Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: satire

My tongue-in-cheek self-help book

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I want to write a self-help book, and I want it to focus on me dying. Twice. Then coming back to life! Or maybe do a series of self-help videos. I just don’t know how funny it would be after one or two shorts. Because, basically, my advice for any situation is to die.

Really. It’s the best thing that happened to me. And I did it twice.

I have suffered from severe depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia all my life. They all started when I was seven. Coincidentally or not, that was when I realized I was going to die. I became obsessed with death, but in a push/pull kind of way. I did not  want to die and yet, I wanted it more than anything. The idea that one day I would just be gone forever repulsed, excited, and terrified me. That’s something I thought about for the following three decades of my life.

As for the trio of mental health issues, well. They crushed me when I was a kid and during my teen years. A defining moment was when my mother put me on a diet when I was seven. When I was seven. I had to repeat that beacuse it’s only in hindsight that I realized just how fukced up that was. I see pics of me when I was that age, and while I was chunky and solid, I was not fat.

Even if I were, I was still a little kid. I was in my growing phase. Telling me I was fat and that I needed to restrict my intake was cruel. I don’t want to argue about whether my mother meant to be cruel or not because in this case, impact matters more than intent. It would have been bad enough if she had put me on a diet and then just left it at that, but, no. She had to nag me about it. She would tell me that I had such a pretty face. If only I wasn’t so fucking fat! No, she didn’t say ‘fucking’, but it was certainly implied in her tone.

We did not have sweets in the house. My mother insisted that we had fruit and veggies at every meal. I know that’s a good thing, but it made me not eat fruit or veggies for several years when I was in my thirty. I wasn’t doing it on purpose–I just could not make myself eat fruits and veggies because of being forced to do it all my life.


Continue Reading

Going Under: a send-up of start-ups that is satisfying

Posted on by • 0 Comments

About a month ago, I tried the demo for Going Under by Aggro Crab in a desperate attempt to find a game to tide me over until Elden Ring–FromSoft, of course. At that time, I didn’t know I was filling the time until Elden Ring (ER from now on) came out because it was before the Summer Games Fest, but I wanted something new to sink my teeth into so I decided to dive into my Pile of Shame and see if there was anything I wanted to play. Or rather, I installed a bunch of demos and tried out a bunch of games. Going Under was one of them and I wrote a brief write-up of it here. Then, Ian offered it to me out of his Humble Bundle and I accepted because it had something to it and why not? It’s a roguelike-lite that has that one more run feel to it. RNG both giveth and it taketh away as well.

The premise is that you are Jacqueline Fiasco, an intern at Fizzle Beverages.  You think you’re going to be learn about marketing and such, but you are so very wrong. When you meet Marv, the Project Manager (PM), he’s full of empty slogans and toxic enthusiasm. Not that enthusiasm in and of itself is toxic, but when it’s used to cover terrible and inhumane business practices, that’s when it becomes toxic. He immediately nicknames you Jackie and then tells you that you have to go kill goblins. He wraps it up in verbiage, but that’s the bottom line.

I have to say that they got the environment perfectly. Or rather, they were able to evoke the feeling of a start-up perfectly. There’s a giant tunnel slide that you can take to get from the second floor down to the first. There’s a cafe with a man named Swomp (yes, Swomp and not Swamp) who seems like a sleaze at first, but then turns out to be a pretty decent guy. There’s Tippi, the financial officer, who is trying to rein in the CEO while the company is hemorrhaging money. There’s Kara, the computer gal who hates computers. She has an adorable doxie, Eclaire, who is more than just a cute face. There’s a side mission of taking her for a walk through the dungeons (reaching the third floor of any dungeon) which means she’s tethered to your waist and slows you down dramatically as you fight with the Joblins.

Quick note: I really enjoy the biting satire of the game. In addition to the names of the dungeons–which, by the way, are other companies. So Fizzle Beverage is literally built on the grounds of other companies–the whole tone of the game is spot-on as a spoof with bite. I had said in my original quick review that the combat felt off to me. Part of the issue was that the framerate was locked at 30 fps (why is any game locked on the PC???) and once I changed that to 60, the game felt better.


Continue Reading

The Best Part of Waking Up Is NOT Folgers In My Ass

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Ed. Note: Astute  POOG readers will realize that I haven’t tackled goop nonsense in quite some time. The reason is twofold. One is because I watched an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow (the things I do for POOG!), and she talked about how watching her father waste away from cancer started her on the path to all this woo-hoo business. It made me feel sympathetic for her (more like sorry), which makes it difficult to satirize her nonsense. The second is because of the Harvey Weinstein bullshit and the fact that she was one of his victims. You can probably imagine how I feel about that, so I laid off Gwyneth. However, three members of the POOG Patrol have sent me articles about the same issue through three different mediums (Julie in email, Kel on Facebook, and @infinitewords14 on Twitter), and once I read it, I knew I had to answer the bat (shit crazy) signal, so here we go! 

We’re a country who loves our coffee. Many of us couldn’t imagine getting through the day without a cup of joe or three. Starbucks is practically a national institution, and we worship at the altar of Caramel Cocoa Cluster Frappuccino Blended Coffee. Grande, Venti, or Trenta, it doesn’t matter. We just want to mainline it as quickly and painlessly as we can. We need that boost to get through the day, and what better way to ingest the coffee than to literally shove it up your ass as an enema?

You read that right. I can see your double-take in horror, much the same as mine when I read the article after Julie first sent it to me. Surely, it had to be The Onion. This had to be satire! I’d heard of coffee enemas before, but I’d always pooh-poohed them because who would be silly enough to squirt boiling hot coffee up their assholes? Sadly, in researching for this post, I learned that there are many people who earnestly believe that this is the ideal way to remove the toxins* from the body. It’s a very complicated formula, so follow along very carefully if you will.

  1. Inject a coffee enema
  2. ???
  3. PROFIT!!!

I hope you were able to follow along with my very scientific explanation, but in case not, here is a graph in which the X-Axis is coffee squirted up your ass and the Y-Axis is the time it takes for the coffee to kick into effect.

via GIPHY

Continue Reading

Plugging Up Your Peen Hole for #Sessytimes

Posted on by • 0 Comments

My dudes. Have you been feeling a tad bit neglected with all the vag talk I’ve been doing lately? “Why it always gotta be about the vag? Why no peen love???” I can hear you ask yourselves. Believe me, we at POOG central feel your pain. We would LOVE to write about peen every now and again, but instead, it’s “OMIGOD DON’T PUT ROCKS IN YOUR VAG” all the damn time up in this bitch. Well, this week is your lucky week if you’re looking for something creative and fun* to do with your peen during #sessytimes, and it’s so revolutionary, it’ll blow your head–er, mind.

My fellows. Condoms are the worst, amirite???** I mean, how the hell can you enjoy sex with the equivalent of a sock hanging off your dick? Never mind that you’re actually experiencing peen in puss which is delightful even while encasing your dick in Saran Wrap. I mean, come on! Even mediocre sex is better than no sex most of the time, and I’m willing to bet that most dudes are over the moon just to get their dick wet whenever they can.

However. I can understand that bare is better than there. I feel the same when I’m sexing a dude. I like bareback, but I don’t like the problems that can accompany such reckless behavior. If only there was a product that could make it feel as good as it does bare, but with the protection afforded to you by a condom. If only…But wait! There is one! It’s called Jiftip the Diktip, and my dudes, they have you covered. Literally! It’s an adhesive for your peenhole and how does it work? Like this!

  1. Put Jiftip on your dickhole.
  2. ???
  3. PROFIT!!!!


Continue Reading

Sticking Glitter Where the Sun Don’t Shine

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Ladies.  We need to talk. Are you like me in that you’ve tried all the vag tricks out there, and you’re bored out of your mind? You’ve done the jade eggs, the dry ice treatment, the wasp balls, and you’ve vajazzled the hell out of your pubic area because it don’t mean a thing if your vag ain’t got that bling! Who doesn’t love running around looking as if Tinkerbell farted all over your pubic bone?

via GIPHY

But, let’s face it, ladies. You can only paint a unicorn on your vag so many times before it gets boring. You need to ramp up the excitement! Why only use glitter to decorate the outside of your vag when you can use it inside as well??? You read it right. The newest trend in glitter and pussies is glitter bombing your own vag!

Woo-hoo! It’s a disco party up in there, and no one can even see it! Party over here, party over there, it’s a party of one, perhaps two, unless you’re into crowds, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

via GIPHY

I saw this on my FB friend, Mia Raven’s page, and I thought it was a joke at first. I mean, what’s the point of putting glitter inside you? No one’s going to see it, and if you’re doing it for sexy times, it just makes things extra-messy.

Also, is it something you tell your lover ahead of time? I mean, do you casually drop it in conversation during dinner? Or do you just do it and let your lover be surprised when s/he parts your lower lips and gets an eyeful of color? Continue Reading

In Goop–And Gwyneth–We Trust

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I became aware of something that for someone in my business* is like the Super Bowl, PBO’s inauguration day (COME BACK, BARACK!), and a wet sloppy kiss from Jason Momoa all rolled up into one: goop’s first ever wellness summit, called In Goop Health. Which makes no fucking sense to me. Is it supposed to be a riff off in good health? It vaguely reminds me of In God We Trust, but I don’t think that’s supposed to be it. I think it’s the former, but it’s still enough to make me go, ‘Huh?’ The summit was this past Saturday in Culver City, CA, and it would have been my dream to go all Samantha Bee at the Republican convention up in this bitch.  One of my all-time favorite skits is when she tried to get Republicans to say the word ‘choice’ in reference to Bristol Palin’s decision to have her baby, and the lengths to which they refuse to do so until the very end is laughable. I love how Sam doesn’t give the word to them, she just makes them finally have to say it.

I think I’d take a slightly different tack, though. I’d go incognito as one of them! Granted, I’d have to buy a pair of Sweaty Betty Haven Yoga Pants, but they’re only available in black. While this is my favorite color, it’s not really acceptable for the goop crowd. I don’t want to be stereotypical, but I may have to turn to lululemon for my white yoga pants needs. This may surprise you, but I haven’t looked at yoga pants in–well, ever, really. What I’m discovering is that the traditional yoga pants, as it were, has been replaced by the semi-transparent leggings, and I am not having ANY of that. I did manage to find Dance Studio Pants III (Regular) in white that will work, and the name is almost as long as the pants are expensive. It would be worth it, though, if it meant I could flit amongst the goopies–goopites?–undetected. Add to that a Balenciaga Classic Hip Bag for the low, low price of $850, and I’m good to go!

The base fee for the day was $500. That was the no-frills ticket, and you had to pony up $1,500 if you wanted the privilege of supping and drinking with Gwyneth and her pals. I can’t imagine anything I’d want to do more than watch Gwyneth sprinkle Moon Juice Brain Dust in her morning smoothie which includes ingredients such as maca, ashwagandha, ho shou wu, and cordyceps. The recipe suggests different Dusts for different times, and this is straight text, “Sex Dust, for, you know”. Seriously? We’re (presumably) grown-ass adults. We can say we’re fucking, can’t we?

Anyhoo, most of the write-ups about the ‘summit’ were straightforward, taking what the speakers said at face value, or even gushing about them. The one publication that actually took time to dismantle all the bullshit is, incredibly, The New York Post. The first paragraph reads as if it’s from The Onion:

Gwyneth Paltrow’s inaugural health-and-wellness summit on Saturday kicked off just as you’d expect: well-groomed women wearing yoga pants and expensive handbags hooking themselves up to IVs and oxygen tubes in a parking lot, experiences otherwise associated with the glamour of getting triaged at a disaster site.

In fact, I was pretty sure I was being pranked, but, sadly or gladly, that was just the tip of the goopy icebearg! There was talk of ‘integral photosynthesis’ and of ‘the ontological experience called your life’. There was a presentation of a 10-minute face-lift that included local anesthesia and needles being poked in someone’s face. This procedure is apparently one of the simple things in life costing $3,500 and one of the side effects may be blindness. It’s better to look good than to be able to see, amirite ladies???

Continue Reading

Better a Bee in Your Bonnet than a Ground-up Wasp Nest in Your Vag

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Ed. Note: We here at POOG* are constantly on the look out for all things vag-related. We call upon you, the POOG patrol to point out any and all atrocities you see that concern the crotch (peen, too, though there’s less of that) to our administration. Tweet me @asiangrrlMN  or email me at asiangrrl29@yahoo.com with all your fascinating/horrific hoo-ha articles, and we will address the ones that tickle our yoni, er, fancy. This week’s installment is not related to Gwyneth, astonishingly enough, but don’t worry. We’ll get back to her soon. 

As my faithful readers know, I’m very committed to making sure my vag is in the best shape it can possibly be. That means I wash it regularly, which is all it needs because it’s self-cleaning. However, there’s a new ‘vaginal therapy’ that is all the rage on Etsy.** It’s putting oak gall up your hoo-ha to tighten and dry your vag because we all know that loose lips don’t get any dick! The gall of having flapping labia! (Get it?? The gall? No appreciation for my wit.) Oak gall is when a wasp deposits its larva into an oak tree. The tree becomes irritated (wouldn’t you?) and secretes tannic and gallic acids around the larvae. This formation is essential the gall, or as I like to call it, the gall ball. Hey, ho, it’s a gall ball party in your vag! Doesn’t that sound appetizing? Oh, and the gall is astringent, which makes it doubly fun. I don’t know about you, but I love putting untested astringent wasp excreta in my pussy. I could do that shit every day! Who doesn’t like a little sting and burn in her private parts? I certainly do! That’s why I slather my cervix with Sriracha every night before I go to bed. Sure, it means that my vag feels like its engorged with flames when I wake up, but that’s just an added benefit!

Once again, it’s up to Dr. Gunter, my Gwyneth Paltrow whisperer, who I have just promoted to vagina whisperer to give the medical 411 on why you shouldn’t insert gall balls into your lady bits. She handles the science, I deal with the sarcasm and snark. In her blog post on the subject, she tells you exactly why it’s a bad idea to put an unknown astringent up your hoo-ha. You wouldn’t think a grown woman would have to be told this, but here we are. I am thankful for Dr. Gunter’s tireless devotion to debunking all this vag-related hokum.

I also really appreciate that the purveyors of this bullshit are calling it traditional medicine. They claim that women in Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia and Indonesia use it to snap their uteri back in shape after birthing some babies, and at least they went Southeast Asian this time for their mystical Orient bullshit rather than East Asian, but still. Stop using my global sisters to sell your shit, people! I know it gives your crap instant gravitas, but it’s racist as hell. “Peasant women in Malaysia are squatting in the rice fields, smearing their lady parts with ground up wasp nest to regain the pep in their puss!” It’s antiquated, outdated, and pretty foul to boot. It’s funny, really, how you never hear about a product being sold that was used by ancient Icelandic women or some shit. It’s always Asian women, and usually concubines/empresses. Otherwise, it’s tantric and yoni, which is also grotesque, albeit amusing in a dark way. Below is a satire video by Awkwafina and Margaret Cho (goddess!) skewering all the played-out and stale stereotypes about Asian women.

Continue Reading

I Don’t Need My A-game to Fuck With Gwyneth Paltrow

Posted on by • 2 Comments

Attention POOG Patrol!* It has come to my attention that Gwyneth Paltrow is all up in her feels about people clapping back at her for her quackery ‘science’. She went all in, saying:

I’m interested in criticism based on facts, not projections….If you want to fuck with me, bring your A-game.

Italics are mine, but the quotes are pure Gwyneth. Look at how hard she’s trying to be by dropping an F-bomb when she’s all, “COME AT ME, BRO!”! Ride or die, Gwyneth. Ride or die! She’s squadding up, imagining that she’s the Wu-Tang Clan.

I can imagine her saying to her bestie, “Hold my Urban Satchel Louis Vuitton Bag and my earrings by Tiffany, darling; I’m going in!” before sailing in on her Jimmy Choos and flailing her fists about. Then, when she breaks a nail at the first punch thrown, she scurries to her resident masseuse to relieve the tension.  She’s so adorable when she’s angry, and it’s hard to take her seriously, but I have a few things to say in response to her (because of course I do).

First of all, I don’t need my A-game to fuck with her.  I don’t need my mental taiji or anything other than Google and my Auntie Cherry Blossom to decimate Gwyneth and her ‘facts’. I can do it with one eye closed and one hand tied behind my back. Admittedly, it’d take much longer because I’d have to type one-handed, but I’m used to that on account of my cat, Shadow, sitting on my chest as I’m trying to type. Hunt and peck is infuriating when I type 100+ words a minute, but it’s doable. It just gives me more time to think of my zingers with my rapier-sharp wit. Gwyneth may have money, fame, and beauty on her side, but I have my wits and my words which I’ll pit against hers any time. I’m like Professor Elemental pulling on his fighting trousers, but she’s no Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer.

Continue Reading

Get Your Vag in (Kung Fu) Fightin’ Form!

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Hey, ladies. Don’t you hate it when you’ve done your Kegels and you’ve stuffed jade eggs up your hoo-ha, and, yet, you feel as if your vag isn’t as strong as it should be? Well, then do I have the answer for you! It’s Vaginal Kung Fu, and it apparently has been all the rage for the past few years. I saw a mention of it on my Twitter by my Gwyneth Paltrow whisperer, Dr. Jen Gunter*, and I had to read her article because of my morbid curiosity. And because I needed a topic for this week’s POOG post, but that’s definitely secondary! She had me at Vaginal Kung Fu, yo! How could I not be drawn to the ancient art of my people as proposed by an American TV doctor (actual doctor with a talk show) with a 2 star rating on Yelp!? And, with all the anti-choice bills the Republicans are pushing and passing, my vag needs to be in tiptop shape to fight!

I wanna be Vaginal Kung-Fu fightin’!
My uterus will kick as fast as lightning!
I can feel my pelvic muscles tightening!
This is gonna be so enlightening!

The article that Dr. Gunter is dissecting appeared in Allure magazine, and I read it with increasing horror and amazement. There’s an update to the article warning of the risks–they didn’t think to include that in the actual article, mind you–and they quote Dr. Hilda Hutcherson, MD, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center, “Kegels are great! Everyone should do them. But some women can’t figure out which muscle to contract.” She adds, “The vaginal weights make that easy and more fun.” I think the good doctor and I need to have a chat about her idea of fun. Also, if a woman doesn’t know how to do Kegels properly, she can ask her doctor. What? No, Minna, get out! What a revolutionary idea! Now why would I want to do that when I can simply shove weights into my vag in the privacy of my own home? Never mind that I might not know how heavy the weights should be and that you still have to contract the muscles around the weight, I should just do it! Oh, wait. I should ask my doctor about it first? Then why the fuck wouldn’t I just ask how to do Kegels properly? (Read Dr. Gunter’s article linked above for tips on how to do exactly that. Yes, I know I footnoted it, but it’s important enough to mention again.)

Continue Reading

The Mystical Orient and Jade Eggs Up Your Hoo-Ha

Posted on by • 1 Comment
eggs are not for insertion.
Put these in your basket, not in your vag!

Asia has many things to offer to the West, starting with the best cuisine in the world, bar none. I may be a tad biased because I’m Taiwanese, and we have dumplings and radish cakes and sticky rice and gua bao (pork belly buns) and my favorite dessert of all time, douhua (soft tofu and soft peanuts in syrup–it’s fantastic), but I also love Chinese (which is quite similar), Thai, and sushi. Asian art and culture are rich with history as well, not to mention music, spiritualism, and philosophy. The one thing I would not turn to Asia for, however, is advice on stuffing things up my vag. Such as jade eggs that cost $66 per egg.

Yes! After a week off, I am back on the goop beat, and this time I’m tackling noted Sinologist, Gwyneth Paltrow, who is pushing this shit on her website. From the product description:

Yoni eggs, once the strictly guarded secret of Chinese concubines and royalty in antiquity, harness the power of energy work, crystal healing, and a Kegel-like physical practice. Jade eggs’ power to cleanse and clear make them ideal for detox, too.

Have a load off because there’s quite a bit to unpack here. First of all, Asian women don’t have sex secrets that we’re keeping from you*. Even if we did, do you really think someone suddenly and magically discovered this secret without it becoming breaking news? I just imagine some execs sitting in a room, saying to each other, “Guys. We bought these jade rocks. Now we have to do something with them. Bob? What’s your idea?”

Bob: “What about as decorative bookends?”

Jim (the boss): “No! That’s not exotic enough. Bookends? Really, Bob? You’re fired!”

Bob (frantic): “How about if we have girls put them in their lady bits? That’s exotic!”

Jim: “That’s brilliant, Bob! But how are we going to get them to do that?”

Bob: “I know! We’ll tell them it’s an ancient Chinese secret! Like it’s Calgon! Except, it’s not detergent because you wouldn’t want to put that in your–”

Jim: “Loving it. Loving it. Give me more.”

Bob (warning up to his idea): “It’s the secret of concubines and empresses!** We tell the ladies that if they do it, they will be like royalty!”

Jim: “Will that be enough? Maybe for the first time, but how do we get them to keep doing it?”

Bob: “Detox! Crystals! Cleansing powers! Carbonated beverages!”

Jim: Genius. “Pure genius. Except for the last! You’re now VP, Bob.”

I dunno. Maybe I’m biased because I hate Americans getting all airy-fairy about Asian mysticism, so let’s have a chat with my Auntie Cherry Blossom, who is my conduit to the spiritual world. I light some jasmine incense and immediately start coughing because I’m allergic to it, but I woman up because it’s her favorite scent. I make sure to turn on the Taiwanese-ghost-to-English translation app (ghosttoenglishtranslator.com) on my phone so I can understand what she’s saying. I remember her musical preference and put on Michelle Kwan (no, not that one) playing Metallica’s One on the guzheng.


Continue Reading