Grade Me

post-mba / struggling entrepreneur's progress report:

A+ to my office / bedroom ceiling fan, my savior from this week's summer heat.

A to all my IM friends who keep me entertained during the work day.

B to our last meeting location (bob's coffee and donuts in the farmers market). all was good until stan asked for a cup of ice. he got ice sans cup. interesting experience.

C to the homeless lady at the next door bank who frequently yells at me for apparently stealing her husband...in spanish. thanks goodness for senor barbosa and high school spanish. i can understand her and enrique iglesia's lyrics.

C- to the little korean kiddies in the preschool across the street who sing way too many high-pitched songs during my nap time...er, i mean business hours.

F to not making money. But a BIG FAT F- to the number 5 -- i lost an all-in hand holding a full house of 7s and 3s to 7s and 5s at a poker night few days ago. losing money when not making money...hurts. even more than when enrique sings about "si tu te vas."

Wise Words

last week, stan and i were trying to decide if we wanted to take a deal proposed by a potential investor for tastination / fob. we called a trusted professor who told us this about first start-up experiences (oh, he pauses a lot between phrases...insert dramatic effect):

"sometimes. you have to bend over. hold your ankles. and take it like a man. only then. then! you can learn to walk straight."

yeah mba.

on a side note, thanks to all of you who told me i wasn't the idiot for clinging glass wedding tradition thingy. it was confirmed at clif and waimei's wedding last night that it indeed is an american thang. oh speaking of wise, in-n-out truck rolling in during reception? that's pretty genius.

second side note, to all the canadians, happy canada day, eh!

Ha!

here's a note from my trusted source of info. like bo, "kev knows." here is the encyclopedia himself:

"No, there is something wrong here. Unless midwestern catholics are somehow classified as asian, the silverware-on-stemware tradition is very much American. Wikipedia (the world's most dubious authority) agrees with me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_traditions"

ha take that! though i hear midwestern catholics are wanna-be asians. another tradition is to throw rice right? that screams fob influence. :)

Info Alert

i was at mike and becky's wedding this weekend and learned something incredibly fascinating. a wedding tradition that i always thought was american, turned out to be...not. let me recreate this mind-blowing conversation for you. i am THAT generous.

polly (derek's wifey): "you know at weddings when you cling the glasses and the couple has to kiss?"
laura and me: "yeah, totally."
polly: "is that an asian or an american thing?"
the asians (derek, laura, and me): "american!"
polly: "i don't think so. ask the others at the table."

me to dylan (sitting next to me): "you know when you cling the glasses at weddings and the couple has to kiss? that's an american thing, right?"
dylan: "um, what? never heard that before."
me (smacking him on the arm): "don't lie!"
derek: "maybe he's too young. ask jaime."

me to rest of table who happen to be white / "american": "what does it mean when people cling glasses at weddings?"
jaime (while others nod in agreement): "someone's about to give a toast."
me: "the couple doesn't have to kiss??!?!"
others: "no. never heard that before."

polly: "see?!?!?!?"
the other dumb-founded asians: "weird."
me to dylan: "sorry i hit you."

see? aren't you glad you spent the last minute reading my rendition of this fascinating conversation? oh, here's a pix of the lovely newlyweds. (and akosa, not that you read this, but biting someone's forearm and leaving teethmarks = not any wedding tradition i've heard of either. it still hurts!)



















random shoutout:
willets - can't wait to have you in the best coast. sun, surf, smog, and traffic eagerly await your arrival.

They Called Me CF

back in '99, some of my college buddies and i spent a summer in ann arbor. we spent most weekends camping, swimming in lakes, crossing the border to windsor (go canada's drinking age!), visiting motown museums, and more. towards the end of the summer, we were headed on a small road trip to ohio to see an offspring concert. in the drive over, misty was showing off her newly-developed pictures:

misty to kevin: "hey, look! isn't that a fun picture of me and sauj?"

this picture, similar to the last one in my last blog entry, was one of those flip your camera around, stick your arm out and take a funny picture with you and your friend kind of picture. except we were doubly funny as misty and i were making these blowfish faces.

kevin: "haha. sauj, it looks like someone drew your face with a compass!"
me (being sensitive about my very round face): "um, not funny dude."
misty: "hahaha! sauj, you're compass face!"

so. why was i reminded of this not-so-entertaining story?















well, at least my granny tells me that my face...is round...and bright...like the moon. hmm, come to think of it, maybe it's time i consider a post-mba workout plan.

10 Anos

it's been 10 years to the day that my fellow nitros (don't ask -- our high school mascot was a dynamite stick) and i graduated from ghs. though our reunion isn't until the fall, i assume that most of us have accomplished a lot in this period of time. i frequently hear of news like, "did you know such and such had her second kid?" or "so and so just opened a law firm in pasadena" and feel proud of the fact all the gtown hooligans are all making something of their lives.

so, what did the last 10 years bring me? a fancy gown, a hood, a lei from tina (she really wanted to say "i got you a lay"), and a very tasty can of coke.















oh, and some awesome amigos (i.e. new set of hooligans to keep track of). yeah, the mba thing was definitely worth it.

Sauj Math

after you go on a 6 month hiatus from drinking and then suddenly, you decide to have a wham bam thank you ma'am rockstar weekend in vegas, what does your body do? reject living for a while. even though my headache went away post-alka selzter (i love you!), my tummy is still nauseous and my body is sore. okay, so the sore part is not from the drinking but from my out-of-shape lazy ass self trying to put together some sexy-only-to-yourself-when-your-drunk dance moves for two straight nights. but you get the point. me = hurtin'.

so, to demonstrate my retarded drunkenness, let me tell you how i lose money in style in vegas. here's me at the hard rock single deck blackjack table.

episode 1
dealer named kim who has worked in casinos for 18 years even though her plan was to take a one-year break before applying to law school (showing a mother f'in king): "yes?"
me (holding a 6 and an 8): "hit please."
kim: "a 9."
me (sliding my cards face down): "cool."
(kim finishes dealing. she shows a 17.)
kim: "um, you can flip your cards over when you bust."
me: "huh? i had good cards!"
kim: "you have 23."
nora chimes in from the peanut gallery: "can you believe she went to mit?"
me: "hey! don't you have mit alums in some blackball list in casinos?"
kim: "i highly doubt you are on it."

episode 2 (two deals later)
me (holding a 5 and an ace): "hit please"
kim: "4."
me: "hit please"
kim: "Q"
me: "yay!"
(kim finsihes dealing. she shows 18.)
me: "go me. i win, i had a 20!"
kim: "um, yeah, you had 20 TWICE. you can really stop the first time you get it."

i know i make my alma mater proud. me and my retarded, aging, weak sauce, drunk, card shark, dancing machine self. thanks vegas!

Fobs

before heading to our dis-orientation in vegas, i thought i'd post a picture of our fob team. few of you have asked, who the f are all these people you keep talking (sh*t) about? here they are. haha. :)

An Addendum

oh, last week sometime, i actually looked at the back of that "horny" shot glass that my mom uses for the family dining table's carnation vase.

from the bottom is says:

2 oz. - cold as ice
4 oz. - getting a headache
6 oz. - maybe a quickie
8 oz. - horny as hell!!!

this only has to happen in a fobby family, right? yeah, that's right, i said the f word.

More Nerd Careers

oh phew. something for the girls too on the mit list. i'm offended. but then again, i'm jobless right now...hmm.

WAIT, but i full on admit i love celebrity gossip (who can't stop reading about paris' night in jail?). oh well.

------

Casting Females With Brains ASAP!!! Please Forward.

Are you tired of turning on the TV and watching the same cookie-cutter girls over and over again?

Do you love math, science, computers, comic books, or games that require thinking?

Is fashion and style low on your list of priorities?

Are you a girl who is all brains and couldn't care less about celebrity gossip?

Is it difficult to find a good guy?

A Major Television Network wants you for a show shooting for 6 weeks this summer!

Please send us an e-mail telling us about yourself along with a current picture and a contact number ASAP!

Come on girls! Let's level the playing field!

If you fit the bill we will need you to audition this week!

Nerd Career

only on the mit alum list do you get the following announcement. what? shouldn't they be looking for the beauties on our list? haha.

------

The CW Network's breakout hit reality show BEAUTY AND THE GEEK is casting for season four in the LOS ANGELES AREA

Produced by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg ("Punk'd"), BEAUTY AND THE GEEK pairs gorgeous but academically impaired women with brilliant but socially challenged men to test intellect and social skills. This cycle will remain true to the series' format, pairing the women with the men for a chance to win up to $250, 000 cash prize.

ARE YOU A GEEK AND WANT TO HELP A BEAUTY?

We are currently seeking...

• Intellectually endowed but socially inept men who can turn a shopper into a scholar

• Beauties and Geeks willing to work together and compete for the opportunity to win a substantial cash prize!!

Yay!

i've drunk-dialed before. drunk-emailed before. but never drunk-blogged before. until now that is.

our business plan team, tastination (formerly known as mr. fob) won the school's competition tonight. Going up against four other teams, which included med devices and homeland security software, our measly little idea won. needless to say our team celebrated...and celebrated well (i just got a text from laura that she tossed her cookies). somewhere in the night, annu told me that i had to announce to the world that we won on my blog when i got home. so, ta da.

anyhoo, i'm too retarded and tired to make sense, but thank you all for your support. we'll be having a food tour soon...and with our winnings, including a 6-month lease on an office space, we're soooo open for business. :) yay!

TMT (Too Much Tina) and More

okay, warning. longer entry than normal. i feel like lindy.

this weekend was a blur. i spent most of it with tina II - a concert, few bars, a comedy show (that we never made), a housewarming, a mothers' day, and few more etc's. i basically recall yelling "TMT, TMT!!!" to tina for no particular reason. so what do you do when you don't remember? you turn to your handy camera to remind you of your stupid times.

so, i just looked. i got two pictures for you.

1. the preferred parking situation
due to last weeks' fire at griffith park, the keane concert was moved from the greek to the gibson in universal. tina had won vip tix with comped parking for the event, but unfortunately, with the venue change, it was quite confusing. after tina yelled at a parking booth guy for making us pay and sweet-talked a preferred parking guard, we self-directed ourselves into the preferred parking area because we claimed ourselves v-i-p. once we got out of the truck, we realized that every car around us had these pink slips on their windshields. so, what does tina do? she goes to the car next to us, rips its pink sheet in half and puts it on my truck. voila. tina = an action hero.

then, we start walking towards the venue and then my worrywart consciences kicks in. "tina, what if i get towed?"

so, after a few "dude, you're retarded"s, we decide to f our v-i-p status and move to the common people's parking lot. as we're driving in, our half-ripped, stolen pink slip that is still hanging on our windshield catches the attention of another parking attendant. she furiously waves us over and moves several cones to make way for us to get to yet another preferred parking area! moving at like 0.00000001 mph, i drive towards her with my guilt-ridden face. tina = not so much an action hero. here's the stupid 1/2 ticket.















2. mothers' day moment
i went to gtown for dinner yesterday. what do i spot in the middle of our dinner table? just a pretty pink carnation in a thin vase with some writing on it. as i get closer, i realize it's a shot glass sandy got me during college that i left at my parents' house...here it is. if you can't read what it says: "Caution. sober to horny in four shots." yup. mothers' day dinner centerpiece.

oh, we picked tastination. www.tastination.com. we present this baby in the finals of our biz plan competition next week. fun times.

Mr. Word Smith

the fob renaming project is way way harder than i ever imagined. we're currently at about 40 back-and-forth emails with potential names. the biggest hurdle is that the urls for the names we like are not available...such a bummer. anyhoo, currently, we're messing with names like:

- ethnicfoodie.com
- tastination.com or tastynations.com
- mr. (or dr.) juan ton

thoughts? the juan ton thing cracks me up so much...but i figure we'll run into the same issues as mr. fob.

oh, and speaking of misters and doctors, i just updated my resume. i figure it's about time to find a job. here's my last line:

interests: golf, snowboarding, discovering new restaurants, following the NBA, and mastering dr. mario (NES version)

...yup, i still hope to beat steph and mama yi one day.

Insert Name Here

as i mentioned a while back, few bschool friends and i have been trying to run a small business called mrfob. we take people to undiscovered authentic ethnic restaurants, order them food, and teach a little something about the cuisine. the whole thing has been so much fun...until last week when we started to receive complaints that the name of our company was not...um...PC.

there's so much more to this story than i probably should tell in a public forum like this. i guess we always knew our name is edgy, but i absolutely love it. it's fobulous! since i and the world around me have always used it in a playful manner, such as calling myself a fob, i never thought much of it. but i've learned that american society is more sensitive than pmsing chicks.

in any case, my team currently is considering new names. i tried to rebel, but i know it's the right thing for us. we've kicked around some ideas, but you = smart / creative / politically correct and have better ones?

my favorite thus far is going by a symbol (perhaps chopsticks) and calling ourselves "the company formerly known as mrfob." har har, i make my fobby self laugh.