Still learning about the culture...

On Thursday news, they said that a woman attempted suicide and throw herself at the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). She was rescued, BART was delayed. BART spokeman was interviewed dand he said it was the 3rd attempt of suicide or suicide of the week. This is strange to me... of course. Where I came from, those incidents are not disclosed. It's bad publicity and it gives "ideas" to people. I had dinner with a friend from London, UK on Saturday, I told him the incident. He too agrees that in London these things are taboo.

Guess what's on sale this week!

We'll have cereals for a while! Here standard of living is high. If you buy things (like grocery and electronics) at regular price, it's really expensive, but if you wait till it goes on sale... It can be really good deal!!! After combining a few coupons, those Post cereals average $0.50 each and Cheerios came to 2 for $2.25.

We also redeemed our coupon for the free pint of Haagen Dazs (see previous post). It was priced $3 on sale, but the cashier entered a redeeming price of $3.99 (regular)... Do the math, we made $0.99 by getting free ice cream!

A Pint for A Pint!

Yay! My husband S. just donated a pint of blood this morning and they gave him a coupon for a pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream!!! Yay!!

About a month ago, we saw on Food Network the process and results of the Haagen Dazs new flavour contest. The 3 finalist flavours were: Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle, Canola, and Sticky Toffee Pudding.

Sticky Toffee Pudding is the winning flavour and will be a Limited Edition product on shelves from July through December. Can't wait to try it!!!

Crime Rate Stats

Ever wondered how is the crime rate in your hometown?

For Canada:
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050721/d050721a.htm#tab1ftnote1

For USA:
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/

Another Medical Story...

Lately, I have been interested in medical stories. Today, I came across this news on news.yahoo.com, it is about an Indian man who has two fully functional penises and wants to remove one of them so that he can have a normal life. This surgery is particularly difficult because both of the organs are fully grown and fully functional. Read more here.

Sex Offender Database

Here in USA, we can check out where the sex offenders niche. I believe there's one database per state, not sure if every state has one. I checked in California Sex Offenders Registry and found 10 sex offenders in my zip code. I'm guessing this number is relatively low because we are surrounded by big office buildings (many pharmaceutical companies around here) and commercial buildings. When I search two neighbour zip code, I got counts of 45 and 46. This is interesting and scary... many of them look like ordinary (lovely??) grandpas born in the 1920-1930's! Yes, you get a full profile of their names, ages, address, ... and pictures!

Hmm... Here are some stats if you care:

Santa Clara: 131 offenders;
Sunnyvale: 97 offenders;
Mountain View: 65 offenders;
Milpitas: 56 offenders;
San Jose: 1327 offenders;
San Francisco: 631 offenders.

Hmm... not sure if I should be surprise, I haven't seen any female sex offenders :p~

Mirror Image

This month's Maxim's award winning joke...

A blonde hottie is speeding down the road in her little red sports car when she's pulled over by a blonde policewoman. The cop asks to see the girl's driver's license. She digs through her handbag, getting progressively more agitated. "What does it look like?" she asks dimly.
"It's rectangular, and it has your picture on it," explains the policewoman.
The blonde finally pulls out a rectangular mirror, looks at it and hands it to the policewoman. "Here it is, " she says.
The blonde policewoman looks at the mirror, then hands it back and says, "Oh sorry. I didnt' realize you were a cop."

-Nick Burnes, Danville, CA

Is DNA test really infallible?

This is the story of a woman who had to fight in courtroom to prove that her kids are really hers. Her DNA didn't match her kids', but her kids' DNA do match their father's. Of course, she knows for sure she carried each of them and gave birth to them, but why does she keep on failing the DNA test? How is that possible?

The mystery was solved when they discovered that the mother had two sets of DNA, she was her own twins! Here's a quote from the article I read:

It's a rare condition called chimerism, with only 30 documented cases worldwide. In Greek mythology, "chimera" means a monster: part goat, part lion, part snake.

In human biology, a chimera is an organism with at least two genetically distinct types of cells — or, in other words, someone meant to be a twin. But while in the mother's womb, two fertilized eggs fuse, becoming one fetus that carries two distinct genetic codes — two separate strands of DNA.

Read full story on ABC news.

Learn Charisma at a "Charm School"?

In the engineering world, it's pretty hard for guys to meet girls. Also, unlike commerce students who have been trained to interact with people (customers, clients, strangers), engineering students (in my humble opinion) have been trained to have rational, analytic mind for problem solving. That means they are often in akward situation when left to deal with people, especially strangers.

Last night, I read this article Reuters article: "Charm school" helps men perfect the pick-up and thought it might help some of my male friends. Here, they are referring to Charisma Arts , which offers weekend "Charm School Boot Camp". No offense to anyone, I do think that soft skills courses do help! I've taken a few (soft skills courses) including "How to deal with difficult people", "Active Listening", "Projecting a Winning Image". Ok, let's make it clear... No, I never learned how to pick up a guy at a bar... and I badly failed the challenge at my bachelorette party, hehehe).

Take care guys... and enjoy!

Coca-Cola Facts

Maybe hurc wants some nutrition related blog. So I thought of posting some facts about common foods. Today's topic is our famous Coca-Cola soft drink. The following facts are for 1 can (355mL).

USA version:
Calories 140
Total Fat 0g
Sodium 50mg
Total Carb 39g
Protein 0g
Ingredients: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine.

Canada version:
Calories 160
Total Fat 0g
Sodium 40mg
Total Carb 42g
Protein 0g
Ingredients: carbonated water, sugar/glucose-fructose, caramel colour, phosphoric acid natural flavours, caffeine.

Replicas?

I was casually browsing Froogle (a shopping and price comparison service launched by Google Inc.), then I came across and find a website selling "Rolex replicas"... Euh... What??? Then I browse again for "Rolex replica" and found few websites selling those... In this one website I saw (WholeSale-Hub), you can even chose to have it made in Japan for about ~$70 or made is Switzerland for ~$280. Not sure if that's legal or not, but I find it interesting that so many people like to pretend to be someone they are not or to have something they can't afford...

A water bridge!!!

Even after you see it, it is still hard to believe! Water Bridge in Germany... What a feat! Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long... now this is engineering! This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and West Germany, as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin.

The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.

To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists. Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?
Answer: It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water! Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded. Remember your high school physics, and the fly in an enclosed bottle project?
Similarly, the super sensitive scale proved that it didn't make any difference whether the fly was sitting on the bottom, walking up the side, or flying around. The bottle, air, and fly were a single unit of mass and always weighed the same.

Read more on it on the Deutsche Welle (a german news company) website article!

Henry Ng's Photo

A few of my friends are getting married. I thought of recommending Henry Ng for photography. He's a friend of mine and I like his style. Maybe you want to check out his pics at henryngphoto.com. He just created a blog for his photos too: http://henryngphoto.blogspot.com/

What detergent to use on tough grease?

Some of you might think I'm a clean freak... well, it's not my fault, I'm meticulous and pay attention to details, that's why I can't help noticing grease and stain spots. When I was in Canada, I love using VIM from Unilever - and it has to be VIM Oxy-Gel. They are really tough on old grease stains, but mild enough for the skin. I couldn't find VIM here, hmm... strange, so we emailed Unilever customer service and asked them. Well, VIM is not sold in USA. Damn, what do I use now for cleaning? Any suggestions? I don't want to spend time and money testing unkown products to me! Oh, if you come visit me, can you bring me a bottle of VIM Oxy-Gel?

Oh, want to see a very good ad from VIM? Here's an award-winning ad from VIM.

Remember Cecilia Zhang?

I was watching some crime stories today on tv, then I thought about Cecilia Zhang, the little girl who was kidnapped from her Toronto home and killed in 2003. Wondering what was the motive of the criminal and the result of the trial, I looked it up and read about it on Wikipedia, here's a quote:

Min Chen pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on May 09, 2006. According to an agreed statement of facts read out in a Brampton, Ontario courthouse, Chen was failing in his college studies and feared deportation back to his native China . He desperately needed $25,000 to enter into a marriage of convenience as a means of obtaining right of permanent residence in Canada. He planned to kidnap Cecilia for ransom, hoping even to return her the same day after delivery of the money from her parents.

Her death was the result of Chen botching up his poorly planned scheme during the early hours of October 20, 2003 at Cecilia's home. When Cecilia struggled and tried to scream, Chen covered her face with a towel and held his hand over her mouth. She had stopped struggling by the time Chen placed her inside the trunk of his car and left. When Chen later stopped to check on her, she had stopped breathing.

This is a very sad story, an innocent lovely girl died because of a badly planned crime. For full story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Zhang

Got Milk?

Docs recommends daily intake of 2 to 4 portions of milk (or substitutes) for women of my age. Of course, health concerned like I am, I make sure I get my daily portion of calcium. I would say I get at least 2 cups of milk per day. Milk tastes sweeter here in California. Then I looked at the Nutrtion label... Hey! 140 kCal per portion of 2% milk? What's all that about? I gotta find out!

Here I summarize some info from a 2% milk's Nutrition Facts I find here in California:
Serving Size 1 Cup (240mL)
Calories 140 kCal
Total Fat 5g (8%)
Cholesterol 25mg (8%)
Sodium 140mg (6%)
Carbohydrates 14g
Protein 9g
Calcium 30%

Now, let's compare it to Canada's milk:
(Health Canada's publication: Nutrion Value of Some Common Foods)
Serving Size 250mL (that's *10mL* more than US's serving!)
Calories 128 kCal
Total Fat 5g
Cholesterol 19mg
Sodium 129mg
Carbohydrates 12g
Protein 9g
Calcium 314mg

So what does it mean to us? with 10mL more per portion, you still get less carbs, less cholesterol and less sodium if you drink Canadian milk. Ok, let's neglect the 10mL per portion, let's say I drink 2 portion of milk everyday, then I get an extra 24kCal per day. We know that 3500kCal is equivalent to 1lbs of fat. So, simple math tells me that in roughly 145.83 days I will have accumulated enough calories to gain 1lbs of fat. That's less than 5 months!!! And I drink more than 2 cups, so, in a year, I can expect to gain at least 3lbs (from milk alone) if I don't change my eating habits!!! Ok, I will ask my husband to buy 1% or fatfree milk only from now on...

Now... that's only milk... Not sure about the other food... stay tuned for more discoveries!!

My really first post

I decided to started a blog so that I have somewhere to express myself and to share with my friends what I'm currently up. For those who don't know me, I've recently moved from East coast Canada to West coast U.S.A. I'm currently going through lots of culture shocks and discoveries of our American neighbours. Can't wait to share all that with you...