April 2010
60 posts
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“Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It is what it is. The way you cope with it...”
– Virginia Satir (via psychotherapy); I would’ve liked to come across this quote from actually reading Satir’s work rather than stumbling upon it on Tumblr. But it is what it is, and I’m coping with it by reblogging instead.
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“Foreign aid is a curse that has crippled and corrupted Africa… China...”
– Dambisa Moyo, former Goldman Sachs investment banker and World Bank consultant, paraphrased by Howard French in his “The New Empire”, an article in The Atlantic.
WatchThis is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein meets Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince; this is the melancholic, soul-searching odyssey of a plastic bag personified. Like an artificial jellyfish, Plastic Bag floats ominously through the air, juxtaposed against a backdrop of pristine nature, yearning to be reunited with its his Maker. The flimsy, fragile appearance of Plastic Bag, and...
Winter Delegation 2010 Reviews & Reflections →
Global China Connection delegates visited the headquarters of several prominent multinational and Chinese firms in Beijing as well as the US Embassy there over the winter break in 2010. Despite not having any graphic design training, knowledge, or experience, I managed to put together this “Winter Delegation 2010 Reviews & Reflections” packet that turned out pretty nicely.
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Community (Season 1, Episode 21) →
Community is back with another hilarious episode! Can’t wait for Lie to Me and White Collar to return.
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“More matter with less art.”
– Gertrude to Polonius in Act II, Scene 2 of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.
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WatchIn a previous episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart tells Fox News to “go fuck yourselves” for their boldfaced and shameless hypocrisy and failure to be “fair and balanced” as they claim to be. Bernie Goldberg retaliates on The O’Reilly Factor with a low and limp strawman / ad hominem insult, and promptly gets, for a lack of a more cogent term, PWN’D by...
Portfolio Recovery!
I was somewhat devastated (financially) last month because the share price for Fuqi International, inc. (FUQI) plummeted by over 45% from around $21 to around $11 due to “accounting error”. FUQI is a company based in Shenzhen, China, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the “error” had been fraud. There was a secondary offering of FUQI stocks in the summer, and company...
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I seem like a mensch.
Opal: I may have to cancel our relationship status on Facebok, Hank. People are getting crazy.
Me: Why?
Opal: I'll show you why. Ahem... from my mother: "Delighted to get wind of your relationship - trying not to be too nosy, but he seems like a mensch. All happiness - looks like you are having some fun, so glad to see it. Love ya big time."
Me: LOL.
Opal: I know... I died. I couldn't bring myself to tell her it wasn't true.
“Baby Bite Your Lip” by The Kitchen...
People lie more in email than when using pen and... →
psychotherapy:
Emails feel so transient, so disembodied, that we’re more tempted to lie when sending them compared with writing with pen and paper. That’s according to Charles Naquin and colleagues who tested the honesty of students and managers as they played financial games. Forty-eight graduate business students were presented with an imaginary $89 kitty and had to choose how much they’d tell...
The Toxic Side of Being, Literally, Greens →
“The cruel truth is that most forms of the color green, the most powerful symbol of sustainable design, aren’t ecologically responsible, and can be damaging to the environment… green-colored plastic and paper cannot be recycled or composted safely, because… green is such a difficult color to manufacture that toxic substances are often used to stabilize it.” (The New...
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I always thought I would start playing piano again by re-learning Schubert’s “Impromptu No. 4 in A Flat Major” (D899, not D935) or “Impromptu No. 2 in E Flat Major” (once again, D899). I’m a big fan of Franz Schubert. But instead, I’ve decided to go with Chopin’s “Prelude Op. 28, No. 4 in E Minor” - it’s not as long or impressive as...
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Psychologists Explain Iraq Airstrike Video →
“One reason that the soldiers seemed as if they were playing a video game is that, in a morbid but necessary sense, they were… their job is to destroy the enemy, and one way they’re able to do that is to see it as a game, so that the people don’t seem real… at a more primal level, fighters in a war zone must think of themselves as predators.” (The New York Times)
I...
Hundreds Dead in Western China Quake →
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Yushu county of Qinghai province in western China at 7:49 AM today, killing at least 400 people and injuring 10,000. About 90% of the houses at the county seat of Jeigu had collapsed due to poor quality of construction. Around 50 people are reported still buried in debris, including 20 children. Rescue workers are rushing to dig out the survivors from the rubble,...
WatchI wasn’t aware that it was possible for someone to have their head up their ass so far that it it loops around and goes up their ass again for a double-penetration. Hannity and Gingrich on Fox “News”, thanks for showing me otherwise!
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Whereby I turn into an elephant all Kafka-style.
Me: I was mind-fucked by this weird, old lady while waiting for the bus this morning. She was walking along the street when suddenly stopped and came up to me (pretty close in my face). She says in this Slavic / gypsy accent "There once upon a time was a little elephant who was happy to be alive. Every day he would go around to everyone and say good morning." Then she made me repeat it phrase-by-phrase before muttering "sorry" and continuing on her way.
Sydney: Bahahaha, you are not serious, are you?
Me: It's going to be the last thing I'll remember on my deathbed. FUCK.
Sydney: LOL, post it on FML.
Me: I seriously hope she was just a bit crazy and senile. And it wasn't a gypsy curse or something.
Sydney: OMG LOL.
Me: Whereby I turn into an elephant the next morning all Kafka-style.
Sydney: You will be terribly missed from this world. At least I know. I'll tell people your story.
Me: That's really comforting. Maybe you can visit me at the zoo.
Sydney: Hahahaha. Awwww... I definitely will, and I'll recognize you by the drop of tear in your eyes when you see me.
Me: Okay, I'm gonna go do some work.
Sydney: LOL OK. Remember you are once loved, just in case.
Me: I'll probably be more loved as an elephant. I'm innately adorable, and being an elephant will only accentuate this attribute.
Sydney: Awwwww...
“Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon.”
– Anonymous American helicopter pilot, itching to finish off (under the rules of engagement) the wounded Reuters reporter he had mistaken for an insurgent.
WatchThe next Resident Evil movie is coming this September… and in 3-D?! Awesome. I love zombies… and Milla Jovovich. Resident Evil: Afterlife.
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Covenant House Meets Million Dollar Matching Gift... →
Covenant House is a non-profit organization that provides food, shelter, medical care, counseling, education, and training to homeless and runaway youths throughout the country. They had a Million Dollar Matching Gift Challenge for the month of March where each dollar donated was matched by two more. So if you donated $10, it really came out to be $30, which was what I did. I got this e-mail...
GCC Insights (April, 2010)! →
The April, 2010 issue of GCC Insights is out! GCC Insights is Global China Connection’s monthly e-newsletter. Steve did all the work on this month’s issue, so I should really work on the issue for May. Click here to subscribe!
President of Poland Killed in Plane Crash in... →
“A plane carrying the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and dozens of the country’s top political and military leaders crashed in a heavy fog in western Russia on Saturday morning, killing everyone aboard… wiping out a large swath of the country’s leadership, including the commanders of all four branches of the military, the head of the central bank, the president and many of his...
“Don’t Know Why” by Norah Jones...
Scientists Discover Heavy New Element →
By smashing isotopes of calcium with the radioactive element berkelium, scientists have managed to create an element with the atomic number 117. The atomic nuclei is composed of concentric shells of protons and neutrons where the most stable nuclei occur when all the outer shells are filled. The problem with heavier, synthesized elements is that they are highly unstable and have half-life...
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Watch“Well… you know… I can’t tell you exactly… you know… what the deal is…” ~ Dr. Jack Cassell, politically enthusiastic but ultimately uninformed urologist.
“But if you don’t know what the deal is, then why are you speaking out against something you don’t know what the deal is?” ~ Alan Colmes, pwning said urologist.
“And...
Solar-powered plane soars above Switzerland →
“A solar-powered airplane designed to fly day and night without fuel or emissions successfully made its first test flight above the Swiss countryside on Wednesday.” (Reuters)
This solar-power airplane prototype is a long way from practical and common application, but still very exciting progress.
“Leave the pizza! If someone wants to steal a pie, let them have it! If they...”
– Frank Grecco, owner of Famous Famiglia 125 and retired NYPD officer, to Assami Semde, pizza deliveryman who fought off robbers.
Fringe (Season 2, Episode 16) →
Fringe is also back with a new episode! Restarting the season with a flashback.
“Amazing Grace” by John Newton, also...
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The daily activity most injurious to happiness is... →
psychotherapy:
“…In other words, the best way to make yourself happy is to have a short commute and get married. I’m afraid science can’t tell us very much about marriage so let’s talk about commuting. A few years ago, the Swiss economists Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer announced the discovery of a new human foible, which they called “the commuters paradox”. They found that, when people are...
Campari & Pellegrino
On Saturday, I skipped the second panel session at the Global China Connection conference (and I had wanted to check out the Chinese corporate law panel) to chill on the roof at Beta house with Alec and Frank. The sun and the black roofing material got really hot, and we had forgotten to get Tsingdao on the way back from lunch, so we went back to Alec’s room for some cocktails.
I tried some...
This is fucking atrocious. →
“A lesbian teen who successfully sued her Mississippi school for the right to bring her girlfriend to prom was left out and was instead directed to a ‘fake prom’… [along with] two classmates with learning disabilities.” (The Huffington Post)
This is just incredibly immature, terribly tragic, and disdainfully distasteful. The only thing worse than atrocities...
