LEARN CHINESE IN 5 MINUTES … (READ THEM OUT LOUD)

1) That’s not right…………….Sum Ting Wong
2) Are you harboring a fugitive?…Hu Yu Hai Ding?
3) See me ASAP…………………Kum Hia Nao
4) Stupid Man………………….Dum Gai
5) Small Horse…………………Tai Ni Po Ni
6) Did you go to the beach?……..Wai Yu So Tan?
7) I bumped into a coffee table….Ai Bang Mai Ni
8) I think you need a face lift….Chin Tu Fat
9) It’s very dark in here……….Wai So Dim?
10) I thought you were on a diet…Wai Yu Mun Ching?
11) This is a tow away zone……..No Pah King
12) Our meeting is scheduled for next week…… Wai Yu Kum Nao?
13) Staying out of sight………..Lei Ying Lo
14) He’s cleaning his automobile…Wa Shing Ka
15) Your body odor is offensive….Yu Stin Ki Pu
16) Great……………………..Fu Kin Su Pah

Remember, you have to read it out loud to get it. No. 15 just cracks me up. No offense to the Chinese out there, just put this up in good humor.

And I thought I would never be able to speak another language.

For those of you who want modern minimalistic living, here is a house for you…

Designer Luigi Colani has created a space-saving house with a 64 sq foot cylinder inside that contains a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. The cylinder rotates left or right bringing the room you want into view of the main living room. There’s a separate toilet and a small hallway, and everything is controlled with a remote. One may find it a little time consuming wanting to grab a glass of water in the middle of the night. Also, where would you put your clothes, kitchen utensils and cutlery?

The bedroom.

The bathroom.

The kitchen.

(Source: MoCo Design)

I can’t blame people who are germophobic and it seems like as I grow older, I am becoming one too.

Driving home from the in-laws on Sunday, I stopped by several rest stops and was appalled to see the number of people who came out of the bathroom stalls and walked straight out the door without washing their hands. I must have counted about 6 people at 3 stops — 2 kids and 4 adults. Never would I have imagined that there would be more adults doing it than kids. And 2 of the adults were actually quite decently dressed with a tie and jacket. It kind of makes me wonder the next time I shake the hand of a nicely dressed manager or business person. Yuck! Going back to the rest stop story, what made it worse is that while they rushed out of the bathroom exit, I actually had finished washing my hands and had dried them so I was just about the next person to open the bathroom door to exit too (and I was NOT about to touch the door handle). I did wait for the next person to enter the bathroom so I could conveniently rush out the door without touching anything.

I have (in the past couple of years) been in the habit of using paper towels to touch everything in public bathrooms. It grosses me out to think about the number of germs on the bathroom stall door handles/locks, sink handles, flush handles to name some. Then to think about how clean the other public places like grocery stores are (i.e. specifically the shopping carts and baskets). At least some grocery stores have antibacterial wipes now to wipe down the carts and baskets. Some public restrooms also have the automatic sensors for flushing and washing hands — pretty sensible in my mind.

I did catch a report on CNN last week saying that airport security check-in areas (i.e. where people are required to take their shoes off and walk through the metal detectors) are just about the most unhygienic of places in airports as tests have uncovered everything from fecal matter to fungus on the floor area. It also reported on hotels/ motels too and random tests have shown that the cheaper motels like Motel6 and Red Roof Inn have uncovered more unsanitary bathrooms and unclean bedsheets/ duvets covers than the higher priced ones like the Marriott and Hilton hotels. And those free peanuts at the bars or pubs… don’t ever pick one up and eat them — they reported so many different types of germs in it and where they came from, it makes my stomach churn just thinking about it.

I read years ago that our bodies have learnt to adapt with a certain number of germs in the surroundings hence the reason why we never get sick from it i.e. we have a certain amount of immunity with our environment. However, I wish I didn’t read so much about it in the papers or watch reports of it on TV as it just makes me think of how gross, unhygienic and nasty some public places are.

… One of those things I wish I never knew! I feel sorry for Monk and I don’t blame Kelly Ripa for not liking it when Clay Aiken put his hand over her mouth — you just never know where it has been.

Note: Didn’t know the right spelling for germophobia — google listed two spelling versions of it (i.e. germophobia and germaphobia), I settled on the germophobia spelling.

Been receiving tremendous amount of blog post spam from spambots lately. Some of them even extend more than 100 lines or so with useless advertisement links. I have written about this before but I still can’t believe how stupid the posts are — there are two spam posts that I get a lot i.e. “You have good guest book” (I don’t even have one!) and the other one says, “You have good site, what is your designer? I wants become friends with you.” (Yes, with broken English and all)

I have since installed Peter’s Anti Spam Image plugin. Those of you who comment now have to type in a word that is shown in the image box. I chose this plugin because it does not discrimate against users who have cookies disabled and I can pick my own fun random words to display. Sorry for the inconvenience and the extra field to type in but those pesky spammers just spoil it for everyone. I know it won’t stop spammers but it may reduce some of the spam from those pesky spambots on the net.

If you have any trouble commenting, don’t hesitate to contact me. Any feedback on the usage of the plugin is much appreciated.

If you are a comic enthusiast, you will love this hotel room. The Arte Luise Kunst Hotel in Berlin, Germany gives you a chance to experience life in a comic book style room.

A characteristic touch is that every corner and angle is outlined with a thin, hand-drawn, black line – whether on the ceiling, on the bed, or around a plug. The result is a dollhouse-like, comic book room with papaya green walls, a sunny yellow rug, a lilac bed and a pink cupboard. Graphics and decorations by the artist complete the design.

The hotel is often called a “gallery where you can spent the night” and is located in one of the Berlin’s most exciting neighborhoods. Comprising a neo-classical residential palais from 1825 and an addition from 2003, the hotel offers almost 50 rooms, a generous lobby, and an art gallery for holding events. All rooms within the hotel were decorated by renown artists, giving each room an original, unique artistic concept. Check out the other different artistic rooms.

One of my lifetime goals is to visit all 50 states and as many countries in the world as possible. I also make a practice to get a magnet from each state or country I have visited (* driving through a state, landing in an airport temporarily or while on transit doesn’t count as a visit in my eyes).

I am just above the halfway mark: 26 states visited.

(Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, West Virginia, California, DC, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania)

create your own personalized map of the USA

Here are my stats for the countries visited in the world: 17 countries visited or 7% of the world

(Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Germany, Switzerland, France, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Brunei, Australia)

create your own visited country map

(Source: World66 via Fruit of Spirit)

Was reviewed by Soapbox Jury last week and received a respectable 7/10. Soapbox Jury is a random review blog site with “No nonsense views on different websites, products, services and ideas.” Special thanks to Tom for taking the time to review The Foo Logs.

Here is what they had to say:

Continue Reading »

Check out the exciting New 7 Wonders of the World campaign, the world’s first-ever global vote.

I just voted for my favorite 7 of the 21 finalists that are competing — go to www.new7wonders.com to pick your favorite monuments and vote. The list has been trimmed down to the final 21 from over hundreds of nominations and the final 7 will be announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007.

Here are your choices:

1. The Acropolis of Athens (450 - 330 B.C.) Athens, Greece
2. Alhambra (12th century) Granada, Spain
3. Angkor (12th century) Cambodia
4. The Pyramid at Chichén Itzá (before 800 A.D.) Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
5. Christ Redeemer (1931) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6. The Roman Colosseum (70 - 82 A.D.) Rome, Italy
7. Statues of Easter Island (10th - 16th Century) Easter Island, Chile
8. The Eiffel Tower (1887 - 89) Paris, France
9. The Great Wall of China (220 B.C and 1368 - 1644 A.D.) China
10. The Hagia Sophia (532 - 537 A.D.) Istanbul, Turkey
11. Kiyomizu Temple (749 - 1855) Kyoto, Japan
12. The Kremlin and Red Square (1156 - 1850) Moscow, Russia
13. Machu Picchu (1460-1470), Peru
14. Neuschwanstein Castle (1869 -1884) Schwangau, Germany
15. Petra (9 B.C. - 40 A.D.), Jordan
16. The Pyramids of Giza (2600 - 2500 B.C), Egypt
17. The Statue of Liberty (1886) New York City, U.S.A.
18. Stonehenge (3000 B.C. - 1600 B.C.) Amesbury, United Kingdom
19. Sydney Opera House (1954 - 73) Sydney, Australia
20. The Taj Mahal (1630 A.D.) Agra, India
21. Timbuktu (12th century) Mali

My 7 votes were: The Acropolis of Athens, The Roman Colosseum, The Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Petra, The Pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge.

Initially contemplated putting The Statue of Liberty, Sydney Opera House, Taj Mahal and The Eiffel Tower within the 7 choices but changed my mind, as when I compared them to my final selection, the 4 monuments above (regardless of their significances) seemed more like celebrated attractions than actual wonders.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and shopped themselves silly on Black Friday. Our Thanksgiving dinner was without J’s mom and dad as they had a bout of food poisoning which was unfortunate … we missed ya! Seems like every Thanksgiving dinner is incomplete without someone spilling something — there were 2 spills, sparkling grape juice in a plate of cut turkey and on the table/floor. That made the turkey a little flavored and doggie had some Turkey day wine.

I tried to get the Xbox 360 for $100 offer @ 2pm EST on Thanksgiving day but I couldn’t even get on Amazon.com to buy it. It probably sold out within 2 minutes of the sale, considering there were only 1000 units for sale at the price.

Watched Casino Royale on Friday and although I had initially expressed reservations on the new blond Bond, I have to take it all back as he was excellent in the role — I’ll go as far as to say that he may be one of the best one since Sean Connery. Didn’t think they could pull off having James Bond without Q and his usual stupendous gadgetry but they did it — and very successfully indeed. Couple of things I felt that went against Daniel Craig as the new Bond was his height (he seemed a little too short to be a Bond) and his pouty mouth. The Bond theme song is also one of the worst ones yet.

The weekend has been a relaxing one, although I am not looking forward to the long drive home later today. We do miss Miles, as he was left home with a petsitter. I also hate the later half of Sundays as it edges closer to Monday (the day of the week I hate the most).

He who thanks but with the lips
Thanks but in part;
The full, the true Thanksgiving
Comes from the heart.
~ J.A. Shedd

J has always cherished having family over for the holidays. That is because we live quite a distance away, and they don’t get to visit very often.

It has been an unofficial tradition that every year, we see a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball game during Thanksgiving weekend — just a fun family thing to do.

A couple of years ago, I played in a charity golf tournament with some of the Cleveland Cavaliers and other NBA pro basketballers. During dinner that night, there were prizes that were auctioned off for charity. I decided to bid on a unique one i.e. to be the Cleveland Cavaliers Sixth Man announcer for the day. In other words, the person who won it was made the official game announcer introducing the team and getting the whole basketball arena riled up before they made their entrance. Those of you out of the country not familiar with sports team introductions here in the US — it is a big thing i.e. with pyrotechnics, streamers and loud music.

Well, as you might have already guessed where this story is going… I won the auction and decided to request the same game date that J’s family was going to attend i.e. Thanksgiving weekend.

On game day, we arrived at the basketball arena a couple of hours early. The family had wondered why we went so early, and we told them that it was easier finding a parking spot. In truth, I had to get there to talk to the production managers. The family still had no clue to what was going to happen.

So 10 minutes before the game started, after the national anthem was sung, the producers waved me on … it was my cue to announce. With the camera pointing at me, my face plastered on every big screen in the arena and to an eerie silence of about 20,000 people, I looked into the camera and said,

“Cleveland Cavalier Fans, My name is xxxx and I am your Cavalier’s Sixth Man for tonight!”

I had to pause for a bit as they started chanting my name. This was the part I had to rile up the fans and make the place go wild.

I shouted, “Cavalier fans… are you ready?”

The whole stadium stood up and started cheering in anticipation for the team to make its entrance.

“I can’t hear youuuuuuu, louder!”

(Didn’t think the crowd could get any louder but they did!)

“OK! Let’s turn down the lights!”

The lights in the stadium turned off (at my command) for the team to make their big entrance together with loud music and pyrotechnics.

J’s family was absolutely dumbfounded and the look on their faces when they saw me on the big screen was priceless. They never once expected me to announce in front of 20,000 people yet alone at the same game they were at.

It was hard to describe the feeling of hearing 20,000 fans cheer my name. Wherever I went in the arena that night, people were shaking my hands, giving me high fives and chanting my name — I felt like a celebrity! While we were walking back to the parking lot, cars passing us honked loudly, the people inside their cars yelled my name, wound down their windows and gave me high fives. It was a night to remember and certainly for the family too.

This is the first time in many years that we are going back to the in-laws for Thanksgiving instead of them coming to visit us. There won’t be a basketball game this year (unfortunately) but nevertheless it’ll be nice to be around family at this time of the year. I love Thanksgiving dinner and look forward to it every year, although I always feel a little sick after that from overeating but the after dinner naps certainly do help ease some of it.

So, we are off to the in-laws in a couple of hours and I’ll be taking a break from blogging for a few days.

From everyone here at The Foo Logs i.e. J, Miles and me…

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope it is a memorable and happy one.

I’ll leave you with a Thanksgiving quote:

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.

(Theodore Roosevelt, 1901)

(Picture Sources: about.com and off the mark)