the rest of my apartment now looks incredibly shabby. as do the boxes of dvds and videos that somehow never got unpacked. but the couch looks GREAT. some of you may know this because it is the same couch ayumi and brian have. that's right, after waiting a year to try and find the perfect couch, i decided that i wouldn't do any better through intensive couch shopping than i would be just copying them. sorry.
my living room is slightly crowded now. hopefully this will change when i add an ottoman and bookcase, both to arrive, say, in a month. ha. yay!
OCA DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY FOR RACIST TSUNAMI SONG PARODY
Washington, DC -- The Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), the national Asian Pacific American (APA) civil rights and education group and its over 80 chapters and affiliates nationwide, condemns the broadcast of the "Tsunami Song," sung by the radio staff and promoted by the hosts of the Hot 97 New York City WQHT FM "Miss Jones in the Morning Show." That broadcast aired repeatedly from January 13 to January 21, 2005. OCA calls for the removal of radio personalities Miss Jones and Todd Lynn and that Hot 97 WQHT incur a fine or other sanction for broadcasting inappropriate, racially-offensive material.
The morning radio staff sang a bigoted parody that exacerbated the pain and suffering of the recent South Asian tsunami victims and made racially charged statements encouraging hatred, scorn, and violence towards people of Asian descent. The "Tsunami Song" contains unmistakably racist epithets in its lyrics, including:
You can hear the screaming chinks.
There were Africans drowning/
Little Chinamen swept away/
You can hear God laughing, 'Swim you bitches swim.'
While introducing the song, host Todd Lynn threatens,
"I'm going to start shooting Asians."
i went to the guitar center on monday night to get my guitar restrung. no, i don't play the guitar. but i used to, (kind of), and i wanted to pick it up again. brad, who works in the acoustic section, was very nice. he used to play with the gin blossoms sometimes.
anyway, i was there for a good while, because brad had to also help other people who came in. while i was waiting around, reading "the acoustic guitar bible," a kid, maybe 16, sat down next to me and started playing a guitar. he had seemed pleased earlier when i was able to identify that the song playing overhead was postal service and not deathcab for cutie, so he started asking me about what kind of music i listen to, and struck up a conversation. brad came by and made some crack about the kid (josh) hitting on me, at which point he laughed but then very quickly apologized and assured me that he was NOT hitting me. this struck me as a little curious, since i had assumed as much, give that he had to be at LEAST ten years younger than me.
at any rate, by the time josh was at the cash register purchasing something, i had already turned back to talking to brad. at this point, josh called my name, and when i turned, he brandished his credit card at me (like, full body brandished, feet splayed, arm all the way out, like an enthusiastic mentos commercial), and exclaimed, "CHECK IT OUT!!!!"
this has got to be the oddest pick-up line i have ever heard. (brad looked over, sadly shook his head, and said, "dude, she's not impressed...") of course, given that i now knew he had spending power to flex, i went home with him.
my jar of jiffy (smooth) peanut butter indicates that it should have been sold by january of 2004. it does NOT say consume by january of 2004. it smells good and no oil has separated out.
i ate some this morning and did not get sick. as i recall, i have always thought of peanut butter as an immortal food, living in the cabinet for years until i had time to consume it. i am going to assume that this is right.
yes. okay.
today i brought a microwavable bag of popcorn to work. (don't worry, i followed the "popcorn etiquette" that is so helpfully taped up in our kitchen, instructing us not to open the bag until we get back to our offices to avoid unduly buttery-smelling halls.) on the microwave, i saw a "popcorn" button, which is fairly normal. however, after i hit it, it said, "popcorn sensor," which i had never seen before. apparently the popcorn sensor measures poppage and stops it at exactly the right time.
which it did. i have never had such a perfectly microwaved back of popcorn -- completely full but no burnage. i am, indeed, impressed.
i'm watching one of the newer queer eye 1s, the one with the soldier who is going to take off for a minimum of 545 days. it's very sweet, they clearly really felt for the new young couple that the guy is going to be gone, because they went ALL out. aside from making over the apartment, giving them a wedding with a big ass presidential suite overlooking central park, they also gave $5000 in gift certificates to jc penney in case the wife needs anything while her husband is gone, a digital video cameral so the wife can film their daughter, two powerbooks so they can keep in touch, sweaters scented like each other so they can have them when the part, a year's worth of grocery delivery, a box full of dvds, and a toaster and stand-alone mixer. omg, and a bunch of stuff for him while he's away -- north face computer backpack, sunglasses, underwear, running shoes, sunscreen, deodorant, soaps, etc. the wife is totally crying. AND they made a little child's bedroom for the daughter, along with a year and a half's worth of baby clothing. this is really a very touching episode, but if i were another one of the straight guys who had been made over, i would feel totally GYPPED. hah.
aww, and this soldier guy is so sweet and soft-spoken. awww...
so i'm watching queer eye for the straight girl for the first time. the four people's titles are:
the locale
the look
the life
the lady
okay. so the sole purpose of the lesbian on there is so that there is a female? AND, her name is HONEY.
i don't like this. they are trying way to hard to be sassy. in queer eye for the straight guy, they kind of felt their way around and developed their personalities. here, it's like their sole focus is on how to be as sassy as queer eye 1 without looking like it's all the exact same.
and since when are straight girls the ones in society who need a makeover? they are basically just going to make over a bunch of straight girls who look like lesbians. i did like it though when the lesbian had the straight girl put on a leather jacket and they danced around like a couple of dykey chicks.
oh, and now that we are getting toward the end, i don't like the home, either. i mean, sure, it looks much better than mine, but damon is no thom. it's pretty in a trading spaces kind of way. hmm.
anyway, i "worked at home" today and watched empire of the sun while doing so. how many of you guys remembered that ben stiller was in that? he looked good. and john malkovich, too.
ugh. i should go do something productive.
but not much is going on. i went to the massage place on montana yesterday, which was great. it had been so long that apparently i had a crapload of toxins in my body that caused severe grogginess for over 1/2 hour after i was done. during this period, the receptionist was bitchy (maybe because i was slow to figure out what was going on?) and bilked us out of the discount that they were having for the day. when the facial lady told us about it (i had gone with my mom and mimi), i asked the receptionist if we got the discount for my mom's facial and she shrugged and said, "no, i didn't know about it. sorry." and that was it. i guess it was too much trouble to give it to us? that and i'm pretty sure she was lying, because when the facialist came out she had gone and whispered something to the receptionist -- all i heard was, "did she know about the . . . ?" and the receptionist said, "no." so maybe she just forgot or was lazy or something.
anyway, the massages were good so now i am torn because i liked the place up until the receptionist, so i'd like to go back, but was annoyed at the receptionist and kind of don't want to go back. she was a bitch, but in that stupid immature college girl way. anyway.
back to work.