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Thursday, October 30, 2003
Due to a large international student ratio at my school, I've found myself in situations where using big words is both unfair and ineffective since the bulk of recent interactions have been with those whose mother-tongue isn't English. A neat observation, however, is the realization that when people speak a language that they're struggling with, they manage to tell, eventually, only the truth. It's really with some practised manipulation and informed diction that one begins to blend in half-truths and, with a little finesse, outright lies.To illustrate, my friend was reprimanded in the hall the other day by his teacher; he didn’t show for his class that morning. When questioned, he, being an extremely honest individual, in desperate attempts to simply communicate a coherent thought, said, “I, euh,.. I.. euh.. I’m sor-ree.. I.. euh.. I had.. um.. euh.. how do you say.. massive diarrhea?” “Oh,” said the shocked professor, who demonstrated he was taken aback by actually taking a step back. “Um. You know what? Don’t worry about it. Are-- are you feeling better?” My friend, who remains nameless, for obvious reasons, smiled and said, “Yes, thank you.” So, as you can see, telling the naked truth in a foreign language, no matter what the circumstances, is easier than lying, which is evasive speech. My friend hadn’t the option of saying, “I wasn’t feeling well.” In hopes of communicating some of the truth, the cold, hard facts, which, weren’t so cold and so hard, gushed forth. Essentially, without circumlocution, it was either the whole truth or nothing at all. But, as a sidenote, since being moral somehow isn’t the rage these days, the internationals seem to compensate for this holy phenomenon through their study of a certain cuss word and its fluid implementation into varieties of awkward, though exercisable, clauses. In any case, as a result of a few incidences where I proofread a friend’s assignment, a bunch of them now turn to me as their English-language maven. I'm not okay with this. They looked up the word 'maven' and they think it means 'expert'. What they don't know is that 'maven' is commonly used with sarcastic undertones. But they don't understand 'sarcastic undertones'. I just let it go since it took forty-five minutes to try and explain ‘sarcastic undertones’ and the next day they have a crude recollection that I had said something like ‘elastic underpants’. So, though they don't know it, I prove to them that I'm indeed a maven – the same way you might call a guy Einstein precisely because he's not. I tend to think a person doesn't have a stellar command of the English language when the only words readily available to him for explaining a word is with fifteen more complicated ones. And I’m no expert since, at other times, I simply don’t know the answer. Today, I caught myself explaining to my friend that they describe deceased persons as, say, 'the late Joseph Smith' because, ultimately, when you're dead, you're pretty much late for everything. He nodded his head with all seriousness. I felt horrible. I mean, I can play Balderdash at home. So, hearing that he's always late, and wanting his professor to get the proper impression of him, I did what any good friend would do: I told him the more proper word for saying you're late is ‘Sorry, I had the runs.' I find this funny because there's nothing quite like getting out of the steely eye of authority through the plight of uncontrollable bodily functions. But, no, I’m not that mean. As a true friend, I later explained that he should take that last expression as one which was ‘bundled in sarcastic undertones’. Or in elastic underpants – depending how his morning's going. Monday, October 27, 2003
A giant thank-you goes out to Iris Lee from Mississauga, Ontario, who was the first to buy the Lightning Strikes Twice CD from the website, just this past weekend. Also my thanks go out to Debbie Chan from Toronto, Ontario, who was the second to buy the CD through the site.Other testimonials from previous buyers: "I think Adrian, 8W, whatever you call him, is absolutely [astounding] and I [am glad] that I bought his CD. Never in my life will I ever again buy anything from [anyone else]." - Jessica, California (edited for spelling mistakes) "I can't believe they're charging [so little] for such a [great] product." - Albert, Toronto (edited for grammatical errors) "Putting the cello and rap together is totally [good]." - Luke, Chicago (edited for artistic purposes) "Adrian Fung, aka 8W, aka Eighth Wonder, is breaking new ground with his vision of hip hop. Not only is he skilled and entertaining, you can just tell from his voice that he is a handsome guy with chiseled arms and a Herculean torso. It would be a lie to say that I'm the first to call him simply genius. Epidemic, his rap partner, isn't that bad either." - Anonymous Sunday, October 26, 2003
Why I Couldn’t Sleep Last Night:What Spiderman really stumbled upon is an incredibly risky situation with an unbelievably lucky outcome. He strikes me as the guy that wins Bingo a lot. Given my experience, raffles strike me as a shady investment. Seeing that I never ever win anything, it's a lot like paying four dollars for a tiny piece of coloured paper with a number on it. I figure I could just do that at home. Whoever's organizing an event like a raffle will always be annoying chipper and say that the fun is in the game, the possibility of winning. Paying four dollars is fun and exciting! I’ll admit it must be fun for them. But I’m more of a ‘me’ person. Anyway, Spiderman won the raffle draw of a lifetime. He got bit by a radioactive spider and, not only did he not die, he garnered all the benefits of the spider, like walking on walls and shooting webs, while getting away with none of the inconveniences. Now if it were me, and if I did not die, not only would I not be able to walk on walls and shoot webs, but I would probably grow hair and legs in funny places, my eyes would compound together into blood-red kaleidoscopes, my lips would be replaced by two rubbery tentacles, I’d hatch a thousand eggs every spring, and I bet I’d be ugly too. So, basically, I hate Spiderman. He's the guy that won, all the time. I only won once, at Bingo, on a Royal Caribbean Cruise ship. I won and got a travel-size Battleship game and a tiny walkman. I was ecstatic until they decided "everyone's a winner" and everyone else got a Battleship and walkman. The one time I am to ever win anything, I didn't really win. If everyone's a winner, by deduction, everyone is also a loser. Many people will tell you this incident stands as the main reason why I'm such a bitter and pessimistic person today. At least Spiderman didn’t wear a belt, though. I never understood that part in his colleagues. Superman, Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman. All of them had belts. When wearing an excessively tight bodysuit, as is their wont, having a belt, an article conceived of and used principally to keep our pants up, is, if you ask me, downright stupid. See, if I were a superhero, the only thing that makes sense about the get-up would be the cape. Frankly, it's been a while since my glory days as Mr. Universe. If I were a superhero, my outfit would be all cape. Anyway, then, you have the X-Men. The whole idea with them is that they’re mutants that didn’t choose to be the way they are. They are simply ‘different’. We’re supposed to accept this. I say they’re just ‘lucky’. I can see many things going wrong in this whole mutant process. Knowing my luck, the only way I’d get to be an X-Man is if I suddenly developed some sort of embarassing mutant super power – like the ability to fart powerfully. It’d be powerful enough to produce jet propulsion and fly away; powerful enough to blow away mountains and turn winter foliage into spring harvest. I'd imagine meeting the whole crew on initiation day. And everyone’s wondering what my super power is. I can just see myself with my hands getting all clammy not wanting to tell anyone. Cyclops, who has a very cool ability to level mountains with his eye beams, is like, “So, kid, what are you here for? What's your super-power?” “Uh, I’m just really, really smart.” My childhood friend and I were talking about our old conversations about what superhero I’d be. Supposedly, when I was young, I wanted to just be me. He told me that I had told him I am a superhero. Now, Adrian had quite an ego even at seven, but I believe that I spoke better than I knew. When given the option of being a superhero, when it comes down to chance, I’d rather not. This isn’t some ‘be yourself, don’t do drugs’ sap. I just figured, superheroes never get to pick their powers and, with that being the case, I'd probably get something completely useless, really embarassing, or both. Being a superhero is risky. Seeing that I spent well until two in the morning to come to this brilliant conclusion, I will make sure I impart this wisdom to my kids one day. Well, if they ever hatch, I mean. Thursday, October 23, 2003
Some of you are more serious about Star Trek than I thought. Thanks to several lines of feedback, strangely all requesting to be unnamed, I had it pointed out to me that I misspelled Counselor Troi's name. To err so grievously on such a delicate matter is regrettable and I promise to try harder next time.On a related note, my mom gave me these packets of instant Chinese black bean mixed cereal powder. They're convenient and they're extremely good for you. You can tell you're getting a deal, as the packet reads: "Contains dietary fiber, proten, calcium,the product contains all the people especially vegetarian for nutrition." Not only does this product contain a head-splitting run-on sentence, but it also has ground-up vegetarians; however, it's not that bad since, after two spoonfuls of it, the discomfort from the issue subsides: you come to the conclusion that getting all worked up over a run-on sentence isn't worth your morning. Tuesday, October 21, 2003
The Irretrievable 8W is the new media site to add to the mess. It'll have sporadic updates; some will talk about the story and behind-the-scenes-making of the songs on the CD you'll hopefully buy, or have bought, and others will detail upcoming projects, song ideas, and news.The Irrefragable 8W and The Irretrievable 8W now both have the option of obtaining the CD through direct purchase. The price of $12 American includes shipping domestically in the States, and, as I've researched this, works out to the same amount as the Canadian price without shipping (which is 12 Canadian, as shipping domestically in the States costs 3 dollars, and 9 USD is the equivalent of 12 CAD). To illustrate that you can trust me, I'd like to point out that I did not do the math myself. Update:Paypal is not free and charges a fee for each use, at least, since they think I'm a small business with only one sale of the CD. Sunday, October 19, 2003
Being an insomniac has its distinct advantages. Such as the superlative ability to stare attentively at the back of my eyelids.Saturday, October 18, 2003
I honestly remember when Star Trek used to be cool. Or maybe I just wasn't. In any case, now that it's not cool, I'd like to point out that I never watched a single show.But, say I saw one show, does that make me a Trekkie? How about two shows? And, what happens, hypothetically speaking, if I saw 300 shows? What happens if I just happened to see five straight seasons and really, really enjoyed the finale? That doesn't make me a Trekkie at all. We also need to factor in that the bulk of my viewing saw me in fifth grade, when words like delta quadrant, photon torpedos, and phasers sounded cool. However, if this is to looked be down upon, my friend Robert routinely ate at five. He insisted it was because this was a family tradition. But we all knew that it was so that he could catch Star Trek at six. So make fun of him. (Ever since third grade, that's been my tactic when being teased: point fingers at a more intense version of whatever they're making fun of.) Incidentally, I saw Robert, who was working for VIA Rail in Toronto during Christmas break two years ago, and he was still talking about Star Trek’s battle phasers. But, you see, I'm not a Trekkie. A Trekkie is, by definition, someone who has a Romulan dictionary and can speak Klingon. A Trekkie is in no way someone who has a Captain Picard action figurine. (It was a gift. I don’t throw out gifts.) It’s neat because you knew that people were not human, and thus, aliens, principally by funny nosejobs or bad haircuts. If they had a wrinkled nose on a youthful face, they were some sort of alien; Beatles’ hair that just had an effective interaction with a comb meant they were Romulans. If they had a special affinity towards pale foundation, they were anderoids. If they could read your thoughts they were Counselor Troy. And I simply cannot be the only human being on Earth that found Counselor Troy to be the most annoying character ever. Counselor Troy is an alien that will bubble with tears if you have a constructive thought about her dress (that is, how about wearing something other than purple). What an annoying date she'd be. As we all know, girls are annoying because they like to dredge up our thoughts and thus control them by reacting with either loud hysterics or angry silence. The only defense men have is to keep verbal output revolving only around trivial things like politics, euthanasia, and capital punishment. Never mention anything to do with their weight, their facial features, or their hair. Stay away from any comments on her appearance. Don't tell them they look good today, because that implies that they look bad other days – and if these are exactly your sentiments, immediately strike up an insightful comment about the weather. But, without digressing further, as it's vital that males and females get along, you can see how a girl that is given to bouts of emoting from the weakest of stimuli and who can also read your very thoughts becomes a problem. I mean, if she did the crew any good, I’d understand. But this guy has sweat on his brow, his hands are fidgety, and his beady eyes shoot around the room in nervous, incoherent intervals. And Counselor Troy concentrates all her super alien powers into deeply penetrating observations like, “I sense uneasiness.” I mean, what’s that about? If I was Picard I would have sent her off on a solo wormhole mission. Also I find it funny how many times all the people on the bridge toppled from their seats once there was some sort of impact. If you ask me, if I'm in a big throttling thing that's known to make passing stars look like blurred lines, the first thing I'm going to want to secure for myself is a seatbelt -- maybe even a helmet. So what exactly am I saying? Um. Essentially, if Star Trek didn’t have Counselor Troy and did have seatbelts, then I’d admit that I was a Trekkie. That is, if it was suddenly cool to do so. Wednesday, October 15, 2003
The moment has arrived. Some of you have complained that I haven't written in a long time. Let's pretend it's because I was preparing this for you. Click right here to see the video for a limited time.(Thanks to Amos who stripped the DVD and uploaded the file; Michelle and David for the video; God for giving me these people for encouragement, help, and blessing.) Some of you have already noticed, but I installed a new hit counter. The only bad thing is that I am now robbed of the ability to increase my numbers to astronomical proportions with just my F5 key. However, a neat thing is that I can find out what people type into search engines to come across my site. My condolences to the disillusioned heart that has come across this site under the search for 'jilted love and hatred'. Don't worry; I'm sure that he wasn't worth it. I come in 15th on a random search on the net, though, which makes me wonder what I've been writing that has been so dark and brooding. In a related note, non-stick pans don't exist, never existed, and will never exist. Therefore, there is yet a new innovation in my cooking repertoire: in attempts to get them off the pan, I give you fried dumpling stir-fry. Monday, October 06, 2003
I realize that this doesn't describe your everyday situation, but I was recently stabbed by a clove of garlic yesterday afternoon in attempts to cook.The stale stem of the garlic has been in the fridge for several weeks and has thus sharpened itself into a lethal point. I intend to sue garlic for not having warned me of its ability to do that. Thursday, October 02, 2003
The neat thing about Blogger is that they will purposely put up ads at the top of the site that correspond to what you write about. After my last post, you might notice that the ads now link to over 900 different Neutrogena products easily obtainable at low prices, and SkinPlanet, which strikes me as a title unfit for print in a church bulletin, which offers Skin Care for all skin types.At one time, I seemed to be writing about my cello repertoire quite a bit, and many ads popped up for sheet music. Had I known these sites existed, I would have been able to get the Shostakovich Concerto, which I paid over 50 dollars for this past summer, for only 16 dollars. Makes me want to write more about Ferraris. Email of the Week: dear eight double u, i'm emailing you to ask you to keep us updated about your facial products. we're eager to know urmm how much it works. you can be like "adrian, the facial product tester." then, we'll know what works and what we shoudl buy! Micah I think if I use all of these things at the same time, the acid content of all the products combined would fry off my face. So I'm planning on using only one for a very specific duration meted out by the careful scientific procedure known as 'for however long the bottle lasts'. Keep in mind that the sudden absence of zits may simply point to a previous delay of my face catching on that puberty has been over for several years. 
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