how it's really quite this simple

jet blue > virgin america > this > any other american airplane company.

how this might be the strangest junk mail i've ever mistakenly received

unedited:

How are tou my dear Donzi? Your sister told me you lost lots . Are you ok? I know you can't sleep enough my sweet baby. Theresa told tou are excellent doctor and you love your job. In this world, nothing is easy but when you try your best God help you and blesse you my sweet Donzi. Thank you for Theresa and she came yesterday evening for clean . This afternoon 4pm she go see Dr. Lui. Now i said ;good nignt my baby; and nice and beautiful dream. I love you. from your mom

here's my guess:

donzi and his mom had some sort of rift. they no longer speak. in fact, she didn't even know that donzi is a doctor. so the rift had to last for a decade because it takes that long to get through medical school.

she only knows that he's a doctor because for some reason he sends a cleaning maid (theresa) to her and she accidentally let his occupation slip.

donzi's sister also told his mother that he lost something - maybe weight? but she didn't tell his mother that he's a doctor.



how i long for the simple days of kenyan princes and their unclaimed fortunes.

how you learn something new every day

when someone yells "code seven!" inside a walgreens at union square, it means that someone just ran out of the store because he stole a tiny jar of vaseline.

how not even garnering the democratic presidential nomination can save you from the wrath of rick astley

yep, you know that you've made it when you've been rickroll'd.

and when you watch this version, you realize how genius this is.

and, of course, how sad that someone has that much spare time.

how i have ten olympic sized observations

here's what i got on my mind about the olympics, which has been televised somewhere near my eyesight for about 16 hours a day:

1. best moment of the olympics so far: i was gonna say jason lezak's come-from-behind american victory against the arrogant french in the men's 4X100 swimming relay, but i need to go with the chinese men's gymnastics team laughable and awkward high-fiving after their routine. it's truly the stuff olympic dreams are made of - or, at least, mine.

2.best viewing experience of the olympics so far: this one goes to swimming again, and you can pick between the green line in the water that tells you how the racers are doing against the world record, and the underwater cam that truly gives you the best look into strokes and their pull. only downside: it's also a cock cam. and it's even worse when the men are swimming.

3. best play i've seen so far: i'm gonna go with dwayne wade's falling-out-of-bounds cross-court alley-oop to kobe bryant that was even more dynamic than what i just typed out. i wish i could link to it, but nbcsports.com doesn't let me. can't expect a television network to understand linking.

4. funniest video (non chinese men's gymnastic team high-five edition): the slow-motion footage of track sprinters running towards camera. intuitively you know they're booking it right at you, but they're blinking very slowly and their cheeks are flopping like a old woman's tits during an earthquake.

5. worst spectator sport: i would say water polo, because all you see are swimcaps moving slowly in the pool and a ball being passed around the perimeter. but their treading is just mindboggling and painful to imagine. so let's just say nothing is as miserable as equestrian, especially when the riders wear top hats. that outfit just makes you think that it doesn't take much to be an olympian.

6. best villain: i changed my mind on this one. i originally wanted to pin this one on france's alain bernard for his arrogant boasts before the 4X100, but he shit the pool when it was up to him, so he got what he deserved. but with the recent racist photos taken by the spanish basketball team and their completely ignorant defenses of them, i just want to see the american team completely depants them - even moreso than i did before. if they played the way they did against greece, they should.

7. best michael phelps stat i learned this week: he has the legs of someone 6'0", so they're much stronger for someone who is 6'4". he has the reach of someone 6'8", which gives him a stronger pull for someone his height. his heart pumps twice the amount of blood than a normal heart. and he is apparently allergic to kryptomite.

8.random sports that i've randomly watched: field hockey. badminton. equestrian. water polo. fencing (epee). and the weirdest of them all: synchronized diving. it's the creepiest thing on the planet. you've been warned.

9. best line i wrote on deadspin.com about the olympics: based on china's replacing a child singer with a lip-syncing prettier child actor and their "16-year-old" women's gymnasts with training bras, "if china were a character, it would be the star on the funniest sitcom ever."

10. best thing about the olympics: nobody in china has ever heard of brett favre, and they don't care.

how if you don't get chills from this, you're probably french

in case you haven't seen it yet, here's the new nike basketball spot featuring marvin gaye and his revolutionary version of "the star-spangled banner" from the 1983 nba all-star game.

and before some of you write in and get on my case about my hypocracy on this, let me set the record straight: marvin gaye took the national anthem and turned it into something completely new, and he sang the hell out of it - not to show off, but to tell a different story using the same words. he didn't vocalize it and exaggerate certain words so that the song served a selfish purpose, like you know who did a couple of years ago to show off.

marvin gaye turned an old standard into something new.

i dig that. and this spot.

goosebumps.

how i wish i could be as funny as this

of course, whenever i write a line like that, i'm talking purely about the onion. this time, in video form.

enjoy.

how it's august, and i'm sure enough to call it

yep, i just saw hands down the best film of the year, and we're not even into the prime months of november and december.


starring christian bale, aaron eckhardt, heath ledger, gary oldman and maggie gyllenhall
written and directed by christopher nolan
viewed at the kabuki sundance theaters, san francisco, ca

well, well, well. even with all the hype and anticipation, even with everything i thought it would be, even with the tall heights of the first epic tale, still this film surpassed anything my imagination could conjure up. it took the groundwork from "batman begins" and built on it, sharpened it, raised it, perfected it.

it's a masterpiece, really, and everything you'd want from a film of this genre.

of course, it's got some advantages. we're already head deep into the psychological scars of bruce wayne. we've already spent some time into the darkest recesses of gotham city. we've already survived ra's al-ghul, and although we didn't agree with them, we saw their point. we felt the tumult between the millionaire playboy and his childhood love, and also his bonds with his loyal assistants. the foundation's been laid.

but, with the right gardener, every good foundation will sprout something beautiful. or, in this case, depressing. we peel more layers off the scars. we see how dismal constant fear can turn a city into desperation. he see how a man without fear of dying can commit unfettered terrorism. we see that love can take many forms.

this movie is deep. the script is spotless. the acting is tremendous. the drama is thick. the tension is gripping.

and my nerves are shot.

i haven't even begun talking about heath ledger yet. but his performance makes jack nicholson's look like amateur hour. he sells the psychotic. his every word is a symphony of terror. his look, his posture, his cadence, his stares - hell, the joker's everything - his entire being feeding from a horribly scary place. he wears his creepy on the inside and outside. he's given the perfect script and character study, and colors it with the perfect performance. give him the award already. ain't nobody touching him this year.

it's truly a shame. but trust me, that's the only one you'll find in these 150 minutes.

if you're not one for chills, if you're not one for deep thought, if you're not one for drama and suspense, if you're not one for the perfect marriage of superhero and logic, and if you're not one for the highest levels of art, then stay home.

otherwise, he's calling for you.

how facebook is an amazing teaching tool

beyond being an amazing social networking tool, facebook never ceases to teach me. to begin with, i learned about the los angeles earthquake two minutes after it happened due to the status updates of my friends who experienced it. cnn came in a good nine minutes later.

and today, also by reading my friends' status updates, i was shocked at how many of them were absolutely shocked that a politician could actually reveal himself to be a scumbag.

what, you expected integrity, honesty and fidelity in someone who takes a job that attracts those hungry for power?

you expect them to actually be, you know, human?

puhleeze.

how the opening ceremonies completely blew me away

i think everyone believes that these olympics by the host country could be an amazing achievement or a colossal bust. of course, there's the olympic spirit of overachieving athletes that overtakes everything. but there's also all of china's problems struggling against all of china's potential. beyond winners and losers, there's the drama of how china will do while under the microscope of the world's eye.

and believe you me that i'm not one for pomp, and don't get me started on circumstance, but the opening ceremonies of the olympics had both of them in full force.

it's a good sign.

it was visually, emotionally, artistically and technically staggering. it was gorgeous, poetic and eloquent. it was dynamic and breathtaking. i mean, the people running on the globe - whatthefuck?!? truly amazing. just impressively well thought out and executed, from the first moment to the last, with yao ming marching with the 9-year-old survivor and hero of the earthquake from sichuan, it's a great sign for a great seventeen days.

hell, i wrote all that and didn't even mention the skywalking torch bearer.

and the unbelievable fireworks.

wow.

holy crap wow.

i'll never forget it.

especially if we get much more of jennie finch, and nothing of the menu at guolizhuang restaurant.

also: while china impressed everyone in the world who had a television and two eyes, our chinese restaurant here in san francisco took two and a half hours to deliver dinner, and it tasted like, well, the menu at guolizhuang restaurant. whatevs.

how it's a new world, people, and this is how we do things

i got two emails tonight, and they both help out two good people.

the first one is a link to a facebook page for "the myth of lost", an unauthorized look into that amazing tv show by my friend, marc oromaner. if you're facebook inclined (and if you aren't, what's wrong with you?), then become a fan of the book and you'll be notified when it comes out in september.

and then i got another e-mail, this one from my friend mike o'neill about his company, "the jimi". so do the click thing and help a brother out:

We just got some pretty great news about my company. We’ve been chosen as one of the twenty semi-finalists in the Forbes Magazine ‘Boost Your Business’ contest. It’s a small biz competition with a first prize of $100,000 to invest in your business. Each semi-finalist puts up a 30” elevator pitch video and readers vote their favorite. These votes determine the top 5, who then get to present full on business plans to a Forbes panel of experts.

Here’s the link. It’d be great if you could vote for us and email anyone and everyone you know, and ask them to vote for us too. We’re currently ranked 2nd unofficially, but that could be short-lived, so we need all the help and exposure to as many people as we can get to stay in the top 5. Feel free to use any legal means necessary! Thanks.

i'd feel dirty about this, but mike and the jimi absolutely deserve all the praise and votes they'll get. hopefully, it'll be enough.

how they absolutely, positively could not escape his wrath

ladies and gentlemen, may i present to you, triumph the insult comic dog at comic con.

and yes, it's everything you'll think it'll be.

how i know what i saw, and i don't think i liked it

i've successfully tivoed the three exhibition games that the men's olympic basketball team has played so far (against turkey, lithuania and russia), and although they've won every game by over thirty points in each, i can't saw that i'm all that impressed. they're gonna get beat - maybe not against the weaker teams, but spain, argentina and greece are definite threats.

first off, these teams they're played clearly aren't showing their full deck. how do i know this? well, nobody in their right minds would play the americans in a man defense, but that's mostly been what they've seen. these teams might not be as athletic or as talented, but they aren't stupid, either. these games don't matter, and they're treating them as such.

secondly, when they have gone zone, it hasn't been very exotic - except for the "guard the man in your zone" defense that russia played for a moment. and that absolutely confused the americans into bad shots, turnovers, bad spacing and insecurity.

thirdly, there's been a plethora of bad shots taken by the americans that were forced up for no real good reason. there's been a ton of 1-on-5. there's been a lot of fadeaways. and yeah, it might work against teams that just aren't as talented or athletic, but that absolutely won't fly against spain or argentina, teams that are on the same athletic plane.

and that's my point. it seems like they're still running NBA offenses against international teams, which doesn't really make any sense against non-NBA defenses. don't get me wrong: isolation plays work in a league with strident defensive restrictions. but there's none of that in international ball, where systems often overcome athleticism. we still can't seem to grasp that.

it just blows my mind how there's so very little offensive imagination in this country. it's the "same old same old" by every single coach. "give the ball to your best scorer and have him go" is not an offense. and neither is "give the ball to someone and have them create", which is what i've seen so far. it relies on a player dribbling into trouble, and that's never a good idea, no matter how unselfish this team might be (and they actually have been, for the most part). there's still not much movement without the ball. and strange defenses are eliciting predicatably strange shot selections. it's much of the same. then again, maybe the americans are playing possum too. could be.

on the plus side, the defense has been tremendous, although the pick-and-roll defense (and backdoor defense) is still a little spotty. and that's not gonna work against argentina, spain or greece. but it's been good enough, and has been the impetus on many of their big runs, with points coming mostly off the break.

can we win just by running? right now, it looks like we better.

i just hope it doesn't come to that.