Interesting fact 七月 30, 2007

We were asked to write our profile with our work experience, education, current responsbilities etc. so they can be posted to our team page on the intranet.  One of the thing we need to come up with is ‘interesting fact about ourselves’.  Interesting facts.  I put ‘none as of yet’.  And when I sent it, I got grilled for being such a boring & non-creative person.  Then I peeked on other people’s profile, and found a lot of interesting facts, though not all of them are really interesting:

- I have 3 kidneys!

- I am married for 11 years!

- I was a plant manager for a manufacturing company!

- I have a pet sheep!

- I am 26 but I have 5 nephews!

- I have super memory & can remember every tiny detail!

So.. I need to come up with an interesting fact about myself too…. would it be…

- I was called the stuntman by my high school classmates

- I once drove a 26-feet long cargo truck to move a few tupperwares.  

- I didn’t tell my dad that he had a quadraple by-pass open heart surgery.  He thought he only did Angioplasty.

- I can say some classical ‘Taiwanese TV commercial slogan in ‘Taiwanese’ (not manderin).

- I got pulled over 7 times on the highway in California (within 1.5 years), but never get a ticket  :)

 ……

What’s yours?

Glasgow: Glas-Go or Glas-Cow? 七月 29, 2007

It’s almost time to celebrate my 6 months in the UK.  After 6 months of daily training, I finally have no problem understanding English english, sometimes I don’t even notice whether it’s American accent or English accent anymore.  However, I am only talking about proper English accent, and unfortunately there are many other accents other than the ‘Royal’ accent that are totally not understandable eg. Scottish, Welsh, Liverpool, Irish …   and when it comes to town names, it becomes one of the biggest challenges in the United Kingdom.  A lot of these words are originated from Welsh, Gaelic, or Cornish.  There is NO WAY you can pronounce it right as english.

Here is a simple quiz.  How would you pronounce the following places?  Correct pronounciation enclosed.

1. Edinburgh – ‘Edinbru/Edinbra’

2. Gloucestershire – ‘Gloster-sha’

3. Greenwich – ‘Greenich’

4. Glasgow – ‘Glas Go’

5. Hertfordshire – ‘Hart-fd-sha’

6. Norfolk – ‘Nor-fuk’

7. Nottingham – ‘Notting’m’

8. Alnwick – ‘Annick’

9. River Thames – river ‘tams’

10. Plymouth- ‘Pli-muth’

I am sure we drive the local people crazy by pronouncing ‘Glou-ces-ter-shire’ or ‘Glas-Cow’ or ‘Edin-Burrow-gh’…  

Addressees 七月 28, 2007

Today I got 3 utility bills by mail – TV cable, Gas, and Internet.  They all have different addressees.

The TV cable bill addressed to  ’Mr A Chan’.

The Gas bill addressed to ‘Mr. & Mrs K S Lam’.

The Internet bill addressed to ‘Mr Alex Shen’.

Sorry…but none of these people live in this household. 

Fish & Chips 七月 27, 2007

Which one do you think would translate to most powerful fuel for a robotic race car?

1.Fish & Chips

2. Pizza

3. Kabab

and the winner goes to…. Fish & Chips!! 

According to the British version of ‘Mythbusters’ (forgot the name), they mixd the above 3 foods with chemical and turned them into useable fuel used by 3 robotic race cars.  The one with Fish & Chips fuel went so fast that the other two became10 feet behind in the first 2 seconds.   

I dont think the same effect would apply to human being..  I so look forward to every friday because there is my favorite fish & chips in the canteen.  I never know how to appreciate fried food until I came to England.  To be honest their fish & chips is really delicious – lightly fried battered haddock (or cod) + burning hot thick potato chips (really they mean french fries) + mushy peas + lots of tartar sauce + lots of ketchup + some freshly squeezed lemon juice … nothing can beat that.  Every friday lunch is the most satisfying moment in the week (should I be happy about it?!) , even I ate with someone whose company I don’t quite enjoy… (don’t mean YOU)

But the feeling after the meal wasn’t too enjoyable.  Instead of feeling energized, I just felt that my stomach is filled up with nothing but grease and fats.  I can’t work or even walk properly.  In case you wonder, it translates to 100g provides 507kj of energy. Anyhow…I still want to sing a song to honor this national dish …

Fish and Chips
A little coke and you, oh, babe
Honey drips
Two more to go, oh, babe
Let’s go on back
The trip will be groovy, oh, babe
Jump in the sack
Flip your mood, oh, babe
Come to me
I really do love you, oh, babe
Honey, honey
Honey dripper too, oh, babe
Loved you before
I loved you a long, long time, my love
Loving you more
Then I got to have more of
Fish and chips

Trading spouses 七月 26, 2007

Was watching the TV program ‘trading spouses’ – 2 families exchanging spouse and the spouse will stay in the other family for a week and at the end the spouse get to decide how the other family can spend US$50K.  It’s one of those typical reality shows these days and there’s nothing really special about it.  This time, a middle to upper-class Japanese/American family and a blue-collar african american family are exchanging their spouses.  The white American wife stayed with the black family while the black mom stayed with the Jap-American family. 

The white American mom definitely brought nothing but nightmares to the black family.  Health-conscious, proud, bossy, self-centered, superficial..  all the components you could find in a typical mid-class housewife.  During the week she was there, they ate organic food instead of fried chicken; listened to country music instead of rap, kids can’t watch TV at home, they needed to clean up and lots of discipline in the house.  The kids can’t bear it; family friends left the party early; nobody enjoyed her presence.  The day she left, nobody even got up to walk her out. 

Likewise, on the other side, the jap-american family had Soul food instead of pasta.  The only difference is, the black mom had a genuine smile and she truely cared about the family.  She became the best friend with the grandma and she left the house with real tears in her eyes.  Not that she was not aware of her identify or social-economical background, but she saw things with her open eyes and embraced the difference with her heart.  The early morning she left the house, grandma was up in the kitchen preparing breakfast for her.

And the end, the jap-american husband was interviewed about his feedback, and he said when his wife was away, the house was lack of…. organization.. things were more organized when his wife was home…

How sad…  but I guess they deserved each other.

The Pianist 七月 25, 2007

Just re-watched Roman Polanski’s ‘The Pianist’ again.  I never get sick of this movie.  I guess it’s one of the most powerful movies about the Jewish Holocaust competing ‘Schindler’s List’.  It’s about a story of how the famous polish-jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpillman hid himself like a rat in the ruins of Warsaw and finally survived the war.  The scene is so real & breath-taking.  I was there in Warsaw last year, touching the ghetto wall remains & imagining the brutal scenes during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.  The jews lost the battle and 56,000 of them were killed/captured.  The whole city was destroyed to ground zero after the long-lasting war and almost everything now was rebuilt. 

No doubt it’s a sad & depressing movie, but the message is a positive one –   to live is more important than anything else, your pride, your self-esteem, maybe even dignity.  People like ourselves who live in a comfortable life always distort or misinterpret the meaning of pride or self-respect, like when you are arguing with your loved ones or when your boss asked you to do some stupid tasks..  we feel humiliated for no reason..  Come on… big deal.. these things are so tiny that you probably can’t remember it the next day no matter how hard you try to remember it.

 

七月 25, 2007

The thought of completely giving up my blog is depressing.. but the realization of the fact that I got nothing better to do is even more depressing.  Sadly, UK time doesn’t work well with US  (both east & west) time or HK time, so I lost one of my favorite hobbies – MSN.  Once every so often, you feel like you are awaken by something and you know what you want in life, then after awhile you go back to point zero, feeling numb and hopeless.  Being in this moodless status, it’s better to force yourself to start doing something than doing nothing.  But isn’t it sad that after you filp through your old diary and you found out you feel exactly the same about life now as you did few years ago..  on one hand, you are getting old, on the other hand, you are not progressing…