All Things Yummy

A giant bug in Germany.  Amazing.  Do you know what’s also amazing?  Coconut Crabs.

I attended the Kaiser Permanent San Francisco Dragonboat Festival as a member of the DieselFish Dragonboat Team. It was fun but tiring weekend… the entire thing is a bit hard to explain, so here are some news articles, videos, and pictures.

DieselFish 2 in the final race (this is the crew that I’m part of, row 7, on the left side)

DieselFish 3 in their final race

Pictures from the festival

Couple of news articles

On a completely different note, Phil is still alive!

North Korea’s leadership, however, evidently entertains the concept of a “self-sustaining” defense sector — implying that Pyongyang views its military activities as generating resources rather than absorbing them. In the enunciated view of Pyongyang’s leadership, the dprk’s military sector is the key to financing the recovery of the national economy….

While forswearing any appreciable export revenues from legitimate commerce with advanced market economies, North Korean policy today seems to be banking on the possibility of financing state survival by exporting strategic insecurity to the rest of the world. In part, such dividends are derived from exports of merchandise (e.g., missile sales, international transfer of wmd technology). But these revenues also depend heavily on what might be described as an export of services: in this case, military extortion services (or, perhaps better yet, “revenue-sensitive threat reduction services”) based upon Pyongyang’s nuclear development and ballistic missile programs.

Because of the existence of South Korea, however, the situation in North Korea is different. The North Korean rulers must deal with a remarkably successful neighbor who speaks the same national language, shares a similar culture, and is even officially considered another part of the same state. The economic gap between the two Koreas is staggering, and the South Korean population enjoys freedoms undreamt by the North Koreans.

in North Korea this alternative vision has manifested itself through videotape…. These VCRs are largely used for copying and viewing tapes of South Korean television dramas, many of which have become a major hit in North Korea in the last few years. It seems that South Korean soap operas, and the occasional American movie with South Korean subtitles, form the staple of video consumption in North Korea.

Via The Corner on National Review Online

On my daily bike ride to work, I ride by a highschool - well, the school’s back in session again, with the courtyard full of kids (hey, I think I’m old enough to say “Kids” ) and the road full of cars. I remember the school closing for the summer with the “Congratulations to Grads” sign posted out front… it’s amazing how quickly the time goes. Exactly a year ago today, I started working at Altera. 2 years ago… I think we crossed into New Brunswick from Maine during the North American Solar Car Tour.

My 24th birthday was pretty uneventful (though it was fun!), unlike the 23rd birthday when I drove into Santa Cruz for the first time after a 3 day long drive from Oklahoma City, looking for a place to live. For the 22nd, I was in Upstate New York with my face covered in chocolate cake, and I was running around inflicting the most damage I could with what was left of the chocolate cake. I clearly remember a steady drizzle through out the day (remnants of Hurricane Francis, if my memory serves right) and we travelled maybe a mile or two that day with the solar car. I think I owe Cam an apology for stuffing a handful of cake down his pants.

Anyway, enough reminiscing - time to look forward to see what the future has in store for me. Before I go, here’s a view from my bed at 3:30AM.

Apparently the Korean Wave is sweeping through Asia:

The lovelorn Yoshimura signed up last year with Rakuen Korea, a Japanese-Korean matchmaking service, to find her own Korean bachelor. And she is hardly alone. More than 6,400 female clients have signed up with the company, which says its popularity has skyrocketed since 2004, when “Winter Sonata” became the first of many hot Korean television dramas to hit Japan….

“South Koreans are so sweet and romantic — not at all like Japanese guys, who never say ‘I love you,’ ” Yoshimura said as she waited for her blind date, a single Korean man, in the 50th-floor bar of a chic Tokyo skyscraper.

D’oh, I’m living in the wrong place… or something. :)  Oh yeah, and this gem:

Entertainment industry leaders in Seoul credit the phenomenon to good marketing coupled with an uncanny response throughout Asia to the expressive nature of the South Koreans — long dubbed the Italians of Asia. A hearty diet and two years of forced military duty, industry leaders and fans insist, have also made young South Korean men among the buffest in Asia.

I suppose the military duty does have some benefits.

Bubba Ho-tep, the best geriatric Elvic mummy/zombie movie ever made!