My world cup 1st round (32 to 16) pick

Group A:
Germany & Poland

Group B:
England & Paraguay

Group C:
Argentina & Netherlands

Group D:
Portugal & Iran

Group E:
Italy & Czech

Group F:
Brazil & Croatia

Group G:
France & Korea

Group H:
Spain & Tunisia

It's not a loss to Iraq, but also to the US

See the LA Times story on the war crimes committed by the Marines.

Of course, Bush will again say that he was told this is acceptable collateral loss. But someone ought to tell him that this is a huge loss to Americans as well and it's not just our face.

Pfizer's clinical trial on children in Nigeria

I heard this story on radio today while driving back home. One of Pfizer's VP who's in charge of the project was defending their motive as "philanthropic". As an industry insider, I found it is unbelievable they can still say that now. If they are doing this in the US, both the researchers and the company would have been in Jail.

Details of the story can be found in Washington Post. The most alarming part I heard on radio today is that most of these drug company sponsored foreign (mostly in developing countries) trials are completely unregulated by the FDA who only gets to evaluate the trial afterwards when the company believe the data is good enough to be publicized.

The Da Vinci Code vs. Mi-III

The wonner is undoubted the Da Vinci Code!

This is a movie that as close to it's original book as you can get. They almost didn't miss anything. Too bad Sophie Marceau is not casted as the Sophie, who was always pictures as Marceau in my mind while reading the book.

My problem with T-Mobile

I started T-mobile service with a new phone (Motorola xxx) purchased from an authorized T-mobile store. At the time, we were told the phones carry a one-year warranty.

About 3 weeks before the warranty expires on April 30, 2006, one of the phone has a problem with its audio. Unless using the speaker phone or a hands free handset, one can not hear from the phone.

So, we called T-mobile. After gone through all the testing, they admitted the phone is broken and still under warranty until April 30. Initially, they said they will exchange this phone for a working unit. However, they later found out T-mobile does not have these phone any more. So, they told me to contact the Manufacture, Motorola.

When I called Motorola, they told me the warranty expired 5 months ago, i.e. the phone T-mobile sold me only have 7 months of warranty left instead of 12 months I was charged.

So, I called back T-Mobile, they called Motorola while I was on the line and Motorola agreed to fix this phone, and it needed to be dropped off at a local RadioShack, which is Motorola’s server outlet. When I went to RadioShack, I was told that it is out of warranty and they refused to take it. Then I called back T-Mobile, and they eventually called Motorola and again, Motorola agreed to fix the phone.

This went back and forth three times, while the last time is May 7. I was worrying about the warranty expires on April 30, and was assured by T-Mobile representative that since we contact them before the expiration date, it should be okay. They promise to call Motorola again and call me back with a solution.

They never called back.

On May 15, I called T-Mobile again. This time, I was told that due to fact that the warranty expired on April 30, they will not be able to replace the phone. If I want to use the service, they can sell me another phone. They may offer me a discount if I agree to sign another one or two year warranty. I refused.

I believe T-Mobile had sold me a product (the phone) with a warranty actually shorter than what they claimed. This is not only misrepresentation but indeed fraud.

I don't think I had time to go through the small claim court but did file a complaint throught BBB.

Now I'm cell shopping again.

Moussaoui, we won, you loose

Zacarias Moussaoui may be evil, but he is sure crazy. The decision by the jury that he should be life in prison instead of execution, is a victory from us to him and alike. It is a powerful message we sent to the rest of the world: this is the American that you never seen, not just Bush and Rumsfeld (thank god, they are not typical).

Yes, Moussaoui. We won, you loose.