10% Off - Week 6 Update

This is coming late because I've been in Austin since Wednesday, and I'm pretty sure that I might just skip the Week 7 Update altogether since I'll be on the East Coast until Saturday night.

A friend in Austin told me that my 10% Off challenge inspired her in some way to go down a dress size before graduation, so hooray for that!

I just visited Austin

...and Mom had a question for me:

Mom: "What's the difference between grad students who are single and the ones who are married?"

My answer: "They procreate?"

Our Very Own Dramatic Show About Drama

We made this video over the weekend. It's super dramatic, and I'm pretty sure Grey's Anatomy is going to steal the storyline for Season 4. My cousin Chris is awesome in this, and I'm really surprised at Heather's performance, too! I really like the montage at the end, complete with The Fray.

EDIT 3/19/07: I re-edited the last few seconds of the video to make sure that it is completely G-rated (there was a shot of a dude shooting some guy in the chest while making out with a chick--just kidding.)

10% Off - Week 5 Update

I'm watching the Subway commercial where the guy on the scale orders all this junk food and hiis weight goes up by like 60 pounds. Subtle.

Wasteland - Trailer

We debuted this six years ago today:

Spring is Pretty Awesome - Past Tense Part 1

August 29, March 12, June 2, and June 18.

I like to make movies, and I also like to show them to people. On August 29, 2000, we first showed Pinch Me to a group of about 20 in Cupertino. On March 12, 2001, we showed Wasteland in the lounge of our dorm to 50 or 60 friends. We watched The Sphinxters for the first time with about 80 people in Social Sciences 1100 on June 2, 2002. And right before graduation, we debuted Kickin’ It! to a group of 60 friends and family members on June 18, 2004.

Yes, it’s been over three years since we’ve made a movie with a running time of over half an hour. One reason is that those kinds of projects are very time-consuming, and another reason is that we don’t all live that close to one another anymore (when I say “we” here, I’m referring to the main Force of July cast members of the first five years—Brian, Dan, Pouya, Shelby, Morgan, Hanni, George, and others).

This is why the debut of Wasteland holds a very special place in my heart. The two limiting factors now—time and proximity—were so incredibly non-factors freshman year. Time? Of course I have time, let’s go play some wiffleball. Proximity? We LIVED WITH EACH OTHER. Almost every character in Wasteland lived on Ryerson 2, so I could see if people wanted to get their scenes in by simply walking down the hall. And the movie took place in a dorm, so it’s not like we had very far to go.

Today, on the sixth anniversary of the Wasteland debut, I would like to make a few “salutations” (that’s rap lingo):

*First off, Spring, you smell fantastic. You are usually warm, beautiful, better lit, you like baseball, and when I'm with you, I feel like everything is right with the world. Some people may like other times of year because they get more presents, but I love you for you. Allergies are a small price to pay.

*My dormmates, you were/are awesome. I want to live on the same street as you when I get older. We will make videos together again.

*Family, thanks for keeping me busy with a safe hobby. Eddie, you got me into the whole video-making thing when I was like 8, and Mom and Dad, you supported the process. Thanks.

The trailer for Wasteland is in the next post. The movie is not particularly well-written, well-acted, or even edited correctly (hey, I was 18). But it reminds me of good friends and good times and when it's all said and done, that's all that really matters.

10% Off - Week 4 Update

(This update is a few days late, but I'm still using the correct numbers from last Friday.)

Yesterday when I was talking to Heather about the plateau that I've hit, I said something to the effect of: I'm not satisfied by fasting food anymore (for you non-Copts, fasting for us during Lent means eating vegan). Heather called BS on that, and I realized that I am just being complacent at this point. If you look back to Week 3, the numbers were decreasing pretty sharply, and I'm pretty certain that I became too sure of myself. I convinced myself that it's easy. It's not, and I have to remember that.

James Frey Would Be Proud

This is taken pretty much verbatim from http://andrewishak.com/Fun%20with%20Biographies.pdf. Enjoy.

FUN WITH BIOGRAPHIES

While in the advertising masters program at the University of Texas, I took a class called Theories of Persuasion. We were asked to persuade our teacher to buy a product or service using 4 or 5 different methods of persuasion. I asked Dr. Henderson, one of my favorite professors, if that was the only requirement for the assignment. She said: “Yes, Andrew, and I don’t care how you do it, even if it only takes you fifteen seconds, which I know you’ll try to do.” She really liked to sass me. Anyway, I decided to try to persuade Dr. Henderson (who loves her Treo 650 and Oprah) to hire a classmate, David Roth, to write her fictionalized biography. Below is the paragraph in which I utilize the persuasive effects of drama, product familiarity, flattery, and Oprah, among other things—in less than 20 seconds—in the fictionalized ending to Chapter 15 of Dr. Henderson’s biography:

Everyone looked around in shock after the car exploded. Everyone but one woman. She calmly reached into her pocket for her Treo and dialed for help, but suddenly she felt that there wouldn’t be enough time. That’s when she looked up the phrase “emergency amputations” on the internet though her cell phone. She saved six lives that day, not even counting later that night when she foiled the plans of the terrorist ninja pirates. By diffusing their atom bomb so quickly, Dr. Geraldine Henderson may have single-handedly demoralized every single terrorist around the world. The most amazing thing? Never smeared her makeup…not even the next day on Oprah.

To further convince her that David would write a good biography, I threw this one out there: "Guess whose people wrote more than half of the Bible?"

I got an A by the way.

The Sun's Corona is the Limit

I really wonder how astronauts attempt to instill an attitude of aspiration in their children. They can't say "The Sky's the Limit" because they've actually gone beyond what the sky is generally defined as, which is the atmosphere and outer space of Earth. They probably wouldn't say "Shoot for the Moon and You'll Land Among the Stars" or some garbage like that since they have first hand knowledge that if you shoot for the Moon and miss you're likely headed for the asteroid belt or the vacuum of space.

You know what I think astronauts tell their children? "Pluto's no longer a planet because it's small and no one cares about small stuff."

Astronauts can be snippy.

10% Off - Week 3 Update

Not eating after dinner seems to be making a difference. This is running at a better pace than I expected (about a pound lost every 4.5 days), but I want to be careful about taking that projection line as a certainty--I still have 16 weeks to go.

The 10 Best Names of Teams I've Been On

I turning in our form yesterday for the Sunnyvale City Basketball League, and I had to choose a team name. I threw around a few ideas: Flea Market Montgomery, Click CLACK, The House Protectors, and Sweet Trampoline Tibia Dunk (don't watch that last one if you have a weak stomach).

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Okay, you're back, I hope (that was enough YouTube linkage for like four posts). Anyway,...I decided on the name We Talkin' About PRACTICE because of it's basketball theme. My brother Eddie says the name is too long, but I like it.

Personally, when it comes to intramurals and amateur sports, I think your team name says a lot about your players before you even step on the court. It's like a team tattoo. Sometimes the name is familar and it already means something to you. When I played IMs at UC Davis, I would often check who we were playing a few days before the game and--I know this may seem way too intense, but--I would check how a similar-named team performed in last year's standings, since dynasty teams often keep the same name from year to year. For example, 93 to Infinity was the name of a flag football team headed by someone who worked in the intramural department, and they knew how to recruit VERY well. Needless to say, they were incredible every year. A few other dynasty teams I remember were Family, Dingos, and of course, some frat teams. Athletes in Action always had teams in the top ten, so seeing their name on your schedule was always a little worrisome.

But what if the name isn't familiar? That's when the name itself can create an impression. I'm gonna peruse the UCD IM Flag Football and Soccer listings and give you my superficial opinion on what each team is probably like:

Law School Legends B: Any law school team worth it's hourly rate is going to be very good at flag football, because there are bragging rights at stake within the law school itself AND with other law schools in the area, since they often have tournaments. Could "B" refer to being the junior varsity team? If so, they won't dominate, but they'll still be good.

Labrador Casserole: Oh my goodness...no way a team with this name is actually taking soccer that seriously. They obviously chose this name because they have a sense of humor, which can be great because the best teams to play against are fun, friendly, will pull you up after a collision...the kind of people who you think: "If I wasn't friends with my friends, I'd wanna be friends with these guys." It's why playing intramurals can make you feel good even after a loss.

Of course I could be completely wrong and they could be jerks with a sense of humor. That happens all the time, but usually those teams choose a name with some sort of innuendo, like We Kick Balls. I googled Labrador Casserole--it means nothing.

The Gilmore Pirates: Gilmore is a dorm at UCD...freshman teams are usually inexperienced but hungry. The good thing, if you think winning is good, is that you'll often face a team each year that is just out there because someone organized an IM team, not because they actually like football, and that team is usually composed of freshman. It's good to get your dominate on once in a while.

PIKE: Not a good sign. Pi Kappa Alpha at Davis is composed of not very friendly guys, for the most part. We played a few Pike teams and it was never a fun experience because they would trash talk about our players and just be kinda rude in general.

Free Agent Team CB5: CB5 referring to Coed B League, Division 5. They probably just met and won't talk to each other very much, so it will be eerily quiet at many points during the game. If you win, you go home thinking: "Good solid win." If you lose...well, you won't lose because this is a team of free agents and basically they aren't very good.

In light of my brother denying me the afterglow of choosing what I THOUGHT was a fun name, here's my list of my Ten Favorite Names of Teams I've Been On:

10. Bayside Screeches - UC Davis Co-ed IM Softball, 2002-04
I know, I know: Saved by the Bell being retro-cool is soooo 2003. Well we got in on the ground floor of the SBTB retro-cool public offering and rode it for three years. It's just stupid enough that you don't take it seriously, but it was also great for team morale; we would often do the "Goooooooo BAYSIDE!" cheer with our hands in the middle after every game and it made us feel pretty good. I really feel like we were the only team doing this 5 years ago and now it's probably done to death. This name was part of the larger SBTB naming dynasty; for co-ed football, our name was Beat Valley and I'm pretty sure I went with AGC Bayside Tigers at Texas that first softball season.

9. Firefighters - Davis Little League Fall Ball, 2001
The season started two weeks after 9/11 and given that we got yellow jerseys, I think this was the only name we could have chosen. That first game was pretty surreal to me actually. Blake and I had coached AA the spring before and there were no lights on that field, so that first game at night in AAA was actually my first little league experience under the lights. With everyone yelling "Let's go, Firefighters!", it made me feel like I was part of Disney movie.

8. AGC Flower Butterflies - Texas Co-Ed IM Football, 2005
I was athletic director of the Advertising Graduate Council, and Chris Varughese and I went to sign up for IMs in early September. He said we should go with a tough name to intimidate our opponents, and the rest is history.

7. Rainbow Runners - Sunnyvale AYSO, 1987
Another tough name--this was the name of the first soccer team I played on as a kid. Why did they name us the Rainbow Runners? No idea. We were maroon. There is no maroon in a rainbow. All I can remember is that I colored in everyone's neck on the team photo. Again, I have no idea why.

6. Monta Vista Matadors - High School Baseball and Football, 1996-2000
This is a cool team name to have in high school because it's pretty unique. How many high school teams are named the Eagles or Lions or Wildcats or Mustangs? Boring. Matador is literally translated as Killer, so we were the Mountain View Killers. That is ridiculous. The only problem was the amount of "Ole!" jokes during infield practice.

5. Terror Alert: Sexy! - UC Davis Men's IM Basketball - 2004
I always liked this name, especially since we would often post that day's terror alert on the whiteboard in the apartment. Two things I remembered from this season: 1) it was second time that five of the six of us in Fountain Circle 12 played on the same intramural team, and it was the ONLY time that the five of us who were actually living in the apartment at the time played together (all of us but Blake played men's softball together in 2002, but Criss and Dan lived elsewhere), and 2) in one of these basketball games, Criss literally shot a ball over the backboard. Needless to say, this was the only season we ever played in which we did not win a game.

4. Team Andrew Ishak - Davis Little League, 2025
Okay, I'll admit this hasn't happened yet, but when I slip Heather some fertility pills and we end up having three sets of triplets in three years' time and they all get to play on the same little league team together and I coach because they all came from me, who's going to be upset if I refer to them as Team Andrew Ishak? I mean, think about it: there will be 9 little Ishaks running around on the field and paying league dues, the least you can do is honor me with a free sno-cone after the game.

What's the line on this post somehow messing with a potential coaching appointment in the future? It's a JOKE. Whatever, just read this, I'm a good coach and I like kids and I would never father 9 children in 3 years just to have them play little league together. Or maybe I would--I love little league THAT MUCH.

3. San Jose Dragon Slayers - Pacific Coptic Athletic League, 2005-present
First, check out our sweet new logo. Then, understand that the iconic image of Saint George--the patron saint of our church--is of him slaying the serpent-dragon. Other teams in the league have cool names as well, such as the Monks and Wonder Workers. I like our name because it could only be attributed to one saint, and the cardinal accent color of our uniforms matches Saint George's cape. Dude was a soldier.

2. Congress - UC Davis Men's Res Hall IM Football, 2000
Scott Ball came up with this name, and it may not sound very awesome to you. It didn't sound so cool to us until we asked Scott about it before our first game: "Scott, why are we called Congress?"

Scott's reply? "Because we lay down the law."

Awesome. I really do hope to write about the best game I've ever been a part of from that season--the Fog Bowl--sometime soon. And at number one...

1. Ryerson.com/softball presented by Nokia - UC Davis Co-ed IM Softball, 2001
Right in the middle of the dot-com burst and wave of corporate stadium names, we came up with a team name that represented the direction in which many fans thought professional team names were going. We all lived in the Ryerson dorm and this WAS a softball team, so most of the name was relevant. The Nokia part was just because. Just because of what, you ask?

Just because LEAGUE CHAMPS.

That was a perfect segue and made perfect sense.