Friday 30 January 2009

Young Michael Jackson's Intervention Defuses Escalating Violence Between Korean Pop Fans

HT to Popseoul and East Windup Chronicle

writeup by Homer

In a surging tempest of escalating gang violence, rabid Wondergirls, Dongbangshinki, SuperJunior, Big Bang, and Girls Generation fans have struck out, and sallied forth shivering blows and splintering attacks upon eachothers' webpages, bodies, and fan-club t-shirts.




As dawn's rose fingers lit the new day this Monday, Wondergirls fans, quick with arrows and fleet afoot, allied themselves with their erstwhile rivals, the stout Big Bang fans, strong with swords and courageous on horseback, and named themselves, "Jets." Ere the Apollo's sun had reached its apex for the day, these enemies turned allies lit upon their hated foes, SuperJunior fans, men and women of tough bones and warlike appearance, Dongbangshinki fans, spearmen and spearmaidens of great exploit, and Girls Generation fans, once raiders from the north, now a noble clan famed in both arts and in battle, late Monday afternoon, stalking PC rooms and roughing up young people with pop band fan club pages open, flaming them online and hacking their Cyworld accounts with internet attacks of vicious strength, and putting water-based paint in water-guns to forever mar t-shirts advertising opposing bands. With their subtle weapons of credit cards and online access, they also bought up tickets to their rivals' bands' shows, and then dumped them, costing the concert promoters' thousands of dollars in lost revenues, and the cry of SuperJunior, Dongbangshinki, and Girls Generation fans, stunned into silence at these startling assaults, flew like Hermes' winged messages, to the heavens.




Late at night, as Phoebe's peaceful light belied the terrors occurring in the streets below, a courier from SuperJunior's fan club, sped his lonely way to the tall towers of Dongbangshinki's Fan Club Head Quarters, and Cassiopea smiled upon his flight. "A pact!" he cried, "though the fleet-afoot Wondergirls fans, mighty with bows and stout in battle, and the hardy Big Bang fans, courageous on horseback and strong with swords, have aligned their weapons against us, our terrors shall not end before we visit back such suffering upon the very assailants who have stirred us to the blood-rage! At this very moment, our messengers carry this same entreaty to Girls Generation's Fan Club Headquarters, hidden in the quiet valley, guarded by scouts, watchful and silent: if we, SuperJunior fans, of tough bones and warlike appearance, join together with you, spearmen and spearmaidens of great exploit, and the acclaimed Girls Generation fans, once raiders from the north, now a noble clan famed both in arts and battle, verily, we shall repel those attacks and set an new order across the heavens of Korea's pop scene. If Zeus decree it, our victory shall be sure, and if it is not to be, never shall it be said that we went down in ignominy, defeated before even defending our honor!"

"If Zeus decree it," said Dongbangshinki's Fan Club President, a waifish girl of small v-shaped face and stern eyes, quick with blades and light as a dancer on her feet, "It shall be done, but who knows the will of the gods? Yet even without his decree, we shall join your clan, the tough-boned and warlike SuperJunior fans, and give stern reckoning to those who contest against us. Let us sacrifice a cow to Zeus, and send a second entreaty to Girls Generation's Secret Fortress, that they should add their strong hand to ours, and their noble foreheads to our battle lines."

Yet ere they could sit down and share a beast on the barbeque, and consume the bitter drink called soju to seal their alliance, a text message from Girls Generation buzzed upon both their phones.

"LOL Gr8 Id-a. We R in. ㅋㅋㅋ. Let our new allied clan be named Sharks" and Poseidon's strength we invoke to turn away the aggressors' swords."

Tuesday and Wednesday, day and night, under Apollo's bright eye and Phoebe's gentle, assaults and defences clashed and shivered through the PC Rooms, streets, and middle school playgrounds of the Han Nation, proud and resilient. Mothers wept and scolded, internet servers crashed, hair was pulled and eyes were scratched. Internet comment boards collapsed under the weight of flames and war machines, anti-fans sent spoilt shellfish to their rivals' heroes' studios, the sky was quiet, better for Aries, god of war, to hear their striving, and he struck his sword upon his shield in delight.

And cameras captured these brutal scenes, the deadly strikes and cruel revenges of these fans and anti-fans:


And from Kangnam out, the battle spread, north to Uijeongbu and south to Cheonan, with Bundang and Mokdong swept away in the wake; Cheonho and Gimpo, too were filled with the cries of stricken mothers and bereaved older brothers and sister, clutching their tattered Seotaeji posters.

And as dawn's rose fingers lit the ravaged city on Thursday morning, two couriers met on the Olympic Expressway.

"Ere the youth of this great nation are wasted," said the first, "Let us settle this pop war in the old way, as the glorious heroes of the past did, to spare the mothers and maybe kinda boyfriends and girlfriends of these middle-school youths."
"Indeed, though Hades' gates are crowded and joyous for their increase in number, here in the land of the living, let us spare further casualties by each side choosing a champion to decide the field."

And so, that day was a quiet peace, watchful and despairing, as both sides took their dead, piled wooden pyres, and poured out soju to honor their dead in the proper ways of their people, and that night, the pyres flickering with coal, the bones of their dead cleaned and properly disposed in the honorable way reserved for those dead in battle, the champions met.

Both gangs gathered, Champion for the Jets on one side, Champion for the Sharks on the other, knives in hand, ready to deal out death, or have it dealt to them honorably. Both stretched their sinews, tight and trembling, itching for action, both bound their hands and fixed their armor, the Jets Champion in leather boots with four inch heels, black tights under a pink skirt, and a faux fox boa, cold for this winter weather, but her armor of choice, and the Sharks' champion, an old veteran of battle, in a knit beret, a ruffly blouse with tight arms, leopard skin santa boots, and black leather pants with buttons up the side.

And blood rose in both armies, watching tensely, as the warriors began their jousting, when suddenly, a red-jacketed man spun into the scene. Whither he came, or wherefore he chose to, nobody knew, and even Juno shook her head in surprise, looking down in surprise upon the curly-haired man.
And high to the heavens, he raised his voice, and as he did, the world stopped, and a kickass guitar lick came out of nowhere. The red-jacketed man spun around twice, and sang these words.

"They told him don't you ever come around here
Don't wanna see your face, you better disappear
The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear
So beat it, just beat it

You better run, you better do what you can
Don't wanna see no blood, don't be a macho man
You wanna be tough, better do what you can
So beat it, but you wanna be bad

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it"


He spun twice, and addressed the armies, those soldiers lined up, armed, and stout, grim-eyed bristling for battle if need be, but the speedy young man adjusted his red jacket, grabbed his crotch, squealed, and sang again.

And as he sang, Aries, God of War, raised his hand and withdrew his blood-raising will from the streets. The wild viciousness abated, joyful Bacchus, God of Revelry, took the hate, still boiling, and turned it to dancing.

Thin and whirling, the man in red sang more, and finally, Jets and Sharks both let fall their grim faces, loosening them into smiles,

and choreography broke out upon those thronging crowds, the masses of superfans and antifans forgot their grievances and grudges, and at last, Zeus nodded, content that peace had been restored.
For video footage of this barely-averted disaster of gang violence, see here.

Wednesday 28 January 2009

Lee Myung Bak Introduces New Measures To Monitor and Gag Bloggers Critical of His Policie&#^@%$*(#*@&

In a move sure to *^#thrill*(^#@ netizens everywhere, despo#@^enevolent leader*@ Lee Myung-Bak has introduced new controls and regulations to online activity in Korea.

It is the opinion of Dokdo Is Ours that Mr. Lee ought to take his regulations and #@^($)@)@&$^@&**":L":`[p{P@#.

In other news, Dokdo Is Ours was nominated for a K-blog award, over at the Hub of Self-Congratulation.

Go foil their plans by voting for ME! MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

Sunday 18 January 2009

K-Pop Band SuperJunior Caught Plagiarizing Spanish Singer...Wait...What The Hell?

ht: SeoulBeats

In another embarrassing revelation, the K-pop band Super Junior has been caught, just as Lee Hyori, Jewelry, and numerous other K-Pop bands have in the past, imitating and/or plagiarizing bands from other countries.

In these two clips, notice how Super Junior's musical track for their song "U" is exactly the same as Spanish singer Adriel's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, "Solo Un Segundo."

Adriel's "Solo Un Segundo"


Super Junior's "U"


Though Korean pop is an amazing scene with numerous charismatic and interesting artists, incidents like this continue to bring shame and humiliation to the great nation of Korea and it is the professional opinion of Dokdo Is Ours that...

Wait a minute...

What the hell?

Seriously? FU¢KIN YEAH!!!!

Retake, from the top:

In a truly proud moment for Korean Pop-Stars WorldKorea-Wide, the ultimate superiority of K-Pop to other countries' pop has finally been recognized, Dokdo Is Ours is proud to report.

Look! Hey everybody! Look! Somebody in the West copied one of OUR songs! Yeah! Yeah! Go Korea! We ROCK! Dokdo is Our Land!

Here, the dazzlingly original, creative geniuses Super Junior, sing their awesome, amazing, brilliant pop-super-song, the awesomely titled, "U"



Next, dirty, idea-stealing, second-rate European artist Adriel underhandedly attempts to steal Super Junior's pure, true, and brilliant instrumental track, for his own petty gains.



While Super Junior has not returned Dokdo Is Ours' jubilant phone calls, text messages, and various styles of interview request, and do not seem to have commented on this underhanded yet high compliment to their unheralded musical creativity, Dokdo Is Ours demands that the dirty idea-stealing Spanish plagiarist Adriel come to Korea and offer full apology and reparations in full, including a possible burning of his national flag, and a probable head-shaving, while he cries false tears, and Super Junior make hardened, embittered faces. Dokdo Is Ours will be satisfied with nothing less.

Dokdo Is Ours still has two hundred words of column space, which he will fill with cheering for Korea.

Go Korea! Yeah Korea! We rock! Other countries can go to hell! Especially Japan! We're the best! Daehanminguk! Clap Clap, Clap Clap, Clap! Go Korea! We rock! We're the best! We're the smartest! We work harder! We have better music! Korean hallyu is the greatest cultural force since Alexander The Great! Sejong could beat up Abraham Lincoln! Who's your daddy? KOREA'S your daddy! We're awesome! We rule! We kick ass! Japan sucks! KOREA, FU¢K YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is Dokdo Is Ours, reporting.

Friday 16 January 2009

Korean Producer Plans to Make Saddest Music Video in World History

Music producer Na Jung-hwa has announced his intention to make "The Saddest Music Video In The World" 

"I think that Korea is the perfect culture to create what could be the saddest video ever: Koreans love their sad stuff -- I mean, even our teen sex comedies have sad endings -- it's one of the only countries in the world that thinks ballad is a musical genre instead of a type of song sung by bands that usually do OTHER things as well..."

"Boyz II Men thought that, too."

"Yeah, but they're a group, not a whole country.  You obviously don't understand our culture.  Also, somehow Koreans don't notice when something is cheesy, so it might actually make money here, unlike in other, more cynical countries."

"Cheesy?"

"Just look how popular Abba and Queen are in Korea.  Dude, people take them at face value here.  They think Mammamia was Meryl Streep's greatest performance."

"So," DokdoIsOurs said, to change the subject, "What will your video be about?"

"I've been doing research -- this one was helpful -- but for this video, we're gonna have to go above and beyond."


"For OUR video, I have an outline sketched -- I mean, we're working on every detail.  We're running psychological studies to find the saddest colors for our costumes; Hyundai was upset to find out that three of the seven saddest cars in the world come from their lines, all that Han, you know?  We've just recently discovered the saddest men's haircut is long and stringy on top, because it looks so good hanging down his face in the rain."

So who will be singing the saddest song in the world?  "Well, we hoped to make it a duet between Toni Braxton and the whiny one from Boyz II Men, possibly with a guest part by Meatloaf; we thought that would be possible, given their bodies of work: they all sing sad songs that cynics have called, "Over the Top," they've all done videos that tell impossibly sad stories -- it seemed like a match made in heaven -- but when they saw my storyboard outlines, they all balked, saying it was, 'embarrassing' -- so strange.
Tom Waits didn't answer our calls, saying he'd already dabbled in self-parody once, and wouldn't again.   Finally, after asking every singer in Ireland, we turned to home-grown talent, and found Kim ChangHoon, who already has what might be the second saddest music video in the world, after we're done."

 

Na was on a roll, so DokdoIsOurs let him continue, "So give me a storyboard."

"Well, all the backstory will be told with echoing sounds, in grainy black and white slow motion; there'll be so much backstory, to make the story sad enough, that we'll probably need to pause the music for a backstory break between each verse, maybe also between some verses and choruses, but we've got a guy, see, and he's raising his niece, because his brother died of cancer caused by a car accident with echoing screeching tires, but the niece is in a wheelchair -- cute, but in a wheelchair -- and she loves to wheel around a park near their house.  The guy sees a girl, and likes her, he stops her from attempting suicide on a romantic bridge, but she's got amnesia, in fact, they both have amnesia, so they don't realize they used to be married before some gangsters beat them up and hit their heads so badly that they lost their memories, but now she loves another man, so he can't be with her.  Then his niece, who has cancer -- did I mention that?-- gets kidnapped, and buried alive, and we've got this really great scene where he's digging in the mud in slow motion and screaming and trying to find her before her air runs out -- but she dies, after saying a few words to him and touching his face, and she has a really heartbreaking smudge of dirt on her cheek.  So the guy finds out that the killer is actually the man whom his amnesiac ex-wife loves, and if he turns him in, she will lose the man she loves, and probably kill herself, because that's why she almost committed suicide before: she thought he didn't want her.  But then, the killer plants evidence of the murder in the guy's house, and he has to fight his way out of a police station not one, not two, but eight times, by taking cute girls as hostages, who might fall in love with him, but they can never be together.  One of them dies because she forgot to take her medication.  Finally, as he's surrounded by police snipers, it turns out the head police sharpshooter is his long-lost father, and the father recognizes the features of his son's face, in this heartbreaking flashback where the father's wife dies of cancer and a car accident and an anesthesiologist's mistake during surgery, and he gives up hope in life, after getting beat up twelve times by gangsters, so they take away his son, and tell him he died, and put him up for adoption, but just as he realized that he's finally found his son, the police chief gives the "shoot to kill" order, and the father refuses to follow orders, so the other sharpshooter misses.  The father is about to call out to him, but in anxiety about talking to his long-lost son, he has a stroke, and dies.  But the father lost his job and his pension for disobeying orders, so his sister, who he lives with, never finds out that he finally found his long-lost son, so the aunt is alone in the house, and slowly dies of poverty after muggers steal all her ID and she doesn't know how to get more, so she can't get a job.  And she also has cancer.  The son is still in a standoff with the police, but then suddenly he crumples to the ground, and they discover that he had a brain tumor all along, and that's what finishes him."

"That's, uh, a lot of cancer," DokdoIsOurs said.

"Have you watched ballad videos lately?  It's gonna be tough to hit number one -- this might not even be enough.  We've got three pansoori singers working around the clock to find more ways to add a little extra han to the storyline, wherever we can, and we're trying to figure out where we'll put in somebody throwing away the books they're studying in frustration, only to be comforted by a friend bearing gifts, and a scene where somebody's running after the other person from outside the subway car.  There are a lot of elements we need to try and still add.  Possibly helping someone home after a drunken binge, or having a restaurant fight.  We haven't even fit in a house fire yet."

And when can we expect Korean music video to reach this new height?

"The release date is secret.  Turn on the TV.  You may have already seen it. . . "



Monday 12 January 2009

In LA's Koreatown, New North Korean Restaurant to Feature Tree Bark and Crab-grass Soup

LA's Koreatown has a rising star on its Korean food scene, and its novel approach has well-established restaurants nervous about the new competition.

"Obviously, it costs next to nothing to make, so their profit margin is going to be unbelievable... hopefully business at my place will return to normal after the novelty wears off," Jung Ye-jin, a galbi chef said.

So what is the secret that has been a buzzword all across the Korean-American food community?

Authentic North Korean food.  And we mean really authentic.

Chef Kwon Heung-Su, a Korean-American whose father was an escaped North Korean refugee, has established a restaurant that won't be imitating the preparation styles and ingredients of North Korean regional specialties "That's been done so many times before -- there'd be nothing interesting about it at all."  Instead, they will be simulating the actual experience of eating in North Korea.
"The main item on our menu is an authentic pine-bark soup, seasoned with dried, inedible crab-grass.  The nutritional value of this food is actually, literally, nil, and it's bitter as hell.  Seasonings will be twelve dollars for a packet of salt, in order to simulate the way any garnishes are unreasonably expensive for most North Koreans."  Diners are warned not to order too much of this soup, as it may damage their lower intestines on the way through their digestive tracts.

Chef Kwon explains in more detail how the restaurant will work.  "If you're my friend, you might get a slice of meat with your meal, and if you vow undying loyalty to me, you might get a dumpling filled with low-quality noodles made from whichever grain is cheapest that day, and grain husks.  It is clearly explained at each table that if I do deign to bestow a side dish, a shaving of meat, or a slice of rotten fruit upon your table, diners are to weep with gratitude and thank me profusely, preferably for a propaganda cameraman who moves around the restaurant three nights a week, accompanied by an armed guard, to make sure everyone appears content and acts lucky to be found in such a socialist paradise."

If you are a foreign dignitary or a visiting restaurant critic, of course, the menu will be totally different. 

"Oh, for people whose opinion of the restaurant I think matters, according to a kind of logic I couldn't explain to you even if I wanted," Chef Kwon said, "We'll prepare an insane spread of side dishes and with massive quantities of bad quality food and tough, wiry meat, and then act as if every North Korean eats this way every day of the year; however, if they don't like the food, I make it clear that I will reduce their bodies to steaming husks with my potato-gun."

To add to the North Korean atmosphere, Chef Kwon's staff are all deathly thin.  "This is where I'm glad to be located in Los Angeles.  Here in SoCal there are always some girls starving themselves to be thin enough that they think they could make it in Hollywood: I just thought I'd tap that talent and go with an emaciated theme among the waiting staff.  It would be much harder to create such an authentic North Korean experience if we were located in the cornfed Midwest, for example, or in the South, where everyone loads up on fried foods."

The pine bark soup was, indeed, disgusting, un-filling, and quite upsetting to DokdoIsOurs' digestive system; however, for those adventurous diners who don't mind bloody stool, "Praise The Dear Leader, Praise Also the Dear Father To Us All, and Death To The Imperialist Scum And His Toadying Lapdog" might be the place for you.

"Because we're not actually IN North Korea, I've had the chance to experiment with the ingredients: for example, we actually have a California Black Oak Bark Soup that would be impossible to make in North Korea, because the tree doesn't naturally occur there.  We have a Joshua Tree Soup as well, and sometimes we season the soup with grass scorched by California's annual summer wildfires, to add a flavor some have called 'marginally less disgusting than the regular soup, but still an nutritionally worthless.'"

The restaurant is featured in numerous online restaurant guides, and can be found with Google Maps as well.  As a special feature of authenticity, every Friday, anyone who can bring in an actual North Korean food stamp eats for free.  In the highly competitive, but sometimes repetitive world of LA's Koreatown Galbi restaurants, "Praise The Dear Leader, Praise Also the Dear Father To Us All, and Death To The Imperialist Scum And His Toadying Lapdog" has something no other restaurant can claim; one might even say that "Praise The Dear Leader, Praise Also the Dear Father To Us All, and Death To The Imperialist Scum And His Toadying Lapdog" truly is the socialist paradise North Koreans have always dreamed of, right here in the City of Angels, Los Angeles.

In other Korean/American Food News: Analysts warn the the Ramen Gap between America and East-Asian countries is increasing, and may destabilize trade relations.

Friday 9 January 2009

The Onion Pwns. Youtube.


YouTube Contest Challenges Users To Make A 'Good' Video

DokdoIsOurs expects Youtube to announce its surrender within the week.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

First Year English Teachers Surprised To Experience Same Workplace Bullshit That Happens In America

First-year English teacher Brock Bartleman revealed, in a revealing, in-depth interview about his experience as an English teacher in Korea, that he was disappointed to encounter office politics and an incompetent boss at his English Hogwan.

"It's like our school owner only cares about money, not education, and sometimes he'll say something but later change his mind, and I hate when people lie to me."

When asked why he left his last job in America, Bartleman explained that in America he had lost his job after economic realities forced his boss to make some cutbacks, and he had gained a reputation among his coworkers as 'the one who always complains.'

"Office gossip did me in.  I get so tired of that garbage."

He came to Korea to get a fresh start, and to work in a totally different atmosphere than that of America, but was disappointed to find that here in Korea, "A lot of the same bullshit happens -- I can't believe it.  I thought Koreans were different."  

When asked to give details, Bartleman described the way his colleagues acted unfriendly toward him after he refused to go out eating "that weird Korean food" with them; finally, on the advice of a friend, he did, but found they were not entertained by his jokes about kimchi farts and garlic breath.

"I tried to have a good conversation, but they didn't find my stories about how Koreans are crazy, and the education system is screwed, entertaining.  I explained to them all the ways I think America is a better country -- not to judge them, of course -- just to be honest -- and described how Korea should change so it can be more like America, and they kinda just spoke Korean for the rest of the night.  I totally don't get it."

Meanwhile, first-year teacher Amy Forland has also been disillusioned by her first year in Korea.
"You know, I've found some people here are rude.  That was shocking to me, that Korea would have rude people.  All the rude people is why I left America.  I always had this image of Asia as a place of quiet, zen-like peace and calm, and beautiful rock gardens -- I watched 'Memoirs of a Geisha' and 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' like, ten times each before I decided to teach overseas, but life here is nothing, I mean nothing like that.  It's so noisy downtown in the big city."

When asked how much of Korea's culture they've experienced, both described their efforts to reach out and engage in Korean life:

"We go to different parts of the city: like, sometimes we go drink in Hongdae, and sometimes, we go drink in Itaewon, we regularly drink in Kangnam, and sometimes we even go drink in Hyehwa," naming three different districts of Seoul.  

"One time, when Brock was sick," Amy confides, "We drank in Myeong-dong."  They make efforts to meet Korean people, too: "I have a bunch of Kyopo friends, and sometimes we hang out with our Korean co-teachers.  They speak pretty good English, because most of them lived overseas."

When asked about the Korean language, Forland said she's learned ten useful phrases from her co-workers, while Bartleman explained that he can communicate a lot by pointing and smiling, and he has friends who can go places with him to speak Korean, but both have been disappointed to find Korea was different from the way they imagined it.

Says Forland, "I've never had a job in America, but here in Korea, it seems like my boss just wants to overwork me and pay me as little as he can get away with -- I'm sure that all bosses in America understand their workers, and always tell them the truth, and treat all their workers equally.  Maybe there are places here that work like that, but I feel pretty justified in judging all of Korea according to my first year experience as a hogwan teacher."

And what is that judgement she feels qualified to make?

"Korea blows."

Friday 2 January 2009

You Know, Barack Obama Looks a Lot Like The Only Other Black Person I Know

It's funny. See, I don't really like to think this way, or judge people by their skin color, but this is just the weirdest thing. So there's this guy named Kevin who works at the Coffee Bean, and we have the same shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we end up talking a lot if it's a slow afternoon. He's usually a nice guy, and he works really hard, and he's articulate. He's what we call "African American" now. . . though I'm never really sure if that's the correct thing to say anymore, and I'm too shy to ask Kevin, because, you know. Anyway, Kevin is great. He's really well-spoken, I think he went to college for a year or two. I tell him that from time to time. He seems smart, too. Often I bring up the end of apartheid in South Africa, as a way of showing that I'm smart, too, and I care about his people.

Well, it was just the weirdest thing, back a bit more than a year ago, when we started hearing about this guy, Barack Obama, because you know, I really think Kevin looks just like him. Now this isn't something I usually do, I mean, when I found out my pal Derek's parents were French, I didn't go saying he looks like Sarkozy or anything, but I swear, Kevin is just a dead ringer for Barack Obama. I tell him that pretty often -- it's become kind of a running joke between us, I think, like the running joke where I come into the coffee shop and make a little symbol with my fingers and pat my chest when I greet Kevin. Sometimes I call him homie, too; I think he thinks that's pretty funny.
Anyway, you should come in to the Coffee Bean sometime and see him. It's actually pretty amazing. My coworker Amanda disagrees with me, but I don't think she really knows what she's talking about; I don't think she has any shifts with Kevin, so I bet she's just making stuff up when she says she thinks it'd bother him for me to say all that stuff to him all the time. She's probably just jealous, because I can make cool signs with my fingers, and she probably can't. If she could greet Kevin like a brother (and you know what I mean when I say brother) she'd feel just as cool as me.

Now don't get me wrong. I've got cred, you know? I'm usually spinning some old school hip-hop like Will Smith or Sir Mixalot on my IPod, and I think I can understand Kevin and where he comes from, you know? I just use that kind of language and gesturing to help him see that I understand him. I'm real, you know?  My Korean buddy Cheong-ho, who lived in L.A., says I'm a really cool guy.  Anyway, he TOTALLY looks like Barack Obama, and you should come down and see him sometime. It's pretty amazing. You should tell him too, like I always do, so that he'll stop saying it's only me who thinks so, and start to realize the truth.

Barack Obama really looks like Kevin, the black guy who works at the same coffee shop as I do.

And I'm not just saying that, either! They really do, you know, those features that they share -- it's more than just, "They all look the same" or something, after all, this is the new era, you know, but it's really true.

Here's a picture of Kevin.  See what I mean?