Banks, Bombs and Babes: The Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz III

Response to our first Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz was amazing. Our second, off the charts. But now the world has fallen into a global economic crisis and we had to ask ourselves if all the talent we've got prancing around here couldn't be used to alleviate some of the throbbing stress we're all feeling in our financial members - and the answer is of course, yes. This month's physicist is Dr. Kim Loan My Moni and she's ready to probe this financial thing until we all just have a cigarette and doze off. So ... time for the quiz. Below, you'll find a question in Bold Faced Type. Consider the question, come up with your answer, and then "mouse over" (just roll the cursor over it - don't click) the question to reveal our physicist's answer. Should you disagree with it, we'll be more than happy to lock your sorry assets in the safe deposit vault until Dr. Kim can liquidate them.

"Can't we just nuke all the bad banks with suitcase bombs?"



For more quizzes, check here:

Iran's Ahmadinedschad - The Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz VII
Did Sarah Palin Just Nuke Herself? - The Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz VI
Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz V
Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz IV
Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz III
Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz II
Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz I.

"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI

If I didn't walk in this city I would never have seen the sign that proclaimed the title of this post - "Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" nor would I have had the ability to understand that it is a menu item, the first on a list of other more understandable ones, and the sign, designed to entice customers into the joint, just one more in the melange of maligned English descriptions that make up a large part of this city's attempts at foreign relations. The dish described is simply fresh Vietnamese spring rolls, not the deep-fried variety, filled with a standard pork/shrimp/veggie mixture but the word that threw me off was disposed? I understood foggy in that the ricepaper is not clearly transparent but why disposed? Was it not good enough for some other purpose? Would ricepaper officionados avoid this particular variety? Does that mean it's recycled? In an effort to increase the green promotion of Saigon I will certainly make a point of revisiting this establishment when they are open and suggesting to management that the word disposed be supplanted by the word recycled to increase the freshness appeal and overall appetisement of the advertisement. Do you think they'll understand? The vagaries of walking always serve in some way or another to enhance what might otherwise be a boring day. Why just take a taxi home from work when you can avail yourself of all the pleasures of all the little things awaiting, that you are, at instant, unaware of? Let the rabbits out of the hats, the cats from their bags and genies from bottles. Pandora's box holds a day's worth of secret surprises all if you just take another step. The half-hatched egg seller from my last Little Things post was was closed so it was time to visit the back of the Phu Nuan Market and see the lady from my Lunch With Obama entry. Mmm, mmm, mmm. She served up a similar bowl of noodles to my visit before with fried springrolls and sliced sausages on top, but my surprise came when I asked for a drink. She then produced another woman from the stall behind who then produced a perfect English speaking husband who then asked me what kind of shake I was looking for - how he knew I prefered a shake will remain beyond me. I ordered an orange with ice and sweetened condensed milk that would turn out to as close as I can remember to an Orange Julius from one of my childhood trips to California. I recalled trying to convince my father to open an Orange Julius franchise back home in Illinois and his perplexed reaction to this 10 year old entrepreneur. He remains perplexed today. The number three bus would be my bus of choice today as I had walked quite enough and felt a bit stuffed after my feed and drink. Lunch cost two dollars - the bus, 20 cents. Arriving at the Ben Thanh Saigon bus station is a little like arriving in the Bolivian train station that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid find in the film of the same name - minus the attractive Burt Bacharach soundtrack. It's got chickens outside, conical hatted ladies vending noodles and cigarrette smoking officials to help you find your bus - that is, if you speak Vietnamese. And it's got busses - hundreds of them all coming and going, barely stopping to let the old passengers off and the new ones on, in a symphony of musical big tin can chairs that can only be described as comical - if not oddly efficient. I depart. The Nguyen Kim electronics store is Vietnam's version of a Sam's wholesale but a whole lot more Vietnamese. Crowded onto a street corner that could barely hold a drivethrough McDonalds in the States it boasts four floors of more varieties of stuff than you've ever seen. I counted over 80 different kinds of microwaves, 100 types of refrigerators - all different- and the most dizzying array of vacuum cleaners I had seen since Korea. Orientals are fastidiously clean and have the electronics to prove it. Two monks were busy bargaining with a salesperson over a huge deep freeze with an icemaker and computer readout screen on the polished stainless steel door. I come here when the rest of the world is going to shit just so I can put into perspective that the $80 billion IMF bailout of Korea during the Asian financial crisis of 1997 was but a drop in the bucket of what the US is going through right now - $150 billion for AIG, another $45b to Citibank and Merrill, Bear Stearns, Lehman, Goldman... et al, oh fuck, I loose track - and see that another truckload of Samsung whatevers just won't be enough for these people. My January 5th, 2009 copy of Newsweek reminds me that "There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things." It also cautions that "It is not expected that kings philosophize or that pholosophers become kings, nor is it to be desired, because possession of power corrupts the free judgement of reason inevitably." As we American's, and the world as a whole, welcome the change of a new administration in the free world, is is worthy to note the authors of the previous quotes - Machiaveli on the former and Plato for the latter - as we hopefully set our expectations for our new leaders appropriately and realize that there's a whole world of rolled, foggy, disposed, ricepaper salesmen out there and we'll need to decide very carefully what to order when the new world menus appear. The Vietnamese will then cook it for us in a Samsung, Toshiba or Electrolux depending on which model was on sale on which particular day.

For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:

My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI
Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X
Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX
One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII
Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII
A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI
Seoul Searching - Perspective XII
He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V
Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2
Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV
Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1
Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III
Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II
This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V
The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things
Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2
Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1
Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III
Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II
Perspective

Bentleys ain't squat in Vietnam nomore!

Move over boyz. Da Rolls Phantoms iz here in Vietnam and they're taking over from the Bentleys .

No longer a centrally planned government with it's feet in Stalinism, Vietnam has now embraced the worst of western society - making its countrymen look like total peons while the chosen drive around in the economic equivalent of the Space Shuttle. I'm absolutely sure that Ho Chi Minh, the President and holistic leader of his people, who refused to live in the Presidential mansion and had a far more simple home built on the grounds, would approve. Bollocks. Just take a look at the photos of Rolls Royce Phantoms, all shot right here in Vietnam, and notice particularly, the spare environs that surround them. Bollocks is right. I saw this same phenomena in Mongolia years ago when I went there to produce a TV show about the 2004 Olympics. In Mongolia, one of the poorest and most sparsely populated countries on the planet, there was no shortage of jet-black Hummers trolling the Gur infested countryside (pictured on the right), courtesy of the local gold and silver mining companies -- the only people in Mongolia who were making any money at all. And here in Vietnam, things seem to be catching up with America, Europe, Japan and Korea. I started counting Bentleys just this year. Looks like in no time the Commies will be pitching themselves off high-rise buildings and getting their government to bailout their bad business deals once the Rolls needs an oil change. And who pays? The people always pay. And hasn't it always been that way? The current fact that 10% of the world's population holds 80% of the wealth doesn't seem at all shocking once you remember that Louis XIV had the entire, largely unpaid, French court living in the Palace of Versailles, in what amounted to impeccably decorated dormitories, while the common people starved. (Cue: Beatles, "Revolution") Vietnam can certainly thank France for that legacy. But as George Washington never lived in the White House and Ho Chi Minh never owned more than a Pugeot 440, (pictured on the left) maybe it's time for our leaders to set an example for their people again. George W. Bush has certainly assured that as history advances, his photo will hold no match for that of Che Guavera adorning t-shirts of yet another generation to grow and challenge the status quo. In Vietnam we can also rest assured that no Bentley or Rolls owner will ever have to compete with Ho Chi Minh for those same t-shirt honours.

My thanks to DJGJ for the Rolls info and make sure to give them some grief about having a blog with nothing in it!

"Lehman Brothers. CEO - What a dickhead!": WWE's Quote of the Week 10.09.08

This one from Thomas Wanhoff and uttered right here in Vietnam. And I was even hinting at it a few months ago. in this very blog. Maybe the boys in New York and Washington can't see the forest for the trees and we need a level headed German in Vietnam to hit the nail right on the friggin' head. I agree with Thomas entirely on this one. These boys should all get a washing in the swirly bowl and be proscecuted with true American FUBAR vengence. There's a pile of dickheads right now and if our courts don't get em' maybe the American people need to get the government. Make sure to read Thomas' full post right here!

America, The Land of the FREE, Home of the Slave!

Gotta thank Brian Romero for this one! To quote Mike Belcheck, the "Freeman" of late 70s Southern Illinois University fame, "I will work for free, if everything I need is free".