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Get off the court!

If you can’t play…get off the court!

Sorry, I know this is kind of mean, but really…if you can’t play, get off the court!

I kept thinking that over and over while playing volleyball last night.  I try to hit the open gym nights here once a week, usually on Mondays, since the competition is best then.  It is not written on the wall, but it is understood that 2 courts are reserved for advanced players, while the 3rd is for beginners and people who want to just fool around.  But as it is in the clubs or a Jewish religious sect where you can’t always stop Tara Reid and Madonna, respectively, from getting in, somehow the uncouth players manage to sneak onto the advanced courts.  And because it’s a public gym we can’t tell them to go away.  Which isn’t so bad…unless they end up on your team.

Unlike basketball and football where a dominating center or running back can take over the game, if you just have one bad apple on your team of six, the whole bunch rots.  Volleyball is like Voltron…you need all the lions or else you’re going to end up falling apart and and tumbling onto your butt.

At first I would smile and tolerate it… “Oh cute, he’s trying.”  But last night we barely won only 1 out of 5 games, largely due to one person who kept interfering with our setter or letting sets fall in front of him because he had no idea what a 6-2 offense was.  Now I have my mind made up.  If you cannot hit, block or set efficiently, or especially if you do not know how to run a 6-2 offense, you need to get off this court and play on the–sorry, it’s not a sexist reference– girls’ height net (which is where the beginners play…we have lots of female players with us on the advanced courts who are better than me).  These guys think they’re Sinjin when in reality it’s almost a sin that they play like they’re faded on gin.

I was so frustrated that I left 30 minutes early.  Haha!

But isn’t life like that as well?  From the day we are born we are put into an American version of the caste system.  After discovering that I wasn’t really dumb and that I merely refused to do homework, my elementary school stuck me in GT (gifted and talented) where I was separated from the rest of my classmates and we got special treatment.  Every single person in that homeroom continued to do well until I lost track of them.  In elementary and intermediate school I was often picked last on the playground for teams because I had the body habitus of a human musubi. 

And you know what?  Being picked last on the playground and banished often to the beginner courts was the best thing to happen to me.  Why?  Because I remembered what it was like to be there and look enviously upon the kids who had skills.  I remember what it was like to be ignored and teased because I was really fat.  Now I have a work ethic that refuses to relegate me to the beginner court at my job, at the gym and with life.  I’m a little round and have muffin tops (those rolls and folds once known as love handles), but I won’t let myself become obese again for health reasons and because it shaves 2-3 inches off of my vertical.

I don’t think we do anybody a favor when we coddle them.  Placing novice players on an advanced court won’t help their game.  Being on the beginner court so they can work on their fundamentals before they try to spike will.  Letting your employee coast on by won’t make your business more productive or help them with their career development.  Allowing your significant other to go on–unknowingly–doing those hurtful things without telling him/her because you’re afraid of upsetting him/her is not going to help you mature in your relationship together. (Funny how it turns out that way, eh?)  Telling your homie, “dude, go after that girl, she’s soooo worth it,” if he himself is unstable in his job, hasn’t jettisoned his emotional baggage, and still turns his underwear inside out instead of washing it–basically if *he’s* not worth it–is not going to help him or her gain a happily ever after.  Spoil your kids rotten and they’ll be living at home until they’re 45!

If you can’t play on the advanced court, whether it be in love, relationships, work or just a meaningless game of volleyball…get off.  You’re not doing yourself or anyone else a favor.  Go on the beginners’ court, work on your fundamentals, and then come back when you can dominate and win.

[Disclaimer--I'm one of the bottom five of the regular advanced players there.  I can block okay and understand the 6-2 and 5-1 systems, but I still need to work on my hitting and can't pass a volleyball even if it was gas and I just ate 5 bean burritos.]

Edit: We tried telling the guy where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do, but I guess it was lost in translation… Aiya.

Free tip.

Oh, and one piece of advice about tipping to add to the post below… When ordering drinks from a waitress or bartender, tip very generously the first time.  If they think you roll pimp, they’ll be more likely to come around to check on you and your friends more often.  Trust me, it works…

15%

How much do you tip?  Why do we tip?

These questions came to mind on Sunday when after collecting everyone’s cheddar the total was short (I hate it when that happens, because usually people like me–who already throw in enough cash for the food, tip and an extra buck for good measure–end up throwing in more money for the chang mastahs).  In the car an explanation was offered, “maybe a person or two didn’t factor in the tip?”

What do we tip for?  Restaurants, bellboys, valets…usually service industries, but why for them and no one else?

For delivering my first pizza in high school for Pizza Hut I got a $2 tip.  For delivering a couple’s very first baby in med school I got no sleep in 36 hours and some foul smellin’ goop on my shoes.  There’s a beeg difference in dropping a veggie lover’s pizza and dropping 2 lovers’ firstborn, eh?  I always tip 20% if the waiter/waitress is cordial and does not mess up my order for dinner.  No one tips me if I shower them with aloha sprinkles and don’t mess up their dialysis orders.  Extra potassium from a banana split = good.  Extra potassium from an inappropriate dialysis bath = very, very, very bad.  As in Paris Hilton’s first album bad.  When I bill for a procedure, I don’t get a 15% tip.  In fact, I’m lucky if there is only a 15% cut in reimbursement from the insurance company (well, all the money goes to the hospital and not me) and the patient doesn’t sue for 15…million.

I’ve never been offered cash at work, but I have been offered a young woman’s hand in marriage.  But that’s actually a negative, since women typically decrease and not increase one’s bank account.   Haha!

Am I saying that people in the medical field should receive tips?  Of course not.  Would I accept money from a patient?  Double decka hecka no.  (Food, on the other hand…)  Do people in those occupations work hard?  Of course.  But I just think it’s funny how our society has decided which occupations to tip. There have been times in the past 2 months where I almost developed transient urinary incontinence while riding in a taxi, but while I tipped them, I have never tipped a Hawaiian Airlines pilot for dropping me off in Honolulu and not in the Pacific Ocean.  And now tipping is standard.  People feel entitled and get upset if they are not tipped, regardless of how they did their job.  But isn’t a tip merely a show of appreciation and not direct payment for services rendered?

So only tip when it is deserved, but remember… Tipping should be like complimenting a woman…honest and generous, otherwise your next meal won’t be very enjoyable.

—-

Speaking of tips…somewhere not to tip is Tony Niks.  I was kickin’ back there Sat night with my boys when the owner came up and made nice.  He then said, “let me get you guys some drinks,” which in that industry typically means, “let me buy y’all a round.”  Of course, when it came time for the tab, he made sure the bartender added the beers to our tab.  WHAT?!  I’m never going to that place again, and neither should you because the owner is a dirty, rotten scoundrel!  Team annoying, as Wehoroy would say.  haha…

—

Bonus post!  Why?  Because I can!

Where?

When 9/11 happened I was sleeping and woke up to the sound of the DJ on the radio talking about it.  Thinking it was a dream I went back to sleep only to wake up 10 minutes later to the same message broadcasting through the air, demanding to be heard.  I got out of bed and ran to the TV…  Later that day, no one showed up in the ER until 10 AM Hawaii time because everyone was at home watching the towers fall over and over again.  Even illness stood still briefly on that day.

When Princess Diana died I was sitting on my friend’s couch in Maryland scanning the channels for something useful to feed my insomnia.

When Kurt Cobain died I was parking my car across the street from the gym.

When the Challenger exploded I was at home getting ready for elementary school, still too young to comprehend what death was.

Most of us can remember where we were when this or that tragedy happened. 

But I want to ask another question…

What do the wives, husbands, children and parents left behind cherish as their favorite memory?  They remember that day they lost a special loved one, but I’m sure they also remember the last time they expressed their love of that person to that person.

And I want to ask you a question.

Do you remember the last time you told someone you loved him/her?  Smiled at him/her for simply being there in the same room?  Because if you don’t, chances are that person doesn’t remember, either.  So while we bow our heads and hearts in remembrance of memories filled with sadness, let us not forget to make new ones filled with joy.

Has it really been 5 years?

“Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.”–Abraham Lincoln.

FTC, Xanga, Myspace.

If you haven’t heard yet, Xanga got smiggidy smacked with a 1 meeeellion dollar fine for invading the “privacy rights” of children. 

Hogwash. 

Xanga has its own share of problems.  Featured content, for example, is full of posts–besides mine, of course –that are useless, to put it nicely.  Especially those that hit the top ten.  [Is Xanga going to ban me from featured content for saying that? Ha!]  Boost, which was supposed to supplant FC, is no better.  And the various ratings systems they tried to create?  It’s worse than the color system Uncle Sam uses to rate our national threat levels.  But to get the $1,000,000 Tony Jaa flying knee upside the cranium when Myspace gets away with nothing? 

Bologna.  Oscar Mayer grade bologna.

I will not dispute anyone’s claims that there may have been incidents where people met through xanga and a bad outcome happened.  But Myspace has had much more publicized incidences which include rape, child molestation and, yes….murder (or manslaughter, depending on what the actual outcome of the trial is).

Some examples (online search, so I can’t vouch 100% for their verity):

• 14 year old girl sexually assaulted
• Adult woman raped and robbed in Colorado
• Story mentioning a 14-yr-old girl murdered, 13 girls assaulted

Last year when I was in Hawaii there was a case of a man who molested a teenage boy he met through Myspace, a 5 minute drive from my house!!!  There are obviously many more crimes that were committed, but I won’t list them all.

On Myspace a 12-yr-old girl can easily lie about her age, creating an account as a 25-yr-old woman, which will then render all the sham safeguards they put in place irrelevant and impotent.

If the government really wanted to protect children, they would go after Myspace before they go after Xanga.  But I guess they just don’t want to endure any wrath from Rupert Murdoch, who owns a large portion of Myspace, and all of the millions of dollars he sits on (i.e. the lobbyist lapdogs he keeps on a leash).   

Have a great weekend!

Edit: Ha! to Jeeves’ comment.  Those consistently (I’ve been there only once or twice) in the top 10 who do amuse me are Jeeves, Wu (who has been quite absent…where are ya, John?), Caka and my cousin Dish…well, only because he’s my cousin. Ha!

Sucka Free Zone.

Since I was running out of contacts I decided to pay a visit to the optometrist at the local mall.  I’m always amused and bemused by all the new gadgets used by the eye people, and confused as I sat in front of an unfamiliar machine whose design refused to tell me its purpose (not knowing caused my ego to be bruised), I asked the optometrist’s assistant, “what is this machine used for…to test for glaucoma?”  “Exactly,” oozed out his reply, “we’re going to test your peripheral vision.”  What?  Does this guy think I’m boozed?

Stop the eprops! 

What da hecka?  Obviously the assistant didn’t read through the 4 pages of info he made me fill in [just a note to y'all, I never read those things, either...haha!] or he would’ve seen what I listed under “occupation” and known that he wasn’t going to fool me. You ain’t gonna sneak that by me, homie.  Testing peripheral vision isn’t the way you test for glaucoma.  Silly wabbit.  Did you not know that when The Franksabunch™ enters a room it immediately becomes a sucka free zone?  But as you know, The Franksabunch™ is an officer of truth and a gentleman, so I replied, “oh…okay!” in a manner that just screamed, “you’re the smartest homie in the whole, wide world!  Can I be like you?”

Are we too quick to believe people we do business with? 

I got burned 2 bills once when a mechanic told me that they had to replace the rotors (which weren’t damaged, so they didn’t have to be changed…something I learned too late) with my brakes and good golly, miss molly, when the In-N-Out burger boy tells me that my burger was made animal style, I believe him!  When your lawyer charges you for 30 hours of work, do those hours include time spent consulting with Jack….Daniels?  When the surgeon tells you that she took out your appendix, how do you know?  Open yourself up and check?  When Mr. Yoo So Dum at the Chinatown fish market takes your handpicked Ahi in the back to cut it up, do you really think he’ll bring back the same fish in that pink wrapper?

It makes me wonder whether patients really understand when I tell them, “hey dude, to fix those kidney bean thingamabobs I’m gonna suck all your blood out like Hillary did to Bill after Monica, run it through an oil filter thingie in that machine over thuurrrr, and then do a little Sha-ney-ney dance like them injuns back in the day.  How’z about it?  And how’z about changing your rotors while I’m at it?”

In a perfect world, everyone we do business with would be honorable, forthright and honest.  In a perfect world, McDonald’s would also sell kim chi man doo, so unless Ronnie McDonnie puts those Korean birth control breath mints on his $1 value menu, I shouldn’t expect every mechanic, mullet or no mullet, I run into to be honest as to whether my rotors need to be changed.

Of course I’m not saying that this dude at the office was being dishonest or anything like that.  I just think he innocently didn’t understand exactly what “glaucoma” was but passed it off like he could.  Which is why I decided not to play the role of Thor and bring down the hammer of truth on his Loki butt.  But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t.  Don’t be a victim to fraud.  Don’t get played more than a Kelly Clarkson album at a gay club.  (She’s the new Cher, didn’t you know!)  Next time you’re not sure if the business person you’re dealing with is being dishonest or is siphoning more cheddar for his macaroni than he should, say something.  Ask him something. 

C’mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together and declare this a sucka free zone, right now!

[Props if you can figure out what I'm paying homage to with that last line.  And no, that is not from my generation, I'm old but still too young for that.]

Have a great week! 

P.S.–Many years ago this week the world became a better place.  Why?  Because many years ago this week The Franksabunch™ was born!  Happy birthday to ME!

P.P.S.–Sometimes when I try to shut down or hibernate my Dell laptop it freezes on the in process of shutting down page…any of you webnerds know what’s wrong?  And last but not least, one of my good friends has an award winning orchid business that ships to the mainland…   www.hawaiianorchidsource.com Check it out!

Edit: Christy412 brought up a good point.  A subgroup (roughly 1/6th) of people with open angle glaucoma have normal intraocular pressure, and visual field defects can be seen in glaucoma.  So at first one would think that visual field testing would be good at testing for glaucoma.  Couple things…  Visual field defects are nonspecific and can be due to many things.  To say that you’re testing for glaucoma specifically by testing for visual field defects is equivalent to testing someone’s feet for numbness to see if they have diabetes.  Also, with glaucoma you can lose up to 20% of your retinal ganglion cells prior to any symptoms and visual field losses due to glaucoma are typically irreversible, poo-pooing the utility of visual field losses as an early screening tool.  It’s equivalent to finding out that you should assign a linebacker to specifically guard Reggie Bush when it’s already the 4th quarter and you’re down by 3 touchdowns.  And visual field testing is not as easily done as said…they tested me by flashing lights every 2-5 seconds and I had to push a button in response.  What if I had bad hand-eye coordination?  I would’ve failed the test and been diagnosed with glaucoma!  But thanks for keeping me on my toes!

5 minutes.

I normally avoid talking serious politics here on The Franksabunch™, so I’ll let this woman do it for me!  It’s a 5 minute video and the best statement is her last statement.  Have a great weekend (I’ll be chillin’ in Monterey!), and I’ll talk about the “sucka free zone” next week!

Goodbye.

How do you say goodbye to someone you love?

I went home this past weekend for my friend’s wedding, but also to say goodbye to my Grandmother, my Ama.  The whole plane ride home I was thinking about what I was going to say when I saw her.  You see, on top of the multiple strokes, recently she was also found to have lesions on a scan that are concerning for cancer.  This is why I went home.  I didn’t think that she would live long enough until my vacation in January.

But what do you say to someone if you know that it is going to be the last time you see them?  How do you tell someone that you love them, when those 3 words are used so much in daily conversations that they lose their urgency and depth and have become almost meaningless?

The last time I saw my Ama I brought her lunch a few days before I moved to California.  We talked, as we always did, about things past and present, and how long it would be until she could see me again.  “January?” she asked in Taiwanese.  “But make sure you call me once in a while to see if I’m okay.  It makes me happy to hear your voice.”  My last image was of her smiling and waving as I walked down a hallway that I will never walk through again. 

How do you say goodbye to someone you love?

After her first stroke I talked to her on the phone and told her that I loved her and that she needs to work to get stronger so that I can take her to the mall when I get home, which at the time wasn’t an empty promise.  Then the other strokes came, which rendered her unable to speak and walk.  She hasn’t spoken in nearly a month, my family members told me.  After entering her room I walked to the right side of the bed, took hold of her right hand, looked her in the eyes and said, in Taiwanese, “Ama, this is Frank.”  And to my surprise she answered by saying my name. 

She’s still in there.

I truly believe that God’s hand was there at that moment.  How else could she have spoken?  The rest of the time I was there she would groan as if to speak, but her mouth couldn’t move due to her stroke.  But I heard it.  I saw it.  She said my name.  Any other moment in any other situation that would be meaningless, but here it meant everything.  It was one last gift to her grandson. 

When he was still alive, my Dad never really told me that he loved me.  Maybe a few times he said the words out loud, but that usually happened when he was punishing me for something.  Haha!  But I knew that he did.  How?  I could just tell.  He spoke softly but loved loudly.  He loved loudly by providing for our family, by sacrificing for us…by being there.  One of my fondest memories of him was when I was rotating as a med student through the hospital he worked at.  Sitting at the nurses station, stressing out and flipping hurriedly through a chart, I felt two gentle hands pressing on my shoulders.  He didn’t have to say anything.  Instantly, I knew it was him by the warmth the hands exuded and the steadfastness they conveyed.  It was his way of saying, “I love you, my son.  I am here.”  When he would cough or seem distressed while in a semi-comatose state those last few days I would often lay my hand on his chest while he slept as a way of letting him know that I was there. 

Sometimes, the loudest words are unspoken. 

Which is why despite everything that I said to her on that last day together, the most important words I told my Ama were unspoken.  I held her hand, kissed her on the forehead and in doing so told her, “I love you, Ama.  I am here.  I will not say goodbye, because I will carry you in my heart until it beats no more.”

How do you say goodbye to someone you love?  You don’t.  Because if you truly love them, you will never stop loving them until your heart beats no more.

Don’t be afraid to tell someone that you love him/her.  There is never any shame in that.

—-

Picture time!

Introducing the new Mr. and Mrs. Obayashi! 

Josh, Bobby, Aaron aka the bride, Franksabunch, Dan, Mike, Ryan, Jeff.  Bad boys since high school, bad boys for life!  (I told you I look like the Jolly Green Giant!)  Josh and Jeff are both single and live in the bay area, in case any of you wahines are interested…haha!  The rest are in Hawaii or married.

And finally, I’m exploiting my nephew for the welcome message at the top of my xanga page. Haha!  Thanks again to Jeina419 for creating the banner I had up before (I still have it saved!).

Have a great week!

DOA the PDA.

BoyzIIMen, ABC, BBD, the East Coast Family!  Last week I went to go watch BoyzIIMen in concert, admittedly just to see if the one skinny guy is fat now. (He’s not.)  Haha!  But after all these years (15, to be exact) they can still bring it.  Put them up against Taylor Hicks and they’ll go Sole Patrol on his Soul Patrol.  (As in the soles of their feet on his boottucks.)  Do you make me proud, Hickie boy? Hecka no. 

Anyway…

The concert was great except for 2 things…  Sitting next to a behemoth of a man large enough to occupy part of my seat (and you know me…I’m not exactly a little dude myself) and having the couple sitting in front of me make out like Mr. and Mrs. Al Gore during his failed presidential campaign.  (Silly democrats.)  I’ll be honest.  There have been times in history when you’d catch The Franksabunch™ with his arm around his wahine’s shoulders or at the small of her back while walking, and the occasional peck on the forehead or cheek.  But I draw the line at what these two were doing.  I spent half the concert trying to calculate the probability of one of them passing a communicable disease to the other and the other half jukin’ like Barry Sanders to prevent any saliva bubbles flying my way from infecting me with cooties.

What’s the deal with PDA?  And why is it that the only couples that engage in PG13 and above PDA are the unnattractive ones?  I felt like tapping that couple on the shoulder and saying, “um, excuse me, but I think your ancestors missed a few evolutionary cycles, are you sure you want to continue that line?”  (Of course I’d never really say that in real life.)  It’s like going to the beach and the only men wearing speedos are the ones with at least 2 out of the following 4… 1) body of a prepubescent female 2) mullet 3) a butt shaped like William Hung’s singing and 4) Japanese or German tourist.  And the women wearing, uh, something that rhymes with “wrong,” are…well…I’ll let you fill in the blank.  Don’t get me wrong, homies, you have as much right to wear that stuff as the next person, but why is there an inversely proportional relationship between attraction and fabric material?  Why do the less attractive couples seem to show off their affection more in public?

If you love your body or love someone, you shouldn’t have to prove it.  You don’t have to flaunt your body or BF/GF to keep up with the beautiful Joneses.  Just enjoy that love and be confident in it.  And put on more clothes.  Please.

So c’mon, subscribers and stalkers.  Let’s make the PDA DOA.  You and me.  Let’s make America a better place.  For God, country and General Tsao’s chicken.

See, I told you I wasn’t exactly a little dude.  I look like the Jolly Green Giant with his corn nibblets!  Ha!  J/K.  That’s J, M, J and me after the Boyz II Men concert.  This week I went to see one of my all time fave bands, Lifehouse.  I’ll tell you this…. Here are all the concerts I remember going to in my life: Naughty by Nature, Cypress Hill (twice…see, I told you I was ghetto fabulous), House of Pain, Young Black Teenagers, Dance Hall Crashers (three times), No Doubt, Menudo (just kidding…wanted to see if you’re paying attention), Pearl Jam, Boyz II Men, Metallica, Christina Aguilera, Big Mountain, Chris Tomlin and Brian Doerksen, and by far…Lifehouse was the best band live!  Altho I’d like to see Fort Minor and Gavin DeGraw live to compare.  What was your best concert?

I’ll be at the Obayashi and Phomsouvanh wedding this weekend in Honolulu, HI, if anyone wants to stalk me there.   It’s time for another reunion of the Ohana from high school.  Until the next time, eat your vegetables, tell your mom you love her and recycle.  I’m out like Lieberman.

Edit: DOA stands for dead on arrival!  You know…CSI style one time for your mind!