funny thing happened in the office first, there are a lot of Chinese works in this office, (guess that it being close to San Francisco), so they tend to speak Chinese to each other. (And d@mn, some are really pretty! Not to mention a couple of the Japanese women that works here.)

Today is my 3rd real day working here, and so only one person (My direct contact here, she is working with me on this project. She knows their side of the software and I know our side. She is d@mn cute too!) knows that I am somewhat bi-lingual (My Chinese really isn't that good, I have roughly 6th grade Chinese proficiency, then I learned English exclusively).

And today, I am in the hardware testing lab, (I think the lab techs/QA engineers are all Chinese) and so they're discussing the problem (in Chinese) and I'm just standing there listening. And once in a while when they switch over to English, I'd jump in and ask technical questions...

(You can see where this is going don't you??)

And somehow I slipped, I started speaking Chinese to them! The room got dead quiet real fast, they just all stood there and looked at me.

Apparently no one else there besides my contact person knows that I actually can understand and speak Chinese. Quite an expression on their faces, so in the afternoon, the words got back to the software testing lab, (where I mainly do my work/testing, while I'm here) and whenever I walk in, (2/3 of the tech here are Chinese) they'd stop talking!!

Quite a building, the drive took me about 40 minutes, 20 on the freeway and 20 on the street (traffic due to the fact the club is about 5 miles away from SBC Park, where SF Giants play.)

And when I left San Mateo (motel) it was nice and sunny out, so I took the top down in my car and cruised up there. As soon as I got close to San Francisco, it got COLD!! I can see the fog settling in and the wind picking up. Quite unbelievable how the weather/temperature changes.

The building is very nice, old, it might have been (re)build after the 1906 SF earthquake.

The club is members only after 6 PM, the security guard at the entrance (1st floor) was nice enough to let me in (I got there after 6 PM) 'to only look around'!! After I told him that I'm in town on business, and bored on a Friday night (I have no life) so decided to check out the chess club!

The club is on the 3rd floor, wooden tables, board are built into the tables, dark & light wood used for squares, next to the boards are little 'pouches' where you can place your captured pieces.

I think approx. 30. boards, all of them had pieces on them, no need to bring your own (except clock & game record book) there were only 2 people in there one was on the computer playing (Fritz? Shredder? on-line?), and the other elderly man was studying a position.

So I walked around, looked at the old photos hanging on the wall, then someone else walked in and he took a seat, started glancing at me. (I had my tournament set with me and had it slung over my shoulder. Call me Kang)

So to break the ice I asked his newcomer about the club, and he answered my questions then, of course, the "would you like a game?" question. And we exchanged our names, his name is Dave.

In a two hours span, we played 4 games, first game I was black, it was Najdorf (lost). Second game I was white, a center counter (lost). Third game I was black, and it was English with 1...e5 and 2. g3 (lost), the fourth game I was white, and it was a weird French, 1. e4 e6 (Here I'm groaning already...) 2. d4 c6 I've never seen this in the French before. Gonna go and look it up here really soon.

Needless to say, I held my own, he blundered, I won a bishop straight up, and 5 moves later I traded that bishop back to destroy his castled position (Bxh7, Kxh7, Qh5+, etc...) so by now I'm up 2 pawns, and I'm thinking I'm gonna win!

So by move oh... I think 30 or so (I did not record any of the 4 games I played.) I got my king behind the pawns, we each have bishop + rook, and I'm pushing my pawns! I'm feeling goooooooooood!!

Then I walked into a help-mate and lost. Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!! =(

Unless the congress pass a draft, which even with the Republican majority, it will not pass. And with the 2006 off-year election, where members of the senate and congress are running for re-election. The passage of a draft is virtually nil.

The situation in Iran seems to be currently handled by EU/Russia/China and UN. With the US, EU, and UN on one side of the issue and other countries on the other side.

Is a war necessary? Ummmm... tough question, I personally highly doubt it. I personally have not seen any polls on people's opinion(s) on Iran, and its situation.

Another thing to consider, military point of view, Iran is very mountaneous in comparison to Iraq and fighting will be much more difficult than desert warfare.

Before 6 PM, no membership req. (as mentioned above, I think...)

3 Goalkeepers: Marcus Hahnemann (Reading, Englang), Tim Howard (Manchester United, Englang), Kasey Keller (Borussia Mönchengladbach, Germany)

8 Defenders: Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham, England), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover '96, Germany), Jimmy Conrad (Kansas City Wizards, USA), Cory Gibbs (Feyenoord, The Netherlands), Frankie Hejduk (Columbus Crew, USA), Eddie Lewis (Leeds United, England), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liège, Belgium), Eddie Pope (Real Salt Lake, USA)

8 Midfielders: DaMarcus Beasley (PSV, The Netherlands), Bobby Convey (Reading, England), Clint Dempsey (New England Revolution, USA), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy, USA), Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado Rapids, USA), John O'Brien (Chivas USA, USA), Ben Olsen (DC United, USA), Claudio Reyna (Manchester City, England)

4 Forwards: Brian Ching (Houston Dynamo, USA), Eddie Johnson (Kansas City Wizards, USA), Brian McBride (Fulham, England), Josh Wolff (Kansas City Wizards, USA).

Coach: Bruce Arena

http://www.vi.nl/vi/show/id=62802/c...

Both the US and Iran are taking part. I really hope they'll have to play each other.

I read somewhere that there are about 40,000 suicide attackers in the world.

40,000 is about the size of an average soccer stadium.

*think* *think* *think*