I just found out that Nelson has never seen Kung Pow: Enter The Fist. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the film, Steve Oedekerk, the writer, director, and main actor re-dubs scenes from a 1970s kung-fu film and even inserts himself into the action. Fortunately, I checked on Hulu and it’s there for your immediate viewing pleasure! It’s not quite as good as watching the DVD, which has awesome special features like letting you listen to the non-dubbed audio (even the English stuff has different content before dubbing), but it’s a start. Enjoy:
Month: March 2009
I suck at meeting people
The first thing I do when I meet someone is forget his or her name. This happens right away, and I have to spend the rest of the conversation doing my best to avoid structuring my sentences in a way that would reveal my forgetfulness. I think this happens because by default, I assume that I will not see this person again, and therefore do not need to learn his or her name. But all too often, I’ll be introduced to someone by a mutual friend at what I think is a fleeting moment like a coincidental meeting at a restaurant or other social setting. After the introduction, just when I’m assuming this stranger and I are about to part ways, I learn that since we’re all friends now and we all know each other’s names, we’re going to hang out together for the rest of the night, and quite possibly for the rest of our lives.
I go through life with plenty of these one-way connections, where every time I see the other person and they greet me by name, I feel like a jerk, and can never remember who they are. This happens a lot with my sisters’ and parents’ friends. Some people try to avoid this by using a trick where immediately after the introduction, they will repeat the person’s name (by saying, “Hello, [name],” which helps them to remember. For me, I’m so used to not addressing people by name that this technique would just sound too forced.
Similarly, there are those times when I and the other person are mutually aware of the other’s existence, but we’ve never introduced ourselves. Perhaps one of us wasn’t present for the initial round of introductions to a larger group, or maybe we just assumed that we were people who bump into each other from time to time, but not often enough to require any extensive knowledge about the other person. Unfortunately, it often turns out that we see each other more than either of us expected, but by the time we learn this, it’s not only awkward that we don’t know each other, it’s too awkward to introduce ourselves at this point. This happens to me all the time. In fact, just this morning, I finally learned the name of someone who sits very close to me every day, and has been doing so for over half a year. It was a little awkward, but at least I got a blog post out of it.
#bayareaquake030209
I thought of a fun experiment tonight but decided not to go through with it. It would most likely be a complete dud and a waste of 140 characters or fewer, but it also had the potential to have unintended bad consequences.
I thought it would be fun to tweet something like this:
Did you feel it? Tag your tweet with #bayareaquake030209 and include your coordinates. Some back/forth, no damage at 37.428746,-122.170672
I might have also asked a few friends to play along to get things going. Then I would sit back and see if, by the power of suggestion, others “feel” a quake. And since I would have location data, it would be interesting to see where the “epicenter” ended up.
I figured an earthquake would be good because its lack of noise. “Did you hear it?” or “Did you smell it” questions had a might higher potential for legitimate non-suggested “Yes” answers. I also thought it would be safe. An earthquake generally lasts for less than a minute and then is over, so if someone read my tweet and wasn’t injured, they would know that they did not need to worry about it.
But you just never know. I’m not a psychologist, and even officially sanctioned experiments can get out of control, as anyone who has taken Psych 101 has already learned. So, I decided to just share the idea in a blog entry.
Speaking of experiments going bad, a couple of weeks ago I turned on the TV and found that Howie Do It was on. I think it’s NBC’s way of punishing people for staying at home and watching TV on a Friday night. Anyway, in one segment of the hidden-camera show, they convince someone that he’s a contestant on a crazy Japanese game show. As part of the game’s rules, he needs to shock his teammate. The first few shocks appear temporarily painful, and the last one “kills” the teammate, who is really just acting. I really can’t believe that none of the producers, writers, or legal staff stopped this from happening, as it so closely mirrors an infamous experiment from the 1960s in which participants believed they were shocking (and possibly killing) another person. Read about the “Milgram experiment” if you want to learn more.
Also related is a show on ABC called What Would You Do? which is actually quite interesting once you get over the absence of Marc Summers. What I like about this show is that (I hope) people who watch it are more likely to take action in situations where they might have otherwise turned a blind eye, even if they are only doing something with the hope that they are being taped and will appear heroic on national television.
Ok, back to my personal study on sleep deprivation.