My younger brother Joe is so retarded. He’s trying to learn Photoshop, and apparently thinks this, one of his first attempts, is the greatest thing ever:
Note: I’m not gay, don’t think this is some kind of announcement.
I am in Bloomington for the weekend.
Came out to visit people here for the weekend. It’s been good to see people, especially since I’ll be leaving the country for a year or more within 2 weeks, and even after that who knows when I’ll get to see people again. I’ve already gotten to see pretty much everyone who is a “close friend” and still in Bloomington, and I’ve only been here a little over 36 hours. That is good. I’ll be hanging out with people tonight and tomorrow as well, then driving back home. Hopefully I’ll see some other people tonight out on Kirkwood or something, because it’s always good to see people you know, even if you’re not really good friends.
Bloomington sure is different though. It’s been just under a month since I moved out, and it felt to me like even less time than that. Sure I had a two-week excursion out to Japan, but still. I had to check a calendar to see how long it’s been since July 28, and I was pretty surprised myself. But anyways, mainly because the fall semester here at IU starts on Monday and thus all the students are back, good ol’ Bloomington is a lot different from the town I drove away from at the end of July. For one thing, it’s crowded as balls. Summer is always nice in Bloomington because the majority of the campus population clears out and goes home to work or enjoy their summer break. After living in an empty Bloomington all summer, it’s weird to come back and see cars lined up on the streets. It’s weird to see the parking lots full. It’s weird to see people walking around on sidewalks that were less than a month ago still under construction.
But most of all, it’s weird to see all these new students who, in my eyes, look like they are about 12 years old. I mean, really, what happened? A lot of the new freshmen I see walking around campus definitely do not look like they’re only 4 years my junior. I went to the Steak on Thursday night and the restaurant was full of kids who looked younger than my youngest brother, who is 16. I remember the new class of freshman last fall looking young, but not this young. All the better to make me realize I’m old, graduated, and it is rightfully time to move on. Japan here I come.
Not having my own apartment is also throwing me off. For the most part, I am living like some kind of homeless person out of my car. I’ve got a laundry basket full of stuff and clothes in my trunk, and I’ve slept at a different friends place each night thus far. I think I’m going to sleep at the office tonight, mainly just to say I did one last time. I think one of the reasons I wanted to come back to visit Bloomington, besides to see my friends, was that I subconsciously wanted to go back to my old apartment in Fountain Park. I don’t have my own place anymore. For the past month, I’ve been either at my parents house or a hotel. It’s been nice, but there is definitely something to be said about having your own place. I spent an entire year building my nest in that apartment and unfortunately it no longer exists. Can’t wait to move into my apartment in Ichihara next month. Time to build a new nest and mark my territory*.
*Metaphorically, that is. I will not be peeing on the walls.
So the other day I went to get 2 suits tailored before I head off to Japan. I checked Yahoo Yellow Pages, and called the three tailors closest to my house. One sounded like a Russian lady, one sounded Chinese, and the last was a somewhat creepy-sounding old man. Since I was afraid the old man would want to test my inseam a bit too personally, I decided to head to the second place I called. It was right off Gravois, in the back lower part of this building that looks like it used to be a house. I walk in, and to my surprise there was a waiting-room type area, complete with a TV and everything. For some reason, I wasn’t expecting a waiting room. But anyways, the back part of the shop looked more like a basement filled with sewing machines and clothes racks, as expected. There was one girl sitting working, and then an older-looking Asian lady, the owner I suppose, comes over and tells me to put the suits on so they can measure them. Right after I get out of the changing room, I was asked the standard question. I think this is some kind of universal question to Asians living in America, thought of and almost always asked when encountering another Asian that you don’t already know. Like a secret handshake.
“So where are you from?”
No, the answer to this question is never something like “I’m from St. Louis.” She is of course inquiring as to what part of Asia I’m from ancestrally. No, this isn’t rude or anything. We always want to know. We always wonder. Even if you’re not planning on speaking with the other person, let along starting a conversation in an Asian language, this question tends to be based on one of the first curiosities we Asians have when encountering another from that region of the world. Although sometimes you can tell just by looking, even when you’re walking past some other Asian at the store, you think to yourself “I think that guy’s Chinese” or “maybe he’s Korean?” Do any other types of people do this? I can’t imagine white people asking each other what part of the world they’re from. Maybe European tourists do this within Europe. Well?
Anyways, the lady was half Chinese and half Vietnamese. She was born over in Vietnam, while I’m third generation Chinese. She spoke Mandarn dialect Chinese and Vietnamese, while my Cantonese language ability can be best described as “retarded 5-year old with a forked tongue.” Luckily she didn’t speak Cantonese, otherwise I would have been forced to make myself look like an idiot. But anyways, I suppose this is a somewhat interesting phenomenon among Asians. Do non-Asians wonder this kind of thing when they see Asians?
I don’t know if I could type a good enough introduction to this entry, so I instead will use this large image to convey my feelings:
Yeah. It really was. Super awesome, even. If you haven’t seen it yet, go see it now. This movie is actually worth going to the movie theatre and paying money to see. It is that awesome.
After months and months of hype, I was so ridiculously excited to see this movie. I think perhaps even more excited than I was to see the Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers movies back in the day. The filmmakers knew that this film was going to only have a chance of survival on said hype, and I think their decision to go back and edit the film into an R-rated one was well worth it. If anything, they got to also re-edit it and make it an awesome movie for the fans. There were no boring, long “let’s build up these characters” moment; it was instead “here are some people. They will all get attacked by snakes…now.” Well done sirs, well done indeed.
There will be some spoilers in this post, but it’s not like any of the movie is actually a surprise. In fact, the poster or trailer for Snakes on a Plane pretty much gives away the entire premise and plot: Samuel L. Jackson is stuck on a motherfucking plane with some motherfucking snakes and has to kick some ass. Pardon my language. I enjoyed how the movie starts off like every movie shot in the 80’s, with some peppy music and beach/bikini shots. Before the intro music is done, we have met this dirtbiker guy, who witnesses the murder of some lawyer at the hands of some gangsters. And to make this even better, the gangsters are Asian gangsters. I mean, who else would think to kill an incriminating witness by filling his plane with poisonous snakes. Anyway, that is the plot. Samuel L. is an FBI agent escorting dirtbiker guy to LA, and on the flight over they have to fight tons and tons of snakes. Throughout the course of the ride, all kinds of stereotypical characters get killed by snakes, including snooty British guy, hippies having sex, fat lady, and old stewardess. See? Even the filmmakers agree that there shouldn’t be old stewardesses.
There really isn’t much more to say, just please go see this movie immediately if you haven’t yet. It might not win any Oscars or set any box office records (although that would have been absolutely amazing), but this movie was just what the industry needed. I’m sick of all these stupid remakes, sequels, and books-turned-into-movies. All we need is snakes, a plane, and an angry black guy who curses a lot. Cinematic gold.
I forgot to write about this before, but here’s a short little side story about the adventure I had on my way back from Japan. I had a scheduled 3-hour layover in the Armpit of America, New Jersey, in-between Tokyo and St. Louis. And luckily, thanks to bad weather or something, this was more like a 3.5 hour layover before I could even get on my plane home. Please note as soon as I sat on the plane, I fell asleep.
But anyway, what did I do in the land known as Newark Airport? First I get off the plane, and head to immigration. Not too bad actually, lines weren’t as bad as they could have been. The worst part was having to wait at the carousel to get my luggage. Because of customs and declaring stuff (even though I had nothing to declare), I had to pick up my baggage, go through customs, then re-check my luggage. I completely understand why you have to do this, but when you wait 30 or 40 minutes to pick up two suitcases, roll them over to a disgruntled immigration office, hand him a form, then go no more than 50 feet to a baggage re-check station, you can’t help but feel like you just wasted a part of your life, never to be returned again. Formalities like this are a necessary evil, I suppose.
After a 14-hour plane ride from Tokyo, which included 2 meals, a “snack” of a hamburger (in name only; I can’t believe it was actually meat I was eating), several glasses of water and Sprite, and only 1 visit to the Lavatory, I am not embarrassed to say that after re-checking my bags, the first place I headed for was the can. And oh, let me tell you, you really feel like your life has hit a low point when you have to go use a public restroom in New Jersey. I will spare you the gory details, but let’s just say that it was absolutely revolting. I honestly don’t know if an Asian-style squat toilet would have made it better or worse. Yeeeeah.
With a few hours to kill, I had absolutely nothing to do but go wait near my gate and play DS. I suppose that this wasn’t too bad, and I really can’t judge New Jersey on much more than the airport or the airport bathroom, but either way, I am pretty sure that Jersey, as an entire state, sucks. Sorry Karen.
When I was waiting at Nishi Funabashi Station last Friday, I saw this huge bug flying in the air. Almost as soon as I saw it, it headed right for me, and landed on my pants leg. I took my ear buds out and looking around, and no one really reacted to it. I was expecting a “holy crap look what landed on that guys pants,” but instead I had to deal with this beast on my own. It was a male cicada, almost 4 inches in length. Look at the thing! It’s huge. Cicadas in the states are less than an inch long usually, right? This thing was huge! I shook my leg and it didn’t move, so I finally had to use my other foot to scrape it off, and it flew off with a chirp.
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