Work is still a bitch. See my post last week. That’s all I gotta say for now… that, and man am I hungry for some Chinese.

Reminder: Follow me on Twitter, become a fan at the aLp page on Facebook, hang out on the official aLp forums.

WOOO, a chance to use my pee and poop tags again. Feels like it’s been a while. Don’t anyone dare make that association with Chinese food though, cuz Chinese food’s the greatest thing in the world to me, yes it is. The joke just happened to be there, though. No I’m not proud.

The Monkey King is a traditional folk hero in Chinese culture, and one of the stars of Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese, a terrific graphic novel that I can’t say enough about. In fact, I’m just gonna point you to Fleen’s glowing review of it, which is basically how I feel. Oh yeah, it’s also the first graphic novel ever to be nominated for the National Book Award. Do yourself a favor and pick yourself up a copy!

HEY WE’RE NOW UPDATING TWICE A WEEK

Here we are, episode #200, and what better way to mark the occasion by announcing something crazy that I’m unprepared to do. Starting this week I’ll be posting TWO new comics per week instead of one. This week, the next update will be on Friday, and then Tuesdays and Fridays thereafter. I figure most of the new comics will be the old-school, shorter 3-panellers that you enjoyed through the first year for about 130 episodes, but for those of you who dig the full-page pieces of the last year, I’ll probably do some o’ those once in a while. All depends on what mood I’m in.

You are now free to promote your bookmark to this site from your “Awesome, but updates kinda infrequently” section to “PARADISE ON EARTH”.

Also in case you missed it last week, the brand new aLp Shop has the brand-new t-shirts (men’s and women’s styles) and other sexy stuff for sale. Be the first one on your block wearing aLp!

The new t-shirts are in (and lookin’ hot), as well as high-res prints and fridge magnets, all now available in the brand new Shop. It’s imminent purchases like yours that keeps the comic going and free! Be the first one on your block wearing aLp! Thanks!

Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and cultual.

Learn how to use your chopsticks
- Tuk under tnurnb and hcld firmly
- Add second chcostick
hold it as you hold a pencil
- Hold tirst chopstick in originai position
move the second one up and down
Now you can pick up anything:

Maybe this is old, old news to some people but the above is exactly what it says on many of those red chopstick sleeves you get in Chinese restaurants, for as long as I can remember, and amazingly, still today. This, and infinite other examples of ridiculous monstrosities of the English language on fortune cookies, menus and signs leads me to conclude that the good people in Chinese restaurants aren’t incapable of getting English right — they just don’t care. They don’t get better, and they don’t bother to fix what’s wrong. That’s an extremely useful skill that we all wish we had, to know when you don’t have to care about something and still be successful.

Beef Yat Gaw Mein is a what a lot of hole in the wall Chinese takeouts have as a poor substitute for real Beef Stew Noodle Soup. It’s what I have to settle for a lot because there are NO GOOD CHINESE GODDAMN NOODLE SHOPS BY ME IN BROOKLYN. Are the noodle shops in Manhattan worth paying thousands of dollars more in rent for? Maybe. Dammit.

One of these days I’m gonna apply to be a Chinese food delivery guy, if only for a day, just so I can see how these food-bringers from heaven do it. I’d just work for tips and oh yeah, food.

The MARCO POLO NOODLE SHOP, on Baxter below Canal, is THE BEST NOODLE SHOP IN CHINATOWN. If you go, keep in mind they have 2 different menus, one for “regular” cuisine and one for their 6,732 kinds of noodle soups, usually involving some variety of beef parts, like “Beef Tendon”, and “Beef Stomach” and I think there’s one that just says “Beef #@^$!*&”.