I saw Tropic Thunder tonight. Cruise and Downey Jr. were phenomenon in this movie. Athough, I cried many times watching Jerry McGuire and loved Downey Jr in Chaplin, but I was underestimated them until this movie. My hat off to them.

I laughed so hard that I cried when Downey Jr. said “I’m a lead farmer, motherfucker.” He was incredible! His character was brought out and shone through. I love every scene he is in it.

My favorite scene is this one: Tom Cruise (Les Grossman): This is Les Grossman who is this…

(Flaming Dragon): THIS IS FLAMING DRAGON!

Tom Cruise (Les Grossman): oh ok! Flaming Dragon; fuck face; First, take a big step back… and literally, FUCK YOUR OWN FACE! I don’t know what kind of pan-pacific bullshit power play you’re trying to pull here, but Asia, Jack, is my territory. So whatever you’re thinking, you’d better think again! Otherwise I’m gonna have to head down there and I will rain down in a Godly fucking firestorm upon you! You’re gonna have to call the fucking United Nations and get a fucking binding resolution to keep me from fucking destroying you. I’m talking about a scorched earth, motherfucker! I will massacre you! I WILL FUCK YOU UP!

I had flipped the chanels back and forth to see that Cruise’s scene 3 times–I love him in that character. It’s funny. Hilarious! Very well played by Cruise and I do not think that anyone in the industry could do it better than he!

I’m sold on this movie because of them two acting skills. And if Paramound actually does Satan’s Alley, I will go to the theater and see it. They even have the a website for it. I actually want to see something with the same story line because in 1994, there was The Priest and that movie, Roache was incredible! You can see the pain and the struggle expressed on his face. Beautiful, insightful, remarkable, and very touching movie, The Priest is one of my all times favorites.

I also saw the Dark Knight but will watch it again because I was tired and wasn’t in the mood of watching movies. Maybe tomorrow.

I have a whole week off and many things awaits to be done. I plan to finish Anna Karenina this week. It’s gonna be a wonderful week. I’m certain.

The following is an excerpt from the book The No Sweat Exercise Plan: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, and Live Longer  By Harvey B. Simon, M.D.

Do it for a better body and mind.

Do it for a longer and healthier life.

Do it for yourself.

No stress. No strain. No sweat.

–
Stair-climbing is the best-kept secret in exercise for health. It is a great way to add CME points during the course of daily life, and it will help improve your leg strength and balance as well as your heart and waistline.

By way of example, let me tell you the story of Lewis Ripps. Lew is a trim seventy-two-year-old businessman who runs six and a half miles a day along the hilly Berkshire roads when he is at his Massachusetts vacation home. But he’s in Massachusetts only for most summer and autumn weekends and for occasional weekends during the rest of the year. At home in New Jersey, Lew doesn’t run — nor does he swim, bike, use exercise machines, or walk for health.

Mr. Ripps seems to be a weekend warrior who is breaking all the rules. At any age, sporadic intense exercise is a bad idea, and at age seventy-two, it’s an invitation for disaster. But Lew is quite safe because he stays active the year round — not through any formal exercise program, but by walking stairs. And he does quite a lot of that; in fact, he averages eighteen long, steep flights a day at the New Jersey manufacturing plant he manages.

Coaches, cardiologists, and housewives have long been in on the secrets of stairs. Many football coaches “ask” their players to charge up flight after flight of stadium steps to get in shape, and other competitive athletes put gymnasium stairwells to similar use. In the days before stress testing held sway, doctors would often walk up stairs with patients to check their cardiopulmonary function. Even today, cardiologists tell patients they are fit enough to have sex if they can walk up two or three flights comfortably, and surgeons may clear patients for lung operations if they can manage five or six flights. As for housewives, taking care of a two- or three-story home is one reason American women outlive their husbands by an average of 5.4 years.

What’s so special about stairs? Researchers in Canada answered the question by monitoring seventeen healthy male volunteers with an average age of sixty-four while they walked, lifted weights, or climbed stairs. Stair-climbing was the most demanding. It was twice as taxing as brisk walking on the level and 50 percent harder than walking up a steep incline or lifting weights. And peak exertion was attained much faster by climbing stairs than by walking, which is why nearly everyone huffs and puffs going up stairs, at least until their second wind kicks in after a few flights.

Because stairs are so taxing, only the very young at heart should attempt to charge up long flights. But at a slow, steady pace, stairs can be a health plus for the rest of us. Begin modestly with a flight or two, and then escalate as you improve. Take the stairs whenever you can; if you have a long way to go, walk partway, and then switch to an elevator. Use the railing for balance and security (especially going down), and don’t try the stairs after a heavy meal or if you feel unwell.

Even at a slow pace, you’ll earn CME points two to three times faster climbing stairs than walking briskly on the level. The Harvard Alumni Study found that men who average at least eight flights a day enjoy a 33 percent lower mortality rate than men who are sedentary — and that’s even better than the 22 percent lower death rate men earned by walking 1.3 miles a day. That may be a bit optimistic, but even if you don’t count on just eight flights a day to keep you healthy, you should add stairs to your CME menu at every opportunity.

Want to stay well? Step right up!

Author:
Harvey B. Simon, M.D., is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a member of the Health Sciences Faculty at MIT, and the founding editor of Harvard Men’s Health Watch. He is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Medical School. Since completing his postgraduate training at Massachusetts General Hospital and the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Simon has maintained an active clinical practice at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the award-winning author of five previous books on health and fitness and received the London Prize for Excellence in Teaching from Harvard and MIT.

Copyright © 2006 President and Fellows of Harvard College

By Buzzle Staff and Agencies Published: 2/13/2006 http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-13-2006-88783.asp

called Self.

It might seem odd to you when I say that I haven’t looked and re-evaluated myself for quite some times now. It’s been a long, aimless journey I’ve traveled and I’ve missed my target somewhere, somehow along the way.

People who know me know that I love Lương Triều Vỹ to bits. Ok, Ok, it’s more of an obsession than love, I have to admit. And to which I found amazingly to my surprise, that the other day when I happened to come across LTV’s pictures, I realized and was able to pin-point down the old self of me. Odd eh? And I miss the old me. Yeah, I do. I will write about my old self and the connection between me-self and LTV sometime, when I have time.

Anyhow, I have determined that I should go on a new journey, not to find old self, but to create a new one. It’d be fun. I’m sure. I have a lot of plans from now ’til the end of the year. Must get on to them. A must.

On a completely different but related note, Proust Questionnaire.

The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. Here is the basic Proust Questionnaire.

Lies below are also my answers:

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

• absolute happiness

2. What is your greatest fear?

•  inability to achieve goals

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

• my worst characteristic/traits

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

• Egocentric

5. Which living person do you most admire?

• I have two (2) right now

6. What is your greatest extravagance?

• Love:  the only luxury I can afford.

7. What is your current state of mind?

•  zen

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

• all virtues are not overrated

9. On what occasion do you lie?

• no harms caused to protect life of others

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

11. Which living person do you most despise?

•  I don’t know a single person well enough to despise them

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?

• charisma

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?

• confidence

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?

•  Life

16. When and where were you happiest?

• zen

17. Which talent would you most like to have?

•  the art of nothingness

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

• characteristics that needed to change

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

• absolute happiness

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

• myself

21. Where would you most like to live?

• in love and happiness

22. What is your most treasured possession?

• love

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

• loneliness

24. What is your favorite occupation?

• creating, smiling, just being

25. What is your most marked characteristic?

•  being me

26. What do you most value in your friends?

• being able to count on them

27. Who are your favorite writers?

• Lao Tzu

28. Who is your hero of fiction?

• Kieu Phong

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

• I don’t know much about historical figures to identify myself with

30. Who are your heroes in real life?

• my parents, my brother, my dog, and my boyfriend

31. What are your favorite names?

• of those I hold dear to my heart.

32. What is it that you most dislike?

• Fakes and the alikes

33. What is your greatest regret?

• times that I was not myself

34. How would you like to die?

• loved and be loved.

35. What is your motto?

• Love Life.  Love Love!

(source Vanity Fair)

The Infamous Proust Questionnaire

In the back pages of Vanity Fair each month, readers find The Proust Questionnaire, a series of questions posed to famous subjects about their lives, thoughts, values and experience. A regular reference to Proust in such a major publication struck me as remarkable, and it was only until I’d read Andre Maurois’s Proust: Portrait of a Genius that I understood what this was all about.

The young Marcel was asked to fill out questionnaires at two social events: one when he was 13, another when he was 20. Proust did not invent this party game; he is simply the most extraordinary person to respond to them. At the birthday party of Antoinette Felix-Faure, the 13-year-old Marcel was asked to answer the following questions in the birthday book, and here’s what he said:

• What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
  To be separated from Mama
• Where would you like to live?
  In the country of the Ideal, or, rather, of my ideal
• What is your idea of earthly happiness?
  To live in contact with those I love, with the beauties of nature, with a quantity of books and music, and to have, within easy distance, a French theater
• To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
  To a life deprived of the works of genius
• Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
  Those of romance and poetry, those who are the expression of an ideal rather than an imitation of the real
• Who are your favorite characters in history?
  A mixture of Socrates, Pericles, Mahomet, Pliny the Younger and Augustin Thierry
• Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
  A woman of genius leading an ordinary life
• Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
  Those who are more than women without ceasing to be womanly; everything that is tender, poetic, pure and in every way beautiful
• Your favorite painter?
  Meissonier
• Your favorite musician?
  Mozart
• The quality you most admire in a man?
  Intelligence, moral sense
• The quality you most admire in a woman?
  Gentleness, naturalness, intelligence
• Your favorite virtue?
  All virtues that are not limited to a sect: the universal virtues
• Your favorite occupation?
  Reading, dreaming, and writing verse
• Who would you have liked to be?
  Since the question does not arise, I prefer not to answer it. All the same, I should very much have liked to be Pliny the Younger.

This questionnaire tells us much about two things, the character of petiit Marcel, and the amusement of the young in the Belle Epoque. We see Marcel as a sweet and dreamy Mama’s boy, brainy, aesthetic, a young citizen of the world with much sympathy for the feminine. What he sees in Pliny the Younger, famous only for speaking and writing letters, is hard to grasp.

What is fascinating about this questionnaire is that it was considered so great an amusement to very young people in Proust’s time. It is hard to imagine a party of 13-year-olds in these times being quizzed about their favorite virtues, painters or characters of fiction and history. If the questionnaire were not to smack of exam, it would have to ask “what’s your favorite TV show?” or “what’s your favorite band?”

Seven years after the first questionnaire, Proust was asked, at another social event, to fill out another; the questions are much the same, but the answers somewhat different, indicative of his traits at 20:

• Your most marked characteristic?
  A craving to be loved, or, to be more precise, to be caressed and spoiled rather than to be admired
• The quality you most like in a man?
  Feminine charm
• The quality you most like in a woman?
  A man’s virtues, and frankness in friendship
• What do you most value in your friends?
  Tenderness - provided they possess a physical charm which makes their tenderness worth having
• What is your principle defect?
  Lack of understanding; weakness of will
• What is your favorite occupation?
  Loving
• What is your dream of happiness?
  Not, I fear, a very elevated one. I really haven’t the courage to say what it is, and if I did I should probably destroy it by the mere fact of putting it into words.
• What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
  Never to have known my mother or my grandmother
• What would you like to be?
  Myself - as those whom I admire would like me to be
• In what country would you like to live?
  One where certain things that I want would be realized - and where feelings of tenderness would always be reciprocated. [Proust’s underlining]
• What is your favorite color?
  Beauty lies not in colors but in thier harmony
• What is your favorite flower?
  Hers - but apart from that, all
• What is your favorite bird?
  The swallow
• Who are your favorite prose writers?
  At the moment, Anatole France and Pierre Loti
• Who are your favoite poets?
  Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny
• Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
  Hamlet
• Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
  Phedre (crossed out) Berenice
• Who are your favorite composers?
  Beethoven, Wagner, Shuhmann
• Who are your favorite painters?
  Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt
• Who are your heroes in real life?
  Monsieur Darlu, Monsieur Boutroux (professors)
• Who are your favorite heroines of history?
  Cleopatra
• What are your favorite names?
  I only have one at a time
• What is it you most dislike?
  My own worst qualities
• What historical figures do you most despise?
  I am not sufficiently educated to say
• What event in military history do you most admire?
  My own enlistment as a volunteer!
• What reform do you most admire?
  (no response)
• What natural gift would you most like to possess?
  Will power and irresistible charm
• How would you like to die?
  A better man than I am, and much beloved
• What is your present state of mind?
  Annoyance at having to think about myself in order to answer these questions
• To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
  Those that I understand
• What is your motto?
  I prefer not to say, for fear it might bring me bad luck.

(source Chick.net)

CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt’s antiquities council says that archaeologists have unearthed a 3,000-year-old red granite head believed to portray the 19th Dynasty pharaoh Ramses II.

Supreme Council of Antiquities says the discovery was made recently at Tell Basta, about 50 miles northeast of Cairo.

The council’s statement Thursday says the 30-inch high head belonged to a colossal statue of Ramses II that once stood in the area. Its nose is broken and the beard that was once attached to the king’s chin is missing.

The site at Tell Basta was dedicated to the cat-goddess Bastet and was an important center from the Old Kingdom until the end of the Roman Period. Archeologists are still digging on the location for the rest of the statue.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_sc/ml_egypt_antiquities

things like this make me miss going to the museum.

Nửa đêm. Chuông điện thoại reo vang làm người mẹ thức giấc. Như chúng ta biết, ai nghe điện thoại reo lúc nửa đêm cũng bực mình nhìn đồng hồ và lẩm bẩm… Nhưng buổi đêm đó thì khác, người mẹ ấy cũng khác.

Nửa đêm. Những ý nghĩ lo lắng bỗng tràn đầy trong đầu óc của người mẹ. Và người mẹ nhấc máy “Alô ?”. Bỗng bà nghĩ đến con gái mình. Bà nắm ống nghe chặt hơn và nhìn về phía người bố, lúc này đã tỉnh dậy xem ai đã gọi điện cho vợ mình.

- Mẹ đấy ạ? - Giọng nói trên điện thoại cất lên, như đang thì thầm, rất khó đoán là người gọi bao nhiêu tuổi, nhưng chắc chắn là cô gái đó đang khóc. Rất rõ. Giọng thì thầm tiếp tục:

- Mẹ, con biết là muộn rồi. Nhưng đừng nói … đừng nói gì, để con nói đã. Mẹ không cần tra hỏi đâu, đúng con vừa uống rượu. Con mới ra khỏi đường cao tốc và…

Có cái gì đó không ổn. Người mẹ cố im lặng…

- Con sợ lắm. Con chỉ vừa mới nghĩ là mẹ có thấy đau lòng không nếu một cảnh sát đến cửa nhà mình và bảo con đã chết vì tai nạn. Con muốn… về nhà. Con biết, một đứa con gái bỏ nhà đi quả thật là hư hỏng. Con biết có thể mẹ lo lắng. Lẽ ra con nên gọi cho mẹ từ mấy ngày trước, nhưng con sợ… con sợ…

Người mẹ nắm chặt ống nghe, nuốt tiếng nấc. Người mẹ nén những cái nhói lên đau đớn tận trong tim. Khuôn mặt con gái bà hiện rõ ràng ngay trước mặt bà. Bà cũng thì thầm: “Mẹ nghĩ…”.

- Không! Mẹ để con nói hết đã! Đi mẹ!

Giọng cô gái năn nỉ, lúc này giọng cô gái như một đứa trẻ không được che chở và đang tuyệt vọng. Người mẹ đành dừng lại, và bà cũng đang nghĩ xem nên nói gì với con. Giọng cô gái tiếp:

- Con là đứa hư hỏng, mẹ ạ! Con trốn nhà! Con biết con không nên uống rượu say thế này, nhưng con sợ lắm, mẹ ơi! Sợ lắm…

Giọng nói bên kia lại ngắt quãng bởi những tiếng nấc. Người mẹ che miệng, mắt đầy nước. Tay người mẹ chạm vào ống nghe điện thoại làm vang lên tiếng “cạch”, nghe như tiếng đặt máy, cô gái vội kêu lên:

- Mẹ còn nghe con không ? Con xin mẹ đừng đặt máy!

- Con cần mẹ, con thấy cô đơn lắm!

- Mẹ đây, mẹ sẽ không đặt máy đâu – Người mẹ nói.

- Mẹ ơi, con lẽ ra phải nói với mẹ. Con biết lẽ ra con phải nói với mẹ. Nhưng khi mẹ nói chuyện với con, mẹ chỉ luôn bảo con là phải làm gì. Mẹ nói mẹ đã đọc hết quyển sách tâm lý và biết cách dạy con, nhưng tất cả những gì mẹ làm là chỉ bắt con nghe thôi. Mẹ không nghe con. Mẹ không bao giờ để con nói với mẹ là con cảm thấy ra sao. Cứ như là cảm giác của con chẳng quan trọng gì vậy. Có phải vì mẹ nghĩ mẹ là mẹ của con và mẹ biết hết mọi lời giải đáp không ? Nhưng đôi khi con không cần những lời giải đáp. Con chỉ cần một người lắng nghe con…

Người mẹ lặng đi. Bà nhìn những quyển sách tâm lý bà để ở đầu giường.

- Mẹ đang nghe con – Người mẹ thì thầm.

- Mẹ ơi, khi ở trên đường cao tốc, con không điều khiển nổi xe nữa. Con nhìn thấy một cái cây to lắm chắn đường con. Con muốn đâm vào nó. Nhưng con cảm thấy như con đang nghe mẹ dạy rằng không thể lái xe khi vừa uống rượu. Cho nên con dừng lại đây. Mẹ ơi, vì con vẫn còn… muốn về nhà – Cô gái dừng lại một chút – con đi về nhà đây, mẹ, cho con về, mẹ nhé?

- Không – người mẹ vội ngắt lời, cảm thấy cơ thể như đông cứng lại – con ở yên đó! Mẹ sẽ gọi một chiếc taxi đến đón con. Đừng tắt máy, hãy nói chuyện với mẹ trong khi chờ taxi đến.

- Nhưng con muốn về ngay, mẹ ơi…

- Nhưng hãy làm điều này vì mẹ, hãy chờ taxi đi, mẹ xin con.

Người mẹ thấy cô gái im lặng. Thật đáng sợ. Không nghe cô trả lời. Người mẹ nhắm mắt, thầm cầu nguyện trong khi người bố đi gọi một chiếc taxi.

Cô gái im lặng rất lâu nhưng cô không tắt máy và người mẹ cũng vậy.

- Có taxi rồi mẹ ạ! - Tiếng cô gái bỗng vang lên và có tiếng xe ôtô dừng lại. Người mẹ bỗng thấy nhẹ nhõm hơn. - Con về nhà ngay đây, mẹ nhé!

Có tiếng “tích”, có lẽ là tiếng tắt máy điện thoại di động. Rồi im lặng.

Người mẹ đứng dậy, mắt nhòe nước. Bà đi vào phòng cô con gái 16 tuổi. Người bố đi theo, và hỏi:

- Em có nghĩ là cô bé đó sẽ biết là cô đã gọi nhầm số điện thoại ?

Người mẹ nhìn đứa con gái đang ngủ ngon trên giường, và trả lời:

- Có lẽ cô bé đã không gọi nhầm…

- Bố mẹ làm gì thế ? - Giọng ngái ngủ của cô con gái cất lên khi cô mở mắt và thấy bố mẹ đứng cạnh giường mình.

- Bố mẹ đang tập… - Người mẹ trả lời.

- Tập gì ạ ? – Cô bé lẩm bẩm, gần như lại chìm vào giấc ngủ.

- Tập lắng nghe – Người mẹ nói thầm và vuốt tóc cô con gái…

(st)