Fat bomb!

Americans can't have all the supersized fun. Read about how we stole the crown from the Americans here.

AUSTRALIA has become the fattest nation in the world, with more than 9 million adults now rated as obese or overweight, according to an alarming new report.

You tube

You tube sucks. I am annoyed that I can no longer watch UEFA CL videos there.

Censorship is pointless

I have been overwhelmed by a particular TV channel continuously advertising a new underworld drama – something like an Australian version of The Sopranos, based on the criminal underworld in Melbourne. As appealing as it sounds to watch, it did one day come a little to close to home. While I was living in Melbourne in 2004, about four blocks from my house a gangster was shot. I remember walking past that restaurant all the time. The restaurant looked like a little family affair with the oversized wine glasses on tables dressed in white cloths, and the aroma of pizza filling the air. A Chinese restaurant resides in the building now which seems out of place in the Italian quarter.

It looks like the show won’t be shown in Melbourne due to outstanding court cases. Yet, I have no concern as I can download it from the web within 1 hour of it screening in Sydney.

What is love?

Not that this post will tell you, however here is an interesting audio clip I came across today giving the finer points of how to keep a marriage together, especially for women. It is not something you should play loudly at work. Listen to it here or save it to your computer for personal laughter time (size is about 4mbs).

The hunted becomes the hunter!

I have spent the whole day messing around with econometric programs and have finally made some progress. I was waiting for one of my programs to tell me I have an error, which tends to be the norm rather than the exception, so I decided to check out a few other blogs which I read.

On one of them I came across this video and decided the accompanying text made it worth while to watch. I knew I had about 5 minutes to kill if the program worked. I was amazed at what I saw and thought I got to get a better discovery channel than the one I used to watch. Anyway there are crocs, buffalo, and lions. Enjoy!

Whisky and green tea

I read about a new drink which is popular in Asia called whisky and green tea. It is described as taking the harshness out of the scotch. Well I wasn’t really sold on the idea until the weekend of Tyler’s farewell, when I was talking with Jeff about it. He thought the flavours of the tea would add to the complexity of the scotch making it surreal drinking experience. Now after some advertising like that I was a fool not to try.

I had organised some different types of green tea and a bottle of Glen Fiddich. I was really excited after the discussion with Jeff and a little sad that he was not here to enjoy it. The night before Hendrik had told us he had never had Glen Fiddich before and we thought we might as well let him have some on his last day in LX. After the unknown farewell party, Eric and I headed back to the ER to try the drinks.

After what seemed a long time to we were able to dispense with the photographing ceremony and proceed to open the bottle. The first drink we had was with the traditional Japanese green tea. Eric searched the web to see if there was a special way to do this yet we came back empty handed.

So we just mixed them as you would any drink with whisky and proceeded to drink it. The taste was all green tea. It overpowered any of the delicateness the scotch had. We both decided that the next one had to be different.

The next one was the honey green tea. Now I thought this would compliment the scotch due to a drink known as Drambuie, a scotch liqueur. So this time we measure a lot less tea with the scotch and proceeded to taste. This was about equal parts and it still just tasted like tea. I was disappointed and wondered why does anyone want to do this to scotch, especially one like this.

Eric and I had one last chance, tonic. Of the drinks so far this was the best one. It had a citrus taste which was not so dominant. If there was one thing I learnt that night, is the best way to drink Glen Fiddich is on the rocks. Oh yes there was some left when Hendrik arrived back as well.

What are they doing?

Well the Coop Mart has done it again. After asking them to stock cheese they finally did. I felt elated about having cheese, and relieved not to need to ask for cheese every time my friend goes to Can Tho. After rectifying the cheese issue it has done one worse.

Now when you are hungover there is nothing like lemon-lime Gatorade (or even orange). It just peaks you up. So I felt that now everything is set, drink all night and one bottle of Gatorade for breakfast. Such a sweet deal.

Now they have decided not to stock it. Why? If there was ever a place that needed Gatorade outside of a sports venue it is Long Xuyen. Drinking is a national sport here. And I have seen some guys at work looking like they fought a truck at high speed (I have even seen it in the mirror sometimes too). I guess I am disappointed. No really disappointed. You see Jeff rocked in from Long My yesterday and we started a little early and finished a little late. And today I woke up feeling like I had survived a nuclear detonation in my head. I really just wanted to go and vege out and have some refreshing, life giving Gatorade. As I write this my mind is ticking (loudly) about how to get more Gatorade into LX. (pic is from Wiki)

The big game

Last night I was on a desperate search looking through all the channels in my room to find the Champions League final. I had checked earlier that afternoon to see which channels I had and realised that I might have to go out to watch it. After a few enquiries I was reassured that it would be available, yet at 1:30 this morning my hope was shattered. I went to the VTV network looking for any signs of hope, yet all I found was disappointment when I saw that the stations pregame telecast was already underway.

I remembered one of the staff here saying you could view the VTV telecast from the website so I searched for this option only to find singing. I was confused as what to do when suddenly mid song the telecast started to announce the teams. I was thinking if this is all I got then this will do, these are desperate times. Then suddenly sounds burst out of the other room startling me, and as I looked I saw that the game was being televised by THAG (An Giang TV).

Well the game was underway and I was a mixture of nervous energy and excitement. Liverpool looked good, yet I was concerned that their strike power was inaccurate. I started to drift a bit towards the end of the 1st half, yet was awake to see a terrible thing, a foul just outside the penalty box. My heart sank as I watched Milan score a goal of a deflection. Originally from the replay I saw, I thought the deflection came off his upper arm yet it just must have been the angle as no one else seems to have seen that. Milan were quite lucky to score against the run of play at half time.

Liverpool came out after half time energised. I could feel that they were ready and would score to goals to take the cup back to Anfield. Milan did that boring thing of continuously defending deep making them boring to watch. On the other hand, I felt Liverpool was exciting to watch they were setting themselves up for nice runs, yet to my dismay no luck. I was feeling the pressure of time when the most horrible thing happened in the 82nd minute, Liverpool’s defence slept for a microsecond to allow for a second goal. I felt gutted after this as I was thinking there is no way you for them to come back.

The 89th minute saw Kuyt edge a header into the corner bringing the game to 2-1. I felt the surge of excitement run through my body as I was lost in the moment recounting the 2005 miraculous comeback. However, it was not long to realise that more time was needed. As the final whistle blew I thought Liverpool played better and were more exciting to watch (12 shots @ goal to 5 shots) and just had some bad luck around halftime. As the newspapers say Agony in Athens.

Friday the 13th

I am not really into superstitions in general so today being Friday the 13th really had no meaning to me. Reflecting on events so far though makes me feel that I should take it a bit more serious.

The hangover I (still) have today is big and the headache is just starting to subside now, yet still feel a bit lifeless (it was supersized). Went and had some beef with Tyler and Hendrik and it really hit the spot and gave me the energy to go out and teach in the afternoon. However I got a call around 1 asking about when I was going to pick up the teaching materials. Feeling rushed, I went and got them. Got to the room and started to setup my computer and it didn’t work. I was flabbergasted. If it didn’t work I would not know what to do as all the work I have done in the last 2 years is on it.

I was trying to get the computer started chatting and joking with the students and thought well it is 13/4 – two bad luck numbers. I was wondering, as it appears to me Vietnamese people are very suppositious in regards to most of life’s activities, that being in country that I now start to become superstitious as well.

Nahh!!!!!!!!!!!!

To my relief the computer is working again and those thoughts are out of here.