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As a globally recognized dermatologist and skincare leader, Dr. Diane Walder has devoted her career to enriching the lives of patients from all walks of life.

I just did something today that I have never done before. That was to attend a movie screening. Thanks to a cool girl I met recently, her name is Ally Burguieres. She works as a movie critic for her school newspaper at Georgetown University, so she gets to go to movie screenings and for free! Guess where the movie screenings were at? None other than the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) building in Washington DC, the sorry organization I’ve been leeching off from on my Linux server. The irony was that it was free too but in a different sense. The only difference was that I cannot put the movie on pause for my bathroom breaks.

Out of all movies that are out there, the movie turns to be “The Namesake” about an Indian boy who has an identity crisis with his name that is not even Indian.

Before I even start, I have this firm belief that if you are deaf and unable to hear what characters are saying and that there are no subtitles, there is absolutely no reason to go to movie theaters. You’d be clueless as to what the movie is talking about and you can slowly feel your ten dollars being drained away unless you think cool special effects justify the ticket purchase, which some of my friends did with Star Wars movies. It’s almost as same as buying a glossy hard-covered book with blank pages. When you finally do get out, your understanding of the movie isn’t that much better than you step into the theater before. “Light saber fights were so awesome!” “Um, why did Anakin turn into Darth Vader?” “Uh, no idea.”

But she gently informed me that this movie, the Namesake, might have some subtitles since it follows an immigrant family from India, settling into the city that is the most diverse city in America and home to millions of immigrants, New York City. In spite of that, the family moved during the 1970s and they were among the first group to migrate from India so the husband and the wife only had each other to support, then they had a son which they named Gogol. They spoke Hindu, thus, some English subtitles were shown.

The name, Gogol, is a Russian name taken from a short story author, Nikolai Gogol. It is his book that has miraculously stayed in the father’s bloody hands after he survived a devastating train accident which left him in a full cast and unable to move for a few weeks. After having recovered, they left India to live in New York City with his wife and soon thereafter, they have a first-born son and they decide to name him Gogol after the Russian author, to remind how lucky and blessed their life are and to be holding a healthy baby. Obviously they did not think about the social effects that the name may bring to the boy and his life.

Sloppily dressed in a navy baseball shirt with a number 83 on his chest, Gogol, acted by Kal Penn who was made famous from the movie, “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.”, shows what it takes to be an American. He dates a white girl, plays loud metal songs, rebels against his parents, smokes a joint and of course, hates his own name. Even his sister is equally American, spraying colors in her hair, sporting both bright and dark lip colors, and wearing fishnets on her legs. Later in the movie, it would have to take someone’s death in the family to finally realize what does it mean to be an Indian and sheds a baseball shirt with a white saree.

Kal Penn tries his best to portray as an Indian-American but his limpy body prevents him from looking like an All-American guy and resembles nothing like those model bodies in Abercrombie & Fitch cover magazines. Even in a few nude scenes, his body actually reminds me of Gandhi’s. Sad to say, Kal Penn’s fate, to me, may be already and forever sealed as a slacking college Indian whiz who smoke marijuana joints.

The movie takes us through different phases of life that we all may have experienced at some point of our life. It is a movie that reminds us that we aren’t the only ones experiencing life’s struggles and that all the immigrants who came to America, from the pilgrims to Englishmen to Germans to Italians to Irishes to Chineses to Purples and lately, Indians all experienced same things when they arrive at a new land with little of what they have. The movie moves mostly in a chronological order with a few flashbacks linking to the name of Gogol and ends with a feeling that is touching and that life shall go on.

Although the movie title says “the Namesake”, it doesn’t necessarily revolve around the name but we can see how the story is developed behind the name and how they resolve together to overcome obstacles they face in life—unknowns, hardship, death, infidelity, and family/cultural values.

If you found yourself covered in blood, barely able to move but you see this book that spells “Gogol” that stares directly into your eyes, you cannot help but bound to feel that you are meant to survive, to live and with that, you damn better live your life with a purpose. That’s exactly what the father did and in the end, the son finally understands and was able to accept his name, Gogol, for the reminder of what it is.

When she and I got out of the theater, I thought to myself, hey, that wasn’t too bad, with its limited subtitles and my lack of ability to hear but I could understand the movie and managed to make some reflections of my own.

What’s so cool is that I get to see a movie that hasn’t been released in theaters nationwide and free too!

I got so inspired by watching “Through Deaf Eyes” on the PBS channel that I decided to come straight home from a friend’s place to finish working on the addition of YouTube ASL videos. There was a big bug to be worked out with Internet Explorer browser to make those video thumbnails to be rendered ok.

The link: DeafPulse.com

One new feature is the “bubble tooltip” that will appear when you move your mouse over the news title item. It’ll give a short description of the news so you don’t have to click through to read it. Just FYI, not each of them has one, like Google News so I am working on that now.

Someone suggested adding more news feeds, so I’ve made three more news feed. They are BBC news, MSNBC news, and ASL from Google News. Let me know if you find them useful. Thanks, CK!

The documentary about “Through Deaf Eyes” got me really inspired that I’ve never been more proud to be Deaf. I value our language, ASL—-I cannot imagine not using the language—-and know that we can do much anything but hear. President King Jordan made a point that there are different ways to be deaf and no matter what the technological advances there may be, deaf people will always continue to exist. Marlee Matlin also made a good point that since she can speak pretty well, why cannot she use it? it is a skill as much as she can act well. She never meant to offend the deaf community or to show that she thinks she’s better than us. She does have a beautiful ASL with strong expressions that I was a little surprised she can speak well too. For example, while King Jordan likes to speak for himself, his ASL isn’t really that smooth or fluent. His style is more SEE so it wasn’t a big surprise that he can still speak well.

I’ll be waiting for this PBS documentary to be out on torrents so I can download and save it forever. Gotta love Vital Signs too. Loved his ASL storytelling. It is art. Someone ought give them an award.

Potter star refuses to sign up for final films.

Haha, is she playing hard to get or what? how typical of girls. Well, I don’t blame her. Ever since I saw her on the screen for the first time as a young precocious girl, I knew she was gonna be hot, in the same sense that Natalie Portman is now.

I did it!

I’ve created a Deaf news aggregator website showing different feeds from popular news search sites and Deaf blogs. It’s called Deafpulse.com!

It’s such a relief to finally get it to be released, though it’s somewhat still raw and in beta. I’m quite satisfied with the design. I might make another CSS file for those who prefer whitespace over dark. I’ll be open to suggestions that you think should be on the feed. And If you like it, spread the word! Thanks.

Also, I’m already working on the next version to include ASL videos, images, and most popular posts, so it should be pretty dynamic and useful.

Ok, time for me to go to bed. I’m exhausted but weirdly happy. I’ll come back later to check the progress/status of this new website, whether you find it useful or not. I’m excited!

Just want to put this on the record and to give myself extra motivation to finish working on the new Deaf RSS website. It’s gonna be great! If you are looking for cleaning service websites, visit www.weblaunchlocal.com for more info.

I’m burning midnight candles as of this moment.

Stay tuned!!

Jason Kottke’s blog just turned 9 years old. His first post was on March 14, 1998, so that is quite a long time! He’s like my blog idol and when I saw his first post, it’s exactly why I started this blog and to develop my web development skills too.

Why

I decided I needed to start writing things down. Because I forget. Because I think better and feel better when I write. I used to write often but got away from it. So here it is again. But you ask: “Jason, why not keep a private diary?” Because I’d never keep up a private diary…I need to force myself to write this. So, I made it into content. Since it’s content, I feel obligated to keep it up-to-date.

See these games I have to play with myself?

posted a link about how Deaf people prefer to be called deaf or hard of hearing, not deaf-mutes or hearing-impaired. He also mentioned about how Deaf people are using YouTube to communicate with their first language, ASL.

It’s true. I do feel better when I write. Gotta keep blogging!

Happy St. Patrick Day!

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Saw this really terrific post by Joshua Porter. I like his website design. I’ve been thinking about my blog like how to make it better. What he said struck a chord.

I’m gonna add a popular/notable blog posts module on the front page. He said “For every person who posts a comment on your blog, you have 10 (or 100) readers who won’t. Always remember that! Even if you don’t get the 100 comments that you were hoping for doesn’t mean that people didn’t like the post or that they didn’t consider it…it just means that they didn’t have anything to initially say or couldn’t at the time.” True.

He also has an excellent post on “Five principles to Design by.” Hmm, he and I seem to think alike. Cool.

That’s what I call a deaf-friendly work environment!
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Heh my dad is funny. One quarter and a penny. 26.

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