Entries for March, 2004

I am getting sick. :(

. . .

A random collection of cool links:

A really cool Flash music video by Lodger, a Finnish group. It's really ... trendy ... and ... good. Well, just go view it.

. . .

A link popularity checking tool; Tabulas is a 'contender.' Cool stuff.

. . .

A new Pew report has some very interesting information regarding the need for users to be able to push content onto the web. People want to push content; I see the demand for sites like Tabulas (which is _trying_ to move beyond a simple blogging platform to a personal data publishing system, with the ability to post content files, media files, galleries, etc.) exploding in the future... we're seeing younger people sign up for services now, but I think older people are slowly getting into the act.

Some quick facts:
  • 21% of Internet users say they have posted photographs to Web sites.
  • 20% say they have allowed others to download music or video files from their computers.
  • 17% have posted written material on Web sites.
  • 13% maintain their own Web sites.
  • 10% have posted comments to an online newsgroup. A small fraction of them have posted files to a newsgroup such as video, audio, or photo files.
  • 8% have contributed material to Web sites run by their businesses.
  • 7% have contributed material to Web sites run by organizations to which they belong such as church or professional groups.
  • 7% have Web cams running on their computers that allow other Internet users to see live pictures of them and their surroundings.
  • 6% have posted artwork on Web sites.
  • 5% have contributed audio files to Web sites.
  • 4% have contributed material to Web sites created for their families.
  • 3% have contributed video files to Web sites.
  • 2% maintain Web diaries or Web blogs, according to respondents to this phone survey. In other phone surveys prior to this one, and one more recently fielded in early 2004, we have heard that between 2% and 7% of adult Internet users have created diaries or blogs. In this survey we found that 11% of Internet users have read the blogs or diaries of other Internet users. About a third of these blog visitors have posted material to the blog.
Most of those who do contribute material are not constantly updating or freshening content. Rather, they occasionally add to the material they have posted, created, or shared. For instance, more than two thirds of those who have their own Web sites add new content only every few weeks or less often than that. There is a similar story related to the small proportion of Americans who have blogs.

The most eager and productive content creators break into three distinct groups:

Power creators are the Internet users who are most enthusiastic about content-creating activities. They are young - their average age is 25 - and they are more likely than other kinds of creators do things like use instant messaging, play games, and download music. And they are the most likely group to be blogging.

Older creators have an average age of 58 and are experienced Internet users. They are highly educated, like sharing pictures, and are the most likely of the creator groups to have built their own Web sites. They are also the most likely to have used the Internet for genealogical research.

Content omnivores are among the heaviest overall users of the Internet. Most are employed. Most log on frequently and spend considerable time online doing a variety of activities. They are likely to have broadband connections at home. The average age of this group is 40.

There is a real pitfall (I believe) for a site trying to be everything-at-once; there is still going to be a real need for specialized sites. My goal is set up a series of specialized sites (Tabulas and Lightbox7 are just the beginning) that will let you customize each facet, but will remain separate... you have simple image tools in Tabulas, but if you want advanced tools, sign up for Lightbox and use the (soon to be developed) integration features.

Likewise, Lightbox7 has *simple* photologging tools (through its RSS file generation); if you want advanced photologging tools, use Tabulas.

The sites must exploit each of its advantages and goals to avoid marginalizing its features.

But the critical piece of data (which comes of no surprise to anyone I'm sure) is that the little bit about Older Creators; they like to share pictures, which is exactly what I anticipated. If I am to support myself, I have to market a website to these people. They have the disposable income and the need for a service like Lightbox7.

I think the best way to get these people to use one service (as opposed to another) is to offer easy help. An easy control panel (smooth UI) coupled with great help will _be_ the way to get these people online. Most of them don't want to learn how to do something to do a simple task like sharing images ... the best way is to make an easy pathflow in the control panel and then have them learn through repetition (keep your UI consistent over time).

But the most curious question in my mind is whether Power Creators (the ones on Tabulas are all under 18 it seems) will pay for the features in the future. And if this is the case, is setting a low price undercutting future revenues? People may get too used to the concept of '$20-esque/year' pricing concept. It's not really a financially sustainable; sites like Typepad have a much better pricing model and they are also (not surprisingly) doing much better than me in terms of business.

Due to this, the long-term goals of Tabulas will be to make the site technically better, but to also position myself as a content management site for the older users, who have the disposable income to sustain such a site (younger users have a higher percentage of disposable income, but that's based on an "income" of maybe $100/month if you're getting a helluva 'allowance.').
Currently listening to: Aesop Rock's Daylight
Posted by roy on March 1, 2004 at 02:21 AM in Ramblings | 9 Comments
I think somebody finally caught on:
Roy's unleashing of Tabulas on the Internet is much like the CIA's introduction of crack into the cities to destroy urban communities. The only difference between Tabulas and crack is that most people actually pay money for their crack. Except for crack whores. So I guess that people who have free Tabulas accounts are analogous to crack whores.

- Read the whole thing

Hey Oliver, isn't it about time that you change your name to PubertY2K4?
Currently listening to: Clefhangers's Say it Ain't So
Posted by roy on March 2, 2004 at 12:30 PM in Ramblings | 2 Comments
Kmartshopper1282 wants to directly connect.
thug4life royboy declines request; no connection was made.
Kmartshopper1282 wants to directly connect.
thug4life royboy declines request; no connection was made.
Kmartshopper1282 wants to directly connect.
thug4life royboy declines request; no connection was made.

Sungjin, PICK UP THE HINT.

. . .


ABLaptop: ::-))
thug4life royboy: ?
thug4life royboy: what kind of stupid face in face is that?
ABLaptop: yes, its a recursive smiley
ABLaptop: its nose is another smiley
ABLaptop: like a fractal
ABLaptop: if you zoom in, you just keep getting the same thing
ABLaptop: and no, i didn't spend more than 2 secs thinking that up
ABLaptop: it was an accident, bitch


Ok, I feel like a 15-year old who keeps posting these IM conversations. I'll stop now.
Currently listening to: 2Pac Ft. Biggie's Runnin' (Produced By Eminem)
Posted by roy on March 2, 2004 at 10:25 PM in Ramblings | Add a comment
Edit: Looks like Eisner is on his way out...

I've been keeping pretty busy the past few days.

(Read More)
Currently listening to: souls of mischief's step to my girl
Currently feeling: stressed
Posted by roy on March 3, 2004 at 06:03 PM in Ramblings | 1 Comments
I'm not really sure what it is, but I've just been very depressed all day. I think maybe all this "work" that I do is starting to catch up to me.

Maybe it's just me burning out. Perhaps it's the real fear that I'll be unsuccessful in life. I work and work and work and I see no progress or no rewards to anything I do. I just see more work piling on. More requests. More people who want to take advantage of the things I do. More reminders that I'm a failure at life.

Things just have been very discouraging for me the past few weeks ... just everything has not been going to plan.

This is something that I must accept ... not everything will go to plan. Nothing in life is dandy; everything you have to bust your ass for. But in general I'm getting very disillusioned with people in general. I'm not going to be naming particulars, but there's just a general trend in my life where I start just getting fed up with people.

What the fuck am I doing with my life?
Posted by roy on March 3, 2004 at 10:23 PM in Personal | 4 Comments
Man, what an important day it is to me. Anyone want to hazard a guess what this important day is?

Edit: Man the weather is BEAUTIFUL today. It really makes me happy to be living in the dirty South when we have gorgeous days like today ... it's the perfect day to put in the Speakerboxxx CD (from Outkast) and read some Economist ... and chill out.

Even my exam tomorrow cannot dampen my feelings for today :)

(ooh and pretty girls keep walking into the computer lab here... ehehehe)
Currently listening to: Britney Spears's Toxic
Posted by roy on March 4, 2004 at 12:09 PM in Ramblings | 5 Comments
Things finally clicked for me last night and I finally won a tourney at my own house ... we have Poker night on Thursdays in our room; I used to do pretty well last semester but I hadn't even placed this semester ... until yesterday.

It was the perfect game; I was getting the right cards at the right times, setting the right traps, making the proper bets, and making the proper folds.

It felt so nice to be in the zone.
Posted by roy on March 5, 2004 at 08:59 AM in Poker | 1 Comments
Just got some of my wisdom teeth pulled. Over Spring Break. Joy. I now have a mouth full of gauze (it tastes good), and I'm looking forward to fulfilling my new guilty pleasure .... Homeworld.

In any case, sorry to those I've been MIA... I forgot to leave my cell phone on (real message on my voicemail that I got today from my roommate/enemy Sungjin: "Why do you have a cell phone if you're never going to answer? I hate you." Hahahaahahaha.

Ok, time to go play some Homeworld and program :D
Posted by roy on March 8, 2004 at 01:55 PM in Ramblings | 4 Comments
Imagine how awesome it would be if you got a new cell phone ... and you got Chris Rock's old cell phone number!

Back before we moved to our current house, our phone number was 968-7825 ... we got a ton of calls asking us if we had paged them. Turns out that 968-7825 spells YOU-SUCK.
Posted by roy on March 10, 2004 at 04:17 PM in Ramblings | Add a comment
There was a coordinated bombing in Madrid (150+ dead ... :/) ... originally the Spanish govt' blamed the Basque separatists, but there is growing evidence that it was actually al-Qaida.

In any case, it's pretty messed up.

. . .

There's a good article about a Guantanamo Bay child inmate. You can take what you want from the story; it's neither critical or supportive of the whole Guantanamo Bay indicident ... just like a good article should be.
Currently listening to: Lost Prophets - Last Train Home
Posted by roy on March 11, 2004 at 04:09 PM in Ramblings | 1 Comments
I'll probably very rarely write about the 2004 Presidential Campaign, but I do want to set forth some thoughts.

Part of me is glad Dean didn't get the endorsement; he really wasn't becoming of a President ... but the more I see Kerry, the more I worry that he is turning into Dean.

Kerry (in my original views) served as a very reasonable alternative to Bush; he was well-mannered and could keep a lid on his emotions. But recent outbursts really aren't making him look too good for me.

I truly fear that many people will vote for Kerry just so they're against Bush. This is a dangerous tactic; you're basically voting for someone based on the opponent's shortcomings. If we just looked at Kerry as a candidate, I'm not sure too many people would support him. His main platform seems to be "anti-Bush" more than anything; he attacks and criticizes everything Bush does while very rarely producing anything of much value. Bush at least has the balls to move forward with his ever controversial plans.

You constantly hear of Kerry whining about the deteriorating economy under Bush, but what Kerry (and most Americans) don't realize is the bad economy was not Bush's fault. Unemployment is mostly cyclical (meaning that it happens in waves) and will rise and fall with the business cycle, which Presidents have _very_ little control over. A hot topic (of course) is the outsourcing of tech jobs in the United States, but there are a slew of studies that actually say that outsourcing is helping our economy and leading to job creation rather than job losses.

The Economist had a good editorial giving much more detailed information that basically said that the current unemployment is following a normal pattern, and the seemingly higher unemployment due to outsourcing is frictional in nature; that it's temporary while people try to find new jobs. This happened in the manufacturing industry when Japanese car companies started making inroads to the US.

The bombing in Spain, if it is indeed the work of al-Qaida, does provide more ammunition for Bush that international terrorism is a real threat ... and that his policies have indeed helped protect us. The Department of Homeland Security, although criticized quite often, might be doing its job quite well; we'll never know since its success cannot be readily measured by us.

I worry at nights that the anti-Bush sentiments will lead to an ineffective President and a degradation of our society; if society has 'degraded' under Bush, please bring on another 4 years of 'degradation;' I'm quite happy with the job that Bush has done and would gladly give him another 4 years.

If you don't like Bush, that's fine. But please ... please look carefully at Kerry's platform and character before giving your vote to him.

Update: Kerry at his finest
Currently listening to: Lost Prophets - Last Train Home
Posted by roy on March 11, 2004 at 05:27 PM in Ramblings | Add a comment
President Roh (South Korea) just got his ass impeached (I think the vote was 193 in the 273-seat National Assembly) for corruption and general incompetence. I have no English link yet , but the Korean link shoudl suffice for you "savages" who can read Korean. (Edit: There's a CNN story from before the vote outlining the charges).

Another scandal in South Korean politics. Big surprise.
Posted by roy on March 11, 2004 at 08:36 PM in Ramblings | 2 Comments
The House overwhelmingly passed legislation Thursday substantially increasing the maximum fine for radio and TV indecency.


Does it seem that the government is intent on muzzling public broadcasting in the face of the First Amendment? The role of the government is not to protect what is broadcast in the media to little children; that is the job of parents.

(An aside: Because I know most of you will view this as some anti-Bush act, the vote was 391-22. There are not 391 Republicans in the House. So your beloved Democrats are just as guilty in getting this through the House as the Republicans)
Posted by roy on March 12, 2004 at 03:18 PM in Ramblings | 3 Comments
One of my more notable achievements during spring break was finally finalizing an XML format for Lightbox7.com files. Each account basically gets an XML file for a general overview of public albums (*HMYA*) and an XML file per album with image information (*HMYA*).

So what? ... who cares? You've published tons of XML files, Roy.

OH HO HO! THAT'S NOT ALL!

I actually GOT a proof-of-concept up that demonstrates what can be done and what I wanted to do from day one: allow users to install a lightweight script on their own servers to display their Lightbox7.com gallery.

Although this script (~5KB) was written in about two hours, it does show what can be done ... check out its implementation here. The gallery on roykim.net is now syncronized with my Lightbox7.com account; anytime I update my Lightbox7.com account ... it automatically updates my website's gallery. Even better is I have 100% control over the formatting; one HTML file controls the output of all three "pages" within the gallery setting (main listing, per album listing, image page). Right now the display is somewhat barebones because I just want to prove it works; I can easily tidy it up and make it pretty.

Even better, the images are still being served off the main Lightbox7.com server so I don't have to worry about wasted bandwidth! And I now do not need to worry about installing weird libraries like ImageMagick and GD or having to mess with server permissions to get a gallery script to work (which is a big problem for people on shared servers).

And you can now see the value of the reason I placed such an emphasis on the allow certain sites access to my images; you can essentially "block" all websites from hotlinking to the images except your own site.

I may get a lot of flak from Borst for this, but check out a non-working version (you cannot login and you really can't upload files yet) of the new Lightbox7.com uploader (Oh a note on the Lb7 uploader; you need Microsoft's .NET framework) that's in the works; this program will let you drag and drop images from your Windows folders into the program to upload to your Lightbox7 account; this lets you avoid the nasty web interface for uploading (forms were not meant to handle serious file uploads).

Conclusion
You can quickly see where I'm going here... users with personal websites can:
1.) Register a Lightbox7.com
2.) Install the lightweight script on their server that access their Lightbox7 accounts
3.) Upload tons of images using the program.. and have the images autoresize (as they always do)
4.) Have a full-fledged gallery script on their site, without wasting bandwidth or having to figure out how to install weird libraries to get the uploading to work properly.

Running a gallery was never easier ... I know a few years ago I was kicking myself because of how hard it was to make and maintain a photogallery online ... I'm hoping Lightbox7.com closes that gap and lets EVERYBODY run a photogallery online (while netting me some money too...).

I'm so excited about what the future brings for Lightbox7.com ... this is just a simple glimpse at the "larger picture" I have planned for Lightbox7.
Currently listening to: Eagles - Hotel California
Posted by roy on March 15, 2004 at 01:39 AM in Web Development | 8 Comments
Today is the first birthday of Tabulas. Wow, has it been a year already?

(Thinking about the year...)
Posted by roy on March 15, 2004 at 11:05 PM in Personal | 10 Comments
I found myself awake at 630 this morning, so I treated myself to some breakfast at Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe on Franklin St. (which is a darn good breakfast place) ... while I was walking/eating/sitting at the computer digesting the food, I began to feel somewhat down.

If you've noticed, my posting frequency has plummeted ... not because of any abandonment of this journal, but everytime I load up this control panel page to write something, I always end up just closing the window without publishing my entry.

It took me a while to figure out exactly the problem was ... but I fear change. My life is at a crucial crossroads ... and I don't want to go down any path. I want to stay here and live in this wonderful little bubble. But I have to pick a path ... we all do.

Sometimes I wonder how much life lets you down as you grow older. When we're young, we are (in our parents' mind especially) limitless in our potential. We can be doctors! We can be captains of industry! We can be the next big entertainer! But as we grow older, we quickly realize the limits to our skills, and so we must settle.

So how much do you settle? Will I find myself, five years down the line, unhappy with what I've had to "settle" with? It seems like such a downer ... an anticlimatic ending when you've spent so many years slaving away at college ... only to find yourself unhappy with your life. I fear that. Deeply.

I'm sure this post made almost no sense; I'm having the most difficult time putting into coherent sentences and words exactly what I'm feeling ...
Posted by roy on March 19, 2004 at 06:00 AM in Personal | 3 Comments
The wonderful makers of TypePad, which is a "competing" service of Tabulas (it's in quotes because in the end, all of us are just trying to make the world a better place... ;)) launched TypeKey, a site that was launched to fight comment spam and to serve as a centralized "identification" site.

Does the idea sound familiar?

In any case, here'a a good place that gives a good analysis of the site.
Posted by roy on March 22, 2004 at 05:28 AM in Ramblings | Add a comment
Sometimes the river in poker just screams at you: I HATE YOU.

(A few poker stories)
Posted by roy on March 22, 2004 at 06:41 AM in Poker | 2 Comments
Posted by roy on March 22, 2004 at 03:26 PM in Ramblings | 1 Comments
Oh how ignorance was so blissful. You never realize it until you learn something new ...

I have recently added TONS of new bloggers to my daily "to read" list ... a lot of technology, venture capital, designer blogs, etc.... and it's all making me realize the folly in doing things wrong.

It's so hard to do ONE thing right ... and it's about 1000x harder to do tons of different things right. Perhaps this is why web development on all my projects are so stalled; I'm so intent on doing everything perfectly that I rarely get stuff done.

It's quite hard to not only plan the website, but to create the website with solid scripting ... backed up with a good design that is also standards-compliant and semantically correct, while making sure the UI flows well and the iconography isn't weird ... it's really hard.

A new read I added today is Widgetopia, which covers a variety of subjects which all deal with how users interact with websites to make the work. And reading over a lot of the pages ... I just want to revamp a lot of my websites from scratch (again).

Of course, reading Garrett's entry on cleaning up his website makes me want to take the time and actually execute my plan to clean up the Tabulas system ... AHH TORN BETWEEN PROGRAMMING AND DESIGNING. SOMEONE HELP ME.

(I've been working a lot on Audiomatch lately)
Posted by roy on March 23, 2004 at 12:48 AM in Web Development | 8 Comments
This is a post written mostly out of desperation from things I read on the internet specifically regarding Audiomatch (and to a varying degree Tabulas). Because this is somewhat of a sensitive topic, I'm going to write a short disclaimer.

(Wow I'm breaking a lot of entries lately...)
Posted by roy on March 23, 2004 at 09:47 PM in Personal as a favorite post | 25 Comments
I'm pretty late on this bandwagon, but I'll throw in my two cents into the same-sex marriage foray.

(And thus it begins...)
Posted by roy on March 24, 2004 at 02:00 AM in Ramblings | 4 Comments
Because guys are smelly and nasty (and you should throw rocks at us!), we very rarely wash our sheets/pillowcases. Yes, I will admit it.

Now, most of us in the room took our pillowcases and bedsheets to wash over Spring Break (Sungjin excluded). When we got back, there was a big confusion with the pillows because we were used to seeing them with their covers on (gosh that sounds so ... perverted).

In any case, I laughed at Yush when I saw his naked pillow cause his had splotches of yellow on it; we called them "piss stains." We all laughed at him.

Then I realized that mine also had "piss stains." Even moreso than Yush's.

Then we realized these piss stains come from dried drool. And we were both very embarassed.
Posted by roy on March 24, 2004 at 02:21 AM in Foolishness | 7 Comments
There's a HTML generator for Lightbox7.com now; this lets you select images within an album and have HTML automatically be generated; you can then paste this HTML straight into your journal ... There's even bbCode support so you can generate bbCode for phpBB and vB.

There's also been better importing controls implemented from Tabulas so now you can select albums to import into Lightbox7 instead of having to import all your albums.

Update: I couldn't sleep last night, so instead I spent some time hacking some fixes and new fun things for Lightbox7. I added a "Duplicate Image" checker. What it does is it takes the md5sum of all your images and does a quick comparison to see if any files share the same md5sum. If they do, the site asks you to verify if they are duplicates; if so, you can choose to remove them.

This is an incredibly useful tool if your gallery starts to get too huge and you find redundancy across multiple albums. I just used it to clean up the Hyori and Jaymee Ong galleries of duplicate images.

And wow, I'm a moron. EXIF display had been turned off all this time... so no images had any EXIF data displaying. Can we say, "OOPS?" I turned the EXIF display on; so images with relevant EXIF data should display them now :)

More news on Lightbox7 (and Audiomatch!) are forthcoming...

If you have features that you want for Lightbox7 (besides community albums, they are being worked on!) ... let me know :)
Posted by roy on March 25, 2004 at 02:07 AM in | 1 Comments
To break the monotony of scripting I've been doing over the past few days, I started tackling one of the biggest items on my to-do list: starting to get work on Tabulas 2.0 off the ground.

(Roy, no one cares about your stupid web projects. But thanks for breaking the entry so I don't have to read your gibberish on my friends page!)

Wee!
Posted by roy on March 26, 2004 at 05:00 AM in Web Development | 6 Comments
People say I'm not modest, but I had a dream last night (translation: today in the afternoon) that proves you WRONG.

In this dream, I was mistakenly identified as having basketball skills by someone in the Minnesota Timberwolves personnel department. Somehow the Twolves made it to the NBA finals and needed another point guard (over Hudson and Alien? I dunno why) ... so they contacted me.

I told them that I wasn't a point guard, but they kept insisting on hiring me for a 10-day contract for $100,000. Realizing that they wouldn't listen to me, I signed the contract ... and later showed up at the Finals game (which was against the Lakers ... which doesn't make sense, but ANYWAYS).

So with 4 minutes left in the first quarter, I'm told to go in and play. In the 4 minutes that's left, I manage to get 0.5 assists (I KNOW THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE EITHER) and turn over the ball 6 times.

But, the happy part of the dream is that I make fun of all my friends by telling them that I got to play in the NBA finals ... with 6 turnovers in 4 minutes. Haha.

(For those who are not basketball-savvy, turnovers are when you give the ball to the opposing team by accident ... they are bad bad BAD!)
Posted by roy on March 29, 2004 at 01:18 AM in Dreams | 1 Comments
Oh my god. Someone made the perfect website. It's entirely self-sufficient in popularity and generates cash ... and it sells _no_ services. It sells nothing except virtual popularity. Read the Wired article or go see the gift shop. Note that you are paying real money to buy virtual gifts.

THIS IS THE PERFECT WEBSITE. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. FORGET TABULAS. I'M MAKING A FUNHI CLONE.

Edit: The more I think about this, the more genius the idea is. Basically it feeds on two phenomenoms:

1.) The idea of buying "status symbols." This happens in real life as well; when's the last time you've heard of someone buying a diamond for their loved ones? Diamonds have no real value; their value is determined by a small cartel which owns all the supply of the material.

Funhi takes it to a new level by making the prices "cheap" in real dollars; you can basically live our your "millionaire playboy" status online with very few dollars.

2.) Anonymous internet dating
This site actually has a "legit" rating applied to those who take pictures with a funhi shoutout as well as their username; this helps you know that these hot chicks that you see on the site _are_legit_. So now you have thousands of bored guys with extra money to spare buying stuff on the site to flirt with the girls from the comfort of their own homes.

The ability to take one "good" picture of themselves gives the guys confidence; the girls in the meantime have absolutely no interest in really dating these guys but they (as they always do) appreciate the attention.

Genius.

Also adding to the site's success if the ability to buy the "platinum card." This costs $30, but gives you $28 FUNHI dollars to its owner; so the amount of Funhi dollars in the system isn't as much as actually has been paid. This helps people think they're "richer" than they are.

One of the key aspects of any successful community that uses some sort of currency is what I call the "currency multiplier." People WANT to feel rich, even if this means inflation. Ultimately this is the demise of the site because the inflation gets out of hand and then the status symbols become useless.

I'm reminded of the time I used to play an online multiplayer game (through the browser) that closely resembled Drug Wars on your TI calculators. The site went through multiple rounds, but the most popular round was NOT when the site was well-balanced, but when there was an error in the propagation of currency so people became filthy rich. People want to feel rich, so give them that ability.

So the key thing to remember here is that if you want to create an online community/game that uses currencies, have some sort of currency multipler that helps people feel "rich" in their system; people want to live out their fantasies online. You must give this to them.
Posted by roy on March 29, 2004 at 06:34 AM in Ramblings | 3 Comments
I'm sure most of you have seen that "Gay or Asian" article (link)), and I'm sure most of you are "disgusted."

Personally I don't understand what the stupid hype is. It is the most utterly retarded article, completely devoid of humor ... but I'm missing the racism. People are claiming that the article "plays on Asian stereotypes." Excuse me for a second, but when did it become a stereotype that Asian males are gay?

I must of completely missed that stereotype. I must of also missed the memo that was circulated saying that being gay is a bad thing (isn't that what you're implying by saying this plays on "bad stereotypes?").

The article clearly plays on some Asian men's tendencies to dress like metreosexuals (aka GAY)... don't tell me you've never seen a fob and thought to yourself "damn he dresses gay." I haven't met a person who hasn't done that yet.

If I am saying that, it does not mean I view that person a negative light; I am simply remarking that they dress like those guys on Queer Eye dress.

In any case, this is probably a knee-jerk reaction to the rabid idiocy that I've seen as a response. Quote:
We are going to disassemble Details magazine from the ground up, starting with their advertising money. We will not be quiet. We are going to make history, take this magazine down and show what Asians are capable of. We will make sure that Whitney Mcnally is never published ever again.


Wow, can we say McCarthyism? Personally I am pretty sick of the extreme responses we've seen from liberal groups who think that extreme reactions should be the norm. (While I'm at it, the removal of Trent Lott was a big extreme for something he said while he was a little bit drunk).

And check out another quote from the petition: "Sign this petition if you are ashamed every time you see William Hung on TV." Wow. Can't even support a brother who's gleefully living out his dream? This just demonstrates how stupid this petition is.

I wouldn't be surprised if some white guy wrote this petition and is laughing at the idiocy as thousands of incensed Asians sign the petition.

In any case, this is why I usually distance myself away from any Asian groups on campus; they find the need to make mountains from molehills.

P.S. Chappelle's Show rules, and I'm sure none of these people would find it funny either.
Posted by roy on March 30, 2004 at 02:18 AM in Ramblings | 8 Comments
Because I love all of you my readers so dearly, I have spent countless hours tracking down rare clips to share with you (not really). Let's not share these URLs with any forums ... for they are OUR little secret!

First we have the hilarious Chappelle's Apple Switch parody ("I'm Dave Chappelle, and I'm a chronic masterbator!"). We have the infamous "Pee On You" R. Kelly spoof. Speaking of musical skits, the Fisticuff's skit is pretty funny ("TURN UP MY LEFT HEADPHONE!"). There two Lil' Jon skits (at the airport and the Lil Jon interview) which I find absolutely hilarious. I cannot stop cracking up when I listen to Lil' Jon songs now.

If you've ever played Grand Theft Auto, you'll enjoy Dave's take on GTA.

On the TV spoofing front, Dave has a nice spoof of the Real World called the Mad Real World. The sound is kinda low, so turn up your headphones. There's also a pretty popular skit called The Niggar Family which seems to spoof '50's TV shows.

And the best ... simply the BEST skit ever ... the infamous RICK JAMES skit.

If you have more files, send them over. I'll post them and update this post.
Posted by roy on March 30, 2004 at 08:53 AM in Ramblings | 3 Comments
« 2004/02 · 2004/04 »