Tuesday, April 27, 2010

how much are *your* principles worth?

Yani Tseng won the Kraft Nabisco Championship (one of four LGPA majors) last month. That win, combined with Lorena Ochoa's retirement, has made her the second-ranked woman golfer in the world. She was recently offered a $25 million sponsorship by a Chinese group, and was widely expected to accept it.

My dad was saying yesterday that according to her father, she has rejected the offer. One of the conditions of sponsorship was that she would have to play under the Chinese (PRC) flag, rather than the Taiwanese (ROC) one. Apparently that was a deal-breaker.

I have much respect. That's a lot of money to turn down.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

not following instructions

My HMO periodically sends out health newsletters. One of the common themes is "how to take care of your bones". I've heard the recommendations many times: take calcium with vitamin D, walk, run, and lift weights. Ironically, although one would think the calcium recommendation would be the easiest one to follow, it's the only one that I find difficult. I have three or four bottles of assorted vitamins in my desk at work, and they're all over four years old. (I wonder if vitamins go bad?)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

onigiri roulette

D and I are in Asia again...we're in Korea this week, and then we'll be in Taiwan the following week.

After arriving in Seoul today, we were hungry and thirsty, so after checking in we hit up a 7-11. They had what looked like onigiri, but all the labels were entirely in Korean. We bought two random different ones anyway, and they both turned out to have kimchi in them (one had lots more than the other). I was stoked, D was less so. Yum.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

break time

I'm in my third straight week of being onduty at work.

I spent the first week with a horrible cold, but figured it was kind of a plus being sick when I had to work late every day anyway.

The second week was supposed to be the last week, but then the schedule got shuffled, and I wound up taking on an extra week to cover a gap. Work work work, and then work some more.

Compare and contrast: My parents are on vacation in France with a bunch of their friends. This morning, my dad was telling me about their lunch at a Michelin 3-star restaurant, and how he was excited to meet the mayor of Tours.

Sigh. Vacation countdown: T-minus 5 days. Asia, here I come.

Friday, April 02, 2010

American paranoia

There are so many things that we are paranoid about in this country, that people in other countries seem not to worry about.

The list of foods that pregnant American women "can't eat" grows longer every year: alcohol, sushi, raw meat, processed meat, pate, most seafood, soft cheeses, unpasteurized milk/juice, caffeine. I even saw a pregnant woman the other day avoiding beans. I have no idea what could possibly be wrong with eating beans. In Europe, pregnant women drink wine. In Japan, pregnant women eat raw fish. Neither seems to be a problem.

We refuse to let children eat peanuts and shellfish at a young age, in case they happen to be allergic to them. Yet, I wouldn't be surprised if we had the highest incidence of food allergies in the world.

We use anti-bacterial soaps and lotions for everything, on an everyday basis. I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure the more that we use anti-bacterial products, the stronger the remaining bacteria become. I'll bet the US has more drug resistant bacteria than any other country, by now.

I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure there are more...

 

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