So my friend showed me this blog: 8Asians and they had an article about Mr. Sulu (Star Trek). What was funny was when I saw the movie I thought, hey it’s that dude (his name is John Cho of “Harold & Kumar” fame). And I started wondering, well, who else would they get? The number of Asian actors working in American movies is slim, like Latinos. I would actually say slimmer than Latinos. I am sure there are actors/actresses who are part Asian working, but I mean people who have the Asian look.

My mind began to wonder about Asians in the media and who could fill this role now…

William Hung

William Hung, no. Not really a film star anyway, or is he?

Jackie Chan as Sulu? Probably not…

Pat Morita

Pat Morita, well, since he passed away a few years ago, that’s a no too.

Chow Yun Fat

Danny reminded me of Chow Yun Fat. But I don’t think he would fit in with the young cast of Star Trek.

Hm…so I thought my list of actors would be longer…I can’t think of any others. Oh yes, of course John Cho who plays the new  Sulu in the Star Trek movie.

John Cho

Oh and of course, the original Mr. Sulu!

George Tekai

I could throw in more of Asia, like India…but my list would probably only include the cast of Slumdog Millionaire and Kumar (Kutner from House). M. Night S… is a director, but he has starred in his movies…

Hm, my list is so sparse.

Are there any other young Asian actors out there? American films would have us think not. Can you think of other mainstream Asian actors working in American film? Help me think of some!

This is why classes develop and grow each quarter, I keep getting more in-depth questions that I really want to answer and will add to the next class I teach. So keep questions coming!

XHTML/CSS

A student asked me about the psychology of coding things like CSS and XHTML. I was sort of taken aback. I had never really thought about it in that way. My thoughts were that the World Wide Web Consortium created these standards for us to follow. Because of the changes that happen so quickly, they have to create new standards and leave room for changes or additions to those standards. They tried to make the tags self-evident but they can be confusing so there are a lot of references available in books or on the web. By following these rules, you can make a usable, complient webpage that would be viewable by as many browsers as possible.

I also wondered if perhaps in the class “Programming Logic”, if students got some psychology there? I have not sat in that class so I’m not 100% what is covered. I know the instructor does not cover the coding we use necessarily, but did he cover the thought process behind all types of coding?

What is the psychology of coding? Is that something the programmers decide and that’s why I never really thought about it (since I’m a designer)? And how can I make the learning of web coding easier for students to understand?

So I haven’t been posting here in a while. Every time I am on the computer I feel like I should be prepping for my lecture or finding interesting exercises for my students to try. Even right now, I don’t feel fully prepared for tomorrows class so I will be up late.

My parents visited this weekend and it was good. Usually I have more family come at the same time. With so many people in the house it can get really crowded, and that’s because we have 4 bedrooms! But hey, I’m used to it (6 in our family when I was at home). It was just nice to be with my parents though. Just kind of hang out and have fun.
Danny is out of town for some gigs with a guy named Eric Tessmer. It doesn’t look like a permanent thing, but it was a couple of well paying gigs. He’ll be home soon.

I am half half about the neighborhood I live in.
On one hand it is at times called the ghetto. Last week a cop shot a kid (18 yrs old) in the face and riots broke out. Okay, small riots, but that happened about 3 blocks away. Not too long ago, there was a hostage situation and they called my house and a recording said to “stay indoors”. That was 2 blocks away.
But on the other hand…even though stuff has happened nearby, I like our house and our neighborhood. We live in a cul-du-sac and don’t have many problems here. It seems to be “over there” or “those houses” that have issues. I think the neighborhood is changing. We are considered east central Austin which is good, especially since a big development is nearby. Our house value has grown too, so I think it was a good investment.
But today I was pretty annoyed. My mind started pondering the thought of moving out of here. I have found I can’t go walking alone (even with the dog). I get honks and shouts from trucks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m so amazingly hot that they can’t help it, I think if anything with legs and long hair was walking – the low lifes would honk. Today I got the honks and shouts, but then I had someone pull near me and ask if I was “selling”. I did not look up and I ignored him but…grrrr. I went straight home and decided that I can’t go alone anymore. While my neighborhood is changing, it’s still has a way to go.
I do think it’s interesting that our neighborhood is predominately black, yet we have pockets of Mexicans. Like our neighbors who go back and forth from Mexico often. They speak a different Spanish than what I am used to and tend to wear more cowboy clothing. Not sure if being a “cowboy” is a Mexican thing or what. Corpus was like the birthplace of Tejano but I didn’t see nearly as many cowboys as I do here (and that’s because most Tejano bands have matching cowboy shirts!). I know that’s a weird observation but it just stood out to me. To bring this back to my original point, those are the people who I keep getting honks from. *sigh* I was happy moving into our area because there was a mix (and more whites are coming in too). I like the diversity and it reminded me of Taft (my birth town). But today I was reminded why my parents worked so hard to move our family out of Taft. It wasn’t the ghetto they were worried about, it was the barrio. Why am I back when they worked so hard to get us out?
No rash decisions need to be made now, but just something else to think about that we’ll probably need to do before we have children.

Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I must admit, I enjoyed “Running with Scissors” much more than this book. “Dry” A Memoir” dealt solely with Augusten’s alcoholism and his trials at becoming sober. It did give me a view into the world of rehab and AA meetings. I found it hard to relate to a lot of it since I barely drink, but his writing is witty and clever and he does a really good job at letting you know the crap that goes through your mind when trying to break a horrible habit.

It was an easy read but I realized that I haven’t really read about the gay lifestyle much in main stream novels. His relationships were of course a side note to his road to sobriety but he weaved it in pretty well.

If you plan to read Augusten Burroughs, I recommend “Running with Scissors” and maybe leaving “Dry” on the shelf.


View all my reviews.