One Year

Things just haven't been the same since May 2nd, 2008...

Happy Birthday, Nose!

(PICTURE: The two biggest shnozes to ever come out of New Jersey.)

I love Jeremy Bier for a thousand reasons. Here's one: Because of Jeremy, my dad stopped calling me "nose" around age 14. Thanks, Bier! Happy Birthday!!!

I know I've had a lot of birthday posting recently and that's because, well, most of my best friends were all born around the same time. Actually, the summer that I turned 21, Jeremy, myself, Alex and Brett (all born the same week) went to a bar in Union Square, NY. As we showed the bouncer our IDs he did a double take. He looked at us and asked something like, "Are these real? You all turned 21 this week?" We said yes and walked into the bar.

To add to this post, I'll give a little fact about Vietnamese birthdays. In Vietnam, you are supposed to buy everyone dinner/drinks at your birthday party. To me, this is a great idea. How many times have you gone to a dinner for a friend's birthday and ended up splitting a bill that seemingly cost way more than you'd ever spend on dinner? Here if you want to go to a nice restaurant for your birthday you pay for it. If you want to go to a dive bar you pay for it. And conversely whenever you go to a friends' birthday you don't pay a cent. It's a good system.

What I'm trying to say is, Bier you owe me dinner for your birthday. Thanks.

Please send Jeremy's birthday gifts to me and I'll donate them to Habitat For Humanity. Thanks!

WARNING: Dog Lovers Turn Away

(PICTURE: The ceramic dog is safer than the white one.)

A couple weeks ago, Huyen and I were driving on the highway at night when a truck flew by me. As the truck went by I heard a really strange noise. I was pretty sure the truck was carrying thousands of chickens. A few minutes later the truck was pulled over on the side of the road and I was able to get a glimpse of the goods in the back. And well, it wasn't chickens. The truck was carrying HUNDREDS of dogs.

As a dog lover, I instantly felt bad. However, I've been living in Vietnam long enough to know that eating dog is just part of their culture. And well, I'm not going to judge them for it.

What I will judge though is a story Huyen told me the other day. I told Huyen that eventually I want to get a dog. Huyen told me that her family had a dog when she was growing up. She said they loved the dog which was named Lou (she said Vietnamese people name their dogs after Westerners: Joe, Lou, Bob, etc.). I asked what happened to her dog and she said that robbers killed her. I was shocked and asked what happened. She said that robbers had come into her house when she was young and had trapped her dog. I assumed the robbers trapped the dog so they could steal things from Huyen's family house. I asked her what the robbers took when they robbed the house. Huyen looked at me and said, "I told you. They took the dog." Apparently robbers in the country break into houses to steal dogs and sell them to the markets. Yeah, ridiculous.

The other day, when driving back from Huyen's parents house, this motorbike passed us:

I couldn't help but think, "I hope these dogs aren't some little girl's pet."

(PICTURE: Lets hope these dogs were going to the pound.)

Pottery Tools In The Ear

The other day I sat down on the street, waiting my turn for a shave. The person in the street side barber's chair had just had his face shaved and I started to stand up to take my turn in the chair. However, the barber wasn't done. The barber put on a headband/camping/spelunking flashlight thing and took out a bunch of tools from a kit.

If you have ever taken a pottery class you might recall the tools that usually sit on a table in a cup of water. There are usually different tools that all look like skinny screwdrivers with varied end pieces to carve/design shapes into pottery. Well, the tools the barber took out looked just like that. In fact, I'd bet money they are the same tools. One tool he took out was a long skinny nail. I assumed he was going to pierce the client's ear and I thought to myself, "Oh God. This is the least sanitary thing I have ever seen." However, it wasn't the least sanitary thing I had ever seen...that happened three seconds later when the barber stuck the tool deep inside the client's ear and started to clean.

When I was a kid I once went to an ENT (ear, nose and throat) doctor. The doctor cleaned out my ear and removed a disgusting amount of wax. Well, that is exactly what the barber was doing. However, I'm assuming the ENT had a little more training with this than the barber had.

Here's the video:


Don't forget to donate to my Habitat For Humanity campaign!!! You can send a check to:

[REDACTED]

OR pay with your credit card on www.paypal.com. You just need my email address: [REDACTED]

Thanks!!!

You Haven't Aged A Day, Brett!

(PICTURE: Official SU Alumni)

This picture was taken eight years ago when I graduated Syracuse University. Yes, eight years ago. I like to think that all of us in this picture still look the same as we did that day. I mean, sure there are some obvious difference. For one, I don’t wear backwards baseball hats anymore (I lost mine in Hong Kong).

One guy in the picture who hasn’t changed at all is my buddy Brett (third from the right wearing the whitening cream and red lipstick). Brett is still as handsome as ever, still sporting a tad gut and still making ludicrous faces in pictures. Here’s Brett recently:

Sadly I missed Brett and Alex’s 30th birthday party last Friday night (yeah, on my birthday) but I was emailed a great picture of Brett as a kid. This picture was on the cake that Brett and Alex had made for them:

Brett is the one wearing red Daisy Dukes and laying on the raft in a totally awkward position. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Brett in college and in his NYC apartment laying on his bed/couch/etc. in the same position. Some people just never change.

One thing that I love about Brett (besides that he lets me crash at his apartment whenever I'm in NYC -- honestly who says only children are selfish?) is that he -- like this blog entry -- loves living in the past. Up until this day, whenever I go home, Brett always asks me about two girls from my hometown that he went on a teen tour with back in '96. I'm pretty sure Brett talked to those two girls more on his teen tour bus than I ever did in high school yet he always wants me to say hi to them whenever I go home. One time, over Thanksgiving, I went up to one of the girls and said, "Hey, I'm buddy's with Brett Goldstein at Syracuse. He said to say hi." The girl looked at me with a quizzical look and said, "Is Brett still wearing those red shorts?"

Province Mottos

(PICTURE: Vietnam's 58 Provinces)

In America each of the fifty states has its own motto. Here's the mottos for the three states I have lived in:

New Jersey – Liberty and Prosperity

New York - Excelsior (Meaning "Ever Upward")

California - Eureka (Meaning "I have found it")

Each state also has a nickname:

New Jersey - The Garden State

New York - The Empire State

California - The Golden State

In Vietnam they sort of have the same thing with all of their provinces. There are 58 provinces here and each one is “famous” for something. Huyen was telling me recently about a few famous provincial reputations. For example:

Hai Phong: Hai Phong is known to have the prettiest women in Vietnam...who are also the meanest women in Vietnam.

Ha Tinh: Ha Tinh province is known to be the poorest and cheapest province in Vietnam. Apparently their reputation is that they are so poor they carve fish out of wood, dip the wooden fish into sauce and suck off the sauce.

Ha Nam: Ha Nam is Huyen's province. Huyen told me her province is famous for their “Farting Bridge.” Back in the old days (maybe 20 years ago) nobody had toilets near their house so everyone would go to a bridge and drop a deuce off the side. Anyone who walked by the bridge (hopefully not under) would hear fart noises. She said there is another famous saying about her province: “There was a boy who was carrying twelve sweet potatoes. After he walked by the bridge he had thirteen.”

Scream If It's Your Birthday!!!!

Those tonsils belong to my buddy Alex, and yeah, it's his birthday.

The story of how Alex and I met is quite romantic. Alex was best friends with my buddy Mike in summer camp for years. When I got accepted to Syracuse back in '96, Mike told me I should become friends with Alex who also was going to Syracuse. For some reason or another Alex and I didn't get each other's contact information (this is pre-facebook so it was only moderately easy to get in contact with friends of friends).

Well, it was move in day at SU and my parents and I were in Schine Auditorium signing me up for cable television. I of course had to have cable since I was a communications major. After filling out the form, the cable guy read back my details. As soon as he read my name, some punk next to me said: "You're Ben August? You know Mike Aidekman, right?" That punk, wearing the baggiest jeans I've ever seen, was Alex. Since then we've been best friends. It's been twelve years. Holy crap, it's been twelve years!!!!

Happy birthday, Alex.