This is Me

Dear future Mark/future kid/future grandkid/future wife/whoever is reading this:

This is who I am, as of September 15, 2011.



My name is Mark Philip Uy Wu

I was born on May 13, 1989. That makes me 22 at the time of this writing.

     I have an extreme fondness for chocolate milk. I've been drinking it for as long as I can remember, I was never really much of a plain milk child. I only like plain milk with cookies or oreos, or this milk we had in Xiamen in 2005. Sure, it's Chinese milk and God knows what's in it, but it was very good, almost like liquid cream cheese.

I don't like the things that I should "normally" like.
I'm part of the 5% of Chinese people that don't like tea. I only like it in iced or heavily-diluted-in-milk form.
I like my coffee the same way, milky and slightly weak, perhaps with some other flavors thrown in there.
I don't like wine, I don't like beer. I can do any type of hard liquor but I don't get why people crave it.
I don't like clubs, they're noisy and filled with cigarette smoke and douchebags. But on the other hand, attractive girls, so I guess it all balances out.
I've never had any desire whatsoever to smoke.
I don't really have an interest with cars and driving.

     Dilbert is my all time number one most favorite comic strip ever. I also enjoy Cathy, Pugad Baboy, and The Far Side. There are only two authors, with whom I can say that I would read anything they put out. Scott Adams and Chuck Palahniuk. Apart from them, I'm only really interested in Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events (for a young adult/children's book, it appeals to adults very well), and classical books. In the world of Sports writing, I would by anything that Bill Simmons and FreeDarko comes out with. BS because I've always been a fan of his articles and his writing, and FD because their books simply have the most impressive artwork you'll ever see.

     I like to cook/bake stuff. We've been baking cookies since we were little kids, thanks to our handy dandy Mrs. Fields cookbook, but Gordon Ramsay and Alton Brown were the ones that really turned me on to cooking. I've watched almost every TV series Gordon Ramsay has made (his British shows are far far better than whatever crap Fox has him do on American television) and almost every episode of Good Eats (the single greatest cooking show ever). Much in the same way with my authors, I will watch anything these two guys put out (I do draw the line at some of Ramsay's crappy Fox shows though, you know he's just doing it for the cash).

     My food intake is primarily Chinese. Dim sum is my go-to Chinese food. Give me a bowl of rice, soy sauce, kalamansi, and chili sauce; and I'm good to go. It's simple, it's cheap, it's fast. I remember eating at North Park before it was a big time restaurant chain, it used to be just another restaurant with some pretty good wonton noodles.
I do like almost every cuisine in the world. I have an appreciation for a little bit of something from everyone. I do have a big place in my heart for Italian. Pasta is something I whip up on the fly whenever there's nothing around to eat.

I have a mystical power of being able to make businesses or products succeed of fail with my patronage. Just listen first. There used to be a restaurant near Banawe, it was New Jersey Chicken or whatever, I think. It used to be in the big boxy building where NAWASA is now. We used to eat there, but when we stopped since we got served some slightly undercooked chicken, guess what happened? Went out of business. Same way with Racks (which is only now coming back). We stopped eating there even though I loved it, since my mom though she got sick one time from their barbecue sauce. Lo and behold Racks goes under, only to resurface year and years later. I also notice that restaurants are never full when we enter, but always full once we sit down and start eating. Do you know Kettle Chips? The ones you see in the supermarket now, as well as the new "kettle cooked" versions of Lays and other chips? I first saw that in Healthy Options. Loved it. Soon, suddenly major supermarkets were carrying it and big name brands had kettle cooked chips as well. All just a bizarre series of coincidences? I think not.

     I have two favorite basketball teams: The New Jersey Nets and the San Antonio Spurs. Strangely enough, I really fell in love with the Spurs during the much maligned 2005 Finals. I actually really liked that series, two tough nosed defensive teams going at it like prize fighters, it was a back and forth series and you had no idea who would win until the final minutes of game 7. Who can forget Horry's three in game 5?
     The Nets however, grew from regional loyalty since my grandparents were in New Jersey at the time, I felt obliged. Sadly, I only got really serious with the Nets in the post-Kenyon Martin era.
     My first unofficial "favorite team" was actually the Chris Webber Kings. And what early 2000's preteen wouldn't have that as their favorite team?

     I listen to a lot of movie scores, you know, the instrumental music you hear in the background. There is no better music to listen to full blast than an epic orchestral piece. A piece of music with no words can contain so much... atmostphere in it. When you listen to a particular piece you can visualize the mood and the emotion that you're supposed to feel which is really it's main objective in the movie. Who doesn't know the music from The Godfather, The Dark Knight, Inception, Up, Titanic, or the Lord of the Rings? Among my "normal" music favorites are: Gorillaz, Kanye West, Snow Patrol, Kid Cudi, and Joshua Radin.

I think that Audrey Hepburn is without doubt the most glamorous actress I've seen on film. Her style is always classic and I love her 50's aristocratic accent. I seen four of her movies so far: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Roman Holiday, My Fair Lady, and Charade. They were all absolutely amazing.

For actors, my childhood was basically built on Nicolas Cage movies, before he started accepting any script just for a payday. I grew up on The Rock, Con Air, and Face Off. I also loved a lot of Adam Sandler movies as a child. Happy Gilmore was a favorite, as well as The Wedding Singer and Big Daddy. I'm also quite well versed in chick flicks due to having an older sister. I have watched Legally Blonde, Mean Girls, Maid in Manhattan, and Sweet Home Alabama more times than I can remember. I've also watched practically every episode of Sex and the City, which really, any self-respecting woman should also have done already.

     In terms of TV, I have watched practically every episode of The Simpsons, Family Guy, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, Gossip Girl, House, Chuck, and Grey's Anatomy. My cartoons growing up mainly came from AXN, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.
     Growing up I watched anime like: Fushigi Yuugi, Yu Yu Hakusho, Flame of Recca, Steam Detective, Cooking Master Boy, Boys Be, Cyberteam in Akihabara, Dual!, El Hazard, Gatekeepers, Ghostsweeper, Grander Musashi, Sakura Wars, Samurai X, Shadow Skill, Slam Dunk, Space Warship Yamamoto Yoko, You're Under Arrest!, etc.
     Of course you had to have American cartoons and TV shows as well, things like: Power Rangers, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Lizzy Mcguire, Kenan & Kel, All That, The Legend of the Hidden Temple, Global Guts, Double Dare 2000, Rocko's Modern Life, Rugrats, Aaahh! Real Monsters, Angry Beavers, Hey Arnold, Arthur, The Amanda Show, Clarissa Explains It All, Street Sharks, Double Dragon, Beast Wars, KaBlam!, CatDog, The Wild Thornberrys, Jumanji, As Told By Ginger, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Cousin Skeeter, Figure it Out, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, Batman the Animated Series, etc.
     Now, if you're reading this in the future, you probably have no idea what any of the things I just mentioned are, but I urge you to go check them out since they are some really awesome things.

The first time I used a computer, it was still running Windows 94. Something that would be absolutely unrecognizable, I imagine, even to the younger kids today. I used to play only educational games, but hey, they were pretty fun. I was a big product of the Jumpstart series of games, and I always played the game that was a year ahead of where I was. When I was in first grade, I was playing Jumpstart second grade. When I was in third grade, I was playing Jumpstart fourth grade adventures. Even then I was pretty crappy in the sections that required quick math calculations.  My other games as a child include: Alge-blaster 3 (algebra), Reader Rabbit (spelling, language), Super Solvers Midnight Rescue (reading, critical thinking). Despite what you might think, these games were actually a shitload of fun.

When I was younger, we had a studying table in our room. On that studying table I had my US presidents placemat, with all the US presidents in order up until Clinton. That is how I am familiar with pretty much every US president, because whenever my mind was wandering I would just memorize the presidents. That, and I also have a DK Eyewitness book on the US presidents.

These are the clothing trends that I think are stupid:

Popped collars (unless you're playing tennis/golf and you're trying to protect your nape from sunburn, there's no excuse for it)

Shoes where the tongue overtakes the entire shoe

Leggings worn as pants or worn underneath skirts or shorts. True story, I once saw a girl where these to a job interview. Needless to say I was horrified. 

Shutter shades. I hope these don't get past 2011. If you don't know the story, Kanye West made these popular in his 2007 music video for "Stronger". Little did he know that it was a pandora's box of douchebaggery. 

Nerd glasses. As you can see, the early 2000's had a pretty big problem with eyewear. It's an item people wear when they want to say: "Hey, look at how good I look, I can wear the things we used to tease people about and still look fabolous". The real trouble begins when people who don't know this unwritten subtext start wearing them. 

But of course, the hot girl exception must be applied to all of these fashion trends. Hot girls can wear whatever they want since they look good in absolutely anything, so all rules are off. 

I don't know if you're reading this today, tomorrow, fifty or a hundred years into the future; but these are some of the things you need to know about me. I'm Mark Philip Wu. I currently exist, I may not be when you're reading this, but I existed. This is what I was like, this is who I am. Maybe you loved me, maybe you hated me, maybe you didn't even know I was alive, but now you do. These are the things that make me unique, that make me unlike anyone else on the planet or in the history of the universe. Am I a beautiful and unique snowflake? Tyler Durden certainly won't think so, but perhaps I am.