Author: stlplace

Categories
Life

It’s a joke

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Here is what I saw from the Visa Bulletin, I expect lots of angry people, epecially those guys (gals) did not submit theie EB based cases in last 2 or 3 weeks.

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The sudden backlog reduction efforts by Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices during the past month have resulted in the use of almost 60,000 Employment numbers. As a result of this unexpected action it has been necessary to make immediate adjustments to several previously announced cut-off dates. All Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices have been notified of the following:

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China Life

Vaccine shot and Health care

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I am getting the Hepatitis B vaccine shot lately, already got two shots done, and will have the last one in about 6 months. Each shot cost me $35.00. Note this is the rate at County Health Dept, other places will be more expensive. Vaccination is not my favorite thing when I was a pre-school kid, I remeber I used to run around to avoid the village doctors giving me the shots. Because the doctors are friends of my mom, they used to laugh at me all the time. But I got all the shots regardless and continue to receive free shots in primary school, middle school.

vaccine pic

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Categories
Fun

iPhone first impression

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I tried the real iPhone this afternoon at West County Apple Store. Obviously the store is more crowded because of all the iPhone craziness. I played the “photo”, and “phone” functions, the Youtube and iPod seemed not working very well.

To use the phone to call somebody, I need to hit the only “home” button, touch the “phone” icon, then get the keypad on touch screen. Yes, I dialed my own cell phone. It worked. Interestingly, I found that demo phone’s area code is 408, the area code of San Jose 🙂

Keso had a good comment about Steve’s “iPhone stategy”, he said amid all the competitions (other cell phone makers add MP3 player to phones), the best defense is offense. I think Steve at least won the “most hype” award for this product launch 🙂

Categories
China Stocks

The Mystery of Xinhua Finance

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Here is a Chinese article talking about the history of the Xinhua Finance, Xinhua Finance Media Limited (Nasdaq: XFML), and its founder Ms. Fredy Bush.

Quote the article, Xinhua Finance claimed “如果你生活在中国，清晨醒来打开电视就能看到收视率最高的节目之一：《财富早7点》。乘车上班途中，可以收听到中国国际广播电台EasyFM的节目。路过报刊亭可以见到《经济观察报》、《投资有道》和《基金观察》。”

This is not necessarily true, I could NOT see the “Fortune Morning (7 AM)” in Shanghai on TV. If a Financial TV program can not being viewed in Shanghai (the financial center of China), can it claim the highest rating? Let me quote Greenspan “it’s possible, but unlikely”. I was a listener of EasyFM; and I read Econ Observer paper once. Keep in mind, XFML did not own any of those media outlets, they merely have contracts with the respective owners.

It’s also interesting to see Xinhua News Agency, officially cut the ties with Xinhua Finance. I guess they were embarrassed by the latter.

Categories
Fun

Yahoo Photos service to close

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I read it from Keso’s blog, although I have not got mail from Yahoo itself. Guess Keso is a much important customer to Yahoo 🙂

Anyway, Yahoo graciously offers serveral migration tools to other sites, such its very own Flickr and Shutterfly.

So guys (gals), hurry up, don’t want until Sept. 20 to migrate your precious photos.

Categories
gadgets

iParty

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(Update June 30, 2007) I read today’s St. Louis Post Dispatch and found the guy in front of me bought the new iphone, and his picture appeared on the first page! He paid $200 for the No. 14 slot. Neither of us received the 30 tickets handed out to the top 30 people lined up. It’s interesting because the guy and the store manager discussed the scenario such as people who have the tickets may not pass credit check, or may want 8GB only (thus forgo the 4GB version). Now we are talking about persistence. I will put up the photo if I could 🙂

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gadgets

Who wants to be guinea pig ?

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Of Steve’s new phone, I mean, the phone without key pad, the highly hyped iPhone?

On my way to work, I already seeing people camping out side of the Cingular (sorry AT&T) store at Olive and Craig. Actually I checked last night (at 9PM) nobody was there yet. I saw on TV in New York people started to line up on Monday! Here is what I read at eBay:

“I am at the front of the line at the Oklahoma City Apple Store. I will overnight ship this new, unopened 4 gig iPhone tomorrow afternoon to the lucky bidder.”

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Categories
Fun

Yi Jianlian Goes to Milwaukee

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(Update June 29) It’s not surprising that Team Yi (Yi Jianlian, his agent and advisors) are not happy with being selected by Milwaukee, accoring to this Chinese news. They even threatened “not come to Milwaukee”. Duh? Please note in this business of NBA, even super star like Steve Nash does not get to choose the team, he was traded from Dallas to Phoenix couple years ago, unwillingly. My advice to Yi is “be professional” about this basketball thing.

(Original June 28) That’s a city 80 miles north of Chicago. I saw the short interview after NBA draft at ESPN, it appears Yi can speak some English. I did watch couple of his games in this April (CBA final, against Wang Zhizhi’s Ba’yi Rocket), Yi’s team Guangdong tiger lost to Wang Zhizhi and Co. Yi is a few years younger than Yao, more agile, and Yi is power forward (7 inches).

I bet most Chinese are not familar with Milwaukee. It’s a decent size city in Wisconsin, the diary land of USA (so consider it as Inner Mongolia or Hei Long Jiang of China). It has two products kind famous: Harley Davidson motor cycle and Miller beer (the No. 2 US brewer after Budweiser). So in a way it’s very similar to St. Louis, which has Budweiser and used to make McDonald Douglass aircraft.

harley davidson

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Categories
Fun

Fail to launch: Heelys withdraws secondary

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(Update June 29) Motley fool ran an article on this. I agree what they said.

(Original June 28) Yeah, they decided to withdraw the already-cut-in-half secondary offering, according to Business Wire.

This is the first time I saw a company withdraw a secondary offering, because of lack of interest (from buyers). I did see some companies withhold IPO due to market conditions.

Categories
Fun Life Stocks

Getting Married: US version

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In about a month, I am going to come back to China and get married. Since I have been in the US for almost 10 years, attended couple weddings, I have some ideas about the financial side of the wedding here.

Registry: when I first heard of it in 2000, I thought this is probably one of the best ideas about “giving gifts”. Here is how it works: the bride and groom made up a “wish list” of the things they want, give it to Wal-Mart, Target, Macy’s or Amazon, also they notify their friends about this. Their friends will buy the stuff from the list. But on second thought, after I made to couple weddings, I feel Chinese way of giving “red envelop with money inside” is better. Because sometimes the couple really don’t know what they want, also they can not expect everyone pay $100 for gifts, so they end up with many $20 things which are not really useful. On the other hand, with the cash (small amount putting together), a couple can do the things they want.

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