Vinh Pham

Here is an interesting story of the day: Shampoo Induce Breast Growth.

At first I thought it was scary, but after very little ( and I mean very very very little ) thought, I am very perplexed by this news. Growing my own breast… a bad thing??

My only question now is, where do I find this “shampoo”. The only downside is, I may never get out of the shower. Which means I would probably miss work a lot and become a bum. But I mean come on, what else does a man need for infinite happiness.

This is a picture of me and my mentee, Josh. He is a cool little dude. When he grows up, he’s going to be a lady killer. Josh and I are part of the CASA school mentors program. I am the mentor ( ) and he’s the mentee. We do stuff together like go kick it at the arcade, play computer games, go fishing, etc… Lately I been slacking off and not taking him out, and I feel bad for that.

Last night Uyen and I watched “Little Miss Sunshine”. The film won hella award and everyone kept talking about how great it was. After watching it, all I can say is this. I had no whats so great about it. It not that funny, but it wasn’t bad. But its definitely nothing special. Thank God I only paid $4 for it because I ordered it through ComCast onDemand.

My girlfriend often gets pissed at me for calling people dumb, or discriminating against certain people. However, today, I have found proof that dumb people do exist and they take up a large portion of the US.

13 pct of Americans not heard of global warming

I am pretty sure this study is full of crap, since it was an internet survey, but it would not surprise me if a statistic close to this is true.

Yes VinhBoy died. My car, “VinhBoy”, or as Mike Pintor puts it, Vinh B “Hand” y, died. I really like that car even though it was a complete bucket. I learned how to drive stick in it, and I also learned how to do basic car maintenance on it, since it had loads of problems.
On Saturday I went to Hanlees in Davis and bought myself a Scion xA. The only reason why I bought the Scion is because of the “pure pricing”. I did not want to haggle with the car dealership, so this car was the most logical choice. In total I paid about $14,500 for my car, after taxes and everything. The features of the car, and the handling are pretty standard. No complaints about that. However when it comes to the gas mileage. My old 95 Honda Civic gets 40MPG, yet this new clunk of metal only gets 32MPG. I can’t believe. The whole time I was driving 65MPH, which is almost optimal gas mileage conditions, and I was mainly on the freeway. “Disappointment abound” I am hoping I will find out something cool to compensate for that lost. Also, I hear from Uyen that one of her friend bought the car last year for $12,000 with added features. Needless to say it pissed me off, and makes me question this whole “pure pricing” idea.
As for my old Honda, hopefully in time, I will be able to fix it up. Derek already suggested dropping a K20A in it, but I am thinking it want to keep it for myself and drop a B18 or B16. Zoom Zoom!!

Love is…

Standing in 20 degrees weather so the dog can pee,
Driving 30 minutes out of my way just to say hello,
Cleaning up a mess I did not make,
Giving up poker,
Ball room dancing every other Friday,
Wearing clothes that makes me look gay.

But its not so bad.

Some days, I’ll eventually get laid.

For the one and only.
Without you, I’d be pretty lonely.

Today is a national holiday celebrating Martin Luther King. If I owned a company, today would be a holiday. I have deep found respect for this man. I am very moved by his non-violence approach. And I am amazed by his ability to stand up against the forces of hate and prejudice. Yet, I often wonder “What would MLK do?”, just like, “What would Jesus do?”

What would MLK do about illegal immigration? What would MLK say about rappers endorsing violence, sexism, and gluttony in their music? What would MLK think about the rates of black on black crime? How would MLK feel about the social, and economic status of black Americans? And how would MLK feel about equality and racism in today’s society?

I think he’d be pretty pissed…Although his quest for equality is largely a success, I feel that his struggle for equality has been grossly taken for granted. The man gave his life to help people get a better life, but a lot of people are abusing that right and putting themselves back into the prison of poverty, lack of education, and ignorance.

God bless his soul. Hopefully in time, the full reality of his dreams of will realized. Hopefully one days all children will be able to play together. As of today, only a rare minority of Children can beat odds of self-oppression and come to the playing field.

I always thought that Chinese dudes, or any Asian dudes, have it bad when it comes to women because of their social inequities, but now this: China Faces Major Gender Imbalance.

I would just like to send out my condolences to all my Chinese brothers. Farewell, make tons of money, and maybe you won’t die alone.

But on a serious note. I never thought of this, but it must be strange to live in a country where the government gets to tell you how many babies you can have. It’s always an interesting point to stand back and look at how to be part of a “civilized” society, we have to sacrifice a lot of our human rights and freedom. I guess “equality” is finding the right combination of human rights and “civility”.

Hmm. Come to think of it, it would be a lot easier if humans were just innately “good”. Then there would be no need for civilized society. Go figure.

I spend a considerable amount of my life “doubting” myself. I FEEL like the people around me do the same. Yet, I don’t think anything good has ever came out of me doubting myself, or other people doubting me. It’s always the opposite. I admit it, I am a dreamer. Some days I feel like pressing the ignite button on my car and imagine that rocket boosters will come out of the tailpipe and my car will blast off into the air as I fly through traffic like a blazing rocket.

That’s the world I live in. A world full of fanatical ideas and ambition. But its damn hard to exist in that world when no one I know really see anything more than an Asian kid with spiky hair.

So, the cumulation of my story here is: On Friday, while sitting here in my cubicle I read an article about the Apple Convention next Tuesday. I read speculation Apple will release an iPhone. I thought to myself: I bet their stock will rise, maybe I should put all the money I have into it and cash out on Tuesday as soon as the product is release. If anything, I would earn at least 5% return on my investment…

In a perfect world I would have done it. But its not. Instead, I thought to myself about how unreasonable I am, and how stupid I was to think that I, a lowly biosci graduate, could DARE to dream about the idea playing the stock market.

Now it’s Tuesday. Apple stock soared to 8******* of $5000 is $300. Its take me 8 hours of work to make around $150 bucks. I could have made $300 in 15 minutes. ( yes, minus taxes, fees, etc.. shut up )

Ok Ok, so this is a trivial example. But this example is just a taste of what doubting myself has cost me in my life. Needless to say, there are still a lot of crazy ideas in my head. Hopefully if they ever leak out, no one will be there to squash it.

Here is an interesting bit from Yahoo.

Women seem to judge potential mates by how masculine their features are, new research shows. Men with square jaws and well-defined brow ridges are seen as good short-term partners, while those with more feminine traits such as a rounder face and fuller lips are perceived as better long-term mates.

According to this I am probably feminine because I don’t remember my face being very square.

This research is scientific proof that “nice guys finish last”.

Although I am not nice.

I found this news article on Yahoo! today and it blew me out of the water: Where’s the outrage over black-on-black killings?

I have always thought about this every time I hear news stories about cops killing “black” people. It makes my blood curl to see countless numbers of black leaders come out of the woods detesting these “murders”. To me, it always seem like they rushed to a conclusion. I have always felt that their actions spurred more hatred, segregation, and fear than anything else. Never have I felt that their actions brought home a message of peace or equality. More likely, they preached a message of ignorance and prejudice.

I am not saying that there is no “racism” or that there are no “racist” police officers, however, I just feel that before labeling someone a “racist”, you have to show PROOF. Just as you expect a police officer to show undoubted truth over why they used their guns, you must show undoubted proof that the police officer is “racist” before you scream your head off about it.

This news article brings up some interesting points about this argument, and it has added weight because it comes from the perspective of a “black” man. I am glad to see that I am not the only person who wonders about these things.