I had a lucid dream during my nap.  I was looking at my iPhone and realized it wasn't my iPhone and couldn't read anything on it.  I thought oh, I must be in a lucid dream.  I'm not sure, but it seemed like I felt my body.  I understand your body is paralyzed when you're asleep so I knew a little bit of that in the dream.  I remember feeling that I felt my body, or dreamed that I felt my body, and it felt tingly.  I felt like I could wake up any moment but I told myself to try to maintain this state and so I did.  At some point I realized this was a dream within a dream, so there were two layers.  Right, someone's probably going to mention a little bit of Inception and it's not like they invented the dream concepts.  I was trying to find an answer to something and I was a little disturbed that I would want to know in the dream. I was laying in my bed in my dream and it was in my room that wasn't my room.  It wasn't my apartment.  I was laying in bed dreaming and thinking I should stay asleep while my real/waking self was dreaming of that.  At some point I knew and thought that was really cool and tried to keep it up and it kept up a little bit longer.  I was looking at my phone again.  Well, in the real world my phone was across the room and not with me in bed like it usually is which was another reason I thought I was dreaming.  The dream wasn't very insightful, but if I can sustain it longer then that can be useful.  What use are dreams?  Well, they can kind of fun and I do things, feel things, think of things that I don't do in the real world.  Sometimes I come up with interesting ideas...inspiration if you will.  And what will I use it for?  

Doubtful that anyone I know reads too much of my blogs so I'll mention a dream.  I dreamed of two people who both sing and they never met in real life.  I dreamed that they met and they were dating in my dream.  To be honest I thought they would be a cute couple or at least it would be cool if they collaborated and jammed together or something.  I mean, they both sing and it would sound interesting.  I dream of a lot of things and there's a very low probability that something I dream actually happens.  I think of a lot of things that are possible and a lot of my thoughts are building scenarios.  So there's nothing special about my dreams or with me.  I guess it would be really cool if something I dreamed actually happened.  I set some of this in motion and I'm a little antsy watching it develop. Or not.  I decided to stop because it's not right for me to play with people's lives like that.  Not that I am.  I think they would be good friends, a good couple, good collaborators in singing, or just jamming together.  It's not that I made much effort and it's something that doesn't really benefit me so I wonder why I even bother--regarding the dream itself that is.  It is silly though.  

I dream of aliens and invasions, too.  I always talk about zombies and monsters.  I guess that's why I like watching alien movies no matter how bad they are.  I don't really write stories or make movies so I don't know why this bothers me too much, but I get a little bummed when I see something that I thought of.  Not that I'm the only one in the world that comes up with an idea or that any idea out there in the books/movies are entirely original since they come from somewhere and other people have though of it, too.  I think I'm more upset when there's a cool idea out there and it fails in the media that it was shown in.  To think of it, if they did well then I get excited and want to see more of it.  Yes, I hate ideas that are good or even ideas I thought of and something crappy comes about whether it's a TV show or a movie.  Oh well.  It doesn't actually bother me a lot.  

I don't know.  I guess I have this whole world in my head and I live in there.  Even as I walk through this world I'm always going back and I want to stay longer.  I want to stay in my dreams longer.  My dreams are fun.  Who wouldn't want to live in their dreams?  I read books, listen to audio books, watch TV, watch movies, and play video games and sometimes that's used as an escape.  I kind of want to make my own world so it's in my terms though.  

I am in reality.  I know it very well.  I live in reality and at the same time I'm somewhere else.  It's strange because I feel like a part of me is still there even while I go about my life in reality.  Even without the stories I'm reading/listening/watching, my mind is mostly somewhere else.  Yet I'm still attentative to where I am.  You know how people catch you daydreaming or that your mind is wandering and you're still and you gotta be called back to reality? That rarely happens to me because I'm here and I'm over there.  It's like multi-tasking.  

Anyhow, that's all...

Angry Asian Man in his blog pretty much summed up what happened and cited some other blogs and responses to the video.  Basically, a UCLA student, Alexandra Wallace went on a racist rant against Asians, particularly criticizing "Asians in the library."   

alexandra's anti-asian video about "manners"

"ching chong ling long ting tong" means I love you

Although it is reasonable to think there are many like her, it is hard to watch  someone expressing her ignorance for everyone to see.  Does she not expect a response?  She's generalizing Asians.  Roughly speaking Asia as a continent takes up nearly 30% of the land masses of the world.  It s4 billion people comprises 60% of the world population.  There are about some 50 or so countries in the continent.  (stuff you can read up on wikipedia) That's a lot of people!  People belonging to different races and ethnicities; cultures; religions; speak different languages and there are tons of different dialects; have different social, economic, and political statuses; etc.  So in the US we have people coming from different places.  There's also lots of people who were born in the US and this is all we know.  According to the 2010 Census, Los Angeles has a population of 3,833,995 and 11.3% of the population is Asian.  Just to have an idea of the demographics at UCLA, of 26,162 total undergraduates, about 9,712 are Asian or Pacific Islander (UCLA demographics 2010) and that's about 37% of the undergrad UCLA population.  

In the Angry Asian Man's blog, he comments and also has links to responses to the video, including remixes and catchy songs based on her video.

The video may be inappropriate, but in no way do I condone any harm or harassment to her.  She can say and think whatever she wants.  I want to know if she's learned anything from this.  She did apologize according to the LA Times (link) in the school paper.  I don't know her, but I can believe that she is sorry and couldn't have imagined this firestorm.  Unintentionally the rant made the UCLA student quite a figure and she's apparently a little famous.  She made a racist rant and posted it on the internet and exposed herself to the public eye since the video went viral.  I'm a little mixed about the media attention on this.  The tsunami in Japan is major news.  I heard from work that this was like up there on the top stories and that bothers me.  While it draws attention to Asian awareness, it bothers me that it is newsworthy.  

What she said was ignorant and I hope she learned from it.  I'll end with saying that you should really watch what you say, especially if you're posting it online.  

I just saw Battle Los Angeles (2011).  According to the movie, there is only one Asian man in Los Angeles.  I saw it in Korea Town.  I didn't expect too much.  It's a fun movie to watch (I watched it in the morning matinee so it's $7) because it's about aliens invading Los Angeles and I live here.  I recognized some of the places, including Santa Monica.  A lot of it is filmed in Louisiana and that's okay.  Nothing special about the movie.  It was fun to watch like I said.  Characters don't really stand out.  Aliens and their battleships look junky.  Don't care too much about the script--corny lines, nothing memorable, etc.  It's still fun.  

There was an Asian man and his name is James Hiroyuki Liao and he was Lance Corporal Steven Mottola.  He had speaking lines.  It was alright.  I didn't notice any other Asians in the movie, even among the extras.  In Los Angeles we have large ethnic enclaves--China Town, Korea Town, Little Tokyo, Thai Town, etc.  There's a lot of Filipinos in Los Angeles, too, like Carson (a whole city), Glendale, Eagle Rock, Historical Filipino Town, etc.  Maybe it's a good thing.  I mean, a lot of the extras are dead bodies or people fleeing from the alien invasion in Los Angeles.  Maybe Asians had the right sense to evacuate right away?  

Remember The Last Airbender (2010) and how M. Night Shyamalan and Paramount casted white actors (specifically casting Caucasian actors) to play Asian and Native American inspired chacters?  There was a boycott on the film and racebending.com was most vocal about it.  If anything, I think it draws attention to the need of racial diversity in Hollywood films.  There's plenty of examples, but this one got a lot of attention and happened last year.  

Anyhow, Battle LA.  Not so great.  Bothers me a little that there's no Asians in Los Angeles in the movie...