October 11, 2006

• For Sale.

  The Franksabunch™ is for sale.  That's right, you heard me.  Franksabunch's Xanga is for sale. 

  Heck, the guys from YouTube just sold their company to Gobble...er, I mean...Google for 1.6 billion.  That's 1.6 billion McChicken sandwiches at Mickey D's (well, in Oregon, where there is no sales tax...in California you can only get 1 billion). 

  How much do you think I would nab on the open market? On second thought, don't answer that.

  The Asian dude is younger than me, probably has a lower degree than me (just guessing) and now he's rolling in more cheddar than Kraft. Sigh. I was talking about this the other day with someone. The bay area is oversaturated with Asian males (and females) in their twenties who are banking six figures, own at least one home and drive cars that cost the same as my med school tuition for 4 years. So many, in fact, that SF's southern cousin should be renamed "Man Jose."   I visited this one church populated with young, Asian professionals down there and I'll bet that if you eliminated all the college students, a good 90% of the males there are like YouTube's Chen...they're younger and make more money than I do. And they're shorter.  HAHAHA! (Sorry, I just had to throw that in.)

  Anyway...this is just a long introduction to my post that got interrupted by a 1.6 beeeelllion sale.

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  Do you fondue?

  Well, I fondon’t.  I learned that quite rapidly when we went to the melting pot on Friday night and my fellow fonduers wouldn’t let me use both prong things at the same time like chopsticks or put all my meat in the pot at once, shabu-shabu style. Last weekend I enjoyed the taste of my lunchtime burger and fries at Barney’s in ghetto Oakland for lunch much more than the $140 meal I had at Santana Row for dinner.  I can’t taste the difference--much less spell the words--between chardonnay, port, riesling or sauvingblancastreetfighter any more than I can between my old high school's chicken patty on bun and filet o' fish.

  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the finer things in life.  All of my ancestors buried in Taiwan probably rolled over when I shelled out mucho dinero on my limited edition koa Taylor guitar (which I left in Hawaii…sniff) and on my AWD Ford Escape.  So it’s not about money or being cheap.

  Like the person I was talking to said, "when you're buying a coach bag, you're not buying a bag, you're buying STATUS."

  I just don't fit into the NorCal culture.  At.  All.  It's not just the taste in food/wine, or that I'm the only Asian male here that makes less than 50K a year, doesn't drive a BMW or own anything from Gucci, Armani (okay, my interview suit is Armani, but I got it for 60% off...Taiwanese represent!), Prada, Diesel or Boss.  It's my body also.  With the exception of everyone's favorite Nekkid Asian, ibizajb, the majority of the Asian men up here have the body habitus of a prepubescent female and wear clothes tighter than a local Chinatown swap meet.  Thin is in.  Stout is out. 

  And heaven forbid I ever get invited to one of those "white" parties where everyone has to come dressed in all white.  The only men I know who wear all white are the immigrant murses.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

  I'm uncultured, I guess.  But you know what? I would counter that being uncultured should be the culture.  Because the culture you pursue reveals what you truly value.

  1 week after I bought my 2K guitar my friend put a dent in it.  I never brought it up with him because it was an accident, and really, it's just a guitar.  It still sounds the same.  My car has scratches, but why get upset about it?  The past few weeks I've been walking around work with these pants:

  

  Thank goodness for white coats that cover everything.  Haha!  But these pants are comfortable, so I don't care if there's a 3 inch hole!

  I'm okay with deferred wealth while guys with less education make 2-5x my salary because I know that eventually this will allow me to provide a stable environment for my future family and in my own megalomaniac way I'm trying to save the world (like Dr. Phil, except I have hair).  And you can't really do that in an altruistic manner if you're banking like a baller.

  In the end, I guess the only "culture" that really matters to me are the 3 F's.  Food, Football and Franksabu--er...let me try that again.  Faith, family and friends.  I'm content to let everything else lag behind an MTV generation as long as those 3 are taken care of. 

  So there's nothing wrong with pursuing those things.  Just make sure you take care of and never lose sight of what really matters.  

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  This movie looks insane!  It's about 300 spartans who stayed behind to battle Xerxes and his oogamillion minions in the battle of thermophylahelshsphotosynthesis.  Filmed in real time but splattered with animation (like Sin City).

  • 9:11 am
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