What celebrity would play you?

If you had to cast an actor or actress to portray you in a movie, who would you choose?  While writing features on three colleagues, I asked two females and one male this question. Their answers were Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Bell, and Daniel Radcliffe.  Fascinating to me is that all three colleagues are Asian American.  Apparently their essences can best be captured by blondes and a guy with giant blue eyes.  I'd choose comedienne Charlyne Yi to play me.  Granted she's now thinner and comes off as more endearing than myself.  She's an actress, though, so I'm sure she could pump up the paranoia and hostility needed to play me.

Update: I asked my husband if Charlyne Yi could play me in a movie, and spun around my laptop to show him her photo.  His reaction?  "OH MY GOD.  Yes!"

Photo via Zimbio

Words I learned recently

I am now making an effort to note and remember words that are new to me.  I usually come across new vocabulary when reading news articles.  To make new words stick I have to read them and then immediately look up their meanings.  If I don't do that, the words become, '...that D-word that means a place that is bad and ugly like in Blade Runner.'  Pronunciation guides in dictionaries are amusing because how many English speakers actually understand them?  They're like using hand signals while riding a bike. Riders can use them, but unless others understand what the signals mean they're pretty much usless.

Rod Man loves his Mexican neighbors

Rod Man dished on his Mexican neighbors on Last Comic Standing, last night.  He had me howling.  I am moving to a ritzier neighborhood in Orange County next weekend.  We're moving to minimize my commute to work.  I'm already lamenting the loss of our working class Asian and Mexican neighbors (although many of the Asians drive like sh*t), the eloté cart that a couple occasionally rolls down our street, and being so far from our favorite fish taco restaurant.

Watch:Rod Man and Mexican neighbors

Previously on Ajumma's Pad:
¡Viva eloté!

Pic via Vegas News

Farewell to Robin Williams

We all have our favorite Robin Williams roles.  They seem to vary by age.  My twenty-something companions like the comic in Aladdin and Mrs. Doubtfire.  I favor Robin Williams' quieter roles such as his portrayal of English professor John Keating in Dead Poets Society (1989) and real-life neurologist Oliver Sacks in Awakenings (1990).  It's a shame Williams' internal pain and hopelessness reached the point he no longer wanted to go on.  I'm thankful for the many characters he brought to life, and appreciate how he positively affected people across socioeconomic and color lines with his entertaining and philanthropy.

Actually, one of my favorite Robin Williams moments is one of his more physical ones.

Photos via Pauline Hughes Ceramics, Reason & Reflection, FW, and Walk in the Dust

Returning to "Breaking Bad"

"Felina," the Breaking Bad series finale aired in September 2013.  The grand finale of five ridiculously intense seasons left me completely satisfied.  I had no desire to read anything about the episode, the stars, or reactions from other viewers.  This was the opposite of how I'd been operating as the AMC series progressed, scouring messages boards for posts by BB fans. However, after a year's hiatus I found myself taking great delight in Glenn Whipp's interview with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and the show's stars Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston.  The trio quips about what happened to Jesse once -- SPOILERS!!!! --he busted down the gates of the supremacist compound.  They also discuss alternative fates for master chemist Walter White.  My only bone to pick is I feel they exaggerated the threat Gale posed, but Gilligan is the show's creator and harbors in his mind the corners Gale could have turned given the chance.

Read the L.A. Times interview.

Previously on Ajumma's Pad:
Breaking Bad stars out and about
I'm seriously addicted to Breaking Bad
If I were Giancarlo Esposito
Men in cars
Men in pork pie hats
Breaking Bad stuff I like from the web

Photo from Business Insider

Bird songs for your desk

Stuck in a cubicle?  No access to a window?  Is your view of a concrete wall?  Turn on Sound of Nature-Bird Songs (No Music) recorded by a YouTuber outside the person's home in Poland.  The all natural, high quality video lasts 180 minutes.  I pull up the video and minimize it while going about my work day.  The songs of the birds are calming and pure.  Today, I got really fancy and turned on a clip of a rainstorm while the birds played in the background. Pure bliss.

Photo via Bird Holidays Worldwide

Jeremy & Donald: Cholafied

Jeremy Lin will be living la vida loca for the next three years as a Los Angeles Laker.  Perhaps we'll see the point guard eating around San Gabriel Valley.

I had a vivd dream that Donald Glover announced his return to Community, last week.  A girl can wish.

Photo via Cholafied

Do you know this child?

It's this guy!

( Two stories about eyebrows )

 

ONE: In 1995, inspired by Gong Li in the film Shanghai Triad, I plucked my full eyebrows into thin lines.  I felt satisfied at my handiwork. My grandma, meanwhile, warned me not to over pluck because my eyebrows may never grow back.

TWO: Kayle, a British colleague of mine boasted bushy, robust brows.  They were, in my eyes, a wonderful blank palette.  One day in 2000, Kaye and I were having our hair cut at a salon in Seoul.  The salon owner styled both Kaye and me. At the end, she asked Kaye if she wanted her brows tweezed.  Kaye said yes, and after a few seconds emerged looking straight up like Kate Winslet.  The owner turned to me and asked if I wanted my brows trimmed.  I said yes.  IF I COULD STOP TIME AND REDO THAT MOMENT I MOST CERTAINLY WOULD!  The salon owner, despite standing only a foot from me, called across the room to the ajumma sweeping the floors.  She pointed for her to come do my brows.  The ajumma approached and with shaky hands took an electric shaver to my face.  In one swoop, she cut a quarter of my left eyebrow off my face.  Fourteen years later it has never grown back.

These days Gong Li is back to fuller brows, as am I, with my left brow limping along.  Koreans recognized years ago that full brows vs. thin ones give a more youthful appearance.  One can see tutorials all over the web how to create Korean-style eyebrows.  Funny, but the site that tickles me the most is a site dedicated to K-pop idols sans brows.

Gong Li photos courtesy of The Film's the Thing, HK actresses blog, and Hawt Celebs

My '80s movie boyfriend is...

I have to admit, I was pretty psyched to take the Who's Your '80s Movie Boyfriend? quiz.  I hoped I'd be matched with Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles (1984).  Hell, I would have been happy with Duckie from Pretty in Pink (1986).

Alas, I was matched with perma-stoned surfer, Jeff Spicoli, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).  Spicoli puts the "high" in...oh, never mind.  My girlfriend took the quiz and she landed Jake Ryan.  Argh!

Who is YOUR '80s movie boyfriend?  Take the quiz.

Previously on Ajumma's Pad: Yeah You, Jake Ryan

Pretty in Pink photo via Gallery Hip