforting words. It really means a lot.

Obama (coda)

2007-12-16T14:44:00.001-05:00

As usual, Frank Rich eloquently puts into words exactly what I've been feeling about Obama and the hole he's tring to fill in American politics:

[The Obama campaign] preaches a bit of heaven on earth in the form of a unified, live-and-let-live democracy that is greater than the sum of its countless disparate denominationns ...[S]ome Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself.

Obama

2007-12-12T17:12:00.000-05:00

The line extending from the door of the Showbox Sodo seemed to go on forever as JoHo and I walked to the end of it. It was my first political event--$100 donation to Obama's campaign got you in the door--and there was a lot of anticipation. Arguably the most engaging and charismatic of all the presidential candidates, I was psyched to see him in person. After about an hour and a half of listening to two very random bands (note: lead singer from Pearl Jam does not automatically make you a compelling act) and a brief intro from the mayor of Seattle, he appeared on the stage to enthusiastic applause and yelling.

He cuts quite a figure. (I imagine my reaction to him is very similar to what my reaction to JFK would have been.) He has a beautiful voice, a great smile, and didn't feel too practiced or forced throughout the stump speech. The crowd loved him. There were a couple of things in his speech that worried me (How is he going to fund the healthcare coverage he wants to extend to the 47M of uninsured Americans? If he's talking about America regaining its position and stature in global politics, why the anti-free-trade rhetoric around keeping jobs here--aren't we all a part of the global economy?) but my overwhelming emotion throughout his talk was hope. Hope for a new start for this country, and the possibility of being able to go abroad and be proud to be American again.

Go Obama!

Comments + Data Junkies

2007-12-11T19:18:00.000-05:00

Y'all, I've been a fool. When I set this blog up a year ago, I somehow had the "yes" button clicked for commentary moderation. As I was poking around on my Blogger dashboard, I suddenly discovered that there were 35 unmoderated comments, just waiting for me to 'publish' them! So, so sorry. And all this time, I thought nobody cared enough to really say anything. Thanks for the love :) (Now it'll email me when someone posts something, so I won't be completely in the dark.)

In other news, I signed up for Google Analytics, which I must say is the coolest tool for data junkies (a.k.a. BAs) who have a website. It seems very powerful. Once I have enough info (should be in a week or two, I think?) I'll start whizzing around on the data dashboard and see what it tells me about the people who stop by here. (Not many, I suspect, given how little I've been posting--but hey, the data is interesting.)

The 6-month study ended well, and I'm now helping out with pro bono work for a local radio station until Thursday, when I head down to Silicon Valley for a Healthcare event. Yay Bay Area, my second home on the West Coast!

Blogging again (?)

2007-10-07T15:56:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big TV person. But the last two weeks have seen an exponential growth in my consumption of TV shows... I'm addicted to Entourage after a lapse in judgement at the video store. And I was over at the Windsor yesterday and now have to be back from work at 8:30PM on Mondays to catch The Big Bang Theory on CBS: http://alpha.cbs.com/primetime/big_bang_theory/

I think this development is directly related to my inability to find books that can fill the gaping hole in my life after I finished Stephen King's Dark Tower series about a month ago. Book recs, anyone? I should post a personal: "23 year old looking for a whirlwind romance with fiction or non-fiction book. Enjoys deep character development, epic-saga-like storylines, at least 1000 pages long; magical powers, alien worlds, and/or relatively happy-endings a plus."

***

Not sure if this renewed attempt at blog revival will succeed. I miss it, but it's hard when you can't really talk about work (= my life during weekdays) and the last thing you want to be facing on weekends is your laptop (= my work computer because I simply can't justify spending three grand on a computer I'll barely use.) Anyway, I'm going to give it a shot.

Staffed in Seattle till early December and then going home to Tokyo for three weeks. Can't believe how quickly 2007 is flying by.

Road Trip: Seattle ----> D.C. - Day 3

2007-06-26T02:34:00.000-04:00

Our MapQuest directions read:

MT-200 becomes MT-200S (go 44.33 miles)
Merge onto I-94 E via the ramp on the left (Passing through NORTH DAKOTA, then crossing into MINNESOTA). (go 614.34 miles)

As it turns out, this was a surprisingly accurate description of what we did. The parts of North Dakota lying along I-94 is flat, boring, and flat. We couldn’t wait to get through it, and we're so glad it's behind us. Tonight we're staying in Minneapolis and then heading to Chicago tomorrow! Thank God for civilization and areas with Verizon Wireless Card access :)

Road Trip: Seattle ----> D.C. - Day 2

2007-06-26T02:26:00.000-04:00

Day 2. We went hiking to see Avalanche Lake in the morning before hitting the road again.

We have a Disney marathon, and one of the songs is the theme from Duck Tales. This makes me extremely giddy and happy for the duration of the 3 minute song, but I’m less thrilled that it’s still stuck in my head two days later. Damn it…

East of Glacier National Park, Montana is much more visibly impoverished. The areas surrounding the Indian reservations are particularly painful to drive through. Meth (a drug I’d been completely unaware was a huge problem in the U.S. until now) is a huge problem, and there are signs everywhere about it. A deserted house by the side of the road says: “Tired, broken, and torn/Meth leaves you utterly alone.” Scary.

Montana calls itself the Big Sky State. For good reason:

Sunday night, Em and I were looking for some Montanans to play beirut with in Glasgow, and the folks at the hotel we were staying at directed us to a local haunt called The Crossing. We didn’t get to play beirut, but we did have a truly memorable conversation with Mitch “The Bitch”, a 44-year old divorcee with two kids and long-time resident of Glasgow. A few highlights:

Emily: We’re driving cross-country from Seattle to Washington, D.C.
Mitch: Damn, that’s a long way. Why the fuck would you stop in Glasgow?
Emily: Well, it’s the biggest thing between here and the North Dakota border.
Mitch: I just got back from Minnesota, camping with my kid and his boy scout troop. I went because they told me there would be brownies, but we got there and it was the kind you eat, not the kind with skirts, and I was disappointed…[Referring to Montanans] They don’t call us perverts…but it’s close.
Bartender: Speak for yourself, Mitch.
Mitch: I am.
***
Mitch: So where are you from? Emmy: I’m from Tokyo.
Mitch: Toe-key-oh? Isn’t that in China or something?
Emmy: Actually, it’s in Japan.
Mitch: Wow. You really must’ve gone to college.
Emily: Ask her to say something in Japanese, she’s fluent.
Mitch: Oh yeah? How do you say, “Oh shit, a mushroom cloud!”?
***
Mitch: So where are you staying?
Emily: Cottonwood Suites.
Mitch: Oh, the most expensive place in town. (Note: Double rooms at said establishment are $78 / night)
Emmy: Well, all of the other places were full.
Mitch: Next time, you should just call me and stay on my couch. Make me a hero. You could write in your diary, “having sex with an old man isn’t so bad.”

Road Trip: Seattle ----> D.C. - Day 1

2007-06-26T01:47:00.000-04:00

Emily picks me up at 8AM. We pack away my stuff, and we’re off!!!

Western Montana is one of the most beautiful parts of the U.S.

Emily’s car is a 1995 Honda Civic. It’s antenna has seen better days, and the amount of tape keeping it attached to the car grows every time we stop:

As we enter Montana, Emily flips through our U.S. atlas (published in 2002—we figured not much could’ve changed, right?) to see how to get to Glacier National Park and turns to me.
Emily: I don’t know how to tell you this, but this atlas is missing everything between Minnesota and Nebraska. So we actually don’t have a map of Montana.
Emmy: Do we really need a map of Montana to get through it?
Emily: I guess not.

Afternoon of Day 1, Emily tries beef jerky for the first time. She’s a convert :)

There are many Bible camps in Idaho and Montana. And even more churches. Bumper stickers speak to the religiosity of these areas as well: “Authentic marriage: one man and one woman.” Hmm.

Glacier National Park is breathtakingly beautiful. We tried bison, elk, and venison at dinner (take-away: all sausage tastes basically the same); enjoyed some huckleberry soda (not notably excellent in any way), and passed out as the sun set over the mountains and Lake MacDonald outside our window at the Village Inn--an establishment that's been around since the 1890s!

Success!

2006-10-01T13:09:00.000-04:00

I passed my driver's test on Friday! And I got a 96. Take that, evil-woman-who-failed-me-the-first-time!

In other news, work has hit like a level 5 hurricane and I'm just hanging on, trying my best to not be blown away. This blog, unfortunately, will have to take the backseat for a while...

Rainier National Park

2006-09-13T21:14:00.000-04:00

Headed out to Rainier National Park yesterday to see the awesome beauty of the mountain and hike around a bit with Laura, another B.A. in the Seattle office. It was gorgeous. The air was so crisp and sweet, and the sun kept us warm as we hiked down to Forest Lake. We saw a tundra-like landscape followed by meadows and evergreen forests and it was all so, so quiet. Anyway, enough of my inadequate descriptions--I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Failure

2006-09-09T15:23:00.000-04:00

I failed my driver's test today. Upon inching out of the DOL's parking lot, I looked left and right, was about to take a left turn when a big black SUV on the right drove past, honking its horn to keep me from continuing on. I know, it's astonishing. I failed within one minute of starting the car. My Driving Test Score Sheet, filled out by a woman named Marian, reads:

Pulled out in front of car, requiring driver to "honk" and apply their breaks.

Yes, that is exactly how it reads. And yes, it does make me feel better.

Of course, the fact that the administrator of my driving test can't spell or punctuate doesn't fully remove the sting of failure. I dread the coming week of having to explain to everyone in my life how I failed on a test that nearly every other American passes without any problem. But as May, my driving instructor, told me after the test: "If you're going to fail any test in your life, it might as well be this one." I'll try and take her words to heart and cheer up a little.

My next test is on September 20th. Wish me luck--I really do need it.

What terrorism isn't

2006-09-09T12:12:00.000-04:00

From the Times' Op-Ed pages, an article about what terrorism isn't:

“Outside of Afghanistan and Iraq,” Mueller [a political scientist at Ohio State University] says, “the number of people killed around the world since Sept. 11 by groups in sympathy with Al Qaeda is not that high. These are horrible and disgusting deaths, but they’re not a sign of a diabolically effective organization. The total is less than the number of Americans who drowned in bathtubs during this period.”

Now I think Mueller's overarching argument is an interesting one. But before I get into that--I have two problems with what he seems to be saying in the paragraph above. First, why exclude Afghanistan and Iraq? If we're talking casualties from the war on terrorism, that seems like a way to exclude a lot of deaths from the total. Second, why focus on American deaths? Are things simply peachy as long as Afghans and Iraqis are dying instead?

If we get back to the big picture, though, I think Mueller's new book Overblown is asking us to step back and asks a question we don't often think about: Is terrorism really as big a problem as we're making it out to be? That's an important query, and it's about time we started hearing another perspective: the threat terrorism poses is much smaller than our war-mongering government and lapdog media (Mueller dubs them the Terrorism Industry) are making it out to be. I'm not saying he's necessarily right, but I seem some truth in the suggestion that perhaps we've all bought into the "terrorism threatens our way of life" storyline a bit too much to allow us--as individuals and as a country--to make sound decisions.

Loan Consolidation Wars

2006-09-06T14:08:00.000-04:00

I received a phone call from the Connecticut Student Loan Foundation last week, from a woman named Anne, telling me that my consolidation app with another company had been denied. Hmm. That's odd, I thought. Why would it be denied? As a graduate and a consumer in a capitalist market, I ought to be able to consolidate with whomever I choose, right? Not so, Anne told me, when we spoke on the phone this morning.

"What you're going to have to do is cancel your application with NextStudent [the company with which I wanted to consolidate] because of the "single-lender" rule. Once you've done that, you can consolidate with us, with last year's interest rates," she said.

She seemed nice enough. But things seemed a bit fishy--after all, I had gone into to speak with a finaid expert at school and he hadn't said anything about this single-lender rule. And NextStudent had processed my application without mentioning it. If they knew it wasn't going to fly, why would they bother with such a time-consuming process?

I called up Megan, my advisor at NextStudent, to figure out what was going on. It turns out the single-lender law is no longer in place as of June 15th, and the reason the consolidation was taking so long was because CSLF was refusing to release my loans to them! The reason? They wanted to verify the date on the application to make sure it wasn't signed before June 15th. The only thing I had to do to continue my consolidation with NextStudent was to get them to send the app with the date I had signed it (sometime in August). Because I had begun my application with them before interest rates shot up this summer, I would be able to keep last year's rates--plus the deals NextStudent was giving me--without going through an entirely new app process.

Did Anne mention to this me on the phone? No. Did she knowingly mislead me into thinking I had to cancel my app with another company so that I would consolidate with CSLF instead? Yes. Honestly. The things some companies will do for profits sickens me.

"Death of a President"

2006-09-02T11:59:00.000-04:00

A TV movie in Britain is causing a small uproar. Shot in a documentary style, "Death of a President" begins with our current President's assassination. The publicity campaign features a photograph that "evokes the...the mortally wounded Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and also recalls John Hinckley’s attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 outside the Washington Hilton." Having produced a show all about presidential assassinations last fall, I readily admit I'm intrigued by the film and hope overzealous patriots won't hinder its release here in America. Peter Dale, the head of the British digital TV network More4 which is releasing the film, told the Times a few more details:

Mr. Dale said that the focus of the film was on the assassination’s aftermath, as the news media rush to judgment and investigators plumb America’s fear and anger, particularly in communities with most cause to be angry at Mr. Bush. Suspicion soon focuses on Jamal Abu Zikri, a Syrian-born man.

The movie, Mr. Dale said, is “a very powerful examination of what changes are taking place in America” as a result of its foreign policy.

“I believe that the effects of the wars that are being conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, “are being felt in many ways in the multiracial communities in America and Britain in the number of soldiers who don’t come home, and that people are beginning to ask: ‘When will these body bags stop coming back? Why are we there? When will it stop?’ ”

No Military Solution

2006-08-30T01:37:00.000-04:00

Five years after 9/11, it's very clear that Bush's "War on Terror" has failed miserably. An article in the Boston Globe outlines why:

The truth is that, for reasons that go far beyond questions of technique or tactics, history shows that countries like the United States and Israel just don't do protracted unconventional war especially well. It requires patience, self-restraint, bureaucratic agility -- qualities not found in abundance in modern liberal democracies. In a strictly military sense, we're about as likely to beat the Islamists at their game as Nasser or Saddam Hussein were to beat us at ours.

For both the United States and Israel, the real issue is not how to defeat the Islamist way of war but how to circumvent it, rendering it irrelevant. This implies resetting the terms of the competition.

[...]

[One] approach to circumventing the Islamist resistance, premised on a more sober appreciation of war's efficacy, begins with admitting the possibility that the problem posed by radical Islamists has no military solution. (Emphasis added.)

The article goes on to suggest a five-point strategy for changing the way we interact with Islamist resistance fighters. Above all, I sincerely believe we must shift our attention from hard to soft power: endeavoring to cultivate liberalization and democratization over decades, not mere months or years as this trigger-happy administration advocates. Until ideas like this are taken seriously by the American people and reflected in the governmet's policies, this unending and unwinnable War will continue on its bloody path to the benefit of no one.

"this guy iz great!"

2006-08-29T00:43:00.000-04:00

My third post to this blog--God that seems like e-ages ago!-- was about an amazing video on YouTube of a nondescript guy in a baseball cap playing an arrangement of Pachebel's Canon on his electric guitar. Today, this video is the topic of a three page article in the New York Times! Unsurprisingly, I can't think of anything new to add. If you haven't watched it already, go to YouTube now and see what all the fuss is about. Oh, and if you have an extra minute, the article is worth reading too.

"フレーフレー、イチロー！" Otherwise known as, "Emmy's First Ball Game"

2006-08-27T22:09:00.000-04:00

今日、初めて野球の試合を見に行きました。さすがにイチローを生で見るのは感激でした。野球の事を全然知らないのに感激だったのが、ちょっと不思議だったけど。。。　ま、いっか！とにかく頑張れ、イチロー！　

ちなみに、今日はマリナーズが６対３で勝利を得ました。

On the beach ^ 2

2006-08-27T21:37:00.000-04:00

I'm currently 'on the beach': unstaffed but still getting paid, which I'll be the first to admit is a very very beautiful thing, despite its slothful implications. However, for the past two weekends a bunch of us here in the Emerald City have also been going to the real beach for barbecues. We all pitch in to make these bountiful dinners happen, but the majority of the praises were directed at Josh and Megan for their amazing entrees. Lamb kebobs last weekend, sirloin steaks last night. What's even more impressive is because it takes us a while to pile into the car (five adult persons to one vehicle, how's that for environmentalism, huh?) and get over to the actual beach, half or more of the grilling has taken place in darkness. Despite this, we have succeeded in more than filling our bellies, all whilst watching the sun set behind the Olympic (?) mountains and the stars come out. The serenity of Nature is awe-inspiring, especially to a person who grew up in a city where the sun usually goes down behind powerlines and concrete buildings and the smog obscures most of the starlight.

I think I can get used to it up here.

Sittin' in traffic...

2006-08-24T14:44:00.000-04:00

Bobby and Brian look up how bad the traffic is heading out to Remond before walking to the bus stop every morning. If they're working late, they work really late--again, to minimize the amount of time they waste sitting on the bus. All of us had heard about how bad the traffic is in Seattle, but it really doesn't sink in until you've sat on the highway for what seems like an eternity because of roadwork or scheduled your day to avoid rush hour. An article in the Times on America's failing infrastructure shows things are bad not just in the Emerald City but all across the country. Americans now spend an average of 47 hours every year idling in traffic! Maybe I shouldn't worry about getting a driver's license after all....

Zen.

2006-08-22T01:01:00.000-04:00

I had my first sit-down meal in my apartment tonight. Nattou, miso soup, and pickled Japanese cucumbers. It was a fitting meal since I'd just put myself through a 90 minute session of hot yoga. Tune out the roar of the cars speeding past on Broadway--enjoy the thought that for the first time in the past two weeks, I can enjoy a meal without stressing about what will come after it. Chew slowly, sip artfully. Prepare a cup of tea for dessert. Zen is in the air tonight, here on Capitol Hill.

san francisco, ca ----> seattle, wa

2006-08-13T19:46:00.000-04:00

Top: Redwoods in Oregon.
Middle: The Texan hugs a tree.
Bottom: The view from Bobby and Bri's place.

Two weeks...

2006-08-13T12:52:00.000-04:00

It's been over two weeks since my last post.

I know.

It's pathetic.

Recently I've developed this notion that blogging, in some ways, is rather like cleaning: it's much easier to keep up and do it daily than it is to let things accumulate and attempt to do everything at once. The unfortunate news is that I'm already so far behind on here, and catching up is such a monstrously overwhelming task, that I've been systematically avoiding Blogger for the last several days. Or week. Sigh.

The mundane excuse for my online absence is that I started my first-ever Real Job down in San Francisco this week. It was a blast, but it also undermined my sense of confidence (not to mention competence) immensely. Who are all of these HBS graduates, nodding in understanding as the IT dude talks about pivot tables and modeling and how to manipulate data in excel spreadsheets spanning thousands of cells? Why do I feel so incredibly young all of a sudden??? It's an interesting feeling to go from feeling old as a senior in university to coming to grips with the rather jarring idea that you'll be working with people 10 or 20 or 30 years your senior on a daily basis. Suddenly, you're not just surrounded by 20-somethings. I really like it--but it's difficult not to feel like the runt of the litter.

Anyway, I just needed to overcome the inertia and put something up here to remind myself that I'm capable of doing just that. Photos from the latter half of Bobby and I's roadtrip to come! And an update on BlogHer! And so much more, right here, on the so-called real world.

Preview: Me, tree-huggin' in Oregon.

phoenix, az ----> l.a., ca ----> san francisco, ca

2006-07-28T21:05:00.000-04:00

The only remotely interesting thing that lies between Phoenix and L.A. are these windmills--if that is indeed what they're called--which cover a good twenty minutes of the landscape as it shifts from the desolation of the desert to the rolling hills of California.

An artsy shot of an icecream stand in Old Town, Pasadena. The only reason I was able to take a shot like this is most likely due to the presence of Bobby's sister Kimi, who played host to us for our two nights in L.A. She's getting her M.F.A. in "painting with light."

Our day began with a messy start--the biggest bird shit in the history of the world smacked down on Bobby's car as we were pulling out of Kimi's driveway and making our goodbyes. Thankfully, it narrowly missed Kimi and splattered down the entire length of the car and the pavement below. It seems a large bird in the Claremont area had a very rough night...

Our daily dose of excrement exposure is increased further as we drive up the 5 through cattle country. Endless cows. I believe it was Tory who told me once that the gas produced by these millions of creatures actively contributes to global warming. Bobby can certainly smell why.

Thankfully, we've now arrived safely at Steph Teng's in San Francisco! Our evening's activities include dinner with an army of Piersonites and watching "She's the Man" on the huge white wall in her living room... Truly exciting.

ft. worth, tx ----> phoenix, az

2006-07-24T11:24:00.000-04:00

Bobby drove us 15 hours across West Texan oil country, through a small corner of New Mexico, and into the Arizonia desert, arriving at destination Phoenix just in time for dinner after leaving Ft. Worth at five in the morning. Here are some photos from our trip, which was made much more enjoyable by listening to Jon Stewart's reading of America: Democracy Inaction and the BBC's radio version of The Lord of the Rings. Audiobooks = amazing. Great for anyone traversing many miles with little else but the radio to pass the time.

road envy

2006-07-19T18:13:00.000-04:00

I am finally learning to drive. Mrs. K took me out for a mini-lesson the other day, and I got to drive back from the courts after Bobby and I played tennis. It's quite thrilling, being behind the wheel for the first time and experiencing the power of a well-tuned machine and four wheels designed to take you wherever you want to go. I bet most of my friends of driving age in the U.S. will read this and think I'm silly--but think back to the very first time you turned on the engine. The first time you gripped the wheel, lifted your foot off the brake, the car slid into motion, you sped up a hill or down a road, or even parked in a space correctly. Didn't it make you feel powerful? I often felt that way when I rode my bike out in the road in Tokyo, getting to places in half the time it would take a car by weaving in and out of traffic and taking back roads. I never felt envious of people who could drive. But now, having done it for a total of about 30 minutes, I feel a small coil of jealousy growing inside me as I watch the other cars while sitting passively in the passenger seat. And all I can think is: Damn it, I want to drive.

Snow Falling on Cedars

2006-07-16T10:02:00.000-04:00

My recent reading binge, for some reason, hadn't included a lot of novels. But last week at the bookstore, I picked up Snow Falling on Cedars (quite literally on a whim as the third book of a "buy two get one free" deal) and have been utterly captivated for the last four days.

The story follows the murder trial on San Piedro, a small and secluded island dedicated to strawberry farming and fishing which lies northwest of Seattle out in the Puget. Only ten years have passed since the end of World War II, and the trial brings to light the tensions simmering between the Japanese immigrants and the rest of the San Piedro population, in writing so beautiful I can't even do it justice here, so I won't try.

There was one passage, however, that really spoke to me in this era of war-mongering and xenophobia. It describes the Japanese islanders responding to FDR's Executive Order 9066, authorizing the mandatory relocation of approximately 120,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese-American citizens living on the West Coast to internment camps in the interior.

They were loaded onto a ship while their white neighbors looked on, people who had risen early to stand in the cold and watch this exorcising of the Japanese from their midst--friends, some of them, but the merely curious, mainly, and fishermen who stood on the decks of their boats out in Amity Harbor. The fishermen felt, like most islanders, that this exiling of the Japanese was the right thing to do, and leaned against the cabins of their stern-pickers and bow-pickers with the conviction that the Japanese must go for reasons that made sense: there was a war on and that changed everything.

There are many things to learn from David Guterson's remarkable book. Though our current president would beg to differ, War is no excuse for injustice. And the pathetic press corps could take its cue from the fictional newspaper on San Piedro Island. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, its editorial page read:

So of all islanders--of all ancestries--the Review would seek as calm an approach as possible in this emergency. Let us so live in this trying time that when it is all over we islanders can look one another in the eye with the knowledge that we have behaved honorably and fairly. Let us remember what is so easy to forget in the mad intensity of wartime: that prejudice and hatred are never right and never to be accepted by a just society.

San Piedro is a small island with many unwritten rules. In a place where your actions are instantly known to all your neighbors, the inhabitants must think twice before antagonizing one another. In a place where everyone knows everyone else, tolerance must be learned or peaceful coexistence becomes impossible. And though many are loathe to admit it, our world today has much in common with the island setting of Snow Falling on Cedars. We are neighbors with everyone now, and the same rules apply to us.
...
Read the book. You won't regret it.

"The Ten Commandments of cell phone etiquette"

2006-07-13T19:28:00.000-04:00

Kudos to Dan Briody over at InfoWorld, for laying down the law on cell phone usage:

1. Thou shalt not subject defenseless others to cell phone conversations. When people cannot escape the banality of your conversation, such as on the bus, in a cab, on a grounded airplane, or at the dinner table, you should spare them. People around you should have the option of not listening. If they don't, you shouldn't be babbling.

2. Thou shalt not set thy ringer to play La Cucaracha every time thy phone rings. Or Beethoven's Fifth, or the Bee Gees, or any other annoying melody. Is it not enough that phones go off every other second? Now we have to listen to synthesized nonsense?

3. Thou shalt turn thy cell phone off during public performances. I'm not even sure this one needs to be said, but given the repeated violations of this heretofore unwritten law, I felt compelled to include it.

4. Thou shalt not wear more than two wireless devices on thy belt. This hasn't become a big problem yet. But with plenty of techno-jockeys sporting pagers and phones, Batman-esque utility belts are sure to follow. Let's nip this one in the bud.

5. Thou shalt not dial while driving. In all seriousness, this madness has to stop. There are enough people in the world who have problems mastering vehicles and phones individually. Put them together and we have a serious health hazard on our hands.

6. Thou shalt not wear thy earpiece when thou art not on thy phone. This is not unlike being on the phone and carrying on another conversation with someone who is physically in your presence. No one knows if you are here or there. Very disturbing.

7. Thou shalt not speak louder on thy cell phone than thou would on any other phone. These things have incredibly sensitive microphones, and it's gotten to the point where I can tell if someone is calling me from a cell because of the way they are talking, not how it sounds. If your signal cuts out, speaking louder won't help, unless the person is actually within earshot.

8. Thou shalt not grow too attached to thy cell phone. For obvious reasons, a dependency on constant communication is not healthy. At work, go nuts. At home, give it a rest.

9. Thou shalt not attempt to impress with thy cell phone. Not only is using a cell phone no longer impressive in any way (unless it's one of those really cool new phones with the space age design), when it is used for that reason, said user can be immediately identified as a neophyte and a poseur.

10. Thou shalt not slam thy cell phone down on a restaurant table just in case it rings. This is not the Old West, and you are not a gunslinger sitting down to a game of poker in the saloon. Could you please be a little less conspicuous? If it rings, you'll hear it just as well if it's in your coat pocket or clipped on your belt.

Oh, snap

2006-07-12T12:27:00.000-04:00

The Mighty Middle, on terrorism, America, and right-wing pussies:

Here's the thing. The people who want to kill Americans? They're still going to be here next year. And the next. And asymetric warfare is here to stay for quite some time. And we will get hit again. That's almost inevitable: we will get hit again. Just like the Israeilis and the Egyptians and the Indonesians and the Brits during the IRA war, or during the Blitz. We will get hit again. But the fact that we will get hit again does not 'change everything." It does not change who we are, or what we believe.

The panicky loudmouths on the right who hype the fear of terror, and use that fear as an excuse to attack American freedoms, are not the strong and steadfast in this war: they are the cowards. They're the gibbering hysterics who needed a slap across the face in the London Underground while German bombs were falling. They've had five years now to try and grow some balls, or at least a stiff upper lip. It really is past time.

Definitely a lucid and entertaining article worth reading.

Gelatinous sea cows & learning to let go

2006-07-12T10:44:00.000-04:00

Opinionistas on the topic of happiness. Check it out, it's a good read. The following sentence, in particular, made me laugh out loud:

Reading [the New Yorker] is like joining a gym next to a professional ballet studio; no matter how many love handles you conquer on the treadmill, you need only walk home past the sea of twiggy nymphs with perfect hair to remember your status as a gelatinous sea cow by comparison.

But she goes on to discuss what happiness means to her, and ends with some advice that I, for one, should and will take note of:

Seething in pools of resentment and perceived injustice can be so fun - it’s part of the deliciousness of being right while others are wrong. But maybe the key to improving our own lives is to give it all up. Try not being right. Give it a whirl. Start with the little things, like not flicking off the asshole who cuts you out in the left lane or screaming at the political pundit on CNN. Before acting on impulses, consider that they’re just impulses, and you’re not right in the situation. Let it go.

End of the IRS saga?

2006-07-04T22:20:00.000-04:00

My bank account shows that the lovely minions over at the Internal Revenue Service have cashed the $36.00 check I sent with my completed 2004 return. (See below for details on the earlier episodes of this epic trilogy.)

Dare I hope this means all is well and I am no longer on the blacklist of evil tax-evaders who threaten the financial lifeblood of our federal government? We shall see...

the world is an expensive place

2006-07-04T22:07:00.000-04:00

...in general. But the land of the rising sun seems to top it all. The speed at which I and my fellow Tokyoites burn through cash is simply unreal.

Recent expenditures:
18,000 yen to ship a box to Seattle
2,000 yen for a session of hot yoga
7,800 yen for presents
8,000 yen spent at the drugstore
5,000 yen to buy gloves and tape at a tennis shop

At this rate, I'll have nothing left to buy furniture and kitchen items for my apartment once I reach Seattle. Perhaps it truly is a good thing that I'm leaving Japan tomorrow. This country would very politely and with a lot of bows take every yen on my being if I stayed much longer...

boo! boo! boo!

2006-07-04T21:45:00.000-04:00

渋谷の美味しい串焼きの店

2006-07-04T01:37:00.000-04:00

この頃レストランでははずれが多かったんだけれど、昨日ママと渋谷のスペイン坂にある串焼きの店で夕食を食べたら、すっごく美味しかったよ！「串助」って言うんだけど、とにかく旨かった！正肉はもちろん、つくねも、ねぎも、なすも、焼きおにぎりも最高だった。目の前で焼いてくれるし、お酒も美味しかったし、とにかくお勧めです。中でもレバー焼きは特に印象に残る美味しさだった。今度行ったときは、明太子茶漬けも食べたいな。。。結構大人っぽい店内で、お客さんも若い人ばかりじゃなかったけれど、気にせずちゃレーンジ！

今月のホットペッパーに割引券が載ってるよ。今度渋谷のスペイン坂あたりでお腹が空いたら、試してみてね。

www.nickdale.com

2006-07-02T22:06:00.000-04:00

Excuse the shameless plug for a friend's website--check it out if you're into photography, or you went to ASIJ and remember Nick Dale.

The photo I've posted here is a self-portrait from his Contact page.

All the best, Nick.

Friendship Networks: The Purge

2006-07-02T21:49:00.000-04:00

In my never-ending quest to reduce the amount of clutter in my life, I took the bold step of cancelling my Friendster and MySpace accounts this morning. This came after carefully considering just how many friends I am connected to solely through these networks. The number was triflingly small. After sending messages to these few with my current email address so they could get in touch if they were so inclined, I clicked the button "Cancel Account" not once but twice, erasing my online baggage by more than 50%!!! No more annoying email from Friendster or MySpace about this or that new feature. No more sketchy people trying to become "friends" with me. No more updating four profiles at once.

It was immensely satisfying. I highly recommend it.
...
If you'd like to stalk me in the future, please do so on Facebook and Mixi. (I'm a new convert to Mixi, which is an excellent community site if you speak Japanese. Thanks to my bro Colin for pushing me to try it.) And of course, you can always leave comments right here too.

"dear blog"

2006-07-01T22:45:00.000-04:00

From Josh's blog, hilariousness:

dear blog,
I have so much to say to you, but I'm struggling to find the right words.

I feel we've grown apart over the past month. It hurts to say it, but I think it's true. We can't keep living this lie. We could go on for months, years even, without saying anything, but that's no way to live our lives.

I feel like I give and give and give, and you just take and take and take. The love has to flow both ways, blog. A comment posted once a month just isn't enough for me; I'm not that kind of guy.

No, I'm not saying we should see other posters.

It's not that I don't still care about you. I do. But if this is going to work, I think we need to reaffirm our commitment to each other. I'm ready to do it, if you are. Are you? If you can't just say yes to that, then I don't know if this was really meant to be . . .

Please stop crying. I'm sorry! I love you.

Oh, blog! Let's never fight again!

I sympathize, Josh. I really do.

東京の毎日

2006-07-01T22:33:00.000-04:00

来週の木曜日には飛行機に乗って、アメリカへ戻っちゃうんだ。ちょっと寂しい。でも今回大学卒業した後に、東京に来て良かったと思ってる。やっぱりリチャージするって言うか、日本人に生まれて幸せだなー、って思えるのが嬉しい。

今週はbefitting my last days in Tokyoのグルメな毎日。二日前は弟とママと以前よく通っていた四谷のとんかつの店で夕食を食べた。（前凄く気に入ってたハンバーグとかにクリームコロッケが無くなっていて、ショックだったけれど。時代が変わっていることに浸りながらひれカツ定食を食べた。実は弟が頼んだカツ丼の方が美味しかったんだけれどなー。涙。）昨日は東急デパートの下で、米にこだわっている店からおにぎりを買ってお昼に。土曜日は表参道の食べ放題のBARBACOAでいっぱーい食べて、日曜日はうちで焼肉することになっている。来週はれいなと吉祥寺のいせやで飲むんだ。楽しみっす！

と言っても、私は毎日食べてばっかりと言うわけでもない。今週は毎日テニスしたし、明日はヨガもやるし。家では私だけ暇だから家事をまかされていて、洗濯や皿洗い、お風呂と床の掃除とかに励んでいる。今日みたいに晴れてると、やたら洗濯物の乾きが早いので、一人で嬉しがったりしてる。

家事以外には、来週の旅立ちの前に買わなくちゃいけない物を集めたり、ドラゴンボール全五十二巻を読み終えたり、買い物しすぎてしまった故段ボール箱に日本グッズを詰めて、アメリカに送ったりしないといけない。やっぱり一週間しか残っていないと思うと、焦ってしまう。

そんな素朴な毎日だけれど、なぜか凄く楽しい。日本に一ヶ月しかいないからこそ、こんなごくふっつーな毎日もappreciateできるのかもね。

"Thank you very much, American people, for 'Love me Tender' "

2006-06-30T21:40:00.000-04:00

Never has a news article left me so utterly speechless:

"Looove mee tenderrrrr," the [Japanese] prime minister crooned, as Mr. Bush, not one for letting loose in public, cracked up. When Lisa Marie Presley showed the prime minister her father's trademark sunglasses, he promptly donned them and thrust his hips and arms forward, an earnest imitation of a classic Elvis stage move.

Read this ridiculous article, and more importantly, check out the audio slideshow, on Koizumi and Bush's road trip to Graceland.

The Zarqawi Debates

2006-06-20T05:54:00.000-04:00

I haven't been paying as close attention to the news / blogosphere lately--hanging out with family and playing tennis has been occupying my time here in Tokyo--but a recent visit to Baghdad Burning yielded this outlook on Zarqawi's death:

How do I feel? To hell with Zarqawi (or Zayrkawi as Bush calls him). He was an American creation- he came along with them- they don't need him anymore, apparently. His influence was greatly exaggerated but he was the justification for every single family they killed through military strikes and troops. It was WMD at first, then it was Saddam, then it was Zarqawi. Who will it be now? Who will be the new excuse for killing and detaining Iraqis? Or is it that an excuse is no longer needed- they have freedom to do what they want. The slaughter in Haditha months ago proved that. "They don't need him anymore," our elderly neighbor waved the news away like he was shooing flies, "They have fifty Zarqawis in government."

Such a stark contrast to the buoyant optimism shown by the mainstream media. On the New York Times blog Day to Day in Iraq, an Iraqi also in Baghdad writes the following:

Iraqis have been congratulating each other ever since the news of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi’s death was announced. My mother spoke with her two brothers in Baghdad right after a friend called her with the news. A couple of days later, I called another uncle in Baghdad to congratulate him. He was happy, and said that people were celebrating even more than when Saddam was captured. The reason for that, explained Huda, a cousin’s wife in Cleveland, was Zarqawi’s overt appeals to Sunnis to kill Shias. My take on that is that through Zarqawi’s open incitement to kill Shias and the bid for a civil war, Iraqis had to look their racism in the eye – and what they’ve seen, they haven’t liked. The bearer of that message, had to be destroyed.

I guess the point is no one perspective can capture everyone's opinion and outlook. I appreciate the multifaceted coverage offered by blogs and the media, I really do. But sometimes don't you wish things could just be black, white, and simple? (I know, I know, I better be careful, lest I start to sound like the President: "You're either with us or against us...")

i <3 tennis

2006-06-20T05:08:00.000-04:00

I love tennis. But you know that saying about how if you love someone but things aren't working out, you have to let them go and they'll come back if it's meant to be? Well, tennis and I have been on a "break" for the past four years. It wasn't just that the tennis courts at Yale were inconvenietly located and I didn't have a hitting partner. By the end of high school, I was quite simply burned out. I started playing in elementary school for fun, but the fun became playing everyday in middle school, and then in high school I was on ASIJ's team in addition to playing constantly over the summer. So in eight very short years, I played a shitton of tennis. Unfortunately, by the end of it I felt like I'd never want to play again. I had OD-ed on a ball sport, if such a thing is possible.

But perhaps it was something about graduation that rekindled the old flame, I am in love with tennis again. I wish I could play every day. This week I'm playing three times, twice with Reina and once with my dad. I got two horrible blisters on my hands last week, and my toes are bruised, but it doesn't matter. I just want to play. Even if my backhand and serve aren't back yet. Even if my back is sore the next day, and it's frustrating to know I was so much better before. Who cares? What matters is I'm happy on the court again, and that emotion is something I hadn't dared to hope would ever come back.
...
Babe, if you're reading this, don't worry. I won't leave you for tennis ;)

You have got to be kidding.

2006-06-15T06:48:00.000-04:00

IRS:

"Due to technical difficulties, we cannot answer your call at this time. Please try again later."

Jesus.

Flag day my ass

2006-06-14T09:34:00.000-04:00

I tried the IRS office, but apparently today is a federal holiday. Flag Day. Very few people get Flag Day off, but you can always count on the federal government to be taking time off when the citizenry needs 'em.

The IRS is after me!

2006-06-14T06:32:00.000-04:00

I got a package in the mail from the lovely IRS today. I send them a letter back in March in response to an inquiry about my (unfiled) tax return for 2004. Which is interesting, because back in early 2005, I read the miniscule font of their 2004-1040 Instructions manual until my eyes hurt to make sure I didn't have to file. But they're saying that I am mistaken, and they even included a slim two-pager titled, "Information About Your Notice, Penalty, and Interest."

Hmm.

I'm posting this to clear my thoughts and also to get advice, if any of you folks out there read it and want to clue me in as to where my logic went wrong... by all means, email me or leave a comment!

I earned $1,018 in wages in 2004. Then, I won a Light Fellowship and was running around China for six months. The fellowship awarded me $17,570. Certainly, if all of this were taxable, I owe the IRS a big fat check. However, all of it isn't taxable! On page 19 of the Instructions manual it clearly states:

Scholarship and fellowship grants are not reported on Form W-2. Also, enter "SCH" and the amount on the dotted line next to line 7. However, if you were a degree candidate, include on line 7 only the amounts you used for expenses other than tuition and course-related expenses. For example, amounts used for room, board, and travel must be reported on line 7.

Cool. I think I get it. Now as I turn back to my handy-dandy LightFellowshipBudget.xls, it tells me that of the total, $13,380 was used for tuition, paid to Princeton-in-Beijing and Associated Colleges in China. That leaves $4,190 as taxable. Add in the wages I earned and that brings me to a total of $5,208 in taxable income for 2004.

Turn to "Chart A - For Most People" on page 12 of the Instructions booklet. There it states, if my filing status is single, and my gross income is less than $7,950, then I need not file a tax return. Ah-ha! Clearly, it must be that "gross income" includes all sources of income, and that's where the catch is, right? Wrong! I read the fine print under the two asterisks and it says, "Gross income means all income you received inthe form of money, goods, property, and services that is not exempt from tax, including any income from sources outside the United States." (Emphasis is mine.) But the tuition portion of my fellowship is not taxable, so it's not included in my gross income for the year.

Or is it? I'm not arrogant or confident enough to think I must be right, but I'm also irritated because the tax code is so complicated. There is definitely a chance I've missed something, and I consider myself a careful and attentive reader. This whole ordeal is proof that they need to revamp the whole thing and make it easier for everybody.

Anyway, there it is, the scary envelope from the Internal Revenue Service staring up at me from next to my laptop. I'll call them later and hopefully speak to someone who knows what they're talking about, and clear up this mess so I don't have horrifying nightmares about being grouped together with the likes of Martha Stewart.

feeding my pho addiction

2006-06-14T00:57:00.000-04:00

So the seven months or so leading up to my graduation from college, I was a waitress at Pot-au-Pho, the only Vietnamese restaurant in New Haven. Their pho is to die for, and I miss it already! You can guess how thrilled I was to learn from my trusty Seattle guidebook (Thanks McKinsey) that there is not only a sizeable Chinatown in the Emerald City, but also a (albeit tiny) Little Saigon. I've been crossing my fingers that this area, which apparently comprises the eatern edge of the I-district, has some scrumptuous Vietnamese comfort food up one of its alleys. Now, thanks to the food dude Robotic Gourmand, I know there is.
...
Goi cuon photo credit: Robotic Gourmand. Don't they look yummy?

Surprise, surprise

2006-06-13T21:02:00.000-04:00

Global Image of U.S. Is Worsening, Survey Finds:

Although strong majorities in several countries expressed worries about Iran's nuclear intentions, in 13 of 15 countries polled, most people said the war in Iraq posed more of a danger to world peace...

"Obviously, when you get many more people saying that the U.S. presence in Iraq is a threat to world peace as say that about Iran, it's a measure of how much Iraq is sapping good will to the United States," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

So much for making the world a safer place, eh, Georgie?

And if that weren't enough:

Only 75 percent of Americans had heard reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, while 90 percent of Western Europeans and Japanese had heard about them.

Where exactly is that last 1/4 of the American population getting its news?! It's shameful, both the abuses and the ignorance.

Advice from the Times

2006-06-13T07:53:00.000-04:00

Advice for us recent grads from the New York Times:

1) That daily latte will cost you. Calculate just how much you'll save brewing your own over a decade by using this calculator: www.hughchou.org/calc/coffee.cgi
2) Learn to cook.
3) Live frugally and save. And by save, we're talking retirement.
4) Ignore your raises.
5) Don't borrow to buy depreciating assets.
6) Protect your credit.

Simple as pie. Good luck to us!

Fake Priestess

2006-06-11T21:39:00.000-04:00

If this McKinsey thing doesn't work out, it's good to know I can always become a fake priestess and marry Japanese people at fake churches to fulfill their fake, Western, white-wedding fantasies:

The most sought-after is the Western “priest”. These are supplied by an ecclesiastical talent agency complete with fake ordination papers, should anyone bother to ask. For impoverished actors, models and English-language teachers, the work is manna: the pay is ¥10,000-15,000 a service, and you can do eight a day. One young Westerner, who earns ¥10m a year for a three-day week, says the work is not easy: unlike acting, where at least you get a break, you have to be a priest all day, and speak flawless Japanese to boot.

Suicides at Guantanamo = Acts of War

2006-06-11T09:40:00.000-04:00

You've probably read that three prisoners in Guatanamo committed suicide recently. A diary entry over at DailyKos discussed it and the many previous suicide attempts in detail. From one detainee who attempted suicide twelve times:

There was no other alternative to make our voice heard by the world from the depths of the detention centers except this way in order for the world to re-examine its standing and for the fair people of America to look again at the situation and try to have a moment of truth with themselves... why was no conclusion reached with regard to the detainees in Guantanamo, Cuba until now?
Till when this tragedy will continue? When will it end after all these years, and when will the detainees go back to their homelands, families, wives and children? When will this tragedy cease to continue... till when? The detainees are suffering from the bitterness of despair, the detention humiliation and the vanquish of slavery and suppression...
[...]
When you remember me in my last gasps of life before dying, while my soul is leaving my body to rise to its creator, remember that the world let us and let our case down... Remember that our governments let us down... Remember the unreasonable delay of the courts in looking into our case and to side with the victims of injustice... Remember that if there were people who are actually fair and who defend justice and defend the victims of injustice and if there are judges who are fair, I wouldn't have been wrapped in death shrouds now and my family -my father, my mother, my brothers and sisters, and my little daughter - would not have to lose their son... forever... but what else can I do?

But I shouldn't be feeling any emotions for these terrorists. After all, they didn't kill themselves out of desperation but because:

They are smart. They are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.

The camp commander down in Cuba would know best about these evil, despicable men's motivations. These suicides were an act of war against America. Not a final plea, called out from the dark depths of utter and complete despair, for "the fair people of America" to pay attention to the hell on earth that has been created in their name.

And I thought I had it bad...

2006-06-11T03:53:00.000-04:00

Ah, the mixed blessings of graduating from college. Now I can start paying off all of those student loans I took on. Reap the consequences of all those signatures, the many minutes taken reading the very fine print and trying to understand all the legal jargon and having nightmares about being chased down by a demonic Uncle Sam because I couldn't pay them off... Anyway, I thought I had it pretty bad--about $17,000 owed to the federal government, plus about the same amount to my dad who helped me out. But that was because I hadn't come across a horror story to give me any perspective. A story that could shock me into realizing how lucky I was to have so little debt (comparatively speaking, of course) and more importantly, to know that I took it on myself.

As always, the Times has given me some perspective on mylife. From this week's magazine, written by a poor guy who graduated seven years ago:

I am currently $64,707 dollars in debt, none of which I actually borrowed. As best as I can figure, my mom first starting signing my name when I was 18. She took on at least five credit cards as well as about $50,000 in student loans. I thought my parents were paying for my college, but it turns out my mom would take out the loans every three months, under my name, for a couple thousand dollars each. Which was fine, except that once I graduated, my mom seemed to forget about the loans entirely. She never paid them back or alerted me of their existence so that I might have. They now amount to $58,607 because of the interest that accumulated during the seven years that they weren't being dealt with.

Damn. I'll shut up and quit complaining now.

You go, girl.

2006-06-09T20:37:00.000-04:00

Why can't more people like Tammy run for Congress?

Conquering the guilt of non-daily posting

2006-06-09T08:21:00.000-04:00

From Skor Grimm:

Here at Skor Studios we value quality over quantity. Skor is not the type of blogger to make a post every single day just for the sake of making a post. Skor only posts when he has something to say.

Phew. Now that I've seen someone else say it, the guilt is gone. Hehe.
...
What I'll be up to this weekend: Short Shorts Film Festival.

limbo & the perfection of minor details

2006-06-06T20:39:00.000-04:00

Ronni over at Times Goes By--one of the blogs I frequent most, despite the fact that she writes for and about the elderly--is moving from New York to Maine after 37 years, 1 month, and 29 days. Like us recent college grads, she's on her way to a new chapter of her life. But there's a strange space in-between the old chapter and the new, and it's a time that

does feel like a period of limbo; being poised on the edge of a dramatic change in, fully aware of its approach and having the time, between dimensions, to take a deep breath and live neither life for a few days before stepping into the unknown.

That's exactly how I feel right now. It's the deep breath before the plunge; the quiet before the storm. I'm taking this month in Tokyo to prepare myself as much as I can for the onset of something completely new and different.

It's exciting, but I'm getting a bit antsy too. I want to know where I'm living. Where my first engagement will be. Whether I'll love my job. Those are the bigger questions, and then there are the smaller ones that have been occupying my time lately, because there's really nothing to be done about the others. What sort of dishes do I want in my kitchen? What about furniture? Clothing for work? Where can I learn how to drive? Do I really need a TV? Is it inappropriate to wear patterned stockings (black or natural) to work? And most importantly, will I be able to afford it all?

I once opened a fortune cookie which told me, "Great things are accomplished only by the perfection of minor details." I'm not sure if this move to Seattle qualifies as a "great thing" but it certainly is a momentous change. And since I can't do much about the big questions, I better listen to the fortune cookie and start with the devilish details for now, before stepping into the unknown.

"Hope is a thing with feathers"

2006-06-06T18:33:00.000-04:00

The situation in Iraq, according to river at Baghdad Burning:

There’s an ethnic cleansing in progress and it’s impossible to deny. People are being killed according to their ID card. Extremists on both sides are making life impossible. Some of them work for ‘Zarqawi’, and the others work for the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. We hear about Shia being killed in the ‘Sunni triangle’ and corpses of Sunnis named ‘Omar’ (a Sunni name) arriving by the dozen at the Baghdad morgue. I never thought I’d actually miss the car bombs. At least a car bomb is indiscriminate. It doesn’t seek you out because you’re Sunni or Shia.
...
Where does one go to avoid the death and destruction? Are the Americans happy with this progress? Does Bush still insist we’re progressing?

Emily Dickinson wrote, “hope is a thing with feathers”. If what she wrote is true, then hope has flown far- very far- from Iraq...

stressed.

2006-06-04T04:51:00.000-04:00

Man. This whole being-a-real-person thing is stressful. The Boyfriend visited an apartment for me in Capitol Hill (I was there over Memorial Day weekend and didn't get to see the interiors of many buildings) and I'm all set to do an application and get things rolling. But it's the weekend, and clearly the managers have a life and aren't going to reply to my voicemail or email until Monday. I just have to be patient... but it's so hard! And doing this all from overseas makes everything that much more stressful.

Not only that, but I wonder what the hell is going on with my credit report. I only got my American Express credit card (yay Starwood points!) two months ago and have so far made two timely payments... but other than that, I'm not quite sure what's going on with it. Do managers of apartment buildings actually go and look at these reports? Will they hold it against me that I've been using a debit card since getting to the U.S.? What about the utilities bills we forgot to pay earlier this spring? Does paying rent on the 2nd when it's due on the 1st of each month constitute a "late payment"? Man. All the reasons for why I won't get this apartment swirl through my head and all I can think is--but I'd love to live there! I'll have a steady source of income and pay rent and utilities on time! I won't have a dog that barks through the night or a cat that pees everywhere and I certainly won't have sketchy people over! I play music softly and take short showers! I'm super neat, obsessively clean and don't smoke, do drugs, or drink heavily! I am, in summary, an ideal tenant! Please! Just let me sign the lease!!! *Beats head against wall in frustration*

Priceless

2006-06-02T21:10:00.000-04:00

A close girlfriend of mine has started a blog, and one of the posts puts into words all those conflicting emotions of a person who doesn't really have a home. Whether it's because you're an Army brat, or a dual- or triple-citizen, or like myself and so many of my friends, chance and choice have sent you dotting across the world, "living globally" sounds wonderfully exotic but has a lot of undesirable consequences.

You have no idea what groundlessness does to you. You're always losing, most literally. Meeting people and saying goodbye--story of my life! Creating something great and then having to leave it--even if it were a life's work. Add to that a myriad of identity crises. You almost have to build up a level of impermeable superficiality to deal with it, so that you can maintain somewhat of a core to what you think is who you are. Could you really imagine yourself in constant flux. I mean, your entire self. Your values always in question, your personality always trying to adjust, your life style always altering. Do you even know what it's like? And excitement! Excitement in my life is the least of my concerns. Go ahead and enjoy that, but I'm truly tired of it. I really am.

Like Sohko, I'm ready to stop moving around and have a real home. A place that I can depend on, where I can stay for longer than 9 months. Because when you have a home, as she so beautifully puts it, "accidents are great changes that awaken your senses to a swirling world of excitement. It allows you to appreciate all that is stable and all that is changing."

I'm "home" in Tokyo now, but it's my mom's studio. I miss my room, the one I called home for eight years growing up, but someone else is living there now. All of my things are in boxes, scattered between Tokyo and Texas, and I choose what to wear out of a suitcase that gets messier by the day. Few of my high school friends have made it back this summer. What stretches before me are five weeks of trying to recapture the sense that I belong here, acutely and desperately missing the absence of many people who made me feel that way before.

A real home is priceless. In the emotional stability it provides, the sense of security it gives. And to a person like me who loves to travel and spend time in other countries, there is a bitter irony in this one simple truth: I cannot love the excitement and stimulation of travel and life abroad without a place to call home. And it is so much more than a mere physical container to store one's belongings--a home is the densest locus of a web of relationships where one not only feels loved, but also feels needed. What groundlessness does is stretch that web to the breaking point. In the age of IM and Skype and webcams, it can be stretched farther and wider than ever; but these things, however convenient they may be, cannot replicate a relationship blessed by proximity. This is the curse of the globetrotting age; a life cursed by "constant flux" and excitement without security.

Give me a home, a real one with family and friends constantly nearby, with "that same scent of clean laundry" filling the air. I would give a lifetime of flight and frequent flyer miles away to have a real home again.

Women's health under siege

2006-06-01T20:23:00.000-04:00

"As a physician, I can no longer trust government sources...I no longer trust FDA decisions or materials generated [by the government]. Ten years ago, I would not have had to scrutinize government information. Now I don't feel comfortable giving it to my patients."
Dr. Ruth Shaber, M.D. of Kaiser Permanente

I found this article on Liz Rizzo's blog, and it is a truly disturbing read. So many of the healthcare options women take for granted in the U.S. are being threatened by the moral agenda of Christian conservatives, including:

Access to emergency contraception
Rape treatment
Accurate health information
Accurate sexual-health programs, especially for teens

Even if you "can't imagine how these lies could possibility have an impact' on your life; even if you "can't believe there would be a time when these things would be outlawed"; read it.

Congrats, stranger

2006-06-01T16:58:00.000-04:00

Congratulations, Casey Parks. I've never met you, and I probably never will--but I love the way you write, and wish you all the success in the world.

From her winning essay:

What moves me to be a journalist? It's been a career goal so obvious to me for such a long time that the question had ceased to be asked. This semester, almost muted by theory studies, I have returned to it often. I keep a binder of stories that remind me, though: Anne Hull's portrait of gay America, Andrea Elliott's story about an imam in Brooklyn saddling two worlds, Rick Bragg's Pulitzer-winning tale of Alabama inmates plagued by old age who still find beauty in flowers, Jacqui Banaszynski's Pulitzer-winning delve into the lives of two gay men, farmers who fell in love and physically fell apart because of it. I have a distinct want (it's a thirst and a flame, all at once) to create these stories myself--not for the Pulitzers, but for the reaching outside of myself, to break people's hearts so adeptly that they move into action.

The electricity that comes from crafting seeing the way journalists do--cataloguing every movement, sound, feeling, inference--is what continues to spark me. And by no means have I exhausted the stories that are to be done in America (or even Columbia, MO, in all its quaintness). But I so desperately want to leave this country and know more. I've never thought of myself as provincial, but this year, reading on the tension between the two Koreas, swallowing Rushdie's Pakistan and India, inhaling the French riots, I realize how insular my life has been. My tour of the Southern states has left me unable to fully discern what lies beyond.

But I want to.

Border Patrol & Discrimination

2006-06-01T01:06:00.000-04:00

My recent trip revealed the gross inadequacies and injustices embedded in America's so-called "border patrol." When crossing the Canadian border, the entire bus was held up because the border officials decided they needed to carefully question the one non-American, non-Canadian riding with us. She was Mexican--and I wonder if they would have made such a fuss if she were British or Japanese. At every airport, it was "recommended" that I take my completely metal-free sneakers off. And by "recommend," I mean rudely ordered by some 40-something jackass that hasn't been doing their job. The 9/11 commission concluded that airport security is a joke, and the U.S. got an "F" in airline passenger screening.

An article in the Times shows that I'm not the only one making observations of such incompetence and feeling pissed off. Since 9/11, many Muslim-Americans have come to fear travel so much that many choose not to leave home at all. They are filled with the same sense of frustration that I feel when I go through airport security and know that it's nearly meaningless, a mere gesture towards the thought of actual security. Lucky for me, I don't "look like a terrorist"--all I have to do is take my shoes off. I have yet to be hand-cuffed and roughed up for having the wrong name or growing a beard:

Most of those wrongly placed on the watch list seethe with frustration and anger, finding it unbelievable that a technologically advanced country like the United States has been unable to develop a list that can distinguish between a lurking terrorist and a harmless citizen with a Muslim name.

This is just another example of how words and rhetoric ("We have made America a safer place.") have eclipsed effective policy.

I don't want to feel safer. I want to be safer. In the real world, proven by real studies and real tests and real statistics. (You know, all of those things with a well-known liberal bias.) But apparently that is just too much to ask of our government, which is as usual living in a fantasy world where all Muslims are potential terrorists and metal detectors actually protect us from suicide bombers.

BlogHer '06

2006-05-31T19:15:00.000-04:00

As some of you may know, I'll be attending a conference for women bloggers at the end of July. A recent article sheds light on BlogHer's purpose and appeal.

Vancouver & Seattle Highlights

2006-05-31T17:12:00.000-04:00

Finally! Home at last. Memorable moments and revelations from my trip:

First trip to Canada. I was only in the country for a total of 24 hours, but it still counts. My first encounter with the country's inhabitants came as I was walking with my friend Sohko across the street discussing my lack of Canadian coinage to pay for the bus--a Canadian guy overheard our conversation, stops us on the other side of the street, and hands me the $2.25CAN I need. And he walks off before I can even really thank him. Conclusion: Canadians are officially the friendliest people in the world.
On the bus ride up to Vancouver, I became friends with two Japanese girls who looked so lost that I abandoned any thought of improving their English by pretending to be American. You should've seen the looks on their faces when I busted out the tongue of the motherland--it would've made a winning MastercCard commercial.) I gave them my email address and they wrote me today! We're going to hang out once I'm settled in Seattle. Yatta!
Re-entering the U.S. from Canada, our crossing was delayed by border control who insisted on questioning and checking the bags of the only woman carrying a Mexican passport. This was after she was fingerprinted and photographed in a thoroughly unkind fashion. As the rest of us look on, I hear a woman with a heavy Southern accent say, "I don't care what they have to do, as long as they keep us safe." This comment was almost enough to make me ditch the bus and stay in Canada.
Walked around the Capitol Hill area in Seattle (for the first time!) with Josh. I've now located two specific areas I want to live in the city, and the northern end of Broadway on Capitol HIll is definitely one of them. The independent bookstore we visited was especially awesome. The coffee shops also look very promising. Now, if I can find a swanky studio up there for under $900...
Seattle is awesome. Proof of this statement is the jazz club Josh took Mark and I to the last night I was in town. It was Monday and they were hosting a sort of open mic night. Anyone could just sign up and be accompanied by an amazing trio of jazz musicians on bass, piano, and drums. Makes me want to practice My Favorite Things all over again, just so I can join them! (Shout out to any ASIJ Vocal Jazz '02 folks reading this.) Tula'sboth had it for dinner before starting their shift. As a former waitress, I know that's the best endorsement a dish can have. also has amazing food at pretty reasonable prices--I highly recommend the spaghetti bolognese. The nice waiter recommended it by saying he and the manager
My cab driver from downtown to the SeaTac airport started lecturing me about the virtues of arranged marraige after learning about my currently-unmarried status. After a while I pointed at the open window and mouthed, "I can't hear you! Sorry!" This does not bode well for the Seattle taxi scene--the last time I was in a cab (with fellow McK BA Class of '06 Jon McClain!) in Seattle, we got in an accident on the highway. I'm not saying it was our driver's fault, but the trend is disturbing...
V for Vendetta kicks ass. Go see it before it leaves the theaters. But under no circumstances should you imdb or google this film before then. The mystery man is much more sexy if you don't know his identity or what he actually looks like. Believe me.
The flight from Seattle to Tokyo is only 9.5 hours! Woot!!!!

And now, time for some rice and fermented soy bean and raw egg for brekkie.

P.S.

2006-05-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

I'm in Seattle right now, staying with Josh and doing some prelim apartment-hunting. For the past two days I was in Vancouver, visiting Sohko. Before that I was in New York with the parentals. On Tuesday, I'll fly back to Tokyo and (hopefully) soon thereafter end the blogging delinquency that has plagued this corner of the web as of late!

Doing our homework on corn-based ethanol

2006-05-28T13:11:00.000-04:00

Everyone is psyched about the prospect of using corn and making ethanol as a substitute for oil... but perhaps we're jumping the gun a bit? From the Times blog On the Table:

The way we grow corn in this country consumes tremendous quantities of fossil fuel. Corn receives more synthetic fertilizer than any other crop, and that fertilizer is made from fossil fuels — mostly
natural gas. Corn also receives more pesticide than any other crop, and most of that pesticide is made from petroleum. To plow or disc the cornfields, plant the seed, spray the corn and harvest it takes large amounts of diesel fuel, and to dry the corn after harvest requires natural gas. So by the time your “green” raw material arrives at the ethanol plant, it is already drenched in fossil fuel.
Every bushel of corn grown in America has consumed the equivalent of between a third and a half gallon of gasoline.

It ain't easy being green. But we need to do our homework before investing lots of money and resources into an alternative that sounds good on paper but contributes just as heavily to ruining the environment.

And, scene...

2006-05-23T21:59:00.000-04:00

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,

If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

eating stone

2006-05-17T11:05:00.000-04:00

Bizarre.

Hybridized Spaces

2006-05-17T02:01:00.000-04:00

Jory over at Pause has a very insightful piece about blogging, in which she writes:

Blogging helped me identify others in "hybridized spaces" and to build my own hybridized space.

So true. A blog can be anything an individual wants it to be; a beautiful bastard child of talents and interests, quirks and charms. This summer while I'm home in Tokyo, I'm hoping to upgrade this blog so that it can better reflect what I want my online space to be. I'd like to build a comprehensive travel guide for downtown Tokyo on a budget (and I mean a serious budget, like college student-sized), write more about East Asian politics, and Sino-Japanese relations in particular; write book reviews; chronicle my travels with McKinsey... there's a potential for a lot of expansion, and I figure this summer will be the opportune time to do it. Plus, I'm planning on truly getting inspired by going to the BlogHer conference in July. (Thanks to the boyfriend for indulging me by stopping by in San Juan for two days on our road trip so that I can get in touch with my rapidly-enlarging inner nerd.)

In short, please stay tuned! Change is afoot in this tiny corner of the web.

Seamless Surveillance

2006-05-15T22:28:00.000-04:00

I'm one of those people who is fundamentally mistrustful of government. But the current administration's repeated displays of incompetence and arrogance have brought my cynicism to a whole new plane of Christ-what-are-they-going-to-try-and-pull-next? Thankfully, it seems that I'm not the only one with doubts about government intentions, especially when it comes to the so-called war on terrorism and what that means for civil liberties and privacy. According to a recently conducted Gallup poll, two-thirds of Americans "are concerned that the [NSA's] monitoring may signal other, not-yet-disclosed efforts to gather information on the general public."

The Washington Post's William Arkin takes the issue one step further by asking whether the surveillance that Bush so righteously defends isn't just the tip of the iceberg--are we headed towards a "new seamless surveillance culture" in which the government tracks everything we do and combs it for terrorist tendencies, hauling you into the police station if you eat too much hummus, went on a trip to Saudi Arabia, or frequently dial phone numbers in Indonesia?

In today's post 9/11 we've-got-to-give-up-some-liberties-to-fight-terrorism-world, the expectation is
being created though that it is normal then for the government to churn through the phone records and Email headers and credit card receipts and bank records of EVERYONE for tip-offs and triggers. What started as an expectation that individuals already of interest to the law enforcement agencies had no expectation that their records were private has digitally expanded to the expectation that no one's records are private.

It's all about the military, even in East Asia

2006-05-13T20:15:00.000-04:00

The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun published an op-ed on the new security treaty between Japan and the U.S., criticizing its emphasis on "military cooperation above any other form of two-way assistance." And spotlighting military cooperation is sure to piss off Japan's Asian neighbors:

For Japan to allay the apprehension of its Asian neighbors and get the public to support the outcome of the talks, the government must indicate a diplomatic strategy as a part of an insurance package against a military emergency. Since Japan lacks such a diplomatic strategy, its agreement with the United States on the realignment of U.S. forces may only provoke its Asian neighbors and fan their suspicions, no matter what picture of cooperation Japan may paint of its military alliance.

No alliance can exist without military cooperation, but an alliance that is propelled by military cooperation is a very dangerous thing.

This is just another indication that the Bush administration is unwilling to use diplomatic, economic, and other avenues to reach its strategic objectives, whether it be containing China or fighting terrorism. It's unfortunate that Japanese politicians, after all these years since the Occupation, have yet to grow a backbone and sign an agreement that reflects Japan's interests as well as America's.

On the Table at the Times

2006-05-13T19:27:00.000-04:00

Political blogs are fun. And food is tasty. So what could be better than a political food blog? (Well, many things, clearly, but you get the idea.) The Times has a new blog in its Opinion section by Michael Pollan, who since May 7th has been posting thought-provoking and fascinating pieces about the stuff we eat here in America. In his first post, he provided a survey of what's going on in food journalism and the hot topics, and touched upon the fundamentally unsustainable nature of the current food supply chain:

“Unsustainable” also means a system can’t go on indefinitely paying the costs of doing business as it has been doing. In the case of the industrial food chain, that includes the cost to the treasury ($88 billion in agricultural subsidies over the last five years); to the environment (water and air pollution, especially from our factory animal farms); and to the public health. Cheap food, it turns out, is unbelievably expensive. Many of the costs of cheap food are invisible to us, but they will soon force themselves onto our attention. Take energy, for example. The industrial food system is at bottom a system founded on cheap fossil fuel, which we depend on to grow the crops (the fertilizers and pesticides are made from petroleum), process the food, and then ship it hither and yon. Fully a fifth of the fossil fuel we consume in America goes to feeding ourselves, more than we devote to personal transportation. (Unfortunately the industrial organic food chain guzzles nearly as much fossil fuel as the nonorganic.) If the era of cheap energy is really drawing to a close, as it appears, so will the era of cheap industrial food.

I will readily admit ignorance on the relationship between oil and food until I read this blog. He goes on to discuss the elitism of eating well in America ($1 will buy you 1,200 calories worth of processed food but only 875 calories of fresh produce), the alternative/sustainable food revolution, and the need to end corn subsidies once and for all.
Next time I'm at the book store, I'll be picking up a copy of Pollan's new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

"I like blogs, but..."

2006-05-13T00:30:00.000-04:00

Thomas Friedman at the Times on blogs:

I like blogs, but the only bloggers who appeal to me are those who do reporting and aren't just sitting at home in their pajamas firing off digital mortars.

Did you get the memo? Bloggers aren't just journalists anymore. That's the beauty of it. Now, I can get my news from you and the everyday dude in Jerusalem who updates his web log for kicks and to let his American relatives know that he hasn't been killed by a suicide bomber. As for sitting in our pajamas--I'd bet my computer (shitty though it may be after sticking with me throughout the bright college years) that you've written a lot of your Pulitzer-prize-winning work while wearing nightwear. And digital mortars makes it sounds like bloggers only write to destroy. Quite the contrary. Just like you, bloggers are writing original web content every single day. We may not be winning prizes, but I think we can do without the condescension.
...
Note: I actually think Friedman is a good journalist and writer (though I also think he has a tendency towards over-simplification, as exemplified in his opinion above.) I just took offense at his crack against my new hobby and all the fine blogfolk out there, and felt the need to hit back.

Of Galleons and Freaks

2006-05-13T00:05:00.000-04:00

I'm back! I was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for the past week with Yale's class of '06, and it was a blast! The weather left something to be desired (you can see the wall of rain moving across the ocean in the photo) but my BD42 suitemates Whit and Julie and I had a wonderful time regardless. After my first-ever road trip down to Myrtle from New Haven, our days were filled with mini golf, amazing breakfasts, reading on the beach, and dancing at the Spanish Galleon--or as Yalies dubbed it "Spanish Toad's." Which is actually quite unfair to the Galleon, because really, it's much classier, cleaner, and clubbier than Toad's ever has and will be! I was pleasantly surprised by the fantastic DJs and managed to haul my ass out of our spiffy condo for two nights in a row to dance with my roomies. Good times, good times.

For the next week, I'll be packing up my stuff and working lx on Side Show. The former is a huge pain in the ass; the latter is a good time because Dan is the ME and Katie is the LD. (Bobby is the other useless assistant in lighting, the ALD.) I'm coming full circle by ending on AP Lx, which is what I started on all those long years ago (actually two) on Floyd Collins. How time flies when you're.... spending endless hours in the theater! (For any seniors out there, you should really come see the show over Commencement. Yes, I will use this blog to shamelessly plug the Dramat. But it's also a show about freaks, and if my eyes did not deceive me within the Galleon, I'd say that's a pretty appropriate theme for our class.)

And I'm finally starting to catch up on the blogosphere. (Though let's be honest, I'll probably never catch up. Five days off the internet and I feel totally out of the loop.) Check out what Nicole Martinelli has to say about ADD and how they [don't] deal with it in Italy. Or Ronni's post on how Americans are so much sicker than the British, or anyone else, really. Or for some laughs, read Jason Mulgrew on "commitment, titties."

Also, if anyone knows a home cure for a middle ear infection... let me know. I can't believe I'm sick again after the horrific plague I had last month, but there you have it. Too much dancing, too much humidity--Myrtle hath left me ill.

Who was this Samuel Wells Williams character, anyway?

2006-05-06T00:28:00.000-04:00

I awoke to an email from the chair of the East Asian Studies Council this morning. In my rather dazed state it took a while to figure out what it was telling me, but the bottom line is yours truly is one of the two recipients of this year's Williams Prize in East Asian Studies at Yale! (The selection pool is papers written by seniors in the current year on any Chinese, Japanese, or Korean subject.)

I wrote my advisor, feisty emeritus professor and modern Taiwanese/Chinese historian/historiographer Beatrice Bartlett, with the news. Her reply--as always, she's not one to mince words!--said simply:

Congratulations! That's great! Now - the prize was named for Samuel Wells Williams. Do you know who he was?!?

A good question indeed. I wikipedia-ed the prize's namesake and found the following:

Samuel Wells Williams (衛三畏;22nd September 1812-1884) was linguist and diplomat of United States of America. He was born in Utica, New York and studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. On graduation he was elected as a Professor of the Institute. On the June 15, 1833, and still in his Twenties, he sailed for China to take charge of the Printing Press of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Guangdong, China. In 1837 he sailed on the Morrison to Japan. Officially this trip was to return some stranded Japanese sailors, but it was also an attempt to open Japan to American trade. On November 20 1845 he married Sarah Walworth. From 1848 to 1851 Williams was the editor of the Chinese Repository, a leading Western journal published in China. In 1853 he was attached to Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry expedition to Japan. In 1855 he was appointed Secretary of the United States Legation to China. In 1860 he was appointed chargé d'affaires for the United States in Beijing. He resigned his position on October 25, 1876, 43 years to the day that he first landed at Guangzhou in 1833. He wrote A Tonic Dictionary Of The Chinese Language In The Canton Dialect (英華分韻撮要) in 1856. He returned to the United States of America in 1877 and became the first Professor of Chinese in the United States at Yale University.

Wow. After reading that, I feel doubly honored...and feel doubly unworthy. But a big, heartfelt xiexie/arigato to everyone who helped me along the way. I would've gone crazy without you!

So many places to go...

2006-05-04T22:26:00.000-04:00

Following Jon's example--countries I've been to:

create your own visited countries map

So many places to go... so little time!

Done.

2006-05-04T21:39:00.000-04:00

Well, that's it. I am now officially done with college.

Cheers!

My New Rimowa Salsa 22" Cabin Trolley

2006-05-03T19:06:00.000-04:00

I really should be studying for my Accounting final... but I just wanted to share my excitement! My new carry-on suitcase arrived today. It's 'Made in Europe' by a German company named Rimowa, and constructed of virtually indestructible polycarbonate. (Think a not-as-rigid version of those hard-shell suitcases.) On Shino's recommendation, I got the bright red one, and it is snazzy! Weighing in at just 6.3 lbs, it is also one of the lightest suitcases around! After a few test runs around the apartment, it seems wonderful--feather-light and a shade that stands out without being too ostentatious. (They also come in dark blue, silver, and gold. But I think red's the cutest.) Anyone who'll be travelling a lot--I'm talking to you, fellow McKinsey BAs!--should invest in one. They're a bit pricey but will last a good long time, and come up with a 5 year limited guarantee. My mom's had a bigger one for several years now and can't say enough good things.
...
Currently, LuggagePros is doing a sale that will get you 15% off on any Rimowa Salsa suitcase. Just enter the promo code "Rimowa" before checking out. And no, they're not paying me to advertise for them--I was just impressed by their timeliness and customer service.

House Speaker: Oil prices "disconnected from supply and demand"

2006-05-03T10:34:00.000-04:00

The New York Times interviewed the Republican Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, for their article on the on-going political manuevering over high gas prices:

Mr. Hastert said Republicans wanted to make certain that Americans were not victims of price manipulation. The increases appear "disconnected from supply and demand," he said, adding, "We need to know why that is happening."

How do these idiots ever stay in office?

Just a few clicks on the NPR website tells us the following:

The biggest factor in rising costs is the price of crude oil, followed by the cost of refining.
If a gallon of gasoline costs $2.90 (this week's average, according to the Energy Department), crude oil accounts for about $1.60. The cost of crude oil on the futures market has risen about 33 percent in the last year. This reflects supply problems in such places as Nigeria, Iraq and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the threat of supply problems in Iran.
...
In January 2003, before the U.S. invasion, Iraq produced 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. Production fell sharply during the invasion, and recovered to as much as 2.3 million barrels per day in 2004. Last year, however, Iraq rarely produced as much as 2 million barrels a day. And in January of this year, daily production was only 1.6 million barrels. By itself, this would not be a huge loss to the world market. But coupled with supply problems in Nigeria, Venezuela and the Gulf of Mexico, it doesn't help.

Add to this the ever-growing appetites of China and India for energy, and you'll see, Mr. Halstert, it's actually all about supply and demand.

Photos from the Land of Gloriously Mixed Signals

2006-05-01T21:00:00.000-04:00

Check out this kick-ass blog which features beautiful photos of Japan. I particularly liked the one below, "Young Woman in Synthetic Fur." I've included Jeremy's caption as well:

I love Japan, a land of gloriously mixed signals. This beautiful young woman looks like she could be off to a ball — until you notice the punkiness of her coiffure, the distinctly SM suggestion of her outfit, and that her stole, far from mink, looks like it once covered the front seat of a 1970s muscle car.

Or another photo from his recent trip to the mountainous area of Nikko:

I'm also loving the sleek design of the site--which he hand-coded himself! (I swear to God, one of these days, I have to learn how to do that...)

Unfortunately, the photos make me homesick, so I can't linger on the site too long. But y'all should take a look at his gallery. Only one more month till I'm back in Tokyo! (Yatta--!)

Happy [Belated] Equal Pay Day

2006-05-01T00:19:00.000-04:00

Ladies, did you miss the party? This past Tuesday was Equal Pay Day! This awesome holiday marks "how far into the year the average woman must work to earn as much as a man earned by the end of the previous year."

For the record, the date is calculated based by comparing the wages of women and men employed full-time--so it can't be explained away by the unpaid hours of at-home moms or part-timers. And even more astonishingly, it hasn't moved to a substantially earlier point in the year for an entire decade!

If this isn't enough to piss off everyone (not just women) reading this, then check out WageProject.org for more. It includes a calculator so women can compare their salaries (which on average are about 1/4 lower than their male counterparts) with men who work in the same industry in the same geographic area.

Now I'm going to try and curb the anger welling up inside of me and let you know there are dissenters out there who say "those who still cite women's 76 cents for every male dollar as evidence of sexism fail to take into account the underlying role of personal choice. The "wage gap" is not so much about employers discriminating against women as about women making discriminating choices in the labor market." As evidence of this, however, the site says, "...women gravitate to sectors of the economy that compensate workers at lower levels... For example, fewer women have chosen to enter such technical fields as computer sciences, math and science teaching, medicine, law and engineering. In 1998, women earned only 26.7 percent of computer science degrees."

An interesting argument. I don't buy it--because isn't the lack of gender parity in the sciences also a problem?

Finally, let me put it out there that I'm not ranting about this because it's an issue I personally have faced, but because I believe it's something this country (and many others! read: Japan) has been ignoring for far too long. So take a minute check out WaPo's article on what we can do about this unacceptable state of affairs.

Sunday night reading list

2006-05-01T00:01:00.000-04:00

Historiography as cartoon.

Views on immigration from West Hollywood.

God, that looks so tasty.

Having bad short-term memory sucks.

Grannies in NYC: Let us die in Iraq instead.

A future worth voting for

2006-04-30T18:25:00.000-04:00

Since Republicans occupied both Congress and the Presidency, there has been a lot of discussion as to how the Democrats can reclaim political ground. A wonderful essay in the Times today looks to 20th century history and illustrious Cold War liberals to find answers. It's long, but so worth it!

One paragraph, in particular, embodies my feelings about how America should conduct itself in the wider world. It's a call for modesty and level-headedness that I hope--against all the odds--the Democrats will capitalize on, and American voters will support, in the coming elections. (You might remember an earlier post, The Potential for Greatness, discussing a similar sentiment.)

Americans may fight evil...but that does not make us inherently good. And paradoxically, that very recognition makes national greatness possible. Knowing that we, too, can be corrupted by power, we seek the constraints that empires refuse. And knowing that democracy is something we pursue rather than something we embody, we advance it not merely by exhorting others but by battling the evil in ourselves. The irony of American exceptionalism is that by acknowledging our common fallibility, we inspire the world.

You may not want to believe this, but while I was studying abroad in Beijing, one of the info packets distributed to the students suggested that American students err on the side of caution by introducing themselves as Canadian. They weren't kidding, either. The backlash against America's "imperialist" policies was that intense, despite the many thousands of miles separating Iraq from China.

A future in which we can go abroad and proudly to tell people we're American--now that's a future worth voting for, don't you think?

Stephen Colbert: Lampooning the Prez

2006-04-30T02:28:00.000-04:00

Stephen Colbert ripped the President a new one at the White House Correspondent's Dinner tonight. A couple choice excerpts from Editor&Publisher via the Huffington Post:

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
...
Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."
...
Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, “photo ops” on aircraft carriers and at hurricane disasters, and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face.
...
Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."

The press didn't emerge unscathed either:

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was “surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides—the president’s side and the vice president’s side." He also reflected on the good old days, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story.

Addressing the reporters, he said, "You should spend more time with your families, write that novel you've always wanted to write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to the administration. You know-- fiction."

Ouch.

Colbert has really come into his own lately. I certainly wasn't the biggest fan when the Report first started on Comedy Central, but he's kicking some serious ass now. Man, I would've paid good money to see Dubya's expression as Colbert performed his "tribute."
------------------------
Update! Watch the video here.

Pirates! Comics! And Manga!

2006-04-30T01:34:00.000-04:00

Pirates! Comics! What more could a Johnny Depp-adoring Japanese girl ask for? (I bet you didn't know that fully 1/3 of the publishing industry in Japan is dedicated to comics! I was raised on that stuff, my friends.) El Pacifico features the work of three L.A.-based artists who are executing "comic book improvisation." What's fascinating is that they each produce great work but with a very distinct style. I have such deep respect for comic book artists because the good ones must provide a vivid, (usually) hand-drawn, visual representation of the story in addition to the already-difficult task of producing a complex plot with engaging characters and believable dialogue.

And, I simply could not post on comic books without sharing some of my favorite Japanese manga:

Dragonball: The all-time, number-one, hands-down- most-influential- to-my-growing-up favorite by world-class cartoonist Akira Toriyama. And it really is a shame that most people only know it in its anime version, because I personally find the comics much more compelling. And by compelling, I mean incredibly addictive. A must-read for anyone who wants to know anything about recent Japanese pop culture, in my opinion anyway.

Ranma 1/2: The plot for this series runs a bit on the bizarre side, but it's still fantastic. The author, Rumiko Takahashi, is one of the most prolific Japanese comic book artists--and for good reason. Her comics often appeal to both boys and girls, by combining teenage love, angst, and martial arts in pretty much equal proportions. Good times.

Yuu Yuu Hakusho: Slightly darker than the above two, as this series starts off with the main character's death and his turning into a 'ghost fighter' (for lack of a better word) to avoid the less appealing path of going to hell. Definitely a boy's comic filled with martial arts, gory images, and very crass jokes, but that never bothered me. The inconsistency of the drawing style, a uniquely Japanese trait in comic books, manifests itself in droves.

There are so many more! But I'll stop there before I scare y'all away. Some time this summer when I'm back home in Tokyo, I'll post about comic books geared for adults, which is a whole separate ball of wax--but is also a very interesting cultural phenomenom.