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Don’t Whore Out Your Family: A Cautionary Tale

  • February 10, 2012 4:10 am

One day the Fisher boys – Jacob, Dallin, Brayden, Carson, and Garrett – will look at this image and ask their parents a simple question:

“Why?”

The psychological fallout from this Romney photo-op at the Elko, Nevada, airport last week is bound to be enormous, as will be the recovery process.

Some of them will make it.  Some won’t.

For starters, these poor boys are well on their way to developing messiah complexes – why did God give mom five of us, just exactly enough to spell out the name Romney?   Because we are the Chosen Five, that’s why!   He has special plans for us.  We’re not like the other kids at school.  They’re jealous.  That’s why they point at our shirts and laugh.  Read more...

Jeremy Lin – Taiwanese Animation Flavah

  • February 7, 2012 12:01 am

You know you’ve really made it big if the good folks at Taiwan-based Next Media Animation picks you as the subject of their trademark animated news segments. So by that standard, Knicks baller Jeremy Lin can consider himself in the big leagues. He showed the world on Saturday what he could do if given a chance and proved that wasn’t a fluke during last night’s game and now he’s the subject of this recent NMA video:

Wait…it wasn’t Jeremy Lin that kicked ass in last night’s game, but my fellow Offender Justin Lin? What?!!  Read more...

The $100 Tip

  • February 3, 2012 4:18 am

There are two coffee houses in Berkeley where I do most of my writing, and they are both part of a small chain, Espresso Roma.

One store, in particular, I’ve been patronizing for over a decade (talk about low office overhead – it’s the most incredible deal in the world: for about five bucks, I get a view of Berkeley’s picturesque Elmwood neighborhood, a bagel and a mocha, and the place is big enough that I never feel like I’m taking up valuable real estate – I can loiter as long as I want).  So, at say, five days a week, that’s twenty days a month, at $5/day.

Yup, I pay $100/month for my office, breakfast included.  Read more...

Fuck Yeah! Sung Kang!

  • January 31, 2012 5:18 pm

"Fuck Yeah! I'm Sung Kang."

Just wanted to point all our readers to this fan tumblr site that is called, you guessed it, FuckYeah!SungKang. No if’s or but’s, just fuck yeah! and to the point. Run by Admin Hanna, she unfortunately, has not updated it in months, because she’s gotten too busy with real life, like school, jobs, and other questionable activities that are taking her away from her responsibilities of objectifying the one and only Han from Tokyo Drift!

So I am calling you out, Admin Hanna! You have a responsibility to my boy Sung to update your tumblr and get the ball rolling on the Sung-man love. Yes, we are calling you out. We can’t wait until FAST SIX for you to update your tumblr. It needs to be done now. Sung Kang, Fuck yeah!

Around the Horn: Room for Improvement

  • January 31, 2012 1:55 pm

“Room for improvement” was one of these popular comments I got from teachers when I was going to school in Hong Kong. On some subjects, I worked my ass off and did better than half the class and I would still get the comment “room for improvement.” Personally, I never quite enjoy hearing a comment with the word “improvement” because it reminds me of how difficult and competitive it was going to school in Hong Kong.

What does “improvement” mean for you? And if there’s one thing you can improve this Year of the Dragon in your life, what would it be?  Read more...

Don’t Forget To Say Thank You

  • January 27, 2012 4:11 am

Last night we took our two managers out for a nice dinner to thank them for helping us have a good 2011, and to toast what we hope will be an even better 2012.

I co-own two Oakland bars, The Ruby Room and Radio, with two other guys, and I often have to remind myself not to be stingy with praise.  It’s just in my nature and how I was raised: when good things happen, I savor it for a millisecond, then put my nose back to the grindstone and plow forward.

Sure, that last thing you accomplished was good, but what next?  How are you going to top it?  Read more...

How to Survive Lunar New Year if You’re an Asian American Criminal

  • January 22, 2012 8:58 pm

Dear Asian American Criminal:

Let me start off by saying that I don’t condone your criminal lifestyle—the murdering, the thieving, the embezzling, the assaulting and all the other illegal, awful things you do. But I know you are loyal readers of this blog because…well, just look at the shit we write about. And as loyal readers, I feel an obligation to return that loyalty to you and I can’t think of a better occasion to do that than on this Lunar New Year holiday. So let me just give you this one piece of valuable advice if you plan on committing your heinous crimes on this day of all days:

Don’t do it in Chinatown!

It doesn’t matter if you commit your crimes in Chinatown on the other 364 days of the year, this is the one day you must avoid it because I guarantee that you will get caught. Why? Because if Hollywood movies and TV shows have taught us anything, it’s that white cops are always busting Asian criminals in Chinatown while the new year’s celebrations are taking place.  Read more...

The Levitating Magical Bear of Sexual Purity

  • January 20, 2012 6:00 am

For most of us, February 14 is Valentine’s Day. But for a growing number of teens, February 14 has come to be known as the Day of Purity. It’s day when teens make a commitment to God and to not have sex until they get married.

OK, I think it’s important to instill good habits in our youth so I suppose this is one way to do that although I remain skeptical at the feasibility of horny kids maintaining such a vow. That is…until I saw the following student-made video, which is all kinds of awesome.

If a levitating magical bear isn’t enough to keep you chaste until marriage, well, then damnit, I don’t know what is! Check it out after the jump and prepare to give up pre-marital sex:  Read more...

Old School Candy

  • January 17, 2012 4:27 am

I have a sweet tooth and the two root canals to prove it.

The witching hour – 2 pm – 3 pm – absolutely demands a fix of sugar and caffeine.  For me it’s a candy bar and diet coke, a habit I’m delighted to say I’ve shared with one of our fellow Offenders to his ruinous benefit.  He looks forward to my visits if for no other reason than he can blame me for making that stop at CVS to get jacked up.

“If Alfredo wasn’t here, this never would’ve happened,” he explains to mutual friends we run into, who catch us with chocolate smeared on our mouths, which we try to wipe away with jittery hands.  Read more...

A Sad Ode to the Twinkie

  • January 13, 2012 7:34 pm

With the news this week that Hostess, the company that makes Twinkies, is filing for bankruptcy protection, we must accept the sad reality that this may mean the beginning of the end for Twinkies.

Sure, Hostess makes a number of other well-known food products such as Wonder Bread and Ding Dongs, but has there ever been a snack food that is as iconic as the Twinkie? I would argue—no.

So how ironic is it that in the Asian American community, the Twinkie has a negative connotation—serving as shorthand for someone who is yellow on the outside, but white on the inside? Why can’t the Twinkie represent something positive? Like someone who’s yellow on the outside and full of yummy creaminess inside? So the next time someone calls you a Twinkie, instead of getting angry or offended, you can instead proclaim proudly, “Why yes, I am yellow on the outside. And inside me is a yummy creaminess that’s just waiting to explode inside your mouth, damnit!”  Read more...

YOMYOMF Podcast: On the Offensive – The Itch Edition

  • January 10, 2012 3:00 pm

If you’ve been following YOMYOMF over the holidays, you may have read about some of our members’ moment in the spotlight of the fantasy sports universe via an ESPN/Grantland Bill Simmons column. Well, if you’re interested in following our soap opera of a fantasy league (declared by Simmons as “the greatest fantasy league EVER” – his words, not mine), we’ve got a bit of a follow-up.

Several of our basketball-crazed Offenders and extended members of the Family gathered together last week to present the second official podcast of the YOMYOMF network, which we’ve come to name “On the Offensive,” with this version aptly being the sports edition, or what we like to call, “The Itch.”  Read more...

Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese Restaurant

  • January 9, 2012 9:11 pm

CURTIS
Curtis Chin is a Motown-born, New York-bred, Los Angeles-based writer, producer and community activist. He’s proud to have co-founded the Asian American Writers Workshop and Asian Pacific Americans for Progress and for writing and producing the documentary Vincent Who? He’s less proud of having started the Young Republicans Club in high school. He’s currently working on a new website with a former ABC and HBO exec, widelantern.com, and developing a teen comedy with director Quentin Lee and producer Chris Lee.

“Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese Restaurant”

That’s the title of my memoir, if I ever get around to writing it. It’s not an unusual experience if you’re Chinese American. In fact, according to the magazine Chinese Restaurant News, there are nearly 41,000 Chinese restaurants open in the United States. That means a lot of kids, grandkids, siblings, cousins and spouses working for cheap or free.

My family owned a restaurant in Detroit, opened in 1940 by my great-grandfather. I spent countless hours there, working off-and-on for much of my childhood, first as a dishwasher then up to waiter and manager with the occasional delivery boy duty. (I sucked in the kitchen, so being a cook was never in the cards.) And while it was a tough life, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. It taught me a lot of values in life that I use, even today.

Here are the top ten lessons I learned growing up in a Chinese restaurant:  Read more...

Best Toy in an Alternate Universe: ‘Shaun of the Dead’ Legos

  • January 4, 2012 12:01 am

I loved Legos as a kid. Probably my all-time favorite toys. And if the young me were still alive today and had to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, it might very well be this:

Yup, a Lego set based on the great 2004 zombie flick Shaun of the Dead.

Only problem is this product doesn’t actually exist. At least not in our universe. And like me, perhaps your reaction to that is—why? After all, there seems to be Legos based on every other property from Star Wars:  Read more...

Add Your Own Caption: Once More with Feeling Edition

  • December 31, 2011 12:02 am

If you’re not already following us on Facebook, Twitter and our new Tumblr, you’re missing out on a lot of extras you won’t find here on our blog including updates on various Offender-related projects (like the most recent updates about our upcoming YOMYOMF Network on YouTube) and silly, fun things like “Add Your Own Caption.” This is where we post an image we find online or that our readers forward to us and ask you to write an appropriate caption to accompany that image. And we’ll feature some of the captions here.

And the “best” caption for this final week of 2011 comes from reader Aaron Shizuo Aoki:

“Socket to me!"

So check out our Facebook page for future editions of “Add Your Own Caption”, write your own caption and/or “like” the ones you think are worthy and we may share them here.  Read more...

A Vasectomy, Pain, and the Toll on a Marriage

  • December 30, 2011 4:49 am

I beg your forgiveness in advance, dear reader – as you might’ve guessed by the title, this isn’t exactly holiday fare, and it’s a bit long – but for anyone thinking about permanent birth control, or living with ongoing pain, this is my gift to you.

I had my vasectomy on a Friday afternoon six years ago – Friday the 13th, actually.

A few things I remember about that half hour in the doctor’s office: the female nurse shaving my testicles without water or shaving cream; the deep bite marks I left on the colored block of wood I brought along with me (borrowed from my son’s toy block set); the doctor adding extra cc’s of lidocaine to my left testicle because, as he put it, it was “tougher” than the right side; and the long puddle of sweat I left on the examination table.  Read more...

What I Didn’t Get for Christmas: A $130,000 Diamond Toilet

  • December 29, 2011 12:02 am

No one beats the Japanese when it comes to the latest in toilet design and innovation, but their latest toilet creation might be considered even excessive for them. I give you the diamond-encrusted toilet valued at 10 million yen ($130,000):

Manufactured by Japanese company INAX and an Austrian jeweler, this creation contains 72,000 pieces of Swarovski cut crystal. Now, I have no idea what that is, but it definitely sounds impressive and expensive, which I suppose is the point if you’re going to make a toilet out of diamonds.  Read more...

A Funeral, a Baby and a Movie

  • December 28, 2011 12:54 pm

This may sound like the most cliché holiday movie title but that was pretty much my year. My good friend J passed away the past April. It was really the first time that a good friend of my age died. Before J, the only person who was close to me passed away was my grandmother in 1993. Even to this day, which hasn’t been that long, I am still trying to make sense emotionally of the radical discontinuity of J’s death. The day before I spoke to him on the phone and the day after I could not talk to him forever.

On top of all that, the circumstances around his death were unusual. We kind of knew what happened but nothing was confirmed except to the police and his immediate family. A police investigation and arrests were also involved which further complicated the scenario.  Read more...

Around the Horn: It’s The Thought That Counts

  • December 26, 2011 8:54 pm

There's something for everyone

Buying gifts during the holidays tends to be a double-edged sword for me.  It’s actually quite fun and novel for me to find things for people I don’t normally buy gifts for –  friends, colleagues, and those who have hard jobs helping people like me out (eg: the staff at my doctor’s office who normally get chewed out by fussy Santa Monica housewives).  I like to figure out what they need, what they wouldn’t buy for themselves but would enjoy, etc.  Read more...

Ho-Ho-Ho-rrible!

  • December 23, 2011 4:41 am

Christmas shopping is a tinsel covered nightmare.

The endless spots on TV would have you believe it’s just a light hearted, fun filled chance to bathe the ones you love in the warmth you’ve been building up all year.  Bullshit.  Christmas shopping is a pop quiz, a trick question, a trap designed to reveal whether you really know another person or not.  The pressure is enormous, the stakes sky high.

Here’s how Christmas shopping went for us this year.  Read more...

Bring Out The Chinky In You

  • December 21, 2011 11:01 pm

Caught these ads over at Gawker for the China Times, a Chinese restaurant in Dubai:

 Read more...