a quick english lesson: nouns and adjectives

alright, so i'm scrolling down my facebook updates, and what do i see but a former english teacher improperly modifying gerunds. she's a former (or possibly still current, i don't know) english teacher! for those of you who don't know what an english teacher is, it's someone who professes to teach children, or adults in some cases, how to speak and write english. for those of you who don't know what modify means, i'll save you the time of referencing dictionary.com and tell you. it means to change or edit the character of something else, or to qualify something with a certain characteristic. example: look at the dog. look at the red dog. here "red" modifies dog. get the picture? we move on... a gerund (i know many of you don't remember what that is, or you wouldn't so liberally modify them incorrectly) is a noun converted from a verb, such as "looking", "seeing", "spending", "punching". say two men are at the bar, the wife (who we'll subsequently refer to as angelina) of man no. 1 (who we'll subsequently refer to as billy) walks in, and billy smiles at his wife. his wife smiles back, but then a strange expression comes over her face as she notices man no. 2 (bob). billy looks over at bob who's oggling angelina. billy punches bob in the face, and bob exclaims, "HEY! what the hell is going on?" to which billy screams, "YOU looking at my wife is the problem!" bob then replies "NO! your punching me in the face is the problem!" see the difference here? billy's "you looking" employs one noun "you" to modify another noun "looking," and we all know that only adjectives can modify nouns. just ask your local high school english teacher... oh wait, nevermind. i wouldn't be explaining this if it were that simple, so just take my word for it. at any rate. bob has used the proper grammar, with an adjective "your" to modify the noun "punching."

let's just have a little practice. here are some common situations where you may have improperly modified your nouns.

1) you doing your homework is integral. --> improper

your doing your homework is integral. --> correct

2) you and me drinking this whole bottle of crown is a must! --> improper

our drinking... --> correct

your and my drinking --> correct

3) all i'm thinking about is me hitting up this shorty tonight! --> improper

all i'm thinking about is MY hitting up this shorty... --> correct

so there you have it. just a brief review of grammar. go out there and spread this newly re-found knowledge, and let us make this world a better place.

have you never heard of a phone book?

sooo... today i look in my school inbox to notice that i have a message, sent out to the listserv of a certain organization to which i belong. in said email, there's a message about something, something about" smartphones" and blah, blah "creepy" with a link to an online video. and i think to myself, "i have a smartphone. what kind of creepiness is going on out there?" but before i go to click on the link i have to go through a particular mental progression:

1) i hardly know this person who sent me this link

2) this link could be a phishing attempt

3) this person's account could be hacked

4) this person's account probably isn't hacked, as i received this email 4 hours ago, and no one has yet remarked upon it being a suspicious link.

with that being settled, i proceed to visit this online video, and here i am faced with a clown-sounding newscaster, talking about how pictures i could upload to the internet, taken from my smartphone, could be utilized to give any other internet user my exact location. now take a moment, because i now a lot of you out there are summarily missing the implications of such a statement, thus i shall repeat and explain. some one, could use a picture i posted online to find out where i am. a picture i sent to the internet from my smartphone (i.e. blackberry, iphone, droid) could clue someone in on where i am... someone could find me house, find where i work, find out where i take walks, find out my daily routine (because i just take that many pictures and upload them to the internet). someone could stalk me!

creepy, right? welllllll, not so much.

firstly, the pictures being uploaded, the examples from the news clip, were mainly twitpix from twitter. i have to say that i am not a participant in tweeting, nor do i follow anyone who does. maybe if facebook didn't exist... but that's a whole other story. so twitter. and i'm thinking, but i may be mistaken about this premise, but isn't the purpose of twitter to share one's information with the rest of the world? don't people log onto twitter every day and share little pieces of their lives with all the random strangers out there whom they don't know? even if that's not the case, there's the phone book. pause. many of the people who exist in today's information age, don't actually know what a phone book is, so let me explain, once again. a phone book is a book (big surprise, i know) that has everyone's name, phone number, AND address, listed alphabetically so it makes one easier to find. this phone book is organized geographically, people living close to one another being in the same phone book. it's usually a huge yellow tome delivered by a local phone company right to the doorsteps of everyone in any neighborhood. furthermore, in today's information age, it's all online, so not only does one have access to one's local neighbors but one's national neighbors as well. example: if i so chose, i could look up a steven johnson (if one existed) in san josé, california. WILD! not only can i be stalked using a phone book, but my entire neighborhood!

still, there are a couple of hedges i must make. one being that with the advent of prevalent cell phone usage, not as many people have house phones and are thus not in the phone book. my response to that is, i can just find you using your twitpix coordinates...

ye's most consistent yet

my beautiful dark twisted fantasy is by far kanye's most consistent album. this is the pinnacle of his talents, i almost can't believe. the perfect balance of rhymes, production, and features. i think it's evident to all hip-hop connoisseurs that kanye west is not the most inherently gifted rapper, but he has no reservations when it comes to his work putting together all the technical elements (tropes, i.e. metaphors, similes, punchlines, etc) that make rap appealing. i'm not going to go into specifics, as that would be an entirely different article, and this here is just a blurb to big up mr. west. still kanye has managed to weave his worked over rhymes over spectacular beats. oh, the beats. we all know that kanye is one of the most talented producers of this age, and his capacity to combine sick flows with killer tracks is reminiscent of a very famous doctor from compton... ye never fails to experiment with the music, sometimes inspired to produce some truly awe inspiring tunes. true to form, yeezy continues the trend of instrumental exploration, aiming for the beyond and hitting his mark. and let's not forget the features. wow, he comes with some heavy hitters, some from out of the past like that old dead uncle with whom you wish you could sit down and have one more chat, with the likes of rza and raekwon. and let's not forget the always at the top of their games, jay-z and t.i. kanye also does a few duos with heavy-in-the-game r&b singers, such as the dream and john legend. all in all, the album is a classic. it's art, not too much and not too little. take a listen. you won't be disappointed.

thanks for thanksgiving

as i have a lot in my life to be thankful for, God has blessed me tremendously, i have to say that this past thanksgiving was nearly the most severely unthankworthy holiday i've had. ALMOST. with that being said, i want to take this time to thank the people whose efforts made it a worthwhile thanksgiving: my aunt vera whom i love dearly and my cousin carlos who has never failed in his capacity to be cheerful. it was a thanksgiving that will be remembered not because of it's grandiosity but because of it's being the worst ever, only second to the thanksgiving i spent away from home, in iowa. that is not to say that it was a bad thanksgiving, and neither was my worst thanksgiving. but, it's the expectations of thanksgiving that set me up for such a disappointment, and i was indeed thoroughly disappointed.

i am a medical student, and as such, i have to spend the vast majority (over 99% for those of you who don't know what 'vast' means) of the year away from and out of contact with my family. it's a big deal, but hey, there are some rewards to look forward to. so when a major holiday comes around i expect that i'll get to spend time with all the people i love, gathered conveniently in one place, as it has always been, year after year, and as it should always be. this year, oh how was i so sorely deceived. it was thanksgiving. the time of year when my 4 aunts (and maybe the fifth) along with my mom take the time to show off their culinary talents in, each to her own specialty, synergistically combining a meal so ravishingly delectable as to start wars over. so imagine my heartbreak when i've been looking forward to this meal since the last 3rd thursday in november, only to discover that said meal is not going to take place. it's akin to the trojan war with no achilles or the middle east with no oil. who the hell even wants to hear about such a thing? no one, i assure you.

one week before thanksgiving was supposed to happen, i was informed that there would be a family gathering and there would a coming together of cuisines. yet one day before the grand repast of all repasts, i come to find out that plans had all crumbled. who was to blame could only be surmised through speculation. it's a moot point. besides the sorrow of missing such a reunion, my ultimate grief stems from the fact that my family could even allow such an event to take place. my mom is getting old, and so are my aunts. 20 years is a long time, it's a generation's worth of time, and i now i realize in that span of time that all the kids in the family that were there when i first moved to north carolina are now adults. yet, we as the next generation have not taken the roles in organization of the family that my mom and aunts should have passed on to us. did they drop the baton, or did we just not take the hand-off? interesting question, but what's more important is where we go from here. we, as the next generation, can not let family fail. we can not allow our family to fall apart, to become so many separate entities. we have to take up the banner of unity and fraternity and instill in the next generation the love that we all felt when we were growing up. this past thanksgiving was a slap in the face, waking me up to a world that was not here yesterday. it's a challenge. i just hope we're up to it.

10 random thoughts

1) leaving an container in a room overnight, that was once filled with vietnamese food, will inevitably leave said room reeking of quite the inviting aroma: melange of cat vomit and goat fart...

2) i once had a girl ask me if she was a problem. i laughed and replied, "nope. i got 99 problems, but you ain't one." hit me!

3) i never met a person who had money (real money) who wasn't busy. unless the person was old and retired. conversely, it's interesting that the poor people seem to have an inordinate amount of free time on their hands... coincidence? get your hustle up.

4) people who update their statuses with "motivating" quotes just motivates me to mock them, and their quotes. that is, unless the person who is actually using a motivating quote is none other than myself.

5) i've been proposed to by three different women in my lifetime. and it's not like i'm an old timer, but for the life of me i can't remember whom the first one was from.

6) people are always a little bit incredulous when i tell them tales of my hometown. but that story's to come later...

7) apparently, a lot of people choose seven when given the choice of 1 through 10. that being said, i'm going to stop here. i would go back and change the title of this blog entry, if i were more inclined to do so (which, i suppose, you could count as one more).

domino's new and improved?

soooo... i hope i'm not the only one out there who has been compelled (read "duped") into trying domino's "new and improved" pizza, as domino's has had quite the convincing campaign. they have their advertisements where individuals in a supposed focus group just verbally trash their pizza, element by element. one such focus group member going so far as to say, "domino's should just start over..." then, domino's endeavors to rise from the pit of mediocrity and make improvements in their pizza. they supposedly follow through with this plan, then track down all these focus group members and persuade them to try the "new and improved" domino's pizza. the sauce is "better," the crust is more garlicky. the toppings are tastier. and all the focus group members come to the realization (while being in a commercial, so i should've known better) that domino's pizza is not so bad after all. one guy quotes, "i'm eating my words." I'M eating my [expletive deleted] words?!? i wish i could eat my words right now to attenuate the awful taste of domino's pizza that lingers on half an hour after having finished my last domino's slice ever.

let me tell you a little about my experience with this so-called "new and improved" pizza. it was damn near horrific. it was as if the guys at domino's took canisters of garlic salt and garlic and intermittently just shook out the contents onto the pizza. don't get me wrong. i love garlic, and a nice warm, soft crust brushed with a buttery garlic sauce is delectable, but this domino's crust was something else entirely. apparently, it used to taste like cardboard. it now tastes like cardboard saturated with garlic salt. to add to the whole debacle of a pie, the toppings were also pretty bad. i don't know if it was the cheese or the individual toppings themselves, but i don't know how i could feel like i was biting into salt-lick every time i took a bite of pizza. i'm certain my blood pressure is now in stroke range from all that salt. there's no reason why canned pineapples should taste like they were plucked right out of the atlantic or why canned olives should taste like they were grown straight out of the dead sea. the last item of discussion: the sauce. i recall one of the focus groupers claiming that domino's sauce tasted like ketchup. i would've disputed that with anyone, as i used to be a regular consumer of domino's pizza, but after today, i can make the proclamation myself. the sauce tasted more like ketchup than that last bottle of heinz i bought at harris teeter.

anyone who knows what type of relationship that pizza and i have can imagine how heartbroken i was to have such a horrible pizza experience. and what better way to gather one's shredded remnants of emotional self and stampede through the shroud of heartbreak hell than to imbue one's soul with the liquid bliss that comes in a 75 dL bottle...

you're no photographer, but...

have you ever been browsing through someone's photos, only to notice that half of them consist of that person either standing in front of the mirror or having his/her arm outstretched in front of him/herself, and you can imagine that person spending the few precious moments it takes to get that ever so perfect pose so that they can press the button and get an everlasting image of how beautiful (or not) he/she is? i know that is a long question, but it is in fact grammatically correct and properly punctuated. when i see so many photos of a person holding his camera in front of a mirror or holding is arm outstretched in front of him, getting more and more photos of himself, it leads my thoughts down one path, to one ultimate conclusion: that this person is clearly not fit to actually own a camera. really. think about it. how smart do you have to be to figure out the timer on your camera? it's not that hard. you press two or three extra buttons, set the camera down, gather yourself up into whatever wondrous pose the world has inspired you to imagine and FLASH. photo taken.

i know that when we're holding our cameras in our hands every one of us thinks of ourselves as the latest winner on america's next top model, just having landed a huge contract, and are thus obligated to participate in our own special little photo shoot. problem is half that time there's no real photographer. so what do we do? we come up with the bright idea that we can take our own pictures. i'm not saying this is a bad idea. i know how much fun it can be to take a series of pictures, eagerly awaiting the moment i can post them on facebook. however. those of use who actually use the other half of our brains, have sense enough not to make ourselves look like vapid idiots by dragging out half our wardrobes and running through the various poses which we've learned for taking pictures while growing up.

all i'm saying is that, it's ok, it's absolutely acceptable to grab a brother, sister, cousin, friend, or neighbor for a quick session of point and click. that way you're not impeded by the physical limitations one encounters when having to take one's own picture. that way no one has to see your head and face blown out of proportion because you're holding the camera at arms length, without being able to tell at which angle to hold the camera... no one has to see your posing image reflected off of your bathroom mirror in your photo. people can actually see YOU! either that, or simply work out how to operate the timer function on your camera...