Take a look at this image… do you have yellow fever? For list of symptoms see here.

In my last entry, I talked about the beginning of mainstream presence for Asians worldwide. And as many of you know, I have a band called Cool Silly. Well, we decided to make use of our production and writing skills and pen up a track about this very topic (video below).

The song we wrote is called ‘Yellow Fever’, our video features all your favorite Asian characters in a fun light: Jackie Chan, Maggie Q, Jin the MC, YaoMing, etc.

Here’s the music video for our song:

What is this so-called ‘Yellow Fever’?

Well, let’s take a look at a few definitions in Urban Dictionary for this term:

1. A mental disease that afflicts the Wapanese, the fanboys, and the otaku. Symptoms of this condition are;

(a) A sexual obsession towards females of Asian descent.
(b) An obsession towards Asian media and entertainment, primarily anime, hentai, manga, and other Japanese media.
(c) A sudden urge to imitate anything from Asia. For instance, learning Japanese and eating sushi just for the sheer sake of trying to be “Asian”.
(d) Thinking that one knows more about Japan than the Japanese themselves, despite never setting foot in that country or at lest reading about it.

2. Sexual obsession felt by a non-asian (Usually white, usually male) towards asians of the opposite gender. Symptoms of yellow fever include stalking, halfhearted attempts to learn Japanese/Mandarin/Cantonese/Korean and whacking off to Sailor Moon video’s.

3. The best infliction to have ever hit caucasians. Signs of having contracted yellow fever includes extreme attraction and affection towards Asians of the opposite sex.

Genius definitions if you ask me. Needless to say, this track is about the recent influx of Asians and Asian Americans in mainstream media and entertainment.  Enjoy and remember: sharing is caring!

Question: do YOU have yellow fever?

In my last post, I talked about how to not be a whore and succeed in a business transaction.  In this post, I want to talk about wooing a potential client.

This article is about initial contact.

More specifically, the best and worst ways of getting someone’s full attention (so that subsequently he/she will believe in you and your product/service enough to actually fork out money).

In my experience, here are …from WORST to BEST… 7 ways of contacting someone for a sales pitch:

1. MSN or Some Chat Client = NO GOOD
2. Facebook Wall
3. Facebook Message
4. Text Message = ACCEPTABLE
5. E-mail
6. Phone Call
7. Meet In Person = HELL YEA!!

Notice one through five are all based on text communication.  Almost all tone and personality is lost through text, unless you’re an amazingly convincing writer.  Number six and seven are both verbal.

1. MSN or Some Chat Client - If you go this route, you’re just lazy.  You didn’t even make the effort to pick up a phone.  Plus, people can purposefully ignore your instant message while you sit there wasting your time wondering why they haven’t responded.

2. Facebook wall - If you try to get someone interested in your product with a public wall post, you’re trying to appear personal but in fact you are masking your greediness and trying to get a lot –by gaining more visibility– out of your minimal effort.  Don’t be an arse…

3. Facebook Message – This is where you start showing some actual effort.  You provide a private message, showing that you want to personally share something with this person.  Also, because it is an independent message (as opposed to one of many, many wall posts on one page), it receives much more attention and is much more likely to prompt a response.

4. Text Message – Actually this is still pretty lazy and shows a general lack of aggressiveness (and also some passiveness).  But at the very least, 1. it is very personal and 2. it is literally instant i.e. he/she will receive the message RIGHT away.  Plus, it takes quite some effort to type out a full, personalized text message on phone.

5. E-mail – Now we’re talking.  E-mail is very personal (as long as there aren’t any irrelevant CCs).  It is focused, direct (as opposed to on a platform like Facebook with a lot of noise), and free of any distractions (like other wall posts on Facebook).  It shows that you are focused and serious.

6. Phone Call – This takes guts.  Real guts.  You have to be ready for any response, whether it be positive or negative.  You got your A game ready.  It shows confidence and conviction.  Plus there is less room for miscommunication that could occur in text form.  Your words, tone, personality, and attitude are 99% conveyed through your dialogue.  If you’re a good talker, you just might secure a deal with only one or two phone calls.

7. Meet In Person – Old fashioned but by far the most efficient and successful method.  Taking time out of your busy and finite life to sit down with someone at a coffee shop or their company means so much more than sending out a text message or email.  Not only are you using physical dialogue (as opposed to text), but your attire and facial expressions can do wonders in contributing to your sales pitch.  Assuming you are on time, well dressed, and say the right things, you are automatically already in success territory.

meeting in person = the way to go

People can tell very easily whether you’re just out to make some of their money or if you actually care and are trying to help.  Don’t forget that being super awesome at following up is equally if not more important than the items mentioned above.  FOLLOW UP always.

These are just my two cents.  Your thoughts?

This was originally part of an online tag campaign, but I figured I’d also post it here for those who are interested in getting to know weird facts about me and my idiosyncrasies :p:

1. I didn’t pay a cent for my college education.
2. When I am embarrassed, I sweat profusely.
3. 80% of the time I am listening to my own music on my iPod.  Egotistical? Maybe, I just like good music
4. I painted my nails black in middle/high school because I thought it made me look awesome when I shred on the guitar in our rock band.
5. I used to cut several friends’ hair for money in high school (the Asian fade). On a side note, I cut my own hair and have shaved it/bleached it/dyed it pink before.
6. I don’t believe in natural born talent.  I believe in hard work and perseverance.
7. I have a somewhat hard time maintaining eye contact with people I talk to.  I have to make a conscience effort to do so.
8. I am unable to maintain friendships with people who only have fun and don’t work towards something.
9. I care very much about my reputation and how others perceive me.
10. One of my first jobs was working at a library shelving books and periodicals.
11. When I was in middle school in Texas, I got in a fight and was suspended from school for two days.
12. I was Homecoming King in high school.
13. I ate my own feces when i was like 2 years old (so i heard).
14. I hate it when people are late for things, for this I am somewhat of a hypocrite.
15. I prioritize the things i want to do over the things i need to do. i think it’s the artist side of me. So… my room is generally a mess and I’ll occasionally go days without showering.
16. I gain satisfaction from picking my nose.  Don’t hate!
17. I have a big nose …literally.
18. In elementary school, i had a ginormous crush on this girl and I used to wait by the bicycle racks until she arrived and ride behind her everyday going home.  Weird yea?  I think so too. :p
19. I’m very damn competitive. In fact, I broke our video game system controller several times from losing to my brother when we were kids.
20. I don’t like it when people dress very artistically but aren’t in any way artistic.
21. Sometimes i prefer to watch movies on my own at the theater to focus on gaining inspiration and new ideas / direction for music.
22. When i figured out that ‘Tony’ was the short form of ‘Anthony’ in elementary school, i told my teachers to call me ‘Anthony’.  My birth certificate says ‘Tony’. ..FML. haha
23. My parents almost named me ‘Waco’ after the city in Texas (because it resembles my Chinese name).
24. I sometimes question respect vs. income. Our ambitions… our jobs… are we really striving to earn money or for the respect of others?
25. Lebron James has heard my music.  So I’ve heard…

On December 11th, Felix Baumgartner jumped off the top of the Taipei 101 tower (the tallest building in the world right now). The catch: He did it without permission.

From YouTube:

BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner leaped from the highest building in the world, the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan on December 11. The jump itself wasn’t the only thing that was risky.
Five seconds was all it took for Felix Baumgartner’s freefall at his most recent BASE jump in Taipei. Five seconds, which took months of preparation. The 38-year-old Austrian checked out the tower, which is 509 meters tall, on numerous visits and in various costumes, made note of the positioning of the surveillance cameras, the security systems, and memorized the inaccessible areas.

On the day before the jump Baumgartner deposited his parachute in a toilet with the help of a local Taiwanese. On Tuesday afternoon it was then time to go ahead with the secret mission in James Bond style. On the look-out platform helpers distracted the tourists and security team, thus giving Baumgartner the opportunity to climb the three meter security wall. From there it was a four then 509 meter drop. After the historical jump he landed on a multi-level car park

From the jump to take-off

“I failed three times, but now I’ve finally realized this dream,” Baumgartner rejoiced after the first BASE jump from the tallest building in the world — the most recent highlight of his aerial career resume. Meeting up with the police and security who were hectically on his heals after the jump — probably to congratulate him — Baumgartner preferred to avoid: as early as two hours after the mission he was sitting in the plane, flying away from the country.

Apparently my buddy Jessica works on the 53rd floor of Taipei 101 and saw Felix Baumgartner in midair as he was parachuting down.  Right after he landed, he rushed in a taxi to the airport and flew out of the country.

If this isn’t the epitome of living life to the fullest, then I don’t know what is…

I gain a lot from the help of others. I absorb a lot of experience and knowledge vicariously through other people. It’s a really great thing. Helping others is an important part of my life.

Why?

Because so many people have helped me along the way.

Example: today in my verilog programming course, I asked the person sitting next to me for some help. I couldn’t get my circuit to operate properly and I needed to provide a demo by the end of class. He was eager to help me troubleshoot the problem and even went out of his way to stay an hour after class to debug a problem I was having. This is help. This is someone who is not only passionate about the topic but also willing to help someone he’s just met for the first time. The amount of respect I have for people like this is very high. You could easily ignore a person and tell him you can’t help. It saves you time. It saves you the potential of impatience. It saves you from a lot of things. I didn’t get to demo my circuit to the processor. But that’s besides the point. The experience I had is much more valuable than a trivial demo.

I try to actively return favors to the people who have helped me. I’ve offered job openings to friends, free things, lunch, etc. However I can. And I try to help as many people as I can because I know what it feels like to be stuck or helpless. It’s a pretty sucky feeling.

So help people. It’s a business. A good business too if you play your chips right. Trust me.

Mike Lee posted an interesting entry on how to think like a genius.

The eight strategies are from author Michael Michalko’s “Thinking like a genius: eight strategies used by the supercreative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison”:

1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)
2. Visualize!
3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.
4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.
5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.
6. Think in opposites.
7. Think metaphorically.
8. Prepare yourself for chance.

I’d say I’m 6 of 8 on a normal basis. But I’m no genius. Not too sure how accurate this list is. But then again, the definition of ‘genius’ is subjective right?

Are you a genius?

“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”

These are the words of the late James Dean, who died at age 24. I saw this quote this weekend on a poster frame at Target. I stood there and read the same line over and over again. I fell in love with the quote.

I think we should all consciously live every moment of our lives by this quote. Although this is unlikely, reminding ourselves every now and then would help make our experiences richer and more worthwhile.

Make today a great one. Are you keeping those dreams alive?

Are you pumped?? If not, read some classic Steve Jobs here.

Cell phone etiquette. I’ve been in situations where I don’t get a simple call back from a friend. I’ve been in numerous situations where I’ve been a jackass and forget to call people back. Last week, I wrote a post about how following up is uber important.

So I decided to come up with a set of rules for when you should follow up on missed calls. Following these rules will make you a better person I will abide by these commandments starting now:

1. A missed call from someone you know personally.

This can go either way. Either call back or don’t call back.
If more than one missed call, call back required.

2. A missed call from a number you don’t recognize.

Not required to call back.

3. A missed call AND voicemail from someone you know personally.

Call back required. ASAP.

4. A missed call or text wishing you happy birthday.

Call back required. ASAP!

Follow these rules and you will become super awesome among your peers.