| Stuff White People Like |
[Mar. 7th, 2008|08:51 pm] |
Check out this blog: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/
Absolutely hilarious and mostly accurate (me thinks).
My personal favorites:
# Idea of Soccer
# Asian girls
# Tea
# Bottles of water (I chuckle every time I see a dude coming to a meeting with one of these fancy bottles,usually with a swiss sign, of water)
# Coffee
# Wholefoods (Never been there and I refuse to go there)
I would add the following to the list:
# Mountaineering/Climbing: I have never seen/met a non-white person climbing as a sport. I am not talking about Nepalese Sherpas. This probably ties back to "being outdoors".
# (Ice)Hockey: Do you know any non-white ice hockey players?
Things I do, where I only see white people (could be because I live in a white city):
# Biking
# Running a marathon (This one is questionable. It is true in US, but an African man would beat the shit out of a white man in a marathon)
# Climbing
# Hanging out in cafes with wifi
# Hiking/Backpacking/Camping
# Traveling the third world with a backpack and staying in Hostels
# Going to fancy breakfast places
# Go to a language school
I am sure I am missing many things I thought of before I started writing this post. |
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| Who says "Apartheid Isreal" is intellectual laziness? |
[Mar. 3rd, 2008|08:45 pm] |
Since Jimmy Carter wrote the book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, there has been a lot of backlash against him for the use of the word "Apartheid". Many commentaries were written equating Carter's usage as intellectual laziness. But Israel is NOT helping itself. Some people might say this is Palestinian version of holocaust. I would say it is combination of both.
Recent events in Gaza makes it very hard to side with Israel. What the fuck are they trying to achieve by killing 100+ people, mostly civilians? The Israeli army went into Gaza and did almost exactly the same operation in 2006 with practically no results. So why do they expect a different result this time around? The rockets aren't going to stop. This operation is basically to say: "Oh, you are gonna shoot some stupid home made Qassam rockets at my town,eh? I am gonna blow you up with my fancy pansy F-16s that I got from my Uncle Sam".
I have given up hope on a resolution on this issue in my lifetime. |
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| ¡Dilo en castellano, dile con orgullo! |
[Feb. 26th, 2008|02:36 pm] |
Say it in Spanish. Say it with pride
http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/detalle_noticia.php?q=nodo/17275
Con el eslogan "Dilo en castellano, dile con orgullo", y mediante calcomanías y pendones, La Compañía Anónima Nacional de Teléfonos de Venezuela inició una campaña para defender el uso del castellano entre los profesionales del sector.
La intención es llamar la atención sobre la gran cantidad de términos anglosajones utilizadas en la jerga profesional, indica un despacho de la Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias.
Un comunicado del ministerio de Comunicación e Información indica que la idea busca evitar la costumbre de nombrar las cosas en inglés cuando tienen equivalentes en español.
La campaña propone decir "equipo" en vez de "staff", "patrocinador" por "sponsor", "reunión" por "meeting", "ratón" por "mouse", "servidor" por "host" y "televentas" por "telemarketing".
Los promotores de la iniciativa advierten sobre los riesgos de obviar el problema de la lengua que, en algunos países, provoca la desaparición paulatina de idiomas originarios.
El ministerio precisa que en México, de 140 lenguas existentes antes de la conquista española, sólo quedan 63, y 90% de ellas está en peligro de extinción.
Chávez continues to provide entertainment to the rest of the world. But in this particular case, some of my Spanish teachers also expressed similar concern for invasion of English into Spanish. Purists might encourage Chávez's move, but in this global economy that is dominated by English for better or worse, such a purist attitude might not work out in one's favor.
This is actually not a question that is relevant just to Venezuela. Globalization and the ease with which the information flows these days inevitably creates these challenges to every language and culture. It so happens that Chávez would wield his power and first nationalize the telecom company CANTV and start this "war on imperialismo". Similarly, previously Chávez attempted to regulate the names that Venezuelanos can use to name their kids by creating a banned names list
Though the way Chávez approaches this problem makes it sound ridiculous, I believe the question that is raised is still relevant. How do you keep cultural identity intact in the "globalized" world?
English version of the news:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Venezuela-Avoiding-English.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=chavez+CANTV&st=nyt&oref=slogin |
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| (Less )Chilly Hilly |
[Feb. 25th, 2008|04:28 pm] |
This past Sunday was the annual Chilly Hilly ride weekend. Normally it would have rained, chilly and cloudy (and hence the name), but this Sunday was a gorgeous, clear and warm Spring-ish day. The route, which goes around the Bainbridge Island, offers some beautiful views of the Sound and the Seattle skyline.
The hills weren't as bad as I thought they would be. There were couple of mean hills where I absolutely had to get to the lowest gear and slog it up the hill, but overall not too bad for a 34mi ride. Since the route is not blocked off, the cars had to share the road. In particular, on some of the hills all bikers needed to get squeezed into the shoulder because there was a car. When some of the bikers got off their bikers to walk up the hill, they slowed down the rest and thus making the hill all the more harder.
It took me 2hrs to finish with an average of ~17mph. If my bike "computer" is anything to trust, it says that the max speed is around 44mph, which is fantastic. There were couple of places where you could come down a hill really fast but I never expected to reach 44mph! The trouble is that my eyes start to water when I go that fast.
I signed up for the STP 2008 ride. Chilly Hilly is nothing compared to STP, but nevertheless a preparatory ride. I hope I can finish STP in one day while enjoying the ride.
Btw, the Chilly with corn bread they offered (well, you had to buy it) at the end of the ride was very yummy!
Here is a local writeup of the Chilly Hilly:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004199188_chillyhilly25m.html |
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| Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow? |
[Jan. 10th, 2008|11:25 am] |
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/2008/01/0801DewarSchonberg.html
What we observed at New York University is that the Java programming courses did not prepare our students for the first course in systems, much less for more advanced ones. Students found it hard to write programs that did not have a graphic interface, had no feeling for the relationship between the source program and what the hardware would actually do, and (most damaging) did not understand the semantics of pointers at all, which made the use of C in systems programming very challenging.
A really good read. I have observed these things in my own way many times during the interviews I did. In general, the students that started with java as their first language tend to struggle with questions that are more systems oriented. |
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| New Years eve & Caracas |
[Jan. 5th, 2008|10:45 am] |
I celebrated New Year with Ana's family in Punto Fijo. She has a big family with many aunts, uncles and cousins. All of them are very friendly and helpful. I had a great time hanging out with them eating lot of food and drinking way too much Whiskey with the uncles and the cousins. My Spanish wasn't great but they slowed down their Spanish a bit to have the drunken conversations with me. A friend of mine from US also came over to Punto Fijo for the new years. Even though he didn't speak Spanish and no one in the family spoke English (other than Ana), he managed to have fun as well.
We got a ride to Caracas from one of Ana's unlces and been in Caracas for 3 days. I will spend two more days before catching the flight back to Seattle on the 7th. Caracas might be one of the cities were you can see the contrast between the rich and the poor and the middle class very well. The lines are clearly visible. Caracas is not very touristy, but that is a good thing in my book. I am enjoying just walking around, eating the street food, bumming around in the huge Caracas shopping malls and more than anything watching the beautiful Caraqueñas :)
Happy new year every one! |
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| Hola desde Mérida |
[Dec. 14th, 2007|07:58 pm] |
Well its been almost a week in Venezuela and 5 days in Mérida. After spending a day in Caracas I left for Mérida, the adventure capital of VE.
It´s a beautful with mountains on all sides with strange looking clouds hanging around the peaks in most afternoon. It is sunny and a bit hot in monring, cloudy in the afternoon and rain in the evening.
Traffic is a huge problem. There was even a strike for the busetas here and one day I had to walk 3km to go to my class. Hanging out of the packed buseta is pretty fun! I am studying Spanish (more like a refresher) for a week and staying with a host-family. The people Mérida don´t seem to be using the future tense. It´s always ¨Voy a tener¨ type of construction. Since Mérida is in a valley the directions always include arriba,baja.
I know that VE has the highest number of Miss Worlds per capita, boy the women have huge assets and they show them as much as they can. Of course all of them are very good looking, but even the ugly ones and the old ones dress pretty racy (for US atleast). One can spend many hours sitting in the Plaza Bolivar and gawking at the women.
What else?
# I still have hard time understanding some Venezuelanos. Some people pretty slowly and enunciate, but a lot of people eat out some letters and words. Hope I get better comprehending them. They are friendly enough to help out. But not as friendly as Egyptians and Palestinians.
# Have eaten arepas atleast once a day so far.
# The keyboard layout is a bit strange and takes getting used to. On the plus side typing all the characters in Spanish and other European langues is lot easier. I should get one of these keyboards.
# I am going on a climb for Pico Bolivar. I am taking huge chance by going by the Teleferico and not having enough time to acclamatize for the altitude. I am joing a group of 3 random people. Hope I can handle the altitude.
# On Sunday, I am leaving Mérdia and going to Ciudad Bolivar on the other side of the country with a 22hr bus ride.
# I liked Caracas, even though I spent only a day and every other person I talked to tried to scare in not going to most of the places. It´s a gritty city, maybe similar to Cairo.
# At Miraflores, Chavéz´s official residence the guard didn´t let me take a photo and made me show all the pics I had taken thus far.
# While asking for direction met an Engieer and went for coffee. We talked a lot, but he tried to scare me in not going anywhere in Caracas. But he was nice guy. I might see him when I get back to Caracas to spen more time towards the end of my trip.
Hasta Luego. More later. |
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| Going too far? |
[Nov. 30th, 2007|06:05 pm] |
The rhetoric is intensifying and it is just too hot. First comes the "porqué no te callas" and then Chávez discontinues all diplomatic relations with Colombia, apparently because Uribe didn't show the courtesy of informing him before discontinuing the talks with FARC. Now he threatens US that not a single drop of gas would go to US, if it mucks with the referendum:
¡Ni una gota de petróleo a EE UU!
And now threatens to nationalize the Spanish banks Santander and BBVA if Juan Carlso doesn't apologize.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Chavez/amenaza/nacionalizar/Santander/BBVA/recibe/disculpa/Rey/elpepuintlat/20071201elpepuint_1/Tes
He is on a path to isolate country. How long and how far can he go?
The country is so divided on this with the "Sí" and "No" factions over the referendum. I have a bad feeling for the Sunday's referendum. I wish I was arriving on Dec 2 instead of Dec 9 and have a chance to be in Caracas on his (perversely) historic day. |
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| Nipple pain? |
[Nov. 28th, 2007|09:28 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Shakira - Dónde están los ladrónes | ] |
I never thought I would actually talk about nipple pain, but it happened. After my run on Sunday I had some unpleasant sensation in my nipples. This happened before when I was on very long hikes. But I always thought it was a ridiculous notion and some stupid thing I was imagining. Apparently, it is a common thing among long distance runners and this happens only for men.
According to http://www.best-running-tips.com/nipple-chafing.html :
Nipple chafing occurs because of the constant rubbing of your running shirt over your nipples when you run. Usually, on short runs, there is no problem at all. Not enough time for your shirt to do real damage. But when you run for longer distances, the constant rubbing can result in your nipples starting to bleed.
What a ridiculous thing one has to worry about! I mean men's nipples don't even have any functional value. Anyway, the discussion here contains a whole bunch of work-arounds. |
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| 02:16:24.9 |
[Nov. 26th, 2007|08:54 pm] |
This weekend I ran my first 1/2 marathon (aka the wimpy version of the marathon). Though I couldn't reach my goal of 2:05, I managed to finish it. I think its the hilly part of the Seattle course that hurt my pace. Hopefully, next year I can run the actual marathon.
Pic of me just after the finish:
http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_photo.asp?EVENTID=18198&ID=44528892&FROM=photos&BIB=8280
PS: GNR's Paradise City led me through the last half-mile :) |
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| Mormons, BYU, Arches and the Canyons |
[Nov. 21st, 2007|04:46 pm] |
During a recent college recruiting trip to BYU, I squeezed out couple of days to do some wandering around the Marmom square in Salt Lake City and hiking/camping in the Arches and Canyon land national parks.
I have heard quite a bit about LDS and Mormons, what with Romney running for the Presidency and all. More than we had an intern from BYU last summer and came to know a bit more about Mormonism through him.
# The influence of LDS is quite remarkable and palpable in the Utah valley.
# BYU students are very hardworking and focused on the academics quite a bit. I am really impressed with BYU students.
# Most of the students I interviewed are married with a child or two and very focused on families. I am not sure how they are able to juggle a part-time or full-time job, full course load and a family. Most of them spoke a language besides English fluently.
# I have seen a lot of baby strollers on the campus.
# Instead of fliers for the parties, you see tips for Moms to organize their lives well, on the notice boards.
It is an interesting and a strange place in some way.
True to the covenant, LSD is wide spread around the world. The book of Mormon is available in more than 80 languages and you can browse them at the massive visitor center:
The Utah valley is breath taking-ly beautiful. It is a bit different from Seattle and the proximity of the snow capped mountains is unbelievable. They had a Prov River Parkway trail for ~18miles that goes along the river the canyon. It was awesome to run on that trail as part of my training.
I don't think I need to say anything about the Arches. On a full moon night, sleeping under the stars on the Colorado river bank was priceless.
More pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/thefinalcut/Utah2007 |
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| Hola Chávez |
[Nov. 18th, 2007|01:30 pm] |
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To continue my so-called "political tourism" next month I am going to Venezuela for a month to see Chávez's "Bolivarian Socialism" in action. It's been two years since my last political tour to Palestine/Israel. I won't consider my trip to Puerto Rico quiet as political, and my attempt to go to Nicaragua failed spectacularly courtesy ineffectual bureaucracy. At least so far, Chávez's bureaucracy seems to be ok, with a turn-around time of five days for issuing a visa to this third class citizen of the world. I am even more impressed that they gave me a multiple entry visa that is valid for an year. This is quiet unheard of! |
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| Secuestro Express |
[Nov. 14th, 2007|01:45 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Canal Activa de Radio Nacional de Venezuela | ] |
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371939/
La película "Secuestro Express" es sobre una pareja lo que es secuestrado en una noche en Caracas. La película representa el lado duro de Caracas donde secuestros, atracos son muy común en unos barrios. La película es más estilístico, pero el guión un poco vaga. En una escena el coche que los secuestradores robaron se robó. En otra escena cuando una víctima sacaba el dinero de cajero automático para los secuestradores, un otro ladrón trata de robar la victíma. Y el secuestrador tenía que matar el ladrón. Fue divertido! |
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| My first double digit run |
[Nov. 5th, 2007|12:32 am] |
After weeks of troubles with shoes, knees and with the sheer amount of laziness, today I crossed the double digit mile marker. It was extremely slow, but managed to drag my ass through 12mi. I wish I could improve the pace to 9min/mi, but I will take at least completing the half-marathon. I might just make it if I don't frak up anything in the next two weeks.
http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/wa/seattle/170639012
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| Trollaween - Cool neon Boogeyman |
[Nov. 4th, 2007|11:00 pm] |
My costume for this year's Halloween:
It took us 2 days to work on the costume, but it was fun to play with ELWire. Moreover, I won $125 for the "best costume" at a party @ COCA in Ballard.
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| Kollena Ensan by Sameera Said |
[Nov. 4th, 2007|06:27 am] |
This song by Sameera Saeed was played quite bit in Cairo (and throughout Egypt) when it was hosting 2006 Africa Nations Cup in Jan '06. I never figured out who the singer was or what the song was about, but now I found the video and better yet with English subtitles.
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| Che is everywhere |
[Oct. 15th, 2007|11:03 am] |
Times has a great article on the commercialization of Che's image, given the recent 40th anniversary of his death.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/world/americas/09che.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Che's daughter Aleida Guevara talks about what she thinks is acceptable and what is not acceptable use of her father's image.
Here is a mural with Che's image in the "La Perla" barrio (one of the poorer and troubled barrios) of San Juan, PR.
Che has a strong presence in all through Latin America. Given Puerto Rico's own difficult, un-successful and ambiguous struggle for independence it is not surprising. |
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| Nuyorican |
[Oct. 4th, 2007|03:57 pm] |
What/who is a Nuyorican?
Per Wikipedia:
Nuyorican is a blending of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora located in or around New York State especially the New York City metropolitan area. In recent decades, the term has been use as a derogative term by native Puerto Ricans when describing a person that has Puerto Rican ancestry but is born in the United States, in the same way that Mexicans call people of Mexican descent that are born in the USA, Chicanos. This has been changing with the increase in travel back and forth to different parts of the United States and the globe to include Puerto Rican ex-pats and descendants in areas other than New York.
More recently however the word has been reclaimed as a badge of pride and identity. Nuyorican is now used to name comedy troupes, bands, and a whole style of poetry and cafes where that poetry can be heard. But the funny thing is that the tag "Nuyorican" is used with pride, of all places, in Viejo San Juan (Old San Juan, the center of the colonial Spanish stuff in San Juan,Puerto Rico).
Nuyorican Cafe in Viejo San Juan:
This place has no relation to the more famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York.
The music scene here is awesome. Lot of local artists play here most nights. The atmosphere of this cafe is specifically Bohemian - wood-paneled chamber and great Latino music. All kinds of people visit the place for a taste of Puerto Rican culture, including the locals. Particularly, if you can dance Salsa you will definitely enjoy the music and the scene. I went with my friends (South African and Venezuelan but living in PR) on a Thursday night and a band played jazz-infused salsa music. I can't quite dance Salsa, but both of my friends had fun. I just enjoyed the atmosphere and the "Cuba Libre"s. And when we are getting the cuba libres, I remember making a very stupid joke with my Venezuelan friend: "At the rate Chavez is going, very soon we will have a Venezuela Libre drink". My friend, Ana, didn't like quite like it. She is too tired of hearing about Chavez and she is afraid that Venezuela is going in the wrong direction. Anyway, this entry is about Puerto Rico and we will deal with Chavez some other time. |
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| Burning Man 2007 |
[Sep. 17th, 2007|10:57 am] |
Who would have thought that I would make it to Burning Man this year? I certainly didn't. I always wanted to go but never made plans, but this year things just happened and at the very last minute I took a week off to soak in Burning Man experience. On Aug 26, I moved to Fremont (from Capitol Hiil) and my new roommate happened to be planning on going to BRC (Black Rock City) and I decided to join him in the adventure.
It took all of Monday to get ready. To get my roommate's truck fixed, bikes fixed, coming up with some form of design for a shade structure and buying tarp, poles etc, buying food & water. Finally we took off in the wee hours of Tue around 5am for a 16hr drive.
It is hard to explain what Burning Man is. Per Wikipedia: "The event is described by organizers as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance and takes its name from the ritual of burning a large wooden sculpture of a man on the sixth day." . There is certainly self-reliance, self-expression in the temporary city of Black Rock City. But there is also the party/rave/tag-a-long crowd. I certainly fall under the later category. Our only contribution to BRC was the pains we went through to carry and preserve bunch of watermelons and grape fruit, that we distributed among our neighbors and whoever came by. Infinitesimally small compared to an art work like the one below (my favorite work at BRC):
Praying to the Oil-God
The setting of the city couldn't be better. The desert (dry lake bed), the surrounding mountains add their own flavor to the already rich scene of the city. Every afternoon, you get these giant dust storms and you can see people roaming around with their dust masks and goggles (military style). Here I was holding on to our shade structure to prevent it from collapsing during one of the storms.
The scene of thousands of people dancing and partying in the 60mph dust storms is something to behold. The following pic I took, doesn't even do just to the scene. 15K+ topless women partying after the Critical Tits bike ride, in the middle of the giant dust storm. To add to the scene, there was a double rainbow after the storm:
The line between art and engineering is pretty blurry @ BRC. Some of the projects would have taken many months of engineering and artistic to make them work and more importantly in figuring out the logistics to move these giant structures to the desert. It is this dedication and determination combined with the free spirit, that makes the BRC so very interesting and more importantly inspiring. There is a palpable tech industry and silicon valley influence on BRC. But at the same time you have folks from all over the world. A Turkish couple got married in the middle of desert and they had a big party bus going around the playa afterwards. A group of Russians served caviar/pancackes and vodka/pickle shots in a shack in the dust storms. An European group served draft beer.
Anyway, I can keep on rambling but will never do enough justice to capture the creative/artistic/communal energy that flowed through the temporary city of Black Rock (BRC) during that week.
For better pics checkout flickr: http://www.flickr.com/search/?s=int&w=all&q=burningman2007&m=tags
Some great videos: http://www.current.tv/network/pods/tvfreeburningman
Last tidbit. One night this one guys away at least 10K light sabers. And thousands of people were fighting (or rather having fun) in the middle of the playa with their glowing light sabers. That was a great spectacle. |
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| Blueangels - Whiny Seattle? |
[Aug. 3rd, 2007|10:53 am] |
http://seattle.metblogs.com/archives/2007/07/the_whiniest_we.phtml
Pretty funny and sarcastic. But unfortunately true, and I am part of the "problem". I was never a big of the seafair air show or the hydroplane show. Never watched it in my four years in Seattle. But I also don't watch any fireworks.
"And that's all great, you know? And next week, we can call chortle over the theater section of the New York Times while drinking our soy lattes and having our witty banter with our gay lovers at the neighborhood coffee shop that has free Wi-Fi AND valet parking for our Prius just before heading off to Whole Foods for our organic arugula and fillets of wild line-caught Yukon River coho so we can have our wine-tasting party on our third-floor condo deck. Yes, the new Seattle is nice, isn't it? Land of young, rich, upper middle class white folks with the best things money can buy.
But this week... stick a sock in it already. The THUNDERBOATS are back, and by God, we're going to wear our wifebeaters, load the kids in the station wagon, pick up as much Rainier and Oly as we can find, and remember the union carpenters that built the houses that were knocked down to build your condo, or the Boeing guys that built the planes you flew on when you moved here just a few years ago, or the other working class slobs that worked in the warehouses and industrial spaces you know live or work or see your gallery shows in. And those Blue Angels? While you scorn them with as much liberal rage as you'd muster, they'd be saluting them, proud to be Americans, tears in their eyes, remembering how Americans died in the name of freedom and justice, the very ideas that Dubya has removed in the name of his endless war and Constitutional-optional government, because that noise is a reminder to all of us that despite our vapid, dishonest, ruthlessly incompetent government we have, the idea of America -- the truths we hold to be self-evident -- are still right on and true. And they, our old Seattle brethren with their cutoffs and their Washington Huskies Rose Bowl shirt from the Don James days, would stand tall and proud in salute of the great cacophony of freedom itself, the Blue Angels.
Yes, they'd do that, just before puking all that beer up.
God bless old Seattle." |
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