Every day, when I wake up, I weigh the pros and cons of,

Lately, it’s always been A, A, and A, you know?

Work is more important, I guess.

But then I started thinking: On Saturdays or Sundays — a day like today — when nobody comes in, why not work at the office in a pant-free environment?

Is the minimal, inconsequential risk of being caught, humiliated, and made the departmental weirdo not worth the carnal delights of smooth, non-chafed buttocks and the opportunity to feel the crisp, cool air on your loins — all the while doing earth-shattering mathematical research?

Your call, dear readers.

It was a while ago. I never got around to posting a picture.

What can I say? I was young, naive, carefree, hopeless.

But she just wasn’t that into me.

Seeing how it’s Monday night, and I have nothing better to do, I’m going to talk to you about a subject which may, perhaps at first, seem silly and inane; but with some clarity and deeper thought, you might come to realize its hidden importance.

Okay, that’s not true. It’s pretty stupid all the way through.

But anyways, the subject tonight is regarding one of Google’s April Fools jokes. Did you manage to catch the one about Google Paper?

According to the site, Google was offering Gmail users the ability to receive their e-mails via hard copy printouts — up to a hundred thousand copies. This included high quality glossy prints of any photo attachments, attached to the Google Paper, which, by the way, was 96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum.

Got all that?

Now, I want you to pull your eyes towards the picture of the female Google model above, sitting on the bench and using the laptop. In case you haven’t noticed, she is what I would call ‘mindfuckingly hot’.

See, when I first saw this April Fools joke, it started me thinking: Google controls our lives, right?

I use Google Mail as a central hub for my billion of school and personal accounts, I use Google Calendar to organize my life, Google Maps to go where I need to go, Google Search to do research and Google Books to sample books and Google Scholar to find articles. Hell, I even use Google to spell-check my documents, and to convert feet to meters.

So is Google Women or Google Girls entirely out of reach? Will Google one day provide me with dates and potential love interests?

All I have to say is, if they all look like her, sign me up, yo.

She was just sitting there. On one of the sarcophagi.

It probably housed the bones of some rich archbishop in the 18th century, but she wasn’t bothered. After all, she was on a coffee break.

I tapped her on the shoulder.

“Do you mind,” I asked, “If I take your picture?”

She sipped her coffee and gave me an inquisitive look.

“No,” she said finally, “Not at all.”

And so I did.

In the last post, I handed the torch to fellow blogger Dave, along with the request to comment on the news of the Hollywood adaptation of the ‘true’ story of a group of Asian-American MIT students winning big in Vegas. The result was the recently released 21 — but now with white actors and actresses replacing the shamefully geeky geeks.

Dave replied in a typical Dave-like manner (That is, incoherently raving about nothing in particular, and supplementing his argument with hastily photoshop-ed pictures. Did he, by the way, even use Photoshop? Looks more like Microsoft Paint to me).

But he makes the point that,

Dave oh Dave. Allow me to rebut.

The status quo is changing. Minutely, perhaps. But it’s changing nonetheless.

No, you’re right. The really big Asians names in Hollywood probably only include Jackie Chan and Jet Li — and both do nothing to deter the Asian kung-fu-master stereotype (that’s assuming we’re not including the likes of Keanu Reaves who, by the way, has a minute droplet of Asian blood).

But there are certainly names that have recently inched the status quo in our favour.

Let’s start with Yul Kwon (South Korean), who graduated both from Stanford and Yale, then worked briefly for Google. However, you might know him as the winner of Survivor: Cook Islands during the infamous season when the castaways were first split into tribes according to race (I wrote about it here).

In winning, he not only blasted pretty much every single Asian stereotype out of the water, but he was also named one of People Magazine’s Sexiest Men of the Year.

That’s Exhibit A, Dave.

For Exhibit B, we turn to Maggie Q who starred alongside Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible III, then had a far more memorable role as the girl who kicked Bruce Willis’ ass for most of Die Hard 4 until he um…threw her down an elevator shaft.

Okay, I’m cheating a bit, here, because Maggie Q is only half Asian (a feisty product of a Polish father and a Vietnamese mother), and if we were to open that door, I suppose we could also bring in Kristen Kreuk (of Smallville fame).

But there are other examples: Michelle Yeoh, the first Asian bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies and another one of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful. And don’t forget Grace Park who plays Number Six in the hit show Battlestar Galactica, also named in the 2006 Maxim’s Online Hottest 100 List.

And this, my dear friend, brings us to the last exhibit.

I chose one that would be close to your heart.

Daniel Dae Kim plays Jin on the television series Lost. But I know what you’re thinking: large ensemble cast — the casters would have had to put in an Asian actor for political reasons, anyways.

But no, the reason why I bring him up (in addition to the fact he’s another one of People Magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive) is the fact you can often spot him comfortably cruising around on bus billboards ever since he’s teamed up with Gap.

In your blog post, Dave, you asked, “What’s the point?”.

While these are indeed exceptional and rare example, perhaps the point is that the situation is not as hopeless as you once imagined.

There’s still the possibility of change.