Kim Jong-il keeps $4bn ‘emergency fund’ in European banks…
Kim Jong-il, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, has a $4 billion (£2.6 billion) “emergency fund” hidden in secret accounts in European banks that he will use to continue his lavish way of life if he is forced to flee the country.
This Mothafo…children are starving and this over permed fool has the gumption to stash money away in case of a rainy day. Urghhhh! Wow, the injustice is almost laughable. Almost. Makes me think about the concept of GREED. Is it in the nature of mankind to be greedy? To let others suffer and die while you feast and thrive? I don’t understand this. I wish coulld do something about this. I wish I had super powers to stop this BS. BLAAAAAAAAAAAA! Read more...
I attended South By Southwest this past weekend and was so jazzed at the convergence of innovation and new ideas at the interactive and film conferences. Some of the quick highlights:
- Opening Night film was KICK-ASS and it was, well, kick ass! One of the best comic book movies ever and totally no-holds barred. Chloe Moretz as HIT GIRL is a starmaking performance. The countless fanboys in attendance vowed to save themselves until the 11-year old turns legal.
- Other highlights were COLD WEATHER, a mumblecore detective story, BEIJING TAXI about three laborers living in China leading up to the Beijing Olympics, and A SERBIAN FILM, one of the most fucked up midnight movies I have ever seen. Catchphrase from that film, “newborn porn.” Yeah. Read more...
My aunt Dawn passed away last Wednesday – suddenly, unexpectedly, but painlessly – while undergoing a heart procedure. The memorial was held in south Los Angeles on Saturday. When I first heard the news, I waffled for a moment about attending, since I didn’t know Aunt Dawn all that well. She was my mom’s brother’s second wife, who I saw maybe twice a year growing up at family events. But I changed my mind, made the drive down. So glad I did. In that hour long service, I learned more about my aunt and the rest of my family than I have in the past 20 years. Read more...
Ever have that question in your head? ”What’s my contribution to this world?” Been thinking about it a lot this year. Feel like I’m running in circles sometimes. Feel like I should be doing more to make the world a better place. Feel like everything is about poor old me…I know I can do something to make a difference!..I want to make a difference! But what is that? And how do I do that? Times like these I feel like I should of studied to be a doctor. At least that skill can help someone. Anywhere. Maybe all the Asian parents are right encouraging their kids to be doctors. Maybe, maybe not. Read more...
“You tried to trick your body? Like what, it wouldn’t NOTICE what it was doing? It’s just gonna wake up and say, ‘Oh look, I’m running.’” My friend was mocking me.
There are rude people, selfish people, buttholes, and a-holes. Then there are mother#*$%ers! Timothy D. Thurman from TRINITY LAW ASSOCIATES INC.http://www.trinlaw.com/attorneys.php ….remember this name Timothy D. Thurman is accused of defrauding Korean Immigrants out of thousands of dollars falsely promising that his services would prevent foreclosure. Testimony indicates that Thurman and his band of MOTHERF#&(ERS targeted hundreds of Korean immigrants who’s limited English and unfamiliarity with U.S law made them vulnerable. Read more...
Something odd is happening to 101-year-old Chinese grandmother Zhang Ruifang from Linlou village in China’s Henan province. In the past year, a mysterious protrusion, which has been compared to a goat horn, has been growing out of the left side of her forehead. The horn is about 6 centimeters (2.36 inches) long and a second, similar growth has also begun to appear on the other side of her forehead.
Medical experts are unsure of what the growth is, but it is said to resemble a cutaneous horn, which is made up of compacted keratin, the protein found in hair and nails. Such growths can appear in the elderly, especially those with a history of significant sun exposure, but a growth of this size is extremely rare.
Or maybe, just maybe…well, is it me or is everyone skirting the obvious explanation for what this woman might be turning into? Read more...
This morning I struggled up a long and lonely hill, just as I was getting my second wind I came upon a couple DWP workers fixing something. As I huffed and puffed passed them they started to laugh and mumble some sarcastic gibberish to each other. Took me a minute to realize they were making fun of me. Didn’t feel good, wanted to go back and crack a bottle over their heads. But would’ve probably gotten my ass beat, that stuff only plays out in the movies. I don’t like that feeling, being made fun of. Never liked it, it’s never been easy to deal with. Probably never will. It got me to thinking about ’criticism’. Now, there is a difference between being made fun of and being criticized. One must listen and learn from positive criticism. Only a fool thinks he’s right all the time. But then you have criticism that comes from a bad and self serving place. More to tear down, to make one feel better than another, because of whatever bullshit reasons. Take for example when someone just unloads on a movie. They hate it, hate her, hate him, hate hate hate. I say, “then you make a movie”. They say…”uh” This kind of crap needs to be ignored and flushed away in the toilet accompanied with a heavy load of kimchee jige diarrhea. Read more...
When you’re a young woman growing up in the 80’s, there may have been real women I could and should have looked up to: Margaret Thatcher, Sandra Day O’Connor, Sally Ride, Geraldine Ferraro, heck Sigourney Weaver for goodness sake! These were women making strides, making waves, changing the world! But no, I was a kid, so my female heroes were all ANIMATED. Read more...
When it comes to women on the screen, my fellow offenders Iris, Elaine and Roger are all fans of name-taking, ass-kicking, long legged characters who can outdo any male badass. They are the cool, lethal silent types – independent, resourceful, surviving and thriving on their quick wits, disarming sexuality and devastating body blows. Fair enough.
But I’d like to make a case for damaged goods.
I like train wrecks. I like characters who are way flawed, way hot, and who all need a nice stable Virgo to attempt to – and fail at – reforming them. But this Virgo also quickly concedes that you don’t really want to tame a tiger, that even if you could, it would kill the life spark in them that attracted you in the first place. Put that tiger in a cage and it will end up depressed, dead, or pissed. Read more...
If a visitor from Venus were to land on my front lawn tomorrow and ask me where they could go to harvest examples of “good” teenagers, I know exactly where I’d send them:
In-N-Out Hamburgers.
Doesn’t matter which store I go to – Pinole, Burbank, Ventura, Auburn – the teenagers working the store are unfailingly polite, cheerful, and helpful. They open the door for you without simmering resentment, they smile convincingly when they take your order, and they don’t seem to be one iota embarrassed when sweeping under your table.
They seem so genuine that I’m gonna take a big risk here and confidently claim that the minute their shifts are over, they don’t throw off their paper hats, unclasp their aprons, turn off the lights, turn up the 50 Cent, and break out the dimebags. Not that any of these things are anything but par for a “normal” American teenager, but these kids really do seem cut from a different cloth. Read more...
Ever wonder why February only has 28 days? Well actually I didn’t even really think about it until I woke today at noon and thought, holy crap its March already. The calendar first started with only 10 months, March thru December. Hence the Latin meanings for SEPtember, OCTober, NOVember, and DECember as 7, 8, 9, 10. But when the total days of the year added up to only 304 days, the Romans knew they f’d up. So they added two more months to the END of the year, January and February, to get to 355 days. After years and years of debates they finally settled with what we have now as January as the first month and December as the last, making each month almost an even amount of days. But since February was the last month created, it got the shaft with 28 days.
But how do you remember which months have 31 days and which don’t. Well here’s trick I picked up in the Navy by using your knuckles. Every knuckle is 31 and every valley is not 31. Easy right…as long as you know your months in order. But why does July and August have back to back 31 days. Well both Julius and Augustus Caesar wanted months to be renamed after them when they were rulers. And of course, they both wanted 31 days. Damn Romans think they can do anything.
That’s how you know you’re being rejected at an acting audition. Whether you’re performing a monologue or cold-reading a side or reading commercial copy, that quick ‘thank you, please move on with you life because I’m moving on with mine’ is the kiss of death. Sometimes, it’s better to hear flat out silence after an audition because it means you made them stop and think. Or in any case, stop. Read more...
Been enjoying running alone lately, maybe it’s a part of getting older, or maybe I’m turning into a hermit. Funny thing, before I discovered running I couldn’t stand to be by myself, I always had to have someone around me. Running has changed me, mostly it’s calmed me down. It’s made me less anxious, less angry, less bitter. Solitude seems, well, just easier. It’s quieter. The sounds of my footsteps and natures musical score beats any ipod running mix or people chit chat. Running alone comes with less baggage. No one to judge or be judged by. No one to follow or be followed by. The only one that’s going to beat me is me. I’m accountable to myself from start to finish. Conversations with myself are quick and efficient. No concerns about feelings being hurt or taking things the wrong way. Even the most difficult questions answer themselves after two hours of running. If not, then the question isn’t really worth asking. Read more...
I’ll never forget this great story my late professor at Berkeley, Dr. Larry Stark, told me. By then he was tenured, established and about to retire, but back in the day, when he was still getting his doctoral degree, he needed to get his technical papers published to establish his resume.
He had done all the research, run the experiments and written out his results. To better his odds, he had written up three different papers, hoping to get at least one published. He sent “Paper A” to “Journal A,” “Paper B” to “Journal B” and “Paper C” to “Journal C”. He waited anxiously to find out whether they’d been accepted for publication. Unfortunately, all three papers were rejected. Needless to say, Larry was pretty dejected.
Along with each rejection came suggestions from the editor on how he could change the paper to be publishable. So Larry set the papers aside, thinking eventually that he would get to them and make the necessary changes–maybe he would rerun some of the experiments. But then he had an idea. He decided to switch up the papers. So he sent “Paper A” to “Journal B,” “Paper B” to “Journal C” and “Paper C” to “Journal A”. And guess what? All three papers were accepted! Read more...
First there was Karen Silkwood. Then Jeffrey Wigand. Linda Tripp. And now, there’s Shirnell Smith, 44, meter maid for the city of Oakland.
She’s been issuing parking tickets for 22 years, a loyal company woman. But she has her integrity. And she has her breaking point.
Smith and three other parking officers are blowing the whistle on a secret July 24th memo issued by the parking department directing meter maids not to ticket cars in affluent neighborhoods. The two specific offenses parking officers were to ignore: parking in the wrong direction and parking on lawns. I know, I know, rich people parking on lawns? WTF?! Life never ceases to surprise. The article claimed it had something to do with narrow streets and emergency vehicles. That’s obviously code for my Hummer couldn’t squeeze past those two Beemers. Read more...
I’ve always thought that the token asian characters on television had the bad wrap. Well they do but so do other minorities. And Andre from this first video shows how Lost and Heroes hate black people. That’s right, hate! But I bet if we were in China, the first guy to die on my tv series would be the white guy ie. minority. Sorry Andre, Tyler Perry can’t write and direct every tv show and movie. All I can say is that at least you have an awesome commercial by Old Spice starring a black guy. Be proud of that.
During my run the other day, I passed a couple of kids being all lovey dovey at a bus stop. Kinda young , kinda inappropriate too, especially at 7:00am in the morning. But hey, love is a powerful thing. Made me think about my first love, well…maybe not ‘love’, but the first girl that actually acknowledged my existence. I was in 6th grade, Joy Pierson was a freckle faced red head that actually talked to me on occasion. The only time a girl talked to me was to ask for help with math homework. Once they realized I didn’t fit the stereotype I went back to leprosy status. Going ’steady’ was all the rage at the time. For some reason I thought it was going ’study’ together. Made sense, kids should ’study’ together. I so wanted to ’study’, with a girl. Anyway, it took all the courage I had, which was very little when it came to girls. I just got over the stage of girls being ‘gross’, my hormones were kicking in and I could barely keep my hands out of my pants. My best friend James, finally asked Joy for me. She was something else, she walked straight up to me and said, ”let’s share french fries tomorrow”. ”Huh?!” Share french fries together? Wow! I made it! I’m sharing french fries with a real life, living, breathing girl. YES JESUS! HALLELUJAH! Read more...
Students at my kids’ school got all of last week off, not just Monday. On the school calendar, this is called “Administrative Retreat.” On the playground, it’s called “Ski Week.” If that’s not also the name of an 80’s teen T&A comedy, it should’ve been.
This year, for once, the family and I decided to make good on playground rules. We decided to go skiing. We stayed at the Northstar resort at Lake Tahoe. It had been a while since I’d been in the snow. Let’s put it this way: the last time I attempted skiing Vuarnet sunglasses were in vogue, good skiing was described as “bitchin’” and people really did try to cram pennies into their Bass weejun penny loafers. Read more...
