Rudolph's on the Red-Line Train Dear

Sung to the tune or Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer

Rudolph’s on the Red-Line train dear, you can reach him on his cell phone.
None of the other riders mind if he receives a call.
They'd never let his talking, bother them in the least.
Mostly they’re just chatting or listening to MP3’s

Then on one crowded afternoon a SenSan couldn’t hear.
When he began to shout into his phone
Rudolph got mad and punched him out.
Now all the MTR riders always back away in fear.
They never shout on cell phones if they see that Rudolph’s near.


Notes;
1.The MTR is the Hong Kong subway system
2. SenSan is Chinese for "Mister" "Man"or "Husband"

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger with a twisted sense of Christmas

Badly Written Headlines

Shouldn't there be a hyphen in this headline?

Somehow I don't think that a cat ate the festival.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The cat who could possibly eat a festival

Things that Smart People Don't Know

I was forwarded one of these silly trivia quizzes about things that smart people know but that most people are clueless about. After reading the questions and looking at the answers I decided that in many cases the "Smart people" are clueless as well.

The following questions were sent to me with the disclaimer that none of the questions had trick answers

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

Their answer: Boxing

Comment: What about Olympic and Sumo Wrestling? I guess the World Wrestling Federation would be excluded from this because the participants tend to know who the winner will be before the match but not in Olympic and Sumo Wrestling. The winner is unknown until the contest ends, it is also difficult to know who is ahead in these sports until the contest ends. So get a life Braniacs there isn't just ONE sport like this.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

Their answer: Niagara Falls

Comments: What constitutes "Backwards" in this case? Couldn't these falls be just as easily moving West or North West? I realize this one is picky but still, why backwards?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

Their Answer: Rhubarb and Asparagus

Comment: They missed some. (A) Prickly Pear Cactus is native to North America but is now grown commercially all over the world. It produces a very sweet and sticky fruit but the pads can also be eaten and quite commonly are. While the fruit is fruit the pads would qualify as a vegetable and it is a perennial plant. (B) Mesquite is a tree that grows in the US South West and Northern Mexico. It is, I believe the world's largest legume and produces bean pods that native American tribes ate all the time. I am not saying they are very good but they can be eaten. (C) Bamboo is also, I believe a perennial plant, it grows all over the world and many parts are edible. (D) Roses are perennial and a member of the apple family and the "rose hips" are commonly eaten as a fruit. But, the leaves can be picked, washed and eaten in a salad, and the leaves qualify as a vegetable. (E) The tops of the taro plant can be chopped up and eaten like spinach, if you cut only the top and leave the tastier tuber in the ground the top will grow back does that qualify as perennial plant? (F) There are several trees, I don't know which ones right off hand that have edible leaves. Those would qualify as vegetables though they are not commonly eaten, they could be and trees are perennial plants.

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

Their Answer: Strawberries

Comment: I may have to give them this one though I find it hard to believe that there isn't another fruit like this.

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

Answer: The bottle is placed over the pear when it is a pollinated bud and the pear then grows to maturity inside the bottle.

Comment: Kind of the only way to do this and a curious product but you don't have to be smart to be able to figure this out. I guess this just prove that these smart people are also heavy drinkers.

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

Their Answer: Dwell, Dwarf, Dwindle

Comment: These people are not as smart as they think they are: Each of the words above have various forms that give the words shades of meaning. What about Dwelling, Dwelt, Dwells, Dwellings, Dwarven, Dwarfish, Dwindled, Dwindling, Dwindles are those words? Why do they not count the different tense as a separate word? After all a Dwarven Woman is not necessary the same thing as a woman who is a dwarf. What about first names like Dwight, Dwayne, and so forth, are those not English words?

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

Their Answer: period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

Comment: I thought a hyphen and a dash were the same thing. Please show me on a standard keyboard where a hyphen is versus a dash and what the difference is? This is a matter of usage not symbol. Two separate words are made into a hyphenated word by placing a "dash" between them. Also when was the last time anyone ever used "brackets" or "braces" in a sentence? You don't even use them in citations anymore. I am not sure they are punctuation for English so much as operators in mathematical equations.

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

Their Answer: Lettuce

Comment: Wrong! You can buy pickled lettuce in any Asian grocery store and the Chinese cook it all the time. However I've never seen lettuce frozen, wait I have because I sometimes used to see frozen sandwiches in deli's at bait shops and those sandwiches had lettuce on them. But they were not very good sandwiches and the people who made up this quiz probably wouldn't buy anything from a bait shop anyway.

9. Name at least 6 things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter 'S.'

Their Answer: shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts

Comment: Inconsistent application of rules in a game is the mark of a cheater. In question 6 of this silly quiz it did not use variant forms of the words here they use four words that are near synonyms - sneakers, sandals and slippers are all types of shoes. If they list those then why not saddle shoes, surf shoes and sand shoes? Then they could have 9 thing that start with "S" that you can wear on your feet. It also seems to me that you do not wear stilts, skis or snowshoes on you feet, they are attached to your shoe which you wear on your feet. So you do not, in a technical sense wear skis, snowshoes or stilts on your feet unless you are barefoot beforehand. The same is often true of skates which are wheels or blades attached to a shoe or boot and are sometimes a separate device clamped to or over a shoe. But if those items are listed then why not spats? For that matter, if the people who put this silly quiz together had ever walked through a barnyard they'd know that there is at least one more thing that starts with "S" that you can wear on your feet and that is why you always wear boots instead of shoes in the barnyard!

There is a lot going on; riots in China, Bangkok and South Korea, high fuel prices, earthquake relief, shop signs falling off of building and killing pedestrians in Wan Chai and a horrible traffic accident in Central yesterday but I guess it is a measure of my jaded intellect that I chose to deal with this today.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who may be smarter than the Hoity Toity Set thinks he is

Men being Men

Other than the being married part this guy could be describing me.

I think that the true Retro-Sexual is the middle-aged, happily married guy who respects his wife but wants to punch the clowns spraying graffiti all over Causeway Bay

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Happily Retro Blogger

Toilets for Pedophiles

This has to be a candidate for best bit of bathroom humor I've seen. However, you see this kind of stuff all over China


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger with a dirty mind

If dung can be art, does that mean art is dung?

Bravo!

There are some things that need to be said more often and this is one of them.
I guess I should really blame Marcel DuChamp for the, banality, offensiveness and ugliness that is too often the point of modern art. The late Francis Schaeffer said it well when he pointed out in one of his books that "Art ceases to be art when it is only understood by other artist." Art, in other words, is not as DuChamp said what the artist says it is but what the patron says it is.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who actually likes abstract paintings because he can do them himself

Was that a (Y)Ip in Hell or a Hoot in Chan?

So Anson (Got her Fangs On) Chan won the election yesterday. Not really a surprise. And if the truth be know I couldn't give a hoot in Hell who won. None of the candidates except the Cecelia Ling had 1/2 a brain between them and I didn't like her that much either.

Lets see we had a choice between:

1. A Running Dog of the British (Anson Chan)

2. A Running Dog of the PRC (Regina Ip)

3. A Welfare Queen activist with an IQ in the low 80's who probably graduated 1st in her class from HKU with a degree in Social Basket Weaving (Ho Loy)

4. A union leader who despite being Chinese bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Jimmy Hoffa. I'm actually surprised he didn't do better in this election. I guess the local union thugs haven't figured out how to buy votes like they do in France the UK and the US

5. Cecelia Ling (she seemed like a fairly bright and competent person except for her generic Hong Kong secretary style helmet cut hair)

6. Some old guy with a mustache who was I think a former district councilor but who looked like the manager of a Karaoke Bar behind Nathan Road

7. Another guy who did some sort of Tai Chi for some reason or another.

8. Does anybody really know who the eighth person in this election was? The skinny guy. I saw him on TV. He had no organization, no volunteers and evidently no clue.

Those ancient Greeks who thought up the idea of participatory government must be spinning in their graves. They assumed that the cream of society would rise to the top and thus good leadership would win out. I guess they never lived here

Anson Chan may have been the cream of Hong Kong society one upon a time but that cream soured years ago. What is really sad is that she was demonstratively the best candidate in many ways.

On a stranger note, the Franklin Graham evangelistic meeting ended yesterday. 120,000 in the Stadium and easily over 100,000 more on the infield of the Happy Valley race track. I guess if you didn't like the sermon you could place a bet. Maybe the Jockey club should have taken odds on the number of professions of faith.

They also had full venues at Yuen Long and in Macao. Not counting Macao there were probably over 250,000 attending this thing if you counted all the venues. I think it says something about the number Christians in Hong Kong or possibly the amount of spiritual hunger here.

What is strange is that TVB didn't report about this on the new last night. I don't know about ATV. However, I'm just a little curious, isn't 250,000 people attending an event a newsworthy topic?

I mean if 250,000 street sweepers decided to strike and march from Chai Wan to Chatter Garden on a Sunday afternoon to demand that the government give them bigger brooms wouldn't it make the news? It would seem that the TV stations here might have been able to run a short story on it. Maybe they though all those people were going to vote.

I guess that is why I am not a journalist. I'm not able to discern what is a big story from what is important.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who can't vote in Hong Kong

Sarko the Lady Killer

Take that Bill Clinton!

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger Who has never had a Chinese Pop Singer propose to him

The Eyes of Texas are Upon You

I have had no contact with UT Austin since I graduated. Yet I have, 11 years after the last time I set foot on their campus started to receive the "Texas Exes Newsletter." I know other alumni of other institutions that have experienced the same phenomenon. You can never get away. They always find you. It is actually kind of scary. It makes me think that the UT fight song which is sung at football games is more than a simple song. The eyes of Texas are upon you, All the live long day. The eyes of Texas are upon you, You cannot get away. Do not think you can escape them, At night, or early in the morn'. The eyes of Texas are upon you, 'Till Gabriel blows his horn! Maybe they really are watching me It seems to me that that if the United States really wanted to find Osama bin Ladin they would have somebody in the CIA issue him an MBA from the UT school of business and then wait for the alumni association to start sending him emails. Until Next Time Fai Mao The Blogger who doesn't bleed orange The University of Texas at Austin is pleased to bring you @Texas, an electronic newsletter for alumni and friends to keep you in touch with developments affecting the campus and the University and alumni communities.

@Texas Volume 6, Number 7 November 29, 2007 Twelve New Harrington Fellows Named Astrophysics Student Named Rhodes Scholar First Stadium Remembered on 100th Anniversary Study Shows Kids Benefit From Learning About Racism Tree Of Life For Flowering Plants Reveals Relationships B.M. “Mack” Rankin Jr. Honored as Outstanding Texas Ex Top Story of the Week TWELVE NEW HARRINGTON FELLOWS NAMED The University’s Donald D. Harrington Fellows Program, one of the nation’s premier visiting scholar and graduate fellow programs, begins its seventh year with a new group of scholars. Sybil B. Harrington created the program as a tribute to her late husband, and the Sybil B. Harrington Trust and The Don and Sybil Harrington Foundation provided a $30 million endowment to support gifted and ambitious scholars who come to UT from institutions throughout the world. more about Harrington Fellows... ASTROPHYSICS STUDENT NAMED RHODES SCHOLAR Sarah Miller, an astronomy and physics major who will graduate in May, was selected as a Rhodes Scholar for 2008. She is one of 32 students in America to be honored with the scholarship. Miller, a Dallas native, was cited in the official Rhodes Trust press release not only for her accomplishments in the field of astronomy and physics, but also for her ability as a rock, jazz and classical music composer, performer and instrumentalist. more about Sarah Miller... FIRST STADIUM REMEMBERED ON 100TH ANNIVERSARY Now that the regular season for football has ended, work continues at a frenzied pace on the renovations to the north end of Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. At a reported cost of $175 million, the new north end should be completed by next August and will boost the capacity to 90,000 fans. Amid all this activity, remember that 100 years ago this week, University students planned, financed and constructed the first stadium on the campus. And they did it in less than two weeks and for under $1,000. more about first stadium... STUDY SHOWS KIDS BENEFIT FROM LEARNING ABOUT RACISM Challenging the idea that racism education could be harmful to students, a new study from the University found the results of learning about historical racism are primarily positive. Psychologists Rebecca Bigler and Julie Milligan Hughes found white children who received history lessons about discrimination against famous African Americans had significantly more positive attitudes toward African Americans than those who received lessons with no mention of racism. more about racism study... TREE OF LIFE FOR FLOWERING PLANTS REVEALS RELATIONSHIPS The evolutionary Tree of Life for flowering plants has been revealed using the largest collection of genomic data of these plants to date, report scientists from the University and the University of Florida. The scientists found that the two largest groups of flowering plants, monocots (grasses and their relatives) and eudicots (including sunflowers and tomatoes), are more closely related to each other than to any of the other major lineages. more about Tree of Life... B.M. “MACK” RANKIN JR. HONORED AS OUTSTANDING TEXAS EX President William Powers Jr. joined the Texas Exes Dallas Chapter on Nov. 17 to honor B.M. “Mack” Rankin Jr. as the 2007 Outstanding Dallas Texas Ex. In addition to honoring Rankin for his support of the University and the Dallas community, the event also raised money for the Texas Exes Dallas Chapter’s scholarship endowment. Since 1996, the Dallas Chapter has awarded 325 scholarships totaling about $517,000 to local students. more about Mack Rankin...

Hong Kong Christmas Carols

Here is the link to some of the Hong Kong Christmas Carols I've done in the past

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Carol Composing Blogger

Man shoots goat after wife wouldn't bring him beer

I didn't know that Wisconsin had a border with Arkansas.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who has never shot his wife's goat.

Mud Hens make offer to A-Rod

Who says the owners of sports teams don't have a sense of humor?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The A-Rod Hating Blogger

Kenyan Monkeys Make Lewd Gestures at Women

Ya think that the old men exercising in Hong Kong parks have taken a trip to Kenya? Maybe they taught the monkey's how to do this.

Could be.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger Who has always thought that monkeys were rude.

Another Chinese Toy Recalled

I am not sure where this came from. Somebody emailed it to me. If I get a source I'll give the creator credit.

Oregon family's name deemed offensive — on their license plates

God help them if their name was Lipschitz.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who also has an uncommon last name

Wimp alert!

How do you say Phfffffffft! in Chinese?

What a wimp!

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Cat who likes dogs

Sports that the PRC would like added to the Olympics

OK I admit it. This is too easy; but I'm in a vile mood today and governments are easier to pick on than individuals.

Here are my top 10 choices for sports that the PRC really excels at and that should be in the Beijing Olympic but aren't.

1. The Green Card Relay race: Normally played by those who attend university in the USA.

2. Square Tanking: Seeing how many Protesters a single tank can crush in a minute

3. The Great Firewall of China: Finding Internet Sites that disparage the PRC government and blocking them.

4. Wokathon: Turning non food items into gourmet foods

5. Violation Derby: Seeing how many building codes can be violated simultaneously in the same building.

6. Death Race: Driving on a Chinese Freeway

7. Litter Skitter: Seeing who can identify the greatest number of different types of empty bottles that people have thrown on the sidewalk

8. The Newlywed Games: Like the Green Card Relay only normally played by divorced Chinese women with older, preferably wealthy Western men

9. Translation Spelling Bee: Finding misspelled words on t-shirts

10. Pick Pocket Obstacle Course: Trying to walk through a Shanghai tourist area with your wallet in your back pocket.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who really does like china more than he lets on.

The List

My few regular readers will remember that I like to do top ten list. This link is actually much more detailed than a normal top ten list and even has an addendum. I think that one of the reasons that I like a list of things is because I work with adolescents. Kids don't have the attention span or desire to know a whole lot of things in an in depth manner and providing a list like this is an easy way to pique interest in a subject.

While informative and funny something that I find disturbing about these list is that they are too Amero-centric. Holy Cow! if they'd looked at the SCMP what would they have found? The China Daily? The Singapore Straights Time? Both ATV and TVB obviously slant certain news stories in various directions but I doubt either would admit to such.

I agree with the author of these list when he points out that the Internet did NOT make journalist less reliable but actually exposed some of them as liars. Matt Drudge didn't somehow make Bill Clinton ask Monica Lewinski for oral sex and the existence of EastWestSouthNorth didn't cause the movie reviews in Chengdu to be censored. Both these blogs (I'm not sure either of these is a blog. They might more usefully be defined as news aggregation services) simply expose what is already there. I'd have a lot more faith in the mass media if they'd do a better job of policing their own and admit they've had problems with trying to push an agenda. Every field has bad apples.

It kind of makes me uneasy when I read about media moguls and prominent journalist arguing for the censorship of the Internet , and make no mistake, that is exactly what Marvin Kalb was advocating in 1998 in the printed quote at the beginning of these articles. How can they advocate a "Free Press " and a controlled public Internet? I guess it is the old "Free speech for me but not for thee" syndrome.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who doesn't really trust Newspapers

Tag, your it!

I have been challenged to state 8 autobiographical facts by the one and only Fumier.

OK

1. I lack any form of social grace
2. I was once voted by as the meanest teacher in the school where I am employed by middle school boys
3. I used to race bicycles
4. I prefer whiskey to beer
5. I believe that all great men have a mustache
6. I agree with Waylon Jennins. Charles may be a prince but "Bob Wills is still the King"
7. I have a PhD though my spelling doesn't show it
8. I was almost born in the back seat of a 1957 Chevrolet

PotC

The last movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy will start its Hong Kong run this Thursday. I plan to go see it if I can on Thursday evening.

I got into sort of an argument this morning with one of the more patriotic and socially minded students here at the school I work for about this movie. She is upset that Chow Yung Fat plays a part that is a stereotypical Chinese Kung Fu villain (Though how she knows this is beyond me as the movie isn't playing here yet.) and is not a positive role model. She conveniently forgot that this is a movie where all the major characters are PIRATES! None of them are particularly good role models and the whole movie is based around comic versions of stereotypical characters.

She just reinforced my notion that the voting age in all elections world wide should be raised from 18 or 21 to about 38 or 40. The young have no stake in the world. That's why they want to change it. It is often said that the world belongs to the future generations but that is a lie. The world belongs to middle-aged farts who had the money to buy from over-the-hill geezers. The middle-aged take care of the Earth because we want to protect our investment. Attempts by 20 somethings to change the world are really just an attempt by those without money to gain access to the wealth of those who have spent 25 to 30 years earning it.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who likes to say "Arrrrrgh"