On ancient Chinese secrets

Wayne: Oh yeah; thanks for doing my laundry. Hey Cassandra, how do you get my clothes so white and fresh-smelling?
Cassandra: It's an age-old Cantonese family method that very few people know about.
Wayne: Ahh... Wait a minute... Calgon? Ancient Chinese secret, huh?

This post isn't actually about Wayne's World 2, or about Calgon. Faithful readers know that my life has recently been spiraling downwards toward inescapable mystery and danger. Today, a new chapter has begun. But this time it goes way beyond phone calls, racist text messages, and lost keys. We're talking big time intrigue here. We're talking real occult adventure here. Sorcerers and dragons here. Ancient Chinese secrets here.

A few days ago my parents returned from a two week vacation in China. They traveled the country in a big tour group, visiting cultural landmarks and purchasing factory produced trinkets without the usual American markup. A big part of the trip was spent floating around on a cruise ship in the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River. Because of the massive Three Gorges Dam, the water level in the Yangtze has risen so much that there wasn't enough space for their cruise ship to pass beneath one of the bridges. They had to transfer to a smaller boat in order to go under the bridge. My father met a man on this smaller boat. My father bought something from this man.

It went down like this: the boat was so packed that there wasn't enough room on the main deck, and my dad spent the time in the control room. The helmsman pulled him aside, reached into his coat, and pulled out a small bronze figurine. He told my dad that it was a creature from Chinese myth, a creature that would bring great prosperity and luck. After my dad bought the figurine, which was the only thing the guy was selling and was presumably just something he happened to have in his pocket, the guy brought his finger to his lips.
"Shhhh..." the guy said, "don't tell I sold to you."
My dad promised he would not tell anyone else, and looked down to examine his purchase. The guy touched my dad's arm, and brought his finger to his lips once more.
"Shhhh..."


My dad gave the figure to me. It's apparently known as a Pixiu, a hybrid lion-dragon thing with antlers. From the Wikipedia article:

The myth of Pi Xiu tells that the creature violated a law of heaven, so the Jade Emperor punished it by restricting the pixiu's diet to gold, and prevented the creature from defecating by sealing its anus.

Huh. It's a monster that eats gold and doesn't poop it out because its butt is sewn shut, thereby making the owner wealthy. Boy I can't wait to meet it once the figurine comes to life and sparks a series of silly misadventures. Based on the inauspicious way in which it was acquired, that is what I truly believe will happen. I've seen the movie Gremlins. I know what happens when you buy a gift from a mysterious Chinese guy. I've also seen the movie Big Trouble in Little China. I know what happens when you get involved in Chinese mythology.

So unless my dad was joking about how he got the figure, or the guy on the boat was just pretending to be weird in order to trick tourists into buying his souvenirs, my life will soon become a corny and overbudgeted mid 80's action-comedy with bad special effects and some hokey and racially insensitive mysticysm thrown in. Not even the Spebector is ready for that.

Enter: the Spebector, part IV: If You Can't Stand the Heat...

My life certainly has become exciting ever since I revived my old Spebector persona. I present yet another tale of mystery and intrigue, this time taking place within the seamy underworld of amateur cooking!!!!!!

I had my last cooking class on Tuesday, and as I was packing my knives and going, I found something strange. Hidden in one of the pockets of the satchel I used to carry my cooking utensils was a key. Not just any key, mind you, but a mysterious key.

I had never seen the key before, so I jumped to the logical conclusion that I was in an Enemy of the State type situation and the key had been covertly slipped into my bag by some sort of rogue chef in an attempt to elude some sort of nefarious cooking Illuminati bent on creating a New World Order (of cooking). They are obviously watching me now using spy satellites and secret agents with advanced tracking devices and cameras and other types of surveillance equipment that hasn't even been invented yet. But I'm used to that type of treatment. What's important now is unraveling the mysteries of the key. What will it unlock? A briefcase filled with diamond encrusted cooking utensils? A safe deposit box filled with guns, opium, Russian money, and priceless spices? A secret island laboratory in the South China Sea undertaking human cloning experiments in order to take over the culinary world? An ancient Egyptian crypt packed with evidence that aliens landed thousands of years ago and built the food pyramid?

The answer, of course, is all of the above.

But speaking of ancient alien conspiracies and packing knives and going, last night was the season premiere of Top Chef. After that one episode, I am ready to declare the winner. The winner will be Gene. I am writing this now for the sake of posterity, and so that when Gene is eventually crowned I may refer back to this and say I told you so.

On world domination, more nerdiness

It's funny how many of my posts here are dedicated to exposing myself as a nerd. I collect garbage that other people discard, I dress as Pikachu for Halloween, I go to Star Trek conventions. Oh hell, I might as well combine all three of those and tell you that when I was in 4th grade I wore a Star Trek uniform for Halloween and probably picked up some garbage while Trick or Treating.

And here goes another one.

This past Saturday, November 8, 2008, was the first of what will hopefully be many board game nights. It had been quite a while since I had last played a board game. I mean really played a board game. Not just as a drinking game to get things started before going to a party. I mean using a board game as the main impetus for entertainment. I had started to believe that I might never again have such wholesome fun.

But lo, it was a great time.

I have an attention span that can only be detected with a powerful electron microscope, and as such I usually am not able to finish time intensive games such as Risk and Monopoly. But for whatever reason (read: alcohol) I played Risk and Monopoly all the way to the end! Of course, those two games took about six hours, so it was actually somewhat of an accomplishment.

Being pictured next to a Risk board automatically makes you look like a huge dweeb, so I stayed out of the frame.

Not pictured: myself, and the other eight dudes who were there.

I'm already looking forward to the next game night. In addition to Risk and Monopoly, I have a few ideas for other games that we can play.

Enter: the Spebector, part III?

More unexplainable phone phenomena!

A few minutes ago I received a text message from a number I did not recognize. It was forwarded from another number I did not recognize. The message read as follows:

URGENT: ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE TO REPORT TO THE COTTON FIELDS BY 7 AM TOMORROW FOR ORIENTATION.

Now, as a white person, I already knew about this meeting and have had it circled on my calender for months. But I still don't know who the good samaritan is who passed on this important memo. A little internet sleuthing has shown me that I am not the only person to receive the text.

What the hell is going on, you may ask? Why is everybody receiving a mysterious and creepy text message asking white people to gather in a cult-like fashion? Is it a prank? Is it a racist conspiracy? Does it have anything to do with the fact that only two days ago a black man was elected president of the United States of America for the first time in history?

The Spebector is on the case.

On whatever it was that just happened

So I guess there was just some sort of election or something? I dunno, I never really heard about it. Why doesn't the media ever cover this sort of thing? They didn't even try to tell us that something was happening!

All joking aside, I am one of the sixty million or so Americans who is very happy to have Obama as president. But as hard as we sixty million Americans celebrate Obama's victory, we are still going to be out-celebrated by Japan.

The town of Obama, Japan (pop. 32,000) gathered almost a dozen hula dancers, a rock band called the Anyone Brothers Band who play songs on the electric guitar, and several reporters to throw a party in honor of living in a town that shares a name with an elected official on the complete other side of the world. Oh, and did I mention that the party featured ecstatic chanting???!!!


Now that, my boring American friends, is how you celebrate an election.

On the neverending rollercoaster of excitement that is my life

You know, when you think about it, popcorn is actually really cool.

On creating a brilliant Pikachu costume

For Halloween this year, I went as Pikachu. I now present to you simple, step-by-step instructions so that you can recreate this costume and reenact my night.

1. Decide that you want to be John McCain for Halloween
2. Realize that John McCain is old and decrepit and that you are young and spry, and that you can't really make yourself look like him in any convincing way
3. Have a friend remind you that Pokemon are funny, and that you are willing to publicly debase yourself by dressing as one
4. Go to Ragstock, which will be impossibly packed, and buy a smelly yellow sweatshirt that is too small and a dirty brown t-shirt
5. Spend way, way too long cutting up the brown t-shirt and sewing it on the back of the sweatshirt to create Pikachu's stripes that people probably won't notice anyway
6. Apply pressure to the cuts on your hands from the scissors
7. Castigate yourself for not knowing how to use scissors without cutting yourself
8. Spend way, way too long cutting ears out of cardboard and painting them with your expensive acryllic paints
9. Go to your friend's party to drink a bunch of gnarly keg beer
10. Tell everyone at the party that you are using the Thunderbolt attack on them
11. Whiskey shots? Why not?
    
12. When that party winds down, cram 7 people into a tiny coupe to go to another friend's party
13. Get lost
14. Drive around for several minutes until someone finally remembers how to get there
15. Drink even gnarlier keg beer (seriously people, stop buying kegs of Ice beer)
16. Remind everyone at this party that you are using the Thunderbolt attack on them
17. Watch the guys dressed as pro wrestlers put on a hilarious wrestling match
18. Help your sick friend make it to the bathroom
19. Laugh at your sick friend, then feel kinda bad about it
20. Drink more gnarly keg beer
21. Make more Pokemon jokes
    
22. Get into a shouting match with your friend's neighbor in which many curse words are used
23. Promise to throw a brick through the neighbor's window
24. Instead, chuck a few pebbles maybe in the direction of where he might have possibly been
    
25. More keg beer
26. More Pokemon jokes
27. More keg beer
28. Pokemon
29. Keg
30. Thunderbolt! I'm using Thunderbolt on you! Get it? Cuz I'm Pikachu, see
31. whoa why is that girl running around the party naked
    
32. Where is teh keg
33. i"m caling Roy, "youre Charlie Wildcard... ...your wildcard... THAt is all"
    
34. Its 5 in the morning, are we goin homE soon?
35. Hey tThere's still beer in the keG
36. Hahaha PokeEMon are funy
37. Wait why are gwe leavingn alredy? it'S only 6
38. can i DrinK this beEr on teh drive home? sorRy I already opened it, i have to drik it now
39. yEAH lets play FIFA, what wait can i lie on the couch i'm kinnda treizezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
40. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
41. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So there you have it, folks. Now you can have your very own Pikachu Halloween Adventure™.