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Shanghai Park (now Hong Fu) review

The kids and I were near Highland Park tonight at dinner time so we headed over to Hong Fu (formerly Shanghai Park) to find out if their food is as good as people say. We were between ping pong sessions and only had time for a quick bite so we ordered two dishes and some rice, which turned out to be the exact right quantity of food to fill us up but not slow us down. Kind of amazing considering these boys are in their late teens and can eat like soldiers on campaign.

This is the second meal I’ve had out recently that I would have liked to capture some fotos of. Aside from being tasty the dishes were pretty too. I should get used to packing my camera more often. read more

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NJ students allowed religious absences

It seems a lot of people don’t know that public school students in New Jersey have the option to take off certain Jewish holidays as “excused religious absences”. Meaning that the absence is noted but does not count against the cumulative totals of absences allowed to each student during a school year.

See more here

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Kingdom, a Hip-Hop Musical

KINGDOM

A ReVision Theatre Production

A new Hip Hop Rock Musical
April 16 thru May 3, VFW Theatre, Asbury Park
Music by Ian Williams / Book & Lyrics by Aaron Jafferis / Directed by Carlos Armesto !

Order tickets online at www.ReVisionTheatre.org or call 732-455-3059

DISCOUNT TICKETS
For special price of only $15, use code KIMI when ordering

I’ll be at the show on May 2nd. Let me know if you’re coming that night.

Inspired by the true stories of current and former Latin Kings, KINGDOM follows the journey of two kids from “the barrio” who want to belong – and the power struggle that tears the two friends apart. Andres and Juan are tired of being stepped on, abandoned, and poor. Juan is homeless, they’re both jobless, and no one will help them – so they decide to help themselves. read more

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Live fusion of music, dance and painting all performed at once

Our friend Steve Cohn is an avant garde jazz artist who does really brilliant, leading edge work, sometimes right here in the New York City region. In 2007 he was in Amsterdam for a fusion performance called Mo(ve)ment Meets Musicians. My son and I just watched a video clip of the performance and love what we saw.

While Steve played Piano and Shakuhachi and Ernst Resijseger played Cello (sometimes holding it like a guitar), Benno Hübner danced. And on the wall behind them a super-large screen projects the work of two painters who are live on the scene painting while the performance takes place (Tali Farchi and Royce Deans). read more

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Phil Greenspun says fire AIG execs

One of the people whose opinions on current issues I always find compelling, is Phil Greenspun. Phil’s not afraid to look an issue in the mouth and tell us what the issue looks like to his informed eye, even if everyone else is calling it a non-issue or a gobydoggle. His insights are compelling because they’re reasoned with logic and are based on simple, verifiable facts. In a blog post yesterday Phil said

Fire the AIG management

AIG has been in the news again, this time for bleeding taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars to pay employee bonuses for a job well done in 2008. Most egregiously, the very division that bankrupted the company is sucking down $165 million in 2008 bonus. Is there some sort of contract that would require the company to pay these bonuses? The company essentially went bankrupt in the fall of 2008, though the U.S. governnment tried to avoid the actual word “bankruptcy”. When a company goes bankrupt, it doesn’t pay most of its obligations under old contracts and certainly does not pay bonuses to the employees who ran it into the ground (not for moral reasons but simply because it no longer has the cash). read more

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White people like school and superiority

From the book Stuff White People Like by a guy who became famous by mistake and says in his Authors@Google interview, “I’m a bigger jerk now than I ever was.” Christian Lander says lots more in his wickedly funny book and blog.

Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can believe they are helping the world, complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough, claim they are poor, feel as though are getting smarter, act superior to other people, enjoy perpetual three day weekends, and sleep in every day of the week! read more

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Free cellphones for low-income NY households

TracFone Wireless launches SafeLink Wireless in New York, making cellphone use free to low-income families eligible for the Lifeline utilities program. Lifeline is a U.S. government supported program for income eligible families that ensures telephone service is available and affordable.

The service will provide eligible households a free cell phone, mobile access to emergency services and free 68 minutes of air time, monthly for a one year term which the customer can apply to extend the following year. The free cell phone offers all of the convenient features customers want in a phone: voicemail, text, call waiting, international calling to over 60 destinations and caller ID. read more

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Lose your job, return your Hyundai

Hyundai promises to pay your car note for three months if you, “lose your income”. They let you return it if you can’t work things out within that time frame. You can make the return without messing up your credit, having a balance to pay or suffering other penalties.

CNN reports on the program in depth and quotes Hyundai’s US Marketing VP Joel Ewanick as saying

“With no extra charge to the sticker price, the program pays the difference between the car’s trade-in value at the time the owner files a claim and any remaining balance on the loan up to a maximum of $7,500.” read more

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Digital TV switch delay approved

Your TV will still work on February 17, even if it’s analog. I am personally not a fan of TV in any form, but even I recognize that TV is the way many household, and especially many elderly Americans, connect to the outside world and fill idle hours that would otherwise be spent in silence. The attention to the comfort of the average American is obviously high on our president’s priority list – pushing through this delay to enable more people to get ready for it was one of Obama’s first priorities and he got the job done in good time. read more

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Free your cellphone! Sign the unlock petition

The Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF needs help with getting cellphones unlocked. Sign the petition to free the phones.

Hundreds of thousands of cellphone owners have modified their phones to connect to the network or run the software of their choosing, and many more would like to. But the Digital Millennium Copyright Act poses a legal threat to phone users, even though the law was supposed to protect copyright owners and distributors of digital music and movies. This threat of litigation has driven consumers underground, stifling innovation and competition. read more

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Sinbad Restaurant, Secaucus – good plus

My boys are performing right now as part of the Nets’ pregame entertainment with their Chinese Lion Dance troupe, but they don’t like to stay on for the game itself. Aside from the fact that last year when the troupe performed the Nets players treated the troupe very shabbily, clasping their hands securely behind their backs as they jogged past the all-kids troupe members so the kids couldn’t make an attempt to high-five the players or grasp their hands, my sons and I were completely united in our distaste for the game itself. The kids don’t care to sit through another game and I personally, would have to be offered quite a pretty penny to ever consider watching even part of a game again [last time they performed I sat through half the game]. read more

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Free Quickbooks on 12/22 only at Staples!

My friend Joe Rosenberg, CPA reports:

Quickbooks users? In case you were thinking of upgrading your current edition, or trying it out if you don’t have quickbooks, the free 2009 Pro edition is available at no cost Monday 12/22 only in store or online at Staples.

This is offered in store or online by Staples. Since quickbooks is used by about 90% of the small business market in the US and they are offering (after mail in rebate of $159.95) their current product for free (you do pay sales tax on the purchase). There were some problems with online banking in this edition but they are being worked out. read more

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Nothing left to chance in Disney World. People can’t get enough of pre-planned living.

I was just speaking with a new friend, Harold C, about the plastic quality of middle American living. “Kimi, Disney’s like a religious experience for a lot of my friends,” he said. And so it is. A completely guided experience where people can live in simulations of the illusions they are accustomed to watch in the comfort of their living rooms on TV screens all across America. Disney World makes it possible for an American parent to take his/her spouse and children to a place which is actually a ‘sovereign country’ not ruled by American law and still not need to deal with foreign accents or foreign languages, driving on the wrong side of the street, calculating currency exchanges or having to decide whether to drink plain or mineral water. I told Harold about this National Geographic article which describes in detail the Disney World phenomenon, how it was achieved and in what ways it’s meant to affect American society. Here is a teaser of the contents . . . read more

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Detroit – basking in the past on taxpayer dollars

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wants us to think about the future as we consider the crises of our times. In an op-ed piece he says basically, that the Detroit crisis is happening because American auto manufacturers will not be innovative and they refuse to build cars with great mileage. Although they probably could. I, myself, look at the mileage rates in our cars and the price and consumption of gasoline and it’s pretty clear to me that there’s some kind of collusion taking place between the auto and gas industries. read more

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4-cycle leafblowers = 1/5 of other models’ pollution

In California the air pollution control agency AQMD is offering a program to replace traditional 2-cycle leaf blowers with models that are much cleaner. This is why:

“These machines are a significant source of smog-forming emissions. In one year, the average two-stroke backpack leaf blower emits as much pollution as 80 new cars.” The blowers in the exchange program, manufactured by STIHL Inc., are nearly five times cleaner than the California Air Resources Board’s most stringent standard for new blowers. By scrapping 1,500 old blowers and replacing them with low-emission STIHL blowers, the program will reduce at least 14 tons per year of smog-forming emissions. read more