1/30/2002:

Much as I hate to say this, this strip was absolutely true. I hate telemarketers, especially in those precious hours that precede wakefulness. I know, my schedule is such that I'm getting up as the working world is thinking about their midmorning coffeebreak, but is that my fault?

Oh, and about the voice thing... hm. I really have no excuse. I'm a tenor. My voice range is not in the "manly" section when I'm tired, or startled, or strident, or, hm, maybe this is a problem. When I was in high school, my sister had also moved back home. I got confused for her on the phone so many times. She would get called my name as well, but for some reason, that doesn't seem as demeaning, especially to a scrawny Asian boy in the throes of adolescence. My brother in law (who once carried on a good beginning of a sweet conversation with my sister before realizing that he was actually talking to me) says that the confusion is due to the similarities between our speaking styles, but I think that's just smokescreen.

We had an improv show on Tuesday. We gave people about 1 day notice, due to disorganized leadership on our end, so I think that the 10 people we got was a pretty good size. Next week'll be better. This is what I tell myself.

Can I say that Frequency is liquid psychedelic fun for the PS2? Sil says that the visuals get boring after a while, but really, this game is all about making music and so any graphics that serve that purpose suit me just fine. The music itself is not what I usually listen to (but I'm developing new appreciation for electronic/techno). My favorite song so far (I've unlocked about half of them) is Freezepop's Science Genius Girl, with such trippy lyrics as "I wear a white lab coat" and "When I clone a human being, it will want to hold my hand / when I clone a human being, it will be a member of my band." I want to hear the song again, but I'm going to be considerate to Sil and not subject her to another listen.

I'm preparing a Chinese folk tale for my adapted story in Storytelling class. So, I thought of the five chinese brothers. I was looking for the text online but I only found book reviews like this one which make me feel for the state of American education. So, horror of horrors, I had to physically drag my butt to the library to look for the book. And, I hate to say it, but browsing the shelves of the children's section was a lot more fun than clicking around in google. Plus, I found a slew of old books that my mom used to read to me when I was little and I took those as well. Meatspace 1, Internet 0. Sigh. I loved going to the library as a kid. Heck, I love going to the library when I'm at home. So why is there such trepidation here at school? I really have no answer. I guess I'll be hitting Evanston Public a lot more in the future...

Anyway, re: the story, Sil thought it was the seven Chinese brothers. Sure enough, I found a copy of that story as well. Turns out that Five Chinese Brothers was written in '38 and the illustrations are considered to be racist. Seven Chinese Brothers was written in 1990, with many more connections to culture (the Great Wall and Emporer Ch'in Shih Huang are mentioned) and racially friendly illustrations. But after reading both, let me say this. The text of Seven Chinese Brothers sucks compared to the story in Five Chinese Brothers. I even found a little green book entitled Six Chinese Brothers (same basic gist of the story, but still with unflattering Asian caricatures as illustrations) which was better written. All I can say is that in the author's attempts to make the story politically correct, she wholly ripped the guts from it, in my humble opinion. I'm not saying that it's good to have children looking at illustrations like the ones in Five Chinese Brothers and have them thinking that Chinese people all have squinty eyes, long queues, and inscrutable smiles, but I think it's worse to read them poor prose when there are better alternatives out there.

I take my folk tales seriously.

kip