Secrets

 

... I envy him/her. 

A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors.   - William Ralph Inge

Designer Bijan, Beverly Hills on NBC Television

Gin Splash

Ingredients:
- 3 1/2 oz White Cranberry & Peach juice (Ocean Spray)
- 1 1/2 oz Plymouth Gin
- Peach slices

Add ice and peach slices in a tall glass. Pour gin and white cranberry and peach juice. Stir and serve.

Peaches

August is National Peach Month. Peaches are the third most popular fruit grown in the United States with the state of California producing approximately 80 percent of the total U.S. produce.

Yellow peaches are ready-to-eat when soft and juicy; they'll yield slightly to gentle palm pressure and have a balance of sweet and tart favors. Some like them when slightly Þrm, when they'll be a little more tart. White peaches, naturally less tart, are sweet and can be ready-to-eat when still Þrm and crunchy. Both varieties will taste sweeter and juicier as they soften. While the red blush of a peach is beautiful, it doesn't tell whether the fruit is ripe. Instead, look for a uniform yellow background color, (golden yellow on yellow peaches, creamy yellow on white peaches) with no green around the stem. To store peaches, simply allow them to ripen and soften at room temperature. Place peaches in the refrigerator only when they have reached your desired level of ripeness. (Source: California Tree Fruit Agreement)

It's All About Looks

And in China more than any other place ;-)

After the little-Chinese-singer-girl controversy, now there's more crap out about fireworks:

MSNBC
updated 10:16 a.m. PT, Mon., Aug. 11, 2008

Part of the elaborate Olympics fireworks show broadcast to the world in the opening ceremony was altered, done digitally in 3-D computer graphics, according to several news reports.

While the dramatic display actually happened as portrayed on television, members of the Beijing Olympic Committee said it was necessary to replace live video with computer-generated imagery because the city’s hazy, smoggy skies made it too difficult to see, according to The Beijing Times, which first reported the story.

Committee members also said they were concerned that the helicopter pilot who would have flown overhead to film the fireworks would have been at risk by making him try to follow the firework route, according to a quote from a committee member reported in a Daily Telegraph story.

NBC broadcasters Matt Lauer and Bob Costas made mention of the alteration as it aired.

"You’re looking at a cinematic device employed by Zhang Yimou here," Lauer said. "This is actually almost animation. A footstep a second, 29 in all, to signify the 29 Olympiads."

Costas responded, "We said earlier that aspects of this Opening Ceremony are almost like cinema in real time. Well this is quite literally cinematic."

It took planners almost a year to create the 55-second sequence which appeared to be more than two dozen footprints amidst fireworks in the sky, said Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, in the Daily Telegraph story.

Even those at the city’s new Bird’s Nest National Stadium, where the Olympics are being held, viewed the computer-generated footage from their seats as they watched on the stadium’s giant television screens, said Britain’s Sky News in a story.

Stunned viewers thought they were watching the string of fireworks filmed from above by a helicopter, said SkyNews.com. But in reality they were watching a 3-D graphics sequence that took almost a year to produce.

There were some real fireworks going on outside the stadium. But the footprint display was inserted into the coverage electronically at exactly the right moment, the Daily Telegraph said.

Meticulous efforts were made to ensure the sequence was as unnoticeable as possible, the newspaper reported Xiaolong as saying. They sought advice from the Beijing meteorological office as to how to recreate the hazy effects of Beijing’s smog at night, and inserted a slight camera shake effect to simulate the idea that it was filmed from a helicopter.

Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks, Xiaolong said in comments that appeared in the Daily Telegraph. But most of the audience thought it was filmed live so that was mission accomplished.

Because the only organization in control of all Olympics footage is Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, the feed went out to everyone broadcasting the event, including NBC, which has exclusive rights in the United States to show the games. NBC's online coverage is being delivered by the MSN Network, NBCOlympics.com on MSN. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

During Friday night’s opening ceremony, the network averaged 34.2 million viewers, making it the biggest television event since the Super Bowl, according to the Associated Press.

The network has been criticized itself for the 12-hour tape delay in showing the opening ceremonies, which it did because of the time difference between China and the United States, driving some viewers to other Web sites around the world to see the event live.

Junk Mail

As a way of "fighting" ;-) junk mail I have started ripping off the prints which indicate any information which regards me, stuffing the prepaid envelope and sending it back. This sounded cool when I read it somewhere recently, online.

Free Love

Well, we have forgotten our roots, it looks...

Living the Dream

Last night I dremt of going to the US: I was very very excited in the dream.

I woke up in the morning and realized that I am living my dream; ten years now...

I was not happy.

اعدام

اعدام حل مساله نیست. اعدام پاک کردن تمام اشتباهاتی است که یک جامعه می‌کند تا کسی دست به قتل بزند.

America's Fastfood lineup

I was surprised to see my favorite Chipotle is lower than McDonald's and Burger King. It looks that being owned by McDonald's means sitting lower in health factors...