Goodbye

As much as it pains me to leave such quality posts behind, I have succumbed to tumblr. See you folks there.

www.jordaman.tumblr.com

Apartment 102

This new school year has been going pretty smoothly I'd say. There have not been too many big obstacles to overcome quite yet. The semester is young, though. Aside from the school, we've got a little something interesting brewing in the rooms of Apartment 102. Egos are very interesting. They can fog the judgment of fairly rational people, and confidence in yourself can make or break you. That being said, we've come up with a few rules for our (not so) humble abode. Well, mostly Curtis and I have. Okay, they're not really rules, but they're standards to live by - or that we live by here. Well, Dale doesn't talk as much shit, but still. (Whatabitch)

1. You are never wrong. You may not be right, but you sure as hell are never wrong.
2. You don't stop talking shit. If you stop talking, you are admitting defeat, or that you are not right.
3. You never back down a challenge. Ain't no soft business up in this piece.
4. You always have the last word. (See rule 2)

Short and sweet. People have noticed how the shit talking does not stop, and many have commented on it. This year will be fun..

Phones

For some reason, I have a problem speaking on the phone when there are other people around me. If I get a phone call in the car, for example, depending on who is in the car and who is calling me, I might just let it go to voicemail. Even when I am at home and get a call/have to make a call, I go to my room, close the door, stand on my couch and pretty much face the wall when I talk. It's weird, I know. That said, imagine how nervous I can get when I have to make phone calls at work when my office is very small and everyone there can hear what I'm saying. It's ridiculous. Anyways, that's not the point of this blog. Check this out.

Today, my boss wasn't at work, but I had a question for him regarding some of the paperwork I was processing. I proceeded to call his cell phone from the office, but there was no answer. However, when the machine picked up, I wasn't completely paying attention but it said, "You've reached the voice messaging system of Shane's moving company.." or something of the sort. I thought about it a second, and realized I must have called the wrong number. I checked, then double checked, and was positive that I had called the right number. So I tried again. It went a little something like this:
*Ringing
Woman: Hello?
Me: (Confused because my boss is a man and this is his cell phone number) Hi.. uh is Jacques there?
Woman: You have the wrong number (and hangs up immediately)
Me: (Still holding the phone, slightly confused as to what just happened) uhh.. thanks. (this was said to no one, by the way)

Still perplexed, I went out to another computer to try to answer my own questions about the paperwork, but my search ended up fruitless. I asked my coworker if she knew if Jacques (our boss, btw) changed his phone number. The verdict? Still the same number. So I thought I'd try again, but this time, on a different office phone. Note that here I used the call history to dial so there was no reason why it shouldn't go to Jacques' cell phone.
*Ringing
Woman: You JUST called asking for Jacques and I told you it was the wrong number!
Me: Oh crap. Ok thanks.
- Hang up -

What the? I don't get what's going on. A little later, my other coworker arrives at work and says that she has to talk to Jacques as well. She decides to give him a call from the 3rd office phone. Of course, hers goes through. Don't you hate it when that happens? Something doesn't work but when you tell someone and show them it all of a sudden works? It's like they're playing a trick on you. But anyway, it went straight to his voicemail due to a conference he was attending. Determined to prove that I was not delirious, I decided to call him one more time from the other phone, just to show her.
*Ringing
Woman: WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING?!?!
- Hang up -

Oops. Didn't mean to piss her off that bad. Maybe I should've started off my own "Hola my name is Carmen" bit. But really, what the fuck. That lady was a bitch though, foreal.

Pop Quiz

Really, who was the asshole who invented the pop quiz? Couldn't we just discuss these readings like civilized human beings! Why must they bring in the element of surprise into an already dreadful environment. My teacher insists on ending every class with some discussion questions to think about for our future readings. Then he ends it with, "there might be a pop quiz regarding this topic ________!" Come on man, why do you gotta do us like that? Just tell us if there's going to be a damn quiz or not! I KNEW the second he mentioned that he gives pop quizzes he would give us one on the first day we were supposed to read things. I think I kicked that quiz's ass, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyways I find it very irritating that he ends all our classes in such a fashion.

The Game

"A lot of people are advocating that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That's only because you don't know what's going to happen to you. You see, it's all just a game ladies and gentleman, and the quality of your living depends entirely upon your ability to play the game... And I, play the game."

Racism

People are racist. Ok maybe not necessarily racist, but we like to play into stereotypes and look for those who exemplify these generalizations, mostly (at least for me) for their comical appeal. Regardless, stereotypes are real. People in advertising know about target audiences and try to capitalize on the different markets. There are so many different versions of that "Mattress Discounters" song to appeal to different types of people. Now let me tell you a story about this street vendor's stereotype of his customers.

Me (Chinese), Kevin Tow (Chinese), and Arthur (Black and Chinese, but just looks like some black kid if you don't know him) were walking down by the pier. This black guy comes walking up to us holding a stack of CDs, bumpin his latest slaps. He sees us walking together and prepares his sales pitch to us. Wait - did I just say us? I meant to Arthur. This guy walks straight up to Arthur, completely ignoring me and Kevin, the measly Chinese kung-fu body guards of this black guy (haha ok I took that one kind of far) and says, "Hey I know you like rap music!! Come check this out." But wait, what if me or Kev wanted to check out some rap music? Would it make a difference? Haha, that guy got us good. Little did he know that Arthur had that Chinese in him so he was able to ignore him with ease. Chinese people are good at that. (Damn, there goes another stereotype, but who cares, we all know them, and frankly they're hella funny).

The reason for this post was a little picture my brother sent me:



How racist. How stereotypical. How shady. How hilarious.

I also thought of a question the other day: do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you were a different race? Just a little something to think about.

Parking

Parking in San Francisco is like mining for gold. You search and search until you find something that's not quite as big as you'd like, but you can work with it. The other day I thought of a funny story that happened while searching for a parking spot. For personal reasons, I will leave the names out.

So check it. We're driving around looking for a spot when we see a space on the other side of the street. Keep in mind this is a 2-lane street, so busting a bitch to claim it would technically be illegal. The driver, we'll call "Kid", proceeds to go make a LEGAL u-turn so that we can claim this spot. As we come around, this old lady busts that same illegal bitch that we refused to bust, thus giving her ample time to gain position to begin backing into the space. However, Kid would not be deterred by her criminal antics. He then proceeds to pull into the space as the old lady tries to back in. Looks like we have ourselves an old fashion duel. She begins to reverse so that her passenger window is next to Kid's driver's window, and the following conversation ensues:

Woman: This is my spot!
Kid: You did an illegal u-turn to get into this spot, I saw it first!
Woman: You're not a cop, what's it matter to you?
Kid: It matters to me cause I saw this space first
Woman: You're an idiot
Kid: [gets up out of his seat, leans out the window and points] Yeah? Well you're a fucker!!
Woman shakes her head in disgust and drives off.
Me and everyone else in the car: HAHAHAHA

He just called some old lady a fucker for a parking spot. That's how it is out here in San Francisco. You find a spot, you hold on to that bad boy like a golden nugget. Damn gold diggers..