Let's have a meeting!

As a worker bee in white collar America, I spend a fair amount of time sorting through some of the most colorful verbal diarrhea that has ever sullied the human senses. It's stench fills my nostrils, burns my eyes, and makes my ears bleed. These buzzwords and catch phrases are managerial tools used to convey a false sense of competence and "corporate cool." They are also a means of sugarcoating whatever unpleasant fact needs to be said; often to the point that the crux of the message is lost.

Here's some the bullshit buzzwords, a cornucopia of corporate ka-ka if you will, for those that have not had the pleasure of wafting this in first hand.

• Tasked - Usage: Who was tasked to scrub the toilet? This means "to delegate to," usually some shit job like scrubbing a toilet. The person doing the tasking usually doesn't want to do it themselves. Hence, they "task" someone else. Why not just say, "Who did we ask to scrub the toilet?" Clearly, because it's not as cool. I'm not as cool I guess.

• Buy-in - Usage: We got buy-in from the customer to scrub the toilet with a toothbrush. This means, "agreement or consent to do something." Often times, peeps don't want to be the one that pulls the trigger on decisions with any significance. So they mitigate any possible blame for failure by getting other people to agree to their half-baked idea like scrubbing a toilet with a toothbrush. Don't confuse this with a what a competent person does when he/she makes sure all interested parties are aware of the risks and rewards of a decision.

• Path forward - Usage: What's the path forward in order to clean the toilet? This means, "what's the plan." Managers will use this term when they have no idea how to proceed but still want to sound cool. I admit that these words have pass my lips before. But I washed my mouth out immediately afterwards.

The next three are currently my favorites. They invoke conflicting emotions in mah belleh. On the one hand, I want to laugh my ass off because they sound so silly. On the other hand, I want to punch a baby out of frustration that my leadership resorts to such trite statements.

• Take this offline - Usage: Let's not talk about urinals in a toilet meeting; we'll take this discussion offline. This means, "outside of the current meeting." As part of corporate America, you have to accept that you are "online" while in a meeting. So to take a topic "offline," you discuss it after the meeting. This one really chaffs my groin because it took a term that has technical connotations and perversed it into this asinine phrase.

• Circle the wagons - Usage: Circle the Wagons! Call Larry, Moe, and Curly and tell them the toilet exploded. This means, "assess the situation and determine a 'path forward'." Managers usually circle the wagons when the shit hits the fan for reasons that are not immediately obvious. So they hurry up and panic. Everyone and their mother is called into a meeting to figure out how to handle shit. Often times, this happens prematurely - before anyone has had time to investigate and gather facts regarding the problem. The most likely result of circling the wagons is realizing the need to investigate instead of turning to expensive knee-jerk reactions like wagon circling.

And my absolute favorite...

• Low hanging fruit - Usage: Let's start off easy by picking the low hanging fruit. This means, " to do all the easy stuff." The analogy is that the easy tasks are like low hanging fruit on a tree that are easy to pick while difficult tasks are high hanging fruit that will require more meetings to determine a path forward. (You see how I've learned to string this shit together? I r teh manager materialz!) Come on! Do I really have to go into why this one is my favorite? Suffice to say that every time I hear this, I feel an urge to slap the speaker's fo'head with my low hanging fruit.
  

More-est fun with Google!

As promised, here is the last installment of my "Fun with Google" series. I know it's been months since my last posting but I don't apologize for it. Free time was a bit scarce earlier in the year and most of it went to new activities that I have been trying to pick up. I didn't forget about this venture though. In fact, my head has been brimming with stuff to write about and I've probably forgotten about a few a long the way. Humanity will be the lesser for it. Oh, well. Fuck it. On with the fun!

For all those that have forgotten, here's how you play: This post contains pictures that are search results from Google! Images. Based on the pictures, you have to guess what I searched for that returned that particular result. The pic wasn't always on the first page of the search results; it could have been as deep as the third page. If you get stuck, then feel free to ask your kids for help. You know me - this is G rated family fun!

Pic 1.


Pic 2.

Pic 3.

Pic 4.

Pic 5.

The last one is kinda hard. Here's a hint: No, it's not "can." But it can be used to describe one.

Rainin' paaaaanties

Happy New Year!

New Year's is interesting. I think it's not like any of the other holidays. It's unique to me in that I'm celebrating two things at once: the end of a year and the beginning of another.

I think that in the past, I've only celebrated the end of the year and glazed over the beginning of the next. Last night's celebration is the first time I can remember celebrating both. Most of what I did wasn't unique; I've done it in the past. I think it had to do with my mindset and some sage advice from my friend, Dave AKA Fish.

I started my evening hanging out my sister's family at their new home. I'm happy to see that my sister and her husband have not only created a home together but also created a friendly community with their neighbors. It's not something I grew up with and it most certainly is not something I see a lot of in LA. But that's LA for you, I suppose.

Later on, I met up with Devin and headed over to a house party in the hills by Sandy's (Mike's House). We hit up this party last year and it was good to be back. I got to see a lot of the peeps I met last year and also made a couple of new friends. Drinks, fireworks, and rock band ensued. Killah B and Stevie T laid down some tunes and the panties hit the floor. Even Devin picked up an axe and rocked out on a few tunes. We even found a guest lead singer that had more angst in her voice than I and she most certainly was not afraid to show it. I was humbled.

And for the first time in my life, I would not have minded being the filipino that most everyone accuses me of being. Well, not just any filipino; I would be glad to be the hosts' adopted son so I can get in on the sweet house and the iphone family plan. For those perks, I could deal with never pronouncing an "f" again and preferring bright colors e.g. orange and purple. Mike and his family are great people and I appreciate all the hospitality that they showed their guests.

And so we rocked. And rocked. And rocked. Into the wee hours of the morning. Before you know it, the sun was coming up and Dave suggested we head down to Sandy's to watch the first sunrise of 2009. This wasn't what I had in mind when I said I wanted to go to beach but I figured why not.

Sunrise was estimated to be 7:09 AM. We headed down to Sandy's and stood on the beach in the rain watching the sunrise. Here are the pictures of the first sunrise on Sandy's:

Some friends and I were able start the New Year off right.  Let's see if we can make it legendary.

More fun with Google!

This is the next installment of my super-duper fun time game started in this post. The game is simple: I show a bunch of pics and you try to guess what my Google! Images search criteria was that returned each of the pics. And away we go!

Pic 1. ez mode


Pic 2.


Pic 3.


Pic 4.


Pic 5. This one could be tough.


Think you got the answers? Post 'em up.

A passing glance

I saw a woman
at the bus stop with a cart
of floral print bags.

No, I was mista-
ken. She was wearing a muu
muu. It was all her.

Straight up Canton Style!

Merry Christmas! I know I'm a day late in creating a Christmas post but I needed time to digest some of the events that occurred yesterday. It was some of the most raw and unforgiving images of human savagery that I have ever witnessed. It reminded me of Lord of The Flies except all the stranded kids were Chinese. No... it was like watching Boyz in the Hood, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, and the Coming to America all at once.

My family and I went out for dim sum for Christmas lunch. For all those not in the know, dim sum tends to be a brunch/lunch kinda thing. It tends to be consumed between the hours of 9:30 AM to 2:00 PM. Arguably, this could have been one of the factors that led up to the Cultural Plaza Travesty. (The restaurant we chose was in the Cultural Plaza in Hawaii.) For all those not familiar with Oahu, the Cultural Plaza is a collection of shops, restaurants, and offices that deal with all things Chinese; be it food, books, dance studios, salons, or Chinese societies with designs for world domination.

The second key factor that led up to the impending events is that apparently a LOT Chinese people go out for dim sum on Christmas. My guesstimate would fall around a metric shit ton. What else is there to do? Everywhere else is closed on Christmas Day. But not Chinese restaurants; which leads us to the third factor.

My people have capitalized on this once-a-year golden opportunity to be the only establishments open to those who want to eat out (tee hee) on their day off. I believe the only other eating establishment that was open was Jack in The Box. As much as I love eating at The Box (tee hee hee), I wouldn't consider it a restaurant. Restaurants tend to have service, a wait staff, a menu that isn't plastered on the wall, and table cloths (not always).

We walked into Empress Seafood at the Cultural Plaza around 11:45 and it was utter chaos: there were Chinese people milling and rushing about everywhere. This shit was straight up Canton Style!

The idea of a host that greets and seats the guests had been abolished. Whoever the host was was deemed incompetent by the masses or perhaps was scared off by the sea of humanity that descended upon the restaurant. People were rushing about, seating themselves. Families would hover over tables that were being cleared by bus boys or even families that were paying the bill. We were like hoodlums that hovered and leered over someone else's personal property. As soon as it was left alone, we yoinked. Yes, we....

We found a table that was recently vacated but not cleared and we circled it. A passing bus boy hurriedly cleared table and we sat down before another family could swoop in. As the bus boy removed the soiled table cloth, he asks if it's cool if he doesn't replace it with another. We're fine with it so he removes the old one, plops down some flatware (sets it down, not distribute it) and runs off to the next table. So much for service and a table cloth. That's how we do shit in teh 808.

Normally during dim sum, food e.g. dumplings and buns are brought out on carts that are equipped with some sort of warming apparatus that keeps the food warm as it takes it tour of the restaurant, sauces, oils, and a pair of scissors to cut the larger dumplings. Now imagine that this restaurant is an azn hood and these food carts are pimped out Escalades. These carts didn't make it 20 ft from the kitchen door. As soon as it rolled into the hood, it was swarmed by hungry thugs that stripped it of every bamboo steamer. Only the crappy dumplings were left and these are the equivalent of the AM/FM radio. It was crazy, the cart would be stripped in 30 seconds flat. Canton style, bitch!

Since the food carts couldn't keep up with the crowd, the restaurant started rolling out these makeshift carts to try to get food to the tables further from the kitchen. These carts were plain POS push carts with minimal stacks of bamboo steamers. There were no heating apparatus, no sauces, oils, or scissors. These stripped down carts reminded me of fixed up jilopies that roll through the hood. These are the Civics and Integras with wings, body kits, and a bondo-primer paint job. They might have an exhaust on it to give it that farty bass sound as it rolls past. All that was missing from these food carts were the owner's last names printed across the back in bold, old english letters.

By the time we were done eating, the masses has subsided; no one was hovering over our table and there were no longer people standing about the restaurant. Whew, relief! Or so I thought.

Where do you think they all went?

Probably to the same place we planned to go after finishing our meal w/ no where else to go.

To the parking garage.

We all know the stereotype of asian drivers all too well so I'm not gonna reiterate. It took an hour to get our of that parking garage - that's not an exaggeration. A whole freakin' hour to get down 5 levels of parking garage because everyone and their mother-in-law was trying to back out of their stall and get out. Unbelievable. I've gotten out of packed stadiums and arenas much quicker than that.

In light of all this, I think a true Christmas miracle occured yesterday. How else would you explain all those asian drivers maneuvering through such a confined space as a parking garage in Chinatown and there not be any accidents. Zero. Amazing.

Fun with Google!

I have no idea what inspired me to do this. I think it was out of sheer boredom since I'm stranded at my parent's house. (My dad took the car so he could go to work on Christmas Eve. ppsshhhh. the nerve!) I am living proof that an idle mind is the devil's playground.

Who has used Google! Images before? Most everybody, I'm sure. It's pretty nifty; it allows you to search the internets for pics based on your keywords. For example if you searched for puppies, your search results would return pics such as this:

You get the idea. So I came up with a little game where I create a post full of pics that I searched for on Google! Images and the reader has to guess what my keywords were. For example, given the pic below, could you guess what my search keyword was?


If your answer is "shitcan," then you are wrong! WRONG!!! The answer is deuce! Give it a shot and Google it. If you were smart, you would have moused over the pic and saw the name of the jpeg in your web browser. At least, firefox shows it. These h4x will be unavailable in the pics to come. Good luck and post your answers.

Pic 1: Let's start off easy.



Pic 2: He's quite the messy eater.


Pic 3: The first two are pretty easy, I think. The rest will be a little tougher. Take a very close look at D'z.


Pic 4: Harder still...


Pic 5:

How many did you get? Post your answers if you think you got them all. If you enjoyed this, then great! I'll post more in the near future. If not, then tough shit because I already did the leg work and I'm not letting it go to waste.