All I want for my birthday this year...

What a great day for a birthday... Carolina plays Duke in basketball and the U.S. plays Mexico in soccer. Only in comic books and biblical tales to you find stories that pit such such polar opposites of good and evil against each other.

Now, I know I'm not a life-long soccer fan and Carolina will never truly be my alma mater since it's just grad school, but the Mexican soccer team is full of cheap-shotting sore losers who lack the class to shake hands after a loss (maybe this will pass soon as they continue to get used to losing to us) and the Duke basketball team... well... they all go to Duke. So what you have is a perfect storm of rivalries which will make this birthday a very special one, especially if, as in most comic books and biblical stories, good conquers evil tonight on the pitch in Columbus and the hardwood in Durham.

I am about to go into my only Wednesday class grossly unprepared to discuss any of the articles I should have read by now. I did skim one article earlier today which discussed the stereotypes used in the portrayal of Asian-Americans in advertising. According to the authors, Asian American women are either portrayed as oversexed and villainous or as innocent, silent and virginal. Asian-American men, on the other hand, are typically portrayed as asexual, hard-working and overly serious, or as martial arts experts.

No kidding - that's what it said. Go Heels...

Old Friends and Mullets

This Day in History - 2008: I got that unfortunate letter from the Army one year ago today. I was supposed to go shopping for a new pair of shoes and celebrate my birthday... There's still a link to the article Pat O'Donnell wrote about it off to the right here...

Anyway, I spent the weekend with some old friends this past weekend. My buddy, Kenny, and I went down to Wilmington to meet up with Miles, another guy we went to college with. We rolled into town kinda late and went to meet him at a bar. We walked into the bar, which was a pretty suspect establishment, and there's no Miles... Just a few random folks and this guy with the biggest mullet I've seen this side of the 80's playing that game with a ring tied to a string hanging from the ceiling and the hook on the wall (you know that one?). Anyway, I'm a little confused and a little peeved when I see Kenny start high-fiving old mulletman and eventually realize that it's actually Miles.

Now, Miles is married to a stylist - an obviously talented one - and I guess when you marry a stylist you play with hair for fun. Miles' wife gave him hair extensions in the back (the fun side) and feathered up the front and the top (the business side) to create what I believe to be one of the most marvelous hair-related social commentaries of our time. Apparently lots of Wilmington residents agreed because we got stopped several times during the night when people wanted their pictures taken with him...

Anyway, it was a great time and it's always good to catch up with old friends. But it makes for a sad Monday when you spend the whole weekend away from your books...