Saturday, September 29, 2001
Early birthday wishes for Nam-Tan for tomorrow as I'll be in Hanoi on Monday through Thursday with Chuong.

Linh and I had a change of lunch plans this afternoon. She came over instead and brought over a noodle soup called “bun moc” which is specialty of the North. Then we went up to Di 10’s room so I could work on the computer while she read some Vietnamese poetry, and then we watched “The Thomas Crown Affair” which I happen to think is pretty good mind candy. After dinner, I decided I was too lazy (and still to congested) to go out to Trinh Cong Son’s concert, so I stayed home to compose this rather bland blog report.

I will, however, brighten it up a bit by telling you a story about my brother, Forrest Gump. Lobo is, in Uncle Mike’s words, “the luckiest son-of-a-bitch” you ever met. Somehow, things always fall into his lap. And the thing is, he is inexplicably affable and absolutely charming. He’s the nicest kid you ever met. He’s an avid sports fan and music lover. He gets free clothes, free shoes, free CDs and free movies. He alphabetizes his DVD collection and likes to show you his organized household cleansers when you visit his apartment. Basically, super cool.

To give you some background, Lobo works for Fred Durst, lead singer of Limp Bizkit, among other things. Bo is Fred’s right-hand man. This job fell into his lap which was prefaced by the internship at Interscope which is thanks to Uncle Mike, of course. So the first time Lobo ever goes abroad, he is granted with an all-expense paid first-class airfaire trip to London where he stayed in a five-star hotel while on tour with Limp Bizkit just this summer. That’s just the beginning.

Kiki and I were instant messaging last night on Yahoo and here is the story I got from her after we were talking about how we (my siblings and I) all treat famous people like janitors (with the same due respect). Here’s her story:

kiki_h98: Have you heard about Lobo and the Seahawks?
hanihong1973: no, what's with forrest gump?
kiki_h98: Oh MY GOD!
kiki_h98: You'll love this.
kiki_h98: Lobo got to be friends with some agent guy who manages some players, one of whom is a player for the Seattle Seahawks.
kiki_h98: That player wants to be a rap artist or something so he and Bo have chatted lightly a few times.
kiki_h98: Bo saw them play some pre-season games where the guy got hurt. He called his agent friend and said, "Hey tell him I'm really bummed he got hurt but I'm looking forward to seeing him in the playoffs cuz I know they'll make it."
kiki_h98: So the PLAYER calls Lobo back and says, "Hey man, thanks for calling, that was really nice of you. I wanna fly you and five of your friends to Seattle for any of our games with all access passes and you can watch from the sidelines."
kiki_h98: So Lobo's flying three friends from Arlington and is taking the nephew of the guy who owns Interscope and another Interscope executive to the game.
kiki_h98: Friends + networking.
kiki_h98: This is our brother.

It’s all really too funny. Typical Lobo. Forrest Gump.
So that’s really all I have to tell for today. I love my family. They rock. xxoo Hani