Sunday, August 16, 2009

Tattoos

So, let keep things a little lighter. Tattoos always seems weird to me.

They were never that popular in Hong Kong. And if anything, my parents, friends, schools, and even TV/Hong Kong movie always taught us that tattoos are bad and usually only worn by bad people or gangsters. Not only are tattoos very common in America, they have some cool connotations too. Tell me if I am wrong, but a lot of people thinks that tattoos can potentially make you tougher, or sexier (which I think personally, some of them when placed at the right places, really can have these effects). HAHA.

However, what gets me is the Chinese/Japanese character tattoos. How would you like to put words you don't understand on your skin that is pretty permanent? Hmmm. I have seen some funny ones (e.g., "strong" turning out to be "getting schooled"), and others that I probably shouldn't repeat here on the blog. Here is just an example.

What if your intention was to put a tattoo about you first boy?! And what you get was "sex". Hmm. So peeps, what's so fascinating about Chinese/Japanese charaters on your arms, or back, or other secret places!!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Cash for Clunkers

So, there are recently a lot of articles about cash for clunkers, where the government is giving out up to $4,500 for a car that is bearly drivable. The first $1,000,000,000 budget for this program is almost used up. Now Congress is asking for another $2 billion to extend the program to Labor Day. The pull as I have heard is (1) to get the low MPG cars off the road, and (2) to jump start the auto industry by increasing their sales.

But the way I see it (personally), is that indirectly I am giving money ($4,500) to some "lucky winner" to buy a brand new car!! Don't get me wrong, I am a very "green" person and am definitely in agreement with getting some of these fuel inefficient cars off the road. But at $4,500 a pop?! out of the governments pockets (which may I remind you, is already in deep hole)?!!! The $1 billion only benefited about 250,000 individuals or families who purchased the cars. The $2 billion additional funding if passed, will also only benefit another lucky group of 500,000.

So, folks, help a Chinese-American understand this. How can our legislative branch of the government pass something that does not benefit the majority of the people of the USofA? How can the government spend money (potentially $3 billion - part of my hard earn money funded to the government through something called "Income Tax") on such a small group of people? The $4,500 became pure and simple "gains" on these people's "balance sheet". Where is my share of that? It's not like I didn't pay for my gas efficient car at full price before! So, are you saying that I should have kept driving my banged up car and continue to pump harmful gases into the environment, then one day the government will say "good job, you have passed the test of endurance", and for that, collect $4,500?! And last question, how can the government spend so much money that it does not have? Who is going to pay for it? Someone, somehow will have to, sooner or later. Money, I believe, doesn't grow on trees!!