Brian in the Write

Dealing with brown rice.

2011-11-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

We didn't like brown rice due to how badly it was cooked in the old rice cooker. But now we have a great rice cooker with fuzzy logic. It is pretty great.

The Zojirushi 10-Cup Model.

Ink deal.

2011-11-21T09:46:00.000-08:00

For those of you with a Brother printer, this is a great deal on ink. 3 PACK: Compatible Brother TN360 High Yield Black Toner Cartridge (2,600 Page Yield) for use in Brother HL-2140,HL-2170W,MFC-7340,MFC-7840W,MFC-7440N,MFC-7345N,DCP-7040,DCP-7030

Sometimes you want the finer things in life.

2011-11-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

November has barely started and I'm already thinking about Christmas. Time to put together a wishlist!

Like a kindle fire!

Or even a kindle touch!

Or how about a camera lens?

STOPTHUGS #3: Stop Oil Subsidies.

2011-10-21T19:52:00.001-07:00

I’m running out of inspiration quickly on this project, beginning to wonder if I’ve committed to seven days of posting without adequate thinking was a mistake. Will soldier on and complete this task though, for my own edification at least. This one might not be in the same vein as the others, since it actually really should go through with the right support. But, I’ll take the pessimists route and go for it.

Proposal: Ending the $122 billion dollars in financial support given to the oil industry by the federal government.

Background: The oil industry, from its inception, has received quite a bit of cash from the feds, and for good reason. Good things have occurred from the use of oil, don’t get me wrong. It stopped the harvesting of whales for their fat, it created a huge transportation system that allows people to see each other quickly, and is less polluting than coal. In order to survive past that initial investing and development stage to become viable however, it needed a lot of money and support to reach self sustainability. I don’t think it can be argued that the oil industry needs this much support right now.

Expected Positive Impacts:

Less government expenditure
Increases need for more efficient vehicles and alternative fuels
Pisses off oil executives
Sends a market signal that alternatives are more attractive to invest in.

Potential Negative Consequences:

Decreased funding interpreted as a cost to the industry, passed on to consumers.
More money spent on lobbyists (a given, and basically the status quo)

STOPTHUGS #2, A Bench On Every Corporate Block’s Corner

2011-10-20T12:30:00.001-07:00

Proposal: All large cap corporations must install benches around their buildings at semi regular intervals. In fact, if they installed

Background: With not enough sitting room in public spaces, we might as well ask our corporate person neighbors to be more friendly and provide on their private land. It’s the right thing to do. I mean if they’re not going to pay taxes the least they could do is let the rest of us have a seat on their porches.

Expected Positive Impacts:

More work for park bench installers.
More places for the poor, tired and huddled masses to sit while after a hard day of protesting.

Potential Negative Consequences:

Enforcing good neighborliness is pretty much communism.
More costs imposed on businesses leads to less business, costs passed on to consumers.
People who spent months training their legs to withstand all the standing they have to do in public around corporate buildings will be quite upset at their wasted efforts.

STOPTHUGS Introduction and STOPTHUGS #1: Limitations on Television Commercials

2011-10-19T06:42:00.001-07:00

I have been up since about 4:00 AM due to an early flight my father needed to take, and it is 5:49 AM as I begin to write this. This does not really have a bearing on the subject other than the fact that it may contribute slightly to the rather dreary mood that informs the writing.

Things are heavily stilted right now in the U.S. and the world. The deck is stacked heavily in favor of the “have a ton of wealth” vs. everyone else. That is ok for some people, but more and more it appears that the status quo is under assault, if the month long Occupy Wall Street movement is any indication.

In light of the times, I think it’s a good time to begin my series of pieces on policies that can improve the economy. I do not purport to have some grand scheme that can lift the world out of the doldrums, in fact I do not even think any of the policies I am discussing will even be practical. I do think that they are fun though and can hopefully promote discussion, aided by a catchy title:

STOPTHUGS: Stemming The Oppressive Practices That Hold Up Growth & Sustainability. Well, it was almost a perfect match (It was that or Steps To Oust, Punish, Terminate, & Humble Unemployment Perpetuating Scumbags). Oppressive is probably too strong a word, since for the time being my ideas fall well under the “whimsical” category rather than the “revolutionary.” For the time being, I will aspire to posting a week’s worth of posts on some things that we can do, and hopefully take it further if more inspiration strikes me. Now for the first proposal, since this has all been a lot of lollygagging and fol de rol.

STOPTHUGS Proposal #1: Sharply limiting how long corporations can use the same commercials.

Background: For too long, the primetime television consuming public has had to deal with watching the same commercials over and over again. It does not help that most of these commercials are absolutely terrible and irksome (I’m looking at you AT&T u-verse, with your promotion the wonderfully American notion that families will get along better once there is a better television watching experience for everyone by avoiding conflict in television recordings.) Week upon week and month upon month, these commercials are aired over and over again.

Proposal: A commercial on behalf of a large cap corporation may not run on the air longer than a month and a half (or perhaps even less.) Old commercials cut down and edited from old commercials to save advertising time do not count as new advertising and still count against the allotted time limit.

This proposal will only target corporations above a certain market cap, perhaps at least a billion, so as not to place an unnecessary burden upon the small and medium enterprises and businesses which spend very limited amounts on advertising and create an undue burden. The large cap corporations are the most primed to be offenders in this regard at any rate.

Expected Positive Impacts:

Television consumers will have to endure the same commercials far less than they are currently subjected to.
Corporations will need to spend more money on advertising to maintain the same television presence as they are accustomed to.
Advertising companies will receive more regular work as a result, and their increased economic standing will help their supply chain and their respective communities.
To put it concisely, this is a method of enforced trickle down economics.

Potential Negative Consequences:

Advertising expenditure may remain the same on an annual level, and with less money contributed towards advertising per commercial, there is a chance commercials will become even crappier.
Large cap corporations may with enough market share may force advertising agencies to do more for less.
Expensive lobbying against this policy enactment holding up the courts and valuable government time. And as a result, more money for lobbyists.
More tedious viral campaigns to pollute the tubes of the internet as corporations turn away from television and more towards social media, astroturfing and the internet in general.
Commercials which consumers may actually like will have their runtimes cut down far too soon.

Thanks for getting this far in this sleep deprivation fuelled post, and look forward to future posts. Please comment with criticism and suggestions!

Pop culture punch #2 - Good Charlotte, Girls and Boys

2011-03-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

According to the modern philosophers "Good Charlotte," girls don't like boys, but instead in fact like automobiles and currency. However, given the potential of successful men to obtain these aforementioned assets, it establishes an interesting phenomena explaining why boys may believe girls like them.

Pop culture punch #1 - Bruno Mars a man descending further into delusions

2011-03-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

This sudden return to Brian in the Write signals not only a sudden return to something I've abandoned but also a new purpose. While political commentary will still be offered on occasion when something relevant and easy for me to rant about comes to the fore, I may indeed stick to the original mission.

However, the pop culture punch now takes aim at the themes that pervade pop culture, and how it I can apply my neglected English major to help the less enlightened see the deeper themes in our developing culture (or lack thereof, some may argue).

This first pop culture punch takes a look at the tortured artist Bruno Mars whose works indicate a certain downward spiral into deeper and deeper levels of disillusionment, of if I am to be more charitable, simply the speaker that he wishes to convey to the audience.

What many consider to be his breakout single, "Billionaire" sets the tone for this discourse. A song that echoes the times of economic hardship, it captures the feeling of many who can simply wish for success that isn't coming in a time of high unemployment, tough competition and overall depression. In this piece Bruno sets up the tone of wishing for something that is either unachievable or overly hopeful, setting himself up for failure and disappointment, for in the great majority of instances, wishing does not make it so.

His next radio single "Just the Way You Are" continues this view of hopefulness, but is tinged by delusion. Here Mars is profuse in his compliments, heaping praise upon praise of his object saying that nothing she (I am assuming a female muse in this instance) can do will change his perception of her, and that everything she does is good enough. This relentless onslaught of putting "Pussy on a Pedestal" definitely sets up Mars for future disappointment, as no real woman can compete with an idealized version of herself for long. Ultimately, one would suspect this imbalance of affection would lead to alienation, disappointment and separation.

For many artists who rise and fall, such a single if left unanswered should leave the listener wanting more, curious as to whether Mars matured past his idealization or did he crash and burn horribly in a way that, while tragic, would entertain the audience.

Thankfully, Mars follows perfectly with his next single "Grenade," with the title alone evoking the kind of disastrous scenario that many feared (or were secretly hoping for). The lyrics of this piece evoke several conflicting elements indicating an unstable mind and inconsistency in message that helps describe a broken down mind.

The first part indicates a woman who clearly does not return his affections (perhaps tired of his worship hm?), indeed rejecting him wholly. He however, not able to move on, goes on to describe how he would embark upon all manner of self destructive actions, several of which speak of a certain sort of death wish that only the most unrealistic and romantic of us can hope to achieve. This in itself would speak volumes except for a statement he makes in surprise, that she would not reciprocate these actions for him. It would be far too much to expect someone who already loved you to subject themselves to such risk. To expect that this woman, who has clearly moved on by now to do the same speaks to the complete unreasonableness of the speaker, who expects a person, apathetic at best, to die on his behalf.

Why is Virginia Thomas in the news?

2010-10-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

An odd thing has been making its way through the news lately, that being that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has popped her head up to bring up an old beef with Anita Hill and I'd guess creating quite a bit of embarrassment for her husband.

The news is common enough, and covers it well here. So enjoy the read if you've managed to miss this piece of news.

So why is she bringing herself to the fore again with this same old story? Honestly, I didn't care when I heard the news. Sounded like a case of an annoyed woman bringing up old news because she had been holding it in, and had the strange thought to bring it up. And so we have the news.

But a conversation with my father pointed me out to the more obvious conclusion that I should have guessed and probably wiser heads than mine have come to as soon as the news broke, that it is for political reasons. With an agenda, Virginia Thomas had a very effective tool for getting her name the google searches, page hits, tweets and "bloglosophizing" that is typically warranted to a celebrity sex video. By bringing up other sex related charges again and goading your target into creating a public complaint. In a way it is quite clever in that she herself didn't create the news herself, but rather Anita Hill.

All these are fine and dandy from an effectiveness position. It's not the first nor the last time a person has leveraged something for political exposure.

But what annoys me is something brought to my attention that she has said in the past. According to an interview in 2007:

Virginia Thomas: “I think there’s a lot of theories, but I hope she one day calls up and apologizes, and I look forward to forgiving her. “

To Mrs. Thomas: If you looked forward to forgiving someone so much, I'm sure you could have managed to do that on your own time without needing a prompt from Ms. Hill. If you had managed to do that before, we wouldn't have this news taking up airtime. But then again, that'd be a waste of a publicity bomb wouldn't it? So congratulations, you are newsworthy again Mrs. Thomas.

I'd add some links, but I'm sure you all can do a search on "the google" if you guys want, and there's new stuff every day. I'll admit I was curious myself.

When a bowl of Phở becomes out of the ordinary

2010-02-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

Routine is comforting. It's presence reassures, and is both salve and detriment of human nature. At its best, it presents us with security, a feeling that things are in their place and we are where we belong, at least within a certain time frame.

A less favorable but important analysis of routine is that it can be considerably debilitating.

Today is the second day of the year of the Tiger. In that spirit, I decided to try to break out of my frame of comfort, staying in and having something home cooked as is my usual. I have to be sad to say that by simply going out to eat on my own I managed to break my usual routine for weekends.

Nevertheless, it was a good thing that I hope to continue, slowly expanding my comfort zone. As I walked to the phở restaurant from my apartment I felt, more a part of the real world. Walking past the kindergarten, neighborhood park, and the assorted neighborhood stores (often with bars on the windows) I couldn't help but feel a bit more alive and active, a piece of the painting that is Hawthorne (that's the city I live in).

When I finally got to the restaurant, I had a lovely chat with and older French Canadian lady across two tables, who attempted to guess my occupation, quite unsuccessfully I might add. Guesses included artist, actor, accountant and doctor. I have to say many of the guesses flattered me.

I felt like I was a part of a slice of life fiction, the polite young man humoring the older lady with willing conversation. It was nice. It also makes me wonder what other experiences I have prevented myself from having, by cloistering myself in my apartment on weekends.

I hope this avoidance of routine, becomes more routine.

Idle ramblings

2010-02-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

It's only been a few weeks since my last post. That's not so bad is it? Well, I guess it really is a bad thing!

Staying committed is an utmost necessity to maintaining a person's character. Giving up erodes the self's sense of worth. Enough philosophizing though, the only proper response to sloth is to be more actionable.

Content Copout Monday: Newsworthy Haiku

2010-01-25T13:53:00.000-08:00

At least I'm posting something! Feel free to send me articles and I'll try to put them into a lovely 5-7-5 format if you like.

This one's been beaten to death already I know:

Conan O' Brien
NBC Screwed him over
Jay Leno, you suck.

Wondering about charity.

Ten bucks to Haiti
I wonder if it's enough
Hoping for the best

Black Eyed Peas mistakenly awarded...

I gotta feeling
You did not really win it
Too bad Black Eyed Peas.

Parent's do the darndest things.

Guy sells kid for these,
Coronas, Modelo, meat,
Gatorade as well.

Flash Fiction Friday: The Story of Joe Nitters

2010-01-15T15:21:00.000-08:00

First in a series of fictional short stories, I think this ideally is a good end to the week. Flash fiction, for the uninitiated is a short story with an imposed cap on words used. I've seen numbers as low as 300 and as high as 1000 being the cap so we'll just see what happens. First story here we go:

The Story of Joe Nitters

It isn't every day you find yourself staring down a barrel and wonder what it is in life you did to deserve your current fate. For Joe Nitters, it was only Monday through Friday that he did this at the Keleptown Barrelworks, from 8 to 5 with occasional overtime.

He didn’t give much thought to what the barrels were for. They mostly went to the nearby fishery to be filled with sardines, though the occasional salt packer and wine maker would put in a large order. When he had just started, such crunch times often ended with a bottle of whiskey, antiseptic, tweezers and needles to extract the splinters he’d gamely ignored ‘til shutdown. These days the skin of his mitts were as tough as good quality book bindings.

But today was ordinary and special. Ordinary in that there were no special orders and special in that it was his birthday. He expected a round of beers with Buck, Tom and Pat “Bookie” Dougan. So when they got off, his chums took him to Chuck’s, had themselves a round of beers and watched the game while gossiping, swearing and trying to toss peanuts into Old Man Pug’s pint glass, resident bum and institutionalized charity case at Chuck’s.

After eight, or was it ten rounds, Joe insisted on walking to do a bit of thinking. His Buck, Tom and Pat “Bookie” Dougan refused to let this happen, and eight or ten rounds became fifteen. It was a better night than most.

Word count: 250

Out with the new, in with the old - Opinions on NBC wanting to bump Conan for Leno

2010-01-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

I just don't get the rewarding of sub par performance. As many of you are well aware, NBC wants to give Leno his old time-slot back and Conan thinks this is a bad move.

I'm firmly on the side of Conan here, but I suppose I'm biased in that I've generally liked Conan's material more than Leno's. I'll take some floppy red hair over a huge chin any day of the week as well.

But from thinking of it from a position of reasonability and rewarding good results, why is it that they choose this path? Aside from all that contractual mumbo jumbo that I am not nearly qualified to critique, it just smacks of bad sense!

The notion of rewarding the old and archaic is, wait for it, old and archaic. Jay Leno has not delivered in his capacity at 10. Why do they predict he'll suddenly become funnier if moved back a few hours? Sure it will be less competitive against other, stronger performing shows, but that was his responsibility to perform.

Conan's ratings have not been strong either, but if the internet is any viable measure of support, Conan has it. NBC is going the fool route here by propping up Leno, who would probably pay quick dividends provided he is able to woo the old crowd back, but looking forward, you need to appeal to younger audiences. That and Conan hasn't had enough time to prove himself.

When you're put into a situation you've agreed to do, its your job to work at it, make it happen and prove that the decision was a good choice. Competition is harder than expected? Work harder, do something different, or stand aside.

Mad Libs Monday

2010-01-11T15:12:00.000-08:00

Due to it being Monday but still wanting to post something, I am going to use some help from this online Mad Libs style website.

Enjoy! Or... don't.

The Great Mural

This week, we are making a giant mural in art class. The class voted on the theme for the mural, and donkey punching got the most votes. We are using many things to make the mural, such as skanky cats and Stanford students.

Our teacher, Peter North, has assigned students different tasks. Some students will punch the Stanford students. Other students will spank the skanky cats. The mural is going to be so pensive when it is finished!

Some students have special tasks. Brian is a very talented ouchless bandaid tester and will paint donkeys on the mural. Shakespeare is a good writer and will write a poem about donkey punching to be displayed next to the mural.

At the next open house, we will show our teachers and families the mural. Then people will know why our class loves donkey punching so much!

Marriage - What's in a name?

2010-01-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

Lets start off controversially shall we?

The word marriage should have no place in legislation. All this first cousin marriage vs gay marriage vs human and dog marriage is completely bunk, and the fact that this issue has been tearing this country into such divisive factions should be a complete non issue, but alas, it is not.

The "protection of marriage" is a power play by anti gay proponents that smacks of ignorance and simple bad public policy. To me, the problem is the bandying of the word "marriage" in legislation, and the lack of rights given by civil unions in comparison. The sad fact is that with marriage so ingrained within law, that we find language itself obstructing public policy.

Marriage should be defined as strictly a social or religious construct, and civil unions elevated to the level that marriage currently affords. Marriage, in its newer, less empowering status could be given by churches, wiccans, judges or just trusted friends of suitable authority. And anyone who doesn't approve of another's relationship could simply resolve their own conflict by saying to themselves, well that's just some weird mumbo jumbo marriage, but whatever.

The word marriage itself should be struck from all legislation. Once this linguistic gymnastics takes place, no longer are anti gay marriage activists able to claim that affording gay couples the same legal rights is threatening marriage, unless they want to claim that now civil unions are now under attack.

Of course, perhaps I underestimate the maliciousness with which some people would refuse equality to people who are different, even with the protection of marriage off the table.

Happy New Years, and a new start to this blog.

2010-01-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

Happy new years everyone. As part of the goals of the new year, I am relaunching this website with a newer, if somewhat more ambiguous purpose.

I think we're all glad that 2009 is behind us and we are tentatively hopeful about 2010. According to hearsay from my aunt, the Chinese Zodiac said that 2009 was supposed to be a pretty terrible year, and looks like the horoscope was right, in spades.

According to this, this year isn't going to be a piece of cake for me either (I'm a dog for what it is worth).

At any rate, I had lost the point of why I wanted to post this. My sensei (I'm taking martial arts) said something I found very poignant yesterday, that while many people make resolutions, those are destined to fail. What we should do however, is set goals for ourselves. They seem similar in direction but there is a key difference.

The idea of a goal presents an objective that we should look towards achieving. We are able to make plans and take incremental steps towards reaching the goal, which is a much better way to improve, rather than making simple pass fail statements that usually lead to failure and self disappointment.

That said, these are the goals I am setting for myself.

Get into better shape
Help foster goodwill within my family
Improve professional relations
Eat out less, cook more at home
And of course, give a firmer commitment to updating this blog

Happy new years everyone, good luck to you all in reaching your goals and meeting the challenges that 2010 will bring.