Mild Amusement

I think I've mentioned before that people in my family tend to have a sense of humor, so you'd darn well better have one if you want to run with us. Most people have no problem playing along, and over time, good family friends and significant others get in on the act, too. Sometimes a little too well. Let's start this story chronologically, with my brother. A long time back, he was spending some time with his in-laws, and he joked to his mother-in-law that she was his favorite mother-in-law. Technically, this was a true fact. However, she didn't exactly have much competition. His mother-in-law momentarily forgot this fact, so she was flattered. My brother's wife, however, knew that it was a joke, so she politely pointed out how many mother-in-laws my brother had (one). Everyone had a good laugh, and it turned in to a fun story. Fast forward a few months, and somehow this story came up at dinner one night with my sister and her husband. Everyone chuckled. Me being...

Once, a long time ago, when I was a poor college kid, I decided to shave my head instead of getting a haircut. I don't entirely remember the whole thought process involved, but I do definitely remember thinking that it'd be cheaper. I mean, a cheap set of clippers was way cheaper than paying 15ish bucks every few weeks. It didn't look crappy or anything, so I stuck to this plan. Fast forward a few years, and I'd been shaving my head for a while. I'd very much gotten used to the whole process, and I didn't think anything of it. However, I'd just started working for a new supervisor at the time, and HE wasn't used to the process. My hair was a little shaggy when I first started working for him, so a couple of weeks after, I shaved my head. Upon walking in to his office, he looked up, and immediately asked, "what'd you do? Lose a bet?" Yeah, it went like that. Anyhow, the point is that I've shaved my head for a while, and it has always c...

I was just talking to someone the other day about how I'm usually very willing to play with my diet. This is how I ended up eating vegetarian meals (and occasionally regretting it ) and how I ended up getting a dirty look over tofu . As I quickly discovered, though, I am decidedly in the minority when it comes to food. And as it turns out, this has often led to quite a few laughs over food. The one item where this is the most noticeable is pizza. Sure, everyone has their preferences about certain food; I know people who don't eat seafood, people who don't eat meat, people who only eat Chinese food, people who don't eat dairy ... you get the idea. But because pizza has so many options, people's preferences very quickly come out. My Chinese grandmother was one a perfect example of this. She was one of those people that pretty much only ever wanted to eat Chinese food (my friends can confirm that this is not an isolated occurrence among other Chinese elders). I wou...

Like a bunch of people that I know, I use GPS navigation on my phone to help me get around. I don't always know where stores or houses are located, so I let technology figure it out for me. In fact, this was one of the main reasons why I ended up getting a smart phone, since I wanted to have the safety net when I was going anywhere. And for the most part, this whole system works well. Of course, it can fail in hilarious ways. I was heading to a friend's party one Monday night a while back, and I'd never been to this particular location before. I had a rough general idea of where in the city it was, but I figured I'd play it safe by having my GPS direct me there. To make matters worse, I was running late because I'd gotten off of work a little later than usual that night. I really didn't want to have to figure it out on the fly under those circumstances, so I asked my phone to tell me where to go and I started driving. By the time I got on the Bay Bridge, I ...

You know how if people tell you something often enough, you start to believe it? This post is all about that. Apparently, I am somebody who is exceptionally daring about trying new experiences. It's not how I usually describe myself, but I've had enough people tell me so that I have no choice but to believe there's some truth there. Now, I'll readily admit that I'm usually flexible about the food I eat. I have no objections to sampling new food items or in imposing dietary restrictions on myself. I've written plenty about it before, but I basically order anything on a menu that I've never eaten before. It's kind of fun, I sometimes end up liking new foods, and this also means that I can usually have some of other people's food . It works out pretty well. However, this willingness to try has bled over in to plenty of other aspects of my life. I've mostly been a homebody  by nature, but I haven't objected to being sent on business tr...

Every now and then, some random TV show will have a fight between a man and a woman because the toilet seat was left in an inconvenient position for one of the characters. Everyone immediately recognizes the argument, because it's one of those silly little arguments that pops up all over the place. It's not all that important in the long run, but there is a surprising amount of thought that goes in to this debate (for example, look at how many hits " toilet seat up or down " returns). In my case, however, I deal with a slightly different version of the same argument. Well, to be fair, it's not really an argument. Despite growing up with both men and women in the house, I can't remember this ever boiling over in to an argument. If a guy found the toilet seat down and he didn't need it that way, he flipped it up and did his business. If a woman found the toilet seat up, she flipped it down and did her business. No one whined, and everyone proved they were...

First of all, if you don't know what burpees are, consider yourself lucky. Burpees are a form of exercise, where a single repetition involves transitioning from a push up to a jump. The motion involves both a strength component (the push up) and an aerobic condition component (going from flat on the ground to jumping in the air), so doing a bunch of these gets tiring, very quickly. I know a guy who owns a CrossFit gym that gives these out as punishments. Yeah, they're no fun. These days, I don't do as many  CrossFit workouts   so I don't do as many burpees. Still, there are two things about me that you should keep in mind: 1) habits die really hard in my case, and 2) I do things the hard way . So, when I felt like I'd been slacking off on exercising as a whole recently, I woke up one Saturday morning and made myself do burpees. One hundred of them, to be exact. I remember someone telling me she could do that in less than ten minutes once, so I tried to hit that t...

A while back, one of the Mild Exes and I broke up. It was messier than I would have liked, but them's the breaks. It was actually a pretty amusing story (a juicer figured prominently), but in keeping with the "don't air dirty laundry" rule, I'll refrain from telling it here. However, people's reactions to the story are fair game, since I'm not divulging state secrets in the process. More importantly, they were freaking hilarious. Remember, all of these came off the cuff pretty much immediately after hearing what had gone down: Friend 1: "You're right, it's a fun story, though I think it needs a little less profanity" Friend 2: "Really? Because I think it needs MORE" I couldn't help but burst out laughing at this. I'm not going to lie; I felt like high-fiving that second friend immediately afterward and declaring her my best friend for the week. Friend 1: "Where do you find these women?!" Friend 2: ...

Every now and then, I like to jokingly complain that this whole adulthood thing sucks. Usually, this happens when I have to do something boring at work or when I have to pass on something fun in favor of taking care of an errand. There is a grain of truth in this; being a functional adult means accepting responsibility, and responsibility occasionally means having to do things you don't like. Still, it comes with the territory, so I accept it and move on with whatever it is I have to do. Obviously, this is not a unique view. There are literally billions of others on this planet who intuitively know and understand this. However, there are times when this can be applied in very creative, and very amusing, ways. The simplest, and most obvious, example of this comes with little kids who have been taught to share. Even if you've never seen it in person, you instinctively know that most little kids don't like to share. They eventually get over that, but the first few times that...

As I like to mention, little kids can be ridiculously awesome. I've mentioned it at least six times before (the last time was here ), and it's no less true today then it was the first time I mentioned it. However, sometimes, they are more awesome than others. This, my friends, is a case of extra awesomeness. So, rather than describing several witty remarks like I usually do, I'm going to devote the entire post to a single exchange. Trust me, it'll be worth it. To begin with, the cable went out at my house a while back. I knew just enough about the cable boxes to try a few basic troubleshooting steps, but none of it worked. The end result was that the we couldn't watch anything but the basic channels on TV, and we had to have a technician come out to fix it. The technicians don't usually come out on the weekend, so we had to make an appointment for them to show up in the middle of a weekday. That meant that the kids would be around when the technician showed up...

No, this isn't going to be a rant about how much I get annoyed by other people doing silly things. That just doesn't come from the right place. Sure, it might be (darkly) funny in the right context, but it encourages all sorts of behavior that I'd rather not encourage. However, this is going to be a post about an off-hand comment my sister made that absolutely cracked me up. It'll take a bit to build up to the punch line, but it's a good one, trust me. With that said, let me start with something of an unofficial motto of mine: do things the hard way. I don't mean that I have to do every last task in the absolute hardest way possible; mowing the lawn with a pair of nail clippers would be difficult, but there's no point in doing it that way. No, I mean that when I'm faced with a choice, I almost always choose the tougher road. More often than not, it's the right thing to do. I rarely want to do things that way, but that's precisely the point. If...

I've mentioned before that getting sick is a source of amusement for me, largely because of the kids and the reactions I get from people at work. Well, it looks like I underestimated just how much laughter illness can cause. Yup, the whole process of getting sick managed to generate some (mild) amusement. First of all, my brother got a pretty bad case of strep throat, so he had to miss some time at work. He is also around kids quite a bit, so it's not uncommon for one of those "vectors of infection" he works with to get him sick in some way, shape, or form. In this case, he managed to contract a case of strep throat. His supervisor, however, was far more concerned about the work schedule than the fact that he had a really high fever and could not keep himself out of bed. She said she was going to make him come in later that day (to which he roughly said, "you're not understanding. I cannot come in to work today."), and then she insisted on a doctor...

It's time for another round of interesting things that people have said about me (there have been three previous rounds, the latest of which was here ). These are things that people have actually said to me, as close to verbatim as possible, and it's not like I am taking the words out of context. No, I just hear some very interesting commentary thrown my way. "You could probably fill an A cup" A long time ago, I used to go to the gym with my college roommates. They were really big on the bench press, so I soon got much better at that. Apparently, this made my pecs grow enough so that other people noticed. Most people didn't say much, but one female friend did. She compared it to the closest thing she knew: bra sizes. Now, I like to joke that I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about a lot of things. This one, however, was legitimately baffling. I really wasn't sure how to take that. She meant it as a good thing, though, so it ends up on the list. ...

I mentioned last time that I took a trip to visit my sister (and her cat ) in Colorado, but really, the best part was that all three of the Chang siblings got together to hang out. For the most part, the three of us get along well. What's more, we are each goofy and funny in our own way, but we have a shared history and we feed off of each other. In case it's not obvious already, there is much, much laughter to be had when we get together. This trip was no different. It's not even like there was one single thing that was hilarious and the rest of the time was boring. Nope, there were quite a few zany antics that I remember. For example: I actually arrived a day later than my brother, because my work schedule didn't allow me to leave as early. So, my brother, my sister, and my brother-in-law all had a night to hang out before I got there. And on that night, they decided that they wanted California burritos the next day (apparently the Colorado ones are prepared diff...

A little while back, I took a trip to Colorado, to visit one of my siblings. Actually, all of the Chang siblings decided to meet up there. I don't quite remember who first suggested that we all get together, but I found myself on a plane headed out there. We had a good time, and as is common when the three of us get together, shenanigans were afoot and much laughter was had . Looking back, though, there were quite a few laughs had around my sister's new cat, Tanuki. First of all, I should explain the name, since I was partially responsible for naming her. Given her size, the cat's tail was surprisingly big and bushy. My sister wanted to give her a name befitting of her tail, so she asked for suggestions. Me being me, I suggested Tanooki, Bushy, and Becky. The first one comes from Super Mario Bros. 3, where there is a tanooki suit that Mario can wear. Bushy should be self-explanatory (heck, I used the same word to describe the tail). And Becky ... well, that comes from t...

Remember how I have a friend who I have dubbed "The Litmus Test?" The story behind this was amusing enough to write about; basically, every time she's met one of the Mild Ex'es, I've gotten into a big fight with said Mild Ex shortly thereafter. And I hate to say it, but she may now have some company. There is now a second friend who can lay claim to the title of "Litmus Test." The first time it happened, I just figured it was a random coincidence. I was about to take off on a vacation with a buddy of mine, and I got in to a fight with the now-Mild Ex pretty much the day before I left. The next couple of days were not pleasant, and the fact that I wasn't around to try to work through it all made things even worse. Now, when you're traveling with people, you tend to talk about anything and everything, so this came up at some point. He was a good friend about it all, and he gave some words of encouragement and all that. When I got back, the Mild ...

I forget where I first heard it (I think it might have been Descartes), but I have long been a fan of the notion that certain things just have a " ring of truth " to them. If you've never heard the idiom before, the basic idea is that some things are super-true. They are not just true, but they are so obviously true, that as soon as you hear them, you recognize the truthiness inherent in them. I usually get excited when I hear one of these, since it means that I am a tiny bit less ignorant from that moment forward. For the first time in memory, though, I experienced the ring of truth. First, let me paint the scene with a little bit of background. I'd made plans to have dinner with my friend, but we'd agreed to play it by ear. The end result was that we ended up settling on a pretty late dinner in a local spot. That worked out just fine, since we weren't shooting for gourmet, we just wanted to grab some food and catch up in the process. So, we headed out to ...

I know enough about my car to take care of minor repairs with it: I can change tires, change windshield wipers, swap out headlights or fuses, and swap out the suspension. I still don't know enough to take care of anything major, though, so I don't try. When it comes to things like the transmission or the electrical system as a whole, I take it to the professionals. I kinda sorta need those to run well, and I'd rather not learn the hard way that I made a mistake when working on one of those systems. So, when the taillight indicator on the dashboard came on, I started by checking it wasn't one of the little things I could fix. After all, if it was just a blown out bulb, I could fix that myself. First, though, I needed to figure out which light was acting up, so I could investigate further. There, however, was the rub. I couldn't tell which light was problematic. My brake lights all turned on, the turn signals blinked just fine, and the reverse lights turned on as ...

There's this line in Eminem's "Not Afraid" that I find particularly clever: " like a f*ck you for Christmas, his gift is a curse ." I'm not the biggest fan of the song as a whole, but every time I hear that one line, I end up with a grin on my face. Unfortunately, though, I think I know a little bit about how that feels. See, I have a fairly good memory. It's not a photographic memory or anything, since I can and do remember things incorrectly with hilariously bad results . Still, I've found that on average, I can remember details that other people can't. Most of the time, this is a good thing. I remember most of my friends' birthdays off the top of my head, for example. As a result, I can take advantage of information I processed long ago in order to adapt to the current situation. Like I said, this is a good thing. Then again, I also said that this is mostly a good thing. There is a dark, dark underbelly to this ability. On the mos...

If anyone has ever wondered why my last name is Chang but I speak Spanish, I have a Chinese father and a Peruvian mother. As my sister has once jokingly said, my siblings and I are rotten eggs: brown on the outside, yellow on the inside. Having been raised with both cultures, I know what a quinceanera is, I have received red envelopes during Lunar New Year, I love ceviche , and I know what kind of dim sum I like. You get the idea. Ultimately, though, it's the combination of the two cultures that makes things amusing. One of my favorite examples of this involves going to a Peruvian restaurant and seeing " chaufa " on the menu. It's basically a stylized version of Chinese fried rice, with a new name that reflects the Spanish tongue. But every single time I've seen it on a menu, the description for it says something like "Peruvian rice dish." Yup, sure it is. Things get even more amusing when my parents get in on the act. My dad, for example, met my ...

As many of you know, I have a non-trivial commute to work every day. I've gotten used to it, but it means that I spend more than a few hours on the road. That means that I also see quite a few cars on the road. Most of the time, I only pay attention long enough to ensure that said car is not going to endanger my life. Other than that, I forget all about the vehicle as soon as it's out of eye sight. Still, there was this one car that managed to make a permanent home in my memory. I first noticed this vehicle out of my peripheral vision when I was making a turn. On this particular intersection, three lanes all turn left, and I usually end up in the middle of those three lanes. I've learned over time to keep an eye on the lanes of either side of me as they turn, because people have very interesting ideas about which lane they are allowed to use. Also, some folks have a harder time staying in their lane. Either way, there is a bigger chance than I would like that I have to a...

You know how sometimes one of your friends will eat something weird? Most people react by scoffing in a surprised manner and then shaking their head in disbelief. Me? Not so much. Sure, I do the surprised scoff just like everyone else. Where our paths diverge, and drastically at that, is with what comes next. I usually take a second to think about it, and then I figure, "why not?" So, I usually end up resolving to try that particular item or combination of foods. Really, though, given how willing I am to tweak my diet , this should come as no surprise. Actually, there's a very good reason why I'm willing to trade one bad meal for a lifetime of certainty: I've seen that scenario bear fruit in the past. I specifically remember the first time it came up: my old college roommate swore up and down that dipping fries in to a milk shake was delicious. I'd never eaten that way, and I looked at him skeptically. After all, combining my sides with my drink sounded as a...

I didn't grow up going to the beach very often, so I don't have warm and fuzzy memories of being near water. This was largely due to the fact that I learned to swim as a teenager, but the fact that the water  in the nearest beaches  is really cold didn't help matters any, either. Regardless, I can usually be talked in to hanging out at a pool or at the beach, but those aren't exactly at the top of my list of preferred activities. Even with this as a detractor, though, I discovered that I can still have quite a bit of fun while on or near the water. First of all, we ended up going whale watching on one afternoon. I didn't really think much of it before we left, but whale watching is one of those activities that sucks you in. One moment you're just sitting around on a boat talking, and the next you find yourself absorbed in the task of spotting brief flashes of whale tail. I think part of the fun was in trying to get a decent picture or video of the whales. It...

Since I was on a bus tour for this particular trip, I didn't really bother to pack much other than some jeans and t-shirts. Sure, I had a little bit of outerwear in case the weather got cold, but I wasn't super concerned about that turn of events. In fact, I wasn't even horribly concerned about rain because I figured that we'd be on a bus for good chunks of the trip. There were some advantages to traveling on one of those pre-packaged group tours, after all. Anyhow, since I was on this trip for a little over a week, this meant that I needed more than a week's worth of t-shirts. I did own that many t-shirts, but it's not like I the number I owned was orders of magnitude higher than that. This meant that I was bound to pack at least one shirt that I owned because I found it amusing (read: there was something smart aleck-y about it). As it turns out, I packed a few of them. For example, the current and former school teachers in our travel group chuckled heartily...

I was on a trip to Canada recently. Usually, I tend to to do road trips with a friend (with hilarious results ), but  this time, we both got a bit lazy about planning and driving. So, we hopped on a bus tour that took care of all of that for us. Sure, we had to sacrifice some independence in order to do this, but it seemed like a pretty good idea. And all in all, it wasn't that bad. Still, there were a few quirks. First off, I was the youngest person on the trip ... by far. I had never really stopped to consider what kind of people might be on the tour with us, but apparently the kind of people who have decent amounts of disposable income and prefer to be shuttled around tend to be closer to retirement age. Weird. We actually had an introductory meeting the first night of our trip, and we walked in to a room full of gray hairs. Don't get me wrong, the majority of the people were fun to talk to and I had no problem with them. Still, it was a little disconcerting at first. As...

A little while back, I was talking to the Mild Ex, and she commented that the air conditioning at her place was acting up. In it of itself, that was a bad thing. However, this conversation happened to take place right in the middle of a miniature heat wave. So the fact that the air conditioning was performing less than optimally was less of an annoyance and more of an actual problem. It wasn't going to kill her or anything, but it certainly didn't make her days any more pleasant. Worse yet, I wasn't in a position to remedy the situation in any discernible way. For one, I was sitting at home, she was sitting at home, and our two homes happened to be quite a few miles apart. Secondly, even if I had driven over there, I wasn't sure that I had the knowledge or the magical powers required to restore her air conditioning to satisfactory levels. Things were not looking good for our hero (that'd be me). Well, out of some combination of sheer curiosity, dogged determinat...

Way back in high school, there was a male teacher that all the girls thought was attractive. It was an open secret that a bunch of them had crushes on him. In fact, the school newspaper even did an article about him that quoted some girl saying, "he's so cute, he even makes pink look good." Yes, he had worn a pink shirt to school one day, and it had apparently been a big hit. I was reminded of this story when my sister-in-law suggested that she would choose pink as the color for her wedding and bridal party. I don't think I've ever made a color look good before, but I remember thinking, "well, I know it's possible to not look stupid in pink as a straight guy, I guess I can try." And I think that's almost exactly what I told her. I also happened to own a gray suit, so I figured the combination would look all right. However, I was pretty much the only one willing to play along. My sister-in-law's brothers wanted absolutely no part of th...