Something is rotten in the state of the Yellow American Grasshopper

So, I don't mean to complain (or misquote Shakespeare), but I've been in this really negative state of mind for the past few weeks and I can't quite seem to shake it off... Maybe it's just this time of year... An annual HalloWHINE, if you will. =P

I guess I'll start with REAL news: baseball. Something has seriously gone wrong in the world if the Red Sox are the dominant team in MLB and they've won TWO world titles in the last four years.

I was walking back to my apartment tonight and BOTH old cat ladies on my floor had decided to keep their apartment doors open and sit around the hallway chatting with each other. The smell of kitty litter flooded the halls and nearly 10 cats were wandering around. It made me sick to my stomach-- and kind of reminded me of the feeling I had when the Red Sox won on Sunday (not kidding...).

The fact that Joe Torre is leaving the Yankees is also pretty sad. I seriously thought/hoped that Don Mattingly would get the position-- he was perfectly groomed for the job!!-- but it wasn't meant to be. Now all I can do is wish Joe Girardi the best of luck in the position of Yankees manager and bid Joe Torre and Don Mattingly a fond farewell.

New York will miss you guys!

(And good riddance to A-Rod, who in his time with the Yankees has done ZIPPO for the team in the post season. I can call him a selfish fraud, like many columnists have, but I won't repeat the obvious. He might be a power hitter, but he hasn't won his team a World Series. =P)

In other news, I found the PERFECT character to be for Halloween, but I unfortunately cannot find the right attire.

Therefore, for Halloween 2008, I will dress as (drum roll, please)....

DOUG FUNNIE!!!! (from the 1990's Nickelodeon show, "Doug"!)

All I need are the red sneakers and the green sweater vest and I'm set!

He was always writing in his journals, talking about his life and going through the daily grind.

I really appreciate the fact that Doug was just an average guy-- a great role model for me as I was in junior high.

And the fact that he was so in love with Patti Mayonnaise really reminds me of how I was feeling about a certain someone...
I've been remembering old episodes of Doug all weekend and I couldn't get the theme song, or the WONDERFUL music (i.e. Banging on a Trashcan, Killer Tofu) out of my head.

Thank goodness for youtube!

Anyway, as promised, here are a few selected photos from my San Francisco vacation (courtesy of my wonderful May-May and her digital camera!!)...

This is me, "sliding" down one of San Francisco's highly inclined streets:

And here I am with the beautiful Meimei, in front of Alcatraz Island:

And here's your Yellow American Grasshopper, feasting on some wine grapes!!

Unfortunately, photos of my solitary bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge were taken on my disposable camera and are unavailable for online viewing at this time. (Maybe I'll upload them one day and share them with the world...).

I also wanted to mention an "Ugly Betty" moment that I had in San Francisco (of course, I didn't realize that it was an "Ugly Betty" moment until well after the fact... =P).

My friend was turning 25 and we decided to go to a chick bar. I decide to look my 'best' and threw on a tank top for the occasion-- after which I got complimented by the most inappropriate source in the world.

It was totally reminiscent of the second(?) episode of "Ugly Betty" where the title character undergoes a horrid makeover and gets wolf-whistled by some construction workers.

"ME!?!?" she asks them, with a big smile on her face. And after they nod, she thanks them!

Oh, the small things that unattractive people appreciate...

Something is certainly rotten in the state of the Yellow American Grasshopper.

I think it's my whole outlook on the world.

I'm gonna go meditate now...

Already, the crappy "personal day" and the Chinese girl dolphin...

I'm taking a personal day off to run a few errands and it's already coming out pretty annoyingly.

I was barred from this lecture I wanted to attend this morning (which, by the way, had forced me to wake up at 8AM-- I could've slept in!) by these administrators who had given me wrong information about the event. And don't even get me started on their inability to accept responsibility for their own mistake...

So now I'm sitting around a Starbucks, updating this blog (for any of you who still read this)...

One of my friends is still unable to hear from her family in Rangoon, as they have shut out all outside communications within the country to the outside world.

I don't mean to make light of a very serious situation, but Patrick Chappatte made a very telling comic about the current state of affairs on Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoons website (http://www.cagle.com/news/MyanmarMassacre/1.asp):

And I just read a story on msnbc.com about how a father bound his daughter's hands and feet, so that she could swim in China's Xiang River (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21126016/):

He claims that she *wanted* to do this, so that she could one day swim the English Channel, but a newspaper report mentioned that she came out of the cold water blue in the face.

I can't help but use this as an indictment against traditional Asian parenting. This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that many Asian parents (at least from my experience) force their kids to do, and then tell the public about how the kid did so on their own accord.

Of course, all kids need *some* sort of pushing from their parents, in order to get anywhere in life-- but Asian parents seem to take things to the extreme. And even worse, they turn it into a collective societal thing, where they're always trading bragging rights with other parents.

I could go on and on about this, but I'll stop now.