summing jenny 8 lee up in one word (one number would have been too easy)

New American Media aims to "expand the news lens through ethnic media" -- and now I've played a small part in the lens expansion.

My friend Jenny 8 Lee has a delicious book, the Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which I've been lucky enough to see since it was a humble proposal on her laptop. It's come a long way and brought her quite a bit of success and attention on what's already been a remarkable career. She's shared the fun with plenty of her friends, including at an event she had in New York, which I attended a little while back.

There, plump with dim sum and Tsingtao, I got the chance to sum Jenny up with one word:

But even if her nom de plume were bereft of that lucky number, chances are that Lee would be no less memorable. “Effervescent” is how Alexis Ohanian, designer of the book's blog and co-founder of a news sharing site, describes her. Occasional appearances in gossip columns and multiple mentions on meta-media website Gawker.com paint her as a social butterfly with the uncanny ability to charm anyone who crosses her path. This assertion is more true than not. She constantly invites people into her home, even if they are near-strangers, and even though it's New York City, where it's possible to befriend someone for years without ever stepping foot into his or her residence.

Many years ago, then just a wide-eyed startup founder looking making Chinatown bus trips into New York from Boston, I was one of those folks she graciously invited into her home. I'm not ashamed to say that I spent more than a few nights on her sofa; New York is a great city to couchsurf through, especially when you're a salary-less startup founder.

the gawker empire is crumbling: I get two mentions in one day?

Woke up Friday morning to find an IM from an annoyed friend who found me in her daily news feed. You see, my friend Jenny 8 (the one who so graciously invited me to join her on the Colbert Report) had written an entry for the Huffington Post about how to "prepare for Colbert." (I just trademarked that rhyme, so don't even think about lifting it.)

In it, she cites an email exchange with an over-enthusiastic Colbert fan (me) suggesting some lines to use and hypothetical responses to expect:

After telling Colbert that Chinese food is more American than apple pie given how much we eat apple pie versus Chinese food...

Colbert : "I eat apple pie every morning - with a jack and coke - and a bald eagle egg omlette."

Jenny: Well, there are exceptions - and you are clearly an exceptional American - for most would say Chinese food.

Anyway, Gawker found this amusing, wrote a piece on it, and thus my name "Lee friend Alexis" polluted my pal's newsfeed.

And later in the day, Kotaku kindly plugged breadpig. Careful Denton, the readers of the vast Gawker empire are going to start revolting if you keep pushing such mediocre content...

Although, the quote of the day came in the comments section from a sage named fawrh:

the homeless guy = a good front man and a great insperation to us all...

the kids that made this video = should be sterilized...

On second thought, keep writing about breadpig, I hear there's a VH1 Behind the Music special on the way.

dreams do come true - i finally attend a taping of the colbert report

My friend Jenny 8 Lee was making the New York rounds this week promoting her new book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. I've had the pleasure of watching this book go from a proposal on her laptop, which I first read while in the middle of a Halloween party back in 05. I was sober enough to enjoy what I read and make a good impression -- we hit it off.

Along the way, I've gotten to read drafts of chapters and build her blog, along with a few other design tasks here and there. So I'm getting quite a bit of pleasure from watching all the success it's had so far.

And when Jenny told me she was going to appear on the Colbert Report, I immediately started drafting dialog and one-liners for her in an effort to solidify my chances of attending the show with her. It was absolutely worth it. Shaking Colbert's hand was akin to shaking the hands of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Hetfield all at once.

Colbert does a bit of Q&A before the show to humanize himself for the audience, revealing an man as affable as he is witty. The show went quite well -- even though he had to redo The Word segment -- and his interview with Jenny got quite a few laughs. And she even used one of my lines (comforting me with the knowledge that I nearly earned my attendance).