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Spiky Stinky Fruit No More!

Ever since I was little, the sight of that spiky fruit sitting on the counter would make me cringe and quickly run the other way. Anyone from an Asian household has probably encountered this mysterious fruit. You either love it or extremely hate it.

The New York Times had a feature on the spiky fruit known as Durian. The Durian, is native to South Asia, and is most known for its pungent aroma and spiky outer shell.

“described by its detractors as smelling like garbage, moldy cheese or rotting fish. It is banned from many hotels, airlines and the Singapore subway.” By Thomas Fuller

To me, it smells like someone had puked. It’s just that bad to me. Durian is known to be one of the best tasting fruits in the world, but I can not get over its stinky smell. My parents would love buying the durian flavoured ice cream. They also would buy me my favourite (chocolate chip mint) but to their amusement it would both come in an unlabeled white container. It was always a 50/50 chance… I always lost. Continue reading…

My Heritage Celebrity Collage

This My Heritage link has been passed along Facebook the last little while. What the site does is take a photo of your and uses facial recognition to find the face in the photo. It then compares it to their database of celebrity faces. So here is my results…

Not sure how Portia Derossi fits into the equation… At least I only had one female match, not like Norman’s.
Continue reading…

Passport Madness

Naghmeh forwarded me a funny letter today. I really don’t understand the reason for all the hoops one has to jump to renew an “official” document in our country. It’s like they sit up in a box above eating their popcorn and having a blast. I don’t know the origin of this letter, but I got a kick out of it.

The Letter

Dear Mr. Minister,

I’m in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe
this. How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and
knows that I bought a t.v. cable from them back in 1997, and yet the
Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.

For crying out loud, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have
on my social insurance card, is on all the income tax forms I’ve filed
for the past 30 years, my health insurance card, my driver’s license, on
the last eight bloody passports I’ve had, on all those stupid customs
declaration forms I’ve had to fill out before being allowed off the
planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms
that are done at election times.
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Hodgkin’s Survivor

My friend Ted’s daughter Chaya was featured on CBC news on today on a story about Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivors.

[googlevideo]http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3621676924890758575[/googlevideo]

I’ll see if I can find a better quality version.

The article by CBC can be found here.

What is Hodgkin’s Lymphoma?

According to The Canadian Cancer Society website:

Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer that starts in the cells of the lymphatic system. Cancers of the lymphatic system are called lymphomas. The lymphatic system helps to protect the body from disease. It is a network of channels (the lymphatics) that run alongside the arteries and veins in the body, and bean-shaped glands (lymph nodes) in the neck, armpits, chest, abdomen and groin. The lymphatics carry a clear fluid called lymph to and from the tissues of the body. Lymph contains special cells called lymphocytes that help fight infection. These cells are produced in the lymph nodes and in other parts of the body such as the spleen and the bone marrow. Waste materials, bacteria and unwanted cells, including cancer cells, are filtered out as lymph passes through the lymph nodes

Great Firewall of China

The Chinese government has a tradition of keeping its watchful eye on all media. Since the rapid growth of the World Wide Web in the 1990s they have constantly invented new ways of censorship to control the world’s most democratic medium, the Internet, as well. Not everything on the Internet, readily available elsewhere, can be accessed from within China. Looks like one of their own has been blocked.
Continue reading…