Phochick says-

The Asian Excellence Awards - the Oscars for the Asians - happens this Memorial Day Weekend, but sadly, the Seattle area won't be able to watch it. Why? For some reason AZN is no longer on Comcast basic cable, nor is World TV, which used to have some Asian programming as well. What happened? Does this area have the 4th largest percentage of APAs in the country or not? What happened to our Asian cable shows? Sad...

Also on my list of disappointments, under the Favorite Reality TV star category, our Asian American UFC fighters Andy Wang and BJ Penn aren't listed (well, maybe this will happen for next year's vote). Andy Wang is on Ultimate Fighter 5 - the only Asian contestant that I recall. He was getting very little play for the first few episode. Then when it was time for Andy to fight, we finally got to see what Wang was all about. He is totally proud of representing APAs, and wasn't avoiding or hiding his racial background. He talked about his family, in particular his grandparent who was very influential on his fighting and philosophy. He is into the whole samurai honor thing, which is fun to hear about on the show. I was sad when he lost - and even sadder when he cried, and kept crying, and kept crying.

But we forgive him for that - who wouldn't cry after getting beat up? What is more sad is the fact that his coach - or former coach- BJ Penn kicked Wang off his team. Penn is a well-respected fighter from Hawaii. Wang wanted to train with him because he's also from Hawaii. Unfortunately, Wang has an ear problem - not the cauliflower wrestling ear problem, but Wang doesn't listen! (Frankly, I seem to be meeting more and more people who can't and won't take good advice!) Because of Wang's stubborness, he lost his fight, and he lost his Hawaii connection. We love to see Asian brothers stick together, but we're sad to see them break apart.

Phochick says -

I can hardly type I'm so excited! Apolo Anton Ohno takes home the Dancing with the Stars globe. And the show ends with one of my favorite 80s song - Gold by Spandau Ballet.

I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Apolo and his partner at the Asian Hall of Fame awards in Seattle sponsored by the Robert Chinn Foundation. Let me tell you, Apolo is as nice and humble in person as he is on the show. He graciously signed autographs and took photos with his adoring Seattle fans. His father Yuki is of course very classy - and has great hair!

Apolo's spirit shows that anybody can win a dance contest and beat an In Sync boy - if they work hard enough and remain confident yet not cocky.

Laugh if you will about Dancing with the Stars, but if there's a tv show that my Dad and I both watch, then it's a hit!

Of course, we cross our fingers for our local Bothell Boy Blake in American Idol.

Oh the guilty pleasures in life.

Phochick says:

So, after much resistance, the IE has entered the world of blogging! Ah, the horror, we'll be writing raw, unedited entries with dangling participles. We'll be contributing to the growing mound of Internet garbage with useless tidbits of pop culture gossip. We'll type away at the computer, ranting about an issue without thinking about it more than a minute before we hit "Publish Post."

Okay, I've finished dissing blogs enough to be a complete hypocrite and begin my first blog entry.

The IE had an exciting night at Jumbo restaurant on Wednesday, May 16 with our 17th annual Community Voice Awards - yes, 17 years - one of the first groups to give out awards to Asian Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

It was the best dinner event ever as we were proud to honor many "unsung" heroes in our community: Mai Nguyen, Kip Tokuda, Neighborhood House and Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. We honored 1st Lt Ehren Watada with a young leadership award - named after a prominent young leader Matthew "Tatsuo" Nakata (we won't forget you Tatsuo!).

No matter whether you agree with Watada's stance or not, once you meet him, you can do nothing less than have the utmost respect for him for standing up against the man! There is not one insincere bone in Watada's body - he is a boy scout through and through - and if he says he would do anything for his country - he would! He would also never do anything wrong, so for him to say no to the war in Iraq - you know it's for a damn good reason. Thanks for coming to our event Lt, we support you!

We ate a ton of food at and made lots of money for our little non profit. Did you know Jumbo is likely the Americanization of the Chinese word for Precious Pearls? Jumbo rocks!