The hour badly spent

That is NOT the Joy Luck Club. Sunday, my roommate Hyun Wook cooked dinner downstairs in the dorm kitchen. He invited a bunch of friends, including yours truly.

He sauteed beef. Medium rare. He plunked it into a tupperware dish, where Angie sliced it up with a pair of scissors.

We picked up the bite-sized pieces with sharpened sticks, dipped them in hot red pepper paste, and enjoyed our fill.

"Sorry, no vegetable," Quan said. No problem; there was something very satisfying about stabbing at bits of meat with pointy sticks. "Yummy," I replied between bites. "Ah, this word I know! Yummy yummy!" Quan said, doing a little dance.

"Come eat, Ajoshi," Dorie said. Later I asked Hyun Wook why they call him Ajoshi. "It means ‘big brother,’" he explained. "But Korean men don’t like it."

"If you are old man and you have many young relatives, then they can call you ‘Ajoshi.’"

"So it’s like they’re calling you an old man?" He’s the same age as I am.

Dorie was ravenous. She looked at the steak like she hadn’t seen food all week. It was delicious. Wookie also cooked salmon. Then he produced another round of steak. And another round of salmon. We stabbed and wolfed it down. Then he boiled ramen.

Quan counted bowls. Not enough for everyone. She looked at me: "I guess you can use the pressure cooker." Then she did a another little dance.

She explained the reason for this dorm feast; Saturday was Mid-Autumn day in China. "Like Thanksgiving. Family have reunion. Only they eat moon cake, not roasted turkey."

Angie went upstairs for a while and came back with a bowl of dumplings. She nuked them and offered them to the rest of us. She explained that in English they would be called rice cakes, but they’re special Korean desserts.

"Is not for every day. Only holiday," she said. "Yesterday was Korean Thanksgiving."

Snow and Quan discussed this for a minute. Then they pointed at Angie. "Our mid-autumn festival, same day as you, different name."

The treats were rice dumplings with sweet paste inside; it was like a bean paste with honey. Dorie took a bite, held it in her mouth, and began to moan, wiggle, and hold her ears.

Naturally, I laughed. Quan explained why she was being silly. "In China, when people are very hot, they do like this."

When we were all finished and Angie and Quan were washing dishes together, Dorie stood in front of Hyun Wook; "Thank you very much Ajoshi," she said, smiling. Wookie rubbed her stomach. Everyone around us suddently got a WTF look on their faces. Then Dorie slapped him twice. It reminded me of GTO.

The Manhattan Board of Commissioners voted on that smoking ban. They chose to spite me and my prediction by rejecting the ban, but I’m not taking it personally. Justin Nutter broke it down for us in the Collegian.

The commission gathered for a special meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the ordinance. City Attorney Bill Frost opened the meeting by discussing the possible outcomes.
“We essentially have one of two options,” Frost said. “We can elect to pass the ordinance as it was submitted, or we can pass a resolution to submit the ordinance to a vote on the Nov. 4 ballot.”
Frost said the ordinance did not appear to contain any legal issues in its presented form.
“From what we can tell, there are no constitutional concerns with the ordinance the way it was proposed,” he said.

Umm, parliamentary procedure? Servicey, I guess. But it gets better. After local resident Stan Watt outlined the bill to the Commissioners, Manhattanite Dee Ross expressed disapproval of the proposal.

“How dare you look a soldier or veteran in the face and tell him thank you for his service to this country,” Ross said. “When you say the Pledge of Allegiance, do you forget to say ‘With liberty and justice for all?’” Ross appeared to become increasingly upset as he spoke, and he ended with a gesture that sent the audience into a buzz.
“Let me end by giving you socialist fascists the New York salute you deserve,” said Ross as he waved his middle finger in the air [ed. note: Oh snap!].
The ordinance failed in a 2-3 vote by the commissioners.

The other day I waxed romantic about how indifferent I am on this issue. But I’ve had a total change of heart. This guy is awesome. He’s basically the Marlboro Man, and I’m joining his militia. It’ll be me and Barack Obama’s white siblings, all dressed like Launch Pad McQuack. During the day we’d use Dee Ross’s WWII pistols to shoot down illegal immigrants. At night we’d cook their remains over a bonfire on the prarie.

"I loooove Mexican," I’d say, wiping my sleeve across my mouth.

"Well then eat up, son," he’d chuckle. "No sissy food; no sissy portions."

[source: K-State Collegian]

When I was talking with the Saucy Aussie the other day we both noted this one quirk of Kansas: people here tend to say the same things Stephen Colbert would say on his show, except when Colbert says them, it’s satire. The title of this post is a direct quote from a local gun nut. I was hoping that all the gun hoopla floating around campus lately was just whacko buffoonery that would die out if I looked the other way. Surely no one would seriously entertain the paradox that bringing guns to class would prevent school shootings. Enter the Collegian.

Last week they ran two front-page articles on the "debate" hosted by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. And by "debate" I mean "no one opposing carrying concealed showed up to argue, because as students, they’re probably worried more about writing term papers and shit than waving pistols around." Naturally, I stayed at home to watch porn. But Terence, a K-State senior, diligently went and observed.

The worst problem, and the reason I left, was what this particular audience member said. The question was about the difficulty of identifying the ‘real’ killer if other students were armed and firing. The man’s answer was basically, "If you have a classroom full of students that look like you and you and you, and then a guy in a black trench coat with an AK-47 comes in, you’ll know who the killer is."

When this kind of ignorance and narrow-mindedness is allowed to be spouted, it’s not a debate - it’s propaganda.

While Ryan raises an excellent point, the analogy breaks down in that people don’t use their seat belts to fucking shoot other people.

But why do these emergencies happen in the first place? Why, indeed, are gun-toting crazies springing up on universities? Do they just pop up out of nowhere? Is there a training camp somewhere in Texas? Is it remotely possible that when you tell alienated sociopaths that having and using lethal weapons is the truest expression of your liberty, that it makes you a responsibly functioning citizen, that it connects you with the soul of our nation’s heritage, blah blah blah, well what the fuck else will the frustrated triggerhappies do? Volunteer at a soup kitchen?

Nevertheless, the SCCC seems to have a strident following. It’s inevitable; the struggle between two factions will dominate this campus. On one hand, limp-wristed crepe-chomping femicommunist pacifist Jewish furries; on the other, us, the rugged, individualist protectors, who are really just following the 67th book of the Bible: the Constitution. That’s right; I said us. Between the team that’s armed and the team that’s not, which side did you think I was gonna be on?

"People have the right to defend themselves," said Concealed Carry Instructor Patricia Stoneking. "To post any place as a gun-free zone is to basically pose them as a target."

There you have it. Hordes of bloodthirsty villains lie continuously in wait for the chance to pick me off. With my back to the wall and all hope lost, I’ve got no choice, only one chance to take back control. And this has to be subtle. If it’s overdone, I’ll be posed as a target. Therefore, nothing fancy; just a couple of gats, a bandolier (looks like a seatbelt!), and some surface-to-air missiles slung tastefully across my back. Hell, if you’ve got a problem with my Second-Amendment rights, I’ve got a problem solver. Its name is revolver.

Let us be clear on a few things I like. A lot:

1. enormous swank apartments.
2. travelling abroad.
3. kitschy Asian products.
4. food.

1. kids with enormous swank apartments.
2. kids who have travelled abroad.
3. kids with kitschy Asian products.
4. musicians.

Such was my dilemma, at a Saturday evening birthday party, in a massive swank apartment occupied by Daniel, Andrew - a guitarist with a huge wound on his elbow; the Spy; the Man Who Travels With the Spy; assorted acquaintances dressed up like flags, and of course, various Asian tchatchkes: a sushi kit, lacquered chopsticks, and scary Japanese desserts.

"It’s so vaginal," said Andrew, introducing everyone to his elbow slit.

In Russia, vagina wound YOU!

I didn’t really say that. Actually I don’t even know what a vagina looks like.

The food was still being prepared and the kitchen looked like the set of Iron Chef. I feel weird in other peoples’ kitchens; I want to help with the slicing and cooking, etc, but I don’t know where anything is and would probably just look inept (actually I really am inept!), so instead I stay out of the way and just knock back the beer someone offers, which in this case was Tsingtao, by the grace of Daniel. Then Greta finished making her sushi rolls. (How do you make sushi in Kansas? Canned tuna. Mmmm, but yech). The eggrolls the Spy had been frying were ready. Mmmm, no yech. Katie’s curried veggies were ready. Mmm, no yech. The Spy also fried some orange chicken. Mmmm, more mmmm. So I guess there are advantages to obnoxiously young people who have travelled to China and come back with trendy sinophilia. They cook for ya! And if you’re good they’ll even give you a tour of the swank apartment, which is what Slender Starrypants did.

"This shower is ridiculous. It can fit fifteen people. Seriously, we’ve tried squeezing everyone in here just to see if it would work."

"Shower scene?" I didn’t really say that. Err, actually I did.

After the shower scene I floated around for a few minutes, eventually landing on the enormous white couch, and partook of these obnoxiously young kids’ 5000-inch flatscreen TV. The game was on. I’m pretty sure it was basketball. I was getting really really into it when the Spy disrupted my reverie by offering second helpings of friendship (see what I did there?):

"What are you doing over there? Come mingle with the rest of us."

The International Festival of Talents took place Sunday at McCain Auditorium. The performances were apparently a hit. Whitney Hodgin provided a servicey recap in today’s Collegian.

Singer Minako Nemoto and pianist Jun Tadaki, junior in business administration, conveyed "the beauty of spring" in Japan with such precision that it was easy to forget that most of the audience didn’t understand the language Nemoto was singing in.

"My initial reaction is ‘wow’," said Vikas Bahirwani, graduate student in computer science. "These performances are doing away with the language barrier."

    Whitney heard a Japanese man sing The Marriage of Figaro, bringing Mozart’s score to life. I watched a bunch of kids from Wichita dress up like bit parts in Princess Mononoke.
    Whitney saw Philipinos light up the stage "while balancing candles on their heads." I saw a fat middle-aged guy light up a D&D game board with a lucky roll of the dice.
    Whitney saw an Indian student perform a "personal" dance piece that "combined modern music with several decades of dance moves, including the moonwalk." I stumbled and flailed in front of Dance Dance Revolution for two hours, quitting after I got schooled by some skinny nerd.
    When Whitney walked away from the event, she probably still had "the beauty of spring" resounding in her dulcet ears. When I walked away from the dance pad, I heard the kid go "What does ‘high score’ mean? Did I break it?" Then he dropped a smoke bomb, and although he was no longer there when the smoke cleared, everyone could still hear his villainous laughter.