Just can't believe how bad it is getting in Asia. Yesterday I started a donation drive at my work to collect money for AmeriCares. It won't be much compared to the suffering, but at least I'm doing something. *....

Rest in peace, Jerry Orbach. I didn't get into Law and Order until just recently, but I could already tell it was going downhill when he left the show. *....

CNN.com - Jerry Orbach dead at 69 - Dec 29, 2004: "Actor Jerry Orbach, best known for his long-running role as New York police detective Lennie Briscoe on 'Law & Order,' has died. He was 69."

Who's da ho? *....

Number of birthday spams I've received so far: FOUR. *....

Merry Christmas. Happy Hannukah. Tip-top Tet. A solomn and dignified Ramadan. And happy new year!










Oh yeah..And today is the last day of my youth. *...

Went and saw Matthew Dear and Swayzak last night at FIVE. It was a good party. Still not really into the club thing, but this was my last chance to go out before the dreaded 25. *.....

As I've always said, Asia is just plain better. *.....

BBC NEWS | Technology | Fast lifts rise into record books: "Two high-speed lifts at the world's tallest building have been officially recognised as the planet's fastest.

The lifts take only 30 seconds to whisk passengers to the top of the 508m tall TFC 101 Tower in Taipei, Taiwan.

The Guinness Book of Records has declared the 17m per second speed of the two lifts the swiftest on Earth.

The lifts also have a pressure control system to stop passengers' ears popping as they ascend and descend at high speed."

The continuing decline of the English language *....

NCBuy Weird News: "Crack Ho" and "Hoochie" Added To Oxford Dictionary - 2004-12-15: "NEW YORK (Wireless Flash) -- Hip hop-based words have entered the vernacular of many English speakers and now they have found their way into a prestigious dictionary.

More than 2,000 new and revised word entries have been added to the online edition of The Oxford English Dictionary and a small contingent of them come from the P. Diddy and Eminem arena.

For example, the word 'benjamin,' meaning 'a one-hundred dollar bill' and more generally, 'large sums of money' made its way onto the list.

Other hip-hop words that were added:

-- 'Hoochie,' which means 'a young woman who is promiscuous or who dresses or behaves in a sexually provocative or overtly seductive manner.'

-- 'Thugged out' is defined as 'resembling a thug in dress or behavior, tough-looking.'

-- And finally, the dictionary editors have added 'crack ho,' which is defined as 'a prostitute addicted to crack cocaine.'

Dictionary spokesman Jesse Shiedlowe says he expects a lot more hip-hop words to be added in future editions of the dictionary as long as the music genre continues to stay popular."

Ok, Kinnish...I lied. Here is a real post... Just because i think this is hillarious! *....

Hospitals covering over LiveStrong bracelets, fearing a deadly mix-up: "A hospital chain is taping over patients' LiveStrong wristbands because they are yellow -- the same color as the 'do not resuscitate' bands it puts on patients who do not want to be saved if their heart stops.

No mix-ups have been reported, but BayCare Health Systems officials do not want to take any chances.

The popular LiveStrong rubber bracelets are sold through the Lance Armstrong Foundation as part of the champion bicycle racer's efforts to raise money for cancer research.

'It could be confusing, particularly in the situation of a code or a cardiac arrest where people have to think very quickly,' said Lisa Johnson, vice president of patient services at Morton Plant Mease Health Care, which is part of the chain. 'We wouldn't want to mistake a Lance Armstrong bracelet and not resuscitate someone we're supposed to.'"

Hi Kinnishly. I'm going to bed soon and there were no intersting news stories today....so this is all the posting you get! :-) *....

What a stunning piece of architecture! *....

BBC NEWS | Europe | Inauguration for tallest bridge: "The world's highest road bridge is due to be inaugurated in southern France by President Jacques Chirac before opening to traffic later this week.

The Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains will carry cars across a 2.5km (1.5 mile) valley at a height of 270m (885ft).

The highest point of the seven-pillar bridge stands at 343m (1,125ft) tall.

Completing a new motorway link between Paris and the Mediterranean, it removes a bottleneck at the town of Millau."

Yah! Found my birthday present! *....

Interesting article from the Post. I guess I always got around this problem by not buying anything at all *....

Santa Pause (washingtonpost.com)" If you are absolutely determined to contain your spending this Christmas, start your next shopping trip by buying yourself a nice little treat. This is the first lesson of the physics of shopping.

Make the mistake of having your first purchase of the day be something dull and boring, much as you might need it, and you are asking for trouble. This is the moment the gravitational field takes hold.

Next thing you know, your wallet is empty, your credit cards are full, you're hauling home a bulging shopping bag and you're asking yourself, "What was I thinking?"

You don't have to blame yourself. Perhaps buying more than you want or can afford is more force of nature than weakness of character. You may be just one more victim of "the shopping momentum effect," according to an about-to-be-released study by researchers from Yale and Duke universities. "

Yeah, this is pretty much where I am these days. *....

Quarter-life crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Characteristics of this crisis are:

* confusion of identity
* insecurity regarding the near future
* insecurity regarding present accomplishments
* re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
* disappointment with one's job
* nostalgia for college life
* tendency to hold stronger opinions
* boredom with social interactions
* financially-rooted stress

These emotions and insecurities are not uncommon at this age, nor at any age in adult life. In the context of the quarter-life crisis, however, they occur shortly after a young person-- usually an educated professional, in this context-- enters the 'real world'. After the initial excitement of adult life and its responsibilities wears off, some individuals find themselves in a world of career stagnation and extreme insecurity.

As the emotional ups-and-downs of adolesence and college life subside, many in the quarter-life crisis experience a 'graying' of emotion. While emotional interactions may be intense in a high school or college environment-- where everyone is roughly the same age and hormones are highly active-- these interactions become subtler and more private in adult life."

I think there is a house up the street from me that would qualify for this website. *...

Welcome to Ugly Christmas Lights.com!: "This site is here to show those houses where the residents are likely celebrating a happy holiday, but have no sense of decency in how they choose to celebrate. We will show the garish, the ugly, the weird. For your own sake, and the sake of your neighbors, do not try this at home"

Oh my....

The birds outside my apartment are going crazy. There have to be several hundred, all of different types, flying in random patterns and sqwaking. It looks like something out of a disaster movie.

May Allah have mercy!! *.....

This is just a little scary. *...

A character study of 22 present and past cartoon characters.

Animation was the format of choice for children's television in the 1960s, a decade in which children's programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.

I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.

Each character resides on a translucent, hinged panel. When the panel is lifted the character’s skeletal structure is revealed giving each a certain validity and glimpse into its origins. Each panel is hand-drawn with archival ink and covered with an acrylic/acetate transparency.

Seems like a cool idea here, but of course it will probably be decades before we'd see something like this in the US. I'm sure Europe or Japn will have it before long *....

news@nature.com?-?Beating the lights: "Have you ever wished, as you sat at a red light, that you had the power to switch it to green? A traffic researcher is proposing that giving motorists precisely this power could improve the efficiency of city roads.

The catch (there had to be a catch) is that this control wouldn't be handed over to individual drivers. Instead they would exercise it collectively. If a large enough convoy of cars approached a red light, this would force the light to turn green, while the other lights at the junction turned red.

Carlos Gershenson at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, outlines his theory in a preprint published on Arxiv1. He says his system of traffic lights would be able to adapt to changing traffic conditions, allowing it to find a better switching sequence than one imposed rigidly on all situations.
"

Laying on the couch, in my flannel pajama bottoms, while watching Family Guy on DVD... I think I have officially entered my quarterlife crisis. *...

The New York Times > Movies > Glamour Lives, in Chinese Films: "ONCE upon a time in Hollywood, the stars shone with a radiant glamour; in Chinese film they still do. In movies from Beijing to Hong Kong, actresses like Zhang Ziyi and actors like Tony Leung Chiu-wai fill the screen with heart-skipping beauty and charm. In May at the Cannes Film Festival, audiences swooned for Wong Kar-wai's romantic drama '2046' and Zhang Yimou's latest swordsman epic, 'House of Flying Daggers.' Although they couldn't be more different in story, sensibility and visual pleasures, what the films share in addition to Ms. Zhang is an extraordinary glamour born from the tension between release and repression."

I WANT THIS SO BAD!!!

Boing Boing: Snowglobular: "Camille Utterback's Shaken artwork is a tiny video screen embedded inside a snow globe. From the artist's statement:

'In the Shaken object, the physical gesture of shaking the device initiates the objects response of being 'shaken'. This object consists of a snow globe with an embedded LCD screen and tilt sensor. The more the user shakes the object, the more momentum is added to a video of a woman shaking out of control. Future versions of this piece will incorporate video clips which evoke a first person depiction of being shaken or disorientated.'"

Boing Boing: Not just for breakfast: "Cereality is a sit-down restaurant that serves up custom blends of brand-name breakfast cereals and toppings. The second Cereality location just opened on the University of Pennsylvania campus. From an Associated Press report:

Between bites of hot oatmeal with cranberries and almonds, Penn junior Alpha Mengistu, 20, said Cereality offered more than a quick carb- and sugar-load.'> Between bites of hot oatmeal with cranberries and almonds, Penn junior Alpha Mengistu, 20, said Cereality offered more than a quick carb- and sugar-load.

'I think this would be a good place for a date,' she said. 'You could learn a lot about a person by what cereal they choose.'"

I am such a cereal junkie!! Anyone want to take a trip up to PA to check it out?? *....

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "Germans think they're well-hung - but they're not
Wed 1 December, 2004 16:56

BERLIN (Reuters) - Most German men wear condoms of the wrong size, a condom distributor has said, after asking more than 2,500 men to measure their erect penis.

'People measure their feet when they buy shoes. Why shouldn't they measure their penises? A man would not wear children's shoes,' said Jan Vinzenz Krause of Vinico, which released the study's findings on World AIDS Day.

Most condom boxes in Germany indicated size but men, due to embarrassment or vanity, rarely checked or just bought those marked 'extra large', he said on Wednesday.

Vinico's survey recommended various brands to be used -- depending on the endowment of the wearer.

The study found the average erect penis size was 14.7 cm (5-3/4 inches), with 40 percent of participants reporting lengths between 12 and 15 cm (4-3/4 and 5-7/8 inches).

When compared with the condoms normally used by the participants, the results showed only 18 percent wore the right size, with nearly half squeezing into condoms that were too small and 34 percent trying to use those that were too big."

Now this is what I need *...CNN.com - New York hotel offers $10,000 martini: "Drinkers might want to keep a clear head when ordering a martini at New York's historic Algonquin Hotel or they might pay $10,000 for that cold sip.

The landmark hotel, where famed wit Dorothy Parker and fellow literary lights at the Round Table imbibed, offers a $10,000 martini, complete with a loose diamond at the bottom."

AP Wire | 12/01/2004 | Philly, Verizon Complete Wireless Deal: "HARRISBURG, Pa. - The city of Philadelphia and Verizon Communications Inc. struck an agreement Tuesday that would allow the city to provide wireless Internet access as a municipal service even though Gov. Ed Rendell signed legislation giving Verizon the power to scuttle the project.

Philadelphia's plans are the most ambitious of any major U.S. city to provide free or cheap high-speed wireless to all residents.

Lawyers for the city and Verizon, the city's local telephone company, found common ground Tuesday in discussions with the governor's office, said Luz Cardenas, a spokeswoman for Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street.

The parties 'reached an understanding that protects our interests and allows us to move forward with the Wireless Philadelphia initiative,' Cardenas said.

The agreement relieved pressure on Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor whose political base is in the city, to veto the bill, which lobbyists for the telecommunications industry helped draft."

New York Post Online Edition: business: "Universal Music, the world's largest music company, is in discussions with satellite television provider EchoStar to launch a 24-hour music channel that would rival MTV, The Post has learned.

Sources said the new channel, which will feature music from around the world, has yet to be named.

The channel is scheduled to be launched in early 2005, these sources said."

Shu Lea Cheang: "Milk" Shu Lea Cheang's online art project mixes random porn images grabbed from the web while displaying the number of Africans who died of AIDS since you started connecting. Porn is all about fantasy—but if there was ever a time to remember that certain realities still affect all of us (especially the adult industry), it's today. Get educated, get involved, and do what you can to make observing World AIDS Day every December 1 a thing of the past.