Congratulations JJ!!!

Good Morning Ladies & Gentlemen,

Congratulations to JJ!!! Yesterday, she told me that she got a new job back here in Slick City...which means a few things. First & foremost, she has a great job that she wanted (just like I told her) and she can be with her family. Secondly, it means we're probably not going to see each other in Denver since her last day there is Thursday and it'll be next week at the earliest for me to move there. Thirdly, I told her that it would be okay as long as her replacement in Denver is a young, single, sexy blonde too...and apparently she just might be. Awesome for everybody!!! Congratulations JJ!!! I'm glad that everything worked out for ya.

So I got a call last night saying that my Official Interview would be this morning at 9 AM. Working until well after midnight last night, I made a distinct effort to get up early, have a hearty breakfast, and be ready & waiting for that call at 9 AM. Even Boss Lady D called to make sure that I was awake...and Lilie wished me luck. 9 AM came and went...and went...and went. To tempt the interview Fates that seem to like to toy with me, I went number two...and nothing happened. I burned a DVD...and another...then a little after 10 AM, I get a call from an HR manager. Apparently the Interviewer tried to call...but couldn't get a hold of me. "No, I've been waiting here for over an hour and nobody has called." She verified the phone number (keep in mind that she called me) and rescheduled for 10:30 with a different interviewer...and if I didn't hear from them, to call her back again...I guess to reschedule again...because I figure that since I had to apply for the position four times, they have to allegedly attempt to interview me four times. Ridiculous. So guess what I did? Blogged while waiting...and here it is. A lengthy entry too.

Big Daddy - Remember last year when I reported the world's tallest man getting married? Well, this week, 7-foot-9 inch Bao Xishun of China became the world's tallest daddy with the birth of his first child, a boy whose initial height seems a compromise between his gigantic dad and average-sized mother (she's about 5-foot-6 inches). Bao's son measured 22 inches long and about nine pounds at birth. Although slightly taller than average for newborn children, Bao's boy came up well short of the 29.5 inches (that poor vagina) claimed as a record birth length last year. "Bao is quite happy. The baby is healthy and a normal size," the hospital's senior doctor Zhang. 57-year old Bao said last about his wishes for children, "I hope he or she can be about 2 meters tall. Then he or she can play basketball." Good news Bao, my brother and I came out that size...and we're about two meters tall. I think the really impressive thing…as that he's 57 and a daddy. Congratulations to the happy new parents!!! May our children meet in the 2032 Summer Olympic Games, hosted in lovely Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Just trust me on that one)

Fifty-Part Bruce Lee Biography - Bruce Lee is getting a belated hero's welcome in China, with the country's state broadcaster set to air a 50-part prime-time series on the late kung fu star. Lee became a chest-thumping source of nationalistic pride to Chinese around the world with his characters who defended the Chinese against oppressors in a series of movies in the early 1970s. But his influence wasn't felt immediately in China, which was then a closed communist country. Lee's films started surfacing in China on video in the 1980s — years after his death in 1973 from swelling of the brain. China's official China Central Television hopes to fill the void with the exhaustive 50 million Chinese yuan (US$7.3 million) biography, "The Legend of Bruce Lee" — the country's first movie or TV series on the actor, according to producer Yu Shengli. Shot in China, Hong Kong, Macau, the U.S., Italy and Thailand over nine months, the series, starting Sunday in prime-time, will air daily on the CCTV's flagship channel, with two episodes airing consecutively every night in a two-hour slot. Unlike past films about Lee, "The Legend of Bruce Lee" is unusually detailed in tracing Lee's life, from his teenage years in Hong Kong to his move to the U.S., where he studied and taught martial arts, to his movie career and early death at 32, the Hong Kong actor who plays Lee told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. "We've only seen the glorious side of Bruce Lee — he comes out all guns blazing, his films are entertaining. But very few people know what injuries he suffered and what grievances he suffered," Danny Chan said, noting the series even reveals that Lee was afraid of cockroaches.

The 33-year-old actor Chan, whose best known work is Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle" and "Shaolin Soccer," makes up for his lack of star power with his uncanny resemblance to Lee with his thick eyebrows and slender body. Lee's message of Chinese strength in movies like "The Chinese Connection" and "Return of the Dragon" also matches that of the Chinese government. "Lee had strength, agility, pride, intelligence, not to mention charisma to burn, which coupled with the pro-Chinese rhetoric in his films have made him a potent symbol for the powerful new China that is now rising," said Michael Berry, a professor in contemporary Chinese cultural studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Lee is shown bursting with Chinese pride in a trailer shown at the news conference, bellowing "I am Chinese" to spectators after defeating a foreign opponent. In an apparent effort to boost racial pride, the series was originally scheduled to be aired before the Beijing Olympics in August, but was pushed back in keeping with the period of mourning for the deadly earthquake in China's central Sichuan province on May 12, which killed 70,000 people. The series was authorized by the Lee family. Producer Yu said Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee Keasler, approved the script and is credited as an executive producer. It's unclear, however, how Lee himself, who spent his time in the U.S. and then-British colony Hong Kong, felt about the communist Chinese regime. All I can say is...when does this 50-part series hit DVD in the States? I'm curious how this is a 50-part series (because that averages out to about seven months of his life per episode...and I'm assuming there's a lot of teething and breastfeeding in the second episode) but it's Bruce Lee, so it has to be awesome. Sorry if I babbled on too much about this thing that might very well be Chinese propoganda...but it's Bruce Lee. I know my buddy Jody understands. He's a huge fan too.

Ig Nobel Prizes Awarded - The Ig Nobels honor real research, but are meant as a funny alternative to next week's deadly serious Nobel prizes for medicine, chemistry, physics, economics, literature and peace. A researcher who figured out that Coke explodes sperm and scientists who discovered that people will happily eat stale chips if they crunch loudly enough won alternative "Ig Nobel" prizes Thursday. Other winners included physicists who found out that anything that can tangle, will tangle and a team of biologists who ascertained that dog fleas jump farther than cat fleas. Awarded by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research, a scientific humor magazine, the prizes are based on published research, some intended to be humorous but often not. Usually the "honored" researchers go along with the joke. Deborah Anderson of Boston University Medical Center and colleagues were awarded the chemistry prize for a 1985 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found Coca-Cola kills sperm. She said she was serious in testing the soft drink because women were using it in a douche as a contraceptive and later to try to protect themselves from the AIDS virus. She said, "It definitely wouldn't work as a contraceptive because sperm swims so fast." She went on to say Coke made with sugar quickly kills sperm, probably because sperm soak it up. "The sperm just kind of explode." It kills the AIDS virus too, she said. Personal favorites - The economics prize went to researchers at the University of New Mexico who learned that a professional lap dancer earns bigger tips when she is most fertile…and David Sims of Cass Business School in London won the literature prize for his written study titled "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations" For more little experiments that were inexplicably awarded grant money, feel free to check out the link. Good stuff. Past winners include the creator of the plastic pink flamingo, a researcher who recorded a mallard duck sodomizing a dead drake and a doctor who cured hiccups by applying digital rectal massage (it wasn't me, though I have tried similar experiments on an amateur level).

Thai Politics Update - Okay, so last week an overzealous campaign manager drowned during a publicity stunt in Bangkok. This week, another underdog in the election for governor of Bangkok punched and kicked a television journalist Thursday, saying he was provoked by tough questions during a live interview. Chuvit Kamolvisit, dubbed Bangkok's massage parlor king (hells yeah) by the Thai press, later apologized for losing his temper and assaulting host Visarn Dilokwanich after the interview. "I admit I did it. I couldn't stand it when he humiliated me on air," said Chuvit, a stocky former bodybuilder who owned a strip of girly bars before entering politics a few years ago. "What I did was a petty crime and I am happy to pay the fine for elbowing him and kicking him." Visarn said, "He was very upset when I told him during the show that what he said off-air and on-air was totally different." That's politics, baby! I'm actually quite impressed that elbowing and kicking is considered a petty crime in Thailand. As my buddy Billy Madison once said, "That's assault, brutha! Do ya double dare me?" I guess that's just the Muay Thai culture. I would actually like to see a little bit of kicking and elbowing in our Presidential Debates. Instead of the usual point - counterpoint - useless banter - pandering - issue tap-dance routine, I'd prefer to see some point - counterpoint - low block - spinning back kick - judo chop - leg sweep - sleeper hold - suplex action. I'm not one that likes to see folding chairs and the like brought into the mix…but if one of the candidates finds themselves stumped, I'd like to think that they would be able to adapt to the situation. That's the sign of a true leader.

Do You Respect Your Boss? - According to an online survey released on Friday, almost half of U.S. workers do not respect their boss and only half believe they are competent. The study by Randstad USA, a unit of the world's number two staffing company Randstad NV, found that the growing financial crisis has seen companies focusing more on their bottom line at the expense of relations with employees. "Employees' professional development and morale should always be a priority for employers and especially in an economic slowdown when employees may feel additional burdens," said Randstad director Eric Buntin. The Internet survey of 2,337 people also found only 43 percent think their boss is open to new ideas and only 47 percent were willing to work overtime to impress their boss and create more job security for themselves. Less than 30 percent believed their bosses were fulfilling their roles as motivators, role models or mentors. Now, maybe some of these employees were just in the middle of an HR fiasco when the survey was presented to them so their opinions were a little low…but these numbers are still a little surprising. Not a lot…but a little. I don't know, what do you ladies & gentlemen think about your bosses? I've had the pleasure of having a LOT of great bosses even when the jobs were questionable…but I've heard some horror stories out there where if I were in the situation, I mighta smacked somebody…but luckily that wasn't the case…and I can keep my pimphand fresh for a gubernatorial race in Bangkok when I move there. Anyway, anybody wanna give a shout-out to their boss? That's why I have a comments section, so that I can keep my ear to the people. Vote Love in '08!!!

Stay tuned tomorrow for the (hopeful) conclusion to the Denver Interview story...and hopefully having some kind of answer to this absolute fiasco that makes me think twice (okay thrice) about accepted the position that was offered to me well over a week ago...but rescinded a week ago...and will more than likely be offered again soon. A few people have commented that I seem really chill and relaxed about the whole situation...and they wonder why. Well, it's for a few reasons. I'm confident in my abilities both as a professional and a human being, so I don't sweat the small stuff. I just like to comment about it on my blog so other can learn. I have a very analytical mindset...so I have backup plans already in place for worst-case and best case scenarios. I have a wonderful support network to encourage me and at the very least...listen to me complain...and then we'll all laugh about it. Most importantly though, I'm well-endowed...and when everything else seems to be a whirlwind of BS and nothing seems to be going right, I can always say to myself, "It doesn't matter...because my mama & daddy love me...and that's ALL me." Have a great day everybody!!!