The SARS Market

In 1996, I attended a wedding in Guangzhou, China. We stayed at the White Swan hotel where, in each room, they had pictures of past guests including Henry Kissinger and Nixon. More recently, Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator, bought out the whole hotel for his visit to this Chinese industrial region north of Hong Kong.

An interesting thing about this place was the pool area. The pool was teaming with single mothers and their newly adopted Chinese babies. The place was the main staging area for newly associated mothers and children before they departed for home. It was surreal and seemed very odd with these 50 or so kids and their new mom’s. Quite the industry.

But the most interesting thing about the whole trip was the Guangzhou wildlife market. This is the same market that they now believe was ground zero for the SARS virus. I fully understand why.

Now this is no pet zoo. Everything for sale was intended to be eaten. There were relatively “normal” animals like bunnies and kitties.

Eels and snakes were not even that surprising to me as I have eaten both previously:

The turtles were rather disturbing. On the left of this image, you can see them stacked in a crate. They were alive. Even more disturbing was one stall where you could buy the live turtle separate from the shell. When I walked up, I couldn’t figure out what the creature was that was moving around. I had never seen a turtle without its shell.

The endangered species and bats on sticks got even weirder:

But the civet was the kingpin. The keeper of the SARS virus. The animal in the picture was caged adjacent to this gaggle of geese. They were none to happy as you can see from their obvious panic.

These markets still exist all over the world. It’s just a matter of time before more of these viruses come out of hiding with such fertile grounds for distribution. Bat-cicle anyone?

100

Today is my 100 blog. As my lawyer, Howard Hughes says: “A milestone”. Well thanks Howard, now go wash your hands.

Profiles the 100 most influential people of the 20th century

The bottom 100 movies as voted by users of the Internet Movie Database

Favorite 100 sites on the Web

The Top 100 April Fools Day Hoaxes of All Time

Top 100 Google Videos

Forbes Celebrity 100

Top 100 Banned or Challenged Books of 1990-2000

100 Greatest Films

Top 100 Blogs in the blogosphere

100 Moments of the Web

100 Best Novels

PC Magazines Top 100 Web Sites

Civil War Top 100 Sites

100 Top Hospitals

Top 100 Quotes

Billboard Top 100 Songs

Welcome to 100 Words

100 Greatest Guitar Solos

Living to 100

Top 100 Games List

100 Most Mispronounced Words

NASDAQ 100

100 Questions About Arab Americans

Top 100 American Speeches of the 20^th Century

100 Best Corporate Citizens

Population of 100 Largest Cities

Entrée

The America version of the word entrée has always pissed me off. Even my high school French language classes taught me that the word entrée, when referring to food, means the first dish.

Proper definitions:

entrée
noun [C]
1 US the main dish of a meal

2 UK at very formal meals, a small dish served just before the main part

In most English-speaking countries outside North America, an entrée (also known as a 'starter') is a smaller course that precedes the main course. It is more substantial than hors d'oeuvres and better thought of as a half-sized version of a main course. It comes from the French word entrée (entry) and, as such, it literally describes a meal's first dish. Restaurant menus will sometimes offer the same dish in different-sized servings as both entrée and main course.

Au contraire

There is indeed a good explanation for why Americans do this. They got it from the English.

At some point in the 18th century, the English began using entree to mean "a ‘made dish’, served between the fish and the joint". But in French, entrée was defined as "qui se servent au commencement du repas" ("serving as the commencement of a meal").

So the English got it wrong first, and that "wrong" meaning simply stuck in America once it arrived here.

Feats of Jack Lalanne

1954 Age 40: Swam the length of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge underwater with 140 pounds of equipment, including two air tanks… an undisputed world record.

1955 Age 41: Swam handcuffed from Alcatraz to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, CA.

1956 Age 42: Set a world record of 1,033 pushups in 23 minutes on "You Asked for It, a TV Show with Art Baker.

1957 Age 43: Swam the treacherous Golden Gate Channel, towing a 2,500-pound cabin cruiser. This involved fighting the cold, swift ocean currents that made the 1 mile swim a 6 ½ mile test of strength and endurance.

1958 Age 44: Maneuvered a paddleboard 30 miles, 9-½ hours non-stop from Farallon Islands to the San Francisco shore.

1959 Age 45: Completed 1,000 pushups and 1,000 chin-ups in 1 hours and 22 minutes. "Happy" is born and The Jack LaLanne Show goes nationwide

1974 Age 60: Swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf, for a second time handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat.

1975 Age 61: Swam the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, underwater, for a second time handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat.

1976 Age 62: Commemorating the "Spirit of '76", swam 1 mile in Long Beach Harbor, handcuffed, shackled and towing 13 boats (representing the 13 original colonies) containing 76 people.

1979 Age 65: Towed 65 boats filled with 6,500-pounds of Lousiana Pacific wood pulp while handcuffed and shackled in Lake Ashinoko, near Tokyo, Japan.

1980 Age 66: Towed 10 boats in North Miami, Florida filled with 77 people for over a mile in less than 1 hour.

1984 Age 70: Handcuffed, shackled and fighting strong winds and currents, towed 70 boats with 70 people from the Queen's Way Bridge in the Long Beach Harbor to the Queen Mary for 1 ½ miles.

1992 Age 78: Received the Academy of Body Building and Fitness Award

1994 Age 80: State of California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness Lifetime Achievement Award

1996 Age 82: Received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Fitness Award

1999 Age 85: Received the Spirit of Muscle Beach Award

2002 Age 88: Jack receives his very own star on the Hollywood Blvd. Walk of Fame

2004 Age 90: Jack celebrates his birthday with a major media blitz in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. ESPN Classic runs a 24 Hour marathon of the original Jack La Lanne TV Shows

2005 Age 91: Received the Jack Webb Award from the Los Angeles Police Historical Society, the Arnold Classic Lifetime Achievement Award, Interglobal's International Infomercial Award, the Freddie, Medical Media Public Service Award, and he was a Free Spirit honoree at Al Neuharth's Freedom Forum.

Please don't take my Aim away

I had an unforeseen and brief period of panic the other day. And all because of my favorite brand of toothpaste. I suddenly couldn’t find Aim at any of the stores. Had they stopped making Aim?! What would I do? Colgate makes me gag!

I guess I didn’t expect such a response from myself. Often times over the years, I’ve forgotten my toothpaste on some trip and used whatever brand was available. I’ve even used and been thankful for those little tubes the airlines give you on long-haul flights.

My favorite toothpaste is Aim. Aim is a brand of toothpaste from Church and Dwight and has a mild, mint flavor. I’ve purchased and carried Aim toothpaste from the U.S. for nearly 25 years. I even exported Aim during the more than 10 years I lived overseas. I used Aim once on an island in the western Philippines, just north of Borneo.

Aim has 0.8% sodium monofluorophosphate as an active ingredient and sorbitol, water, hydrated silica, PEG-32, sodium lauryl sulfate , SD alcohol 38-B flavor, cellulose gum, sodium saccharin, blue 1 and yellow 10.

I started to research all of these foreign chemicals I’ve put in my mouth every day for the past 25 years. The first ingredient I looked for was the “blue 1” listed on the tube. Not a good choice. The web site “Cancer Prevention Coalition” lists “blue 1” as carcinogenic. “FD&C BLUE #1, Carcinogenic.”

I ended up finding more supplies of Aim. But just in case, I’m going to start stockpiling Aim in case of any manufacturing disruptions, foreign Aim embargoes or bankruptcy proceedings of Church and Dwight.

I think I may be addicted to Aim.

First Name Basis

The women above are Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, Ellen Arthur, Letitia Tyler and Jane Pierce, all very attractive women. Joined in their ranks:

Martha, Abigail, Martha, Dorothy, Elizabeth, Louisa, Rachel, Hannah, Anna, Letitia, Julia, Sarah, Margaret, Abigail, Caroline, Jane, Mary, Eliza, Julia, Lucy, Lucretia, Ellen, Frances, Caroline, Ida, Alice, Edith, Florence, Grace, Lou, Eleanor, Bess, Mamie, Jacqueline, Claudia, Catherine, Elizabeth, Rosalynn, Jane, Nancy, Barbara, Hillary, Laura. The Presidential wives.

• There were 151 children born to The Presidents of the United States.
• Of all the wifes, only one was not born in the United States. John Quincy Adams wife, Louisa Johnson was borne in England.
• Only one first lady adopted a child (Ronald Reagan’s first wife Jane Wyman adopted a baby).J
• James Buchanan was the only “single” president.
• Seven had no kids (not counting James).
• Six presidents married more than once

The above list of women’s first names is a complete list of every woman a U.S. President has married. I’m not sure about James Buchanan, I haven’t research him and no nothing about his sexual preferences but as between 8-10% of the general population is gay, and we’ve had more than 40 Presidents, and he’s the only one listed as “single” on the First Lady list, my guess is he’s gay.

The only reason I even bring it up is because my President’s wives-name’s-list may be missing a George, or Coswalt name as the First Guy of ol’ James.

For comparison, here is first-wives list in Europe at the moment:

Bella, Margit, Mehriban, Galina, Zorka, Milka, Fotini, Livia, Ingrid, Bernadette, Sandra, Eva, Maria, Erzsebet, Dorrit, Clio, Alma, Jasmina, Mary, Maria (3), Liudmila, Silvia, Gret, Kateryna

Credits 1 2 3 4 5

Go Deep

I always figured that someday, when I *really* needed some important fact or information, I could look beyond the first results page of Google and such info would certainly be found. After all, millions of results in mere seconds? It has to be there. But so far, I've been proven wrong.

Recently I was given a challenge. I was challenged to find a guy named “Neil Martin”. The only other information provided was that he had consulted at a named company, worked for a company named “Intellect” (or some derivative), may live in Atlanta and he had a specific role in life: “consulting around the management of waste”, I was told.

Waste managing Neil wasn’t on Linked-In. In fact, Neil, or Neale, Nigel (if you’re English), Neal , nor Niles was found in any relevant notation. I went to Hoovers and to different web sites and even went through the entire State of Georgia’s business registration section looking not only for Soundex type listings of the business name Intellect, but for derivatives of the name “Neil Martin”.

And then, with determination, I turned to Google. I began to google (small “L”) Neil Martin and find out who was this character. I’ll bet that more than 99% of Google (big “L”) researchers never get beyond the first page of results. I was determined to data mine those spectacular results.

Image! Millions of results in mere sub-seconds! And so I searched for Neil Martin. I spend more than 45 total minutes searching for the correct Neil Martin on Google (big “L”) alone.

Neil is my newest hero. Neil is involved with almost every activity known to man. Neil is omnipresent. The first-on-the-results-list Neil runs a company named Neales Waste Management in the UK. He wrote a paper about Methane Capture and Use.

The pages-beyond Neil had a part in writing: “Geological Disposal of Radioactive Wastes and Natural Analogues “.

Page six Neil appears as a management guru. Neil Martin, Building an Organisational Knowledge Management System in Java

Page nine turned tragic when Neil got shot! “Ossman is accused of shooting Neil Martin eight times on April 21”. Definitely a bad day for Neil. I hope it turns out for Neil like it did for 50 cent.

Good thing he is Super Lawyer!

Neil Martin is a management labor attorney who represents employers in labor, ... Mr. Martin was recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer in 2003 and 2004

By page 112 or so, Neil Martin has turned over a new leaf with his move into the medical sciences:

NEIL MARTIN, MD Professor and Chief, Division of Neurosurgery.

By search results page 16, Ranger Neil Martin patrols the outback. A writer who met him indicated “I made an appointment with Neil Martin, Ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) at Gosford” in an attempt to clear up “The Gosford Glyphs".

Just think, he’s even an aboriginal expert!

But the thing he must really love is wine. For Neil isn’t just a wine-taster, he runs the web site wine-journal.com.

“Within these pages, are in-depth profiles, photographs, musings and over 5,000 wines tasted dating back to the 19th century. Objective analysis, stimulating prose and passion form the tenets for this site: I hope you enjoy - your host, Neal Martin”

To google is good, but Google is not yet there. I still haven’t found the waste management Neil.

Friends

friend (frnd)

n.

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.

2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.

3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.

4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement: friends of the clean air movement.

5. Friend A member of the Society of Friends; a Quaker.

tr.v. friend·ed, friend·ing, friends Archaic

To befriend.

Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich has given his oldest friend a sea-sational gift — a 75 million($138,000,000) pounds’ yacht.


Abramovich, 39, handed over floating palace Le Grand Bleu (Big Blue) to his business lieutenant Eugene Shvidler to thank him for his hard work, The Sun reports.

Shvidler, 41, is also a billionaire and already has a luxury yacht. But his 355 ft present is 178 ft longer and worth 47million pounds more.


The yacht is from Abramovich’s existing armada. It comes complete with 65-strong crew, diving centre, helicopter, aquarium and speedboat.


It was Shvidler who struck the 140million deal for the Russian tycoon to buy Chelsea. He sits on the club’s board and heads Abramovich’s oil firm Sibneft.


A source on the yacht said: “Roman has known Eugene for at least 20 years and he is one of the few men he trusts. He will never forget the part Eugene played in helping him realize his dream of owning a Premiership club.


”He wanted to show his appreciation and felt presenting him with one of his yachts would do it.“


”Eugene is delighted although he told Roman he didn’t expect such largesse.“

176 Issues of Elegant Bride

At times of my life I have taken a lot of trips. Trips that have resulted in lots of hotel and air points.

But times change and in my case, my base of operations has changed frequently too. In my life, there have been sequences of changes that resulted in unforeseen consequences like flying 80 transatlantic legs on Virgin Atlantic. Other points from other times in my life, like when I apparently used to fly on Delta a lot, are less clear in my memory.

But today Delta found me again. And they said I had 35,216 points in my account. Hooray!

So as Delta flights are not part of my current repertoire, I began to look for alternative ways to spend my new-found wealth. I just figured out that with my 35,216 Delta miles from sometime in the 80's I could receive 70 years of Backpacker Magazine.

I could also get 537 issues of Barron’s. But I’ve never read Barron’s so that doesn’t sound good. How about 29 years of Business Week. I’ll be 61 and I hope at that time, I’m not reading Business Week.

I could have 176 issues of Elegant Bride, 70 years of Jane and 88 years of Latina Magazine. Just in case, I could get 50 years of Nursing Made Easy. Nineteen-and-a-half-years or 2,993 issues of The Wall Street Journal beckon.

I may have to quit work just to read my magazines.

Please Do Not Step On The Bowl

At one point in my life, I spent a fair bit of time working in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur was my home for most of one summer. It was the summer before the Petronas Towers were complete.

Actually, it may not have been summer but winter. It is hard to tell because there are no seasons, but it did rain more than usual. In fact, I remember being more wet than I ever remember being during that time in KL. At that time, I worked for Bank Bumiputra. The bank was sometimes benevolent. They would send a car to my hotel to pickup and transport me to my consulting gig at the bank. It was great. Air-conditioned luxury.

But sometimes they would forget. Maybe is was the penta-regular prayer breaks or maybe sometimes it was punishment for “standing on the bowl” as the sign-from-inside-the-bathroom-stall forbid. But either way, sometimes the car didn’t come.

One day, after a long day, punctuated by five prayer breaks and two power outages (in a 35-story building in downtown KL), the car didn’t come. After sweating in my suits for two weeks, I had two days before, purchased an Armani suit from the downstairs lobby. It was a nice hotel.

On that day, the car didn’t show. I started to walk. It was a very interesting walk with all the end-of-the-day goings on in KL. Plush, hot and very busy. About midway in the couple-mile walk, it started to rain. Rains aren’t the same on the equator, none of this “London Fog”. It poured.

At first I tried to hide under buildings and big trees. That plan worked for about a minute or 1/120 of my trip. Another half mile of fervently trying to hail a commodity cab. And then I just got drenched.

I was so wet. Leather shoes and belt, shirt with cuff links, my New Armani Suit and lots of water. Till the end of it’s days, that suit was tainted. It never made it to another Important Meeting.

Running for Office

If I were a political consultant, I would move to Hong Kong. And this would be my candidate.

During the time I lived in there, I kept coming across these rather disturbing images of the guy in the pictures. I began to wonder if he was Hong Kong Public Enemy Number One or even the victim of some horrific campaign.

But he was campaigning for office. If I remember correctly, a local government council or other such position. What a contrast with the thousands of glossy yard signs like those below that populate American homes every year or so.

Molly Hatchet

I’ve always admired rock bands with cool names. Growing up, there were cool bands with awesome name like Molly Hatchet, one of my early favorities.

And now, the AV Club has put out a list of the “worst band names”. A few excerpts from the January 2006 list:

• Jew Driver
• MC Vagina
• Brutal Dildos
• Sh-Sh-Sh-Shark Attack!!!
• Poontang Wrangler
• Genital Hercules
• Arsonists Get All The Girls
• Fecal Corpse
• Maggot Twat
• Corpse Vomit
• The Christ Punchers
  

Well, you get the point. My favorite band name list though comes from Dave Barry, the original blogger, (albeit in newspaper columns). He even keeps a running list of good rock band names.

Dave Barry’s Good Band Names

• The Cotton-Eating Moths of Australia
• The Turkey Spiders
• The Flaming Salmonella Units
• Excessive Deer Doots
• Rival Bat Dung Gatherers
• The Fecal Pellets
• The Wood Tick Snorkels
• Heave
• Squatting Turnips
• The Bones of Contention
• Pinot Noir and his Nuances of Toast
• The Fabulous Snake Doots
• Shy Fruiter and the Saplings
• Weasel Nostrils
• Three Fatty Acid Radicals
• The Flaming Booty Moths
• Earl Piedmont and the Diphthongs
• Slippery Spleens
• Sheep Eyeballs
• The Flaming Croutons
• Rodent Passion
• Flaming Squirrels
• Balky Charcoal
• St. Vincent and The Grenadines
• The Biscuit Whackers
• Gaseous Worms
• Raymond Burr's Legs
• Shark Puke
• Jimmy Music and the Stomach Contents
• Little Heed
• Short Shrift
• Gastric Contents
• The Urban Professionals
• The Phlegmtones
• The Federal Duck
• Crotch
• Effluent, Sliced Meat
• The Postal Patrons
• The Vestigial Organs
• Decomposing Tubers
• Diminished Penile Sensation
• Bill and the Bracts
• The Foliage Eaters
• Crab Shrapnel
• DeWayne Hurlmont and the Compunctions of Soul
• Contaminated Tumbleweeds
• Varlet and the Squeaking Codpieces
• Violently Fracturing Water Closets
• The Flying Shards
• The Fierce Prune-Eating Hamsters from Space
• Duane Ketter and his Wildlife Technicians
• Paint-Peeling Puffs of Flatulence
• Mosquito Hunter and the Unreliable Pollinators
• The Mighty Shaking Wattles (for the Rolling Stones)
• Bleeding Nipples
• Rapid Sucking Action
• Nuclear Underpants
• Marcel and the Turpitudes
• The Groin Whappers
• Thrusting Balloon Puppies
• Drastic Toilet Air
• The Eerie Groin Legumes
• Drawers Full of Slugs
• Groping for Elmo
• The Pig-Stinging Jellyfish
• Fugitive Squirrel and the Clearly Disturbed Beavers
• The Moos of Derision
• Elmo Wendorf and the Cow Fitters
• Disoriented Chickadees
• Pain and Suffering
• Mature Hamsters
• Weasel Feet
• Kung Fu Trees
• Combat Alfalfa
• Hearty Polyp Chuckles

Context

My first job was at Kodak and one of the perks of the business was that they provided free film. Film used to be expensive and it still is, but now most people have digital cameras. Away from the constraints of cost, this free film benefit became my first foray into the creative realm of photography.



It was during this time that I realized the power of images. Minute slices of time. A sampling of life without some context. I took many, many random series of photo's; scatology, fat people, clouds, and signs. Many signs. Over 4,000 pictures of signs from all over the world. I started to gain a passion for pictures of signs. I was fascinated by them as they conveyed a completely different meaning when taken out of context.



Take for instance the images above. White and Black. Taken only within the context of the images, the meaning conjures up racism and even potentially hatred. The problem with this is that the signs hung above piles of beans. Black bean, white beans and even red beans, which I chose not to photograph

Context.

Body Double

All the pictures above are of people named Tom Blair. It's somewhat disconcerning to find such a diverse group of people with the same name with which you were born.


Football players, graduates, politicians, convicts, tough guys, bearded guys, office guys, muscle guys, actor guys, blurry guys and dead guys. And none of them are me.

What does it all mean? What about this biological need to have a son to "keep the family name going". Does it matter? Are we all related? I wonder if you took DNA samples from all the people named the same. Would you all trace to one single Eve?

I think not. They're all imposters. They have to be as the only Tom Blair I've ever met in all my travels, besides my dad Tom Blair:Is me: