Planning to Visit China?

Thanks to my friend Armand for sharing these with me. Talaga namang sumakit ang tiyan ko sa katatawa!!!



IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO GO TO CHINA FOR VACATION, I JUST WANT TO ORIENT YOU ON HOW TO READ AND INTERPRET SIGNS THERE...



KAPAG ITO ANG SUMALUBONG SA IYO SA AIRPORT, ABA'Y DAPAT LANG NA MATUWA KA!!!




DITO KASI, DI LANG ASO ANG DELIKADO!!!





DITO, MARAMI KANG MAKIKILALA.... IBA-IBANG KLASE TALAGA!!!





SA MGA FANS NI FRODO AT SAM, MADAMI KAYONG MABIBILING LIBRO DITO....





E KUNG GUSTO MO LANG NAMAN....





MAY NAUNTOG NA NGA YATA EH... SABI NA KASING DAHAN DAHAN ANG PAG-UNTOG EH!!!





ETO MEDYO NAGULUHAN DIN AKO... MASASAKTAN BA AKO KUNG DI KO IPE-PRESS O BAKA MASAKTAN AKO KUNG IPE-PRESS KO.... HMMMM... BAHALA NA KAYO MAG-DECIDE KUNG SUSUNDIN NIYO ETO O ANO....





SIGURO NAMAN, OBVIOUS NA ETO... LIBRE NA NGA EH....KAYA DAPAT LANG SIGURO!!!





ETO, IWASAN NIYONG PUMUNTA DITO AT MALUNGKOT DITO!!!





PARA SIGURADO, DI BA???





HAHAHAHA, ANO BANG GUSTO MONG REAKSYON KO DITO...GAWIN BANG BOTE ANG LATA?!!





SA MGA GUSTONG MAGPAKAMATAY, DITO DAW KAYO PUMUNTA!!!





ISIPIN NIYO MUNANG MABUTI KUNG KAYA NIYONG KAININ ITO HA!!!





GAWA RAW ITO SA CHINA, KAYA ILAYO NINYO ANG MGA ANAK NINYO!!!





BAWAL TAPAKAN, NATUTULOG DAW ANG DAMO!!!





ANO DAW?? BAWAL YATANG MAG-YOSI SA LOOB ANG TINAPANG BISITA BA?





IHULOG NYO DAW ANG ANAK NYO NG DAHAN-DAHAN!!!





DITO MURA ANG PATABAS NG PAA!





HOY ITULAK MO RAW PARA BUHAY KA!





TEKA...... DI KO YATA KAYA ITO AH..... BASTA IPUWESTO NIYONG MAIGI ANG SILYA AT PANATILIING MALINIS ANG MESA PAGKATAPOS NIYO MAMATAY!!!

MALINAW NA BA?!!

Zahir and Rockband 2

Last year, I promised Zahir that I would give him a Rockband 2 Special Edition as a Christmas gift if he did very well in school. Not only did he do well in school, but he exceeded all our expectations. We received calls from all his teachers telling us how excellent he is in school. Of course, my wife and I were very proud of him. He really worked very hard, and so, he got his Christmas wish - Rockband 2 Special Edition. He was very happy. He has been playing Rockband 2 for 4 weeks now, and he has become very good at it, especially with the guitar.

Last night, I saw Zahir playing Rockband 2 online with his friends. While he was playing, her younger sister, Zoe, was dancing along with the tunes. I thought this would be nice to put on tape, so I took my video camera and started videotaping what the two kids were doing. Zoe, was doing all sorts of moves, including some breakdancing moves and some ballet moves. Then my other son, Zyd, came and started teasing Zoe about her dancing. But Zoe just kept on dancing and wasn't affected by what her brother Zyd was saying to her. The kids had a good time.

Barack Obama Oath of Office

I was in the office watching the inauguration on television when Barack Obama took his oath of office. My feeling was of great joy that the almost impossible thing had happened. I was a big supporter of the Obama candidacy, and now that he became the 44th President of the United States of America, I felt very proud of America electing a man of african american heritage, a man of integrity and good background, and a man with a great vision for America. It gives me great hope that many great changes are going to happen within the next four years of his administration. Today was indeed a very special day, not only for America, but for the entire world.



Transcript of Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech


And here's the reaction from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Very funny!!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inauguration

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Martin Luther King Day

Today is Martin Luther King Day in the US. Schools are closed as well as government offices, as the nation celebrates and commemorates Martin Luther King's birthday.

From Democracy Now!: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

Today is Martin Luther King Day. He was born 80 years ago, on January 15th, 1929. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just thirty-nine years old.

Tomorrow, more than four decades after Dr. King’s death, Barack Obama will take his oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president in US history. The Reverend Joseph Lowery, a civil rights icon who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr, King, will deliver the benediction at the inauguration ceremony. Obama accepted the Democratic party nomination on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, arguably his most famous address.

While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People"s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic US foreign policy and the Vietnam War.

Watch Democracy Now! Video here.

Dvořák Anyone?

"I am a simple Czech musician" - This was how Antonin Dvořák always described himself when asked what he does for a living. To me, he is one of the greatest musician of all time. There is a reason why his music is still played and listened to this day a century after his death. His music is simply beautiful and powerful.

I was introduced to Dvořák's music when I was invited to see a concert in Carnegie Hall in 1997. It was Miklos Perenyi performing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Miklos Perenyi played Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B Minor that night. When I heard it, I instantly became a Dvořák fan.

I love Dvořák's music so much that even my ringtone is a Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E Minor (watch video below to get an idea of how my ringtone sounds like). Everyone in my office loves my Dvořák ringtone. They say it is very beautiful and unique! They have never heard such a ringtone before. Check it out. Maybe you'll become a Dvořák fan yourself.

Who is your favorite musician?


Dvořák's Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E Minor performed by Itshak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma with Seiji Ozawa conducting.



Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B Minor performed by Yo-Yo Ma with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra with Kurt Masur conducting. (Note: This is only part 1. If you want to watch the rest, please go to Youtube and do a search for this piece.)

It's Zahir's Turn

This is a clip from the Hammarskjold Middle School Orchestra Winter Concert last December 16, 2008. My youngest son, Zahir, is a member of this orchestra, which is composed of 6th and 7th graders. In this clip, they performed Tequila by Chuck Rio. The piece was arranged by Paul Lavender. Zahir also plays the violin, just like his older brother, Zyd.

CJHS Orchestra Winter Concert

As I promised, here are clips from the Churchill Junior High School Orchestra Winter Concert last January 6, 2009. My son Zyd is a member of this orchestra. He plays the violin. This orchestra is composed of young musicians from the 9th grade. The kids did an excellent job!

Here, they performed the River Song by Keith Sharp


Here, they performed the Sinfonia in D Allegro Moderato by Mozart


Here, they performed The Idylls of Pegasus by Richard Meyer

A Tale of Two Nobel Nations

From Democracy Now!: A Tale of Two Nobel Nations

The days are short here in Stockholm, which is so far north that winter daylight is limited to about four hours a day. But the city is buzzing with visitors, media and activities, for the Nobel prizes are being given this week. While the Nobels recognize lifetime achievements in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature, economics and peace, and Sweden is a paragon among progressive, social democracies, there is another side to Sweden and the Nobels that warrants a closer look.

Alfred Nobel made a fortune as an inventor, principally for his invention of dynamite. He died in 1896, leaving most of his fortune to endow the Nobel prizes. Nobel lived in a time when European rivalries and wars were the norm. He believed the destructive power of his inventions could promote peace. He wrote to his lifelong friend, peace activist Bertha von Suttner, who would win the Nobel Peace Prize almost a decade after his death, “Perhaps my factories will put an end to war even sooner than your Congresses; on the day when two army corps will be able to annihilate each other in a second, all civilised nations will recoil with horror and disband their troops.”

Read the entire article here.  It is really good.

Bill Moyers on Mideast Violence

Bill Moyers reflects on the recent violence in the Middle East. PLEASE NOTE: This essay contains video and images of the Israeli and Palestinian casualties including children - in Gaza as well as the Pulitzer prize-winning photo of the nude Vietnamese girl running from napalm bombing. Some viewers may find the images disturbing, but they are in context and germane to the subject matter. For more: http://www.pbs.org/billmoyers

Something to Think About

From butterfliesandwheels.com: Is there evidence for that?

Do we need empirical evidence to warrant thinking that telling children that people suffer torment in hell forever is harmful and bad? I don't think so. There are things that we know without evidence. For instance we know that telling people they are stupid or ugly or boring or generally repulsive is bad. We also know that bad news is bad, so we know that it's bad to tell people bad news if it's not true - we know it's bad to tell someone: 'your cat/dog/best friend/mother/child is injured and in terrible pain' if that's not true.

We don't need evidence for that. It's part of how the world is. Imagine telling a child: 'Your cat is caught in a trap, it's crushing her leg in its jaws, she's howling in pain, we can't get her out' when it's not true. There's no way to look at that and think it's good or not too bad or neutral. Even if we knew for a fact that it would do no lasting psychic damage at all (and how would we know that?), it would still be bad. Even temporary mental anguish is bad.

Time to Reboot America

The New York Times: Time to Reboot America by Thomas Friedman

My fellow Americans, we can’t continue in this mode of “Dumb as we wanna be.” We’ve indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can’t afford, bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines, energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars, public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world’s best scientists and engineers and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours.

To top it off, we’ve fallen into a trend of diverting and rewarding the best of our collective I.Q. to people doing financial engineering rather than real engineering. These rocket scientists and engineers were designing complex financial instruments to make money out of money — rather than designing cars, phones, computers, teaching tools, Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions.

For all these reasons, our present crisis is not just a financial meltdown crying out for a cash injection. We are in much deeper trouble. In fact, we as a country have become General Motors — as a result of our national drift. Look in the mirror: G.M. is us.

That’s why we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely.

Read the entire article here. It is really good.

Churchill Orchestra Winter Concert

Last night, my son Zyd with the Churchill Junior High School Orchestra performed their winter concert. The kids did an excellent job. I will post a video soon.

Who would you like to be? Hitler or FDR?

Here is a clip of an exchange between Ann Coulter, right-wing pundit, and Al Franken, famous comedian (now Senator-Elect from the state of Minnessota beating Republican and now former Senator Norm Coleman) that really made me laugh out loud.

Carolyn Porco: Fly Me to the Moons of Saturn

I have always been fascinated by space and the universe. When I was a kid, I used to dream of becoming an astronomer. I read a lot about astronomy and the history of space exploration. I have been following the achievements in these fields very closely. One of the latest achievements was the inter-planetary space mission to Saturn called the Cassini-Huygens Project.

This is an excellent video about Cassini, the most ambitious inter-planetary space mission ever launched. It was created using clips from Planetary Scientist Carolyn Porco's speech at the Pop!Tech innovation conference. Carolyn Porco shows images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, focusing on its largest moon, Titan, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice.

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Saint-Saens

Janine Jansen's performance of the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Charles Camille Saint-Saens at Waldbühne in Berlin in 2006 is my favorite interpretation of this classical piece. I wish that I or any of my kids could play this classical piece the way Janine Jansen plays it. I am sure it would take lots and lots and lots of practice. I was listening to it this morning. Well, I thought you might want to listen and watch it also. Enjoy!



My other favorite interpretation of this classical piece is Maxim Vengerov's. Maxim Vengerov is one of my favorite virtuoso violinists. However, I do not have a video of his performance of the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. I do have a link to a recording. Click here to listen to the Vengerov interpretation.

Back to School

The kids are back to school after their holiday vacation. I am sure that the kids would have delayed it if at all possible. Adrian remarked that it is back to the boring days again. Zahir and Zyd don't think so. They love going to school. Of course, Zoe is very excited to resume her Ballet class. She missed her ballet teachers Miss Vicky and Miss Jamie and can't wait to go back.

Pinoy Joke Time

I took this footage on Christmas Day. We had a party at home to celebrate Adrian's 18th birthday and Uncle Jun told this funny joke:

My Dear Galileo Galilei

The Language Guy: My Dear Galileo Galilei

My Dear Galileo Galilei, "It gives me great pleasure to inform you that we have reconsidered your case. A small mistake was made by our Vatican astronomers in the determination of the relationship between the earth and the sun. It was an easy mistake to make. I'm sure you will agree, since it was obvious to all that the sun moves from East to West in our skies whilst we remain in place. We regret that you were put in prison and that you were forced to recant under the threat of torture. As a result of the discovery of our mistake, it is our determination that you should no longer be confined to your home."

That wasn't the only mistake the Vatican made in the case of Galileo. They didn't much like his atomistic view of the universe. In recent decades the Vatican has tried to undo their mistake. Pope John Paul II blamed the Church's error on "tragic mutual incomprehension." This concession was beneath contempt since Galileo certainly understood the position of the Church. I suspect the church understood what Galileo was saying as well. Otherwise, why jail him, threaten him with torture in order to force him to recant, and then confine him to his house?

Read the entire article here

Darwin's Living Legacy - Evolutionary Theory 150 Years Later

From Scientific American: Darwin’s Living Legacy - Evolutionary Theory 150 Years Later

A Victorian amateur undertook a lifetime pursuit of slow, meticulous observation and thought about the natural world, producing a theory 150 years ago that still drives the contemporary scientific agenda.

When the 26-year-old Charles Darwin sailed into the Galápagos Islands in 1835 onboard the HMS Beagle, he took little notice of a collection of birds that are now intimately associated with his name. The naturalist, in fact, misclassified as grosbeaks some of the birds that are now known as Darwin’s finches. After Darwin returned to England, ornithologist and artist John Gould began to make illustrations of a group of preserved bird specimens brought back in the Beagle’s hold, and the artist recognized them all to be different species of finches.

Sponsor of the Federal Pell Grant Program Dies

From the Washington Post Obituaries: Former R.I. Senator Claiborne Pell, 90

Claiborne Pell, 90, a six-term Rhode Island Democrat who rose to be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, died Jan. 1 at his Newport, R.I., home. He had had Parkinson's disease since 1994.

A Yankee Brahmin and former Foreign Service officer who was virtually unbeatable at the polls in a largely Catholic, blue-collar state, he was best known for his sponsorship of the 1972 program that has helped 54 million low- and moderate-income students attend college. He also sponsored the legislation that founded the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.

Read the news article.

Happy New Year 2009!

From Sydney Harbor

From New York Times Square