Café de Nuit

So, after Star Wars marketing brought in lots of money, Kenner then decided to make Alien toys. For kids. Um... yeah.

Is it weird that I see absolutely nothing odd about that? I guess I was a weird kid..

Fish tank death match - the blog!

This blog was kept about six years ago so all the photos it links to are gone. But it's funny and bittersweet and it's basically a bored office worker dude keeping a blog about four fish in the office tank that get no dedicated attention and care. Each person in the office takes a fish and gets to bet on whether they'll be the first to die.

The ending is especially ironic.

HuManBing wrote:Fish tank death match - the blog!

At first I thought you were talking about this pirahna tank death match

On Paternal Achievements

My friend DTM has a pretty awesome dad. But DTM himself doesn't seem to realize this.

I decided I would try to point this out to DTM, while his dad was in the room.

HMB: Dude, your dad is awesome. Look at all the cool stuff he made with his own hands.

(Picks up laser-etched portrait of the DTM family.)

HMB: Dude! Your dad made this etched portrait! You can clearly see the close likeness of each family member in it. Who can do that? Not bloody many, I tell you. AWESOME!

(Looks around. Raps on the desk DTM is working at.)

HMB: Dude! Your dad made this desk. Like he hand carved all the pieces and varnished them and put them together. Not any sort of punk IKEA garbage - your dad took raw materials and made something durable and useful for his son. THAT'S AWESOME!

(Looks around. Points at DTM.)

HMB: Dude! Your dad made you!

HMB: ...

HMB: ...

HMB: ...

HMB: Um, never mind. That's all I got.

DTM:

I just realized that the word "analog" contains at least two words that relate to poop.

This is awesome.

One day,
A mad meta-poet,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-poem
That started: "One day,
A mad meta-poet,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-poem
That started: "One day,
[...]
sort of close".
Were the words that the poet,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad poem,
To some sort of close".

This is also a true story.

I've kept in touch with a high school friend, back when I was an overseas student in Britain. Let's call this high school friend "Skörberg".

Back in high school Skörberg scored a truly classic victory in Chemistry class. The professor, one Doctor Retorti (not his real name), was giving a lecture. I was finding this hard to follow, so Skörberg leaned over and started explaining to me what was going on.

Retorti stopped in an ill humor and then called on Skörberg to be quiet. Skörberg responded that he's just helping me understand.

Retorti: Oh? Who's the teacher? You or me?
Skörberg: You are, sir.
Retorti: Unless you want to give the lesson, I suggest you shut your mouth.
Skörberg: Yes, sir.

Retorti continued to give the lesson, and I continued to get progressively more and more lost in the woods. Skörberg leant back over and pointed out what was going on. Retorti lost what remained of his temper, and called on Skörberg to come up and give the lesson himself, since he wasn't listening to the lecture.

Skörberg went up with his notes, and - after a few moments of reviewing - he then launched into a clear, concise summary of the subject at hand. Retorti began to realize he had been bitten by his own adder, and tried to disrupt Skörberg's lecture. He asked somebody if they'd seen the football game on television... he was summarily shushed by other students who wanted to hear what Skörberg had to say.

Skörberg carried the rest of the lesson and we all felt that we had really learned something. Retorti never picked on him again.
This story has a distant addendum, nearly twelve years later. Skörberg is now employed as a theoretical plasma physicist in a lab in Oxfordshire. A few days ago, he visited Oxford University to give a talk there about radiation pressure acceleration.

I think it's very important for teachers to realize that sometimes - just sometimes - they may be nurturing future experts whose intellect and skill at the subject far exceeds their own. For every tinpot academician teaching chemistry in high school, there's probably going to be one or two students throughout the course of their careers who will grow up to be invited to talk at Oxford University.

...

It's entirely possible that Retorti is dead, in which case I suppose there's nothing further to be learned. But if he's still alive and kicking around somewhere, I hope he has gained some degree of humility.

Adventures in online dating

Email conversation 1:

Them: "Hey. Saw your ad online. You free tonight to hang out?"

Me: "Sure. What's up?"

Them: "Not much. What's your name?"

Me: "Bing. What's yours?"

Them: "Dan. When are you free?"

Me: (after a considerable pause) "Okay, is that Dan as in short for Daniella, or is that Dan as in you're a guy?"

Them: "I'm a guy."

Me: "Okay, this isn't going to end well. Later."
Email conversation 2:

Them: "Hey, read your online ad. You sound fun. You wanna hit the rock climbing wall with me, say this Sunday?"

Me: "Sure. Do you have a lot of experience?"

Them: "I can belay and stuff. My mom usually does that for me."

Me: "That's really [um...] interesting. So does your Mom climb as well?"

Them: "Yeah, she's really good. Her boyfriend's also a professional climber, he did the Himalaya trip a few years back and he lost a load of toes to frostbite."

Me: "..."
Email conversation 3:

Them: "Hey, I saw your ad. You look cute. How old are you? Can you be discreet? I'm married, but my husband is out of town until the 28th."

Me: "Hey, thanks for the response - very flattered. I just turned 28. Yes, I can be discreet, but can you? I should probably mention that you sent me this email from your husband's email address."
Email conversation 4:

Them: "Hey I want you to come over and put things in me."

Me: "Wow. To the point - that's refreshing. What sort of things were you thinking about?"

Them: "I like spatulas."

Me: (significant pause) "Yeah... I'm more of a chopsticks sort of guy. Chinese upbringing, you know. Plus they don't scratch as much."

Me: "The teflon, I mean. They don't scratch the teflon as much."

Adventures in face-to-face dating

This was a conversation that appeared to be going very well until the end, when it all fell apart. The lady in question was Japanese, and given that I'm Chinese myself, I found her interesting.

Me: So - what brings you here to this salsa club?
Her: I came here with a friend. We were here for dinner and then dancing.
Me: Cool.
Her: Where do you come from?
Me: China. Beijing.
Her: Oh I love China! I've been to Beijing, Shanghai, and Yangzhou.
Me: My parents live in Beijing. Say, can I get you a drink?
Her: No, thanks - I don't drink.
Me: So what are you doing in America? Are you here for study?
Her: Yes. I go to [incomprehensible] school.
Me: What's that? A law school? Finance? Medicine?
Her: It's a high school.
Me: ...
Her: It's down in the Countryside.
Me: ...
Her: Right by a place, I forget what it's called.
Me: ...
Her: There's a big mall there and an auto park.
Me: (with difficulty) You're in high school?
Her: (nods head in typical Japanese dipping manner) Yep! ^___^
Me: I'm... er... happy to hear that. Before anything happened.
Her: What?
Me: Never mind.

The story of the schoolboy

Once upon a time there was a little boy who felt left out at school. His friends teased him, his teachers picked on him, and the school bus driver tied him to the front of the school bus and drove really close to the cars in front to scare him.

But then the boy sacrificially slaughtered a goat and hid it in the school's ventilation systems, and the place started to smell very bad. Teachers and children couldn't stop puking up all the time and the principal wanted to end class but he couldn't because of No Child Left Behind. So the boy went to Holland and lived happily ever after selling special biscuits that you don't get in other countries. He also put his finger in the dyke and became a national hero.

The end.

The Story of Bob the Frog Who Loved to Ribbit

Once upon a time there was a frog named Bob who loved to sit by the pond and ribbit. But then one day his pond drained away and he was left on a bank of baked mud, because of Global Warming. Without his favorite pond, Bob was unable to sit by his pond and ribbit.

Instead, Bob decided to drink a lot of water from a river and then hop back to his pond and then spit it back out. This would make a tiny puddle of water to counteract the Global Warming. Bob did this every minute of every hour of every day, working hard to carry enough water back to his pond so one day, some day, he could sit by his pond and ribbit.

Finally after many years, Bob the frog managed to fill up the old empty pond with enough water to allow him to sit by the pond and ribbit but sadly before he could do this, he died.

The end.

Romantic Disaster Trilogy: Part 1

I started dating CitiesOfGold in late 2006. We met at a salsa club and took dancing classes together. She was fun but because of my crowded law school schedule, I didn't get to see her often. As a result of this (and also because of my old-world chivalrous nature) we didn't share more than salsa dancing and maybe a quick peck on the cheek afterwards.

This would have been normal, maybe, in the 1940s. But for a red-blooded woman in 2006, CitiesOfGold grew frustrated. She wondered what was holding me back. She asked her friends if maybe I was secretly gay. (Author's note: Because Johnny Depp has not expressed interest, I am currently straight.)

Finally, she found a way to get me away from law school studies and to a nice romantic getaway. Her sister, SisterOfGold, had won a week's vacation stay at a beachfront house in Miami. SisterOfGold had graciously invited CitiesOfGold and "one guest" along. CitiesOfGold decided I would be her one guest.

Things looked good. I was quite happy to be leaving my law school town for warmer climes, and there was the alluring promise of further developing my relationship with CitiesOfGold. I cleared my timetable and prepared to forget all about schoolwork over the break.

Then, problems started. Apparently, there was another guest, ThirdPersonFemale, who was invited but not welcome. I later found out that ThirdPersonFemale was under 21, which meant that she would not be able to follow us into clubs and bars in Miami. All the rest of the girls were putting pressure on her not to come.

Wait. Back up. What was that again?

"All the rest of the girls". How many was "all the rest" exactly? I asked CitiesOfGold and she asked SisterOfGold. Apparently, the guest list had swollen to no fewer than eight people. And of these eight people, seven were female. This left me as the only man in the group. This also left my plans for a nice intimate getaway with CitiesOfGold in complete disarray.

I called up SisterOfGold. "Hey, do you have the website for the beach house?" I asked. She gave me the URL and I looked it up. The beach house was very nice, right on the beach... but it had two bedrooms.

That's right. Two bedrooms. For eight people. With a 7:1 gender imbalance. This was getting more and more bizarre by the second.

A note of caution is in order here for anybody who thinks this is a dream come true or something similarly foolish: this is not a good situation to be in. When there is this great a gender disparity, one thing is clear - the party would have been a Girls' Night Out if it weren't for the hapless male left stranded behind the lines in No Mans' Land. A Girls' Night Out is characterized by the same ineluctable species of interpersonal dramas, histories, and gnarled rivalries that no sane man should be anywhere near. Trying to line yourself up with one woman among the roiling group is like trying to fly a hot-air balloon in the middle of a gale-force storm, except marginally less dignified.

I sat down with CitiesOfGold. "Look, I don't think this is such a good idea," I said. She agreed. "I don't think I should go on the trip," I said. She agreed. "I think you should go with your sister," I said. She disagreed.

"I'd like to stay with you," she said.

"How about tonight?" I asked.

"I was hoping you'd say that," she said.

In retrospect, it was actually pretty straightforward, once you cut through all the unnecessary preamble.

From what I understand the trip did go forward, and the six women did go to Miami, and it was every bit as incoherent and chaotic as you might imagine. Fights over strange men, fights over swimsuits, fights over drinks in the bar.

I was lucky enough to be left behind, with only one female to deal with.

But there were still problems waiting in the wings.

Your stories of failed romances amuse me, HMB. Please, tell me more of them.

Romantic Disaster Trilogy: Part 2

Back in 2002 I was relatively slim, still did martial arts, and still had all my hair. Asian students told me I looked like Leslie Cheung, a Hong Kong actor who was famous for his androgynous role in "Farewell My Concubine". I guess this was sort of flattering, because he was rather good looking, but he was also gay with men other than Johnny Depp so I'm not sure the comparison was entirely accurate. He was also dead, having committed suicide by jumping from a hotel balcony later in 2003, so there were clear limits as to how far I'd go to emulate him.

It turns out there were a handful of Chinese girls, and two Chinese boys, who had wanted to get to know me better during the two years I was at the campus doing my Masters degree in Journalism. But, being typical quiet Chinese, they didn't let me know about it directly. There were, apparently, several attempts to make contact during parties and other meetings but they were far too subtle for a western-educated "wanderer Chinese" like me. In nearly every case, I never even realized it until about a week before I left the school, at which point the whole matter was moot.

Taiwanese, however, were a completely different matter. Anybody familiar with Taiwan will know the island is pushy, loud, and boisterous. Its people are no different. Three Taiwanese girls decided they liked the look of me. If I'd known then what I know now about the law, they'd all have restraining orders.

The first contact came when I was out shopping with my platonic Korean friend, Cove. The purpose of this exercise was ostensibly to get me some trendy new clothes so I wouldn't look like such a hobo, but it turned into a trek through all the sales that were on in the mall. Cove ducked into a Victoria's Secret, while I did the respectable male thing of circling outside in the mall.

A note on Victoria's Secret. I have no problem with women wearing fun things under their clothes, but going into one with a girl - other than somebody you actually intend to see naked - is a weird-ass experience. Imagine you go with your sister. She's looking at various bits of lingerie and frilly underwear and you're watching her do this and then you start thinking about the end product and then suddenly without you realizing it oh my God I see my sister wearing come-hither bedroom-time panties MY EYES, MY EYES.

The same dynamic is at work with any female pal. The one time I went in with Cove, she bought some underwear. Every time after that, when we met for coffee, I could not shake the vision of her underwear. I imagined the tiny garment so insubstantial that I could have dropped it in her coffee and she'd have been able to drink it without noticing. This made things weird, and if there's one thing I can't stand, it's weirdness.

It's just not worth it. Arguably it's less awkward going with a guy, because the worst that could happen is that people think you're gay - but they won't think you're buying girly panties. It simply doesn't make sense: if you're a guy and you've ever even tried the Victoria's Secret clothing on, even in passing, you'd know there's no way a male frame can physically fit in them without expensive repairs. So it's not like it's weird or anything.

Outside, playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on my Game Boy, I became aware of three girls following me. They all seemed Asian. I went down the escalator, they followed. I went up the elevator, they waited and took the next car. I went to the kiddie play area, they were right behind me.

I saved my game and went to the bathroom. They did not follow me. At first, this seemed like a good idea but then I realized I would eventually have to emerge back into the mall again and they'd be waiting for me. My cell phone rang - Cove was wondering where I was. There was nothing for it.

I went back outside. They had been milling around just aimlessly, but when I came out they all stopped what they were doing and just stared at me. The crowds passed us by as I stood there, facing them. It was more than a little disquieting - one was by the Santa display, another was just hanging by the phones, and the third was sitting on the stairs up. All three of them, staring unashamedly, as the seconds and the holiday shoppers flew onwards between us.

I scrambled back upstairs to Victoria's Secret, collected Cove, and practically dragged her back to the car to leave. "But we haven't got your clothes," she said, but it was going to have to wait another time.


The second incident was also unsettling. It was in spring 2003, and Cove and I went to the farmer's market and I checked out the homegrown okra - a great ingredient for stews, curries, even stir-fries (if you don't mind chopping them into thin spears and then blackening them in the pan). We had stopped at a stall where they sold artisan "five finger" shoes, and Cove was trying them on.

I went onwards, and a girl came up to me - I recognized her as one of the ones from the mall. She waved and said she was sorry, but I reminded her so much of Leslie Cheung, could she take a picture with me? It was a little weird, but I figured it was a step up from the silent stalking approach, so I said sure. One of her friends appeared as if by magic and started taking snapshots. Then they traded the camera duty and they took pictures of me with the other one.

A third one came up out of nowhere and started posing too. If you've ever been anywhere with Chinese or Taiwanese people - say, to a landmark or tourist site - you'll know that they tend to take pictures of all their friends in every conceivable permutation possible. A held the camera for B, C, and Bing. Then B held it. Then C held it. Then A and B held it. Then they all asked a passerby to take one of all of us, etc. etc.

About this time I started wondering what had happened to Cove. It didn't help matters that these three started insisting that I go with them to some Taiwanese student party where they could show me off to their friends and possibly throw me off a balcony. It took me a while to disengage from them and override their protests and actually get an eye out for Cove.

She had been trying on her shoes when somebody had taken her handbag. They had then opened it and handed in her cosmetic bag, and her money purse, her checkbook, and (most annoying of all) her birth control pill case at four separate vendors as "lost and found". Cove had had to circle around all the different stalls to regain her stuff. She got it all except for her cell phone, which was given up for lost. Later it turned out it had been thrown into a trash can, but by that time it was irrelevant.


I never saw the three Taiwanese girls again but the story was far from over. That night at around dinnertime, I got a phone call where three girls said "I love you" in unison in Chinese and then hung up. A call to trace the incoming number turned up with no result. More calls came over the course of the next week.

Eventually I got rid of my cell phone and told the police. As you can probably imagine, they did not take this particularly seriously ("sir, are you filing a sexual harassment complaint against three women?").

Cove graduated and moved back to Korea. I found a girlfriend (from Indonesia, so all her cooking was unpalatably spicy) and she got a job in a distant city, and I moved with her, putting the campus far behind me. This was 2004. In the summer, I got my first real job, as a journalist.

In winter 2004/5, I got a phone call on my office line. It was the girls again, speaking words of unsettling familiarity and unsolicited affection on my work phone. This time I was able to get their number and block them. But I never really figured out how they got mine.

In summer 2008, I was two years into law school and working at a judicial clerkship with a federal agency judge. The judge's docket was mostly racism and gender discrimination cases - he also happened to be a very friendly man who loved Broadway musicals. Another phone call came on the federal office line. It was one of the girls. This time it was more sober - she apologized for what her friends had done and said she hoped I was doing all right. I thanked her for her concern and then flagged the call number and blocked it. Again, I never figured out how they found my number.

I slammed the phone down, and put my head on my desk, and blurted out "I swear, there must be a whole separate class of crazy, reserved for Taiwanese women!"

My judge in the next room heard my outburst, and started humming the tune to "Everybody's A Little Bit Racist" from the musical "Avenue Q".

If I get my maths right, I figure I'm not going to hear from them again until 2012. One can always hope.