Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 - Nov 16, 2006)

American economist Milton Friedman was dead at 94.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_friedman

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/business/17friedman.html

Democrats control Congress

Now with Democrats having total control of the Congress, should Americans expect change for the better in the years follow? Or we shouldn't expect anything. It's not like the Democrats really have anything appealing, I guess it's just people who are fed up with the war in Iraq. People voted the way it was to punish the president.

Rumsfeld was the first to honor the "stay the course" no more, he quit. Now that he's out of the way, I wonder if anyone is going to right the course given the mess we are in in Iraq....

The Washington pundits and career politicians need to come up with a solution fast. We owe it to our troops and the Iraqi folks to get out of this jam.

Wall Street

I always believe Wall Street is in the business of making rich people richer and along the way, these masters of the universe make themselves very rich too.

Again, big bonuses were expected for 2006 according to a New York Times article.

Here are some interesting statistics that probably will make you green with envy:-

Just out of college first year, total compensation including base, bonus and long-term compensation for ...
associates, from $200,000 to $270,000;
analyst, from $105,000 to $145,000.

In 2005, Wall Street accounted for 4.7% of jobs in New York City but 20.6% of the wages.... A top hedge fund manager took home 1.5 billion, while a top 25 manager could take home $130 million.

Anyway, a top hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs by the name of Raanan Agus still drives a Honda minivan. That kind of makes of feel better I guess.

Are you One? Are You Two? Are You Three? ...

Birthday Boy

Birthday Q&A ...

Harry being in a public school in Queens, his classmates are mostly of Asian decent, if you look at the picture, you almost thought it's a "Chinese" school. Flushing has plenty of Korean and Chinese immigrants. It's Harry's birthday and his classmates got to ask him questions, like what's his favorite TV show? what's his favorite color? Does he have a sister? Does he have any pet? When you were kids you asked interesting questions, when you grew up, you asked boring questions, like how much you make? what car you drive?

Birthday Q&A

Pastel Karaoke Is on 158th Street and Northern Boulevard

The New York Times is determined to put and keep Flushing on the map.

The paper first reported on October 9 a young man got killed just outside Pastel Karaoke on 158th Street and Northern Boulevard.

Then today the paper reported the incident again but erroneously said it was 157th Street. Now I live on 158th Street, and I feel like the Times just took the edge off of my street and frankly I am not thrilled. 158th Street earned its street cred by having a murder and the Times can't tell the difference between 7 and 8?

More Flushing news here.

Wishlist

Computer:-
A MacBook with a least 1GB of RAM, scratch that, make it a MacBook Pro with 3gb of RAM...
iPod:-
A 30GB iPod video is nice.
Camera:-
A Nikon D2Xs or A Canon 1DsMkII, or both
Lens:-
Only professional prime lenses or zoom lenses. A half dozen will do.
Tripod:-
Some Bogen or Gitzo will do.
Ballhead:-
Some Bogen will do, Arca Swiss or Really Right Stuff would be great.

BREAKING: MacBook just updated the Intel processor to Intel Core 2 Duo, whatever that means. It's said to be 25% faster. Details see http://www.apple.com

Games I play

Galloping Pigs. A rather simple game that even I manage to play with my children.

The Book of Classic Board Games. This has been hard for me. I just played along with my children. Whatever they said I believed and then I pretended I knew how to play.

Scrabble. We have the classic edition. This is an easy game in the sense that it's easy to understand the rules. When it comes to knowing the words that's a different question.

Monopoly. I think we have the classic edition as well. I never played Monopoly until now.

I never enjoyed playing any games. It's just the kids love them. I am a pretty boring person.

Alex now knows how to do a bit of algebra.

2a + 20 = 30
solve for a
and he knows the answer is 5

Kissena Park

Kissena Park again.

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shot with my good old manuel 50mm f1.4. I really love the lens. It's just better. Except I got into focusing, and metering problem with my Nikon D70. Either I get a D200 or I get a 50mm f1.4 AF for easy and faster focusing.

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Here Mr. Harry is cutting up the spiderman playing card carton.

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Halloween 2006

Blogger's photo upload feature is stalling and hence no pictures. You are spared. Too bad, after 10 hours or so, blogger's photo uploading feature is working again.
From left to right: Power Ranger, Ultraman, Superman and Pumpkin.

Happy Halloween.

Seven Swords or Chat Gim

For a moment, I can't believe this was a movie directed by Tsui Hark. This was one awful picture. Except for the scenery and the cinematography, there was nothing to it. The story was bad, the acting was bad, the directing and the editing were bad. How on earth did Tsui make such a bad movie was beyond me. It was cinematic crap from beginning to end. Leon Lai gave his very consistent wooden performance and Charlie Yeung gave another mediocre performance in the midst of crap.

The Emperor of Math

picture by Erik Jacobs for The New York Times.

Dr. Yau Shing-Tung at home sans shoes with Tatung rice cooker, beloved brand of the Taiwanese.

Here is the Emperor of Math with his Tatung rice cooker featured in the background. I never quite figure out how to correctly use this famous Taiwan brand rice cooker but it always manage to render good enough rice.
More reading from the the New York Times The Emperor of Math by Dennis Overbye. Picture by Erik Jacobs for The New York Times.

The Departed

(picture belongs to its rightful owners)

"Are these high waist jeans that you're wearing?" Leo asked the rhetorical question before throwing the first punch to the sartorially challenged Matt.

The sartorial choice of the male leads definitely doesn't look as sleek as that of their Hong Kong counterparts, Andy Lau and Tony Leung. You know, Boston is not exactly Hong Kong.

Mid-Autumn Festival

I have fond memories of Mid-Autumn Festival when lanterns were made of paper and lighted with candles.

My mom used to join one of those "mooncake clubs," which of course was beyond my comprehension. I could only imagine that she did some monthly payments to some mooncake club or pastry shops and when Mid-Autumn Festival came, she would get her share of mooncakes. I remember we got different varieties of mooncakes, some even with meat in it, not my favorite, but I ate them nevertheless. Other than the dozen paper boxes of mooncakes, we also got the piggy pastry, it's really cute and it even came with the piggy cage in plastic.

When the night came, kids carrying lanterns would go out and had fun exploring the neignborhood in the dark and it most certainly led to playing with fire like purposely put one's own or others' lanterns on fire or boiled the candles down to wax, essentially stuff that wasn't meant to do but did it anyway. I don't think I was ever the wild one but I did enjoy playing the paper lanterns and walking in the evening autumn breeze.

The moon is full home.