Leftover Chinese Crafts a Traditional Meta Blog Post

The National Basketball Association had their annual 'amateur' draft tonight and my team of choice drafted a foreign player whose PR organization made it clear their client does not want to work there.

Being that the player drafted is of similar race to mine, I find myself proud of the guy....and curious as to what stereotypes are being thrown around this week. The journal sentinel blogger posted the following:

Considering that the Bucks were in the running for Greg Oden and Kevin Durant before the ping pong balls bounced, the intitial taste of Yi went down like bad pork rice.

What the hell is pork rice? Pig meat grounded and formed into rice? If you're going to throw a stereotype out there, please use it correctly.

Hrm...Let's do a google search for 'Yi Jianlian Rice'...

A FoxSports user blog (I think) posted an article about 'releasing the player into the wild. I think it plays on the joke that the Chinese Government manufactures its athletes (true to a degree).

Still, Yi’s agents, the Peoples’ Agents Representing the Peoples’ Athletes, have promised that Yi will be sent to a suitable US city. “We will guarantee that comrade Yi is sent to a US city that has many Chinese restaurants, MSG in every grocery store, and whose team wears a red uniform.”

Comrade, eh? Red, eh? Yao Ming wears red...hrm. That sounds a little too Communist Russia for my tastes.

In a search for 'Yi Jianlian Egg Foo Young', I'm lead to a fan message board:

If he's looking for a large chinese market he should just wait until 09 when the Bucks are forced to relocate to China Town in NYC..
The China Town Egg Foo Young

That is. Not original. Try harder...

Pick #3: Yi Lianlang. *(BK tries to cash in on the Yao/cute Panda at the zoo effect that China has on the US right now while not realizing (along with half of y’all) that Yi is a egg-foo yung eating DIRK NOWITVSKI!!

Egg-foo Yung. Heh. What about Egg Roll? An ESPN sports chat has people who like to post things under the guise of a popular athlete:

Yi Jianlian: Me like rice, me like eggroll, ME dominate NBA!!!!

That's now quite how I would have written it. The author should have really written: "Me rike lice, me rike eggrow, me dominate NBA." Ha. Okay. Sorry about that one. I'll quit while I'm behind.

Anyway...enjoy the stereotypes, interwebs. Take your shots while you can.

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Leftover Chinese Doesn't have Much Else To Say

I've been contracted out to the suburbs (for a few days a week) and first indications are that it's kind of productive, ridiculous, bizarre, and fun at the same time (ask me again when I have to drive home during rush hour). Coincidentally (or not), I bought standard issue golf shirts and khaki pants from lands end online.



I feel like I've crossed some sort of invisible line...but I'm reminded that it's been a few years since I bought any work-related attire at all. All of the shirts I've added to the rotation since 2001 were gifts. Next up: Procuring an SUV.

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Leftover Chinese's Recent List

Soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever - Seriously. I've been advised to seek some pre-disco Bee Gees.

Soundtrack to Xanadu - I can live without the big band jazz numbers (and I like jazz), but the Jeff Lynne stuff is pretty nice.

Wingspan - Some good songs there.

George Harrison : All Things must Pass - Blew my mind. I'm not a huge Beatles fan, but this is the first time in a while I stopped what I was doing to listen. There are some great moments in this epic triple LP.

The Magic Numbers : Self Titled - I'm a little late arriving on this one, but I dig the catchy pop songs.

Also, I saw Apostle of Hustle last night and it was entertaining. The live sound differs from the recorded songs, but still translated very well.

Yep.

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Leftover Chinese's Illustrated Weekend


East Dundee, IL - Dairy Queen Hotdogs
Zaid: "DQ should only have the swirl."


West Dundee, IL - Smoking Popes
Random: "My brother says you look exactly like a friend of ours."
Me: "um...okay."


Germantown, WI - Birthday Party
Katy: "Oh good, more things for the kids to swing around!"


Milwaukee, WI - Mini-Reunion
Dave: "Is this going to be on leftoverchinese.com?"


Wauwatosa, WI
Priest: "All fathers please come down to the sanctuary for a blessing."
*Dad doesn't move an inch*


Pewaukee, WI
Mike: "I bought you a gatorade, dad!"
*ignores son*
Dad: "I'll have a diet coke."


Chicago, IL
Me: "They don't sell this stuff in Chicago."
Clerk: "I see..."
*looks at 36 New Glarus Beers in cart, looks at me*

This is only the beginning of summer...

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Leftover Chinese Finds Another Track

So I thought this could be a weekly feature, but I got busy, lazy, and didn't listen to enough music to keep the "bands that sound like other bands at the time" theme going. Well, I recently went on a bit of a binge and uncovered a few items of note which I hope to share when I find the time. Anyway...

I'm a huge fan of ELP's Drummer; probably because he loves doing the high-to-low-roto-tom fill as often as possible. It makes me laugh when I hear it. Anyway, he's an excellent prog drummer, but what would happen if he started a project that wrote pop songs?

That was a mystery to me until I uncovered his solo project that was quietly released after ELP's breakup and before Asia's formation. Thankfully, joining the supergroup of the 80's was the wise career move.

Being a project obviously short on concept, the album is what I call a time-capsule album. It borrows from a lot mainstream elements going on around the time. He was trying to avoid as much Prog Rock as possible. I wouldn't call it quality, but it's sure interesting to hear styles from Boston, The Police, Genesis, Hall & Oates.. Carl Palmer doing Hall and Oates? Yes...that is until you listen to the lyrics...

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Leftover Chinese Tries his Hand at Something


Gamma X2

Growing up in the ol' burbs, having a racquet strung was a bit of a pain. You'd have to drop it off at the store for a few days and pay $25. If you didn't like the string job, tough shit.

A few weeks ago, I was looking for places to get my racquet re-strung and discovered that there were inexpensive machines for this type of work. The guy at the golf/tennis store told me that I can call somebody who will teach me lessons and certify me as an actual racquet technician. I wasn't ready to go that far, but I figure learn a new skill, save myself an errand, and have one of these delivered to my house.

Shit. I was up until 2am Friday morning trying to figure out how the hell this machine worked. I went to bed feeling like a total failure. The two manuals were absolutely no help and the internet guide didn't make anything easier.

So yesterday, I scoured the internets and found videos of people using the same model machine. Viola!



Attention tennis fans out there. I've got a stringer. Let me know if you need a restring. I'll do it for a nominal fee. Strings are on you.

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Leftover Chinese goes to Portland

They call it the City of Roses, but I leaned it's really the city of healthy affordable living, granola culture, polite behavior, and really bad arm tattoos. Seriously...I just about lost it when I saw a woman with a forearm tattoo that said "/cheer" (archaic IM speak).

Minute highlights that don't really tell the full story:


Eleven hours after getting to O'hare, we finally neared the destination.


No A/C made it a little sweaty.


The 90 minutes of actual recreation uncovered this awesome Union Pacific sign.


Portland is a sleepy town that to us bustled more in the morning than at night. Where else in America are neighborhood coffee shops busier in the morning than trendy bars at night?

Within 45 minutes of stepping on the street and walking around, I decided that I wanted to live there. Yesterday, I determined that while I could live there...it could get pretty small pretty fast...but, that is the price of living in an urban woodsy paradise.

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