Last week, someone called me “the worst asian ever” because I told her I didn't like Boba. 

I almost got offended, but I thought about it for a minute and realized that, while she (an asian girl) wasn’t right (really?  WORST asian ever?), she had a point. 

I’m not sure if living in California for four years has changed me in any way, but I’m definitely a little more “white-washed” than I used to be.  I.E. – I like/dislike a few key things that make my fellow Asians raise an eyebrow to me every now and then. 

First of all, I HATE tea.   

I prefer coffee any day.  Green tea, earl grey, loose-leaf, Chai, even iced tea tastes awful to me.  Supposedly tea is supposed to have a variety of flavors, but I can never taste any of them. 

 Secondly, I prefer the Americanized “California Roll” Sushi to the nigiri     Sushi.  I’ve sampled what I believe to be the best of both types and made my choice. 

     >  

And of course…..not liking boba. 

But there are a few things that keep me tied to my asian heritage (sort of) 

I refer to the following as “slippers” and not “flip-flops.” 

*NOT THAT*

*THIS*

But maybe this means I’m not asian…….!  Maybe I’m really Russian like that one guy said when I was at the flea market!   

Does anyone else here hate tea like me?  Or been called “the worst asian ever” like I have? 

Talking to people everyday and browsing around online, I see and hear people constantly refer to their interests as “nerdy.”   

“I’m really into foreign films.  It’s dorky, I know.” 

“I like these nerd-glasses.  They’re so cool.” 

“I just know these things.  I’m a big geek like that.” 

But that’s not really the right use of those terms, is it?  At least not in the conventional sense; they’re used more these days to refer to things that are just “not trendy.” 

Now I hate to be a geek about this, but shouldn’t we really be using the correct terms for saying what we mean instead of using these all-encompassing phrases to describe counter-culture and smart people who have interests? 

Below is the definition of “Nerd” 

1.  Pejorative defining an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit:

2. [SLANG] Term of praise applied (in conscious ironic reference to def. 1) to someone who knows what's really important and doesn't care to be distracted by “trivial chatter and silly status games.”

Now some geek could argue that the slang definition is a shifting in the connotation of phrases like “nerd” so that it now actually can be considered a compliment.  But, as a “nerd” myself, I’m not really sold by that explanation…..OR that definition.  These words still have a mostly negative (“nerd-gative?”) connotation because everytime you call someone a nerd to their face, aren’t you insulting the dork when you say it?  So why is it that when you refer to yourself as a  dork / geek / nerd, it’s supposed to a compliment? 

Aren’t you really just asking for someone to say that you’re not a nerd when you call yourself one? 

And what kind of lame-ass geek does that? 

Bottom line is - nobody likes to be called a nerd.  Not with either definition because it all eventually goes back to that first pejorative one.  So we should really stop using it so much.  It’s the social equivalent of that other “N word.”  (You know which one I’m referring to)  Maybe I just have a huge chip on my shoulder, but this is how I feel.  And while some gaylords might try to change its meaning, I think doing so is totally lame and misguided.  Maybe what we should be doing is just stop using the word altogether and being more precise with our “labels” so that they’re more accurate and less insulting. 

It would certainly help improve our vocabulary. 

History of the word “Nerd”   

One of the drawbacks of staying so “connected” with the news through tv and the internet (email, facebook, myspace, twitter, all the various blogging sites etc.) is that you sometimes get “bombarded” with the same news over and over again when something big happens. 

Say…..when two big celebrities die in one day. 

And I dunno about you, but I can only hear the same thing over and over again for so long before I get sick of it……..!  So hearing/reading “omg, Michael Jackson died!” every 10 seconds was quite aggravating. 

It “softened the blow” so to speak. 

Another drawback is that this “bombardment” only lasts a couple of hours at most.  So I gotta wonder that if I was somehow A.F.K. (away from keyboard) for those two hours—heaven forbid—would I not have heard this news until later maybe?  And not gotten so sick and tired of hearing about it? 

But as it was, I didn’t even have time to be surprised at either death – I was too busy getting notified from all ends.  I literally could not even do my work for the rest of the day because people were too busy telling me all about who died and how/why. 

Thankfully, I am able to leave work and go home; I can turn off the radio/tv and I can log off the internet.  So that’s what I did for a while.  I rented “Beerfest” and watched that…..for a good 3 hours.  (Watched it twice – 2^nd time with audio commentary) 

I highly recommend it. 

And now I’m back to my old self – and I can finally process all that information I received yesterday. 

P.S. - I may have to watch Beerfest a 3^rd time so I can hear the OTHER audio commentary (it’s that good) 

 I’m thinking of checking out the L.A. Film Festival this year (June 18^th – 28^th) ever since I saw a little booklet advertising some of the films they were showing this year. 

A few of the ones that I wanted to check out: 

500 Days of Summer

Added Screenings

(96 mins)

Directed By: Marc Webb

Producers: Jessica Tuchinsky, Mark Waters, Mason Novick, Steven J. Wolfe
Cinematographer: Eric Steelberg
Editor: Alan Edward Bell
Music: Mychael Danna and Rob Simonsen
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloë Grace Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Rachel Boston, Minka Kelly

"This is a story of boy meets girl,” begins the wry, probing narrator of  (500) Days of Summer, and with that the film takes off at breakneck speed into a funny, true-to-life and unique dissection of the unruly and unpredictable year-and-a-half of one young man’s no-holds-barred love affair.

Black Dynamite

Ford Amphitheatre Screenings

(USA, 2009, 90 mins)

35mm

Directed By: Scott Sanders

Executive Producers: Deanna & James Berkeley
Producers: Jon Steingart, Jenny Weiner Steingart
Screenwriters: Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, Scott Sanders
Cinematographer: Shawn Maurer
Editor: Adrian Younge
Cast: Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson, Arsenio Hall
Music: Adrian Younge

Somewhere between homage and send-up of the sweet blaxploitation films of the ’70s, Black Dynamite is right on the money in reconstructing the groovy aesthetic and flare. It revels in delivering the swagger, funkadelic soundtrack and titillating action that made these films memorable, while also highlighting the social and political subtext from which the genre was born. Can you dig it?

My Dear Enemy

International Showcase

(South Korea, 2008, 123 mins)

In Korean with English subtitles

35mm

Directed By: Lee Yoon-ki

Executive Producer: Cho Eun-un
Producers: David Cho, Cho Kwang-hee, Oh Jung-wan
Screenwriters: Lee Yoon-ki, Park Eun-young
Cinematographer: Choi Sang-ho
Editor: Kim Hyung-joo
Cast: Jeon Do-youn, Ha Jung-woo
Music: Kim Jung-bum

When the tightly wound Hee-su demands that her former lover Byeong-woon repay a long-standing debt, he happily agrees, setting in motion this understated comedy from director Lee Yoon-ki. Refusing to let Byeong-woon out of her sight, Hee-su insists on accompanying him as he calls in a variety of favors—mostly from women—in order to repay her. As the two embark on a daytrip through Seoul and their own rocky history, they come to realize that sometimes the most interesting time in a relationship is after it’s over.

I Sell the Dead

Dark Wave

(USA, 2008, 85 mins)

HDCAM - NTSC

None Premiere

Directed By: Glenn McQuaid

Producers: Peter Phok, Larry Fessenden
Screenwriter: Glenn McQuaid
Cinematographer: Richard Lopez
Editor: Glenn McQuaid
Cast: Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, Ron Perlman
Music: Jeff Grace

In 18th century England, Arthur Blake is a day away from the blade of the guillotine. Charged with a lifetime of grave robbing, Blake confesses his past crimes, but his stories quickly turn from standard cadaver thefts for science to peculiar things that go bump in the night. Juggling a mad doctor, a nefarious rival gang, a beautiful but ambitious apprentice, and a scary spectrum of creatures, Blake and his partner Willie Grimes somehow always lived to tell the tale . . . that is, until the pesky death sentence was served.

 

 

Paper Man

Galas

(110 mins)

Directed By: Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney

 

Executive Producers: Dan Fireman, Darin Friedman, Andrew Spellman, Lila Yacoub
Producers: Richard N. Gladstein, Guymon Casady, Art Spigel, Ara Katz
Cinematographer: Eigil Bryld
Editor: Sam Seig
Music : Mark McAdam
Cast: Jeff Daniels, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Kieran Culkin, Hunter Parrish, Lisa Kudrow

 

Paper Man is the coming-of-middle-age story of Richard Dunn, a writer caught between the pressures of deadlines, the expectations of his wife, and the constant presence of the superhero who's lived inside his head since 2nd Grade.  And then he meets a girl—a Long Island teenager whose friendship shows him that no matter how much it hurts, it's never too late to grow up.

 

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

Guilty Pleasures

(USA, 2009, 87 mins)

HDCAM - NTSC

None Premiere

Directed By: Kevin Hamedani

Executive Producers: John Sinno, Ali Hamedani
Producer: John Sinno
Screenwriters: Ramon Isao, Kevin Hamedani
Cinematographer: John Guleserian
Editor: Andrew McAllister
Cast: Janette Armand, Ali Hamedani, Doug Fahl, Cooper Hopkins, Ryan Barret, James Mesher, Bill Johns, Cornelia D. Moore, Linda Jensen, Russell Hodgkinson, Irene Strauss, Victoria Drake, Andrew Hyde
Music: Andrew Rohrmann

A plague of zombies assaults a small island town in the Pacific Northwest, sending the conservative residents into a panic. When the media blames terrorists, a young Iranian-American woman becomes the scapegoat of dimwitted neighbors. Amid the carnage, the local pastor declares holy war, complicating matters for a visiting gay couple intent on coming out of the closet. Lest all this sound like a simple blue state political tract, be assured that there’s plenty of blood-red gore on offer. ZMD gives equal time to inventively staged disembowelments, decapitations, and outrageous eyeball trauma. And as the citizens band together to defeat a common enemy, this horror comedy reveals that most American of virtues: optimism. 

I don’t think I’ll be able to see ALL of these, but I’m hoping to see at least one.  A lot of these look really good.  Maybe they'll come out on DVD soon? 

- Hypothetical Situation -

Suppose Xanga shut down and you were forced to find another blogging community. 

Which one would you go to and why? 

Recommend me, please?  Kthxbai!