yo jew!

in case you don't know, i MSN. the other day i was had a msn with my buddy ricky and our conversation looked something like this:

dk: yo man
ricky: oh whassup man
dk: yo what are you doing for cny?
ricky: say what?
dk: chinese new year man, are you going away to see your family or something?
ricky: what the fuck is chinese new year
dk: ummm
ricky: we just had new years man, remember, you went to macau?
dk: yeah, i remember.
dk: OH
dk: LUNAR NEW YEAR!
dk: what are you doing for lunar new year?
ricky: oh, lunar new year, of course
ricky: yea i'm gonna go see my family
ricky: why'd you call it chinese new year?
dk: no reason. that should be nice, i hope you enjoy that

this was a major disconnect for me. i never had any clue about the chinese/lunar new year outside of tang's dad giving me some lucky money last year. actually i bought a lotto ticket with that money and won $20 so maybe that's why i'm a believer. people are psyched about it though. it's definitely bigger than our stupid new year. there should be some fireworks. there have been grand sales all over the city. i'm looking forward to this celebration. i think there be some money exchanges. there will probably be some drinking. and the year of the ox will begin! i'm a pig. check your shit.....



if you're before 1965, suck it. or subtract multiples of 12. your choice.

today in class we learned about going to the post office. buying stamps, sending parcels, even sending telegrams. we had an extended conversation about telegrams as i believe they are not used often enough. email and phone calls can't always be trusted. sometimes you need the real deal in front of your face. akiko made me aware that people send each other telegrams in tokyo regularly. these telegrams are more just delivery of notes, not as exciting as singing naked midgets in a market research company or clowns with balloons in a tucson furniture store. and, they are cheap, as little as 200Yen (~us$2). at this point we reviewed our sheng zi (vocabulary) and what's the first word that comes up? right, post office. clearly. how do you say post office in mandarin? YOU JIU. that's right. pronounced "yo jew".

like ti and jay-z say "you better watch what you say to me!"