My Father's Sacrifice (Don't worry, it's funny)...

Last night, while riding in the car with my Mother and Father:

ZRRRRROOOOM!

Did you see that?

Dad, that guy just totally cut you off!

I hope he gets into an accident. He deserves it for driving like that.

Easy there. Don't you think you're being a bit hard on him?

No. That guy was crazy!

But still...

You know what? That's what I'm gonna give up for Lent.

What are you giving up?

I'm giving up being a nice guy.

Huh?

You heard me! I'm gonna be a jerk for 40 days!

That doesn't make any sense at all! How do you reason this?

Well, most of the year people are jerks and they're only nice during Lent. So I'm gonna do the opposite and be a jerk for them. It will help to balance out the universe - for the lack of jerks during Lent.

You've gotta be kidding me!

You think being an asshole is easy? It takes A LOT of work! So... I'll be like a "reverse martyr". I think I can do it.

So basically, you're going to sacrifice kindness in all its forms?

Yes.

Hey - can I borrow 20 bucks?

No!

Ah, it's starting already...

***And then we all got into a funny conversation about the Chinese and how they confuse the word "intercourse" instead of using "discussion" and how hilarious that usually turns out - but alas, that's another story entirely...;)***

Jonesing...

Particularly on a cold day,
underneath layers, comforters,
Something stirs within my thoughts -
satisfying sensations for moist warmth are
Yearning for me to feed, the beast within...

Oxymoronic Courtship...

It may be you that
I seek, yet it is
your voice that
keeps me yearning,

Alas, I wish never to
run into you, for if I did,
I'd fear you'd disdain me
like grits on burnt toast -
but ironically, no less
tasteful --

Funny,
I'd thought that
it'd be much easier
to say hello, yet I
already start with
goodbye...

Over The Speed Limit...

Ohmygod
Ohmygod
Ohmygod
I could run for days
for miles
for hours
forever -
no wait,
I want to
clean the house
buy a couch
scrub the tub
get some Altoids
read "War AND Peace"--
WHOA!
Did you hear that?
What was that?
That noise?
You DOn't hear ThaT?
It's RINGING!!!!
RIIIING!!!
I'm not Crazy!
You're cRAZY!!

I...
i...
... just need to
take my skin OFF
and I'll be...

... finE.

Comfort, Foods...

You made me mac'n cheese
when I fell off my bike,
skinning my knee

You made me lasagna
when I lost my final
tennis match in La Habra

You baked me a custard
when I didn't get
accepted to Harvard

My belly was full and snug -
though all I really
craved for was a hug...

Silly Candy...(senryu)

Jolly Ranchers are
neither "jolly" nor "rancher" --
but they are, "tasty"...

An Arrogant Wanker's Honest Thought Bubble...

Privacy rarely exists in
a life lived in a comic strip,
Where your most passive
thoughts and outrageous ideas
are displayed in all its minutiae --
Glad my musings aren't billboarded
in plain view, for I have heard that
uncensored slips of my misplaced,
misogynistic humor and some-time
outright stupidity would mistakenly
make for a distasteful,
and undoubtedly,
low rated cartoon...

Home...

There are those that
define a homes as having
walls,
windows,
pictures,
furniture and or
a fireplace

But home to me
are your
open arms,
sweet smile,
the smell of your
unkempt hair - you are
the home my peace resides...

Sense-Symphonic...

The sun will feel
warm on my face,

placid lakes I see
remain so calm,

the coffee I smell
is strong and inviting,

blueberries I taste
are sweet as can be,

the birds I hear
will sing as melodic --

With you in the picture,
my senses collide symphonically

where everything I knew
feels new again, and so much...

...more Alive.

Valentine's Day, served 21st Century Senryu style...

Cupid, strike me down!

With laser-guided arrows --

No way you can miss!!!

**Big thanks and SUPER WINKS ;) to those that sent me e-cards and special notes this year - Loved every one of them! And may we all appreciate those we love - today, each day, and the tomorrows to come... P.S. I'm feeling particularly festive, so I might post more than once today, so I'll catch ya'll later... ;)**

Mixing Prose With Cons...

He's a great listener,
but easily distracted

She's great in bed,
but can't make one at all

He's caring and loving,
yet short-tempered while driving

She can cook a meal,
though it tastes god-awful

He's got a great memory -
just not for anniversaries

She can't make up her mind,
except about her career

He can be a bit lazy,
but he'll still run her errands

She can be a real bitch,
but only 'cause of biology --

Add up the total, you still get
the makings of chaotic harmony...

Cheaper Than a Real Repair-Man...

Either out of love or something resembling guilt, I usually visit my 'ol grandmother once a month on a Saturday to help her out with her technical woes i.e. cable TV problems, Internet, etc.. There was one visit that seemed to domino out-of-control that happened a few months back.

First she told me that there was something wrong with her VCR. This ended up being a very straight-forward problem with what I thought would be a simple explanation:

"See, what you did was press the wrong button on the wrong remote. You want to use the VCR remote first. If you change the channel from 3 to L1, you can then get the signal to the DVD player, and you can watch DVDs. Okay? So don't touch that remote (the DVD player's) until you use the VCR Remote, change it to L1 and you should be all set? Got it?"

She smiles and replies, "Okay."

But I know things aren't okay yet.

After a brief pause, she goes, "Now, can you explain that one more time?"

This is hard enough doing this in English, but to translate all these instructions to Cantonese and demonstrate one button at a time on every single remote is downright "punji-stick into the fingernails" painful.

But I love her, and calmly keep my cool while repeating the steps about 5 more times. Oh, why not just get a switcher box for her, you may ask? Uh, yeah - had a tough time getting her to work with that before, so that option was exhausted eons ago.

Next up was her connection to the Internet. She kind of sprung this one on me by surprise, but hey, what's life without a bit of the unexpected? She still uses dial-up, and for some reason, her connection just couldn't be completed. After ruling out line failure, cable failure, and performing a voo-doo cleansing ceremony on the PC Box, I was still nowhere near a solution.

An hour later, it hit me - her program was requiring an area code number to be inputted first in order for the dial connection to be correct. LA is famous for expanding area codes all the time, and I thought the computer compensated for it, but it didn't. So a few magic keystrokes later, and voila! She was surfing the net at a lightning fast 48k! Woo-Hoo!

After a successful visit whereby all her woes are solved, she usually pays me with freshly cut fruit to eat. That day it was Asian pears. All and all, it was totally worth it... ;)

Conversations in Air Freight: If You'll Just Let Me Explain...

The following is a real customer call I had a few months back. Only some of the names and parties have been changed to protect their stupidity.

RING!!!

Hello?

Hi, this is Albert. I'm the one working on your cargo shipment.

Yes?

I just wanted to let you know that there's a slight problem with your shipping method.

What about it?

You see, Courier X --

What's wrong with using Courier X?

Oh, nothing, it's just that --

Well, then that's the method I want to use.

But you see, I'm calling because I wanted to let you know Courier X--

If you're going to convince me to use something else, I'm not going to.

If you'll just let me explain --

My client has requested this carrier, and unless Courier X closes down tomorrow, we would like you to expedite --

All right, I understand, but let me just say that you marked down Courier X in the request, and we will expedite with this carrier.

So what is it then?

You had marked down Courier X Ground Service. To Ecuador.

I see.

*And since there is no interstate highway route that connects to South America, I am going to change your request to show Air Express so that it can travel there by plane. Which fly high up in the sky. And don't require roads.

So I thought I'd just give you a heads up, and I'll be able to get that shipment out this afternoon.

That's fine. Thank you.

No problem.

CLICK.

*Yeah, that's what I really wanted to say, but hey, I didn't feel like getting fired that day... ;)

Ruler...

Quite a task to measure up
to your requirements - does my
kindness add to my height in
your view? Or am I subtracted
by my lack of hindsight?

I struggle on a straight-edged
path for your attention, though only
rewarded by centimetered steps
that show me inching close, but
never within the last few yards of you...

Lazy Angelenos...(senryu)

"I can walk from here."

"Let me drive you to your car."

"That is sooooo L.A.!"

Never Saw It Coming...

We met most innocently enough -
a chit-chat leading to debates about
whether free verse is writ while
freebasing or simply the mind firing
neurons in a chaotic diaspora of energy

Our thoughts would collide - causing
some works of wild inspiration,
though mostly things that'd make us giggle
at the absurdity of others taking us
so staunchly serious over our ill-iteratures

Pretty soon we were one and the same -
different but whole in the pie that is
this crazy bohemia, where no suggestions
were too taboo, no subject too dark nor light
to put ourselves out there with

Then, it happend --

One day, I stepped out on the stage of
influxed thought, while you went backstage,
then out the alley before finally disappearing
off into the night on your bike, leaving a water
trail from the puddles in the street

The show must go on -- I grab the mike
and holler to the crowd that will listen,
making them laugh and cry to make me
feel the same -- I still leave a space
for you, in lieu of your return...

...But I'm sure our warranty has expired.

When The Earth, Moves...

I can easily blame a
seismic shift beneath my feet
for causing me to bump
into you, ever so slightly --
though stable ground
is what I seek most of the time,
I make no apologies
for such forces at work that
would cause our acquaintance --
for who am I to argue that
this was not planned
from before time began?

My Favorite Super Bowl XLI Moment...

It wasn't the game.

It wasn't even the commercials.

It was when my mother and I both sang along to Prince's "Lets Go Crazy" during his Halftime performance.

Man, my mom is hip! Or we're just really cool squares... ;)

My TV P.O.V.'s: We Hardly Knew Ya... But Glad We Did

A question was posted at my site last week that asked why some good shows just never seem to take off. In my opinion, Firefly was one of those shows, and Mr. Whedon, I'd like to apologize for not catching on sooner. You were onto something, and I was too proud to give it a chance when it came around the first time. I won't make that mistake again.

Let me start from the beginning...

About two years ago, I'd heard that they were going to make "Serenity", the big screen adaptation to the canceled show Firefly, along with the original cast and a story that both welcomed the fans from the show and newcomers like me.

When the film came out, I was curious to see it because of all the hype I'd heard on TV, the Internet, Radio - what was this phenomena with such a devoted cult following? I went into the theater expecting to be entertained. But I didn't expect to come out of it in love with the rag-tag crew, who wanted nothing more than to carve a niche for themselves in the great grand universe.

I was hooked, bad. I went out and got the Firefly box set and watched it from start to finish, sometimes re-watching episodes just to see all the nuance that was injected into the scenes. And the dialogue flipping between English and Mandarin? It was fan-boy fantastic!

I couldn't stop wondering why this show never really caught on. You'd think with hits like Buffy and Angel underneath Whedon's belt, this "Neo-Noir Action-Adventure Space Western" couldn't possibly be that much of a hard sell. But indeed, it was.

Here's what I think happened - again, this is just my opinion:

1. Time Slot. Airing on Friday nights at 8 didn't seem to help it at all. The last successful Sci-Fi serial to air on a Friday night was the X-Files. Even Battlestar Galactica has moved out of Fridays, and it's following is pretty deep.

2. A Plethora of Mixed Genres. Is it Sci-Fi? Is it a Western? Is it Action/Adventure? Is it a Drama? Pulling from many different elements made the show interesting to watch, but to those that prefer a simpler template to frame their state of mind found the mixed genres confusing. One minute its funny, and another it takes on the seriousness of a Shakespearean tragedy. This show was definitely a roller coaster that suit a very niche audience.

3. Airing episodes out of sequence. For instance, episodes made after the Pilot aired BEFORE the Pilot episode, which made jumping into the series a bit difficult. Without a solid foundation of exposition, the audience is left to scramble as to who is who, and what they are doing there. A slow reveal is fine, but when relationships get muddled, that's when you get into trouble.

4. Low advertising support from the Network. Early ads for Firefly seemed minimal, as if there was a lack of support for the fledgling program. Although a fan base was building, it might not have been raising the ratings fast enough - a warning sign that the show might be costing more money than it's worth. Then again, putting up a few ads to let people know what time it's on could have helped.

5. Just plain ahead of it's time. Mixed Genres and Extended-family dramas is now fairly commonplace i.e. Desperate Housewives, Lost, Jericho, etc... At the time, tastes in television skewed toward subject matter that is more grounded in reality than in Sci-Fi Space epics (of course, Battlestar Galactica is proof that you can be ahead and at the right place at the same time).

Although Firefly never completed a season, it continues to live on outside of the television medium - it's already been a film, further comic book series' are planned for it, and a RTS video-game is still in the works.

This all kind of reminds me of a show 40 some years ago that got canceled at its peak - it was a show about explorers venturing into the far reaches of space while exploring the inner depths of humanity along the way. It had a pretty strong following, but just not enough pull to keep it on the air.

That show, was called Star Trek. And look how that concept turned out... ;)

In This Place...

Such sweet-saccharine moments
fill my life when you and I are here,
in this place,
where I need not worry of hourglasses
running out of sand,
nor a restaurant dimming its lights
for last call,
'cause in this place,
I have everthing I want -
you, me, dorky debates about
the roundness of donuts,
and coffee that's always
brewed fresh-hot and dripped to
the perfection of us...