Update

Well it's been a while since I wrote anything, some of you may be wondering what I've been up to. First of all, work has been especially busy lately. You can all usually assume that is the case, whenever the updates get rare.

There have been some highlights from the last few weeks though. One was getting to see Shubes and Sandy get married. This marks the first of the original ~509~ clan to get hitched by the way. Some pictures from the wedding:





Yes, our hands say "5-0-9" in the first picture. Yes, I know that makes us all very lame. There were plenty of interesting incidents from that evening, none of which will be discussed in detail here. Let's just say there was some tackling, and also a gay waiter hitting on Ryan.

Another landmark day was Olivia's med school graduation, last week. It was really nice to see her walk across that stage, after watching the girl work so hard for the last 4 years and make so many sacrifices to get there. I know for a fact that I would not have made it myself.

As part of her graduation week activities, we went to a graduation ball and also a Sox game. You can take a wild guess on which one I enjoyed more. Here's a pic from the game:



Next memorable event was the engagement of Brian and Grace. Another couple takes the plunge. Not that it matters what I think, but I thought it was really great thing to see. Congratulations guys!

Finally, I have to talk about getting to go to watch Conan O'Brien taping at the Chicago Theater. Thanks to Chras's email savvy and generous offer to bring me along, we got to cross one thing off of the "Miscellaneous To-Do List" of life. Conan is definitely one of the funniest people in the world, if you ask me, and I loved watching his show ever since high school days.

Even better was that his guest for that show was Dave Chappelle. So you had maybe the 2 funniest people in the world on the same stage, and me and Chras were there to see them. Very cool, I will remember the experience for years to come.

I took a few pictures there, see below (note: the ones inside are bad quality because my phone camera sucks in the dark, and also because the ushers were yelling at people with cameras, so I had to do it surreptitiously. This led to the blurriness to go along with grainy. In the last one you can kind of make out Conan shaking hands with Chappelle on stage, so it's all good.):









There were some other highlights, but I don't have time to write about them right now. Gotta get to bed. Later folks.

Banker's Hours

Every now and then, I'll hear somebody at work use the term "banker's hours" jokingly. I'm not entirely sure what it means, but based on the context, I'm pretty sure it's a way of making fun of someone for leaving earlier than usual.

For example, if I see Bob taking off in the early afternoon at maybe 2 or 3 (our normal workday ends at 4:30pm), I might say "Hey Bob, keeping banker's hours, eh?" To which he would probably smile politely and make up some excuse for why he's leaving early.

I know, it's pretty dumb, and not that funny, but people actually say it pretty often around here. At least it's better than saying "touch base" all the time. There's this girl who sits near me and I hear her say it every single day. Makes me want to punch someone.

Anyways, what I think is funny is how bankers apparently got the reputation of being lazy and having a short work day, to the point that "banker's hours" actually became a term. Sorry Anuj, it's true.

It also makes me wonder, if engineers make fun of bankers for leaving work early, what do people in other professions say in similar situations? Like if a banker sees a fellow employee going home around noon, would he/she say "hey, keeping Kindergarten teacher's hours, eh?"

Or on the other side of things, say a Japanese businessman wants to leave the office earlier than usual, does he/she have to worry about a colleague making a derisive comment like "hey, keeping electrical engineer's hours, eh?"

Major League Gaming

A while back MTV did that True Life documentary on professional gamers, now it looks like they are going to take it to the next level and have an organized league with TV contracts and everything:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_en_tv/video_gaming_tv_show_1

They say it could be the next big sensation, like televised poker in the last few years. I think, if done right, it could be even bigger than that. Could fantasy videogamer leagues be far behind? I draft T-Squared with the first overall pick!

Cartoon Wars

Not sure if anyone else has seen the last couple South Park episodes, where they take on the issue of showing Muhammed (the Islamic prophet, not the boxer) and also rip on Family Guy.

The episodes were pretty good actually. Of all the South Park episodes that try to have some political theme or message, this might be one of the most meaningful and important. At least in my opinion. I won't talk about the political stuff much here, you'll have to watch the episodes yourself and see what you think.

What I did want to talk about was the stuff they said about Family Guy. I know a lot of people love that show, which is cool, but I've tried to watch more than a couple episodes of it, and I just can't really get into it. I think I've mentioned this before on this blog. There are some funny parts, but overall I just can't say I'm a fan of the show.

At one point, I thought I was the only one who didn't "get" Family Guy, especially for someone who likes Simpsons, South Park, and just stupid humor in general. But based on some of the stuff that was said in the South Park episodes, I guess I'm not the only one.

(By the way, if any of you haven't seen the last 2 South Park episodes I'm talking about, and are the sensitive type to "spoilers", maybe you should skip the rest and come back after you've seen it. I really don't think I'm going to "ruin" anything by what I say, but just in case, that's your warning.)

Basically, their criticism of Family Guy is that their episodes have no real plot, and that the jokes are pretty much just random scenarios that pop up with no rhyme or reason. I never realized it before, but after they pointed it out, I do think that is exactly why I don't appreciate the show.

I don't know if every episode of Family Guy is like that, but they made up some mock clips of it in the South Park episode, and those clips were surprisingly dead on with the episodes I've seen of Family Guy. The family's just sitting in the living room, and out of the blue, the dad says something like "hey, remember the time I was ...", and then they go into a flashback sequence where they show that story happening.

Meanwhile none of it has anything to do with anything, it's like the writers just wanted to insert a scene that they thought would make people laugh. You get the feeling that when the writers try to construct an episode, a list of jokes or funny situations or pop culture references are written first, and then they figure out how to incorporate as many of them in half an hour as they can.

To me, it would be like Eminem writing a rap, by first coming up pairs of words that rhyme. Then trying to make sentences that end in those words, and finally to make the song, just put those sentences one after another. It just results in something that makes no sense and sounds awkwardly put together. Not that I have much experience in writing rap songs, but I would think that you should start by deciding what subject to rap about first, and then come up with the best rhymes from there.

I know, I'm expecting too much from a cartoon sitcom, it's not like writing poetry, or directing an independent film about gay cowboys eating pudding. I guess I just can't help but compare it to Simpsons or South Park, two of my favorite shows of all time. In its prime seasons, the writing on Simpsons was as polished and smoothly done as it gets. South Park came along, and it was a lot rougher around the edges and not as cleverly written, but still funny and smart in its own way.

As for Family Guy, I can see how fans think it's hilarious, and even how the random style is part of the show's charm. But personally, I have a feeling I may never really "get" it. I mean, I happened to watch some of Scary Movie 2 on TV the other day, and I seriously think even that had more plot continuity, than a typical Family Guy episode.

I don't remember the exact quotes, but in the South Park episodes, there was a part where Kyle said something to Cartman like: "How can you not like Family Guy? Its humor is right up your alley!". Which set Cartman off: "Don't you ever compare me to Family Guy, Kyle! EVER! I will kill you where you stand!"

Now, I may not get as pissed off as Cartman when people ask me how I can like Simpsons and South Park, but not Family Guy - but I understand.

Cults/Secret Societies

A subject that I seem to be hearing a lot about lately is on cults and secret societies among us. There was the whole Scientology thing, made most public by the recent South Park episodes. I also happened to read Angels and Demons a couple months ago (written by the same author of Da Vinci Code), which talks a lot about secret societies dating back hundreds of years in history. And just this morning, I was reading an article in the Chicago Tribune talking about how most of the sushi restaurants we eat at, get their sushi from a company that is closely connected to a Korean religious cult.

I guess I always believed that these things existed, but never really thought about them much. They made for good stories in movies (like The Skulls) or TV (the Simpsons' Stonecutters episode), but I just figured that kind of stuff was exaggerated for effect. In my mind, either those cults or secret societies used to exist and aren't really active anymore, or maybe they still exist, but don't really have any influence on "mainstream" society.

Now, I'm not so sure that I should take the subject so lightly. The sushi-Korean cult connection was especially surprising, since I love sushi and I go to sushi restaurants pretty often. Last weekend I went to Mirai in the city for the first time, and loved the food, but now after reading the Trib article, all these nagging thoughts are popping up in my mind.

When I was enjoying all those delightful fatty tuna rolls, was I providing financial support to some wacko who holds mass weddings and believes he is the Messiah? Worse yet, what if one day these crazy cult people decide to mess with my food in some mind-controlling or mass poisoning campaign, how would I know? Is it too late, am I already programmed to assassinate the Malaysian president at a fashion show at a later date?

There was also this Scientology article I read a few weeks ago, where this investigative reporter guy joined the group for a week and then reported on his experience. I don't know the credibility of this guy, but some of the accounts are very disturbing. And I'm not just talking about the wild stories they believe in, or the fact that the "religion" was started by a science-fiction writer, it goes way farther than that.

He describes about how everyone who joins has to reveal all their personal secrets, which go into a file that they can bring out to blackmail or discredit the person if they try to quit. Or how they have trained experts available at helping you max out your credit to pay for Scientology "treatments". How once you get sucked in, they can pretty much make you do slave labor as punishments if you piss off any higher ranking members (or as they call it, levels of Operating Thetans).

Then there's the discussion of secret societies like the Illuminati and Freemasons in Angels and Demons. Based on the inaccuracies and misleading facts I learned about when researching Da Vinci Code, plus the fact that it's a fiction novel, I would probably put the least stock in what's in this book.

Even so, I think some of the general "facts" mentioned are worth considering and thinking about. People formed these secret societies for a reason, and the fact that they have survived and perhaps thrived for so long says a lot. They obviously know what it takes to support themselves financially, and assert their interests in the political system.

How much of our banking system is run by those in these secret societies? What about the chancellors and professors at major universities, are they members too? Is it true that our senators, governors, and even our Presidents are members of these societies? Did they get to power because of their secret ties, and are their actions as government officials, bankers, CEO's, professors, etc., heavily influenced by the interests of these societies they belong to?

I don't know if I'll ever get those questions answered, but all the doubts that come up when I think about these things leave me feeling unsettled. I could be paranoid, but if any of it's true, I wonder if I could even do anything about it anyways.

Am I going to shun the entire educational system because I think I'll get brainwashed by cult ideology? Should I boycott all banks and store all my money in the form of gold bars, so that I'm not supporting some secret society? Most importantly, am I really going to stop eating sushi?

The answer is, of course, no way, I love sushi. Gonna keep eating it until I die, whether it's of natural causes or as a victim of religious cult's purging mission. Yes, I guess it's true, as they say, "ignorance is bliss".