Manny Pacquiao, right, lands a punch against Antonio Margarito during the eleventh round of their WBC light middleweight title boxing match Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

I was going to blog about how Pacquiao’s beat down on Margarito made him look like that Korean woman who injected vegetable oil in her face — but I thought that would be uncouth of me.

Instead, I am just going to give you a record of my tweets from that evening. Enjoy.

@DinoRay At Cowboys Stadium watching Pacquiao! Ringside seats! Go Zyrene!

@DinoRay Nelly is performing. It must be October 2000.

@DinoRay I like how Head & Shoulders sponsors Pacquiao. He is very open about his dandruff problem.

@DinoRay I think Margarito has a glass eye.

No, I wasn’t actually at Cowboys Stadium. I was sitting in front of a TV and there was an illusion that I was ringside.

The craziest, raunchiest, bloodiest, and nakediest show on television has made room for an Asian American character.

Yay!

The omniscient TV writers, Michael Ausiello and Andy Patrick of Entertainment Weekly got the scoop on some of the new characters on the roster for season 4 of True Blood — and one of them is a girl named Naomi! She’s described as “an Asian American cage fighter who, outside of the ring…er, cage…is hot-’n’-heavy with one of her female competitors.”

It appears that the show is adding another lesbian layer to the mix. There’s nothing wrong with that — especially if it involves cage fighting. I am picturing G.L.O.W. with fangs and less clothing.

For those of you who don’t watch the show, this new character should give you enough reason to start watching. I mean, c’mon — it has vampires, nudity, cage fighting and now an Asian American character. What more can you ask for?

But we weren’t there for the entertainment. We were there for Takorea (get it? Ta-KOREA — like Taqueria!), a fairly new Korean taco truck (check out their cool logo above!) that has been traveling around San Francisco — actually I think they just hang around the 4th and Brannan area.

My friends have been raving about a Korean taco truck they frequented while in L.A. There is one in San Jose, but when they found out about this one, they stalked it like an unhappy suburban middle aged man looking for a cheap hooker in a seedy part of a major metropolitan area.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out they had a vegetarian option and I inhaled that like a mo’ fo — and my mouth was on fire — in the best way possible.

Fast forward to today, and there’s a New York Times article about Korean tacos that has been circulating amongst the masses — which means one of two things: 1.) the delicacy is in the zeitgeist or 2.) it’s become mainstream and is no longer hip.

In any matter, the truck will be forever on my Twitter radar so that I can follow it (they need to start expanding their menu with shrimp tacos and they need to start serving lunch).

Nonetheless, I guess we can add another cool mobile eatery for yuppies and hipsters to the list.

Chan and Smith get jiggy with it in “The Karate Kid”

Harald Zwart, the director of The Karate Kid (out in theaters June 11) said the following to ComingSoon.net:

To me, it was never a remake; it’s a retelling of a story.

So despite what people are writing about this movie, it isn’t a remake. It’s a retelling; I repeat a retelling. It’s just a story about a kid who moves out of his adored hometown to a place he doesn’t like only to be bullied by the locals who are fluently deadly in martial arts. He befriends the maintenance man of his building and he teaches him the art of kung fu (karate, kung fu, what’s the difference – a martial art is a martial art, right?). He also falls for a girl whose affluent parents don’t approve of him. Oh yeah – lest not forget the title of the movie: The Karate Kid.

Do you see the distinction? It is nothing like the iconic movie of the same title from 1984 that made Ralph Macchio a centerfold in Tiger Beat and served as the coronation of William Zabka as the “King of all ‘80s teen movie pricks.” It spawned numerous sequels, embedded quotable quotes in the pop culture lexicon (i.e. “Wax on, wax off” and “Sweep the leg!”) and gave us a soundtrack that is and was “The Best Around.”

Detaching myself from comparisons, watching Jaden Smith as the young underdog Dre and his mentor, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) was, for the most part, enjoyable and I just love Taraji P. Henson as Dre’s mom — even if her role was just to stand there like a prop be a mom. Even so, I wasn’t invested as much as they were — and it was a longer “retelling” of a story that didn’t need to be retold in the first place. All of it mixed well like a cake made from a box of Duncan Hines. If it was made from scratch, it probably would’ve tasted better. I left the theater appreciating the original a lot more and thought, “I wonder if this movie came out because they wanted to up the sales and appreciation of Karate Kid DVDs?” If so, it worked. I immediately went home and watched Ralph Macchio teach his love interest, Ali-with-an-I (Elisabeth Shue) bounce a soccer ball on her knees.

There seems to be this quiet uproar from the Asian community when it comes to some of the Asian-centric films coming out this summer. First, there was Jake Gyllenhaal and how he was not Persian and how he was the lead in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Then there was (and still is) a little spat about The Last Airbender, the anime-to-movie adaptation that hardly casted any Asians. That said, I am sure that if I exhaustedly dissected the movie, my Asian “fists of fury” would come out; finding some sort of unfair portrayal of the Chinese. There is the whole debate about why this is called The Karate Kid when the entire movie revolves around kung-fu and the movie also offers the caveat that everyone in China happens to know kung-fu. In fact, Aly Morita (daughter of Pat Morita who played Mr. Miyagi in the original) boycotted the remake because of all these debates. All of this is explained very well in a post written by a fellow 8Asians.com writer, Edward — so I won’t really go into it. He does a better job of explaining.

As far as stereotypes go, I have no problem with people thinking that all Asians know kung-fu. I am one the most uncoordinated people around when it comes to any type of sport — so I’ll just let ignorant people believe that I can kick ass.

All snark aside, the original left a significant imprint in our culture so how can we not associate it with this cinematic paint-by-numbers retelling? It’s only natural to see that this is an homage which leads me to believe that the studios would have been better off re-releasing the original.

The climactic final round of 1984′s “The Karate Kid”

Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a B and despite all the comparisons and Asian protests, my favorite entertainment mag gave it more credit than it deserves. Having seen the movie earlier this week, I would give it a C at best. I enjoyed the winks and nudges to the original (i.e. catching a fly with chopsticks, waxing a car, the group of Cobra Kai-esque bad boys) — and I think that was the problem. It was too much like the original and not a parallel. If it was more of a refreshing take on the story like Fame (yes, it was a bad film, but a new angle nonetheless), I probably would’ve enjoyed it more. Sure, it was entertaining and I was rooting for him in the end — but the similarities between the final “finish him” moment were uncanny to Daniel Larusso’s crane kick to Johnny’s face. Plus, there was no one obnoxiously yelling, “Put him in a body bag Johnny!” in the background.

See?! You cannot escape the comparisons.

I started giving my take on Asian Americans in pop culture a couple of weeks ago and it’s been pretty darn fun. I am just doing my civic duty by reppin’ my culture with my “fists of fury” – except instead of fists, I use words…and instead of fury I try to be funny. So I reppin’ my culture with “words of funny”

You can check out my posts here!

His name is Lin Yu Chun and the homeboy can sing – but he looks like a Cabbage Patch Kid. Like Susan, he needs a bit of a makeover.

Then there’s this kid:

Sure, he’s lip syncing – but this definitely outdoes the other dude when it comes to performance and general effect.

P.S. Props to Zaid for sharing the Ke$ha boy vid

Having lived there before, I do miss the easy access to live music, so going back to delve into SXSW was quite exciting – but it’s like a bombardment of live music. It’s overwhelming – stressful even.

Nonetheless, one night after an evening of listening to Talib Kweli, Estelle, and watching rhythmless drunken girls dance on a bar that reeked of vomit, we ended the night at Spill, a bar on the celebrated street of college co-ed debauchery called 6th Street.

Lyrics Born and Joyo Velarde at SXSW. Please forgive the badly taken pictures

I was starting to lose steam realizing that I was not 21 years old anymore, but then I heard some music that gave me a little bounce. The last act of the evening in Spill was Lyrics Born and Joyo Velarde, two Asian American hip-hop and soul artists from the Bay Area.

Now that I claim the San Francisco Bay Area I was pumping my fist in the air in a non-douchelike manner and jammin’ out with the crowd – and it was the first time I heard of them.

I wondered why it took me so damn long to even hear of this group. I felt so unhip and a disgrace to my Asian American brethren.

I really need to brush up on my Fil-Am and Asian pop. I used to be such a groupie when it came to that stuff. I think it’s time to reincarnate my dormant groupie.

While teaching his architecture class, Ted (Josh Radnor) makes fun of a name on his roster: Cook Poo (or is it Kuk Pu?), thinking that someone put that name the roster as a joke. Turns out it’s a real student who is Asian (of course). She gets offended and drops out of his class.

The 2001 militant Asian in me would’ve gotten all pissy over this situation. I probably would’ve boycotted the show, made picket signs and flew to CBS studios and caused a big ol’ hoopla – but I have mellowed out since then. Even though there is probably a brigade of Asian American progressives who would take those kinds of actions, the rest of us see the humor in the ordeal.

For one, it makes Ted look unbelievably ignorant – and throughout the episode his friends make sure he knows that. Secondly, it shows that Asian names are becoming easier to pronounce and people who aren’t familiar with the culture are embracing foreign names. Lastly, the name is just plain funny like any other name in a different culture: Amanda Hugginkiss, Seymour Butts, Sanjaya Malakar, Miley Cyrus, etc. etc.

I am sure that this ‘Cook Poo’ incident won’t cause an uproar, but I just wanted to reiterate why it shouldn’t. If it does offend, then perhaps you need to lighten up. I am sure there is a Cook Poo somewhere in the world who found this episode hilarious.

John Park only hinted at the “I’m-in-an-Asian-family-therefore-my-parents-want-to-be-an-engineer/doctor-excuse” so that doesn’t make him the annoying typical reality show competition Asian boy.

With his emo/preppy Pete Wentz bangs and his bellowing baritone, Park made waves in his audition in Chicago a couple weeks ago – and he made Shania Twain get all hot and bothered with her phallic and booty innuendos. What a naughty girl.

That said, he has the potential to make panties swoon – but Michael Slezak and Jessica Shaw from EW.com said he can potentially be this season’s Adam Lambert.

Depending on what they mean, there may not be any panty swooning action.

Nonetheless, this frat boy can sing. I say he may be this season’s Anoop. I mean, c’mon – they have to have a token Asian on that show, right?

I was delighted to see Nikki Soohoo representing in The Lovely Bones.

I love her name because it rhymes with Yoo-hoo.