Nothing new with me today. I was exhausted by making 200 dumplins from 18:30 to 02:00 yesterday, which made me stupid. When I finished the work, my right hand nearly got cramped. Besides, the worst thing was that I didn't feel like eating any of them at all after such a long cooking process. I split them into two parts and gave them to my parents (PS: They got divorced, or else you won't be able to understand why I did that).
My toefl course is still on its track. There are so many strange words which I have to remember that I just wanna kill myself. What I can do now is studying harder and harder until I'm good and strong enough for the exam.
The other task for me is that I need to edit all the chatting history between me and Amos. I've got to send all the immigration materials to him through Fedex by this weekend. We've been chatting for more than one year already, for we can't see each other very often due to the area restriction. Can't you believe that, chatting history of one year, how can I finish that in just 2 days.
Gosh...
7/12/2007
7/09/2007
Delicious Egg Salad
I like cooking, although I'm not good at it. And a few days ago, I bought a recipe and found out this delicious egg salad.It's easy to cook, even for the beginners like me. Here are the steps:
Materials:
Eggs 4, Apple 1, canned grain corn, carrot 1, potato 1
Sauces:
egg mayonnaise, white pepper, evaporated milk
Steps:
(1) Boil the eggs and shell them, then split every egg into two parts, if you're on a diet, you can also take out the yolks;
(2) Cut the potato, carrot and apple into cutlets. And you need to steam the potato;(3) Put the potato, carrot, apple cutlets and grain corn together (PS: don't add potato until it cools), then add egg mayonnaise, evaporated milk and also white pepper, stir all the materials well;
(4) Put the lettuce onto the plate, fill in eggs with the stired materials in step (3);
Then you can enjoy your delicous egg salad.
For Chinese version, cilck the link belowing:
http://www.sarvoo.com/u/Vivian/archives/2007/165.html
7/08/2007
Biography of Cameron Diaz
Cameron Michelle Diaz (born August 30, 1972) is an American actress and former fashion model. She is perhaps best known for her roles in blockbuster movies such as The Mask, There's Something About Mary, My Best Friend's Wedding, Charlie's Angels, Shrek, Gangs of New York, The Sweetest Thing, and In Her Shoes. Diaz was the second of four actresses (the others being Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, and Reese Witherspoon) to join the coveted "$20 Million Club" after receiving this salary for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.Early life
Diaz was born in San Diego, California to Emilio Diaz, who worked as a foreman for an oil company, and Billie (née Early), an import-export agent. Diaz's father is a second-generation Cuban-American and her mother has Native American, English and German ancestry. Diaz attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School at the same time as rapper Snoop Dogg. During her school days, she was called Skeletor by her classmates because she was so thin.
Career
At age seventeen, she began her career as a fashion model. Diaz signed with top modeling agency, Elite Model Management. After graduating from high school, she went to work in Japan and met video director Carlo de la Torre. On her return to America, she moved in with him. For the next few years, her modeling took her around the world, working for contracts with major companies. She modelled for designers such as Calvin Klein and Levi's. She also graced the cover of the July 1990 issue of Seventeen magazines.
At the age of 21, Diaz auditioned for the Jim Carrey film The Mask. Even though she had no previous acting experience, she was cast as the female lead. She signed up for acting lessons right after getting the part. Over the next three years, she won roles in low-budget, independent films, such as The Last Supper, Feeling Minnesota, and She's The One. She then regained mainstream success with her roles in My Best Friend's Wedding and There's Something About Mary. She won critical acclaim for her performance in Being John Malkovich, which earned her Best Supporting Actress nominations at the Golden Globes, the BAFTA Awards and the SAG Awards.
Cameron Diaz with Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese at the 2002 Cannes Film FestivalDuring the 1999-2000 period, Diaz starred in many films, such as Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, A Life Less Ordinary, Any Given Sunday, and the hit adaptation of Charlie's Angels. In 2001, she won nominations for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards and the AFI Awards for Vanilla Sky, and also voiced Princess Fiona in Shrek, for which she earned $10 million. In 2003, Diaz received another Golden Globe nomination for Martin Scorsese's epic Gangs of New York, and became the second actress (after Wedding costar Julia Roberts) to earn $20 million for a role, receiving the sum for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. After Full Throttle, Diaz only appeared in three films, Shrek 2, In Her Shoes and The Holiday . During 2004 and early 2005, Diaz explored some of the environmentally unique locations on the planet while discovering ways to help preserve them for the 10-episode MTV series Trippin' which featured numerous celebrities and friends of Diaz, such as Jessica Alba, Drew Barrymore, Mark Hoppus, Eva Mendes and Justin Timberlake.
Future work for Diaz includes a role in Shrek the Third in 2007, where she co-stars with former boyfriend Justin Timberlake. She was set to team up again with The Mask co-star Jim Carrey in the film Fun with Dick and Jane, but she dropped out to star in In Her Shoes. She was recently set to star opposite Carrey again in A Little Game Without Consequence that was planned to start filming in October for a summer release date. The film was shelved and filming is still yet to commence. She will also appear in Shrek 4. She will also star in The Box, a horror thriller which is due to start filming in November 2007.
July 7, 2007, Diaz participated at Live Earth in New York by introducing The Police.
Relationships
Diaz dated actor Matt Dillon from 1995 to 1998. She is also the ex-fiancée of actor, musician, and guitarist Jared Leto from 30 Seconds to Mars. They had a low-profile relationship from 1998 to 2002. There had been reports that Leto had broken up with Diaz because of he was jealous of her increasing acting popularity. Other reports have said that they broke up because Diaz was concentrating more on her acting as Leto was more concerned about his band.
Most recently, Diaz dated singer and former *NSYNC member Justin Timberlake, whom she met at the Kids' Choice Awards in 2003. After nearly four years together, the pair issued a joint statement on January 11, 2007, announcing they had broken up, following weeks of break-up rumors.
In October 2004, Diaz and Timberlake were in an altercation with a tabloid photographer outside a hotel. When the photographer and another man tried to photograph them, the couple snatched the camera. Pictures of the incident appeared in US Weekly. Representatives for the pair claimed that they were "ambushed" and acting out of self-defense.
Diaz and Timberlake were involved in another paparazzi incident while walking out of a friend's house. The paparazzi jumped out of bushes and photographed them. He then entered his car and allegedly drove it towards Diaz, who had to jump out of the way. Diaz pressed charges against the paparazzi, whose agency supported his actions as legal and safe.
Personal life 
Diaz has publicly admitted she is deeply germophobic and habitually rubs doorknobs so hard before opening doors to clean them that the original paint fades afterwards. Along with her floors, she says, she washes her hands "many times" each day and uses her elbows to push open doors. "I'm not scared of germs. I'm just aware of them...I'm not into other people's fluids unless I know them really well." Years later, Diaz perhaps modified her fears somewhat when she said "I think I've made my peace with it."
Diaz received "substantial" libel damages from suing American Media Incoporated, after The National Enquirer had claimed she was cheating on then-boyfriend Timberlake.
Diaz supports the West London football club Brentford FC after visiting a Hollywood cafe owned by a Brentford supporter.
Diaz has been vocal in her opposition to U.S. President George W. Bush. Before 2000's election (on October 26 to be exact), Diaz (along with her Charlie's Angels co-stars, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu) wore a shirt that said "I WON'T VOTE FOR A SON OF A BUSH!" while promoting Charlie's Angels on MTV's Total Request Live. During an Oprah appearance before 2004's election, Diaz said.
“ Women have so much to lose... I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. If you think rape should be legal then don't vote. But if you think you have a right to your body and you have a right to say what happens to you and fight off that danger of losing that, then you should vote. ”
When Diaz was asked if she can speak Spanish she said
“ I know what you're saying, I really do. I just cannot respond to you back in Spanish. I can barely speak English properly. I didn't grow up in a Cuban or Latin community. I grew up in Southern California on the beach, basically. And I'm third generation. I'm of Cuban descent, but I'm American. ”
During a generally very well received visit to Peru in June 2007, Diaz was photographed using a green handbag with a red star and a Maoist political slogan ("Serve the People" - printed in Chinese) that the non-Peruvian media alleged evoked painful memories. Diaz was unaware that the country was involved with a bloody conflict with the brutal Peruvian maoist guerilla Sendero Luminoso from 1980 until Abimael Guzmán's arrest in 1992. Diaz since apologized by the statement:
“ I'm sorry for any people's pain and suffering and it was certainly never my intention to reopen what I now know is a painful wound in this country's history. ”
7/06/2007
Jennifer Aniston - Derailed (How Could this happen to me)
How could this happen to me...That's a great clip...
The Immigration Process
Amos got his employment statment yesterday, which means we can start the immigration process. I was told to get all materials ready and send them to Vancouver in one week. I had already got my notarized certificate of birth, police certificate of clearance and also cetificate of my education. There was just one thing left-- my household register that Amos had forgotten to tell me before.
I hurried to Beijing Notary Office yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, when I talked to the notary, the water pipes in the basement was broken by someone and the electric power was cut off to protect the office facilities. I couldn't believe that all these unexpectedly happened to me. The notary was kind and she told me that we could continue the process and I could pay next time when I came to fetch the notarized certificate. Anyway, I can get the notarized certificate of my household register by next Wednesday.
In order that the proof can be persuasive, I also need to provide the air tickets when we travelled together, our photos, Emails, letters. This is not a big problem except one thing. I couldn't find the air tickets when I flew to Chengdu with Amos for our honeymoon, which, by the way, I asked the Ctrip.com to mail us an original order. Ctrip.com was efficient and I got the copy of the order within 24 hours.
There're still a lot of things need to be prepared. I still have six days to finish all of them. Okay, let's just wait and see how it goes.
I hurried to Beijing Notary Office yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, when I talked to the notary, the water pipes in the basement was broken by someone and the electric power was cut off to protect the office facilities. I couldn't believe that all these unexpectedly happened to me. The notary was kind and she told me that we could continue the process and I could pay next time when I came to fetch the notarized certificate. Anyway, I can get the notarized certificate of my household register by next Wednesday.
In order that the proof can be persuasive, I also need to provide the air tickets when we travelled together, our photos, Emails, letters. This is not a big problem except one thing. I couldn't find the air tickets when I flew to Chengdu with Amos for our honeymoon, which, by the way, I asked the Ctrip.com to mail us an original order. Ctrip.com was efficient and I got the copy of the order within 24 hours.
There're still a lot of things need to be prepared. I still have six days to finish all of them. Okay, let's just wait and see how it goes.
7/04/2007
Sleepless Night Suffering From Insomnia
I must have slept too much, which made me suffer from insomnia at night. Yesterday when I got up, I got a little bit headache which was caused by sitting in front of computer for such a long time. This happens a lot, it'll probably happen once a month. Things were worse before when I was still working at that damn E-commerce online shop. It averaged me 10 days to get a severe headache. And the pain was so strong that I had to throw up or take medicine every time when it came. I took a tablet which seemed to have stoped the pain, which must contain mild narcotic so that I fell asleep at once after taking the pill.
For I still have classes at Wall Street English in the evening, I set alarm beforehand. I woke up one hour later and headed for Wall Street Institute. Wall Street Institute was as busy as usual and there were English Corners, Encounters, Social Clubs and also Complementary Classes. I had an Encounter and a Social Club. Becky, who was the teacher of the encounter of Unit 34, said that I spoke English very fluently, which meant I could go to Threshold Levels directly. What she had said made me very happy, although I've decided to study step by step. Well, I can go to study T level, which is a good sign. That means that I'm making progress.
When I got home, it was already 9:40pm. I fed my dog and studied English as usual. It's already 4:40 in the morning and I still don't feel sleepy. And I guess I'm certainly going to be tired during the daytime.
For I still have classes at Wall Street English in the evening, I set alarm beforehand. I woke up one hour later and headed for Wall Street Institute. Wall Street Institute was as busy as usual and there were English Corners, Encounters, Social Clubs and also Complementary Classes. I had an Encounter and a Social Club. Becky, who was the teacher of the encounter of Unit 34, said that I spoke English very fluently, which meant I could go to Threshold Levels directly. What she had said made me very happy, although I've decided to study step by step. Well, I can go to study T level, which is a good sign. That means that I'm making progress.
When I got home, it was already 9:40pm. I fed my dog and studied English as usual. It's already 4:40 in the morning and I still don't feel sleepy. And I guess I'm certainly going to be tired during the daytime.
Jennifer Aniston Take All It Off
Jennifer Aniston is one of my favorite actresses. She's got excellent feature.
Brad Pitt's Personal Life
Marriage to Jennifer AnistonPitt dated actress Gwyneth Paltrow during the 1990s. He met Friends actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her at an enclosed wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. The couple were adamant that the ceremony would be a private affair and hired hundreds of guards to block out any attempts of invasion by the paparazzi. Only one media picture was ever released of the wedding. Not long after the wedding, Pitt sued Damiani International, the company which made the wedding ring he gave Jennifer Aniston, for selling replica "Brad and Jennifer" rings. According to Pitt, the ring was his design and was to be exclusive. Under the settlement reached in January 2002, Pitt will design jewelry for Damiani that Aniston will model in ads, and the company will stop selling the copies.
Their separation was announced on January 7, 2005. Aniston filed for a divorce on March 25 the same year. The divorce was finalized on October 2, 2005. The troubled marriage inspired Brad Pitt to cooperate with Steven Klein for a photoshoot entitled "Domestic Bliss" for the July 2005 edition of W magazine. The spread showed Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a 1963 married couple with children who were experiencing differences in an era where he believed the importance of maintaining a "facade" was becoming complicated.
Relationship with Angelina Jolie
After the end of his marriage to Jennifer Aniston, he and Angelina Jolie were involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal in which she was the "other woman" who caused the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. They both deny that it happened during the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. In an interview with Ann Curry in June 2005, Angelina Jolie explained:"To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife." While Jolie and Pitt never publicly commented about the nature of their relationship, speculations continued throughout 2005. The first intimate paparazzi photos emerged 9 April 05 (and were reported to have cost $500,000), one month after Aniston had filed for divorce. They show Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya. During the summer Jolie and Pitt were seen together with increasing frequency and most of the entertainment media considered them a couple, dubbing them "Brangelina". Two months later Brad and Angelina posed as a married couple for the July 2005 W magazine.
Pitt grew close to Jolie during the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. In July 2005 he accompanied Jolie to Ethiopia, where Jolie adopted a six-month-old girl; later Jolie indicated that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt Zahara together. In December 2005 it was confirmed that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children as his (as part of legal requirements), classified advertisements in the Los Angeles paper Daily Commerce announcing the name change request. On January 19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request. The children's legal surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".
On January 11, 2006 Jolie confirmed to People magazine that she was pregnant with Pitt's child and thereby confirmed their relationship for the first time in public. On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, at night at the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia. Shiloh was born by a scheduled cesarean section, due to breech presentation, and Pitt was there to cut her umbilical cord. The couple's Los Angeles obstetrician was assisted by local staff. Shiloh, according to a long-standing translation from the Bible, has come to mean "the peaceful one", and is in actuality a masculine noun.
Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter will have a Namibian passport while speaking to local journalists. Jolie decided to offer the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these extremely valuable snapshots. People paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million; the total rights sale earned up to $10 million worldwide – the most expensive celebrity image of all time. All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Jolie and Pitt. On July 26, 2006 Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it is the first infant re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds. In an August 2006 survey, 41 percent of the participating 18- to 24-year-old American adults correctly identified that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie named their baby Shiloh.
The Jolie-Pitt children
Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt (originally Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie) adopted at 7 months old on 10 March 2002. He was born on August 5, 2001 as Rath Vibol in Cambodia and he initially lived in a local orphanage in Battambang. Maddox's name is Celtic in origin, usually translated as "beneficent." His middle name is Khmer for "life" and is borne by a member of the Cambodian royal family, Prince Sisowath Chivan Monirak. Jolie calls him "Mad". Maddox has gained a considerable celebrity and appears regularly in the tabloid media; he was named the "cutest celebrity kid" and he is known for this Mohawk hairstyle.
Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt was born on November 29, 2003 as Pham Quang Sang. On March 2, 2007, Vu Duc Long (head of Vietnam's international adoption department) confirmed that Jolie has filed papers to adopt a child from Vietnam. The adoption process is expected to "take a few months". On March 16, 2007, Jolie went to Vietnam (with Maddox) to get her new son. Since the Vietnam orphanage does not allow non married couples to adopt, Jolie adopted as a single parent.
Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt (originally Zahara Marley Jolie), adopted at 6 months old on 6 July 2005. She was born on January 8, 2005 as Tena Adam (her mother died from AIDS. Zahara does not have AIDS. Zahara's birth father is not known.) and adopted on 6 July 2005 from the Wide Horizons For Children orphanage in Addis Ababa. Shortly after they returned to the United States, Zahara had to spend time in a hospital for salmonella intestinal infection as well as dehydration and malnutrition. Jolie stated that "she was six months and not nine pounds. Her skin, you could squeeze it, it stuck together". Zahara's name means "flower" in Swahili; middle name "Marley" is from late Jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley. Zahara's nickname is "Zee".
Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt was born at night (Namibian local time) on May 27, 2006 at Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia. Shiloh was born by a scheduled cesarean section, due to breech presentation, and Pitt was there to cut her umbilical cord. The couple's Los Angeles obstetrician, Jason Rothbart, M.D., was assisted by local staff. Shiloh, according to a long-standing translation from the Bible, has come to mean "the peaceful one"; middle name Nouvel is named after Jean Nouvel, one of Pitt's favourite architects. The family divides their time between Los Angeles, California and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Life in New Orleans
In an interview with the Times-Picayune, while filming The curious case of Benjamin Button, Pitt said "I can't describe why we're allowed to live a more normal life (in New Orleans)". He went on to say "Living in the French Quarter is a thrill for us," he said. "We have some semblance of real family life. People have been very, very gracious with us. If we're on the front deck, people go by and say, 'Hi.' Then they go on their way, very friendly."
In popular culture
In 1995, Pitt was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history. Pitt has also twice been named the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine.
Pitt is also prominently featured in the December 2006 Art Issue of Vanity Fair. Pitt appears on the cover in nothing but a pair of white boxers. The cover promotes an article on the Robert Wilson video portraits, a production of LAB HD that includes numerous celebrities and noted personalities. This cover has drawn criticism from Pitt because although he had signed a release for the image, he did not expect it to end up on the cover of Vanity Fair more than a year later. The video portrait, which represents Pitt’s first effort in avant-garde cinema, was exhibited at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.
In May 2007, Pitt was spotted with a tattoo on his inner left forearm: the outline of Otzi the Iceman, who was found in an Italian glacier in 1991. Experts say that Otzi's (or Oetzi) historic body, Europe's oldest natural human mummy, was preserved in the ice in around 3300 BC.[36]
Biography of Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He became known during the mid 1990s, after starring roles in several major Hollywood films, including Interview with the Vampire in 1994 and the thriller Se7en in 1995. Pitt has been nominated for an Academy Award and has won a Golden Globe Award, both for his role in Twelve Monkeys (1996).Pitt is repeatedly named as one of the most attractive men alive by magazines and his marriage to Jennifer Aniston and current relationship with Angelina Jolie is widely covered in the world media.
Early life
Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma to Jane Etta Hillhouse (high school counselor) and William Alvin Pitt (truck company owner). He and his two siblings, Doug Pitt and Julie Neal Pitt[1], grew up in Springfield, Missouri, where the family moved soon after his birth. Pitt's parents and siblings still live near Springfield.
His fourth cousin is author R J Hillhouse.
Pitt was raised as Baptist by religion and is of English ancestry.[citation needed] At Kickapoo High School, he was involved in sports, debating, student government, and acting. He attended the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri - Columbia where he became a member of The Sigma Chi fraternity.
Acting career
In 1987, he arrived in Beverly Hills, California. Pitt studied under coach Roy London for six years. He first appeared in the sitcom Head Of The Class, for a while dating the show's star Robin Givens. He also guest starred in two episodes of Growing Pains. Pitt appeared as Chris in the long-running soap Another World. While auditioning for the show Our House, he was asked to read for another part, and found himself playing Shalane McCall's boyfriend Charles in Dallas. He also had a number of roles in prime time series such as thirtysomething, 21 Jump Street, and Freddy's Nightmares. Pitt appeared uncredited in both Less Than Zero and Charlie Sheen's No Man's Land before appearing in Cutting Class, about a maniac stalking cheerleaders. He began dating co-star Jill Schoelen.
In 1988, Pitt had his first starring role, in Dark Side Of The Sun, where he played a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. The movie was shot in Yugoslavia in the summer of '88 with Brad being paid $1,523 a week for seven weeks. However, with editing nearly complete, war broke out and much of the film was lost. The film was released years later. Pitt won a part in the TV movie Too Young to Die?, about an abused teenager given the death penalty for murder. Pitt played the part of a drug addict, Silly Canton, who took advantage of runaway Juliette Lewis, who Pitt began dating in real life. "It was quite romantic", he later observed dryly "shooting her full of drugs and stuff". The pair would be together for three years.
1991–1993
In 1991, Pitt starred as Joe Maloney in Across the Tracks in which he portrayed a high school runner with a difficult criminal brother played by Ricky Schroder. Pitt attracted broader public attention from a supporting role in Thelma & Louise where he played a small time criminal drifter in a love scene with Geena Davis.
After Thelma and Louise, Pitt starred in the low budget 1991 film Johnny Suede as an awkward dreamer who aspired to be a big-haired rock star alongside Catherine Keener and Nick Cave, directed by Tom DiCillo. Pitt had agreed to play the part before Thelma & Louise was released. After appearing in Cool World, Pitt starred in Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It in 1992, for which Pitt learned fly fishing by casting off of Hollywood buildings. Then came Kalifornia in 1993, a road movie in which he played a scruffy serial killer alongside his then girlfriend Juliette Lewis and X-Files actor David Duchovny.
1994–2000
In 1994, Pitt played vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the movie adaptation of Anne Rice's novel Interview With The Vampire. Pitt played the eighteenth century vampire which required several hours work in make-up on set to achieve the white skin of the character and he had to wear a pair of luminous green eyes, vampire fangs and a shoulder-length hairpiece to complete the appearance. Pitt worked with the eleven-year-old Kirsten Dunst, as well as Tom Cruise, Christian Slater and Antonio Banderas. He then starred in Legends of the Fall and Se7en. In Se7en Pitt starred as the police detective David Mills alongside Morgan Freeman in the hunt for a serial killer played by Kevin Spacey.
Pitt was then nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Jeffrey Goines in the 1995 film Twelve Monkeys in which he acted alongside Bruce Willis. In 1997 Pitt played the IRA terrorist Rory Devany in The Devil's Own alongside Harrison Ford, the first of several films where he has acted using an Irish accent. Reportedly Pitt had a difficult time with the making of the film and expressed his unhappiness with the final script which had apparently been rewritten seven times.
That same year he played the main role of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean 
Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet. Pitt trained for months for the role which demanded a great deal of trekking and mountain climbing, working out with co-star English actor David Thewlis by rock climbing in California and the Alps. Due to the themes of Tibetan nationalism in the film, the Chinese government banned Pitt and Thewlis from China for life. In 1998, Pitt starred as the main character in the film Meet Joe Black. Pitt starred as a personification of Death inhabiting the body of a young man in order to learn what it is like to be human while informing a billionaire tycoon that his life on Earth is nearly over. The film gave Pitt another chance to work alongside Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins whom he had previously worked with in Legends of the Fall.
In 1999 Brad Pitt starred in Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Working with his previous director whom he had worked with on Se7en Pitt portrayed the character of Tyler Durden, a highly colorful and complex character.
In 2000 Pitt played the role of Mickey, a gypsy Irish boxer in the gangster movie Snatch alongside Vinnie Jones and Benicio Del Toro. The film was a wild caper involving a diamond heist, Russian and American mafia and the shady underground world , that saw Pitt brought in as a ringer by two failing promoters. The movie saw him moving on from his attempt at the conventional Devil's Own Northern Irish accent, and perhaps inspired by his co-star Benicio Del Toro's recent performance in The Usual Suspects, Pitt created a just-barely-intelligible accent suggesting the Irish Gypsies, referred to as Pikeys in the movie. Pitt continued to train for the role, and honed his boxing skills at Ricky English's gym in Watford.
2001–2007
After his wedding to Friends actress Jennifer Aniston on July 29, 2000, he immediately began filming for Spy Game, a Cold War thriller in which he starred alongside veteran actor Robert Redford playing the role of his mentor. In 2001 Brad Pitt worked with long-term friend and actress Julia Roberts in the comical road movie The Mexican. At the end of the year, Pitt finished filming Ocean's Eleven with George Clooney and Matt Damon, a remake of the 1960s version which starred Frank Sinatra. The film established a close friendship between the three, particularly between Pitt and Clooney.
Brad Pitt at the Incirlik hospital, Incirlik Air BaseSince then, he has starred in numerous films, including Ocean's Twelve and the epic Troy, based on the Iliad, in which he portrayed the legendary hero Achilles. Ironically, during the production of Troy, Pitt tore his Achilles tendon, delaying production for several weeks. In 2005, Pitt starred in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which he and Angelina Jolie played husband and wife assassins.
In March 2006, it was announced that Paramount had purchased the rights to The Sparrow for Pitt's production company, Plan B, and that Pitt would be playing the lead role of Sandoz. In June 2006 it was announced that Paramount and Plan B will be working on a new zombie film called World War Z, based on the book of the same name by Max Brooks.
Pitt made his return to Hollywood in late 2006, with Alejandro González Iñárritu's critically acclaimed Babel, starring alongside Cate Blanchett. The movie garnered a total of seven Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, one of which was a Golden Globe nomination for Pitt as Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. The movie has since become Pitt's highest grossing drama.
In 2007, Pitt was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.
Other work
Pitt has appeared in television commercials in Asia, such as for Edwin Jeans, the Toyota Altis, and Japanese canned coffee, ROOTS. He also appeared in a Heineken commercial which aired during the 2005 Super Bowl. It was directed by David Fincher, who directed Pitt in the feature films Se7en and Fight Club. Together with Aniston and Paramount Pictures head Brad Grey, Pitt is the co-founder of the production company 'Plan B'. Aniston is no longer a partner in the company, although she is still attached to many projects that were set up before her divorce with Pitt. The company produced the blockbuster Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp.
He has also had a cameo appearance in season 8 of Friends and on an episode of MTV's Jackass, in which he took part in a staged abduction of himself. In a later episode, he and some cast-members run wild through the streets of Los Angeles in gorilla suits.
Pitt has been an active supporter of research into diseases such as AIDS.
Pitt is behind Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur, along with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub.
7/03/2007
Beautiful Sexy Turkish Belly Dance
I've posted one video of this girl dancing a few days ago. And here is another one. Enjoy...
Nurse survives window blowout in air ambulance at 20,000 feet
From www.cnn.com
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- A critical-care nurse aboard an air ambulance fought to keep from being sucked out of the cabin when a window blew out of the aircraft at 20,000 feet.
"I guess it wasn't my day to die," said Chris Fogg, who lives near Boise, Idaho, and was flying with a patient and the pilot last Wednesday from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Seattle. "For anyone else, I think he would have been sucked completely out, but for some reason I was spared, and I don't know why."
Fogg's head and right arm were pulled outside the window, and he suffered cuts to his head. Some equipment, charts, his eye glasses and packages went flying out of the cabin.
The rapid decompression occurred when Fogg was unbuckled from his seat and reaching for a water bottle.
Fogg, 41, is 6 feet tall and weighs 220 pounds. He said his size may have helped him avoid being sucked out of the twin-engine turboprop plane.
"My left hand was on the ceiling and was holding me in, and my knees were up against the wall," Fogg told The Seattle Times in a story published Monday. He said he pushed as hard as he could and got enough air between his chest and the window to break the suction and pull himself back inside the aircraft.
"I have a vivid picture of looking at the tail of the plane and seeing my headset dangling out of the plane," Fogg said.
He fell back into his seat, and grabbed one of the patient's pillows to stop the blood pouring from his head. He said the pilot knew the cabin had decompressed but was not aware of the broken window, so he put the airplane into a dive to a safe altitude of 10,000 feet.
"I kept saying, 'Don't pass out, don't pass out, I have a patient on board and I have to take care of the patient,"' he told the newspaper.
Fogg said the patient, who saw the whole thing, was not in danger because he was on oxygen. The man was a Vietnam veteran and told Fogg he had flashbacks of being shot out of the air.
The pilot made an emergency landing in Boise, and Fogg was rushed to the hospital, where he needed 13 stitches in his head.
Fogg has worked for the Ada-Boi air ambulance service for 24 years, which his father owns. The next day he was back at work.
"It was pretty scary, I'll tell you that," Fogg said.
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- A critical-care nurse aboard an air ambulance fought to keep from being sucked out of the cabin when a window blew out of the aircraft at 20,000 feet.
"I guess it wasn't my day to die," said Chris Fogg, who lives near Boise, Idaho, and was flying with a patient and the pilot last Wednesday from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Seattle. "For anyone else, I think he would have been sucked completely out, but for some reason I was spared, and I don't know why."
Fogg's head and right arm were pulled outside the window, and he suffered cuts to his head. Some equipment, charts, his eye glasses and packages went flying out of the cabin.
The rapid decompression occurred when Fogg was unbuckled from his seat and reaching for a water bottle.
Fogg, 41, is 6 feet tall and weighs 220 pounds. He said his size may have helped him avoid being sucked out of the twin-engine turboprop plane.
"My left hand was on the ceiling and was holding me in, and my knees were up against the wall," Fogg told The Seattle Times in a story published Monday. He said he pushed as hard as he could and got enough air between his chest and the window to break the suction and pull himself back inside the aircraft.
"I have a vivid picture of looking at the tail of the plane and seeing my headset dangling out of the plane," Fogg said.
He fell back into his seat, and grabbed one of the patient's pillows to stop the blood pouring from his head. He said the pilot knew the cabin had decompressed but was not aware of the broken window, so he put the airplane into a dive to a safe altitude of 10,000 feet.
"I kept saying, 'Don't pass out, don't pass out, I have a patient on board and I have to take care of the patient,"' he told the newspaper.
Fogg said the patient, who saw the whole thing, was not in danger because he was on oxygen. The man was a Vietnam veteran and told Fogg he had flashbacks of being shot out of the air.
The pilot made an emergency landing in Boise, and Fogg was rushed to the hospital, where he needed 13 stitches in his head.
Fogg has worked for the Ada-Boi air ambulance service for 24 years, which his father owns. The next day he was back at work.
"It was pretty scary, I'll tell you that," Fogg said.
7/02/2007
Delicious Scrambled Eggs With Tomatoes
Ingrediants:
(1) 4 eggs;
(2) 1 or 2 tomatoes;
(3) 1/3 green onion;
(4) cooking oil;
(5) ginger;
Sauces:
(1) 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoon sugar;
(2) 1/4 teaspoon salt, 4 tablespoon water, 1/2 tablespoon starchy sauce;
Preparation:
(1) In a mixing bowel, beat eggs and bleand it well, then add sauce (1);
(2) Cut the peel of tomato into a cross shape; put 3 bowels of water into the pot, don't add tomato until the water is boiling; after adding tomato, wait for about 2 minutes until the peel splits. Then put the hot tomatoes into cold water and get rid of the peel; cut tomato into small cantlets;
(3) Cut green onion into small cantlets and cuts up ginger very fine;
(4) add 3 tablespoon cooking oil, when the oil becomes hot, pour the egg mixture, quickly fry the egg mixture, dish out the eggs when it's get set;
(5) Then use the other 2 tablespoon to fry the green onion cantlets, ginger, then add tomato cantlets, sauce (2);
(6) Add the fried eggs together with the other materials, dish out them until all the matierials get well blended.
For Chinese version click the link below:
7/01/2007
Big iPhone headache: Waiting for AT&T activation
From: http://news.com.com/
So I admit it: I bought an iPhone.
That was the easy part. I should have realized that if the customer service whizzes at AT&T could find a way to mar what was otherwise a perfectly pleasant experience, they would. After nearly nine hours, AT&T has yet to activate my iPhone, and it can't be used until they get around to it, hopefully sometime before 2008.
Buying the iPhone is easy, but AT&T activation isn't.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)But I'm getting ahead of myself. Earlier on Friday, I had taken photographs of the throngs gathered outside the San Francisco Apple store at 6 p.m., and the far more sedate crowd outside the Market Street AT&T store, and decided not to bother standing in line for an iPhone that evening.
I figured I'd read some more early reviews and then pick one up sometime in the next few days after the lines were shorter. And those reviews were promising, including one that said audio quality was superior. Seeing the iPhone ripped apart was also educational.
Then, around 11:30 p.m., I read our News.com article by my colleagues Tom Krazit and Erica Ogg. They had stayed longer than I did and reported that: "Ninety minutes after Apple started ringing up sales of the iPhone at its 24-hour flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York, anyone could just walk into the store and pick up a device with a minimal wait."
Well, Apple stores were open until midnight, so why not? Around 11:40 p.m., I persuaded my wife to join me in a late-night dash to the Stockton Street store.
Yes, they had iPhones. Yes, the sales staff were exhausted after performing crowd control earlier. Yes, there were still two San Francisco policemen standing guard outside, looking slightly bored by now. But there were only two people in line in front of me, including one desperate fellow who had driven far too fast from Marin County north of San Francisco to make the midnight deadline after finding that an Apple store up there had run out of 8GB models.
So far, so good. When I got home, I plugged the 8 GB iPhone into our media-server iMac and typed my information into iTunes. I received an e-mail message at 12:10 a.m. saying: "AT&T is now processing your activation. You will receive an e-mail confirmation once your activation is complete." I had an existing AT&T account, so I figured that adding the $20/month iPhone wireless plan should take only one or two minutes.
Then I waited. And waited. And waited.
It's now 9:06 a.m., and still no change. Against my better judgment, I even took the God-help-me-now step of phoning AT&T customer support, something you should never do unless you're absolutely desperate and learn that some malcontent is running up calls to Zambia on your mobile account, and probably not even then.
Mary-Kay eventually answered. "Unfortunately, sir, you do have to wait," she wearily replied, presumably sick of having to answer this question once a minute since her shift began. "The iPhone will tell you when it is activated."
How long would this take, I asked. Five days? Two months? "I doubt that," Mary-Kay replied. "Believe you me, you're not the only one in those shoes. They did get jammed up last night. It's first-come first-served."
I began to ask her if my existing AT&T phone would continue to work, but the line seemed to go dead. It could be my sucky VoIP service, or Mary-Kay could have hung up on me. I really wouldn't blame her for iPhone ennui after dealing frustrated my-activation-hasn't-happened-yet customers all day.
Now, I've been a computer programmer longer than I've been a journalist, and I find it hard to imagine any system that should take nearly nine hours to perform a database query, do a credit check, and whatever other black box magic is necessary to make this gadget actually work. It's even less likely that the system should take this long in the middle of the night after the east coast iPhone binge should, in theory, have abated hours earlier. And I'm already an AT&T customer, too.
Any bets on how long it'll take AT&T to activate this guy's iPhone?
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)Occam's razor suggests that the more likely explanation is that AT&T has such antiquated computers that some poor saps in another secret AT&T division somewhere in a New Delhi office park are keystroking in my account update by hand. Seriously. We may never know, but it sounds about right.
I'm hardly alone. Some reports indicate AT&T activation is a recurring problem. One local Fox news channel article is titled "iPhone debuts with big headaches." A LiveJournal user entry buttresses my theory by reporting that the AT&T "transfer team" gets in to work at 9 a.m. PDT.
There's speculation that existing AT&T SIM cards may work with the iPhone, but I haven't tried that yet. Some posts in that thread are saying AT&T is telling customers they need to wait for 24 hours because of high volume. Some people are saying that their existing AT&T phones become unusable during the transition, though at least that hasn't happened to me so far.
It's important to stress that the iPhone can't be used for anything useful, not even iPoddish features such as playing music or movies, until activation happens.
The bottom line? Apple did everything it could to ensure that buying and setting up (and presumably using, though I can't attest to that yet) an iPhone is a pleasant experience. It succeeded magnificently.
But its key business partner, AT&T, has failed miserably. Computer companies know how to load-test a server to figure out how it will respond under unusually high demand. Why didn't AT&T do the same for its internal procedures to handle iPhone activation?
Update 2:13 p.m. PT: I received an e-mail message at 12:35 pm PT from the customer-friendly address of do_not_reply@att.com saying: "We are currently processing your order... You will receive an additional e-mail when your order is complete that will provide further instructions to activate your iPhone." Oh, so my order is being processed? Thanks for the informative message. I would never have guessed.
So I admit it: I bought an iPhone.
That was the easy part. I should have realized that if the customer service whizzes at AT&T could find a way to mar what was otherwise a perfectly pleasant experience, they would. After nearly nine hours, AT&T has yet to activate my iPhone, and it can't be used until they get around to it, hopefully sometime before 2008.
Buying the iPhone is easy, but AT&T activation isn't.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)But I'm getting ahead of myself. Earlier on Friday, I had taken photographs of the throngs gathered outside the San Francisco Apple store at 6 p.m., and the far more sedate crowd outside the Market Street AT&T store, and decided not to bother standing in line for an iPhone that evening.
I figured I'd read some more early reviews and then pick one up sometime in the next few days after the lines were shorter. And those reviews were promising, including one that said audio quality was superior. Seeing the iPhone ripped apart was also educational.
Then, around 11:30 p.m., I read our News.com article by my colleagues Tom Krazit and Erica Ogg. They had stayed longer than I did and reported that: "Ninety minutes after Apple started ringing up sales of the iPhone at its 24-hour flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York, anyone could just walk into the store and pick up a device with a minimal wait."
Well, Apple stores were open until midnight, so why not? Around 11:40 p.m., I persuaded my wife to join me in a late-night dash to the Stockton Street store.
Yes, they had iPhones. Yes, the sales staff were exhausted after performing crowd control earlier. Yes, there were still two San Francisco policemen standing guard outside, looking slightly bored by now. But there were only two people in line in front of me, including one desperate fellow who had driven far too fast from Marin County north of San Francisco to make the midnight deadline after finding that an Apple store up there had run out of 8GB models.
So far, so good. When I got home, I plugged the 8 GB iPhone into our media-server iMac and typed my information into iTunes. I received an e-mail message at 12:10 a.m. saying: "AT&T is now processing your activation. You will receive an e-mail confirmation once your activation is complete." I had an existing AT&T account, so I figured that adding the $20/month iPhone wireless plan should take only one or two minutes.
Then I waited. And waited. And waited.
It's now 9:06 a.m., and still no change. Against my better judgment, I even took the God-help-me-now step of phoning AT&T customer support, something you should never do unless you're absolutely desperate and learn that some malcontent is running up calls to Zambia on your mobile account, and probably not even then.
Mary-Kay eventually answered. "Unfortunately, sir, you do have to wait," she wearily replied, presumably sick of having to answer this question once a minute since her shift began. "The iPhone will tell you when it is activated."
How long would this take, I asked. Five days? Two months? "I doubt that," Mary-Kay replied. "Believe you me, you're not the only one in those shoes. They did get jammed up last night. It's first-come first-served."
I began to ask her if my existing AT&T phone would continue to work, but the line seemed to go dead. It could be my sucky VoIP service, or Mary-Kay could have hung up on me. I really wouldn't blame her for iPhone ennui after dealing frustrated my-activation-hasn't-happened-yet customers all day.
Now, I've been a computer programmer longer than I've been a journalist, and I find it hard to imagine any system that should take nearly nine hours to perform a database query, do a credit check, and whatever other black box magic is necessary to make this gadget actually work. It's even less likely that the system should take this long in the middle of the night after the east coast iPhone binge should, in theory, have abated hours earlier. And I'm already an AT&T customer, too.
Any bets on how long it'll take AT&T to activate this guy's iPhone?
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)Occam's razor suggests that the more likely explanation is that AT&T has such antiquated computers that some poor saps in another secret AT&T division somewhere in a New Delhi office park are keystroking in my account update by hand. Seriously. We may never know, but it sounds about right.
I'm hardly alone. Some reports indicate AT&T activation is a recurring problem. One local Fox news channel article is titled "iPhone debuts with big headaches." A LiveJournal user entry buttresses my theory by reporting that the AT&T "transfer team" gets in to work at 9 a.m. PDT.
There's speculation that existing AT&T SIM cards may work with the iPhone, but I haven't tried that yet. Some posts in that thread are saying AT&T is telling customers they need to wait for 24 hours because of high volume. Some people are saying that their existing AT&T phones become unusable during the transition, though at least that hasn't happened to me so far.
It's important to stress that the iPhone can't be used for anything useful, not even iPoddish features such as playing music or movies, until activation happens.
The bottom line? Apple did everything it could to ensure that buying and setting up (and presumably using, though I can't attest to that yet) an iPhone is a pleasant experience. It succeeded magnificently.
But its key business partner, AT&T, has failed miserably. Computer companies know how to load-test a server to figure out how it will respond under unusually high demand. Why didn't AT&T do the same for its internal procedures to handle iPhone activation?
Update 2:13 p.m. PT: I received an e-mail message at 12:35 pm PT from the customer-friendly address of do_not_reply@att.com saying: "We are currently processing your order... You will receive an additional e-mail when your order is complete that will provide further instructions to activate your iPhone." Oh, so my order is being processed? Thanks for the informative message. I would never have guessed.
Apple's iPhone hits the US
The launch of Apple's new iPhone in New York has sent gadget lovers into a flurry.
Hundreds of people camped outside Apple stores to be among the first to buy the sleek phone which also acts as an iPod and a wireless web browser.
More than 400 of the touch screen phones have already been put up for sale on popular auction website eBay.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has touted the device as "revolutionary," and the company is hoping to sell 10 million units across the world by 2008.
The firm is also expecting that the new venture will become its third core business alongside its popular iPod music players and Macintosh computers.
UK fans will not be treated to the latest Apple installment for the moment as it is not expected to hit the European market until later in the year.
One of My Bodybuilding Photos
I took some photos while I was doing exercises today. And this one is my favorite.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
