I haven't been blogging here much lately, partly because Jeff and I are busy with our startup. However, it's also because I started a new blog: AwkwardRules.net, the purpose of which is to figure out the rules for dealing with awkward situations. I'll probably cross post a few rules here, but you can also subscribe to the RSS feed.

And here is the latest post:

The situation:

You’re
meeting a close friend of the opposite sex* at a bar, and when you get
there you see that they’ve brought their friend (also of the opposite
sex) that you’ve met once or twice. You give your close friend a hug,
but then what about the other person? Do they feel left out if you
don’t give them a hug? You can’t really go with a handshake because
you’ve met them already, but you don’t know them that well so does it
really make sense to hug them?

I propose Awkward Rule #2 to prevent this dilemma:

When
greeting or saying goodbye to a person of the opposite sex* who is not
a close friend, it is required to give them a hug if you have no
animosity toward them and:

1. You have met them at least 3 times.
2. You
   have spent more that 3 total hours in their presence. Being at the same
   event does not count, you must have been within conversation range for
   3 hours.

If the person is not huggable under this rule, simply give them a small “hey” wave. See figure 2 below for further explanation.

Figure 2a.

Here’s a simple phrase to help you remember this rule: Less than 3, let them be. 3 or more, hug their core.

Rule
#2 only applies in the USA and to acquaintances/friends of the opposite
sex. It does not apply to cases like first dates or intra-girl hugging
because the extensive research required to write a rule for these
situations hasn’t been completed yet.

For a discussion of actual hug mechanics go here: http://www.lefthandedtoons.com/73/

* for
the purposes of this rule, opposite sex is defined as the gender you
like to have sex with, be it male, female, both, or miscellaneous

I've moved to http://www.awkwardrules.com

My mom took this photo of me and my little sister when I visited home back in May. We're in our kitchen and I'm eating some of my mom's food. The expression on my sister's face makes me laugh every time I look at this photo.

Me and Jeff have been looking for awesome summer interns for Fluxcapacity here in NYC. We've been getting some resumes from people, but one from Tim Duncan caught my eye. I was really excited until I found out it was sent in by Adam! Here it is:

<resume>
OBJECTIVE
To find a position where I have the ability develop my fundamentals, and build on top of my previous ten years experience using those fundamentals. Also, to bring said fundamentals to an industry and company sorely lacking in that area.

EDUCATION

• Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, North Carolina Psychology Major 1993 – 1997
• St. Dunstan’s Episcopal High School St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands 1998 to 2002

EXPERIENCE
San Antonio Spurs, San Antonio, Texas
Power forward/Center, September 1997 to Present

• Took the game to an all new level of excitement with my post, dribble, shoot style of basketball.- Angered a stadium full of fans by just looking straight ahead.
• NBA Rookie of the year.
• Three-Time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award Winner.
• Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Award Winner.

FOAO (Fundamentals of America Org), San Antonio, Texas
Founder, September 2004 to July 2006

• Demonstrated to youth all over America the benefits of fundamental basketball.
• Ran meetings with the president of the United States about fundamentals on the battlefield.
• Demonstrated the art of killing ones enemies through boredom by playing fundamental basketball, a technique being used in Afghanistan and Iraq today in operation “Un-Shock and Un-Awe”.

Face Modeling for the Expressionless Inc. San Antonio, Texas
Founder, CEO, and President, December 1997 to September 2004

• Held the world record for longest held expressionless face.
• Inspired 500 expressionless people around the world to pose for the “1999 Collage of the Expressionless”.
• Helped found the “Expressionless Hall of Fame”.
• Identified possible inductees into the “Expressionless Hall of Fame”.
• Made the front cover of “Expressionless Magazine” four years in a row.
• Became the first modeling agency to sign Greg Oden, an up and coming in the expressionless world, when he was only 9 years old.

Dumb Face for Smart People LLC. San Antonio, Texas
President, May 1999-September 2002

• Helped reduce the oppression against those with “Dumb Faces” around the world.
• Helped push a bill through congress to take down segregation of people with smart faces and dumb faces in the west.
• Set up the Dumb Face Smart Person Awareness program.

</resume>

I've been doing a startup in NYC for a couple of months with Jeff, and we've been working out of our apartment on the Upper West Side near Columbia. We decided we needed a cooler whiteboard for our "office", so we built a much more awesome and futuristic one in a few days for fun and for recruiting. Here's a video demo:

See this post on our company blog to see how we made it!

I was waiting for a table at Decibel with a friend in East Village last Saturday when in walked a guy that looked just like Tobias from Arrested Development (played by David Cross). He has a pretty distinctive look:

but I wasn't exactly sure it was him. Then I saw that he was with a really beautiful brunette and figured it either had to be David Cross or a rich guy that looked like him. They ended up sitting right next to us and were really into each other so I didn't want to bother him.  I waited until he was about to leave and then told him that Tobias was my favorite character on Arrested Development and that the show should have never gotten canceled.

The funny thing is, had this been most celebrities I probably wouldn't have cared. Although I am still hoping to run into Larry David one day, or even be involved in some sort of humorous situation with him.

I already live in my favorite place in the world, New York City, so I'd have to say my favorite vacation spot is my family's house in Rochester Hills, MI. It's hard to beat hanging out with my little sister, talking with my dad about world events, technology and other random things, and bothering my mom in the kitchen and eating ridiculous amounts of her food.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Like most people I get asked this question often, but sometimes my answer is a bit complicated. Some people when they ask me this question are wondering what my ethnicity is. This happens a lot after I tell them my name or they read it off a list. In my experience these people are usually in an older generation than me.

I usually answer with something like, "I was born in Michigan and my parents are from India." I can't really answer their question with "India" because I'm not from there, and if I say "America" it's a bit strange as well and not really answering the intent of their question. If I say, "I'm an Indian American from Michigan" they'll probably be confused and think I'm Native America (damn you Columbus, you thought you found India you lazy bastard!). So I'm stuck with the awkward answer in between.

However, I've noticed that nobody in my generation or younger really asks me that question with the intent of finding out my ethnicity. They're really asking which part of America I'm from, to which I can easily say Michigan. I wonder if this is because they've seen enough Indian people to realize my ethnicity or if they just don't care.

Does this happen to any of you second/third generation in-betweeners?

Also, I can say without hyperbole that Columbus is history's greatest monster - not for killing thousands of Native Americans but for thinking he found India.

Every once in a while I check out my footprints in Xanga. A couple of days ago, I saw that somebody reached this post:
http://weblog.xanga.com/vikas/643904168/a-happy-ending-to-a-filthy-night.html

from here:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Manhattan+chinese+massage+happy+ending&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org

Unfortunately, I think whoever he (maybe she?) was ended up disappointed after being tricked into reading my post with it's somewhat misleading title. However, I like to think that they found happiness eventually, if only for a little while.

I went out on Friday to meet Mikey and some of his friends at Happy Endings on the LES. The bar is one of my favorites, it's an old Chinese "massage" parlor that maintained the same exterior. The steam rooms are now mini semi-private lounges, the upstairs seems to have a bit of an older crowd, while the basement (which has a DJ/dance floor) is usually fairly packed with us youngsters.

It was a great time, we even saw younger version of Stephen. In fact, I'm fairly certain that Stephen might have travelled back in time and then brought his younger self to the future with him. Everything was fun until Mikey got me a "filthy martini", sort of like a dirty martini, but filthier. This is pretty much the only drink I've ever not drank because of the taste. The horrible olive taste didn't even mask the vodka, which I would have much rather preferred to drink straight up. I could only get down about 3 sips and then I had to stop. Mikey took one sip and almost threw up. Then the drink got passed around, tasted out of curiosity, and then discarded in our group of people, like B.K. at a party in Chelsea full of rice queens*.

Luckily, afterwards we headed over to Khati Roll near the West 4th stop on the F,V,B,D / A,C trains, and I was able to get that awful taste out of my mouth. The rolls were amazing. Essentially they're Indian flat bread (chapati) with an Indian style omelette and curry all rolled up into deliciousness. Mikey was the only white person there, thereby increasing his happiness.

*This sentence inspired by Mikey

My sister emailed me a link to this site:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com

Being somewhat of a Good Humor Candy Center Crunch* (thin brown shell, white creamy insides, small brown center), knowing a lot of white people, and growing up mostly in the 99% white Michigan suburb of Rochester Hills, I can say with confidence that all of what that site says is true.

* Good Humor Candy Center Crunch is the most delicious ice cream you can get from the ice cream man in a truck. It has 90% of your daily saturated fat. Awesome.