New cutting board

I needed a new cutting board and got this one:

It is made of end grain acacia wood, which is supposedly a sustainable wood. I chose an end grain board because I read that it doesn't dull knives as quickly and it is sort of "self healing." This is because when you slice down, the blade goes between the fibers of the board, I guess it is like slicing into a bundle of skewers or something. Anyway, I have used it for a couple of days now and I am loving it! I have yet to see a knife mark on it and slicing on it is very smooth. After every use, I wash it with warm, soapy water. Then I dry it with a towel and apply a wood cream, which is just a combination of mineral oil and beeswax. The cream helps to keep moisture from seeping into the wood and also deepens the color and makes it look prettier. In any case, I am hoping this board will last me longer than my old plastic one did.

Wow, some people definitely put in effort to be nice!

http://helenair.com/news/local/state-and-regional/return-of-helps-restore-christmas-spirit-for-billings-woman/article_d8e5f4fe-254f-11e1-9d66-0019bb2963f4.html

RIM in trouble?

For a while now, people are saying RIM, the maker of blackberry devices, is in trouble. Many companies still use them though they are increasingly also offering iphones and android devices to their employees. Many people carry both a blackberry and another mobile device. Always, there have been rumors that RIM will make a come-back and retake the business market for mobile devices.

However, with the memory of the global outage still fresh in my mind, I'm now reading that analysts no longer think RIM will ever bounce back. Certainly this is not news. It is just a reminder of how troubled RIM is and how management does not seem to be responding to their imminent demise.

Personally, I am not a fan of the blackberry. It is not an attractive device and it is not fun to use. The style and shape of the blackberry has pretty much stayed very recognizably blackberry since it first came out in the market. I find its look unattractive. Then again, most people don't get a blackberry for its looks. So let's talk about functionality.

First of all, I find the touch trackpad response to be clunky. If I move my thumb across it, sometimes it will not respond and sometimes, it responds too fast. I've tried changing the sensitivity settings, but see no improvement. Contrast that to the iPhone touch screen and the blackberry trackpad just doesn't measure up.

Then there are the Options and Settings areas. In the iPhone, there is just Settings and the options per setting are simple enough. In the Blackberry, such things are divided between two sections: Options and Settings. Within Options and Settings, you are presented with a myriad of choices to play with. Pressing the Menu button also affords you more Options and Settings. So if you want to remember how you set something or changed something, you probably can't remember until you've played around with the device a bit. This makes setting up or troubleshooting the device a pain because you have to spend time figuring things out. Of course, you can say the blackberry gives you greater control whereas the iPhone doesn't, but the truth is, the iPhone doesn't because it doesn't need to.

Which leads me to my next point. The blackberry doesn't always work like it should when it comes to Enterprise Activation. I can't tell you how many countless hours I've spent trying to wrangle through issues with Enterprise Activation. It's not every device that has issues, but there are enough to make mobile technicians want to pull their hair out at times. Personally, I find it unintuitive to figure out how to get the subfolders to populate. At first, I couldn't figure it out so I wiped and re-activated the device, which failed. So I had to remove and re-add my account to BES and then redo the wipe and re-activation. Someone then showed me how to populate the subfolders. However, I have no historical emails and no calendar events now. I did some internet research and tried forcing the service books to be resent and also forced a slow sync. Nothing helped. Looks like there is nothing for it but another re-activation, which I am waiting to do. At least I'm getting my emails. Again, with the iPhone, there were no problems. Setup was extremely simple and easy and quick. Folders, calendars and tasks populated without problems or tinkering from my part. So if Apple can make it so easy, why can't RIM?

Internet browsing also sucks on the blackberry. I've tried to look up stuff or to go websites on the browser and will often get a connection error. I don't know if this is a carrier issue, but when I switch to iPhone, no problems - the page comes up right away!

Please note that I don't do anything on the blackberry aside from checking my emails, looking at my calendar and looking at my tasks - all for work only! I don't download apps or add personal emails accounts. When I use the web function, it is to use online tools that I need to access for work. Even if I were to stay away from the web function, at its most basic, I at least need it to work for my emails, calendar and tasks. What is the point of carrying it around if it doesn't help me do my job while on the go? Why would I want to carry this thing when I can just carry my iPhone which can do everything the blackberry can do but more and better?

The whole idea of the blackberry, for me, was to separate work from home. My iPhone is for home and the blackberry is for work. If only the blackberry works like it should...

Christian Bale in movie about Rape of Nanking

First of all, I'm not sure why a Caucasian person is in a movie primarily about Asians unless they wanted to ensure its box office success by using a well-known actor. In any case, I'm not going to bash a movie I haven't seen just because there's a white dude in there. I only heard about this film through this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/asia/christian-bale-attacked-by-chinese-guards.html?hp

Apparently Christian Bale, the star of the movie, got roughed up by Chinese guards when the actor tried to visit a civil rights lawyer under house arrest. It is ironic that Christian Bale was in China to promote a movie about atrocities against Chinese people and yet China is offering a wonderfully current example of its own atrocities against Chinese people.

In any case, I take personal issue with the section in the article that said that some critics think the film demonizes the Japanese. I find this as insensitive and offensive as someone saying that a holocaust film demonizes the Nazis. I'm not saying that all Japanese are demons just as people don't say all Germans are demons, but the people who committed the most horrific acts against humanity in China cannot EVER be overly demonized! If you look at the old photos of the bodies, the mass graves, the people buried alive the stories of the "comfort women," you will find that they look and sound eerily similar to photos and stories from the Holocaust. The difference? Nanking is in Asia and Japan is on good terms with the West and there are still a sh*tload of Chinese people. Oh and also Japan has NEVER formally apologized for what happened. In fact, many Japanese deny the atrocities even happened, despite the fact that they are CLEARLY documented in photos, letters, pamphlets, memoirs and confessions. In fact, Japanese Prime Ministers still pay regular homage to their WWII dead at this shrine that includes war criminals that committed acts against humanity in China. China always speaks out when the Prime Minister does this, but no one else in the world cares.

Three hundred thousand people were massacred in Nanking alone. Six million Chinese were killed by the Japanese in World War II. Yeah, there are a lot of us, so extermination was a pretty tall order, but I'll be damned if it didn't seem like the Japanese army gave it their best shot! It is not coincidence that Japanese war crimes against the Chinese during WWII is often compared to the Holocaust in Europe. Yet the West seem hell-bent on letting the Japanese off the hook on this one. It's not fair, the sense of apathy from anyone who is not Chinese is horrific. It is as if all those people who died meant nothing.

I'm not saying the China doesn't have its problems and there are lots of things that I think China sucks for. However, if China becoming a world power gets Japan to officially apologize and stop paying homage to the war criminals, that will be one good that came out of it.

So in light of what I wrote, yeah, it is INFURIATING when Westerner or Japanese person thinks China is "demonizing" the Japanese during the Rape of Nanking because you know what? That's the kind of sh*t they did and ya'll need to f*ckin' deal with it.

First Thanksgiving

This post comes a bit late, but this year, we hosted our first Thanksgiving at our house and I'd like to put down some thoughts on it. We had 11 people total to feed and cooked most of the food ourselves. Overall, I think we did fairly well. It was a bit grueling in terms of effort before and after. Cleanup was just as exhausting as the prep work. In retrospect, I definitely would have done some things differently.

For one, I would not have made so much cranberry sauce. In fact, I think I could have skipped it entirely and nobody would really miss it. Most people took a tiny dollop for the sake of having something that is a traditional Thanksgiving food, and not a spoonful more. Maybe next year, I'll just make half a bag and use the other half for something else, like cranberry infused vodka or something.

Second, I would definitely try to do more beforehand. For instance, cranberry sauce is usually served at room temperature. I could make it days beforehand and let it warm up to room temperature on the day of. For the mashed potatoes, I could boil the potatoes days ahead and warm it up in the microwave with some cream and butter before putting them through a ricer. I could also put the stuffing together the day before and just slide into the oven when it's time to bake.

Third, I am rethinking the fresh versus frozen turkey debate. We had a bit of a tough time with our frozen turkey because it took longer to defrost than we thought it would. The cavity of the turkey was still frozen when we unwrapped it in preparation for brining. We ended up having to rewrap the turkey and defrosting it the rest of the way in cold water, which was a pain the butt and I hated doing it. Even though we had a small bird by turkey standards, it felt heavy and awkward handling the thing. If we had gotten a fresh turkey, all we had to do was brine and roast - no worrying about defrosting it. On the other hand, a frozen turkey is cheaper and now that we've learned a few things about defrosting, I'm sure if we get another one, we'll handle it better. I guess we'll have to see how things are next year.

Lastly, I would make one pumpkin pie instead of two and some kind of easy salad dressing instead of onion dip. As good as the onion dip was, having made it from scratch, the crowd we had just wasn't into it. I guess they're more health conscious than hubby and I. As for the pie, I made two pies thinking one wasn't enough for a crowd of 11. What I didn't factor in was the fact that everyone was too stuffed to eat dessert by the end. Most people who ate pie, only had a sliver of a slice and no more. I admit to feeling like some of the effort was wasted on the pie considering I made it fresh from a sugar pumpkin. The onion dip, which was barely touched, and the pie were what kept me up till 4am the day of Thanksgiving. I feel like I sacrificed precious sleep time for nothing. Why do this again if it's not going to be appreciated? Next year, no more onion dip and only one pie. As much as I like entertaining, I don't want to kill myself doing it!

There is still hope for humanity after all

http://www.kpax.com/news/mystery-shopper-provides-miracle-on-brooks-street/#!prettyPhoto/0/