It’s been while since my interview with Kina Grannis, about three years now me thinks, and it’s been a long ride. But the wait is finally over with a fabulous album coming out called “Stairwells” after winning the Interscope contract and then leaving the label later on to become an independent. This album blends the well known voice of Kina with what I couldn’t really describe from the preview songs except for a style kind of like John Mayer. Maybe I’m just crazy but this album is probably one of her most polished yet and is already looking to be a hit.

What’s even more fun about this is that if you pre-order “Stairwells” before February 23rd, you’ll get your copy signed. And apparently she’s been spending many hours signing these babies if that’s any indication of where this album is going already. If you’ve never heard of her music, I would suggest you check out the official music video of Valentine above and entice your eardrums to those lovely vocals and gentle strumming of the acoustic guitar.

Beautiful stuff. Really.

Graphics: The colors are pretty vibrant on my Nintendo DSi and it seems that Nickelodeon made an effort to make it into very distinct color schemes due to the fact that there are some color and shape mini-games in the story mode. No special cell-shading here, but let’s be honest now, it’s perfect for the target audience.

Sound: Not much to say here. Not like I play early childhood video games games as a habit, but I assume they used the same voice actors as the cartoon and had them do sound bytes. This was pretty cute, as an educational type game but I wouldn’t want to hear it over and over again as an adult. But the game is for pre-schoolers, and for them, it’s fantastic.

Dynamics: My favorite section of reviews: I thought the overall gameplay to be very linear — not a bad thing for younger minds. The mini-games go from one to the next and don’t really stop for anything. Also interesting is that neither the directional pad or A,B,X,Y keys work. And I’m pretty sure that this was by design; you figure that as a young child, you’ll probably be using the stylus more than anything, so all of the controls are built into the touchpad. From that perspective, I think that it was a brilliant move, although I’m curious as to what age group does actually start to tinker with the keys.

My one single black mark — only like a semi-gray one, really — is probably when Kai-Lan asks you to say something. At first I was trying to say the words but on a offhand thought, I decided to blow in the microphone instead. What’s strange is that it also worked and took it. Now, this isn’t necessarily something that 2K Play can control, but I don’t know how sensitive a DSi can detect actual word patterns. It’d be curious to do some testing in this fashion, but that’s for another day.

Overall: 2K Play is the division of 2K that creates games for this age group. So if you have a little one, love this game, and am looking for similar titles, go there first to find more information. Kai-Lan is a cute series that delves into the Chinese culture and I think that it’s great that we’re starting to see this beginning to pop up even in mainstream gaming.

But in what is a great public relations play, Google is maneuvering this into how they’re supporting anti-censorship efforts, when it’s really a business strategy gamble. The threat of Google moving out of China really doesn’t scare the Chinese government at all, and I doubt that it was anything but to incite more loyalty in other parts of the world where Google reigns king; after all, no one comes close to unseating the current Chinese search giant, Baidu, which owns anywhere between 62% and 75% of the Chinese search market share. But it puts Google out in the open on how they’re very annoyed with the fact that their property was violated and instead of keeping quiet about it, they went ahead and spoke out against it.

The Chinese government, on the other hand, is in a position of strength when it comes to the negotiations; there’s not a good reason to back down from a business perspective since they don’t win out anywhere. Chances are that each side will go their separate ways and it’ll allow for the status quo to remain while each side claims victory. In the end, the anti-censorship searches will be short-lived and Google will then be freed from the dog-and-pony show while the rest of the market scrambles to divide up its search shares.

Amusingly, if you look the guy up, one of the first search references that comes up after the name is “Apolo Ohno girlfriend”. Guess there are a lot of young women out there finding the guy pretty cute. Another tidbit I picked up was that he won the 2007 “Dancing with the Stars”. Another show that doesn’t interest me since I hate to break it to ya, but Dr. Dreamy is on at the same time.

In any case, this guy’s obviously good at what he does, judging by the amount of medals he has stashed away somewhere. And I just gotta say…. Sea-town in the house!

Being Asian can prevent you from ascending the corporate ladder. Our seminar, presented with EMC Asian Circle, can tell you what to do about it.

You’ve done all the right things, top marks from perhaps a top school and top job performance. Why haven’t you reached the top as an executive? Learn from a renowned Asian exec who has been there and done that.

Business Professor David Lum will explore the fundamental reasons for why Asians/Asian-Americans have such difficulty in reaching those coveted positions. In addition to exploring the root causes, this seminar will also give clear and practical guidance on what you can do to prepare your career now for the long-term.

I read that and thought, “Wow.”

And that was the end of it. Total jaw drop. I’m not even sure what to say to this considering some facts, but more to that in a second. Let’s backtrack a little bit: I belong to a chapter of NAAAP, the National Association of Asian American Professionals. And obviously with any business organization, there is favoritism and so on, but seriously? We’re going to play the “we don’t get promoted because we’re Asian” card?

While I don’t know where this business professor came from, he apparently used to work for the same corporation as myself, and I never saw any inkling of Asians not being able to get promoted. Perhaps we didn’t work in the same division, but I never saw it within my corporate culture at least. And in my circle of friends and family, there are people that are in middle management all the way to senior management of their respective corporations; I never heard any complaints about promotions being blocked because of being Asian.

Maybe it’s just me, but this type of promotional email doesn’t exactly make me want to hear this speaker ever. Call me crazy, but I just can’t help but shake my head with this one.

Know how someone will look at you funny when you try a foreign language and you totally say something that you don’t have a clue about? Especially in Asian languages, where you could be throwing around phrases online translation software cannot translate correctly.

Such is the case with a Huffington Post political piece by the former ambassador to Morocco, Marc Ginsberg – Russia “Nyet!” and China “Bu Shi!” to Tougher Iran Sanctions. Truth be told, I didn’t even feel like reading the piece since the title bugged me so much; it was one of those moments that you feel like screaming, “what happened to your copy of Rosetta Stone?”

So here goes a little lesson in basic Mandarin:

不是 (bú shì) – is an interjection. Basically, bu is a negation of whatever the second character is describing. Usually, you answer a question with “bú shì,” like “Is the pencil hers?” And if you answer “bú shì” — “it isn’t.”

不要 (bú yào) – is more of a “don’t want”. So, in this case, if you say that you do not wish to have Iranian sanctions, then in an answer to the question, you would say: “bú yào.”

There are many different ways around this particular question itself as to how to answer it with a negation, but none of them start or end with “bú shì.” In fact, I feel bad for picking on Google itself since their translation system does actually tell you the correct usage of the words. The most interesting part of this is that I’m glad it wasn’t any more difficult term being translated since throwing out incorrect translations could sometimes lead to, you know, international incidents.

Lesson learned: “不是” 用的不对.

(h/t: Joz)

Not too long ago, I joined the regular crew at our usual gym to rally up a few games. A pretty funny incident happened after I had squarely roofed a spike; one of the gals told me that I was showing my true colors and it wasn’t Asian. I still laugh about it since I was one of the taller guys out of the Asian clique growing up.

And it’s not often that you get guys with hops and height in this sport. Not of our ethnicity at least. But that didn’t stop Kevin Wong or his brother in becoming AVP superstars and totally blowing away both stereotypes.

The more I think about it, the less there are of Asians that actually bust out in either sand or indoor volleyball. Not sure why since it’s a very fast paced sport that you have to keep on your toes for so you don’t get nailed in the face (or somewhere else) when an opposing team member is sailing through the air to tear one into you.

Either way, volleyball players everywhere will shake in their boots because… yes, the word is out. Asians can roof you too.

So far, one of the reasons that I actually wanted to see this was because of Cho. Knowing that he’s sparked his career as of late coming from Harold and Kumar and as of late did a wonderful job in the new remake of Star Trek, I have to say that his acting has surpassed many of the yawners that I usually get to watch.

One small pet peeve though? Both Benford and Noh are field FBI agents which is actually shown not only in the pilot but also the plot summary. However, if you watch their actions, it’s almost like watching Reno 911 when it comes to law enforcement action. Maybe this show has had law enforcement advisors, maybe not, but it looked a little out of place with how the actors reacted. Also, the explosions were just a little bit on the fake side which being a big fan of CG, I picked up on it right away. These were not very huge distractions but it did bug me for the.. first ten minutes. Outside of that, I was drawn into the science fiction thriller storyline and am already impatiently waiting for the next episode next Thursday.

What day is it, today? Dang it.

When I saw this video off of one of my Facebook feeds, I just had to say… “wow.” While I respect religious beliefs, if this is what we’re teaching our children, then sometimes I just don’t know what to say.  I have to wonder what it is that children are actually being taught, whether  they understand that you can still be friends without having the need to save everyone; it’s like trying to convince a Republican to become a Democrat or vice versa. Beliefs are there for a reason, be it Christianity, Hinduism or whatever, and convincing people to convert is just like what one of my good friends told me once:

“I can beat it into you with a bat, but in the end, I just end up with a bloody bat.”

Personally, there’s some truth in that statement; each person is responsible for finding their own way. But I can tell you that this type of behavior is one of the reasons why Eastern and Western cultures clash: when one side doesn’t view the others’ perspective and instead tries to deduce their reasoning through their own eyes, there’s a serious failure in communication. It’s the same reason why Matteo Ricci was one of the most successful Jesuit priests in China, due to his explanations of Christianity using concepts that stemmed from Confucian beliefs.

Sometimes, it’s a miracle that there are not more bloody bats in this day and age.

Interestingly enough, I just found out that one of my favorite singers, David Choi has teamed up with Wong Fu Productions (another favorite) and produced an official music video. And it’s on YouTube! Sweeeet.