Jeremy Lin coming to Toronto was as epic as Toronto Batman. He gave me something to cheer for other than the Raptors.

I first heard about Jeremy from a friend of mine. Lin was a former D-league player that got to be on the starting line up due to injuries on the team. Though he is exceptional at basketball, what caught my attention was that he was a Harvard grad and he was also Asian.

An Asian basketball player? Sure this is nothing, we already have Yao Ming already, but a good Asian-American point guard? Lin-sanity! He has all the odds stacked up against him, natural height, tiger parents, and Asian passive nature, yet he is still able to be successful.

On the issue of Height, I’m fortunate enough to be 5′11”. But some of my other Asian friends are less lucky. My Filipino friend told me that basketball is huge in the Philippines. He would play basketball bare foot from sun up to sun down. He feels that the Filipino international team is very strong technically, but the biggest drawback is the height. When the average height of the team is 5′6” its next to impossible to play against a team average height of 6′7”. Jeremy Lin has parents that are both 5′6”, it must be the milk or something in the States that made hims balloon to 6′3”.

Growing up with Tiger parents, parents that want their children to become a doctor/lawyer/engineer/accountant, I know first hand how hard you have to fight your parents and go down a path that is much less certain. After all Lin was sleeping on his brothers couch because he wasn’t even sure if the Knicks would keep his contract. From the another article it seems that Lin’s father was supportive, but his mother wasn’t trilled about a basketball career. After all both parents are Engineers. So that’s another block he was able to overcome.

Finally, Lin was able to overcome the passive nature of Asian culture. Taoism has been around for a few thousand years and Chinese culture at least, and it emphasizes peace and being passive. I feel most Asians still follow this path of non-confrontation, which makes playing most contact sports difficult. Though basketball isn’t strictly a contact sport, you definitely need to be comfortable with contact as fouls happen. Lin can drive to the net, he has that aggression needed to succeed at this sport.

With all these point he has overcome, no wonder people feel it’s a Linderella story.

Instead of drawing comics this weekend, I did this model sheet. It’s an assignment for this cartooning course I’m taking. It’s pencil on a 16″x20″ illustration board; took me about seven hours to draw.

Not sure what to name her. I was thinking either Marisa or Jordan.

– Alex

‘Sup guys. Have you heard of Love Plus? Or the hilariously titled Love Plus+? Yeah, there’s a 3DS version coming out on Valentines day. Cruel destiny or clever marketing ploy? You decide.

I’ve never played the games myself, and I’m pretty sure they’ll never be released outside of Japan. This game’s sorta brought out as another exhibit in the “Japan so crazy” trial. For example, you hear ’bout that guy who married one of the girls? Tim Rogers, a fascinating but poorly edited columnist, also wrote about Love Plus and making friends with video games.

If you want to play the game (and don’t know Japanese), there’s a fan translation available. If you want to Learn the Manga way, there’s actually a series of books in that vein, such as The Manga Guide to Databases and The Manga Guide to Regression Analysis.

– Alex

You just downed your 6th beers, and its the last down with 2 mins left in the game. You would hold it in, but you’ve heard you can die by doing that, so you decide to make a dash for it. You each step down the infinite stair case causes you to hold on for dear life and you pray to the sport gods that they have TVs in the washroom, at 7 dollar beers they better have TVs in the stalls. To your agony they don’t have TV’s in the stalls, they have those annoying fake TVs full of ads. You push the pee out as hard as you can but your moral vessel can’t go any faster. You forgo the time needed to clean your hands to save those precious seconds as you dash up the seemingly endless flight of stairs. You reach the top thinking you’ve made it, only to open the door to hear the bar light up in celebration. You have just missed the play of the century. Now all you have left is the lowly instant replay.

Sponsored Post: Qualcomm Stadium = Snapdragon Stadium

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@toblender

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Snapdragon by Qualcomm for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Qualcomm, the world leader in wireless chip producer has a brand new line of chips for smart phones called Snapdragon.

To ingrain this new line of chips into the minds of the masses they have decided to name the stadium they own  in San Diego (Home of the legendary Ron Burgundy) temporarily to Snapdragon Stadium.

This is a very interesting way to generate coverage for their new product.  Here in Toronto Canada, they renamed the Skydome, to the Rogers center.  When it was bought out by the media mogul. Now ever time people want to go see a sports event they will have to go to the Rogers center.

Getting people to talk about your brand in day to day conversation is the key to a successful marketing campaign.

Qualcomm, can now get sport announcers to say Snapdragon stadium, and even get regular people to wonder why the heck did they change the name of the stadium.  This “Snapdragon” thing must be important.  Perhaps in the future when they go look for a smartphone, they will demand that the Snapdragon is inside.  Similar to the Intel inside theme of marketing.

This makes a lot of sense as ARM is making a killing right now in the smartphone space, and Qualcomm wants a cut.

For more information, checkout.

Snapdragon processors by Qualcomm are the digital brains inside mobile devices made

I really hate being late. Though just a few years ago, I was never on time. I have a fear of arriving so early that I would have to wait alone pointlessly for the rest of the people to show up. I would be that loser people see standing around trying to act busy. Thankfully in recent years the invention of the iphone has given me an excuse to stand around and still look cool. The last 3 years I’ve been working really hard to arrive early to important events, which is any event that involves another person. I’ve gotten to the point where I arrive 5-10 minutes early. In fact I’m arriving so early now and so consistently that I’m starting to feel like people who don’t arrive early are actually late. It’s a vicious cycle people.

Winnie use to give me hell for showing up 10-15 minutes late. I never thought it was a big deal, but after I started showing up early I now know being late is massively disrespectful. Our time is the only real thing we own. So when someone is late, they that tells me, even though they may not mean it, that my time isn’t worth anything to them. I really respect my time a lot more now that I’ve contracted and billed at an hourly rate for the past 6 months. It showed me, how much each minute cost me.

So I urge you to arrive on time, it will start making a big impact on your social interactions.

Anyone have any good late stories?

SPONSORED POST: Drug Drug Drug, some are good some are bad.

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@toblender

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Every time I go to the states, I find myself stocking up on travel supplies at a local Walgreens.   I really like that you can buy anything that you need there.

I remember when I went to the zynga interview, I had no razor, no cream, no umbrella, no water, basically nothing but my suite and some books.  I was able to totally stock up at Walgreens and zynga was kind enough to pick up the tab

Walgreens is very similar to shoppers drug mart here in Canada.  It turns out you can buy medication at their stores too.  I’d rather call them drugs, yes legal drugs can be brought at good old Walgreens.

That’s not all turns out for a limited time they have prescription savings club membership for a families for $35 dollars a year.  This covers everyone in your immediate family and a spouse, if you have multiple spouses, I don’t think that’s covered.  It includes kids under 22 and pets as well.  Is that not that super. 

If you are flying solo like myself, you can get in on the fun for $20 dollars a year.  I can see this going along way since the discounts apply to over 8000 brand name medications, as well as ALL generics.

Heck they even give you bonuses fro wen you purchase Walgreens branded products or do photo finishing there. 

I’ve followed them on twitter, just to see what crazy stuff they are saying. I encourage you to do the same.

Sincerely,

Booster Gold

Walgreens Prescription Savings Club

Walgreens on Twitter

Walgreens on Facebook

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posting. Alex and I have been really busy getting buff and taking classes.

I am officially unemployed, working full time on my start up. It is officially day 2, and I still have some contract work to tidy up before I go all out and push this project to the next level.

Back to the comic, I find that I can make up lyrics for a song on the fly. It is easiest when the lyrics are dirty and warp the meaning of the song into a twisted tune. Do you guys ever do this in the car or at home?

If you’re typing up your one-page CV and your most impressive qualification is “familiar with Web 2.0 and C-pound”, pad it out by mentioning that, oh, You were the most influential person in 2006. If they inquire skeptically, come clean and then you and the interviewer can share a chuckle. On the other hand, if they totally believe you and are gobsmacked, say “excuse me, I have to attend an intergalactic peace conference”, and then jump out the nearest window (also, bring a parachute).

– Alex

Play Mass Effect: meet exotic new species, shoot them in the face with lasers. Like other AAA titles, the game is padded out with busy work to prevent you from having all of the fun in one sitting. So, cruise to exotic new planets, run routine surface scans on them, send probes, purchase upgrades for your scanner, etc. Basically, stuff that computers are really good at.

Fun fact: the dev team included an easter egg if you probe Uranus. What can I say? They know their audience.

– Alex

The cover system was pretty retarded in Mass Effects 2. I often find myself unable to shoot when behind cover, unless I’m hugging the edge right or left sides of the cover. It also pisses me off that I can’t move and shoot. I can only hope that this is fixed for Mass Effects 3.

P.S. I need a vacation.

Mass Effects 3 Release Date: Tuesday 06 March 2012.

Jeez why is this information at the bottom of the page on google.

I’m looking forward to kicking some more reaper ass. Problem is after clearing the game I feel so hollow. I can’t bring myself to grind it out in the vast galaxy aimlessly.

I screwed up my Mass Effects 2 game and as a result I wasn’t able to get the Kelly Chambers romance option. *SPOILERS* I didn’t end up leaving to save the crew right away. So by the time I got the the collector ship she was turned into human goo. I ended up playing the last 3 hours again just to get there in time to save her ass, but still didn’t get the romance option. I think my fling with Tali ruining my chances at a normal human relationship.