Asian Parents

We wanted to take this snowy Friday to share a different type of post, but before we get to the heart of our post, we'd like to give you some background.

On January 8th, the Wall St. Journal ran a controversial article titled "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior" The article was written by Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, and it contains the essence of her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. In the article, Chua explains her style of raising children and how she would restrict what they could and could not do, which to "western" parents would seem outlandish. She does not have a problem seeming antithetical to western parents because she believes they are weak-willed and overly concerned for their children's self-esteem. She believes children can take much more than western parents think.

Her philosophy in raising children was to be as strict and aggressive as possible in order to force your children to be excellent at everything you desire for them. For example, in the article she shared a anecdote where her youngest daughter gave up on a very difficult piano piece. In response to this rebellion she threatens with deprivation of gifts and meals, selling her toys and telling her to "stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic."

As you can imagine, the response to this article has been great (for publicity). Opponents and proponents of this style of child-rearing have spoken up and taken their stand. Some people are declaring her the breath of fresh air declaring, "Stop spoiling your children and demand more of them!" to parents raising failing children. To others, that breath is foul as it is one that is at least promoting verbal, psychological, and potentially physical abuse of their children.

You can make up your mind by reading the article yourself, but we here at FHS are quite excited because we were able to get an exclusive interview with Amy Chua. It was not easy to find time to meet with her, but because of our excellent agent/publicist, we were able to make it happen. We contacted her and she was more than willing to give us her thoughts. The transcript of our conversation is below.

For Humor's Sake: So Amy. You've been getting a lot of attention for your book and your article in the Wall Street Journal, how has this been affecting your personal life?

Amy Chua: SHUT UP YOU NON-4.0 GPA HAVING, VIDEO GAME PLAYING, LOWLIFES! STOP WASTING YOUR TIME BLOGGING AND PRACTICE PIANO!

FHS: ...Yes, maam.

Climbing the royal ladder

Prince William and Kate Middleton are getting married on April 29th, 2011. This is only significant to me because the media (and all of England) will be focusing all their coverage and attention on this royal wedding instead of my birthday. I guess this means Queen Elizabeth won't be coming to my birthday party...

I recently updated my bucket list (1. Eat at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in London 2. Buy a really nice bucket) and added a new item: gaining the throne of England. After many tireless days of drawing giant family trees stemming back to the days of Adam, Eve and Cain (sorry Abel), I have determined that I am 4539780345th in line to succeed the British throne. Unfortunately for me this number grows daily because of the rules of succession.

The rules favor eldest boys and their offspring, so if you are a younger brother or any kind of sister, you're basically screwed. The only way to have any chance of moving up the line is if the next-in-line sibling dies, along with all their progeny. It's even worse as an eldest daughter with no brothers, because if the royal parents decide at any point to have a boy, she is bumped down no matter how much older she is.

So how do I plan to move up to the top of the list? One cannot simply marry their way up the line of succession. (So much for my plan to send flowers to Prince Harry.) I can't be adopted because only children born in wedlock to the royal family are added to the top of the list. Scar from the Lion King had it easy. All he had to do is betray his brother and convince his nephew to run away in guilt. I, on the other hand, have a much more daunting task ahead of me. The only thing going for me is that I'm the eldest boy in my family and my dad is the eldest boy in his family. Other than that, it seems my only hope to move up the line quickly is a potential pandemic or an ironic Hong Kong takeover of England. Until then, I can only dream of the potential titles I plan to give to my offspring as king:

The Prince of Whales
The Duke of North Carolina
The Earl of Grey Tea
The Countess of Bennigan's Monte Cristo

Maybe I'll just stick with getting a reservation at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in London.

Update: The queen just had a new great-granddaughter. Now I'm 4539780346th on the list.

Update 2: There's talk of changing the rules so that it's not gender-discriminatory anymore. The slide down the list continues...

What could go wrong?

Now that Steve Jobs has announced his leave of absence, what will happen to Apple? Here's what we predict could happen without the Apple Commander-in-Chief:

• They rename the company Banana
• They allow Cydia onto the App Store
• They start making rainbow colored products (again)
• They develop a new Fox show called "When iPod commercial silhouettes attack"
• They buy the New Jersey Brooklyn Nets and move them to Cupertino
• They start disclosing exactly when their products will be released and what features to expect
• They create and heavily market a limited edition left-handed iPhone, which comes out 9 months after the right-handed model
• They make the iPhone completely out of lead which causes Antenna-gate 2 and Poison-gate 1
• They begin selling iEye, a pirate-themed iSight
• They begin releasing all future product prototypes at local bars
• They introduce a 20-inch tablet called the iPad Maxi
• The universe blows up

the superest market

We've all been in this situation. You are in need of some groceries and but you don't want to go to multiple stores. on your list is bitter melon, ham hocks, meat ends, cap'n crunch, and organic toothpaste. oh and you're tight on cash so you can't spend an arm and a leg. Sounds like you right? But where can you go that has ethnic foods, rare cuts of meat, sugary cereal, and organic health care products? pssssssh shut upppp that's easy! three words:

Market.

Basket.

Dude.

have you guys ever been to market basket? it's the best. hands down it is the best. Sure I could go to a chinatown supermarket to get my chinese veggies, and i could get some rare cuts of meat too, but cereal? unlikely. and if its there ... check the expiration date on that box. no disrespect, but I can't trust it. And forget about getting any Tom's there. Maybe Tim's Orfanic. I love my people, but we do not love organic.

I could go to a regular shaw's type supermarket to get my toothpaste and cereal, maybe some overpriced bok choy, occasionally some ox tail if you know a butcher who can hook you up, but you're going to pay a premium for it. and forget about getting neck bones! plus nothing is more frustrating than showing up ready to buy some "fu guah" and you settle with cucumbers and some lemon juice. I know you've been there.

for this reason, market basket is the best. I can get bok choy. i can get peanut butter cup cereal 2 for $4! I can get bologna meat ends to make fried bologna sandwiches, $0.99 per pound! (the deals are bubblin' like the meat!) I can get canned soup 5 for $5! I can get ham hocks to make greens! You want table talk pies? 10 for $10! gallon of salsa? $2.99. Best of all, the crazy crowds are free! It doesn't matter what day or time, that place is ALWAYS packed! And best of all, I can everything on my list and have money left over to spend on the $0.50 toys outside of the store for the kids that I don't even have! THAT'S A SAVINGS!

So thank you, market basket, for being so awesome!

Consoling our defeat

We here at for humor's sake are all sorely disappointed at the Patriots loss and second straight early exit from the playoffs. After the game, Calvin and Jared had a deep analytical, philosophical, but not metaphysical discussion on what went wrong to figure out the answers to the questions that the game left unanswered.

Calvin: Did you ever see that movie freaky friday? in the movie jamie lee curtis and lindsay lohan are mother and daughter and as many family dramas go, they struggle for power. the frustrations escalate and at one point, they both claim that the other could never last in the other's shoes and because of this magical fortune cookie sent by some mystical chinese force comes and switches their bodies. i think this is what happened with belichick and ryan. last time they shook hands in foxboro is where it all happened.



look at the picture. something is not right. there's magic in the air. anyway, i think bill wanted rex to know what it was like to have a civilized team and rex wanted bill to understand what it was like to love his wife...'s feet.

Jared: That's crazy talk. Fortune cookies? Mythical forces? Belichick would never want to swap bodies with Sexy Rexy. A more plausible explanation would be the plot from the Parent Trap. Bill Belichick and Rex Ryan realize that they are twins after a week at summer camp. They come up with a clever plan to bring their mom and dad back together who are currently separated. I'm pretty sure that this was the conversation they were having in the post-game hug you were talking about.

Rex: Good game brother, I'm so glad Mom and Dad came together to watch us play.
Bill: It didn't matter who won the game, Mom and Dad would be so proud of us right now. Let's celebrate at Martinelli's

Wait, why are we focusing so much time on Lindsay Lohan movies?

Calvin: no way, thats a terrible idea.. hmm maybe its like that movie face off and Bill Belichick is like the good guy who wants to figure out the plan of the bad guy, Ryan. but the problem is that everyone who knows about the swap died and no one knows that they're switched! so, Bill tries to help his team by being the opposite of who he is and he decides to talk way more trash than is clearly necessary to rile up his real players. Ryan on the other hand is trying to sabotage the Pats by under-coaching and sitting welker for his backhanded feet comments about him and his wife.

Jared: Hmmm I don't think that's a cromulent proposal. I think its more like Die Hard With a Vengeance. The Patriots were told that one of the footballs had an explosive in it and they had to do various things that the terrorists told them to do to prevent the stadium from blowing up. So Brady had to throw a pick, Chung had to drop that direct snap, Crumpler had to give that ball to a fan, Graham had to hit the field goal post, Woodhead had to fumble the ball, etc. and they had to do it without anyone else knowing or else there would be mass panic, just like the movie.

Calvin: All these theories have major flaws in them. Maybe the Jets just played a better game than the Patriots.

Jared: I agree. I will never talk about feet again. (Foot-in-mouth)

"Salt in the wound" ~ Danny Woodhead

Pats vs. Jets

Vs.





Hey everyone!

We just wanted to take some time to sidestep from our normal corny blog posts and talk about how we're on our toes about this game tomorrow! Its definitely going to be a good game and not the type of game in december where the pats made the jets cry hard like they jammed their toes. I honestly think it'll be much closer. Like if the last game was won by feet, this one will be won by inches. Not because the Jets are a better team, but after such a terrible defeat I can't see them getting caught on their heels so badly again, but i do think the patriots will win though.

Heres why: The jets have been talking all this trash and i think its because their afraid. They must feel like they can smell defeat, nay they must feel like they can touch defeat. They can feel it from their souls to their soles. They have to overcompensate for being so flatfooted the last time they played, so they talk big. But now that they've called the patriots names, and threatened Welker's safety, its up to them to step up and put their best foot forward. Its on them to prove if their gameplay is as nailed down as their talk. The patriots have been well prepped for a long time now and they let their game speak. They are ready.

So as the game is afoot, I am going to stand by my team and make a claim supported by their season thus far. The patriots will win And when the jets lose, they will need to heal their aching bodies and zip up their flapping gums. Either way, though, i think this will be a rivalry that will leave many players and fans calloused to the other team. But I guess thats how it is. I mean it is FOOTball.

the shinnin 2011

all work and no play makes calvin a dull boy
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