Author: F C

Don’t have too much to contribute above what SSW had to say, but it just hit me that nobody on Google News has used this title. Dan Rather is going to “60 Minutes” to go back to what he enjoyed doing, field and investigative reporting. I can understand how once when you get to the top of your game, you don’t feel like you can go back; it’s a good thing that Rather can go back to what he enjoys doing. Not too many people can do that. Yes, it does take “Courage”.

Don’t have enough spam? Get your special edition Golden Honey Grail SPAM® along with the new Broadway musical Monty Python’s Spamalot ($4 and $101 respectively).

I’ve been investigating various means of teleconferencing at work, from IP Phones, Skype, Netmeeting (what a pain H.323 can be!), as well as checking out podcasting. I think it would be fun for us to try it. You really have to check out the Little Grey Book Lectures. They are a monthly long form variety show held at the Galapagos in Williamsburg. I thought the most enjoyable one was on “Hints on Public Singing”, specifically on the history of U.S. Patent 1,573,696, M. Fleischer’s “Song Motion Picture Film”, otherwise known as “Follow the Bouncing Ball”, the forerunner to the karaoke machine. And yes, the bouncing ball was invented in Brooklyn.

Monday’s New York Post Editorial honestly believes that we should suspend habeas corpus because nobody can figure out how to charge Jose Padilla with a crime. What kind of Republicans are these people?

P- and I differ in the way we plan trips.

I’m kind of the get-to-the-objective-at-all-costs and smell-the-roses-along-the-way-type-of-person. I have an overall theme of things I want to experience, but I don’t have a preset lists of things — I’m willing to let things be how they are.

P– is for the regimented checklist approach: 6 am at the market, 7 am at the castle, 8 am at the museum.

Both of these approaches have their merits. Itinerary from Venus will accomplish all of the compulsory checklist items in the guide book but will require another vacation afterwards. Mission from Mars will probably hit the major items in the guide book, but spend a lot more time on each one.

I hope we can come to a happy medium. I really hated the last large group tour I went on because of fighting over travel plans.

Amazing Race 7 started yesterday. Thankfully, there are a minimum of models and aspiring actors this time around. There are actually teams that have real foreign language skills! Anybody notice the free “mata de coca” drink they were giving out in front the zip line clue? It’s tea made from the leaves of the plant used to make cocaine, supposingly useful for altitude sickness. And no silly cruises or vacations this time for coming in first:

Inca dude: Welcom-me a [sic] to Cuscu, Peru!
Phil: Debbie and Bianca…… You’re Team number one! (music swells, girls scream).
Phil: Now, I’ve got some good news for you guys. As the winners of this first leg of the race…
[the girls are staring expecting some vacation package]
Phil: … you have won $10,000.
[the girls stare with their jaws dropping]
Debbie: No way! No way! Are you kidding me?
Phil: It gets better… $10,000 each, a total of $20,000.
[mad jumping up and down]

That was enough to convince P– we should try out for #8 with her sister and her sister’s husband.

No more pictures for a while — I totaled my digital camera during the last snow storm. It was either a static shock or some water, but all of a sudden there was a big flash of light and the camera started to smell like smoke. Too bad, I had gotten over 7,000 photos out of that, which was a great investment. Have to find another camera before the next trip.

As for Oscar commentary, not too much interest in who actually won, but Chris Rock showed that he can get down to business. Maybe he got himself disinvited to Oprah’s house, but anyone that can bring in the Oscars 20 minutes early is a genius. Also, a great shout-out to Brooklyn at the end!

One of my law school friends took me on a mysterious meeting to check out “e-business” marketing opportunities. It turned out to be one of those multi-level marketing schemes, although it seems to be technically legal. However, it is an accounting mess. The independent business person has to buy $250 of stuff from themselves each month to gain points toward bonuses. The bonus is in the $40 range at that level. So, you’re paying $250 plus the startup fees to make $40. They don’t encourage marketing the product that they nominally sell, they encourage franchising the business to others. In addition, the high grossing products are not really the stuff that is sold at retail, but the franchise training stuff to continue in the business. Don’t know about this one.

Sunday began with an ultra early ultra late Chinese New Year’s dim sum with P-‘s dad. Chinatown was swamped with an array of dragon dancing parading. Then we went up to Time Warner Center with P-‘s brother as he hadn’t seen it yet. Williams-Sonoma had noodle soup and a olive oil bar on offer for snacking. Upstairs we checked out Borders, which had a not so good selection of Japan books. Then it was down to Whole Foods and Jamba Juice. By the time we got out it was about 4 PM, where we entered The Gates at W 65th Street. If the whole point was to get everyone out into the park in freezing weather the middle of February, it definately worked. For every serious comment about its artistic merit – the sun gives it a great hue, it looks like a orange highlight through the park – there were some knocks, such as it looked like bath curtains and it made the entire park look like a construction site. Microsoft missed a co-branding opportunity: it could have been called The Bill Gates. We made it all the way up to Belvedere Castle, where we could see the largest swarth of orange as the sun set. Ultimately, I thought it was good for New York to rediscover the park.

The past week has been dizzying, not the least because I had (have) one of those nasty colds, which is down to an annoying cough. My brother went off to San Francisco to make his fortune. P– and I have been making random progress with our Japan/Taiwan trip in March. We’re emailing to Taiwan, skyping to Malaysia, and writing letters to my councilman from Bensenhurst in Inuyama. My cousin T- is in on a flythrough, lamenting on the lack of IP materials available in Chinese law schools. We went to Doyers Vietnamese, which is basically the Vietnamese version of Wo Hop — in the middle of the most secluded place in Manhattan’s Chinatown, but incredibly cheap food. So cheap in fact that we actually spent more money on dessert at Cha Cha’s In Bocca Al Lupo Cafe in Little Italy afterwards.

At least it’s not the Amazing Race, which ended last week in a relatively disappointing fashion. Well, we’ll have a whole new set of people in 2 weeks. They’re casting for Race number 8, which will have teams composed of 4 family members. We tossed around the idea of me with P–, P–‘s sister and her husband. Boy, that would be something!

V-day was spent in our tradition of going to Kam Suh, a Korean restaurant on E 32nd St. For some reason, there was no problem getting a table. We had oyster pancakes (we could have done without because the free pan chan appertizers also included them), bulgogi, kalbi, and kimchi gigae. We finished the whole thing — I don’t know how. P- had done some Crate and Barrel shopping, finding some nice throw rugs, as well as a really cute Valentine’s Day card.

These past two weeks were spent showing up. A couple of meetings with the alumni association, mostly dealing with benefits. I got to buy drinks for Dale Minami, who was being honored at the Waldorf. I saw Salman Rushdie at another dinner at Chelsea Piers, who made a witty comment about being the subject of a fatwah by the Ayatollah Khomeini – “only one of us is alive today”.

In between all of these compulsory appearances, my dad was in the hospital with pneumonia until last Saturday. He’s better now, but I really hope the weather warms up asap. Although that’s not likely with the upcoming northeaster tomorrow.

Oh yeah, happy new year! I’m taking the day off, but not doing anything wild because I have a cold. I have another dinner on Thursday at Jing Fong honoring Glen Lau Kee. Friday is “Table 11”. Saturday is dinner with my cousin T-. Monday of course is V-day with P-. I am planning a trip with P- to Japan and Taiwan in March — more details soon.

Today: in a tribute to the Alaskan dog mushing race Ititarod, Brooklynites are running the Idiotrod, the same kind of race, except with 5 humans and a shopping cart. Check out NPR’s coverage last year.

Some depressing folks in the UK had declared January 24 as the “worst day of the year”, mostly because it is depressing post holiday, people are broke from holiday spurging, and to top it off, it’s a Monday.

The commute in from Sheepshead Bay really sucked – the B train was stuck twice on the way in towards Manhattan, finally giving up the ghost after an hour’s commute at 7th Avenue, Brooklyn. I walked to the 3 train stop at Bergen Street; P turned around and went back home. The guy I was expecting from Washington DC actually made it in 30 minutes before I go there.

The C train has been KO’ed by some bum starting a bonfire in a shopping cart, destroying the switching station at Chambers Street. Estimated repair: 5 years and millions of dollars! The A train will be manually switched, cutting capacity by 2/3rds. On the other hand, it makes the V train useful now, as it will take over the C train line from West Fourth Street to Euclid Avenue. They’re going to recreate the exact same system from 1910, instead of going to some sort of computer control like the one being implemented for the L train. I don’t get it.