"What's in that?"

Dear Mr./Ms. Curious,

Some people might enjoy being cultural ambassadors. I personally don't. I like being left alone when enjoying my mooncakes, broken rice, or whatever cultural oddity I might be consuming. I don't want you to express an interest in my culture. If you ask me what I am eating, I will answer, "Mooncake," or whatever translation I have already prepared in anticipation of someone asking me.

This is where you leave me the eff alone and consult your smartphone. It's connected to the internet and someone on the internet who loves mooncakes can tell you every GD ingredient. I honestly don't know whether it's baked or steamed. I don't know what the filling is made of. I don't want to compare it to any Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Thai dish that you may be familiar with. I don't know what typical moon cakes look like or what they represent. I don't want to tell you the origin of the moon festival or every myth that surrounds it. I am trying to effing eat my moon cake.

I didn't know the difference between a wot and a tib. I looked it up! I still can't really tell the difference between a flauta and a taquito, but when someone offered me one or the other, I fucking ate it. I didn't sniff and wrinkle my nose. I didn't demand to know every single ingredient before putting it in my mouth. It's just one bite! From that point, I formed an opinion. It's a simple system. I encourage you to try it.

In closing, I implore you to take a bite of this or stfu.

Love,

Anh

Why do girls get into clubs for free?

I hate this question! David So mentioned it in one of his vlogs on clubbing. My boyfriend comments on it regularly. "Is it because you guys have boobs?"

No, idiots. It's because event promoters and club owners who set the rules are mostly men (Correct me if I'm wrong, and clubs and promoting companies are actually overwhelmingly headed by women). Men want to entice men to come to clubs by packing it with women. Men want to entice women to come to clubs by giving them free admission.

If the incentives were reversed, would the strategy be just as successful? For example, women are enticed to come to clubs that are packed with attractive young men. The young men, on the other hand, are enticed to come by the offer of free admission. I'd like to think that in a gender equal world, the strategy would have the same effect whether it was men or women who were given the free admission.

However, from my own personal experience, it seems like men are the ones who are requesting to be outnumbered by women. Most women I know don't care whether or not there's going to be a lot of men as long as there are "cute" men. Men I know tend to care about the numbers. They express revulsion at attending a "sausage fest" and whenever they throw parties, they specifically tell me to "bring girls."

So let's think about this. It's men who have decided that a great party is one where men are greatly outnumbered by women. It's men who run these promoting companies and clubs and set up these policies as part of their business strategies. It's the overall fantasy of being surrounded by beautiful women that fuels these enterprises and you, penis possessor, are getting all upset as if women are somehow responsible for manipulating club owners to gain some nominal advantage? Stupid.

Gold diggers

Yves and I have been talking for some time about starting a blog called, "You are entitled to OUR opinion" where we just rant. Although, I should be studying for the bar, I do want to do a quick rant before I forget.

I think it's hilarious when guys my age (mid-20s) or even younger think that they need to watch out for gold diggers. Fool, no one is after a dude that is pulling in 50K minus student loans (if he is even employed in this economic climate). I had a guy friend in his early 20s tell me that he didn't want to pay for dates too often, because he didn't want to attract gold diggers.

Reality check. You are a 22 (23?) years old, still in college and work at restaurant on the weekends. No gold digger worth her silicone implants is going after that. Your $500 savings account and Grandma's government bonds are safe, sweetie.

Am I taking crazy pills? Are guys just flattering themselves? Alright, guys, you make decent money. You want to establish an equal partnership early on. You want to be fair. This is all pretty normal. You don't have to pay for every date. It's totally legit to accept when she offers to foot half the bill. It's okay to not invite a girl out again if she is not pulling her weight. It's 21st century dating. There's no need to frame your modern day sensibilities in this outdated trope, especially when you're still young and haven't developed your career. It's a joke to think that girls are after you for your money. Unless you are Mark Zuckerberg or sitting on a mighty big trust fund, you don't have to watch out for gold diggers. Trust.

Alexandra Wallace

I'm astounded at how fast a life cycle of a viral video moves. I watched the vid last week. Then I watched the parody videos and a week later, it's old news. A couple of things I wanted to comment on:

1) Know your audience. This girl goes to a school that's 37% Asian-Am and posted her video on Youtube, a site created by an Asian-Am where the most subscribed to channels are by Asian-Ams. It's kind of like Mel Gibson working in Hollywood and ranting about Jewish-Americans. Yeah, we're a minority, but if we control the medium, do you think anyone is going to laud your tirade? And finals week? That's primetime for Youtube watching by college students. How do you think WongFu Productions got so popular? Of course she didn't think this through and now has to find a new college where they have never seen the Internet...good luck with that one.

2) Free speech doesn't mean freedom from criticism. Alexandra apologists say that people should leave her alone, because she has the right to free speech. Free speech is a guarantee against government regulation of your right to speak, not a magical talisman that insulates you against people you piss off. Should we respect her right to air an unpopular opinion? Sure. Do we have the obligation to tolerate her ignorant statements? Absolutely not.

3) My fave parody videos:





Oh and Alexandra? If you're Googling yourself, know that real Bruins study in Young. You were probably in Powell, which is why cellphones were going off every 15 minutes.

Dear people who can't hit reply

Why do you take the time to copy and paste the original email into the body of your email? Why did you open up a fresh email window when you could have just piggybacked off of the original email? Do you know how many clicks you can save by hitting reply? (not to mention the strain of scrolling) And the best part of this ingenious function? Your message goes straight to its intended recipient! Try it some time. Thank me later.

---
Other Anh Nguyen. I am jealous of you. You are a 4th year med student at UCLA. You've been invited on various hiking trips and Getty outings. You are now able to take that liver class that you've wanted. I forward emails to you, because I don't want you to miss out on these wonderful opportunities. Your life seems pretty perfect despite the fact that you are surrounded by techno noobs who can't hit reply.

Daily injustices (things that suck)

1) Best Buy's Insurance Policy

I bought one for my laptop. The spacebar key feels weird. I came in and asked them order me a new one. The Geek Squad guy told me they would have to send it into the service center. Estimated wait time for them to get it back to me? 2-4 weeks. 2-4 weeks?? Without my laptop??? Do they want to take my right arm too? Never. I asked if I could just take it there myself, have them look at it and order a replacement part for me. The answer was no. There was no way for it to be done any faster. I don't understand how HP can do my repairs and mail it back to me within 2-3 days but Best Buy needs 2-4 weeks. They suck.

2) The lady at the DMV

I went to take a new picture since my license expires next week. I made an appointment, barely had to wait, and so excited to finally take a good picture. I headed over to the picture taking area. There was no one else there. The lady motioned for me to come forward. I stood in front of the screen and started smoothing down my hair. SNAP. FLASH. What. The. She didn't even wait for me. What is the rush?? She sucks.

This was a shorter list than I expected. I guess not that many things suck.