Thursday, June 30, 2005

women in combat

There was some debate in Congress recently, about whether women belong in combat. I guess this shouldn't have been a surprise to me, given the socially conservative bent of our current Congress, but honestly, I just don't get it.

If there are women in our military who prefer to serve combat roles, why shouldn't they? I've heard the argument that the men can't bear to see their female counterparts get injured, but I don't buy it. Besides, why should the women be punished because their male colleagues, due to misguided chivalry, aren't able to fulfill their job functions?

I guess there are still some would argue that women can't effectively perform the duties required. I'm sure this is true for many women (me, for one), and plenty of men as well. Regardless, there are some women that are up to the task, and they should be given the chance to prove it.

Just last week, a woman, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, was awarded a Silver Star for exceptional valor during close combat. Hers was the first Silver Star given to a woman since World War II, probably because women in the US military are prohibited from serving in units likely to see ground combat.

Now that I think about it, if we consider medals for soldiers analogous to promotions and/or bonuses for civilian jobs, then it becomes obvious, that when women in the military are excluded from roles likely to see combat, they are being unfairly denied career development opportunities.

I wonder why no one has filed a gender discrimination suit yet.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

proper motivation

For the first time in two plus years, I've been feeling a sense of urgency about getting to work "on time". Why? We've grown so much that all the covered parking spots are usually gone (or very scarce) by 10:30am.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Amazon is awesome

I ordered two books and a DVD from Amazon just before midnight on June 22nd. I choose free shipping, which is supposed to take 3-5 business days just to ship, and then another 3-5 days to arrive. I was seriously prepared for the package to get here sometime in July.

It was delivered to my door at 12:36pm today (June 24th), which is about 36 hours after I placed the order, for those people who (like me) can't do basic arithmetic.

Free shipping. 36 hours. Wow.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

formula 50

My roommate recently asked me to keep an eye out for the "formula 50" flavor of vitamin water, at work. She said it was a special flavor inspired by the rapper, 50 Cent. Apparently he doesn't drink alcohol, so he's a big fan of vitamin water, even using it in a Reebok commercial. Eventually, he was recruited by Glacéau to endorse the brand and oversee the design of a new flavor.

I finally remembered to look for formula 50 today at lunch, and it turns out we do stock it, so I guess I'll be taking an extra bottle home tonight.

Monday, June 20, 2005

reasons to buckle your seat belt

During halftime of yesterday's very excellent NBA Finals game, I volunteered to pick up dinner for everybody. On my way back, I accidentally put the big bag of food behind my seat in such a way that the my seat belt got stuck. Since I was only two blocks away, and I was trying to get back in time for the beginning of the second half, I decided to drive without it. Yes, bad me.

It felt horrible. I've lived in California since I was born, except during college, and we've had a seat belt law for at least half of that (definitely since I started driving), so I've literally never driven without my seat belt. It turns out that I actually use the fact that I'm strongly attached to my seat to apply extra torque to my decidedly stiff steering wheel (the power steering on my car is not the greatest), and my driving performance declines markedly when I don't wear my seat belt. Who knew?

Saturday, June 18, 2005

visiting the TV graveyard

I seem to have a habit of getting attached to shows that no one else is watching. Most of the time they're pretty well-received by critics, but for some reason or another they don't do well in the ratings.

Most recently, I was hooked on the now-cancelled WB show Jack & Bobby, which focused on two brothers (not the Kennedys), one of which would grow up to the the President of the United States. Much like Everwood (also on the WB, but still running), it had many subplots not having to do with teen angst. During its one short season, the show tackled feminism, drunk driving, choosing religion, abortion, sexual harassment, and a variety of other politically-charged issues, while introducing a cast of richly imagined, flawed but compelling characters. Someone at WB should be fired for scheduling it against The West Wing, which has lost much of its lustre since Sorkin's departure, but is still mostly worth watching, and probably draws a similar audience.

I had similar experiences with Sports Night, a brilliant Aaron Sorkin comedy that only lasted two seasons, Mister Sterling, about a rookie politician learning the ways of Washington, and to some extent Futurama, which I thought was better than The Simpsons during its time.

Friday, June 17, 2005

downtime

One of the worst things about meetings is that you waste time before and after them. I have a meeting in a few minutes, which means that if I start anything new, I'll have forgetten what I was doing by the time I get back. So here I sit, checking my email and whining about meetings.

Then, when I do get back, I'll check my email to see if I missed anything while I was at the meeting.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Taiwanese food & board games

Yesterday I hosted a small dinner party and games night. The guest of honor was a friend who had just come back from China after a year of travel and study, so I didn't want to serve Chinese food, but I did want to try something new. Finally I decided to make lwun bianh (transliteration mine), a Taiwanese-style meal that consists of lots of tiny portions of different dishes, mixed together and rolled in a wrapper with peanut powder and Hoisin sauce. It's actually pretty healthy, since most of the dishes are cooked vegetables, except that the recipe calls for lacing the peanut powder with a substantial amount of sugar.

I did discover that peanut powder is pretty hard to get, even here in the Bay Area. They didn't have it at the Asian grocery store in my neighborhood, I didn't see it at Ranch 99, and when I asked my mom where to get it, her response was to ask "...in this country?" and to send me some that my dad had just brought back from Taipei.

I'm not sure if I got everything 100% right, but only two or three people had any basis for comparison, and everyone seemed to enjoy the food. Now I'm somewhat motivated to learn more Taiwanese dishes. Maybe I'll try gwa bao next, since I have leftover peanut powder.

After eating, we broke out a new game, Carcassonne, named after a city in France famous for its Roman and medieval ruins. It's basically a tile-placing game, with "follower" figures that represent control of tiles, with some points calculated during the game and some afterwards, which keeps things interesting. I liked it about as much as Puerto Rico, but less than Citadels and Ticket to Ride. I know, I'm weird.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

mamemomoko love story

Courtesy of joclin and kstroke: a mamemomoko love story

The noises that the girl doll makes when she's trying to get at the beer are especially cute.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Korean soap operas

My mom recently discovered Korean soap operas, so now when my dad comes back from Taipei, he brings home a new series (on DVD) for her to watch. Lately, she's been watching All About Eve, which focuses on the stories of two Korean girls, and has (as far as I can tell) nothing to do with the American movie All About Eve. From what I hear, the Korean soap opera craze has spread all over Taiwan, and maybe Hong Kong and Japan. I wonder when the Taiwanese TV producers are finally going to realize people are sick of Chinese historical dramas.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

NBA Finals

I hate the two-week gap between the AFC/NFC Championships and the Super Bowl, so I'm glad there's only a two-day break before the NBA Finals start. Looks like it's going to be a defensive showdown, with the Spurs playing the Pistons. I bet David Stern is pissed that neither is a big-market team.

On paper, it looks like a pretty close matchup; the 2004 champions vs the 2003 champions, the second seed from the East against the second seed from the West, Defensive MVP Ben Wallace and All-Defensive Second Team selections Tayshaun Prince and Chauncey Billups vs All-Defensive First Team selections Bruce Bowen and Tim Duncan.

In reality, I'm guessing the Spurs will probably win; they play in the more difficult conference, they have a much more effective offense and they're well-rested, having nearly swept the Suns. With Duncan recovered from his knee injury, they're also healthy, which wasn't the case when the teams met during the season.

Though, I'm slightly in favor of the Pistons (the Spurs are just too...bland?) so I hope I'm wrong.

Friday, June 03, 2005

A Feast for Crows

George R. R. Martin is finally done with the fourth book in his Song of Ice and Fire series. It's called A Feast for Crows, but will always be known as "Incest Fest IV" to those of us who first discovered Martin during our Europe trip in January of 2000.

When you're backpacking around Europe, you try your best to shed every bit of unnecessary luggage, so although I usually read like a maniac while on break, I took only one book with me on our three-week trip. My roommate did the same, as did the other readers in our group. As a result, by the end of the trip, everyone had read everyone else's books.

We were on a train at some point, when one of the non-readers picked up my roommate's book (A Game of Thrones), opened it to a random place, read two pages, and dropped the book with a look of disgust, "It's all about incest!", at which point the "Incest Fest" moniker was born.

No, the books are not all about incest. However, there is one incestuous brother-sister relationship between two fairly major characters.

Overall, I like the books very much; they are well-written, have excellent character development (each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character), the fantasy world is realistically and richly imagined, the subplots are many, creative, and coherent, and Martin never follows any of the plot rules that usually apply to fantasy (especially the one about not killing off multiple major characters), so even though the books aren't exactly plot-driven, we (the readers) are kept on our toes. My only fear is that Martin will die before he finishes the series. Yes, I'm morbid.

Off to put Feast on my Amazon wishlist...

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

NYC: weekend

The weekend was a blur of activity, so I'll just quickly list the highlights.

Friday:
The guys arrived at 7am, and we had to get up to open the door. After work, we went to dinner at Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay's restaurant), and then had dessert with friends at the Cafe Lalo, on the Upper West Side.

Saturday:
We spent the morning/afternoon with some friends who live on the Lower East Side. They took us to the Clinton Street Baking Company for brunch, which was very good, but I'm not sure if it was worth the hour and a half wait. We also stopped by Economy Candy, which stocks all the kinds of candy I forgot about, that I used to eat as a kid. I bought some Pop Rocks and Dip Sticks and resisted the bulk gummy candy. We had dinner at Gramercy Tavern (crab meat appetizer, lamb entree, and hazelnut chocolate dessert) and then wound up the evening with karaoke in Flushing.

Sunday:
Some friends from Boston were in town, so we met up with them at Grand Central, before heading over to the 2nd Avenue Deli, for pastrami, corned beef, and some really yummy kimchi-like cabbage stuff. We saw the 7pm showing of Avenue Q (very Muppets meets South Park; I would highly recommend it to anyone under thirty) and then had dinner at Spice (the University Place location this time). I watched most of Pulp Fiction on Showtime before giving in to exhaustion.

Monday:
I was actually surprised at the number of stores that were closed due to Memorial Day; I'd gotten used to everything being open all the time. Chinatown, of course, was open for business, so we had lunch at Dim Sum a Go Go (delicious duck dumplings), walked around Little Italy and parts of the Village, before deciding on Do Hwa (Korean) for dinner. Afterwards, another friend came to visit at our apartment; coincidentally she lives only two blocks away.

Tuesday:
We had to leave for the airport in the mid-afternoon, so I left work at lunch, and we hit White Castle (of Harold & Kumar fame) and Gray's Papaya before heading back to the apartment to pack. We were treated to true New York-style gridlock during our hour and fifteen minute ride to JFK, before boarding our flight home.

New York was a blast, but I am glad to be back.

 

This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not that of my employer.