Your Token Asian Friend's Blog

Why I Don't Have an iPhone (yet...)

People that know me see me as the gadget tech guy. Dave always labeled me as the tech guy although I have yet to ask whether that is due to knowledge or just racial (I'm inclined to think both). I always have the videogames. I always have the televisions. I always have the random whatevers that do something that doesn't even make sense or is practical at all (my slingbox, BOOYA). However, there is one thing that has not come into my grasp. There is one thing that taunts me, begging me to get it, only to have restraint come over me and take over. It sucks to be financially responsible I guess (okay, just this one time.) The iPhone is my white whale.

Now, I'm usually pretty up on getting a new cell phone every year to two years. I knew I wanted the iPhone as soon as they said it was 1.) by Apple and 2.) going to be the major technological gadget people want to get their hands on. Being someone who desires attention obsessively (seriously, compliment me on something random and watch me swoon), this would be the perfect match to my impractical Celica in Michigan weather and the three video game systems I never have time to play. But alas, there is a catch with the iPhone. It came with an enormous commitment and payment plan (used to be 3 years and like 70-80 bucks, now reduced but still). But worst of all, it came on AT&T.

Now, this doesn't normally bother people because they can switch loyalties on a dime. I can't. I've been with Sprint for almost 10 years. 10 freakin' years! I had a brick cell phone since high school. It was the friggin' locker phone for Kronner and myself our senior year in high school. I still have Duster Chick's phone number in there (long story short, some girl with giant boobs raced us to Great Lakes Crossing when Dave and Schwieger held a sign saying 'show us your boobs' our junior year and put her number on my windshield. It was a butterface so we never heard from her again, aka, we called and got a wrong number) so I feel like Sprint has given me good service. However, I'm probably fooling myself. The Sprint service for me is just decent, I do have pockets of no service or roam, but for everyone else, they hate it with the passion of a thousand suns. Kronner switched out after Nextel got screwed in the buyout. His service was just pathetic and I keep hearing from everyone else a similar story.

Now, I'm just a loyal guy. I usually go to the same places to get things because I know the people and I'm not a big change guy. I go to the same EB Games in Port Huron to reserve stuff because I know the staff there. I go to the same carry out Thai places because the lady always gives me free egg rolls and awesome food suggestions. And I always use Sprint because well, I haven't had major issues with them. However, times are changing and let's face it, I want a damn iPhone. It doesn't help that my contract is up and my Motorola Q is a piece. Seriously, awful battery life and the thing is buggy as all hell.

Come May or June, when the new 3G iPhones comes out, I may not have a choice but to finally switch, maybe get a family plan with my girlfriend. But Sprint finally countered today with the new Samsung Intrigue, with improvements on the iPhone and a replaceable battery. So it comes down to this. I can stick with Sprint, gut it out just because I'm afraid of change but enjoy my current situation. Or I can step out on a limb, get the iPhone, make the huge commitment and hope it works out. It's an interesting problem to have. Too bad one option will cost me 600 bucks. Then again, so did my PS3. That didn't pan out now, did it...

Why I Can't Help but Watch the Hills

As my friends know, I am a sucker for anything a teenage girl likes. Cellphones with QWERTY keypads for text messaging. Pop music. Music video games. TRL. The Hills. Oh reality television. And it's not even something like the Amazing Race. It's Lauren, that bitch Heidi, Audrina, and Whitney. It's the worst kind of reality television. It is the one with no purpose. There isn't a chance to see "real" people win million dollars for starving themselves on a deserted island. There isn't money on the line while traveling through dozens of countries confronting obstacles internally and externally. Hell, there isn't a record contract on the line designating you to being the next...Jordin Sparks? Bad example but you get the drift.

The Hills carries none of that. The Hills is about people from upper-middle to the rich class going about their lives. That's it. Here's the odd thing about the subject. They are celebrities. It is almost weird to type that word and have it relate to someone who has yet to finish their internship of about apparently 2 years (where's that in Detroit?). She came from a small town in Orange County. She dealt with drama over there to the point where coming to Los Angeles, no wonder she's a magnet for issues. It's work drama. No it's girl drama. Wait, it's boy drama. On paper this is probably the worst show on television. Yet here I am telling you that it's one of the most riveting things as well.

There are many questions on whether the show is scripted and how "real" it is. Let's face it, when is the last time you have seen a Real World on MTV? It's because the concept is dead. It is an experiment where the results have become unreliable. When you stick 7 or 8 strangers in a house, what are you going to get? 6 or 7 strangers wondering how to get themselves naked, drunk, or incompetent on television every single season. It got old and tired (although I love that only one of them was actually somewhat the voice of reason. They were the Jim in a highly inappropriate Office. If they looked at the camera with a judgmental look, the Real World would've been the best show on television). Bring on Laguna Beach, which naturally launched Lauren into the vocabulary of the US Weekly fans.

The situations never make sense to be honest and the decisions made by most of these girls are troubling to say the least. Obviously the Audrina playboy tryout pics this week helped my case. It also didn't help that she went out with Justin Bobby. Heidi chose Spencer. Spencer is a massive douchebag, so massive that Letterman referenced him. Friggin' David Letterman hates Spencer. Whitney makes few bad choices and obviously stands as the voice of reason most of the time. Which obviously leads to Lauren. Bad decision here, funny quip here, personal life collapsing there. It's interesting to watch this girl face adversity and regardless of whether she makes a dumb decision (not going to Paris for Jason) to a questionable decision (basically everything else) there seems to be a longing for an outcome. No matter how ridiculous their lives seen and how awful the people are (Spencer of course being the love child of the devil and the creepy naked old woman in the Shining), people can't help but find out what's in store for Lauren and her friends.

Now whether this success and attention is deserved or not, there seems to be an interest in this girl's life. It is a guilty pleasure in the purest sense of the word. Besides, where can I watch "meaningful reality tv", some show where they give away money? Where they build a house for families?....oh wait....

A Sidestep If You Will

There's something about the internet that you can't escape. It's a black hole of productivity and it does not help that everything revolves around it. Whether you're communicating, shopping, doing homework, gossiping, looking up celebrities, looking up celebrity sex tapes, laughing at celebrity sex tapes, watching people having a lot more sex than you are (what do you get when the multiplier is 40 and you're variable is 0), basically every essential detail revolves around the internet. Bored at work? Get on the internet. Bored at school? Get on the internet. Hell, bored at life? Get a Second Life or World of Warcraft account. Forget your RL (geekspeak for real life) friends. That guild is recruiting and has a raid schedule. Congratulations, you just filled your Friday night.

But yes, the blog is a funny thing. People have gotten famous for blogging. Perez Hilton. That Washington chick that slept with a senator. Basically you get my point, mostly because I can't think of any more examples. But really, blogs are there because we as a society, are obsessed with knowing all the information and having it presented with poor photoshop skills or abandoned vintage sayings from the 80s (see any celebrity blog). Hell, when I pull in readers from Xanga, I'm dumbfounded most of the time, asking why people care so much. Although I know better, I was edgier in the past. I've challenged my friend's significant others to fights before (okay, only one). I've made fun of people by writing descriptions of their thought processes while showing a picture of them making out (okay, same person. Man, I wonder she thought I was a jerk...). Obviously in today's climate of jobs searching out facebooks and myspaces for any incriminating material on their employees, people are more inclined to walk on eggshells than get fired. Hell, Apple tells you not to blog or Steve Jobs is going rip his turtleneck and turn green like the Hulk and have a temper tantrum...supposedly he's prone to temper tantrums and is a control freak.

Here's my point, or really, the whole point on why you're reading this. Out of the hundreds of entries I have ever written, there's a .0046 percent change you thought one of them was funny or thought-provoking or just so painstakingly awkward and embarassing that you had to find out if I would do it again. (Calling a flirting girl stupid inadvertently would be one.) Now, I'm not saying my life is a train-wreck like any blonde pop singer that got their fame by being associated with Disney, but it does get interesting at times. However, I have outgrown Xanga. I'm just sick of it. I wrote it because I wanted to get over a girl. Not really that, but to occupy myself with something in order to get over said girl. That and I'm a massive attention whore. That was March 30th, 2003. Things have changed over the last five years. My mom has a hole in her head (she's fine, I just like saying that because it's actually true), I'm less than a year from my undergraduate degree (I'm aware that Hicks is graduating from medical school 5 months after I do), I had a girlfriend (one I was admittedly a complete dick to but in my defense, she regurgiated crazy like a four year old on the Tilt-A-Whirl), I have a better, more awesome girlfriend now (not so crazy but obviously more wonderful), my dad is almost retired, etc. I have friends getting pregnant or married now. I'm not 20 years old anymore. I can't reference the word "quarter-life crisis". It's just tacky at this point. I'm not here to whine, woe is me, the winter of my discontent, blah blah blah bob loblaw.

There's one good thing about this though. I have not written anything worthwhile since, well, I started dating Megan. I usually write about things that piss me off or any weird sarcastic reference to the world we live in today. Obviously being in the situation I'm in, I don't have much to complain about. But I still observe the culture today and not surprisingly, it does not inspire much. So here's what I'm going to do.

• I'm switching blogs!: This is an obvious move. You're reading it now. I like typepad better for the time being. And I'm not restricted by my past posts on Xanga from shadowing me or even karaokerevolution.net. I have a bit more freedom to say whatever I wish without having the worry of pissing off the general public.
• I have a podcast: Well, sort of. I want to start another podcast. More or less, I want to record conversations I have with friends because they are insightful and just funny. I already have a videogame podcast (which the link will be provided at another time) but I think it'd be nice to do something else that had a bigger range.
• I have nothing but time on my hands: I work at a Mattress Store in 10 hour shifts. It's only natural that someone pisses me off there. I'm sitting at a library at Wayne State waiting for my next class. It's only natural that I end up sitting next to two girls complaining about how hard it is to find a guy...that drives a Mercedes and is hot. Seriously, I don't joke about this stuff.

I really hope this works. I do want people to read this (again, attention whore in the hizzy) but I understand if they do not want to. There's a life outside to experience, to get on with. But lucky for me, you have a radiation emitting screen in front of you as you slowly wither away the muscle mass in your body because, quite frankly, the internet has taken the place whatever productivity you were going to do now. But hey, at least I have company.