WATCH: Fresh Off the Boat

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After watching the first two episodes of ABC’s “Fresh Off The Boat”, I’ll admit that I’m interested in giving the show a shot. It depicts some instances of my childhood and I can’t wait to see more. Particularly, Constance Wu's character Jessica shoots it out of the park! I’ll even pick up Eddie Huang’s book. Admittedly some of it is diificult to watch in that maybe because it was all true?!

Here's an excerpt from Eddie Huang in an interview that was posted in the New Yorker.

I didn’t understand how network television, the one-size fits-all antithesis to Fresh Off the Boat, was going to house the voice of a futuristic chinkstronaut. I began to regret ever selling the book, because Fresh Off the Boat was a very specific narrative about SPECIFIC moments in my life, such as kneeling in a driveway holding buckets of rice overhead or seeing pink nipples for the first time. The network’s approach was to tell a universal, ambiguous, cornstarch story about Asian-Americans resembling moo goo gai pan written by a Persian-American who cut her teeth on race relations writing for Seth MacFarlane. But who is that show written for?

We are culturally destitute in America, and this is our ground zero. Network television never offered the epic tale highlighting Asian America’s coming of age; they offered to put orange chicken on TV for 22 minutes a week instead of Salisbury steak … and I’ll eat it; I’ll even thank them, because if you’re high enough, orange chicken ain’t so bad.

He's hilarious so just give it a shot. If you can believe it, it's the first Asian TV family in over 20 years!

Coffee: How to French Press

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Sometimes I use my Hario V60. Other times, I French Press. If you needed a proper introduction to the French Press, check out the video below by Todd Carmichael.

Just remember the 1g of coffee to 17g water golden ration and you're set. Other details: I heat my water to around 196°F and use a 24 grind setting on my Baratza Virtuoso. I also have two presses; first the standard Bodum Medium Press and just a year ago Kickstarted the Espro Press which keeps it awesomely warm for continued goodness.

Jihad vs. the Crusades

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Only because our President brought up the comparison of the current world to what Christianity did centuries ago, I decided to take it up and learn a little bit more. Dr. Bill Warner, PhD does a fabulous video on showing the many different battles between the two religious groups and explains the differences. Ultimately, Dr. Warner points out, yes, the crusades were years ago, but jihad is constant and ongoing as in today’s world.

Visit his website PoliticalIslam for more info. Also, diving further into the Crusades, check out a book by Steve Weidonkopf, The Glory of the Crusades.

Tales from the Cockpit

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It's pretty awesome how a foreign carrier like KLM is able to post videos such as these that educate the public on what we pilots really do. This is just Part One of a great series. Yes, we actually do touch and play with all those buttons and switches on the panels and even some of the callouts are similar too. As you can see, even with the autopilot on, there is still a lot of continuous monitoring until it is taken back into manual control prior to landing but in this case, the Captain is demonstrating an autoland sequence.

I wish that I could share with you my personal experiences and videos. Maybe sometime in the future with permissions from the FAA, VP of Flight Ops, Safety, etc... you get the point. A lot of hoops for this kind of educational video in the US.

Hilarious All About That Bass Parody!

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Parodies aren't often that funny but YouTuber and ex-Canadian Idol Mikey Bustos hit it on the spot with his take on Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass". Not sure if my American friends will get this video but it shows a part of the Philippines that I enjoyed when I visited. Its also one of the less photographed per se as everyone usually just posts pictures of beaches and white sands. Check it out!

The Filipino palengke is a place where you can do and buy anything you like. Craftsmen, food vendors, butchers, barbers, repairmen, tailor, and much more can be found at the palengke. I go to the palangke each morning!

Bustos also posted a video about circumcision to the tune of Sam Smith's "Stay with Me" and his previous hit to Frozen's "Let It Go". Just hit up his YouTube channel and you'll be in for a few laughs.