2008 Olympics

These Olympics have been fascinating.

Bird's Nest Stadium is an engineering marvel, but I prefer The Water Cube. The exterior is meant to look like bubbles.

Michael Phelps swims like a fish. His arms are unusually long. In addition, his ankles are double-jointed, so his feet really propel him through the water. His diet is insane. 12,000 calories a day?

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. lol An entire pizza. More 1,000 calorie energy drinks.

3,500 calories = 500 grams of body fat If a normal person ate 12,500 calories a day, they would gain about 1.5 kilos per day or 10.5 kilos a week. Why is he thin? Because he burns around 12,500 calories a day. Why are you gaining weight? Because you are eating more calories than you burn.

Korea and Japan played a baseball game last night. It was exciting as usual. This might be one of the greatest rivalries in sports.
I could watch Korea and Japan play rock-paper-scissors. =)















It was a great game. =)









USA Basketball has been dominating opponents, but they have to win four more games.
In the game against Spain last night, the U.S. team had 16 steals. That's what I call defense.
Eight guys scored in double figures. That's balance.


This is not a slam dunk contest. Or is it? Basketball is still the most exciting sport, unless Korea and Japan are playing baseball.

Someday, I hope I can be half as strong as Jang Mi-Ran. So, I would be happy if I could lift around 95 kilos over my head. I'd like to see a pervert try to touch her on a crowded subway. She'd probably throw him off the train.

Do You Like Burger King?

I eat at Burger King occasionally, but I don't necessarily love it. (My favorite burger is a Double-Double from In-N-Out. If you are ever in California, I highly recommend it.) However, it appears that the Japanese really like BK. lol Some of you might notice that a few guys are actually wearing BK crowns. Apparently, it's a 2 hour wait for a Whopper.



Hungary has the largest Burger King in the world.

Burger King plans to open 1,000 stores in China by 2015.

BK was founded in 1954. The Whopper was introduced in 1957 and was sold for 37 cents.

I like the onion rings at Burger King.

I know someone who got an MBA from the Wharton School of U Penn. What does he do now? He owns and manages a Burger King.

Obama vs. McCain

I haven't decided which candidate I prefer. Here is where they stand on major issues.

There are a lot of similarities between the two candidates. You can find more info here. I like drill, drill, drill, and school vouchers, but I disagree with McCain on some social issues.

Summer Vacation is almost over....

Soon it will be time for students, teachers, and professors to go back to school. One thing I've learned about myself is that I would go crazy in retirement. I don't think I'm a workaholic, but I can't sit around doing nothing.

Here's what I did over my vacation:

1. Exercised - I think I gained some muscle. Actually, I'm positive, since I have to wear "Large" now. I was a "Medium" before.

2. Fixed my mom's desktop computer and my friend's notebook computer. My mom's hard drive died suddenly. So, I changed it and retrieved the data from her old hard drive. My friend had a bad virus.

3. Fixed the sprinklers at my parents' house. A few of their sprinklers were broken, so some of their lawn was dying.

4. I read a book called The Science of Sleep and about 1000 articles in different periodicals.

6. I gained about 3 lbs. of fat because I was eating like "there's a beggar in my stomach" everyday.

7. I lost 3 lbs. of fat when I came back to Seoul by eating less and exercising more.

8. I saw three movies with my brother. (Yes, two men going to the movies together. lol) Wall-E was by far the best film. The others were Hellboy 2 and Wanted. I plan on seeing the Korean film The Good, The Bad, and the Strange. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is one of my favorite movies. I also like the film's song, which is one of my favorites - "Don't let me be misunderstood" by The Animals.

9. I bought some new materials for my classes.

10. I bought stocks to increase my capital. Hopefully, they'll all go up in value.

11. I donated a little money to the National Military Families Association. I'm not deeply religious, but I'm going to begin tithing.

12. Finally, I spent a lot of time learning about Milton Friedman, the economist and Nobel Laureate. I agree with most of his theories and ideas. He is reviled by government, labor unions, schools, etc.

Lone Star Strikes Again

Lone Star Funds has made headlines in Korea, Japan, Germany, and the U.S. Why? Because they're the ultimate bottom feeders. A "bottom feeder" is defined as an opportunist in politics or business.

Lone Star bought Tokyo Star Bank in 2001 for $400 million. They later sold the bank for around $2.8 billion. Most Koreans already know about the Korea Exchange Bank purchase in 2003. Lone Star paid $1.3 billion. They are currently in the process of selling the bank to HSBC for around $6 billion. AHBR, once Germany's largest mortgage bank, was taken over by Lone Star in 2005. Recently, they acquired $30 billion in CDOs from Merrill Lynch and only paid $6 billion.

In addition to distressed banks, Lone Star buys golf courses, restaurants, hotels, construction companies, supermarkets, mortgage companies, etc. What do they have in common? These companies were all near bankruptcy or desperate when Lone Star bought them.

We often say: "Hindsight is 20/20." This means that we can fully understand an event after it has happened. All of Lone Star's investments look brilliant now, but at the time, no one else bought these companies. There is no doubt these guys are very good at what they do, which is buying when no one else wants to buy and pouncing when the owners are desperate to sell.

According to Lone Star Fund investors, the fund has a target return of 25% a year. lol Unfortunately, the average person cannot invest in Lone Star Funds. (Wouldn't you like a 25% return every year?) However, we can learn from their strategy. =)

Trans Fat Law

A new bill was signed into law by the Terminator last week. No more trans fats in California.

We will terminate you (by 2011). According to the law, restaurants will be fined between $25-$1000 for violations.

From the Telegraph:

WHAT ARE TRANS FATS?
Trans fats (or trans fatty acids) are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid

WHY ARE TRANS FATS USED?
Easy to use, inexpensive to produce and last a long time. It gives food an attractive taste and texture

HOW DO TRANS FATS AFFECT OUR HEALTH?
They raise bad (LDL) cholesterol levels and lower good (HDL) cholesterol levels, increasing heart disease and stroke risk

To follow up with my Libertarian beliefs, was this law necessary? Most restaurants have already been phasing out the use of trans fats. Who is going to police restaurants? Do we have to hire an army of fatty police? How is the government going to pay for the this? (Taxes my friends.)

This law is what Libertarians call a "nanny law." It's basically when government treats individuals like 5-year-old children. Here are other nanny laws being proposed:

1. No spanking toddlers

2. No smoking in your car (if children are present).

3. No incandescent light bulbs in your home.

4. Restaurants will be required to list the calories for their food.

If you want to make people safe, put us all in a plastic bubble like John Travolta.

See those girls? Don't worry they're safe.

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."

"Governments never learn. Only people learn."

"I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible."

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."

"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."

"We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork."

"Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless."

- Milton Friedman

Free Video File Converter

I stumbled upon this WinFF Free Video Converter. It has all the characteristics of software that I like.

1. It's small. (Only around 3 MB.)

2. It's free.

3. It's intuitive.

You can convert files to iPods, AVI, Quicktime, FLV (for Youtube), etc. If you upload videos to Youtube, you have to spend time waiting for Youtube to convert the file to FLV. However, doing this ahead of time can save you a couple of minutes.

If you combine this with VirtualDubMod, you can do a lot of video editing.

Here's a screen shot:

You can find WinFF and other freeware on my web page.