Did I scare ya?

1 in 7 people in the world don’t have enough food. (That’s about 925 million people).

22,000 children die every single day due to poverty.

Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.

The poorest 40% of the world’s population accounts for 5% of global income. The richest 20% accounts for 75% of world income.

Happy Halloween – enjoy your candy!
(Ok, that was mean)

 

+Infos
Poverty Facts and Stats @ GlobalIssues.org
2011 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics @ WorldHunger.org

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Nothing to lose

As everyone in the blogosphere knows, Steve Jobs has resigned.  In a 2005 speech he said some things I found really – not to be too cheesy – inspiring.

Remembering you’ll be dead soon is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked, there’s no reason not to follow your heart.

Currently in the middle of a quarter-life crisis, I find his thoughts both reassuring and unnerving at the same time. Overall: I feel emboldened.

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Let’s encourage gender stereotypes

My friend sent me this link for an amusing list of everyday items and their genders – for example,

KIDNEYS – female , because they always go to the bathroom in pairs

HAMMER – male, because it hasn’t evolved much over the last 5000 years but it’s handy to have around.

Obviously sweeping generalisations about gender are not very constructive – I, for example, hate it when people insist on going to the loo with me* – but I think the list is kinda funny. Does that make me a bad person?
    
       

* Hate it, hate it, hate it.

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Sandy Art

A handful of sand is an anthology of the universe
                                              –David McCord

The first time I ever came across sand art/animation was when I saw the clip below a few years ago. I believe the artist here is Ferenc Cakó, and I believe it is cool. As you can see in the video, this art is created using only dry sand and (usually) your bare hands. The artist traces and sprinkles shapes, patterns and shading in the sand to create incredibly detailed pictures, and the use of a backlight, coloured lighting and sound effects turn it into a great show.

I think the amazing thing about it is the temporality of the pictures. There’s just so much skill in them and they’re created so fast, out of nothing. I’d be standing back, marvelling, feeling pretty damn proud, but instead the artist just destroys them again to create more. It’s so impressive how the artist can use elements of one picture to form the next. Other well-known sand artists include Ilana Yahav, David Myriam, and Ahmad Habash.  

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I’ll Haikoo YOU

I just found out about the ‘Haikoo Zoo’ application on Facebook. Ta-da! Meet my cute ‘n’ cuddly panda friend. 她叫“小胖”！I can tell this is going to be more than a little addictive. Luckily it’s so simple I won’t be able to waste too much time there… famous last words?

Weeee-eeee! 这么可爱啊！

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Let’s get political

So we all know the American election is a big deal. I mean, I live like 10 millions miles away from the U.S. but I’ve heard more about the American Presidential election than the New Zealand election which is like 4 days later. It’s a big deal. I’m going for Team Obama myself. I just like the idea of a president who isn’t a gun-toting old (white) man. Is McCain gun-toting? I have no idea. But Palin is. And Obama seems fresh.

I guess America has a similar problem to NZ with voters, especially young ones, not turning out at the ballot boxes. Hollywood celebs and famous sports people are campaigning all over the place for people to turn out and vote. One series that caught my eye, and probably lots of other people’s, were the striking PSAs from the Declare Yourself (DY) campaign.

Andre 3000, Photo by David LaChapelle

Featuring celebrities and well known personalities crying while wearing often shocking gags and muzzles, they all also feature the slogan “ONLY YOU CAN SILENCE YOURSELF”

Jessica Alba, Photo by Mark Liddell

Jessica Alba and Hayden Pantierre have gone a step further in the video The Muzzler. Styled as a 3 minute informercial, they appear endorsing a product called “The Muzzler”, which you can supposedly wear when you turn 18 if you don’t want to vote. It’s a cute idea and I think they need more campaigns like this that specifically target young voters. I think YouTube user “j3ssj3” raised a good point though when he or she commented on the clip

This is so stupid… If you don’t know the facts, DON’T VOTE. That’s all we need is for the uneducated picking our next president.

We shouldn’t just be encouraging people to wander down and vote, we should be encouraging people to know more about the candidates and policies so that they are interested enough to want to vote.

Christina Aguilera, Photo by David LaChapelle

I do agree that the election is the time for all of us to have our say, so no matter if you’re in New Zealand or America or any other country, take a little time to find out where your MPs, parties and candidates stand on issues that are important to you.

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What essay?

Man, I hate writing essays. On the bright side, through trying to avoid them I often get a lot of stuff done. Like did you know that Kwon Sang Woo was getting married? Well he was, and he did! To Son Tae Young a couple of days ago. More pics here. I used to have a friend called Tae Young.

To another Korean man-star – I saw the teaser for Rain’s new MV Love Story… doesn’t seem to be anything too exciting, though there is a pretty funny moment with some sunglasses highly reminiscent of MC Mong when he was a guest along with Rain on Ya Shim Man Man.

So apparently the economy almost died this week. Careless, really. I don’t know why people bother with it. But all shall not be lost! Jeff Rowland will save us!

I also just found out that J.K. Simmons is the voice of the yellow m&m. Will the wonders never cease?!

I am going to go learn how to play mahjong. Catcha later!

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Almost time for bed…

Man, I’m feeling bummed. I like, totally missed Girls of the Playboy Mansion tonight! I know, it’s my not-so-secret guilty pleasure. I mean, it was time well spent, bf and I played Rummikub and won one each, which was the perfect way to finish. Also, I have another 3,000 word essay due on Friday, yay. Man I love Tolkien. I mean his writing. I just get it. It’s so great. I wish I had time to read more books. I also wanted to write a letter to bf’s mum, and to Mio… I guess I’ll make time for the last two after this essay’s done and dusted. And I want to learn how to play mahjong and play more golf. Mmmm.

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第一猜字谜 ~ Chinese character riddle!

I would like to record one of the first Chinese character riddles I’ve ever guessed correctly!

 

四四方方一座城，
没有春夏没有秋

 

If you don’t read Chinese then you’re probably not very interested, but if you are, I think the lines basically mean

 

A four-walled castle
Has no spring, summer, has no autumn

 

Ok, so it’s not very hard (if you know Chinese), but I’m still proud!! 😛 If you would like to know the answer, scroll down!

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*answer*

图

*answer*

图, “tú”, means ‘diagram’ or ‘picture’, and is comprised of the character for winter, 冬, inside four walls.

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Friday 26th of September

I had a pretty good day today. Got some stuff done… my friend and I decided on our Chinese thing (our final oral of the year for Chinese class is a performance, i.e, drama, song, dance, etc, meant to be funny. Problem: I’m not funny!!!). Emma came up with the idea of doing the Three Little Pigs. It’s cute, it’s recognisable to the audience (even if our Chinese isn’t! :P) and we can maybe change the story a bit and spice it up. And we get to wear pig noses! I’ll keep you updated. If all goes pear-shaped I’ve at least found the story in Chinese to work from on this website. Apparently 老师 wants all the performances to be taped… I do not feel good about this.

In other news, I just realised that Justin Chambers, a.k.a Dr. Alex Karev from Grey’s, was Massimo from The Wedding Planner. Crazy. Nice accent. Not sure where he’s supposed to be from but it fooled me!

And thanks to Pete from Rove here’s a pretty amusing clip of Sal and Richard (no I don’t know who they are), doing funny things behind a CNN reporter talking about the economic crisis on Wall Street.

Oh and I almost forgot, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was on Rove tonight – props to him for going on the show, but I have to say he was boring! But he did demonstrate his Mandarin skillz. You can see it on YouTube here (about 23secs in), as well as lots of other clips of him speaking 普通话.

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