Smile

A baby's smile is the most beautiful sight in the world .... until you open up her diaper and realize that it wasn't a smile so much as her facial muscles straining to excrete a little present for her father.

Baby Ella

I know it's been forever since my last blog entry and I have no valid excuse for the delay... well, except for the last week, of course. On Friday, July 24, 2009 at 6:00 p.m., our daughter, Ella Jae-Eun Chung, decided to grace us with her presence (8 lbs., 1 oz., 21 inches). A friend of ours noted that Ella J.'s b-day is 7/24 and that she will be keeping us up 7 (days a week)/ 24 (hours a day). This has definitely been the case. I don't remember sleeping so little on consecutive nights since cramming for finals in college. But every waking hour with our baby has been memorable, precious and rewarding. Thank you all for your endless well-wishes and prayers. Here are a few of my favorite photos of Miss Ella. Enjoy!

Scripps National Spelling Bee

I apologize for being out of commission since my last entry. I’ve been really busy with the new arrival and spending countless hours bonding with the new baby. And by "new baby," of course I am referring to the replacement Sharp Aquos television set I recently purchased.

I woke up late on Saturday morning and, still wearing my jammies, stumbled over to the living room hoping to watch some sports in high definition. I turn on ESPN and to my dismay, they are televising the National Spelling Bee! I was so disappointed. Sure, it still beats watching a WNBA game, but a spelling bee? On a 24-hour sports network?

For those of you who have never seen this event, it basically consists of a bunch of kids from all across the country spelling words that you would never use in everyday conversation. These kids are in the junior high school age range, which was of course the "awkward years" for many of us, except that these kids are already awkward, which makes for some of the most eccentric geeks you can imagine. I hate to admit it.. but I was hooked after watching the first fifteen minutes. Would the Chinese kid that shows zero emotion win it? Or would the title go to the 13 year old Indian dude with a mustache thicker than anything I could grow?

As much as I enjoyed the Spelling Bee, I couldn’t help but think that if I ran it, I could add a few wrinkles to the format that would make it more entertaining. Here are some of my ideas to improving this event:

1. I think we really need to weed out the "just happy to be here" competitors. You know, the ones who are complacent just making the trip to Washington, D.C. with no real incentive to do well. So there should be a punishment for the first speller to get eliminated. My suggestion: We should have a backstage room filled with bullies who are just salivating at the chance to torment a geek without any repercussions. The last place speller should be locked in that room for 10 minutes with the bullies given unadulterated access to said geek. I am not a monster.. so I will not condone any punching or kicking. However, noogies, wedgies and wet willies are not off-limits and will be permitted.

2. These kids are studying so much, they look unhealthy. So I propose we have a "physical challenge" portion (a la Double Dare) of the Spelling Bee. For example, if a speller incorrectly spells a particularly tricky word (such as a word containing a silent "G"), he/she should get a chance to remain in the competition if he/she can sink a free throw or something. I figure this will allow these kids to allot a portion of their "study time" to exercise and getting out of the house, which will in turn result in a group of kids that are tanner than some of these pasties that we’ve been seeing over the years.

3. *Ding!* That dreaded bell sound that accompanies a misspelled word. We need to get rid of that. It reminds me of that awful aluminum sound (Ping!) that we associate with college baseball. I think we can be a little more creative in letting the speller know he/she has just been eliminated from the Bee. My suggestion: "Nah Nah Nah Nah, Nah Nah Nah Nah, Hey, Hey, Hey Goodbyeeee!" I would love to see the parents of the other spellers singing this song while pointing at the dejected kid hanging his head and exiting stage left. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

4. I noticed that these kids only have 2 ½ minutes to spell the word correctly. I was surprised at the number of kids who weren’t able to spell their word within that time frame. I say give them a break and an opportunity to extend their time. When there are only fifteen seconds left, I think they should start playing some music to let the kid know that he’s down to his last few seconds. If he wants to extend the clock, he should be forced to dance to the music. So long as he’s dancing, the clock freezes. If a rival wants to make the clock run again, he can jump in and have a "dance off" with that speller. The winner of the dance-off should not be the more skilled dancer (because if he/she can dance, that speller has no business being in this competition), but should be determined by the dance moves that invoke the most pity from the viewers.

5. Lastly, we've got to do something about all of those words with Latin or Greek origins — boooring! Why not throw a curveball into the mix? Clearly the solution is to inject hip hop terminology into the Spelling Bee. Think about it: In addition to memorizing their Webster’s Dictionaries, these kids will be forced to listen to rap albums to realize their spelling championship dreams. The thought of the straight-laced moderator saying words like, "Fo Shizzle" makes me giddy. I can imagine a conversation with a contestant going something like this:

Moderator: Your word is "Fo Shizzle."
Spelling Geek: For Shizzle. Am I saying that right, For Shizzle?
Moderator: No, it's "Fo Shizzle."
Spelling Geek: May I please have the definition?
Moderator: Of or relating to being sure about something.
Spelling Geek: Language of origin, please?
Moderator: Ebonics and (pause) . . . the Streets.

Hahaha! Don’t tell me this wouldn’t make things more entertaining! And yes, I know. I am an idiot.

Pregnancy

The other day, Esther commented that she was "really enjoying" my blog. But I knew this was not a stand alone compliment... there was a qualified "but" coming. Sure enough, here it came: ". . . but can you write some more personal stuff about us and the baby?"

What???!!! Wifey, you crazy. How is my take on annoying television commercials and the harmful effects of video games not personal enough? Do these posts not give the reader a window into my inner soul? What more do I have to do? (Sigh) . . . I knew this "exclusive creative control" clause to my blog had an expiration date. I just didn’t know it would be this soon.

But giving it more thought, I guess Esther has a point. According to the baby tracker on my iGoogle page, there are only 67 days left until the scheduled birth of our child. Only two months and a week left and I haven’t blogged about the pregnancy at all. I obviously can’t post any photos of my daughter now, but what I can do is post photos of the baby’s development in Esther’s body and post photos of my wife in the various stages of her pregnancy. I relayed the idea to Esther and she was thrilled! Because I knew Esther would murder me if I published certain pregnancy photos of her without her prior consent, I told her that she should select the ones she wants to share and e-mail them to me.

It has been several days now and I have not received those photos by e-mail. It has been a week since my last blog entry and my readers are getting antsy and impatient. So I’ve decided to just go ahead and post photos that I feel accurately depict the development of Esther’s pregnancy. Because my wife failed to send me photos in a timely manner, I will use pictures of inanimate objects instead:

(Isn't pregnancy just the most beautiful process you've ever seen?)

Only Board Games for Ella

My wife recently said to me, "When Ella’s born, can you promise that we won’t let her play video games?" I responded with a resounding "Yes" (and actually meant it this time).

I know there are a lot of passionate gamers out there. I’m not one of them. Personally, video games bring out the worst in me. If I get too invested, I get annoyed, frustrated, even irate when I can’t accomplish the video game objective. Life’s too short for me to get pissed when I can’t get the digital character on the screen to grab some sparkling gem to save some princess from some dragon/ogre/monster/the Man. Yet, I fall into the same trap over and over again.

For example, there was a game called NFL Blitz. I would always lose in the last play of the game against a guy who probably didn’t even know the real rules of football. He would drop back to pass by backpeddling 30 or so yards, then just heave a hail mary that would get caught, that receiver would throw a lateral pass to another receiver, who would then throw another forward pass (which is highly illegal in real football by the way) to another receiver for the touchdown, while all of my secondary defenders would be running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

There was also another fighting game called Tekken Tag that I would play with my cousin. On one particular night, he beat me 30 times in a row. I’m not even exaggerating. It was literally 30-0. And he was beating me with a Brazilian character that essentially fights using breakdance moves (a la Zoolander). You would think I’d walk away after losing the first 10. But I didn’t. I continued to eat flares and windmills until it was past midnight. I finally beat my cousin late into the early Sunday morning. By that time, I was about 3 hours late to my friend’s birthday in K-town. When I arrived, they were obviously drunk and had a good chuckle when I told them why I was late.

But I digress... aside from the obvious stress and anger video games may cause Ella, I will keep my baby away from them because I think that the lessons they teach can be dangerously influential and misleading. Here are some examples off the top of my head:

Mario Brothers will teach Ella that it is fun to play in sewer pipes and partake in funny-looking mushrooms. It will also convince her that obesity is not a serious problem since these fat Italian dudes seem to be able to jump 30 feet in the air with relative ease.

Street Fighter will teach her that a flying fireball can’t possibly hurt her so long as she puts her forearm up in front of her face. I also shudder at the thought of her learning about other cultures through this game. Can’t you just imagine her asking an Indian person to spit some flames for her? Or asking a Brazilian why he/she doesn’t look like the Incredible Hulk on crack?

Mike Tyson’s Punch Out will inspire Ella to think that it doesn’t matter that she’s 3'2". So long as you have heart, you should get into the ring with the reigning world heavyweight champion.

Grand Theft Auto ..... come on, do I really have to explain why this would be a bad idea?

James Bond or any other video game that is ‘first person perspective’ would require that I clean up vomit from the inevitable motion sickness that accompanies playing this game.

Lastly, Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). I know what you’re thinking: ‘But DDR promotes exercise and physical fitness!’. No, it doesn’t. It promotes ‘dancing.’ And I do not want to expose my daughter to anything that may encourage her to seek dancing as a profession. Because there are only two types of professional dancing: One where the opportunities are scarce and the pay is low, and one where the opportunities are plentiful and the pay is extremely good. And I wouldn’t want her involved in either, particularly the latter. Chris Rock once eloquently said that the main objective of a father of a girl is to "keep her off the pole." I agree wholeheartedly.

Is Ella in good hands or what?

Commercials

Being without a TV has spurred me to seek alternative ways to keep myself busy. So far, I’ve used this free time to do some chores around the house (cleaning, watering the plants), go market shopping, go furniture shopping, read, and have quiet, meaningful conversations with my wife. In other words, it sucks being without a television.

One thing from the boob tube that I will not miss, however, are the inane commercials that seem to be popping up more frequently. Why can’t all commercials be as good as those "Real Men of Genius" TV and radio spots?

Here are the most egregious culprits:

1. GEICO

Someone, please stop the madness. It doesn’t get any worse than pasting a couple of eyeballs on a stack of cash and making the ‘80s hit "Somebody’s Watching Me" relevant again. The only ones benefitting from this sad excuse for a commercial is Rockwell, the group that sang the aforementioned song. And yes, I had to Google it.

Working for Geico’s advertising firm, so easy, a caveman can do it.

2. SWIFFER WET JET

Another cringeworthy commercial. This is the one where a woman receives flowers and candygrams from a "Mr. Mop," who is trying to woo her back to using conventional mops. Their song of choice: the 1970's hit "Baby Come Back" by Player. Did you know that Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical fame did a remake of this song for the Disney channel? Don’t care? See, nothing can make this commercial interesting. (And yes, I Googled that as well).

By the way, we’ve recently purchased a Swiffer Wet Jet and I hate myself for actually liking the product.

3. DOS EQUIS BEER

Notice how they call him "the most interesting man in the world" and not the most "original" man in the world? These spots wouldn’t be so bad except that they’re a clear rip-off of ‘Chuck Norris facts.’

"I don’t always plagiarize... but when I do, I prefer Chuck Norris."

4. JARRITOS

I’ve been hearing more and more radio ads for Jarritos lately. These ads prove that you don’t need visual images in your commercials to make it suck.

For those of you who don’t know, Jarritos is a fruit-flavored soda company whose catch phrase is, get this, "What the fruit!?" When I heard it the first time, I thought the FCC had fallen asleep at the wheel. I’ve never, ever heard a commercial that used a play off of an expletive to pimp their product. That’s the equivalent of if Mother’s Cookies came out with a new brand of fudge cookies and called it Mother Fudgers. Is this even legal?

(As you can see, I do watch lots of TV. Esther said that no one would be able to understand this entry because no one could have possibly seen/heard all of these commercials. I beg to differ. I’d be surprised if you haven’t seen these ads.)

Desperate Times . . .

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.