I can see this making me so much more productive. Or not.

I’ve had the Acer monitor for almost a year now, and it only occurs to me today to try out a dual display setup?

Oh yeah … it’s because I’m slow.

I realize that I’m a bit slow to the punch on these … by about a decade. I’d first heard about these in a Rex Navarrete stand-up routine and thought he was joking, or referring to Flipz (note the “Z” at the end to denote the tough, street-wise nature of the product, n’ahmean?). But some random web-surfing reveals that this product is, indeed, deliciously real, and available in several variations - Standard, Agujeros, and “Bigsticks” (heeeey!)

Unlike the previously discussed and unfortunately-named “Gookies”, which I’ll assume came about because some Asian thought the word sounded like a clever variation on the word “cookies”, the unfortunate naming of these seems to have been a conscious decision by the Philippines’ former oppressors. According to the always trustworthy and accurate wikipedia, they were inspired by ‘rosquillo’ biscuits from Iloilo and Negros but the Spaniards decided, in a delicious twist, to coat them in white, milk, or dark chocolate. It’s like they decided to recreate the Filipino color spectrum in cookie form, from mestizos to malays to negritos all united by a light-colored, biscuit-y center. Or as one non-cookie Filipino congressman complained, the cookies seem to be a sly commentary on Filipino colonial mentality, being “dark outside and white inside”. Oh, those Spanish and their sensitive insight into the Asian condition.

Maybe with this photo, they were merely expressing their desire to be Asian too.

Could this be the preferred Viet Cong treat?

I found these while shopping for a fix … I mean, 3-in-1 coffee mix at the local 99 Ranch Market. Now, I understand that these probably weren’t made to be marketed and sold in the US market, therefore the unfortunate history behind the namesake of these undoubtedly delicious biscuit sticks likely never came into play when it came time to think of a name. But it’s like finding and African version of Pocky called “Little Sambos”

Two great tastes that taste great together

Hey, is that coffee and tea? At the same time? Someone must have a term paper to write.

hold those pencils!

There’s nothing like having a tilting drawing table to make you feel like a somewhat legitimate artist/draftsman. As a secondary benefit, I guess the reduced amount of hunching over is good for preventing back and neck strain. It is a bit of a problem, though, to have to deal with your art tools constantly rolling off of the table, with the bending down to pick up your pencils resulting in all sorts of crazy back and neck strain.

Apparently, there are others who’ve felt my pain. So imagine my joy to find that, yes, there is a solution out there for me. While shopping for extra peg bars at cartoonsupplies.com, I found this - behold, the “Pencil Holder”:

It’s a bit difficult to discern exactly what it is from the picture. It looks fairly simple, and I wasn’t expecting Swedish design on the level of something you’d find on The Cool Hunter (that would rate a 12 out of 10 on the hawtness scale … and cost $5000). But it really is just a spring attached to a block of plastic. It’s an ingenious idea and functionality-wise, it holds them pencils real good. I just wish they would have mentioned in the product description that’s it’s a spring attached to a block of plastic. Or changed the name of the product to “Block of Plastic with Spring Attached that Holds Pencils”.

I thought last Tuesday was the best day of the year so far, as far as new music releases go … so much so that my unemployed self felt compelled to head out to the local Best Buy and go music shopping. Yup. And I’d already copped the leaks for Rising Down and Shine weeks before the physical release and ended up buying both albums. Am I crazy? Who does this nowadays?

I’ll buy just about anything the Roots put out there - gotta support my favorite band. And while I think Rising Down isn’t as consistent as their last album Game Theory and little on the short side, it’s still hot like fire. Their sound seems to have changed up a little since their last release - It’s still kind of a spare, stripped down sound with ?uestlove’s drumming at the forefront, but there are little synthesizer lines here and there where previous albums seemed to eschew the electronics. Black Thought spits on-point, socially-conscious fire as usual, and the guest verses by Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, and a host of others is strong. I can dig it. “Rising Down”, “Get Busy”, “I Will Not Apologize”, and “Lost Desire” get my head bobbing with the fury.

On the cover of Estelle’s Shine, she’s described by Wyclef as being something like the 2nd coming of Lauryn Hill. She’s nice, but I wouldn’t go that far. Like Lauryn, she’s a double-threat on this record - she can sing and rap, and she’s got a good team of producers behind the boards - including WIll.I.Am, Wyclef, Mark Ronson, and Swizz Beatz. Unlike Lauryn, the songs on here are almost exclusively love and relationship stuff, though with a touch of toughness and attitude - namely, on “Wait A Minute (Just A Touch) where her singing and rapping almost seem contradictory (she sings “Baby-boy let’s make it special!” in the chorus, then raps “Boy I’m through with you/ Get your shoes on cuz I’m usin’ you” a minute later). With the producers and other talent involved, it seems like she’s trying to make a push into the US market. I like it, but American audiences generally haven’t been too receptive to UK R&B acts. I digs “Wait A Minute (Just A Touch)”, “You Are (with John Legend)”, and “Pretty Please (Love Me) (with Cee-Lo of Goody Mob and Gnarls Barkley)”.

Santogold has been the recipient of all kinds of hype over the past several months particularly in hipster-dance/hip-hop circles - the types of people who like Spank Rock, read URB, and are up on blogs like Discobelle and Palms Out Sounds (like me, I guess). But she threw me a curve when “L.E.S. Artistes” dropped. I thought it was “meh”… a little too pop-rock-ish for my tastes. But I picked up her album on a whim anyway to make it a lucky three. Thankfully, I digs just about all of the other tracks. She’s quite adept at moving through a variety of styles from 80’s sounding pop to reggae/dub to electro/dance. I think the last quarter of the album drags a little as Diplo and Switch start taking the production in a colder and more downtempo direction. “You’ll Find A Way”, “Shove It”, “Say Aha”, “Creator”, and “Lights Out” do it for me.

I was pretty excited about getting a listen to Madonna’s new album Hard Candy, not because of Madonna but because my favorite VA dudes, Timbaland and The Neptunes were behind the boards on all of the tracks. I (somehow) got ahold of the album in advance and I’m a little conflicted about it. I’ve never really been a Madonna fan at any point in her career … about the only time I came close to appreciating her was when she first appeared on the scene when I was a lil’ one in the 80’s. As a fan of Tim, Pharrell, and Chad though, I gotta say I think that Madonna is the weak link on this album. She sings with a bit of a monotone, without the slinkiness I’m accustomed to when I hear someone singing over a Timbo or Neptunes beat. I think the songwriting can get a bit cringe-inducing at times too. Overall, it’s decent. Timbo and the Neptunes are in pop-dance mode, so the beats are reminiscent of stuff they’d done for Nelly Furtado, Britney Spears, etc. I generally favor their harder, boomier rap beats (”Grindin’” is still my ish), but the dudes can make pop songs shine from time to time. “Milkshake” was dope before it got played out. And “I’m A Slave 4 U” is the jam as an instrumental track.

Sadly, I don’t think this is too far from the truth.

So I’ve got beef with the film 21, as do a number of Asian-Americans. For those out-of-the-know, 21, is based on the true story of a team of MIT students who learned how count cards, then proceeded to clean up at the Las Vegas blackjack tables to the tune of millions. What the film’s producers decide to gloss over is the fact that the majority of the team was made up of Asian-American males, including the film’s leads who’ve been caucasian-ized. Someone was thinking, “Man, this would be a great story if it wasn’t for those damn Asian guys. We’ve gotta fix that somehow.” The trailers show that a couple of Asians did make it into the cast, but of course they appear to be of the token variety. The shit is unseemly.

But the story is about gambling not race, right? Imagine the stink that would’ve been raised if they’d tried to cast a white actor for the role of Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness. But it’s cool to roll over Asians. We don’t complain when we get shafted, right? Eff that. Hollywood, you get the Gas Face.

*A note on the comic - Vincent Chin was a Chinese-American who was beaten to death in 1982 by a couple of drunken, laid-off auto-workers who mistook him for Japanese. Or didn’t care that he wasn’t Japanese, they were just looking for some Asian to beat down. Read up on it here.

Oh yes. You will be mine. Someday …

Being the Apple whore that I am, I’ve been jonesing for an iPhone since its release last summer. The promise of untethered internet access makes my pulse race uncontrollably. Unfortunately, the 8GB capacity means it isn’t replacing my iPod, what with the size of my iTunes library ….

Even the recently released 16GB iPhone isn’t close to being adequate. That might be changing soon, as Samsung recently announced their intention to make 256GB SSD drives available by the end of the year. What’s this warm feeling enveloping me? Is that my heart beating faster? Are my palms getting sweaty? Do I need to get a job?

And yes, I realize that I’m a huge nerd.

Gandhi and X, together at last

*cue the theme from The Odd Couple*

One is an Indian pacifist, committed to the idea of resistance through nonviolence

One is a fiery black nationalist, who was famously photographed holding a rifle while peering out a window

Together, they’re the zaniest of roommates

"Mahatma, could you maybe disappear for a bit while I’ve got my date at the apartment tonight?"

"But Malcolm, I am also bringing home a date tonight"

"Well, you’re just going to have to find a restaurant or movie or something"

"I will not be moved, sir. I have as much a right to this apartment as you."

"I’m just gonna have to bring my date home first and lock you out, then. I’m getting me some lovin’ tonight … by any means necessary"

*canned laughter*

*fade out the theme from The Odd Couple*

I picked up these Oddfellows
on clearance at the campus bookstore for a whopping $1 each. They
regularly go for $6 each, but I guess South Bay JuCo students can be a
politically apathetic lot.

A Happy New Year to you, person who accidentally stumbled upon my blog and is now desperately trying to hit the back button, yet is strangely drawn to the freaky magnetism of my verbiage. I broke in the year 2007 with the stated resolution of "Creative Explosion(!!!)", then promptly went bed and conjured up all sorts of projects that never came into fruition. So … uh, do-overs. 2008 is gonna be the year that I unleash fireballs of mediocrity. Think of me as the Ryu/Ken of middling cartoon art. Hadouken!

I hope 2008 is everything that you hope it will be.