LazyAzian

So it looks like the protesting against China’s role in Tibet is getting crazier. The Olympic Torch was carried through London, the location of the 2012 Olympics.

The security surrounding the olympic torch and it’s carrier has gotten larger and larger. Gone are the days of when you can take a picture of the carrier by themselves. I’m sure if you’re anywhere near the carrier and want to take a picture, you’d be lucky if you catch the flame. It just doesn’t seem like you’ll get a picture of the carrier unless you take it from above (see image below).

Seriously…as it’s stated in the article, there are 15 Chinese “flame attendants” specially flown from China and more than 50 police officers. It’d be one thing if it was more of a parade and they were all walking for a couple miles…but I believe the carriers actually are jogging. Apparently, this was a 31-mile section as well. Poor police officers. Wearing heavy stabproof vests and having to jog along with the carrier. Then they’re also the first line of defense for any protesters that try to get to the torch and put it out. Now, these were only the ones that went with the carrier. Looks like around 2,000 Metropolitan Police were used to protect the torch. Also, I don’t remember the last time that “special” people were flown in by the hosting country to protect the torch. It’s definitely a sight to see.

Why can’t China just let Tibet live the way they want to live? Let Taiwan live the way they want to live as well. Really, is all the protesting and all the trouble really worth it?

OK…So apparently Barack Obama bowled a 37. Now Hillary Clinton did a little bowling on the talk show Ellen. She was horrible too!

Obviously Hillary didn’t bowl a whole 10 frames, but HOW does Barack bowl a 37? I didn’t know that was possible for an adult! Seriously! If it’s a 5 year old, I can understand how they bowl a 37. They just don’t have the strength to get the ball down the whole lane. That’s an excuse I can swallow.

Barack maybe should’ve used both his hands and did the granny shot. Kids do it all the time…I did it when I was a kid. I obviously don’t do that any longer unless I’m just messing around.

Really…would you vote for someone that bowls a 37 to run a whole country?

I’m still undecided about who to vote for, but their lack of bowling skills definitely doesn’t impress. I know that I’ll be voting for one of them because people like George Bush ruin this country. If you read my other posts, you’ll see that Universal Health Care and Global Warming are two very important issues to me. I want a President that is for Universal Health Care. I want a President that will bring the USA up to par with so many of the other countries with their environmental laws and results. It’s simply ridiculous that the US is where it’s at now. Thanks a lot George! (I’m being sarcastic by the way in case you read this and don’t see that I’m not really thanking you)

Watch Barack Obama Bowl

Watch Hillary Clinton Bowl

Three big bloggers have suffered heart attacks. They most likely suffered them because of their lifestyle. Blogging is not easy at all. You have to constantly be on top of the news, especially if you’re announcing news to people. You want to be the first one to announce it. If you’re not, your readers will just go somewhere else to read about something.

Luckily I’m not going to be on top of the news about products and stuff. I enjoy reading the news myself, so I just like to blog about what I think about. This also helps to get the news out there for people that care as well as letting them know what I think.

Remember, I’m a “Lazy Azian.” I’m not going to sit on a newswire and wait for news to come through and then immediately blog on it. The main reason I don’t do that really is because I don’t have the readership that frequents my site. I mean, if you’re reading this, it was probably made a long time ago.

If I actually made money off my blog maybe I’d be a more dedicated blogger. So if you tell people to come to my site and click on ads, maybe I’ll blog more

First it was Aloha Airlines…Second was ATA Airlines…and now it’s Skybus Airlines…

How many more airlines are going to shut down do you think? I’m surprised more haven’t shut down by now. The costs of fuel for them are so high now. If our gas prices are where it’s at now and rising, I can only imagine what the airlines are paying for fuel. Apparently, they’re now paying double what it was at the beginning of 2007. Imagine the outcry if we were paying double for our gas!

They’re doing all they can to reduce costs. They’re making the planes as light as possible now by taking out unused equipment on the plane, like ovens. As long as they’re not dropping their trash out while in the air, I applaud the airlines for this. It saves them fuel by making the planes lighter and thus helps the environment because less fuel’s needed. Why didn’t they do it before?? They even replaced big paper manuals with electronic books…save those trees! Again, why didn’t they do this before??

Also, another way to cut their costs affects us, the passengers. I haven’t seen all that much change in fares, BUT I have seen a lot of change in what’s offered to the passengers. When you don’t get free snacks, lunch, drinks, etc. any longer…that sucks! Now, it really is just a no-frills flight. I’d really suggest bringing your own drinks and snacks, unless you want to pay $9.00 for a sandwich (I’ve done that because I was starving).

Airlines have also lowered the weight limit for luggage. So you have to be much more careful now when you’re packing. Now, “packing light” has even more meaning. It’s not just so that you don’t have to check-in your bags, but it’s also so you don’t get charged extra because of the weight. I just went on a flight overseas a few months ago and it was a pain in the a** to pack! the reason was that it was cold where I was going, so I had to pack sweaters and big jackets. You may not think it gets heavy, but when you actually pack it…boy, does it add up quick! I think I barely made it under the limit.

Now…remember those days when the person picking you up at the airport asked “How was the flight?” and you told them “It was real nice, there was no one on the flight and I was able to lay down across the seats.” Those will probably now be “memories” and only memories. Gone are the days of empty planes. The airlines will be packing us in like sardines now and cancelling flights if they see that there aren’t going to be enough people on the flights. Don’t believe me? Well, it just happened to me a couple months ago. I was ready to go on a flight and two days before my outbound flight, I receive a call from the airline saying that it was cancelled. It took me awhile, but I was able to get them to basically confirm they cancelled the flight because not enough people were on it. They wanted to pack the other flights to the same destination. So it screwed with my travel plans. They obviously didn’t say it explicitly, but I asked questions where they could only say “Yes” or “No.”

So now, we get to sit in packed flights starving. But maybe the starving part is good, because then people will lose weight…thus saving fuel too! Maybe that was their plan all along. I’ve gotten stuck between two fat people before, just like in the movies, and it’s so not fun. I’ve gotten stuck between people that smell like crap too (why can’t people shower?). And between people who “think” they smell good because of all the cologne and perfume they put on. Maybe I should start bringing gas masks with me onto a plane from now on. If people are not going to be allowed onto planes for inappropriate clothes, why can’t they kick off these people who stink up the whole plane? The girl was eventually allowed onto the plane on a compromise to cover up more, but why can’t they also make a compromise with the “stinkers” and get them to take a shower?
 

So MySpace announced MySpace Music today. Will it really be a iTunes killer as the article from www.news.com says it will?

It’s definitely possible if MySpace does it right. They have the membership volume. Even if a small percentage of MySpace users start buying music from MySpace, it could definitely cut into iTunes’ sales. But again, they have to do it “right.” If it gets off to a bad start, people will not use it and go back to using iTunes. Apple creates such user-friendly products that it’s hard not to use them. I myself switched from PC to Mac because of the deathly blue screens as well as the constant freezes…not to mention the viruses that get around.

One question I have is how it’s going to work with my iPod. Will it work? That’s the key I believe. I would say that 50% of the population has an iPod (I don’t really know, but I know it’s a large number). Will the purchased music work on my iPod? If they are DRM-free, then I’m assuming so. I’m very tech savvy, but I also like products working together “smoothly.” I like how when I purchase a song on iTunes, I know it’s going to work on my iPod and iTunes will play the audio file. I have purchased music from other sites in the past and those files would not play in iTunes even. Since I’m on a Mac, I use iTunes as my player. For those files purchased somewhere else, I then needed to download software to take off the DRM. I’ve even gotten free gift cards for different online sites and of course they’re geared towards PC’s because they offer the music in only .wma files. And then of course they also had DRM on them, so it would’ve been another step needed.

I’ll tell you what MySpace, if you can make it so that everything works on my iPod without too many additional steps, then I’m all for it. But if not, then I’m sticking to iTunes.

Here’s the original article:
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9910931-7.html?tag=newsmap

So the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash tested the Smart ForTwo car. They gave it generally low marks for safety.

Well…what the heck did you expect?!? Of course there’s going to be low marks. It’s a tiny car. How much protection do you expect from such a small car? Do you think you’d get the same protection while driving the ForTwo that you’d get driving a SUV? Seriously…

I would imagine people buy the ForTwo for the fuel economy and for the size. It’s much easier to park a small car than a bigger car. If you want more protection from when you’re driving and drinking, you’d probably buy a SUV for when you smash into that mailbox. The SUV is much less likely to wrap around the mailbox than the ForTwo.

Here’s the original article:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/03/autos/smart_crash_test/index.htm?section=money_latest

I love March! March Madness is one of the best sporting events ever. Just being able to watch college basketball all day is a lot of fun as it is, but then throw in underdogs beating favorites…I don’t know how to express the excitement. College players don’t get paid and you just know that they’re playing their hearts out for the love of the game. They’re not playing for any money.

I’m not saying that professional sports players don’t love the game they play, but it’s also their job. College players simply do it because they love to play. Yes, there may be a transition to a job in the professional ranks, but for right now, they’re doing it for the joy of the game.

Here’s a YouTube clip of Stephen Curry’s highlights from when Davidson upset Georgetown. Stephen Curry is actually also the son of Dell Curry, former NBA sharpshooter.

Would you jump on a grenade to sacrifice yourself in order to save the others around you? In this case, a British marine jumped onto a grenade to protect those around him. You only see this kind of stuff in the movies! You never actually hear about it. There are only so many people that would instinctively jump onto a grenade…everyone else would be running for their lives. He was able to escape with his rucksack blown off and a bloody nose.

It makes me think…

Who would jump onto a grenade in order to save my life? Would I do the save for someone else? Would you?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/7321647.stm

One of the best documentaries I have seen is An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore discusses Global Warming and the effects of it. Have you seen A Day After Tomorrow? All the events that occur in the movie are not a far stretch at all. Everyone hears about abnormal weather events occurring like the Katrina Hurricane. Watch it, it will change the way you look at the environment and what the great USA does about it.

You can find out more information here about An Inconvenient Truth here: http://www.climatecrisis.net/

So the article discusses how the Wilkins ice shelf in Antartica is “hanging by a thread.” This section that’s ready to fall is about the size of Connecticut. The Larsen B ice shelf, about the size of Rhode Island, collapsed in 2002. This just shows the true effects of global warming.

I don’t know how all the global warming naysayers are going to explain this. Are they still going to deny that global warming is occurring? Are they going to say that Al Gore set this up?

It’s the saddest thing to hear that the US is the worst as a whole in dealing with global warming. It pisses me off all these old farts in the government are making decisions based on how much money they are receiving from lobbyists and the industry. It’s all about the benjamins to them. My question is, how’re you going to spend all that money if you’re caught in a freak tornado?

Here’s the Wilkins ice shelf article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/03/25/antarctic.ice/index.html

For my first post here at www.lazyazian.com, I figured we’d take a look at an azian country, Taiwan, and arguably, the most powerful country in the world, USA.

For a little history lesson, Taiwan is an island East of China and South of Japan. It is also referred to as Formosa. The formal name though is the Republic of China. There is much tension between Taiwan and China because of Taiwan’s desire for independence since the 1940’s. Taiwan wants to be an independent country. China, however, doesn’t want Taiwan to become independent. I believe that China knows the economic value of Taiwan and wants to claim Taiwan as part of China for the money, since ‘everything’ is “Made in Taiwan.”

Here’s a link to find out more information about Taiwan’s history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

Anyways, back to the original reason for the post. Apparently, the US Department of Defense sent missile parts to Taiwan instead of the helicopter batteries that Taiwan ordered. The missile parts were the nose-cone shaped fuses as well. I don’t understand how batteries could even be nose-cone shaped. The Air Force was the arm that sent the missile parts.

With the past history of China and Taiwan’s relationship, this is not good. China could see Taiwan as prepping for war with China if China were to attack and reclaim the island as it has said it would do. There used to be a treaty, the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty, between the US and Taiwan. It essentially said that the US would help defend Taiwan if China were to attack Taiwan trying to absorb the country. It was later rejected by President Jimmy Carter (bastard). The US told China of what happened, but there’s been no comment from China on the situation.

So who knows…maybe it’s a completely honest mistake…BUT it’s a BIG freaking mistake. This could definitely be seen by China as a act of aggression from Taiwan and it gives China a reason…

Here’s the article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/25/taiwan.missiles/index.html