The Face that Launched a Thousand Rejections

The phrase "the face that launched a thousand ships" is from Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe in reference to one of the most beautiful women in history apparently, Helen of Troy who was married to King Menelaus of Greece but then was stolen away by Paris of Troy, an abduction that started the Trojan War with Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Priam, all those guys who showed up in "The Iliad" the poem by Homer but probably more accessible to most audiences, through the 2006 movie starring Brad Pitt, Bryan Cox, Rose Byrne, Eric Bana, etc. The implication that she was so beautiful that a thousand ships were sent after her to get her back, but probably just like anything in human history the real story is more about using that as a pretext for invasion of neighboring lands and expanding one's territory, something all historic civilations aspired to do but with varying success. I, on the other hand, have the face that launched a thousand rejections, at least for game show and reality shows in my life. Blame it on me, blame it on my bloodline, blame it America's obsession for people who look like them, blame it on Chinese people not watching TV, blame it on my inability to dress well, blame it on Asian men not being represented well in American media, for whatever reason my face is like an insta-reject for casting companies who cast reality TV shows. Honestly, any rational person would take the tradeoff of getting selected for jobs and having great health luck and having 2 parents, etc., but for whatever reason I grew up in a society where I put a priority on getting on TV, maybe because it would show "I made it" even though all those people who I wanted to prove myself to have probably long forgotten about me, so there's really no motivation other than some lingering desire to have this kind of empty achievement. Well, that and the money; every reality TV show or game show seems to have at last some money prize, whether it's Jeopardy's roughly $20,000 per episode to Mr. Beast's $5 million (!) grand prize in a luck contest which actually went up to $10 million by the finale (spoiler art). So yea, I guess it's not just my pride that wants to get on a show, it's also money, which probably "ups the stakes" to create maximum drama for TV shows, as if that's the only thing anybody would ever want. Unfortunately, rejections in the entertainment industry are commonplace, much more so than most other industries, which usually give some sort of acknowledgment that they've passed and selected another candidate. The entertainment industry only gets back to you if they want to move on with you, otherwise it's just "ghosting," "we'll call you don't call us," and it makes sense, there are just too many people that want what they're looking for, and they're not looking to build a relationship with you in case their first candidate drops out and they have to go with someone else; there are always plenty of other people who would say yes so they don't need to treat you nicely if they don't want you. That's kind of the price of fame: if you want to try for fame, you have to be ready for plenty of rejection first, unless you look like the modern day equivalent of Helen of Troy and are that good looking- that's the golden ticket for the entertainment industry, either you have some tangible skill that you can show off quickly, or else the best talent of all: being attractive and good-looking. That trumps all. I value pockets in our society that don't value beauty and skin-deep assessments. In the most recent Time magazine, there were 2 obituaries of famous people, Michelle Trachtenberg who was a key supporting character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who tragically died a couple months ago, and Gene Hackman, famous actor and multiple Oscar Award winner (his character Popeye in The French Connection inspired the name for Popeye's Chicken), with their photogenic photos taking up half the page because you know, they were actors and good looking. Way down in a small 5-line blurb under the Gene Hackman section, though was Died- Australian plasma donor Jamers Harrison, whose antibodies were used in medication that helped protect more than 2 million babies, who died on Feb. 17. I'd heard about Harrison through Red Cross newsletters and he's a pretty big hero in Australian and the donor community, but appararently not important enough to get a picture in Time magazine and pique readers' interest. It's one thing to have a rare type of antibody that can save 2 million babies (can't really help that, you're just born with it), but it's another to go donate every couple weeks for decades to devote your life to that. Believe me, it takes a lot to get out of the house (MJ doesn't really like me donating, and neither do my parents), go to the donor center, get paid no money, have people stick 2 needles in you, sit there for a few hours not able to move your arms (and no checking your phone!). Not saying I'm a hero or at James Harrison's level, but we should all be judged by how well we live with the hands we were dealt- some people were just given athletic bodies, or attractive faces, or genius minds, normal people just can't compete with them and you shouldn't give up just because you can't be like those people. Be proud of what you can accomplish with what you are able to do. Just don't expect that time of philsophy getting into the entertainment industry.

Land of the Morning Calm (晨静之地, 朝の静けさの国, 아침의 고요한 땅)

Hello Darkness, my old friend.... A Simon and Garfunkel song called The Sound of Silence. It describes the pain I've felt again this first quarter of 2025 in the stock market, the pain of being complacent and not selling at the all-time highs in December and January and letting all the gains from the last year or so slip back to where it's at now, 20% or so down depending on which stock you own, and being way too overleveraged with Nvidia, a great stock to own on the way up (from September 2022 to January 2025, it went up more than 1000%! A 10x gainer, but on the way down it's also dreadfully painful. The good news is I've sustained these kind of losses before where I feared for my sanity and financial livelihood only to bounce back the way the US stock market has a tendency of doing, but it might be a few months, a year, maybe a couple years before it goes back to that high, especially since the "Trump put" is no longer in the market where the market always believed he would be a backstop to any serious losses during his first term. That doesn't seem to be in place anymore especially with the new tariffs. Always have to remind myself you should act the opposite of your emotions: if you're feeling great about the market and want to add more to it, that's probably a good time to sell (should have done that a month and a half ago!) and if you're feeling terrible and want to take everything out, that's probably the time to buy. I don't think I've hit that point yet, which means unfortunately there's probably more ways to go before the market bottoms. "The Sound of Silence" can be a very calming feeling, especially in the digital world: we cram so much into our brains and into our ears as soon as we wake up that taking a break from that can be therapeutic and a de-stress on its own, especially in the morning. I wish I could just start off every morning with 30 minutes to an hour of just silence and just reading, absorbing the world and not being in a rush. That's probably similar to the idea of "Land of the Morning Calm," the nickname of South Korea which dates back to before it had split with North Korea. It came up on Jeopardy today along with the nickname "Hermit Kingdom" as neighboring countries, and the 3 contestants all guessed wrong answers, partly it's because they were all white men. I don't necessarily like some of the backlash against white men in today's society, but sometimes it is nice to have some diversity in culture and background in a group setting or in a contestant of cultural values like Jeopardy. I feel probably like Black Americans or Native Americans or other Asian Americans or other immigrants do when they watch Jeopardy: sometimes the clues really do tend towards a mostly white culture audience. And when do they do add Asia-specific clues or clues about black culture, they tend to get missed. I also grew up in that white culture like read Winnie the Pooh, Sherlock Holmes stories, watched Mighty Ducks movies and Independence Day as kid, learned about American history, followed American politics, participated in baseball and basketball and football, so I very much grew up in the white culture, but I sometimes wonder if Americans can't broaden their horizons a bit and not be so American-centric: every other country seems to know a lot about the US ( I watch quiz shows and they all ask about American movies, music, TV, food, etc.) but ask America about other countries and it's just not part of the culture lexicon, outside of maybe some knowledge about Britain, Canada, maybe just Parsia and Rome and high culture in Europe. People still can't get China, Korea, and Japan straight; it's like one big mass of Asians for Americans. Some would say our current President and his administration are making that even more of a priority by shutting down trade with other countries, making America first, limiting immigrants, demonizing allies, etc. It's like thinking America is the one and only country and we shouldn't have to deal with anybody else. That's not an attitude I like about America, and indeed I wouldn't have arrived in this country had America not opened itself to my parents. Maybe America can just be a little humbler and not think we're the best, take a lesson from the Land of the Morning Calm and be the Landing of the Trying to be Calm towards others.

Roots (根, ルーツ, 뿌리)

Recenty Jeopardy selected one of its favorite novels as its Final Jeopardy question- Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley, written in 1976, but turned into a famous television miniseries in 1977. I guess it was so good (it achieved bestseller status) as a novel that they moved quickly to make it a TV series. I remember watching it in school as part of our social studies curriculum, maybe the teacher was just giving him or herself a break that week, but I remember the distinct face of Lavarr Burton and the emotional level ramped up to a fever pitch as we saw Kunta Kinte get whipped repeatedly after not responding to the white name he was given, "Toby." I may have blocked out the part where he had his foot cut off to cripple him, maybe I just didn't understand it. Back then the movie didn't make that much sense to me, as I was still lost in "Mighty Ducks" land and getting good grades, I probably only paid attention to make sure I did well on any potential test I would have to take on it. (Little did I know later that more importantly than some high school exam, Roots is part of the daily trivia quiz test, and appears often as the answer to a clue, you always have to have it in the back of your mind. I wish I paid more attention because there were some key details that I only learned upon reading about the book, such as Kunta Kinte's village of Jufureh was set in the Gambia, a small country enclosed all around by Senegal, and Kunta Kinte arrived in the U.S. in Annapolis but eventually wound up in present day Arkansas, and that the African storytellers in the story are called "griots" who can go for long periods of time telling stories about African folklore. "Roots" is important culturally as a reminder to examine where a person come from, learn about one's past and the village and society that one was born in. MJ and I had a "Roots" moment this weekend as we visited North Carolina, where we spent quite a while during the pandemic, so we weren't able to fully enjoy the experience of living in the place before everything shut down, and we were confined to our apartment room and couldn't enjoy the bustling, up-and-coming city that is Durham. Not exactly our "roots" in that we were both in our thirties upon moving there, but it still has quite a few memories for us, and passing by all of those old places of bygone time reminded me of what in many ways was a simpler time, just sitting at home with nothing to do but wait out the pandemic. In some ways it was less stressful back then (although I'll admit wearing masks all the time and wondering when the vaccine would arrive was stress in itself), but now that we're back up to normal there's more pressure every day to go somewhere, the hardest thing to do in a world where everything is open is to decide what to do with oneself. No problems in that department this weekend, as the weather was beautiful and we were just in time for the cherry blossoms to bloom at Sarah P. Duke Garden, aka Central Park aka the Palace of Versailles in the summer time, or at least that's how crowded it was when we arrived Saturday afternoon: felt like the entire population of Durham, NC and possibly some pockets of surrounding Cary, NC and Chapel Hill, NC were there too. I also hung out around the libraries which are open to the public, with a Gothic Reading Room straight out of Harry Potter novels and a Duke Chapel that stands like a beacon in the center of campus. It's there, standing in some world class facilities, where you realize how nice some private universities have it and where they're getting that funding from to build all those nice things (hint: tuition dollars), but I do wish every college-age kid was able to spend at least a year or two at college, just to feel that feeling of freedom, opportunity, meeting new friends, and living on your own for the first time, in a beautiful college town. Not all eighteen-year-olds are able to do that, which begs the question whether college should be free (paradoxically, if they were free, they wouldn't be that nice). When I was eighteen I actually got accepted to Duke University, but financial reasons and logisticial issues prompted me to stay at the in-state school Illinois, which definitely wasn't a bad decision, but I do wonder what my experience would have been like as an undergrad. Alas, the closest I would get to being a Duke Blue Devil this weekend was sitting in the student union and undergrad library, watching kids group up to study for midterms. Let them establish their roots! In 20 years they could go back and revisit and reminisce about those days.

How Not to Die (怎样才能不死, 死なない方法, 죽지 않는 법)

First off, how to find a good book at the library or bookstore: follow the recommendations by the staff there (either librarians or book staff). If you ever go into a bookstore or library, what do you see the employees there doing? Reading. Or scrolling the internet or on their phones, more common nowadays, but the old school librarians will still do what they're known for: actually read books. And then they put it on the "Recommended" shelf for patrons to read, and that's how I've stumbled to some of the best books I've ever read. Recently my local library is doing a vegan week, and the book "How Not to Die" caught my eye. Catchy title, but also the words were written in a leafy substance, something green like kale or some other salad ingredient, maybe arugula or iceberg lettuce. Its basic thesis is that eating plants instead of processed foods will increase your life expectancy and improve your health, making some rather outlandish statements like "Plant-based diets are the nutritional equivalent of quitting smoking." That implies that my diet without plants has been the equivalent of a smoking habit, so I'm not completely sold on that premise, but it does bring up some great points about arteriosclerosis, hardening of the arteries. That is definitely something that happens and causes heart attacks and other heart disease. The book goes on to talk about ischemic strokes (scary) and a whole murderers' row of diseases like brain diseases, infections, high blood pressure, diabetes, and it taught me the word "iatrogenic" meaning disease caused by medical examination and treatment, which hadn't occured to me is a thing that medical help can cause more harm than good, but just look at 200 years of "bloodletting" patients with leeches and you'll know it was very prevalent earlier in human history, maybe less so nowadays but still exists. So I don't think just eating plants and switching to an all-plants diet is going to solve everything, but the book at least outlies the thesis for which areas it might help. I have a lot invested in how not to die, and it stems from not wanting family members to die, especially when they're old. We focus so much on just getting through they day during our whole lives that we don't have time to really live our lives, and there are tons of industries that will market to you about how to live your best life through vacations, spa treatments, buying new exotic cars, buying new exotic rings, etc. Much fewer companies sell us on how to prevent death. There's no money in it! How does a company take credit for preventing you from dying and make a profit off of it? Humans including myself assume living is just standard, and if I survive it's because of my will to live, not because of any particular company's help or even doctors. No one gets rich off of telling people to "eat healthy," they just get brushed aside as being nosy and the attitude of "I do what I want." I think I've at least figured out some ways not to die: 1.) Don't drink will driving. Super dangerous and one of the most common ways to die. 2.) Mental health- suicide. I've done well enough to keep a positive outlook, but this is also genetic. 3.) Don't fall asleep at the wheel or be otherwise distracted. This can happen anytime, anywhere. I knew a narcoleptic at my old job who openly admitted he would go through times of driving on the highway and later have no memory of actually driving. Super scary, MJ and I just drove by a car accident where we could see flames in the sky caused by the car fire from miles away. 4.) Don't pick a fight with random strangers. There are now Youtube videos that "prank" people in rough neighborhoods to get a reaction to them and pick a fight until the very end, when the Youtuber tells the stranger it's a Youtube video. There are some desperate people out in the world, just avoid at all costs. 5.) Don't do drugs. The fentanyl and opioid epidemcs are very real, and I know people who know people who died from doing drugs and then not waking up. 6.) Eating the right food/ not drinking excessive alcohol, etc. We do all this work during the day to make enough money to get by, stay out of trouble, but then when it comes to food, we casually just eat food that could slowly kill us, without even thinking about it. I did this at least for the first 30 years of my life, people joke about eating this junk food will take off a day from the end of my life, but that might be closer to the truth than I gave the joke credit. Arteriosclerosis is a gradual process, and you don't feel too bad about it as the plaque and other gunk builds up, but once it's clogged to a certain point a heart attack could just come, that's why men over the age of 30 suddenly become more at risk of heart attacks, cuz they've had 30 years to build up all that junk. Our bodies are like old ripped up pair of jeans that we own, with holes and irreparable damage to it that can still be worn, but barely. Except our bodies can't be replaced with a new pair of jeans, we only get one for our whole life. Now can we actually go back and sew those holes back together? I'm not sure, but "How Not to Die" argues that we can......through a plant based diet.

Fasting Blood Sugar (FBS) 空腹血糖, 断食中の血グアー, 단식 혈액 검사

The human body is a weird and mysterious place. I'm especially interested in how the brain works, where neurosurgeons and researchers are still trying to get to the bottom of what goes on inside the hippocampus, the cerebellum, the brain stem, and how they all fit with each other. Why do some people's brains just work differently than others? The study of the brain, aka neuroscience, is only studying a tiny portion of our human structures, but it's as wide of a field as astronomy and cosmology, study of the universe, or marine biology, what is in the bottom of our oceans. Just like sometimes humans as a whole take the accepted opinion of something and overgeneralize it (history can be misleading and overly reductive), I'm pretty sure neuroscience has something we all think is true, like there's only a left brain and right, all of us are either left brain or right brain thinkers, or there's only long-term or short-term memory, about the brain we just can't explain yet, and we have it all wrong. My most immediate questions about the brain are, how can I get it to remember a vast array of information most efficiently, and for the longest amount of time? I'm soon going to turn 40 which I once thought (based on some cartoon TV show I watched when I was a kid) is why you peak and stop learning new information. Wrong. Neurogenesis, the process of growing new brain cells, continues well into one's 70s and into old age, so it's true that we never stop learning. However, my hypothesis is that we stop learning as fast (or have already now, for awhile), and the rate of speed is slow. My secondary question for the brain is, why does it seem like other people react quicker than me in chess and in recalling trivia questions? Especially in chess, some people seem to see something within fractions of a second of a chess board and know what the best move is, whereas I'll have to consider all the factors and eventually get there after weighing all the options. In trivia, it takes me a second or two to even process what the question was asking and to read all 6 lines of a clue, for example, where some contestants I see on TV seem to take one glance at the screen and start smiling because they know it. It's like book "Blink" by economist Malcolm Gladwell, where he discusses the power of the adaptive subconcious and judging something within milliseconds, and something MJ uses as a refrain, "Go with your first guess." I would go with my first guess, but it's wrong a lot of the time because I haven't even digested what I'm supposed to be guessing yet! But at least we have some of the basic methods and tests to make sure we catch the most prevalent diseases and those that can do the most harm. Like diabetes- my mom has diabetes, so I'm at risk of getting it, and I'm all for using the A1c test, aka Hemoglobin A1c test, to test for any chance of pre-diabetes. Unlike FBS, A1C is testing blood sugar levels over a longer period of time, like 2 or 3 months, so it's like tracking you and looking at it from a broad perspective, not just catching you on a bad day or something. Fasting blood sugar is also a great way to test for blood sugar, and why it's probably a good idea before going into a doctor's office in the morning not to eat anything....they might need the 8-12 hours of fasting to test the FBS I realize now I ate WAY too much sugar as a kid and the American diet has way too much sugar in it. It's an epidemic of Big Sugar, really. Like even the grape in front of me has sugar, it's just natural sugar and in a watery form, but that should be enough to satiate my "sweet tooth" but instead we go on this hedonic treadmill of needing more and more sugar just to satisfy our sugar crunch. It's a race to the bottom. I wish Red Cross would give out better treats than just cookies and an assortment of high-sugar foods right after your blood donation. As I told MJ, Red Cross has an incentive to keep their donors alive, so stop feeding them junk! I would be much more inclined to go to a donation if there was a free sandwich at the end of it or something, or a coupon to a healthy restaurant chain, not Famous Amos cookies, Reese's peanut butter cups, or Oreos. I can feel my blood sugar going up just looking at those foods, and nowadays they don't do anything for me: I get queasy afterwards, my breath feels sour from the sugar aftertaste, I dont' run well afterwards. And much like drugs or alcohol, I don't get any rush or anything from sugar. It doesn't do it for me? America needs the 12-step program for quitting sugar: 1.) admit we have a problem, 2.) slowly wean yourself off sugar, 3.) replace cravings of sugar with something else delicious and reward yourself with those foods. Don't reward yourself like the Red Cross does with more sugar.

妈妈的生日 (Mother's Birthday)

今天是妈妈的生日，我想分享很多次妈妈送我礼物的故事。 我对妈妈的第一印象是当我和外公一起来美国时从芝加哥奥黑尔机场出来，走出候机楼时看到父母在等我。我那时从没见过他们，但他们不知怎么地知道我的名字，像认识我一辈子一样叫我名字，颜逸青。从那以后，妈妈一直叫我的中文名，我听到后就知道是我妈妈叫我。妈妈还给我起了英文名罗伯特 (Robert)，这也是妈妈博士课程教授的名字。 我童年的另一个清晰记忆是我在美国度过的第二个圣诞节。我仍然相信圣诞老人，当时六岁孩子最喜欢的玩具是超级任天堂 (Super Nintendo)。我一直许愿，并告诉父母我想要一个，妈妈一定注意到了，因为瞧，圣诞节早上我醒来时兴高采烈，发现圣诞树下有一台全新的超级任天堂！我告诉妈妈：“圣诞老人是真的” 我知道，当时我的父母在接受高等教育时并不富裕，没有多少零花钱, 超级任天堂肯定花掉了他们那个月可支配收入的大部分钱。但我妈妈看到我多么想要它，于是创造了一个圣诞奇迹，给我带来了生活的希望和快乐。 我永远记得父母为了生活在一个新世界并养育孩子所做出的牺牲。我记得有一次，我妈妈收到一个工作机会，要么去田纳西州，要么留在芝加哥等待更好的机会到来。这是一个艰难的决定，但我妈妈选择了家庭，留在了芝加哥，没有搬到离我三个州远的地方。我妈妈确保我每天都吃得好，有时吃得太饱了，我小时候的照片可以证明这一点，但我的身高（比父母都高）可能是因为我小时候营养充足。 有一次，我妈妈终于休息了一天，带我去了电影院。尽管她想和我一起度过一段时间，但我坚持要看一部我在桑德拉·布洛克的广告中看到的电影，叫做《亲善女郎》Miss Congeniality。我妈妈其实想让我选择更有艺术感和意义的电影《荒岛余生》Castaway，汤姆·汉克斯和他忠实的朋友威尔逊在岛上思考生活的意义，但她让我自己做选择，我们去了不同的电影院看不同的电影。不过，下一次，我们确实一起看了同一部电影，成龙主演的喜剧《尖峰时刻》Rush Hour。现在看电影的话，我妈妈很可能会直接在电影院睡着休息一下。 当我的父母终于有了一个周末，可以从繁忙的工作日程中休息一下时，我周六早上早早起床，准备开始新的一天，他们不能睡得太晚，虽然他们想补觉也只好一起起床。不过，我妈妈坚持让我去上中文学校，周六都是去上中文学校，在那里我学习语言，结识新朋友，形成新的记忆。就像学习中文的礼物一样，我妈妈给了我人生里非常珍惜的礼物，比如语言、骑自行车的能力、游泳课（也是我长得比预期高的部分原因）、小提琴课，读书的爱好, 考虑别人的习惯, 以及童年自由和拥有童年的记忆。我记得有一次，当我爸爸想让我停止和朋友一起玩，回家练习小提琴时，她告诉我爸爸，“让Robert拥有童年的记忆吧，当他成年时，他会记得的.” 我记得那些记忆，远比超级任天堂这样的礼物有价值. 所以谢谢你，妈妈，生日快乐。您让我想要有自己的孩子，让您见到孙子孙女，同时也想给我的孩子送一样珍贵的礼物，就像您给我礼物一样。

Lexus (雷克萨斯, レクサス, 렉서스)

 My parents recently bought a Lexus SUV, possibly accomplishing their lifelong dream of purchasing a luxury vehicle. They were going for a Tesla for its electric abilities and suddenly more ample supply due to half the country boycotting Elon Musk, but the Lexus likely represents something my mom has always wanted as a status of making it in the world, coming as an immigrant after age 30 to a new land WITHOUT the aid of Internet and without much money to finally achieving that oh-so-elusive American dream, especially with her health not guaranteed, time to enjoy. I personally have a strong relationship with my Honda Accord, purchased 11.5 years ago, before I started my current vocation; before learning Japanese, before getting into trivia, before having even met MJ; I've had a longer relationship with this car than my wife. I often tell people that a car is just a machine to get from one place to another, which is true, but I've now developed an attachment this car, partly due to having gone so many places with it and so many adventures. I've lived in so many apartments, condos, my parents' house, and hotels over the years, so much that I view each place as a temporary location, but my 2013 Honda Accord? That's a permanent lodging situation when I need to drive. I might still be traumatized from the last car I inherited from my parents that I donated to Cars for Kids: one day the donation center just came with their tow truck and took the car, and I never saw it again, after taking out all the CD's and other personal belongings out of it like I was cleaning out my desk at my old workplace. One day I will have to do the same to my Honda Accord, but I just hope it won't be such an unceremonius goodbye with it being brusquely taken away from me. I guess I understand why so many Americans love their cars more than their family now. 

Also, I'd try not to spend more than $50,000 for a car.....for a depreciating asset. 

Today I played chess for the first time in a live tournament since high school......I felt the nervousness again, the adrenaline rush when the clock was ticking down towards the end, where I had to make a move or else, the sound of pieces on other boards and players hitting their clocks after making a move. It all sounded so familar...this must be what retired players miss about getting on the field, the competitive drive. Also...the incentive to get off your phone. Today was probably the first day in years I stayed off my phone for an extended period of time. Nowadays with everything digitial, basically everything on your phone, it never leaves my hand or my pocket. To put be forced to put the phone down and do something I like better than being on the phone was worth the $60 entry fee. It's fitting that tonight was Oscar night because I identify with the sediment Sean Baker, director of "Anora," said after winning the award for Best Director, which was basically "support local theaters." Theaters are where people can actually become totally immersed in a movie not only because of the huge screen and surround sound effects but also.....you have to put your phone away or get scolded/shamed. Watching a movie and slipping in that world feels a lot like sitting down at a chess board and playing for an hour, hour and a half. I miss the single-minded devotion in high school of winning the match right here, right now, staying in the moment, no worries about anything else in the world, just locked in the zone right now, which is almost impossible in our multi-tasking world. Also, I love the competitive fire, whether it was dodgeball or chess or playing basketball at the college fitness center, I've always gotten a rush from being in any competition, and I've suppressed it for so long that when it does come out, the thrill is real. Wooooooooo!!!!!!!! 

As Time Goes By ( 随着时间的流逝, 時間が経つにつれて, 시간이 지날수록)

It's Oscars weekend, and most of the attention will be focused on the Red Carpet, the major categories like Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress, and for the casual viewer, maybe expecting some drama like announcing the wrong winner LaLa Land instead of Moonlight? or maybe the Slap Heard Around the World Will Smith on Chris Rock? But one category I've only just started paying attention to was Best Original Song, which looking at its history has yielded quite a few memorable tunes. The one that I wandered into was "As Time Goes By" featured in the iconic movie "Casablanca," which I've only ever seen once but gets referenced in Jeopardy plenty of times down to where Laszlo and Ilsa are flying to at the end of the movie (Portugal), but I still remember Ilsa asking Sam (Dooley Wilson) to "Play it again, Sam" asking fro "As Time Goes By." You must remember this, A kiss is just a kiss......

And that's just No. 2 on the all-time list of AFI's list of best songs ever! No. 1 is hard to beat, "(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow" sung by Judy Garland in The Sound of Music. The top 10 list is probably hard to beat ever, just from the timeless quality and sheer number of people who know those tones and get exposed to them from a young age, like Pinocchio's "When you Wish Upon a Star" is in almost every Disney song collage as their iconic highlight music, Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees (from Saturday Night Fever) has common usage like being used as the beat for performing CPR, those aren't going away. Also, MJ has this odd fascination for the song "Chim Chim Cher-ee" from Mary Poppins, singing it whenever it pops up in something we're watching or even when we're not watching anything, just singing it with wild unexplained exuberance. 

One song that might push into history's lore might be Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made for" from the Barbie Movie, just because of how pervasive the Barbie movie was but the message of the song about why human beings are on Earth and if we're all just dolls in some Barbie world. I definitely had that song playing once per day for several weeks, capped off by hearing it being played in Mexico at a bar, attesting to the power of song but also the power of Barbie. Some years the Best Song is very forgettable and not even the most famous song in the movie (Naatu Naatu in 2022 in Encanto, over "We don't talk about Bruno?" but "Shallow" in 2018 with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper still persists today in Youtube commercials and various montages, and on the negative side some songs have just become earworms destined to play on a loop like the Bad Place described in "A Good Place." I'm talking about "Let it Go," sung very well by Idina Menzel in Frozen, but nonstop, to the point of asking if that song can just let our eardrums go. 

So yes, I will be paying attention to who wins the Academy Awards this year (a lot of buzz about the Brutalist and its brutal 3 hours 37 minute run time, with intermissions in between) as well as Emilia Perez, but add one other category I'm looking forward to: Best Original Song, because "As Time Goes By," there are more and more songs that enter the cannon that might pop up on Jeopardy one day that I will undoubtedly have trouble remembering.