Wow....McCain's Running Mate is Who?

This is a shocker. I was a bit surprised by Obama selecting Biden as his running mate but McCain's announcement simply deserves a "Hah?!"

McCain just announced that Sarah Palin is his choice for running mate in the upcoming Presidential election. Who the hell is Sarah Palin? Well, she's currently the governor of Alaska but she's only held the position for 2 years. At the age of 44, she's even more politically green than Barack Obama.

She appears to be very conservative (naturally) but I just don't see the reasoning behind the selection. The only possible explanation has to be that McCain is targetting all of the female voters who were Hillary backers but who aren't enthusiastic about voting for Obama. That's gotta be it.

Jeez...is this election gonna be fun or what?

This Is Why Ferd Is A Columnist And I'm Not

Ferd Lewis had a great column in today's Honolulu Advertiser about the new LPGA ruling that all players must pass an English test to stay on tour. And he stated his point much better than I did. Check it out. Good stuff.

Then this morning as I'm driving to work I'm listening to 1420AM sports radio and they were also discussing this new rule. A caller calls in and suggests that the rule was created because of foreign players possibly conspiring with each other on the course in their native language. "They can tell each other how the putts break...." was part of what the caller said. Sigh. I fear for the ignorant. Does this guy not realize that golf is an individual's game and there's no way you would give a competitor any kind of advice, even if they're from your own country? Jeez...some people, I tell ya.

Olympics...the After Party

Check out this interesting article about Olympic athletes getting it on. Makes perfect sense. You get thousands of young, virile, athletic, attractive people together in one place, you know there's gonna be some hanky panky going on. How much you wanna bet Usain Bolt got his fair share of nookie?

If I was an Olympic athlete, I'd be sure to hang around Heather Mitts, Logan Tom, Guo Jingjing, and Natalie Couglin. ^^

English, Dammit!

Wow.

The LPGA has just passed a ruling that any Tour member who's been on the tour for 2 years must pass an English oral evaluation or they will be suspended. This of course is aimed at the ever growing number of foreign golfers on the LPGA tour, especially from Korea. The LPGA currently has 121 members and over a third (45) are Korean.

While I agree with the thinking behind the ruling, I find it a bit harsh to suspend a player for something that has nothing to do with the game they're playing. These players are in a foreign land and must learn a new language to adapt but it's not like their job is to negotiate high powered deals. They're here to put a small white ball in a cup. No need for talking.

I actually agree that the Korean golfers should get out more and be more expressive but never would have thought of going all Gestapo on them.

The deputy commissioner of the LPGA states "Athletes now have more responsibilities and we want to help their professional development....There are more fans, more media and more sponsors. We want to help our athletes as best we can succeed off the golf course as well as on it". Um...more like you want to help your Tour not lose the few sponsors it has left. Why is that the responsibility of the players? Isn't it the Tour's job to market and promote? I agree that the Korean players are not the most outgoing and social but why blame them for the international flavor of the Tour now?

Why blame the product and not the system? The international players are clearly taking over the LPGA (not to mention the PGA). Don't you want your product to showcase the best quality of golf out there? You really want to potentially lower the quality of your product because of a language barrier? I wouldn't be surprised if what they really wanted to do would be to limit the number of foreign players on Tour but of course that would get even more negative feedback and calls of racism. But that's what other countries do in their sports leagues. In Korea, the pro basketball league has a maximum of 2 foreign players per team rule. But good luck getting that passed in the US, the land of the overly politically correct.

If it's more English speaking top players you want, why don't you pump more money into the American girls junior golf system? Because there are very few top American players now. If you've watched golf coverage nowadays, they usually display the flag of the home country of each player on the leaderboard. Good luck finding more than 1 or 2 USA flags on an LPGA leaderboard.

Like I said, I agree with the concept, but disagree with the execution. Even though it seems the Koreans understand and support the rule (and believe me, they do want to learn English...badly), I still find it unnecessary. It just seems like a cowardly way of discouraging more foreign players from joining the Tour. Have you seen the Futures Tour money leaders? All Koreans. So this Korean wave isn't gonna stop anytime soon. But now that they're forcing the English or you're out clause, it may mean a few less players but I think it may decrease the quality of the LPGA.

Of course, as with anything else, it's all about the Benjamins. No one really cares about interviews with winners at the end of tournaments and whether or not they're done in English. It's all about the sponsors. There is quite a large disparity in purse money between the PGA and LPGA. An average winner's purse in the PGA is about $1 million now and in the LPGA it's more like $250,000. And the LPGA is losing tournaments left and right due to lack of attendance and sponsors. There are times when they have tournaments only every other week! So they're dying to fill their schedule with quality tournaments and that comes from sponsorships.

The sponsor's time to interact with players comes during the Pro-Am round and if they're stuck with a non English speaking golfer, they get no fun out of it and will pull the plug. That's what it comes down to.

So it's a shame that the situation has come to this. With the ever present Asian contingent on the LPGA, I knew something like this would happen but I never imagined it would happen like this. We'll see how it goes...

Gaku Izakaya and Yogurtland

Took a friend out for their birthday yesterday and went to have dinner at Gaku Izakaya on King Street (across from Cafe Sistina). I've met my buddies there numerous times but always just for a beer after dinner so I never had the pleasure of a full meal there and was always curious since they've raved about how good the food is. So finally went to check it out last night.

Got there around 7:30pm and was told there was a 40 minute wait. The place is kind of small with just about 8-9 tables and a sushi bar. Decided to wait and it only ended up being about 20 minutes so that was good.

This is what we ordered...

I think this was called Clam and Jumbo Shrimp Salsa (a daily special). We saw the table next to us order it and it looked good so decided to get one ourselves. It was interesting, but not something I'd order again. But the ingredients were all very fresh and tasty. It just didn't have a "Japanese" feel to it.
Orders of hamachi and unagi nigiri. (sorry for the blurry pic, still trying to figure out my camera) I think sushi orders are $4 so it's a really good deal. The size of the sushi is a tad bit smaller than you'd find at other sushi places, but the quality is still good, especially for that price!
The garlic ribeye. Mmm...love the mixture of garlic and fatty ribeye. Was oishi!
The TNT, their version of seafood dynamite (again, sorry for the bluriness). This was the bomb, yo! Get it? "TNT", "dynamite", "bomb"? See what I did there? Never mind...But yeah, this tasted really really good. Nice big chunks of various seafood mixed in with the delicious dynamite sauce. I'm not normally a fan of dynamite (too thick and creamy for me) but I really enjoyed this dish.
Gotta have chicken karaage! This was done really well also. Nice and crispy on the outside, and tender and juicy on the inside. Splash a little lemon juice on there and then I even dipped it in the leftover garlic sauce from the ribeye for da extra flava. Winnahs!
Top all of that food off with a jumbo bottle of Asahi beer, and I was very satisfied! Both of us loved the food and I will definitely go back. Service is also excellent as all the wait staff are very friendly and if you ever sit at the sushi bar, the 3 guys working there are really cool too.

I was stuffed after dinner but gotta get dessert! So we went to Yogurtland on University Avenue. Yogurtland is following the Southern California trend of building your own yogurt with fresh toppings at places like Pinkberry and Red Mango (was thinking about franchising one of them here but ho da expensive!). Got to Yogurtland at around 9:30pm and had a long line streaming out the door.

The system here is that you first fill your cup with whatever flavor of yogurt you like and then you hit the toppings bar where you can drown your yogurt in whatever you please. You then pay by the ounce. The heavier your yogurt, the more you pay. I believe it was 39 cents per ounce.

The flavors of yogurt available were vanilla, chocolate, mango, peanut butter, cookies and cream, strawberry, NY cheesecake, green tea, green apple, and a few others I forget. Of course, they let you sample too! ^^

The toppings offered were a variety of fruits, cereals, bits and pieces of candy and cookies, and my favorite.....mochi balls! Yes!

Here's a photo of our yogurts.

My creation on the left consisted of strawberry and cheesecake yogurt, topped with strawberries, brownie bits, almonds, and mochi balls!
I gotta say...this yogurt was sooo good. The toppings were amazing. I really loved the combination of the crunchiness of the almonds, the sweetness of the brownie bits, the juices of the strawberries, and best of all the chewiness of the mochi balls! I scarfed my creation down in less than 10 minutes, it was so good.

The 2 yogurts combined cost around $10 so about $5 each and I think that's a really good deal for the quantity and quality you get. I can understand how there's lines here every night.

Yep...better hit the gym hard this week!

Olympics Pau!

That was a great 2 weeks of Olympic activity. Between cheering for both Korea and USA, and DVRing countless hours of coverage, I need a break! But it was a rousing success for the Korean team, as the country easily surpassed its goal of 10 gold medals and a Top 10 standing.

Korea finished with 13 gold medals, and 7th in the standings. They got an amazing gold in baseball, going undefeated throughout the tournament, beating Japan and Cuba twice each. They also scooped gold for all 4 of their taekwondo athletes. Marine Boy Park Tae Hwan also got Korea its first swimming medal ever with a gold in the 400m freestyle.

Awesome!

Last Day To Register!

If you haven't registered to vote yet, today's the last day! Been seeing the Mayor pretty frequently recently and gotta say, he's a great guy and very supportive of the local Korean community. He spent several hours at the Korean Festival, attended our Korean Festival Mahalo Dinner, said a few words at the Korean Independence Day celebration this past weekend, and this past Tuesday, held a meeting to meet the Korean community at Christ United Methodist Church on Keeaumoku Street, where approximately 250 people showed up. As always with his style, he stayed after his speech to go around the room to shake hands and greet all of the attendees.

He's really pushing to get the required "50%+1" votes in this primary election next month so that he doesn't have to campaign for the general election and I think he's going to do it.

Did you know that he has many people of Korean ancestry on his Cabinet?

Ann Chung - Director, Office of Economic Development
Eugene Lee - Director, Dept of Design and Construction
Debbie Kim Morikawa - Director, Dept of Community Relations
Hubert Minn - Deputy Director, Dept of Enterprise Services
Christine Camp - Chairperson, Honolulu Police Commission
Lee Donohue - Former Police Chief and currently with the Citizen's Advisory Commission on Civil Defense
Alyssa Park - Board of Water Supply

So don't forget to register to vote by today and make your voice heard!

Those Jamaicans Are Fast!

Didja see Usain Bolt in the men's 100m race? Holy s---! The bruddah ran a new world record time of 9.69 and he was so far ahead of the field he started celebrating with about 20m to go! 100m dashes always have close finishes because it's so difficult to gain a big lead in such a short distance but Bolt blew the field away and was even able to spread his arms in victory and ease up with 20% of the race left to go! Who knows what his time could've been if he'd run hard the entire way?

And then the Jamaican women finished 1-2-3 in the women's 100m dash. And their winner too also blew the field away, with no one even close to challenging her.

The US used to dominate the sprints but no more. Fear the Jamaicans...

BNO!

Michael Phelps - Gold, Marine Boy - Silver, and More Netizen Silliness

Phelps won his 3rd gold medal out of 3 attempt yesterday in the men's 200m freestyle event. Didja know that if he wins all 8 gold, Speedo will give him a $1 million bonus? Sweet!

Marine Boy Park Tae Hwan also did well in the event, finishing in 2nd for the silver medal. The outcome was never really in doubt as Phelps was the easy favorite but getting the silver has to be considered a success for the 19 year old Korean. Congrats! Next up for Park is the 1500m freestyle.

And on the side....Olympic gold medalists are allowed to play a song of their choice in the stadium after they win their meet and Park chose the song "Girl's Generation (Sonyeoshidae)" by the group of the same name (Sonyeoshidae). Stupid netizens are going apeshit again because Park is very good friends with Sun Ye from the group Wonder Girls who are kind of rivals of the girl group Sonyeoshidae. Netizens are saying stuff like he's betraying his friend and stuff like that. So silly.

Netizens were also all over the men's soccer team after losing to Italy 3-0. Netizens were posting comments like "just come back to Korea" and "don't waste any more of our country's money by staying in China". So frickin' harsh. These Korean netizens really pist me off sometimes. Get a life! (I know...ironic coming from a blogger, right?)

No More Horses!

NBC/USA - Please do not infect my TV with anymore Equestrian coverage. Are they really showing this to a national audience over sports such as judo? I can't believe that there's a big audience for watching a person in a pseudo-tuxedo and top hat trotting up and down some square course on a horse. Pleez!

And speaking of...please just get rid of this sport altogether. How much athletic prowess does it take to make sure a horse goes straight down a line and to make a few jumps anyway? Did you know they're getting rid of softball and baseball as Olympic sports after Beijing? And yet they're keeping this? Softball and baseball are the first sports to be removed from the Olympic games since polo was taken out in 1936. What? Do they even realize how global these 2 sports are?

Other sports they should get rid of....this list does not include sports which I feel are okay to keep, but should not be shown on TV such as rowing, cycling, etc. The following are sports that should just be eliminated. Period.

Synchronized swimming - Yeah, I'm sure it takes a lot of athleticism but women with waterproof makeup, nose clips, and jazz hands in the pool is not something I wanna see.

Synchronized diving - I can watch and even sometimes enjoy individual diving. But I fail to see the need to make it into a duo event.

Trampoline - Are you kidding me? A glorified version of what little 5 year old kids do in their backyard is an Olympic sport?

Rhythmic gymnastics - If you need props like a ball, a twirly ribbon, and a hoop, it shouldn't be an Olympic sport.

Windsurfing and sailing - No particular reason...just don't feel like they belong.

4x100 Freestyle Relay - Wow!

Didja catch the men's 4x100 freestyle relay last night? One of the greatest races I've ever seen. With about 70m left in the race, the French had a pretty good lead and I even said to myself out loud, there goes Phelps's shot at 8 golds. And then Lezak, the American anchor swimmer really turned it up and caught and surpassed the French anchor at the very last moment. Whew! What a race!

Phelps goes for gold medal #3 tonight in the 200m freestyle. Should be an interesting race with Marine Boy Park Tae Hwan in the same final...

Marine Boy Wins Gold!

Wow....I knew Marine Boy Park Tae Hwan was doing really well coming into the Olympics and that a gold was within reach to but actually see it happen....is so awesome. Park won the gold in the 400m freestyle, beating out favorites Larsen Jensen from the US and Hackett from Australia.

He now has the 1500m freestyle and the 200m freestyle left. I would like to think Park had a chance to beat Phelps in the 200m but Phelps looks really focused. In any case, Park should definitely medal in that too.

Go Marine Boy!

Korea's First Gold Medal!

Gotta love that TV channel dedicated to Korean coverage of the Olympics (digital channel 269). The first day was pretty junk as it just kept replaying the same soccer games over and over again but they've finally come around. Thanks to that channel, I was able to watch a couple of Koreans win medals.

Choi Min Ho was a beast in winning the gold medal in the 60kg weight division in men's judo. He won all of his matches by "ippon" which is similar to winning by a pin in wrestling and from what I understand, is very difficult to do and quite rare. To win all of his matches in such manner is quite extraordinairy. He was in tears after his victory and I have to admit I welled up a bit as they played the Korean national anthem during the medal ceremony. A nice reward for Choi after a disappointing bronze medal in Athens.

Then Korea won the silver in a shooting event. Things I would never be able to see if not for the Korean Olympics channel. I think it's still NBC coverage but stuff not shown on the available channels. Probably broadcasts for internet.

South Korea is aiming for 10 gold medals and a top 10 overall finish in these Olympics. After 2 medals on the first day, they're off to a great start.

Miss Korea Redux

Once again, netizens in Korea are strongly voicing their opinions.

When pictures of Nari, the newly crowned Miss Korea 2008, surfaced on the net, Korean netizens (who are a very very superficial bunch) screamed, hollered, and yelled all over their keyboards because she was not the ideal candidate to represent Korea in the Miss Universe pageant to put it lightly.

Miss Korea 2006, 2007, and 2008
In a response to all the negative feedback, Nari has uploaded several photos of herself on her Cyworld mini-homepage (kinda like Myspace or Facebook here) in "normal" appearance (or without the pageant hair and makeup) in order to get the netizens back in her corner.





And this is her official pageant promotional photo
Gotta admit....she does look better in these photos and more like a 22 year old college student and not like a Korean Fran Drescher. But geez...these netizens are so brutal. People here don't realize but netizens in Korea are merciless and their taunts and threats have had major impact in the entertainment industry.

Variety show MCs and producers who normally are quite powerful and influential because they can choose who to invite to be on their show are now kissing the butts of boy band idols half their age because they don't want the crazy teen fanatics to become their "anti" or anti-fan.

Dramas that originally planned to kill key characters have changed their endings due to threats from netizens (e.g. if you kill off my precious Hyun Soo opba I'll never watch your station again!).

And even a few celebrity suicides can be directly attributed to internet gossip. There was even this one girl who came on a show because she lost like 70 pounds and then was kissed by a boy band idol. The netizens went apeshit and started bombarding her mini-homepage with threats (how dare you kiss my opba! you are just a fatty who doesn't deserve that kiss!) and she ultimately commited suicide. It's utter madness I tell you. Yeah, I admit to being a bit superficial myself here now and then but only when fair game to do so (like judging a beauty pageant contestant) but maybe I better check myself befo' I wreck myself.

Olympics Baby!

The opening ceremonies haven't started yet but the Olympic games have. The soccer competition started yesterday and the US women's team is in trouble already!

The #1 ranked team in the world fell to Norway yesterday 2-0. I watched the game and the US team looked pretty sad. Passes were all over the place and defense was very shaky. Yeah, Norway is also ranked in the Top 5 so it's not a huge upset but US didn't look good. And worse, the 2 goals the US gave up were within the first 5 minutes! Goalkeeper Hope Solo had never lost a game before and she gives up 2 goals in the opening minutes. Granted, they were not entirely her fault as the US defenders were just plain stupid.

Gone are veterans such as Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, and Julie Foudy. This is a new generation of women's soccer and Hawaii's Natasha Kai is part of that group. Kai was actually one of the few players that looked decent against Norway but I also saw her taking it a bit too easy at times as well. With the US team in a deep hole now, they'll probably have to win their next 2 games to advance to the 2nd round.

Then I watched the first half of the men's game against Japan last night before going to bed. They looked okay, and I really enjoy watching youngster Freddy Adu play. It seems like he's been around forever, but he's still only 19 years old! He's definitely got skills. It was nice to see veteran Brian McBride play with this young team as well. FYI....olympic men soccer teams are supposed to be 23 and under with the exception of 3 "wildcard" members. The women's team has no such restrictions.

And much mahalos to Oceanic Cable for creating special HD channels just for the Olympics! Yay!

And the New Miss Korea....

...has no shot at Miss Universe. I'm sorry but if you enter a beauty pageant, you're asking to be judged based on your looks and that's the only reason why I'm expressing my opinion here.

Is it just me or is she wearing a bikini under her bathing suit?I won't bother to get into to much detail but....ugh. Anyone who's been to Korea knows that the pool of TSPs to select from is very very vast. This winner looks like she'd be belong more in the Miss Ajumma pageant. She's allegedly 23 years old. In the words of Borat...."naht so much".

Sigh....miss the days of Honey Lee.

Good Day For Da Local Boyz!

Didja watch Colt Brennan's NFL debut yesterday? Man, what an awesome performance! Yeah, sure, it was against 2nd and 3rd string defense players but who cares! So are his offensive weapons! I DVR'ed the Hall of Fame game yesterday and what a joy it was to see Colt flinging the pigskin around like he was throwing to Bess, Grice-Mullin, and Rivers. He looked really poised out there and made some really nice throws. I believe he finished with 9/10 for about 125 yards and 2 TDs. Not bad for his first time! Plus it was really cool to hear John Madden gush about his skills.

I remember watching Timmy Chang play for the Eagles in the Hall of Fame Game a few years ago and was hoping for the best but expecting the worst. But this time, it was a little different. I expected (hoped) Colt would come out and play well and he really did. Good for him!

And then former Punahou student Parker McLachlin won his first PGA title. Yeah sure, the best 85 guys on the PGA were playing in another tournament but still....it still goes down as a PGA victory. He actually smoked the field, winning by 7 shots even though he shot a 2 over in the final round. Hopefully this young kid has a bright future in the PGA. Michelle who? Oh yeah...didn't she play in this tournament as well?

Hawaii Plantation Village Korean Heritage Day

Volunteered at the Hawaii Plantation Village Korean Heritage Family Day this past Saturday. I've always enjoyed this place as I feel it's very educational in how it displays how the various Asian immigrants to Hawaii made a living on the plantations. very interesting place and definitely worth a visit.

They have a small but fascinating museum in the main building...







Then wandered out to the village area where each of the different cultures have their own "house".
Pics inside the Korean house


Outside the house

Their neighbor, the Okinawan house
Kids and adults alike had a fun variety of activities to participate in...

Korean mask painting
Some of the masks on display
Coloring the Korean flag
Korean kite making
Go fly a kite! Or not...

Fishing in the pond...
Cooking demos! Those vegetable and kimchee pancakes were really ono....
People lining up to learn how to make kimchee

One Semester of Spanish Love Song

Hilarious video. I took 3 years of Spanish in HS and I think I still was able to understand all the words...

Cool New Local Food Website

Check out wowgrdinds.com. They have a pretty cool concept!

7 judges take the "best of the best" of certain food items and blind taste test them all at one time. They don't know where a certain dish is from and just judge it based purely on taste, thus resulting in the "winnah of the winnah" or "WOW".

So far, they've only done Best Poke, Hamburger Steak, Fried Rice, and Beef Stew. Some pretty interesting results and a pretty fair scoring system.

Fun reading...check it out!