google provides these nap pods around their campus so workers can freshen up with a short nap. i vote that we get the same thing at work. my only requirement is that it muffle the snoring so people can get their work done.

AP
Vietnam to Launch 1st Satellite
Wednesday March 12, 4:18 am ET
Vietnam to Launch 1st Satellite to Improve Country’s Telecommunications

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam is preparing to launch its first satellite, hoping to improve the country’s telecommunications to keep pace with its rapid economic development, officials said Wednesday.

Vinasat No. 1 is scheduled to be launched April 12 from Kourou spaceport in South America, and will be ready for use in May, Nguyen Ba Thuoc, vice general director of state-owned Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Corp., or VNPT, told reporters.

The US$200-million (euro130-million) satellite, which has a medium transmission capacity, will help make Internet and television accessible nationwide, Thuoc said.

“Vietnam has reached the point where significant improvements of the telecommunication infrastructure are needed for its economic and social development,” said Thuoc. Better telecommunications would bring more investment into the country, he said.

Currently, businesses and the Vietnamese government are renting satellites from Australia, Thailand and Russia.

Vietnam’s economy has grown at an average annual rate of more than 7 percent for the last 10 years. It has 19 million Internet users, and more than 40 million telephones, according to government figures.

after shipping us pamela anderson and molson ice, they do something like this to regain their world standing:

on google maps:

look at the passion in his eyes!

serj tankian’s “sky is over” song started playing on the radio and marc just caught fire. he’s not yet as good as me, even though i also have to steer the car with my knee as i drum. he’s definitely in the top 2% nationwide in his age group. maybe he’ll be neal peart in his future life.

so, i had some initial optimism about how the giants would do this year but after seeing some of the box scores from the cactus league, i’m reconsidering my expectations of how they might finish. this, coupled with the fact that the dodgers hired joe torre, is making me think that it’s going to be a long summer.

yesterday, noah lowry threw 24 pitches before someone even took a swing. he went through the entire lineup without an official at-bat, since walks don’t count as an at-bat. of his first 30 pitches, only 4 were strikes. the giants also got shelled by the a’s in a cactus league game recently. maybe they are more suited for silver stadium at their current level of play?

omar vizquel, the calming defensive force in the young giants infield, is out with injury. bengie molina is batting cleanup. rich aurilia should be in the broadcast booth or managing a mcdonalds franchise. zito will be .500 or below this year again.

you gotta have the faith but it would be nice to have the faith without them nasty dodgers fans yelling in your ear all summer. let’s hope they pick it up a little bit and at least outperform the a’s.

by the end of the day today, we will have our democratic competitor to our gook-hating john mccain. let the real fun begin!

i think it’s safe to assume that hillary might have done better if she had a better campaign team, maybe being a little tougher on proofreading some of the official promotional materials:

its been years since i rode the bus, but most of my county transit experience back in the day was mostly unremarkable, which is probably a good thing. seems like some muni drivers are the repeated targets of complaints, but muni management doesn’t do much to get rid of them.

consider this:

“Hey, she’s just an old Chinese lady. You didn’t have to be rude to her,” says a passenger.

“All I said was did you read the front of the bus?,” says Andrews.

“Well obviously she didn’t,” says a passenger.

“Shut the f*ck up you clown,” says Andrews.

The argument gets heated.

“What are you gonna do about it?,” says Andrews.

You gonna come out here?” says a passenger.

“you don’t wanna f*ck with me.” says Andrews.

Then, as Andrews drives off, he threatens the man over the bus’ loudspeaker system.

“I’ll break your f*cking face,” says Andrews.

SPLENDID

watch the videos here [channel 7 video]

read more driver/passenger interactions here  [channel 7 story]

i usually watch channel 2 news at night, but the remotes were across the room and the cost/benefit ratio wasn’t enough to get me out of the chair, so i stuck with channel 7 news. during the segment, i saw a commercial for a volvo c70 convertible:

man, that’s a good looking car. i then took a step back and had a moment of self-reflection – am i getting older now that a volvo looks pretty good to me? i will say that volvo’s have been softening up for years, considering they also fathered the 240dl some years ago:

but still, it’s kind of a paradigm shift for me. that volvo c70 above is no bmw z4, but at this point in my life i could use a back seat to hold the two car seats and have a teenager stashed in the middle. i also drive slower now and would lose my valuable civic hybrid carpool sticker status! (sorry wifey). check out the roof-folding mechanism below – gotta make sure you get the service contract on that sucka:

me and marc (and his straight nerd bangs) had fun playing with the flash on daddy’s camera phone last night.

the only problem is that its lowest resolution is 640×480, which means i don’t think i can post directly from my phone anymore because my max width for pictures in this layout is 500px. i’ll try and test that over the weekend because its nice to be able to post instantly with a funny picture.

the master of chill put out another album and is readying for another tour. he’s playing at coachella, which doesn’t seem his style, but im sure the fans will enjoy the tunes. even if the wife doesn’t want to go, i know flee will go with me to see him.

if you want to download the album, let me know and i’ll give you the link.

you complete me mrs doyle!

awesome question (from a republican senator, no less) about waterboarding

how irritating to be a hot hollywood starlet, to be surrounded by pervs looking to score some cash with an upskirt shot. she’s wearing black tights – there’s no shot to be had! and try to be a little more discreet!?

so, let’s hope that c-webb doesn’t get hurt on thursday and that he gets to play some good minutes when the warriors play the kings on sunday because i will be 4 rows up from the floor, courtesy of some free tickets from our new vp of marketing at work.

and then on sunday, me and the boys are going to pebble beach to watch some golf and sit in the vip tent. we might need a muzzle and/or a straitjacker for ozzie. i am going to have to find some pants without holes.

so, california went with hillary today and not obama. i would have thought the bay area would have leaned obama’s way, but it seems that just about the whole state was with clinton on this one. you gotta admit that bill is a big part of how hillary got up to where she is. she seems a little more ordinary if she didn’t have him by her side. there’s some talk about obama being a running-mate to hillary, but i dont know how that would work.

on the republican side, mccain was leading most of the candidates as of the writing of this post. nothing typified a republican campaign headquarters than what they showed on channel 2 tonight. priya david was at their headquarters in pleasanton and there was about 15 white men chanting and holding signs. i swore one of them had a white pointy hood on in the background, but i was watching in standard def and not hd. even huckabee and romney had a person of color and a woman in their little committees.

more interesting for me was voting in my local precinct in fremont. my name wasn’t on the official voter rolls, so i had to vote provisional. i suppose in the grand scheme of things, it probably didn’t matter too much but it sure was intriguing to see all the different shapes, colors and sizes of people in my neighborhood.  without showing bias, i was easily the best basketball player of the group that i waited in line with.

and to close off this post, i saw this graphic which i think says it all:

he’s not talking about the gulf war.

you gotta like them air uptempo’s:

i heard over the news that chris webber is coming back to the warriors. he’s not the c-webb of 14 years ago, the one that did the behind-the-back-dunk on barkley:

but we’ll take it. i trust nellie’s decision to bring him back. he can’t run like he used to but he’s a good passer and can hang out in the high-post to free up room for everyone else. it would be great to see him back here since he bailed after only 1.5 seasons before being traded to the bullets for tom gugliotta. i think that marked the start of one of the worst downtimes in nba basketball history. here’s a brief recap of the last warriors drafts in case you were living in another country in the last 10 years, or if you are a girl:

1993: chris webber
1994: cliff rozier
1995: joe smith
1996: todd fuller
1997: adonal foyle
1998: vince carter (but then immediately traded for antawn jamison)
1999: jeff foster
2000: no 1st-round draft pick
2001: jason richardson (finally, someone good!)
2002: mike dunleavy
2003: mickael pietrus
2004: andris biedrins (he had 26 boards last night)
2005: ike diogu
2006: patrick o’bryant
2007: marco bellinelli

the guys in the last few years are still too new to tell if they’re going to suck or not.

so, the next few days is going to bring some ‘severe weather’ to the bay area, as bill martin said tonight. of course, some people in other parts of the country laugh at 50 degree highs and a couple inches of rain:

i just don’t want to live where the weather is like this:

look at the size and shape of that cloud formation! you would think it would be darker in color than white?!

it’s nothing short of a miracle considering the team was autodrafted by yahoo because <violins playing> marcos was sick and i fell asleep with him on the couch on draft day </violins playing>.