Thoughts of -e^πi man - Tien Nguyen

In the crazy technophilia world of ours some of us may possess many different pseudonyms upon which different personalities spawn.

For instance in the land of AIM I’m known as Viper TvN, on other parts of the web I’m “PiKindaGuy” or “BruinPi3″– and in the sphere of the Yelp, I’m simply “Tien N”..the cocky reviewer who speaks his mind and knows no restraints..

Approximately 13 months ago–maybe 2 months into the start of my Yelping career–a few coworkers and I were roaming the mean streets of the financial district of San Francisco one afternoon looking to alter our state of minds. Somehow we end up at MR, a hybrid upscale lounge-y area combined with a barbershop upstairs.

They had just opened and so naturally I went on Yelp and expressed my feelings after the fact. A quick looksee through the 5 or so reviews that had already been published raised bit of suspicion though–as they all were by “users” who had just one review (for MR), no picture attached to their profile, and, they all gave the place a perfect ***** rating.

I kindly pointed this out in my review, and just a few brief hours later got this message..

Tien N,
This is Sean Heywood, one of the founders of MR. I want to thank you for reaching out to the Yelp community and for sharing your insightful and candid perspectives regarding our business E” especially at it’s nascent stage.

My primary reason for responding to your post is to address your claim regarding the authenticity of our existing Yelp reviews. Our friends and family, who happen to be the early adopters of our venture, tend to use Yelp as an intelligence resource, and unfortunately do not contribute feedback to the Yelp system as they should. This is why most of our feedback thus far is from first-time contributors. However, these individuals are among the most critical individuals we’ve encountered, and it is there candid feedback over the past three years that is responsible for most of the elements of our business that you lauded us for in your review. So while they are not experienced Yelpers (yet), there feedback is just as valuable.

….

I hope I’ve been able to clarify any misunderstandings you may have had regarding our existing feedback. So if the assumption that our reviews were not real is the only thing that is preventing you from giving us our fourth star, I ask that you truly reflect on my message and consider upgrading your review. As the founder of a start-up, I have a million deliverables that I must execute on in the coming days, but I’ve chosen to respond to your posting because my, my business partner’s and our business’ reputation is extremely important. In fact, its paramount.

…

I look forward to seeing you the next time your drop by MR. Have a great day bro.

Yup he actually dropped a bro bomb on me at the end.

In any case, not needing to or wanting to make any enemies I edited my review accordingly, and decided to let the public at large form their own opinions on the matter.

Fast forward a month or so later then, to just about one year ago to the day (give or take), and after an outdoor St. Patrick’s Day celebration, a member of my entourage was curious about this MR place so we decide to check it out.

Slightly hesitant I was, given that my identity/pictures were all attached to the review I had just written, which I can only assume caused a bit of a stir to the newly founded business…but assured myself that I was just being silly/cocky and that there’s no way they’d even be able to recognize me. Plus, even if they did it would’ve been old news by then and they surely would’ve gotten over it already.

We go in then, they were still new and in the “woo all their visitors” stage, so we get a nice tour of the place from one of the hostesses. My friend is impressed and I’m just trying to pretend as if everything is new to me. “A BARbershop that serves beer?? Uh huh uh huh…coooooooool….oh you don’t say?”

After the short scripted tour, one of the owners joins us for a bit of chit chat:

Sean: Hey how you guys doing I’m Sean, I’m one of the owners.
Friend: What’s up Sean, I’m Nii, nice to meet you *shakes hands*
Me: Hey Sean I’m…um, tien *reaches hand out*
Sean: *starts to extend hand out…eyes start to widen* o___O
Me: (oh shit)
Sean: …did you say Tien?
Me: *nods*
Sean: As in…Tien N?
Me: That’s…me.
Friend: HAHAHA
Sean: HAhahahAHAHHAAHHAHaaa
Me: *laughs uncomfortably, and uncontrollably* heh, heh, heh…
Friend: HAHAHAHAHaHAHAHAHahhahahAHahahaahaahHA
Sean: *still laughing…laughs some more, gasps for air* Oh MAN….Hey Yumi! Come over here a second..
Me: (goddamnit)
Yumi: Yo what’s up?
Sean: *catches breath* Hey I want you to meet a couple guys..this here is Nii..
Yumi: Hey how’s it going *shakes hands*
Sean: And this here…*turns to my direction* is…Tien.
Yumi: Hey how’s it…wait………..TIEN??
Me: *nods, smiles*
Yumi: HahaHAHAHhahaHAhahahaha
Sean: HahahAHhahahahahAHAHHAhaha
Friend: HAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaaaaaaAAAAAAHAhahaahaaaaHAAHAHaaa
Yumi: Oh my goodness man…holy, shit…AhAAAHhahahahhahahahahahahAHAHa
Me: *turns toward friend* This is kind of funny.
Yumi: Hey Carol!  Come over here a second..
Me: (motha f’er)

It was one those Southwest “Want to get away?” moments where I wanted to either run, or die, whichever was more convenient.

So after I’m just about redder than a tomato at this point and after what feels like an eternity and is all a blur really, we all share a few (lots) more laughs (at my expense), we hug it out, and all is well and settled in the world of Yelp reviewer vs. business owner.

Now then, fast forward a year later to about a week ago, where the story once again starts similarly.

Coworker and I looking to get a quick fix, blah blah, end up at this cozy little place called Dada. I pot a positive review of the place, and end it with a little inside information that I found slightly interesting.

I can be such a 12-year-old girl sometimes, which is good, because despite my youthful baby face I didn’t get *cough cough* asked for ID here..

A week later then after celebrating the Irish side of myself outdoors style, a friend and I are still too embarrassingly sober–so we decide to hit up what else, but Dada.

After a brief conversation with the bartender (the same one I saw last week) about what we should get, as the happy hour menu had unfortunately ended already–we order up our drinks, but not without the bartender asking my friend for her ID.

I’m a bit surprised of course, given what I went through during my last visit, and she’s a bit taken aback too, as she’s…let’s say…a few years above legal drinking age, which I kind of inappropriately joke about.

“Yeah she’s actually 14 and a half”.

The bartender kind of laughs, looks at me and goes, “Yeah last week someone apparently came in here and wrote a review on Yelp saying we don’t check for IDs so now we have to do it to everyone”.

And I don’t know if I’m imagining it now or what, but I swear she gave me a wink when she said “someone”, with an extra emphasis on the “some” part.

It takes me a few seconds to kind of put 2 and 2 together…”Oooooh…really, someone…did that?”

And she looks at me again with a nod and goes “…Yup”.

“Oh, interesting”.

“Sure is…”.

Cue Southwest voice: “Want to get away?”

Inside information there you can bet your non subprime mortgage on.

So I recently picked up downloaded the exercise routine system known as the P90X system, which is essentially a home workout system in which you follow the DVDs which promises you a ripped body in just 90 days–contrast this of course to other workout programs which promise you to become fat flabby and impotent.

I did it in part because I fell into the trap of its unique marketing techniques, in part because my routines were becoming mundane and I needed to change them up, but perhaps mostly because I absolutely, positively, LOATHE going to the gym; or rather, I loathe having to deal with the types of people who go to the gym and think that they own the damn place.

Here are some of the many annoyances that I’ve observed in my many years of gymming (don’t let the bony arms and flabby abs fool you, I indeed have a membership that I use… at my convenience) that have been been rekindled during my triumphant return to one 24-Hour Fitness tonight.

1) Guy who acts like he’s giving birth at the gym

Don’t relegate our governator’s performance in which he defies all that we know about science and ends up getting pregnant, w/ child, as simply a fictional dream of billions of women worldwide–if you want to find out what it would be like (or at least sounds like) if men could give birth, head out to my local gym.

There are actually two types of guys inwhich I’m tempted to call an ambulance for, and perhaps an editor of a medical journal to record such breakthrough in the world of science.

First there’s the guy who is actually indeed built like our governator, and feels like it’s not enough that he has to let everyone around see him bench pressing an elephant–literally, we even call the elephant Stampy–he also has to let everyone inside (and outside) of the gym hear him do so, along with perhaps half the neighborhood and sometimes nearby galaxies.

“GrrRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!” he goes, “I Jack, I strong!!!”

He then proceeds to stuff a fully grown mountain lion in his mouth, for protein.

Then on the other hand you have the guy who weighs about as much as the 15lb dumbbell that he’s trying to lift–but if you had no visual cues and could only hear him struggling, you’d pull out a cigar and go to Hallmark to find a card congratulating him on his new twins.

Luckily though, some New Yorkerss have some bit of sense in them.

2) People who use the water fountains to save up for the next drought

So there I was walking toward the water fountain for a quick sip when some guy abruptly cuts in front of me to claim the fountain, of which I have no problem with at all really. I was tired and moving quite slowly, and if someone is that thirsty and want it that much more than me then they certainly deserve it.

The only problem was he wasn’t going for a quick sip, or even to gulp down a few mouthfuls. He was there to fill up his coddam water bottle. And it wasn’t even a miniature water bottle that makes sense to lug around the gym–or the Sahara Desert even, this looked like one of those things that you need an industrial sized water hose that they use to either bathe elephants or to water NYC’s Central Park with to fill up.

You get one of these things filled up and I’m confident that you would’ve been set to solve the water crisis that occured during the early stages of Hurricane Katrina.

I decided though to just wait out the 4.2 hours the dude was going to spend filling ‘er up, because the other water fountain was on the other side of the gym, and with me exhausted as I was I knew it would’ve taken at least half that long to crawl over there.

And plus you just know that someone else is over there filling up their aquariums filled with common pet fishies like great white sharks and blue whales (I’m aware it’s a mammal).

3) Dudes who parade around buck naked in the locker room

Perhaps the best part of the gym experience is at the very end when you’ve finished, proud of what you’ve accomplished, and when the endorphins produced during the workout start to kick in making you feel alive, energetic, almost euphoric.

You then go into the bathroom, dry yourself up, give yourself a quick glance in the mirror and enjoy that pump you got, and then attempt to go on back to your day feeling proud of yourself.

Except as you’re exiting, you notice that there’s an old, fat, pasty-white, hairy-ass, pimple laden BUCK NAKED dude staring at himself in the mirror right before the entrance.

My reaction:

.

I suppose, on the one hand, that I was fortunate this dude’s gut was sticking out so far ahead of him that he technically didn’t need a towel or even any underwear to cover up his um…goods, but, that’s like justifying losing a testicle with the idea that “but hey I still got another one”.
Now certainly I have no problem with obese people, naked people, or even obese naked people.

But it’s like 2 Girls 1 Cup.

Just knowing of its existence is way more than enough to give me shivers and nightmares…I just don’t.actually.need.to.see.it with my own two virgin eyes. It should’ve been an arrestable offense that borderlines the need for the death penalty for lewd behavior (I don’t care if this was a private establishment–or if we have an 8th amendment).

Ugh, UghH, UGh. I had to force myself to keep my eyes open for as long as I could after I exited my gym (I still am actually), for when I close my eyes for even just a split second, with the image so ingrained and tattooed into my brain, it pops into my head everytime I blink, and any more exposure to it is surely potential cause for permanent impotence.

Again, ugh, ugh, *puke*

I really had 6.5 more reasons to go here, but I’m going to have to cut it short for now due to the memories that have just been triggered here in the last few paragraphs–and this is a convenient excuse to be lazy as well.

Consider that last point to be 7.5 full reasons in and of itself, enough not to ever step foot into a gym again.

We really should have lost the last two games.

McCabe said he talked to the officials after the game and watched the replay as well. “It crossed over the corner. I spoke to the official after the game, and he said it was too close to call.”

I disagree, it wasn’t close-it was most definitely behind the backboard.

And the previous out of bounds play should’ve gone to Cal.

And of course Collison was not fouled against Stanford.

But, we’ll take it

How is it that in a world where people pay $40 for a Blu-Ray movie that cost $50mm+ and years to create, pop it into their $400 player connected to their $3000 60″ HDTV and $1500 7.1 speaker system, can the same number of people, and often overlapping each other, spend countless hours every month deriving the same amount of enjoyment watching a low quality recording of a kid break dancing that took a minute to record on a $60 digital camera on a 15″ laptop screen in which the video takes no more than 3″ of real estate?

How is it that more people would prefer to play on a Wii, whose contribution to the technological prowess rivals that of a calculator, than the almighty PS3 which can render scenarios almost as life-like as God can?

How is it that more people are entrusting their recommendations for restaurants on sites like Yelp with reviews like these over traditional food reviewers?

And along those lines, no-names on reality tv shows are more popular than sitcom actors, many bloggers are now more prominent than traditional journalists, and more people bought William Hung albums than [insert moderately famous artist] here.

So how is it that [low budget thing here] is more popular than [expensive elitist product]?

Damned if I knew. I’m far too simplistic to come up with an explanation.

Like most Asian families, we never had any handymen, plumbers, electricians, etc. ever step into our house as my dad was all of those in one plus more.

He fixed the cars, turned televisions into a watches, he even built half our house–literally. When we bought the house it was a 3 br, 1 floor house and when people pass by it they look over and think, “why’s there a bigass hotel in the middle of the neighborhood?”

Unfortunately in my case though, the apple flew far, far from the tree no matter how hard he tried to turn me into his little handy boy. Routine fixits around the house usually ended up something like this:

Me: Hey dad need any help there?
Dad: *groan* Uh sure…can you hand me that 3/8″wrench over there?
Me: *pause, reaches* Sure here you go.
Dad: Son…that’s a screwdriver.
Me: Oops!! *puts it back* Sorry, here you go.
Dad: That’s…a hammer.
Me: o_o Isn’t that what you wanted?
Dad: You’re a failure at life. Why don’t you play play your video games*, before I hit you with this?

Yeah it was tough living in his shadow, and those aren’t the kind of words that are very encouraging when you’re 15** years old.

It certainly wasn’t lack of effort then that I’m less handy with tools than an elephant, though I may have taken too many shots to the head with a …wrench(?) as a child which may have contributed to my Mr. Unhandy title.

This past Sunday then while participating at something else I’m a failure at, i.e. playing basketball, I went through the usual routine–walked out of my car, took my keys and left it on the side of the court along with my phone, which under normal circumstances is no problem.

Except it rained, hard.

“Tien isn’t that your phone over there?”
o_o

And that’s when the flashbacks to my childhood began again.

Long story short then, after trying to use my phone to no success, I decided to try out the ol’ put it in rice method, which miraculously restored it to its normal state.

Thank goodness I thought, without my phone I would be unable to conduct important business with it as I normally do.

The only problem though is that when leaving it in rice for an extended period of time, some loose grains may have a tendency to enter the phone.

Ugh. Now where’s that hammer so that I can open up this phone and get rid of these rice grains?

*video game system was built by my dad
**17

So, I have a tendency while inebriated to text random girls (and guys) saying “we should have beautiful babies” or something along those lines–actually that’s pretty much it, verbatim.

The responses then..vary quite a bit to say the least, and unfortunately/surprisingly there have been no takers…until last night (sort of). While I was out I got a fairly interesting response from victim I had met maybe 2 years ago while in LA..you can listen to it here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=50xDW-4V1Dk

It was really loud where I was at, so I went into the bathroom and listened to it, shocked that she didn’t want to kick me in the balls for such a suggestion (as they normally do)–so I text her back with “so do you have any idea who this is?”–which is what lead to the 2nd voicemail above.

Turns out I had a wrong # =/

Whoever “Mr. Texas” is though, I’d be quite interested in meeting him.

*Cue Stephen A. Smith voice*

Let me break it down to you fellas here..

From Senator McCain himself:

“But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.”

Good job Senator McCain, you’ve established yourself as a man with a heart who’s not blinded to his Republican side and giving into pressure from ohers about such an important issue, and many commend you for it.

He’s also sane when it comes to teaching the bible/intelligent design theory, and holds his belief aside for the sake of education, which is equally as commendable.

“I happen to believe in evolution. … I respect those who think the world was created in seven days. Should it be taught as a science class? Probably not.”

Well from there we’ve established McCain as a sane person and while he has strong beliefs, he’s willing to put them aside for the sake of society’s benefit.

However though, Presidential Candidate John McCain (not to be confused with the man I’ve been talking about above), would like to argue with some of those points:

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Okay so he wants to overturn Roe V Wade, like any good republican/conservatie right? Would Senator McCain approve of such a thing? He would probably end up mocking him:

For months, from California to New Hampshire, Senator John McCain has made statements offensive to pro-life voters and has even mocked those who cast their votes based on the abortion issue.

Yup, wouldn’t want that…

Oh there’s more too, our Presidential hopeful would like to have a word with the Senator and present the ideas of IDT to our kids:

Daily Star: Should intelligent design be taught in schools?

McCain: I think that there has to be all points of view presented. But they’ve got to be thoroughly presented. So to say that you can only teach one line of thinking I don’t think is - or one belief on how people and the world was created - I think there’s nothing wrong with teaching different schools of thought.

Daily Star: Does it belong in science?

McCain: There’s enough scientists that believe it does. I’m not a scientist. This is something that I think all points of view should be presented.

Now it’s okay to have beliefs there, but the guy goes out and becomes a keynote speaker for a radical group that advocates the replacement of American civil law with biblical law.

Our Senator would not be amused. Could it be that our presidential hopeful may be trying to pander a bit to the right, a la Bush ‘04, with a flipflopping of some of his beliefs to the other side? Say it ain’t so.

There are two types of people in this world, the do-ers, and those who critique them.

Some people become athletes, some people become sports writers..some people become actors/musicians, some people critique them..and some people become CEOs/founders, and some people become write gossip rags about them.

I’m sure it’s safe to say that those in the sports/movie industry at some point as a child dreamed of being on the field in front of 80,000 fans, or starring in the big screen and having their name up in lights.

I can’t picture an 8-year-old kid watching his favorite player hitting a walk-off home run or scoring a game winning touchdown and thinking to himself, “I WANNA WRITE ABOUT THAT ONE DAY!”, or coming out of his favorite movie and think “MOMMY I WANT TO REVIEW THAT MOVIE WHEN I GROW UP!”.

Are the critics of those admired in our society for doing something above and beyond what everyone else is capable simply exorcising demons from an unfulfilled childhood? At what point did he put down the pigskin, or microphone, and pick up a keyboard? What motivates people to plain out attack others, with no regards whatsoever to their how they may feel about it–e.g. when the attackee is a defenseless child?

What motivates someone to camp out in front of another celebrity’s house with a camera and take pictures of him taking out his garbage? How do you go to sleep at night knowing you pay your bills by digging deep into the scene of someone who just died, and snapping away?We have a tendency to criticize those who we feel are superior to us, and bring them down to our levels.

We like to humanize those who do the inhumaneable (definitely used in the wrong context there), and allow ourselves to think, hey he’s just like me. And in the end, they really are. They just happen to have a special talent or ability that sets them apart in the eyes of the public, they’re not superhuman at all.Tom Brady may be able to launch a football 40 yards with pinpoint accuracy to a moving target, but I’m sure I can do a Rubik’s cube faster than him. Tom Hanks may be able to pull make a movie that generates $100mm (or 8), but does he know the derivative of cos(x) –(an old math professor of mine who had him said he was never good at math).Society simply happens to value certain things that these guys excel greatly in. If Hanks/Brady happened to live in say, Yemen, would they be standouts?

Maybe not, as it takes a different type of person to really garner attention. In our side of the world though, possessing strong throwing arms or good vocal chords sets you far and above others..

The previous post was inspired by this post.