Trade Deadline

Because of our blog writing drought, Calvin has demanded to be traded from FHS to somewhere else. It's been tough to consider this request because we have blog writing history and we're pretty much joined at the keyboard hips (they don't lie and i'm starting to feel it's right). But after careful thought, I decided that it would be best to trade Calvin now, while he still has value, instead of letting him go for free when his contract expires (although you could argue that his value is at its lowest ever because of writer's block.)

I considered many different offers.

The first offer was from Oklahoma City for Kendrick Perkins straight up. I thought long and hard about this since they are equal in literary skill, but his recent knee problems and a tip from Danny Ainge made me pass one this one too.

The second offer was from the local McDonalds for a year supply of McNuggets and a first-round draft pick for 2013, which was tempting until I realized all the nuggets had been sitting under the heat lamp all night.

The final offer I got was from the Sacramento Kings for cash considerations and after a heated negotiation I was able to get exactly what I wanted, a 5 dollar bill to use for lunch tomorrow. The cafe at my work only takes cash and they are having chicken noodle soup tomorrow and I don't feel like going to the bank.

So farewell, Calvin. Tell Marquis Daniels I say get well soon.

Merry Christmas!

Today would be Christmas if it were December. Aren't days weird like that?

Toilet water

you ever notice how blue the water gets when you leave toilet water with those blue cleaning cakes in them unflushed for a long period of time?

yeah its blue.

The Band-aid

I cut my left thumb the other day, so I made the logical decision of putting a band-aid over it. At first, I didn't think it would have made any difference on my day, but by sundown, the day-long implications were finally realized.

Contacts
Taking out your contacts without your thumb is really hard. I suppose I could have used my other hand, but at the time I didn't think of that. I used my index and middle finger to pull it out. Not easy at all.

Sandwich
It feels really gross to eat a sandwich with a band-aid on. Imagine if the chef making your food had a band-aid on and it was constantly making contact with your food. Yes, that's what it felt like...every bite I took.

Cell Phone
My new phone is a touchscreen. Band-aids make touch screens do things that you never thought were possible. It widens the surface area of my touch, forcing me to press 5 buttons at the same time with one thumb. Now I know what it is like for Andre the Giant to use a iPod Nano.

Moral of the story: Don't cut your thumb.

---------

We've resorted to writing about bandaids...please comment on your blog with better ideas!

Inspired by Writer's Block

Have you guys ever had writer's block? It is probably the hardest thing to deal with as a blog writer. You think and you think about ideas and you start to write anything down. Here are some examples of our cutting room floor

• akaka: aka known as
• stuff chinese people like: 1. saving money

we might come around to use these ideas, but they are dry. sometimes i'll just come up with ideas on the spot. lets see....

• The true reason things are more expensive today than years past.
• an analysis of a standard bachelor's bathroom floor
• the scariest part of owning a computer

and so on. these could be great ideas, but they could also be terrible. most likely somewhere in between terrible and awful. oh there's another idea, a grading scale of blog posts. hmm

that has potential.

we just gotta keep fighting through it.

Apologies

Dear Reader.

We are writing to inform you that we have writer's block and we need your help. Inspire us with great ideas, topics, and questions that we hope to use to launch us into a new era of FHS. Together, we can unite to write.

love,

FHS

PS: to contribute, leave a comment!

A lot has changed

Things I liked in 2000:
Pokemon
Basketball
Video games

Things I like in 2010:
Pokemon
Basketball
Video games
Reminiscing about things I like

Why I have to fend for myself

Calvin is supposed to be writing a post tonight. Instead, he has left me to fend for myself. Here are his excuses for not being around to post in order of legitimacy:
(1 - legitimate, 10 - are you serious bro?)

Level 1: "I had something urgent that I had to take care of."
Level 2: "I had to do more marriage planning."
Level 3: "I had a paper due 20 minutes ago."
Level 4: "I was eating 12 McRibs for dinner."
Level 5: "I couldn't find my inspiration onion."
Level 6: "My internet died and I couldn't buy a new one."
Level 7: "I fell asleep listening to my own practice sermon."
Level 8: "I thought you had already posted."
Level 9: "I forgot that we had a blog."
Level 10: "I've been playing fruit ninja all night."

Just Say No.

I am getting married soon and I am incredibly excited. There are so many great things that I could talk about in terms of marriage, but there is one thing that makes it a little bittersweet and that is Chinese New Year.

Don't get me wrong; I love CNY and ultimately I'll be fine about it, but ... wow. What a setup my people have created.

"Oh here's a great idea: Let's give all the kids money in red envelopes as a celebration of the Lunar New Year."

"Isn't Di-Di so cute with his envelope? Awww"

Beware little buddy. It seems sweet now, but as a man who's in the midst of his last Chinese New Year on the receiving end, I must warn you, it's not all its cracked up to be. Yeah its fun to give a dollar to little toddlers, but it gets less fun when they get older.

Not so cute anymore, huh?

Wait until you get judged for not giving them enough money to buy a Playstation 11. Or when your relatives, who you haven't seen since last CNY, show up to your house with 88 little ones acting like zombies. Instead of unintelligible mumbling, they groan "gooong heeey faaatt choyyyy." Then, you'll wish you had just said no to all that "free" money. You know that's why there's an overpopulation problem in China, right? Everyone is trying to make their money back. There really is no such thing as a free lunch.

So kids, when grandma comes up to you with that red envelope, run for your future's sake and don't look back.

Diversification part 2

It's time for another idea on spreading out our FHS wings into the TV world.

Another idea we had was if we had made a sitcom. We've watched a lot of sitcoms and we've noticed two trends that all of them fall into. We will make a show that is wildly successful for one or two seasons and will be so creative that we get cancelled (a la Arrested Development) or lose so much creativity, that we get signed on for ten more seasons a la The Office [sorry everyone, it's true. Just let it go.])

So the premise of the pilot would be that we're both orphans who do not know each other but due to the forces of the UNIVERSE we end up getting in a fight over a McRib sandwich. We happen to be in front of this affluent family who try to break the fight up, but the cops arrive and arrest all of us. While in holding, we talk and we share about the struggles we've experienced and it warms the hearts of the family (and the audience). So they decide to adopt us.

Familiar themes:

Me being nervous about who I'll take to prom. "I don't know, mom, do you think she'll say yes?"

Jared getting peer pressure to do drugs. "I'm not a chicken you're a turkey!"

Me struggling to get adjusted to being in my new family. "You'll never be my father!"

Jared worrying about someone who has self-esteem issues. "I think you are good just the way you are, Calvin."

Sounds familiar I know, but there are two major plot twists. We will be our current ages of 24 and 46 AND the cliffhanger for the end of season 1 will be that we're actually biological brothers!

I mean it practically writes itself, spinoffs and all.

You're welcome, America.

Happy Hallmark Day!

Dear reader,

Social studies is such a drag. Anyway, I just wanted to say you seem real earthbound y'know real hip. You're easy on the eyes, but you got jets too. I may not be the heppest cat, but I'm no square either. I saw you at the Sadie Hawkins and really wished you had asked me. Word from the bird is you wanted to too. I'm not trying to play backseat bingo, I just want to hang out. So I'm wondering if you wanted to go steady.

If you say yes, I can give you our class ring and (junior) varsity jacket.

Love,

For Humor's Sake

P.S. just let me know what you think. I gotta split for now. Later, gator

Do you want to go steady with our blog?

Technology has turned us into liars

Technology has definitely made our lives a lot easier. We can video chat with anyone around the world on our phones. We can order anything online and it could arrive in 2 days. We can press a button and a blog post is born. What a world we live in! But the advancement of technology has also produced negative effects. I'd like to argue that technology fosters the transformation of the human race into liars.

Remember when cell phones were really big (in size, not in popularity)? Like the one that Zack Morris had in Saved by the Bell. Can you imagine what the world would be like without cell phones? Apparently, there was such a time according to my parents. It was called the 1970s. So what happens back then if you make plans with someone and are running late? In the pre-mobile phone era, people were never late. When they said dinner was 7, dinner was at 7. Nowadays, cell phones allow us to say that we are going to be earlier than we are going to be. (e.g. "I'll see you in 10 minutes" when it will probably take you 20 minutes). Technology makes us lie about our schedule.

Remember encyclopedias? Those used to be an excellent resource for any science project or history report. (I remember thinking why couldn't the letter X have it's own book.) Now all we all use search engines to find out anything about anything. There used to be a time when we could trust any fact that our fellow man has stated. One astute friend would say facts like, "did you the know the voice of Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince of Bel-air?" and we wouldn't question our friend, because we couldn't look it up. Technology makes us trust our friends less.

The biggest and most dangerous way that technology has ruined our lives is the use of screen names. Remember those screen names that you had in junior high and that you tried to hide from your employers after college? Though our hidden personas in instant messaging, we can refer to ourselves with names such as aZnSexyBoi1x2x3 when we are in fact, neither asian, nor sexy. Or worse yet, imagine you receive an email from a random person at work:

To: youremail@ email.com

From: hottie26@ email.com

Hey [person],

I saw you today at your office. I usually don't do this but I would really like to get together some time and talk about your outfit. Let's grab lunch and we can talk about what you're into.

See you soon!

Naturally, you're flattered. Not only did someone notice you, but they like how well you dress. Beyond that, she really wants to get to know you. So you respond affirmatively and set the date for Friday at Applebee's. You feel like a million bucks until you find out hottie26 is not a cute girl as you expected, but is actually the new guy at work, who owns 26 ugly ties, but thinks they're all "hot." Technology makes us lie about who we are.

Down with technology. (except when reading our blog)

Missing!

Remember missing children? Not as a general concept, but it seemed like it was such a larger issue in the public's mind back in the day. We used to get those flyers in the mail or we'd see one on a milk carton. I wonder if the repeated stimuli conditioned people to associate cereal with missing kids... anyway, we've been missing. We once were lost, but now are found. We have been very busy and haven't been able to post. Here's what we've done.

We slept:

We ate:

And we worked:

Some of you might not think these are good excuses to not post. That may be true, but at least we don't crave Froot Loops whenever we hear an amber alert...you sicko.

This is why I code

After my brief stint on Dawson's Creek, I tried to move onto the big screen. I actually got a ton of interviews for the lead role in many award-winning movies. Unfortunately I'm really bad at asking questions at the end of the interview, mostly because I just skimmed all the scripts (do you know how long those things are?). Here are the questions I asked that probably did me in.

Inception: Does this mean that it's okay for me to sleep on the job?

Star Wars: Can I have some diet Yoda?

Braveheart: So this Wallace character is kinda like Gordon Ramsay, right?

Slumdog Millionaire: Shouldn't it be Slumdog Thousandaire after taxes?

Avatar: Does the planet Pandora play music I like in the background?

The Dark Knight: Don't you think this movie would be better with Robin?

The Sixth Sense: Is the 6th sense taste?

Lord of the Rings: So is Frodo proposing to Sauron or the other way around?

Titanic: Why didn't they use Google maps?

The Departed: Where are we going?

Worst Pickup Line Redux

A few years back, we were asked what was the worst pickup line we've ever used. Jared and I debated this and no clear winner was named. In the process of political banter, we never actually answered the question. That is until today. Here is the worst pickup line I've ever used:

Baby, your eyes must be tired because you've been reading my blog all day.

Game. Set. Match. Winner: me.

PS: Seriously, please read my blog.

The McRibshank Redemption

Like a kid opening a present on Christmas morning, I opened up the compact box that sat before me. It's one of those moments where you know you are about to embark on a special journey. I took the contents out and scanned it in hopes of determining how this item could bring such joy to so many. The mystery proved to be unsolvable and the lure of the prize overtook me. I closed my eyes and took a bite. I was in love with a sandwich.

****

It was a hot Sunday afternoon in the parking lot of Boston Chinese Evangelical Church. After a grueling hour of basketball, the customary lunch dilemma ached our brains. Where are we going to eat? It was that special day that an excited Calvin came up to us with the panacea to all our problems.

"The McRib is back."

****

I have never had a sandwich like a McRib. It's sweet and sour, but not Chinese. The onions and pickles complement the savory centerpiece: the fake pork rib. I don't normally like things are fake, but something about this sandwich just screamed the truth. Why they decided to turn processed ground pork back into the shape it originally came in, I have no idea; but its true purpose is never questioned: to satisfy the desire to eat something great, something amazing, something transcendent.

****

We couldn't fight it. Calvin and I discovered that the McRib was back only for a month. We had no choice but to find any way possible to eat as many McRibs before they disappeared. All our meals consisted of the McRib: breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, mid-morning snack, mid-afternoon snack, post-dinner pre-midnight snack, midnight snack. We'd ordered dozens at a time fearing that a blizzard or swine flu would prevent us from obtaining our pork idol.

****

Normally our greatest fear at the end of the month are policemen trying to meet their speeding ticket quota, but this month was different. It was the end of a golden pork age. Calvin and I stood in line to make our final order that fateful day. After our usual order of twenty McRibs was ready, Calvin lamented, "This can't be it, this can't be it!" He bursted into tears and ran out the door. I ate four sandwiches before I went chasing after him.

****

"Just give me another McRib!! I'll give you anything! My wallet, my custom-made sneakers, my clothes, anything!"

The squeaky-voiced cashier had no choice but to call for security. They dragged a broke, shoeless, and naked Calvin out of the Stoneham McDonalds.

****

It's been six months since Calvin left. He just couldn't take it anymore, living in a world without the McRib. One Saturday morning, he just packed his things, hopped into his Ferrari, and left. The last thing he said to me was, "I'm packing my things and hopping into my Ferrari. See you later crocodile." He didn't have to tell me where he was going, I already knew.

****

During our month-long binge, we had heard rumors of a secret McDonalds facility that sold McRibs under the name Vegan Walnut Brownies. I don't think we believed the rumors at the time, but he was desperate and believed anything that could bring him closer to another McRib. I wish I could have stopped him from leaving, but I was too busy eating all the McRibs that I had hidden from him. Sometimes it makes me sad though, Calvin being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. I guess I just miss my friend the McRib (and Calvin too).

****

An electronic mail came in my mailbox this morning:

Dear Jared,

If you are reading this, it means that you've figured out what I changed your password to. If you've come this far, maybe you'd be willing to come a little further. I've discovered the factory where McRibs are harvested. I've usurped control of the factory from the previous owner (Willy Wonka) and could use a good man to help me maintain my power over the Oompa Loompas. I hope this electronic mail finds you well. After a while, alligator.

your friend,
Calvin

ps. Hope is a good thing.

Diversification Part 1

At FHS, we toss around lots of ideas of how we should expand our offering. One idea we had was to have a TV show. Here's one of our many ideas:

Food Competition Show

One of us in particular enjoys cooking shows and in particular, anything with Gordon Ramsay in it (even Loveline w/ Dr. Gordon). We have been inspired by his blunt British style and highly skilled cooking. We, however, do not possess such skills, but that doesn't mean we can't have a food show. See, it'd be a competition show, we just need to sound like we know what we're doing.

The show would be be part Chopped part American Gladiators with a pinch of Double Dare. The three contestants would be people who cannot cook, but want to try. They would need to complete physical challenges in direct competition with one another in order to get their ingredients. These challenges would include the Baguette Joust, the Food Pyramid, and the Eliminator. One player gets eliminated in this round.

After that, the two finalists would have to cook a meal with what they acquired in 45 minutes. They can get more ingredients, but they have to go into a giant nose dripping with bleu cheese and ranch dressing to pull out quality products like live lobsters, sweetbreads, and headcheese. After they've cooked their meals, we would eat them. We will judge them so harshly that even Simon Cowell would start crying . We'd call it "the Other F-Word."