The Harry Potter craze is back to sweep the nation, which means a lot of your Internet surfing will be taken up with pop culture parodies about the young wizard. Of course, this means a Harry Potter version of Far East Movement’s “Fly Like A G6″ by The Station, appropriately renamed as “Fly Like It’s Quidditch.” If you find yourself singing this version in the shower later on, don’t blame us.
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As you have heard in the news, President Obama recently returned from a 10-day trip to Asia, including stops in India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. Obama attended the G20 economic summit while he was in South Korea, and Saturday Night Live did a take on his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao and his thoughts on U.S. debt owned by China – a funnier take than the Evil Chinese Professor.
Shopping With GASP!
On this week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, Nicole Scherzinger “loosened up her buttons” as Jessica Glitter, Robin’s (Cobie Smulders) ex-BFF from her days as Robin Sparkles, her Canadian pop star alter-ego of the ’80s.
Drenched in hyper-overstyled, skank-friendly attire, the two were stars of Space Teens, a kids show where they fought crime from space via math (and with the help of Alan Thicke!).
The funniest part of the show was the fact that, even though it was a kid show, there were layers upon layers of pornographic innuendos including slow motion jiggly jumping, stroking of a joystick, a song about beavers and, of course, the aforementioned skank-friendly attire — and let’s not forget the fact that Scherzinger’s character played the keytar! It’s so good to know that our favorite Filipino Pussycat Doll’s musical skills are being put to good use. Video clip of beavers and, uhm, keytars, after the jump:
You sure didn’t read this in The Social Network: A Gawker post reveals that for Facebook’s predecessor, FaceMash, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “listed ‘Asian girls’ amid other interests like programming, playing guitar, quoting Top Gun and ‘defeating nemeses.’ It’s unlikely Zuckerberg’s present girlfriend, medical school student and fellow Harvard alum Pricilla Chan, would have found that bit of naked fetishization particularly charming, even accounting for the fact that it was likely posted under the heading “interests” rather than the field’s new title, “What I enjoy doing,” which renders the dating preference even cruder.”
Last week, there was a lot of election news that I tried to wrap-up, including Jean Quan winning the Oakland mayoral race, California race. One race which I didn’t get a chance to follow-up on was that of California State Senator Leland Yee running for the mayor of San Francisco in 2011, to replace outgoing Mayor Gavin Newsom (who won the Lt. Governor’s race and will be vacating his office the first week of January). Well, technically, Yee is announcing an “exploratory committee” – another way of saying that means he is running.
In the mean time, there is a lot of posturing to see who will be appointed the interim mayor prior to the special election, as the Board of Supervisors consider what criteria and whom might be appointed. Technically, if Mayor Newsom or the Board of Supervisors appoint no one upon Newsom’s departure, President of the Board of Supervisors David Chiu would become interim mayor; in either the case of Chiu or Yee, San Francisco might have its first Asian American mayor. Imagine that: San Francisco and Oakland having Asian American mayors. Not bad, considering Asian Americans have been part of the San Francisco Bay Area community for over 150 years and make up up to 35% of the population in some communities. What’s next – an Asian American mayor in San Jose? Trifecta!
The new Tianhe-1A machine in Tianjin, China is expected to come in first in a new ranking to be released at a super computer conference this week in New Orleans. The ranking would confirm preliminary estimates that the machine scored higher on standard computing tests than the Jaguar system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which previously ranked as the world’s fastest super computer. China, which also operates the third most powerful super computer, has 42 supercomputers in the semiannual Top 500 ranking, holding a second place ranking behind the U.S. in large supercomputer installations.
Tianhe-1A is one of a few machines whose capabilities exceed a “petaflop,” or a quadrillion scientific calculations per second. Chinese agencies have vowed to follow up with at least one system in five years that will reach 50 to 100 petaflops. Between 2016 and 2020 they expect to achieve one to 10 “exaflops,” or a quintillion operations per second.
It’s a long way from ENIAC, the first general-purpose, electronic computer, which handled about 5,000 calculations a second, first commissioned in 1943. Part of the ENIAC is still housed at the University of Pennsylvania where it was built. When I attended Penn in the late eighties, students could still touch the machine and fiddle with the knobs. Today, the remaining panels at Penn are protected in glass enclosed displays.
The advancement of the Chinese in the super computer realm is of course pushing the U.S. government and U.S. companies, to restore leadership in computing performance, so expect to hear more about this in the coming years.
Earlier this summer, Kal Penn (known by his full real name, Kalpen Modi) left The White House to film another sequel to Harold & Kumar. Well, Penn is back, returning to the Office of Public Engagement as an Associate Director and as the point person for those in the Arts, Youth, and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Very much like what he was doing prior to leaving The White House.
So Google decides to build a locations based reviews service, similar to Yahoo! Local or Yelp. Fair enough, right? The name that decided to go with however, is Google Hotpot. Hotpot, for those of you guys that have never lived in Monterey Park or had a Taiwanese roommate in college, is the act of bringing every frozen food item known to mankind, cooking it and sharing it at a table in restaurants known for some questionable sanitary conditions, if you know what I’m saying. Hey Google; hotpot is our word, and we had it first! (Now, hand over those frozen fishballs and lettuce leaves if you’re not going to use them; we got to boil some dinner for me and seven of my closest friends.)
Fans of Glee are still all a twitter about the show’s latest heartthrob addition: Darren Criss.
Last week the relatively unknown pop star/actor became known. He made us swoon as Blaine, Kurt’s (Chris Colfer) potential love interest and mentor. As a friendly member of a rival glee club, we were all giddy like school girls as he and his homeboys performed a rendition of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream.” He added a new dynamic to a show that has become musically gratuitous and droning.
The added bonus? The boy is half Filipino (confirmed on his Twitter account). Therefore, all fellow Filipinos have a moral obligation to like him and claim him as one of our own. So every time someone says his name we can immediately interject the phrase, “HE’S HALF FILIPINO!” into the conversation. Shameless Hulu embed of him singing, after the jump! Continue Reading »
(EDITORS NOTE: This article was originally published on Discover Nikkei. Reprinted with permission.)
I remember as a child knowing that I didn’t look “American” and because of that sometimes I didn’t feel “American” either. As a person of color living in the United States, these truths are self-evident, even if no one has ever said it to my face. And a part of me always felt like I was Japanese who just happened to live in America. That’s why I was so excited about going to Japan the first time with my family when I was seven years old. I believed (maybe it was hoped) that I would finally find an identity (JAPANESE in big and bold letters) that I can hold on to.
Japan turned out to be a huge disappointment — it was easy to see right away that I was NOT Japanese. The way I spoke. The way I dressed. The way I thought. Even the way I walked down a street. They all pointed to an identity that was not Japanese. If anything, I was more American. Continue Reading »
The Working APA Actor is a bi-monthly interview of Asian Pacific Islander American actors in the entertainment world, whether it be theater, film, television, or commercials. It is an inside look at these actors exploring their passion in their craft and how they balance their personal lives with their work. But more importantly, this column is dedicated to knowing these busy actors a little better as individuals.
Over the past few weeks The Taqwacores (directed by Eyad Zahra) opened in various cities across the nation and in the UK after premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It is a film that will be dubbed as “that film about punk Muslims” but it is so much more than that. At the heart of it all, it is a film that explores the concept of identity and truly expressing oneself without any restraint. The film also opened at the 2010 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and swept the awards as it nailed Best Film, Best Director, Best Ensemble Cast, Best Script, and the Audience Award.
Starring in the leading role is Bobby Naderi, an Iranian American actor who I had the pleasure of meeting when the film first premiered at the 2010 LAAPFF. Bobby will take the honor as the first person to kick off our new column, The Working APA Actor. Continue Reading »
I think the first time I saw golfer Michelle Wie on television was for a McDonald’s commercial over the summer. After watching this Kia commercial for the Kia Soul, I guess she’s got more endorsement deals. The next time I’m at Stanford, I’ll be sure to see if I see her driving around in a Kia. I’m sure Michelle is turning heads not just for the car she’s driving or for her golfing skills – she’s definitely looking pretty photogenic in this commercial.
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