Party Of One

There's something about going to a restaurant alone thats really cool. It's basically a date with yourself, minus all the awkward asking out, the troublesome planning, the awkward "hello," the painful silence, the awkward silence... I'm beginning to sense a pattern. Sitting in a restaurant alone, your senses sharpen. Just you, your waiter, your food, and your thoughts. Occasionally, something happens around you that makes you look up, but generally it turns out to be nothing; back to your food.

Restaurants have always fascinated me. As avid readers of my blog may know, a lot of things fascinate me: buses, trains, planes, any method of transportation really, taser guns, stupid people, Hannah Montana, stupid people willing to do anything to see Hannah Montana, Starbucks barista girls, girls, people in general, fads, fashion, the entertainment industry, how Good Luck Chuck became a movie, why anyone thinks Dane Cook is funny, did I say Hannah Montana? The lists goes on and on. The notion of being able to look at a piece of folded cardboard or a white board with "Specials" in dry-erase marker, point to a number, and then have it appear in front of you in five minutes to an hour (I'm looking at you Johnny Farinas on Elgin) is mind-boggling. In addition, everyone sitting around you each has their own story and conversation and are generally cheerful thanks to the (hopefully) great food and drinks off of that folded piece of cardboard.

Everyone sitting down at a restaurant is equal; we are all at the mercy of the people preparing and serving our food. Therefore, everyone has to be at their best behavior. Of course, sometimes, you're in a group and the conversations turn loud, fast, and loose but generally, you have to be good to your hosts, otherwise you might end up with some unexpected additions to your plate.

No one likes an unexpected surprise.

Shout Out

Even though, I don't believe in "math" or "science" or "studying," I have to send a SHOUT OUT to two schools in Fairburn, Georgia who are starting up at 15-week pilot program that will pay underachieving students $8 an hour to attend a study hall. In order to be eligible, the forty students in grades eight and eleven (for now) must be "underperforming" in math and science. Aside from the sweet more-than-minimum wage, eight graders will get a $75 bonus and eleventh graders will get a $125 bonus if their marks are raised to a B. If all goes well, some kids stand to earn $605 during the semester.

How sweet is that!? All those aspiring student body presidents out there, take note: a promise to pay students for school is coming sooner rather than later! What will they come up with next? CLOWN COLLEGE!? Wait, you're telling me they already have that?

PILLS

If you read yesterday's blog, you may have noticed a glaring story omission. Unless you've been living under a rock and didn't catch the 24-hour Heath Ledger Death-A-Thon on CNN, Heath Ledger is dead. I don't want to brag, but I CALLED IT! Well, not the death part, no one could see that one coming, horrible tragedy and what not. What I did call was the story taking front page news over at our friends the Ottawa Sun.
WHOO! Biggest headline on the front page! They did not disappoint. Let's examine the stories that took the silver medal to "HEATH LEDGER DEAD AT 28 - Hollywood In Shock, Young Ottawa Co-Star 'Sad'" (check out the random "PILLS" at the bottom of that).

-Son Charged In Murder - Grizzly family murder story? FUCK THAT, LEDGER'S DEAD!
-Not Enough Jump - Surely, a losing local sports team must be bigger than a movie star dying? Guess again.
-The Manley Report on Afghanistan - The biggest story in the Citizen and really every other paper in Canada has been regulated to a header at the Ottawa Sun, with the writer's name and picture taking over 1/3rd of the header space.
-Plus All The Oscar Noms! - Can't forget the Oscar noms, even though you can barely see it on the front page.

And not a single mention of the world's ACTUAL biggest story: stock market turbulence. I guess that doesn't really sell papers; you have to spice it up. "STOCK MARKETS HIT TURBULENCE OVER TROUBLED PACIFIC OCEAN WHILE DODGING MISSILES. TWO DEAD, DOZENS INJURED."

Chi Tea

I've been drinking a lot of tea recently. I never drank tea (except iced tea) up until a few weeks ago and for those of you that have heard the "I'm really not that Asian" rant, not drinking tea was another item on the long list that makes me a disgrace to my culture (the biggest one being my inability to use chopsticks). I guess that's the product of a kid born and raised in Canada in two non-Asian cities. Another product of an Asian kid born and raised in Canada: I'm a monster. I mean have you seen normal Asian people? The average height is like 5'. 5' 5" at most if they ate their green beans as a kid. These people are really short. Me? 6'. Every single time I go see relatives or any of my parents' Asian friends, the first words out of their mouths (in Chinese) are "YU SOUL TALL!" I think it was something in the Canadian water which therefore leads me to believe that basketball's Yao Ming was secretly raised in Canada.

I've never been good at "fitting in" with my culture. When I was little, the only Asian people I saw were at church and at home. Even when I went to a Chinese restaurant in St. John's, the owner and all the patrons were all white. A "Chinese" dinner at "Hong Kong Restaurant" (that was the name, I swear to God) consisted of fried rice, chicken balls, egg rolls, and chicken noodle soup. It wasn't even Campbell's chicken noodle soup. Living here though, my family never eats that stuff when we go to Chinese restaurants. The one place that is a "Chinese-Canadian" restaurant here (Golden Palace on Carling. The egg rolls are to die for), my mother hates. I can understand why you hate that kind of food after growing up on it, and then moving to Canada and finding out that "Hong Kong Restaurant" was the only place in your town serving "Chinese food." It's sort of like growing up with daily neighborhood shootings and then moving out of Toronto. I can't let that one go.

Where was I? Oh yes. Tea. I've been drinking a lot of it recently and I'm finding it hard when you start out. There are so many kinds, especially at Starbucks. They all sound so deceivingly delicious too. "White Blueberry." "Passion." "Green Orange Passion." The reason I say deceivingly is because these flavors taste NOTHING like their advertised fruit and need at least 6 spoonfuls of sugar to help that medicine go down. When you say "can I have a regular tea?", they just look at you like an idiot and ask "what kind of tea?" because "regular" in the barista girl's mind means "tall." That information is handy for later when you ask the barista girl "do you wanna go out with a regular guy?"

"YU SOUL REGULAR!"

Atonement

I'm back, back from a month long "hiatus." Did you miss me? You did didn't you. Since you're probably reading this on Facebook notes, you're probably just glad that you're reading something that's NOT stolen from ________ because he/she is bored. So many reposted quizzes and surveys, so little time. It'll probably take a few days for me to get back into the swing of my blog things (I'd never thought I'd live to see the day I use "blog" in a dirty connotation), but a month off has offered a lot of stupid people in the news and the world around me to go unpunished (by my words).

First to atone: Last week, Toronto Mayor David Miller's call for an "absolute ban" on handguns in Canada. Weren't you supposed to do this like... forever ago? I mean, what made you all of a sudden come up with the bright idea? Could it be the two people that died from stray bullets in the past week in your city? Or the hundreds that die across your city and the near thousands that die all across Canada each year? While an "absolute ban" will actually never happen, it's about bloody time you're speaking up. Although I do understand why he didn't speak up before: he didn't want to get shot. Understandable. After all, he does live in Toronto.

Next to atone: The Razzie Awards, the awards that claim to "de-honour" Hollywood's worst movies has some explaining to do. I think I speak for everyone in demanding a recount when "Good Luck Chuck" was shut out from the major movie nominations. Have they even seen that piece of crap?

Call up the Atone Phone: Hollywood. What has this world come to when we can't even celebrate the achievements of our biggest stars by watching a gala on TV? Instead, Hollywood's biggest nights have turned into press conferences. If I want to see awards being given out without all the prestige that comes with an awards show, I'll watch MTV Video Music Awards, thank you very much. If I want to see awards given out without all the excitement, I'll watch the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards, thank you very much.

Lastly, atone: Hilary Clinton for (among other things) crying. America can't have (another) president that cries when faced with something tough. Crying, though, has gotten a lot of people in history what they want including:

He wants his bottle.
He wants Joey.I don't know what he wants.

Some Thing Has Found You

Coming tomorrow...

1-21-08