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As if Edison didn’t have enough problems already with his current sex photo scandal……

Yesterday, I was alerted this latest development - T-shirts that are turning the scandal’s key catch phrases (i.e. “silly and naive”) and other references into a cash cow. Looks like Clot is going to have some competition on their hands. On another note, I’ve got to hand it to Hong Kong people - They can turn anything into an opportunity to make money and/or a fashion statement…..just recall the fashion masks that were sold and used during the SARs epidemic.

If you are interested in purchasing one of these shirts, they are available on-line here. Just know that you’ll be paying in Hong Kong dollars and will probably need to pay for a lot of shipping. Also kindly note, I normally wouldn’t offer any company such as shameless plug like this, but these shirts are just too funny not to share. Enjoy!

[UPDATE] FanBan, the company behind the “Edison, Shoot Me Too” T-Shirt Collection has a MySpace and has made their T-Shirts available to the U.S. and Canada through the CafePress.com

About a week and half after starting my blog last, last Friday (2/15), I have now reached my first significant milestone as a blogger. My blog has been viewed over 1,000 times!!

Thank you for reading and a big thank you to Edison Chen. I couldn’t have done it without you. Because of your sex photo scandal and the many intrigued and possibly perverted individuals looking for up-to-the-minute gossip and the actually photos, my blog jumped from about 2-3 total views to an impressive 210 views in only 8 hours after I posted my second entry about the Edison Chen scandal (which, by the way, is very impressive by my standards, though rather very insignificant compared to more established blogs). Incidentally, my number of views again jumped today after I did a follow up on Edison for my eight entry.

Thanks again everyone, please come back and read even after Edison is not hot news anymore. Also, please leave me a comment. I would be most grateful, if you would weigh in on any of my random rants and raves.

Note: My excitement stems from the fact that all my previous blogs (Xanga and Blogspot) probably did not amount to more than 100 views total. I’ve had the Xanga blog since about 2002 or 2003, but I would post about 2 a year.

A couple of days ago, I had crazy craving to eat fondue, melted cheese and bread to be exact. It probably developed as a result of eating a LOT of bread and butter (a fancy loaf of sweet batard bread from the French bakery in Berkeley, La Farine and some very high-end, locally-made, butter with minced garlic from Mollie Stone’s) over the course of the day.

Anyhow, to appease my cravings I looked up several different recipes for fondue on The Food Network. Did you know that there is alcohol in fondue? Most recipes called for a dry white wine but you could also put Vodka, Brandy or beer into the mix. Here I was thinking that all I would need is a chunk of cheese and some seasoning. So I picked a Swiss fondue recipe that sounded easy enough to pull off…and headed to Lucky’s.

At the deli section, I walked in circles around the cheese section but to my (not too surprised) dismay, none of the cheeses on my list were sold. What I did find though was a some instant fondue in a box.

“Made in Switzerland” said the back of the box, so it can’t be that bad. I took it home and set off to test out my new foodie find. After roasting some minced garlic for flavor, adding the packaged cheese mixture, stirring and added a touch of paprika, I was done. Took some bread and I ate until I couldn’t eat anymore.

For less than $10, this was a very good fondue, especially when you consider how much fondue restaurants will charge you per person, for the same pot of cheese (more or less).

The following night, I made the same pot with the second half of the packaged cheese mixture for my brother and my cousin. Both approved as well, even impressed that such delicious fondue could come from a box.

Lesson Learned: Don’t discount food just because it comes ready-made in a box. It just might be a delicious meal. I recommend all readers of this blog who are not lactose intolerant to go out and buy some instant fondue and try it. It’s a well-worth it, piece of heaven in your mouth, even if it means regretting all the cheese and bread you ate the next day.

In an update to my post last week on the Edison Chen Scandal, I’ve decided to follow-up in light of recent, rather interesting developments to the whole fiasco.

Last week, Edison Chen made his “promised” return to Hong Kong and held a press conference to express his apologies and, more surprisingly, to announce his indefinite departure from the HK entertainment industry.

To watch the whole press conference, click on the video compiled and edited together by the South China Morning Post below:

Prior to Edison’s return from his self-imposed exile/hiding in the U.S. and Canada, the rumor mill on many Asian entertainment gossip blogs were flying off the charts. Here are my top picks:

• Edison Chen proposed to current girlfriend and reluctant adult film star, Vincy Yeung in a public relations bid to “clean up” his image, but was rejected (allegedly, multiple times). Vincey was said to have been following the advise of her family, who by the way owns Edison’s management company EEG Entertainment.
• Nicolas Tse and Cecilia Cheung were also rumored to have headed for divorce over the photos because it was alleged that Cecilia had been unfaithful while they were dating and during their marriage. Several strategic public outings, including a co-signed congratulatory gift to Aaron Kwok for his recent concert, are quickly putting these rumors to bed.
• Hong Kong’s triad bosses, who are known to pull all the strings in HK’s seedy entertainment industry, had put a bounty on Edison for tarnishing the industry. These gangsters were either after his life or his hand, which was why Edison was hiding out in Canada and in the U.S.

PR Analysis – Reassessment
In my first post, I made a few predictions about the careers of the three highest-profile individuals involved based on their pre-scandal image and their post-scandal crisis communications strategies.

My guess is that Edison and Cecilia will still be able to get film work though they both will be typed cast that the “baddie” or the “kid from the wrong side of the tracks.”……. Gillian’s career however is likely to suffer the most since she is built her entire image on being squeaky clean and chaste.

Approximately one week later, let’s see how my analysis and assessment has fared so far:

• Edison Chen:Last Thursday (2/21), he announced an “indefinite” break from the Hong Kong entertainment industry in order devote his time to charity and soul-searching. This definitely was a very unexpected move, as I had anticipated that he would have been very confident in his ability to ride out the controversy and continue on with his life, status quo. Personally, I think that this maybe the smartest PR move that he has made since the whole thing started. With all the heat and criticism that he has received, his best (and possibly only) option is to lay low, very, very low, for a very long time. I suspect that he is banking on the media frenzy to eventually die down and move on to the next hot story to capture the Chinese people’s imagination and slowly start to erase all memory of his illicit photos from public concern. SCMP reported that his decision had received applause as well as doubts. (subscription required). Additionally, he was also smart to call it an “indefinite” break, which gives him leeway to make a possible, come back (but it would need to extremely well maneuvered by a very experienced and savvy public relations/publicity team). Though he has plenty to keep him occupied in the meantime, such as his many entrepreneurial ventures — from nightclubs to a clothing line, Clot. Last year, I read in an article from the San Francisco Chronicle in which he hoped to fashion himself into China’s Jay-Z. Good luck with that now, Edison.

• Cecilia Cheung: While most certainly not immune to rumors and criticism, it looks like Cecilia has been the more successful in continuing working without as much public outrage, as expected. It was a smart move for her to focus on more closed-door work (like filming or recording) as opposed to large venue publicity events. Interestingly enough, she has not made any public statement, which has actually worked to her advantage. From the look of her PR strategy, by not trying to win public forgiveness (especially, for something that she probably isn’t that sorry about) she is not faced with the public opinion about her sincerity and such. It also helps that that “good girl” character has never been apart of her public personal. Gillian, as we can see below, should really take notes from Cecilia’s people.

• Gillian Cheng: Also as expected, Gillian’s career has definitely taken a lot of heavy and hard hits, especially after her much criticized public apology/”I was naive and silly” statement. From her publicly-panned appearance on a recent TVB program to an emotional breakdown that has lead her to pull-out of a movie and several public appearances, and now to banned from performing at the Opening Ceremony during the 2008 Beijing Olympic—it’s really not looking good for this girl.

From the look at most of the headlines, the recent death of beloved HK comedian, Lydia Sum passed away, which has redirected much of the media attention in the recent days. Only time will tell how this will all play out, though unless more sex photo/video scandals pop up, the Hong Kong entertainment industry is unlikely to become more forgiving, or even becoming a career-maker for unknown would-be celebrity like Hollywood. But then again, that might be a really good thing.

• Monopoly - Probably an ensemble comedy about a bunch of would-be millionaires and money makers. In accordance to the game, someone will be thrown in jail, and someone will become rich, building properties on Broadway and Park Place while taking away more money from the residents of low-income housing and properties at Baltic Avenue.
• Candy Land - A kid’s fantasy movie thats probably computer-animated or possessing of a lot of CGI. I can’t help but think that this film will look like its on crack, like someone threw up cotton candy everywhere. It will be perfect for little girls everywhere who think of themselves as a princess.
• Clue - If I recall correctly, the earliest board game based-movie was Clue, which was made in 1985 (so I guess the new Clue movie will be either a remake or a sequel) which was actually pretty funny and entertaining but not commercially successful. Perhaps Universal is hoping to cash in on the cult following, as the original Clue movie did not gain traction until now.
• Ouiji - A family-friendly ghost story that’s similar to Jamanji. It will be about a bunch of good-looking kids who summon a great evil through their nifty Hasbro Ouji board that’s been cursed by the devil.
• Battleship - A war movie thats based on an aircraft carrier during which someone will say “You sunk my battle ship!”
• Magic, the Gathering - A LOTR or Narnia wannabe that will be an ode to the fantasy/science fiction geeks who love it. Though it would be more hilarious if it were coming of age story about Magic geeks who battle in basements after school.
• Stretch Arm Strong - Probably a cheesy/too-much CGI super hero movie that’s in the same league with Under Dog, which got a 15% on Rotton Tomatoes, by the way.

Have we really become such busy and uninspired individuals that we are reduced to stealing MySpace and Match.com profiles or even paying people to write our profiles so that we might get a date? According to The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times Magazine, apparently we have and here are our options:

• Los Angeles Times Magazine - Apparently, you can outsource your on-line profile management to specialized companies like this one and hire copy writers to come up with some witty and charming headlines and profiles.
  
• The Wall Street Journal - Beware of the newest breed of on-line thieves - they’ll steal your on-line profiles –from headlines to favorite music selection to poems that express ones self.

While on-line dating is pretty commonplace these days, this is a new low. So many people are unable to articulate and express their personalities through words in the on-line space in addition to being unable to engage people in “live” social situations, that they have become an exploited market opportunity for profit. But then again, it’s not that surprising either.Though if that’s their approach to love, it doesn’t seem likely that they will know how to develop and cultivate any new-found relationships if they are more willing to invest their money instead of their time……do these people even realize the time commitment thats needed for a relationship, or maybe they are really just looking for a one night stand. It’s anyone’s guess really….anyone have any thoughts?

Public Relations Note:
After reading these two articles and noting the similar timing of each, I am pretty confident that these are both PR-influenced pieces that was timed for Valentine’s Day (but feel free to correct me if I am wrong). While the WSJ took a more sinister angle about stolen profiles, I couldn’t help but notice that the on-line dating copywriter, e-cyrano.com was cited in both articles.

Literary Note:
On another side-note, e-cyrano is a very clever name, though I had to explain its meaning to a couple of people who also read the article. It doesn’t seem like people are very familiar with the Cyrano de Bergerac story though I am sure that they have seen its storyline played out on some movie or sitcom once before, like “Seinfeld” and “Boy Meets World.”

The Mystery Spot

Having grown up relatively local to the Santa Cruz area, I estimate that I have been to the Mystery Spotabout four times through out my life. Today, I made visit #5 with a couple of friends who have never been. For me, this place was entertaining the first time around and if you space your visits over several years, it can still be entertaining. Nevertheless, it’s one big fat tourist trap (and an extremely successful one at that!).While my friends ooh’ed and ahh’ed throughout the whole tour, I was a bit cynical as many of my high school science teachers made a point to drill that into my head its just an illusion. To help explain and with a little help of Google, I was able to dig up these simple-to-read explanations:

• “Santa Cruz ‘Mystery Spot’ Explained”, Berkelyan, 1998 - Psychological theory that explains the optical illusions at The Mystery Spot.
• “Mystery Spot” by Illusion Works, LLC - Nice summary explanation for all the crazy Mystery Spot happenings that the tour guides explain.

One thing that I was glad to see is that the price of admission and parking has not become outrageous, still just $5 for 1 ticket and $5 to park. When I go to other tourist traps and amusement parks these days, I almost feel faint when I see how much the price has jumped…..Disneyland being one big example. Nice to know that you can still find “attractions” that don’t completely rip you off.

Marketing the Mystery Spot

If you grew up and lived in Northern California, it’s hard to have not seen the “iconic” Mystery Spot bumper sticker on at least one car on the highway. In looking for a photo of this bumper sticker, I was amused to find so many discussion about these stickers on-line:

• Yahoo! Answers
• Yelp

As one reviewer pointed out on Yelp, it’s an ingenious marketing plan. For some reason, some people feel more than willing to stick a free bumper sticker on their car. It’s a quirky low-cost marketing gimmick, on the part of the Mystery Spot, that’s obviously helped spark the interest and curiosity of many, many tourists to visit. The tour guide claimed that they can receive up to 800-900 visitors a day during the summer. That’s a lot of suckers, uhm….I mean visitors (myself included).

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

After the Mystery Spot, we headed over to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, yet another piece of my childhood. It’s hard to believe that this oceanfront amusement park is over 100 years old. According to Wikipedia, it first opened in 1907 and has survived to be California’s oldest amusement park. Fancy that.I accompanied my friend on one of the roller coaster type pendulum ride. While these types of rides don’t usually scare me too much (but I’ll admit that I’ll scream once I am up in the air and falling down), I shouldn’t have drank that blended ice chai beforehand. About half way through the ride, I felt sick and couldn’t look because the dizziness was making me so nauseous. Meanwhile, my friend was freaking out. Afterwards, we decided to stick to the kiddie rides and games like bumper cars and the haunted house. I guess its a sign that my time of youthful fearlessness is passing or that my self-proclaimed casted iron stomach isn’t as strong as it used to be.

USDA Makes Nation’s Largest Beef Recall

By GREG RISLINGLOS, Associated Press

ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday ordered the recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a California slaughterhouse, the subject of an animal-abuse investigation, that provided meat to school lunch programs.

Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. No illnesses have been linked to the newly recalled meat, and officials said the health threat was likely small.

Now this is a rather disturbing headline, especially after the beefy meals that I have had in the past two days. This quote is was especially disturbing:

Officials estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school programs, but they believe most of the meat probably has already been eaten.

As an avid consumer of beef, I now mentally recalling all of the beef-based meals that I have had in the last few days and it’s not looking pretty. Granted, one comforting thing to keep in mind is that the “officials” say that the beef is unlikely to be contaminated with mad cow disease and that the recall was not made because of illnesses linked to the beef in question, but because of animal cruelty issues.

Interestingly enough, newspapers began reporting on Friday that schools in their local area were pulling the beef from their cafeteria menus because the USDA began to probe the slaughterhouse in Chino, California as a result of a video released by the Human Society. (As a side note, I couldn’t help but notice that most of the schools that I read about were in the south….I wonder why they didn’t purchase meat from a local company….that’s an awful far distance to be transporting raw meat even if it is frozen. But I guess not everyone can follow in the footsteps of Google’s corporate cafeteria, Cafe 150, where all foods serve were grown, produced and raise within 180 mile radius of the Google campus.

Still, even though there is no report of contamination and I sure hope that no one falls ill. Either way, I think that I’ll be eating pork, chicken and fish until this whole thing clears up.

From a public relation’s stand point, I couldn’t help but look up what kinds of press releases where being issues on the recall:

• National Cattlemen’s Beef Association issued a statement via PR Newswire almost immediately after the USDA announcement. Looks like the NCBA were very diligent in monitoring the story and had anticipated the recall in order to get this statement out so quickly.
• USDA release the entire transcript of the spoken announcement via PR NewsChannel and their website. I personally have never used PR NewsChannel nor have I ever issued a press conference transcript over the wire, so I wonder if this is a special government wire and if the transcript is a standard government public relations/public affairs. Anybody know?

Becoming Jane

I couldn’t help but notice that this movie had many very suspicious parallels to “Pride and Prejudice” such as the typical “I find Mr. X so arrogant and full of himself” in the beginning then start to flirt and fall in love after a series of encounters. Though its sad to think that the real Jane Austen might have fell in love young but could never bring herself to marry anyone else. But I suppose that it’s one way of explaining the constant themes and plots of her novels. What this movie really has going for it is the chemistry between Anne Hathaway’s Jane and James Mcavoy’s Tom that really drove this story. Some scenes gave me goosebumps or perhaps it is the Jane Austen fan in me that causes me to feed on these kinds of romance stories. In another unrelated note, I would almost argue that there was more chemistry between James Mcavoy and Anne Hathaway than James Mcavoy and Kiera Knightley in Atonement.

La Vie en Rose

First off, the acting by the lead actress, Marion Coittilard, was incredible! She switches from a vibrant and idealistic youth to the proud and carefree established singer to the slowly deteriorating but determined Edith Piaf in her old age throughout the whole movie. But what kind of drove me crazy was that this movie was fractured, flashing back and forth and back and forth between the singer’s youth and her approaching death. If I hadn’t read her biography on Wikipedia before I watched this movie, I would be even more confused. I think what was the hardest to follow was who was who. Besides the title character, it was hard to keep track of all her people because you only see them for moments before flash to another period of life. Then when that character (I think) comes back into the film, they look so different because of age that I don’t pick up on the fact that its the same character as before. Perhaps this is just the way that the French make their movies, or perhaps I have been spoiled too much by Hollywood spelling everything out for me in bio pics.

Assembly (集 結 號)

As I was falling asleep one night, DL was watching this new war movie called, Assembly from Mainland China. He calls it the Chinese version of “Saving Private Ryan.” From what I could hear and from what I read online so far, this movie looks really, really good. Feel free to correct me if I am incorrect for saying this, but I think that this would be China’s first big commercial epic war movie about on the civil war between the Guo Ming Dang (KMT) and the Communists in the years following World World II. More on this movie, once I get around to watching it.

U.S. Media Coverage

Two weeks after the Edison Chen sex photos first surfaced on the Internet, the scandal made headlines in many of the top U.S. daily newspapers, including New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Even one of the top tech industry trade magazine, ComputerWorld, has chimed in on their thoughts of the story. Given that the Chinese celebrities involved are fairly unknown or pretty low on the Hollywood C-list, it was interesting to read the different angles being taken by these non-Chinese publications who have just gotten wind of the story this week:

• NYT focused on the free speech infringements made by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments by hunting down and arresting the bloggers who circulate and post the illicit photos.

• WSJ on the other hand brought up the discussion that the photos have raised in China and Hong Kong’s more conservative societies. One interesting analogy came from an advertising executives whose aunts and grandmother has asked to see the original photographs and felt compelled to discuss it.

• ComputerWorld obviously took a more tech stand point, blogging about the dos and don’ts of bringing in your computer for repairs and suggested backing up such photos on an external hard drive (if you choose to be so foolish as to keep such photos).

Public Relations Analysis

From a public relations stand point, I have been most interested in how these celebrities will handle their crisis communications and whether or not they will be able to continue their careers in Hong Kong’s entertainment industry. Will any of them be able to pull off a Paris Hilton and parlay the publicity from these sex photos into a career booster?

Though I doubt that any of them will be so lucky, my guess is that Edison and Cecilia will still be able to get film work though they both will be typed cast that the “baddie” or the “kid from the wrong side of the tracks.” It should be noted that both have played one or the other types of characters before, but it seems unlikely that they will every play the innocent, good kid characters again.

Gillian’s career however is likely to suffer the most since she is built her entire image on being squeaky clean and chaste. Not only that, but people have been quick to point out the hypocrisy of these photos given the bucket of tears fuss she made about the paparazzi taking photos of her changing last year.

Crisis Communications At Work

If any of them manages to really turn it around and make come back, I’d give them props. But I’ll have to wait and see, but so far, I have not been impressed by any of their PR/publicist’s recommendations and subsequent actions:

• When the photos first appeared, Gillian Chung’s management agency, Emperor Entertainment Group (EEG), immediately denied that the photos were authentic and filed a police report.
  • Honesty is always the best policy; EEG should have verified the photos with their clients before issuing any kind of statements (but then again the starlet would have probably denied their authenticity, so either way, EEG would likely be in this pickle regardless). The backlash from denying anything especially when it is lie/wrong doing on the part of the company is usually disastrous.

• Gillian Chung made a public statement and appearance, apologizing for the photos without confirming her involvement but calling herself “naive” and “silly.”
  • While she should be commended for actually making a statement in public unlike the other starlets involved, but giving off the ‘oops, my bad….let’s move on’ vibe as many publications have indicated would have been better played had she not already donned the ‘innocent victim and chaste young girl’ role in handling her previous paparazzi photo scandal. Now she faces criticism for being a hypocrite in addition to a sex pot.

  
  

• Edison Chen made public plea for decency and half ass-ed apology on his blog via recorded video. This video has since been largely circulated on YouTube.
  • “Lame” –that’s the first word that popped into my mind when I watched this. Not only did his English sound so awkward (especially since he’s a native speaker from Canada), but something about his statement being made on-line seemed off-kilter to me. If he insisted on speaking directly to the public this when, then I think he should have spoke in Chinese and used a more authentic way of speaking then his quasi-formal choice of words.
    
    
  • I feel like he should have first issued a written statement on the wire and then make a public statement whenever he decides to come out of hiding. Trying to do the viral marketing thing when your scandal began and grew virally, seemed like a poor choice. Now, people have more material to work with:
    
    

To start off, let me introduce myself. Hello, My name is Daisy and this is my blog. Growing up, it was unusual for me to find any other kids named “Daisy”….not that this was a bad thing. Though interestingly enough, I did find that many of my classmates’ families (even one family member) would name their pets –dogs, cats and cows, “Daisy”.

My online alias is dayseye, which was based on my name’s definition (see below). I have used this name for as long as I have blogged, which first began sometime before blogs were called “blogs.” That blog has long since been abandon (plus the blog server/platform no longer exists either) along with its other not very successful reincarnations. Hope this new venture will stand the test of times.

Daisy \da(i)-sy\ — Old English origin, and its meaning is “day’s eye”. A name for a flower with white petals and yellow disc at the center, much like the sun.

On another interesting but unrelated note, the name “Daisy” is on the rise among parents of new babies. As you can see from chart 1, “Daisy” has slowly been gaining traction since my birth, but hopefully more so among humans than pets.

Chart 1: Popularity of the name “Daisy” from 1880 - 2000

Other notable Daisy(s):

• Princess Daisy: Character from Nintendo’s Super Mario Brother Series
• Daisy Duck: Long-time girlfriend of Disney’s Donald Duck
• Daisy Buchanan: Adulteress from “The Great Gatsby”
• Miss Daisy Wertham: Title Character of “Driving Miss Daisy”
• Daisy Dukes: “Dukes of Hazzard” Character, famous for her hot pants