Pic..Pic..Piccaso

I bought a set of The World's Greates Classics CD 2 or 3 months back. Yes, I am a pure mainstreamer in the area [well, I'm actually a mainstreamer of any type of music, ;P]. "Blessed" with a very short attention span on a long list of chosen subjects [music, of course, is one of them], I had difficulties to remember which piece belongs to which composer; even a simple act of differentiating between Bach or Schubert's Ave Maria is excrutiatingly painful, and not to forget, unsuccesful. So I gave up trying to understand the style, the movement, etc of the genre and simply taking classical music for the sole purpose of enjoying it. [Still with me so far?]

Accompanied by 1 of the CDs from the set, I present [drum roll, please] this weekend in history at the Xinda Land.

Authentic Chinese Food by J's mom.
Having one's Mom visiting is always nice. Especially, if she asks the son to have some friends over for a nice home-cooked meals. That was exactly what happened this Friday, we-the research group members, minus Dr. K-were invited to J's for a dinner, his mom is here visiting for a month. Please say goodbye to the Kung Pao & Gen. Tso's chicken [the so americanized chinese food] and say hello to the soyed sauce hard boilded egg cooked with tea leaves, baked chicken, steam meat in cucumber roll, short ribs in garlic sauce, and the chinese style curry. All were MSG-free and were much-much better and somewhat healthier than any of the so called chinese restaurants here.

Piccaso at the Lapin Agile
A 90-minute play by Steve Martin. Directed and performed by one of the professor and students, respectively, of our school's Dept. of Performance Arts. PaLA is an award winning play, a respectably funny one. Mr. Martin to me is now much more than just a Father of the Bride or the Oscar guy.
The play is about Einstein and Picasso bumping to ea other at a Parisian Bar, the Lapin Agile. There, they discussed their understanding on the purpose of each other's field, that art and science is actually free from collision. The fictional story happened way before both characters were famous for the relativity theory and for setting the first of the cubism style painting.
There were cultural references to the Beatles and the Nazi. One of the characters expressed his opinion on the 20th century, he said something like this: "Lead by the German, the 20th century will be known for its peace". There were also a small fight of the the bar maid and her lover over his romanticsm: It's post. No, Neo. Post. Neo. and so on. And who could have guest that the visitor/messenger (and they all looked at him if he had pouch on his...) was the man from Memphis, Tennesse, not Egypt.

Baby Shower
We threw away a surprised baby shower for N, men were invited, gifts were presented, games were played, and there were lots and lots of food. It was fun.