What Doctor Wu says

Q: Doctor, I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true? 
A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually.  Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut  down on meat and eat more fruits and  vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies.  What does a cow eat? Hay and corn.
And what are these? Vegetables.  So a steak is nothing more than an efficient

mechanism of  delivering vegetables to your system.  Need grain? Eat chicken.   
Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A:  No, not at all.  Wine is made from fruit.  Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way.   Beer is also made out of grain.  Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one.  
If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program? 
A: Can't think of a single one, sorry.  My philosophy is: No Pain...Good!
  
Q:  Aren't fried foods bad for you?
A:  YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! .....  Foods are fried these days in vegetable   oil.  
     In fact, they're permeated in it.  How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?
 
Q:  Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle? 
A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. 
     You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q:  Is chocolate bad for me?  
A:  Are you crazy? HELLO!! Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! 
     It's the best feel-good food around!

Q:  Is swimming good for your figure?
A:  If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q:  Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?
A:  Hey! 'Round' is a shape!

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

And remember:

'Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention 
of  arriving  safely in an attractive and well preserved  body, 
but rather  to skid in sideways -
Chardonnay in one  hand - chocolate in  the other - 
body thoroughly used up,  totally worn out and   
screaming 'WOO  HOO, What a  Ride' 

   

AND...

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final  word on nutrition and health. 
It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like.

Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Durians, the king of fruits

Did you know that there are Durians that grow at the foot of the tree?

These are Durian Batu found in our jungles and they belong to the Orang Asli and are not commercially grown

World's Largest Flower

Río Blanco, Veracruz.

Something unusual happened in July in this town in the high mountans in the center zone of the State of Veracruz with the apparition of the plant listed as the largest flower of the planet.

The largest flower in the world was born in Río Blanco, Veracruz, México.
Two meters high and weighing 75 kilos, it has the peculiarity of blooming only during three days every 40 years.
Amorphophallus titanum, also called cadaverous flower has the pecularity of blooming only during three days every 40 years, a privilege that Mother Nature bestowed on this town in Veracruz .
The plant enters a dormant phase of several months after a leaf senesces, before sending up a replacement leaf and growing a new root system. Leaves are hysteranthous: flowers are borne by otherwise dormant plants. The timing of dormancy and growth phases seems to be more or less random with respect to the seasons; wild populations are reported to have plants in various stages of growth at any given time. It is unclear why the plants ever go dormant at all, given their equatorial habitat.
There are 16 species of rafflesia, found in Sumatra, Malaysia and Borneo. The species is named after the naturalist Sir Stamford Raffles, who founded the British colony of Singapore in 1819. Raffles discovered the parasitic plant with his friend Dr. Joseph Arnold during their travels in May 1818. The rafflesia arnoldi is named after the two.
Several species of Rafflesia grow in the jungles of Southeast Asia, all of them threatened or endangered. Not only is it the world’s largest flower, it is one of the most bizarre and improbable organisms on the planet.
It produces no leaves, stems or roots but lives as a parasite on the Tetrastigma vine, which grows only in primary (undisturbed) rainforest. Only the flower or bud can be seen; the rest of the plant exists only as filaments within its unfortunate host. The blossom is pollinated by flies attracted by its scent.

However fascinating and beautiful the rafflesia arnoldi may be, it is also called “corpse flower” and really reeks, the latter to attract flies for pollination.

( http://www.dirtdoctor.com/organic/garden/view_question/id/2896/ )

It is Purple Tuesday !

Or so it seems ...

( Photos by Roger )

From the rumbles of the Earthquake

Isn't it amazing!....

In the middle of the rumbles of the earthquake in Padang (Sumatra) the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary stands undisturbed...

World's Largest Book

The world's largest book stands upright, set in stone, in the grounds of the Kuthodaw (literally - royal merit) pagoda at the foot of Mandalay Hill in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma).
It has 730 leaves and 1460 pages; each page is three and a half feet wide, five feet tall and five inches thick. Each stone tablet has its own roof and precious gem on top in a small cave-like structure of Sinhalese relic casket type called kyauksa gu (stone inscription cave in Burmese), and they are arranged around a central golden pagoda.

The pagoda itself was built as part of the traditional foundations of the new royal city which also included a pitakat taik or library for religious scriptures, but King Mindon wanted to leave a great work of merit for posterity meant to last five millennia after the Gautama Buddha who lived around 500 BC. When the British invaded southern Burma in the mid nineteenth century, Mindon Min was concerned that Buddhist dhamma (teachings) would also be detrimentally affected in the North where he reigned. As well as organizing the Fifth Buddhist Synod in 1871, he was responsible for the construction in Mandalay of the world's largest book, consisting of 729 large marble tablets with the Tipitaka Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism inscribed on them in gold. One more was added to record how it all came about, making it 730 stone inscriptions in total.^[1]
The marble was quarried from Zagyin Hill 32 miles north of Mandalay, and transported by river to the city. Work began on 14 October 1860 in a large shed near Mandalay Palace. The text had been meticulously edited by tiers of senior monks and lay officials consulting the Tipitaka (literally - the three baskets, namely Vinaya Pitaka, Sutta Pitaka and Abhidhamma Pitaka) kept in royal libraries in the form of peisa or palm leaf manuscripts. Scribes carefully copied the text on marble for stonemasons. Each stone has 80 to 100 lines of inscription on each side in round Burmese script, chiselled out and originally filled in with gold ink. It took a scribe three days to copy both the obverse and the reverse sides, and a stonemason could finish up to 16 lines a day. All the stones were completed and open to the public on 4 May 1868

( Click on image to enlarge )

Sources :

1. Wikipedia

2. http://mendoncajose.blogspot.com/2009/02/worlds-biggest-book.html

Panasonic Lumix

Two photos from the Panasonic Lumix Show at Midvalley by Roger

The Red Temple

Photos by Roger Cruiser

Males of all species behave the same way

There is no doubt at all that across all species, the males behave similiarly

Stars Over Easter Island

Why were the statues on Easter Island built?


No one is sure. What is sure is that over 800 large stone statues exist there.


The Easter Island statues, stand, on the average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass. Few specifics are known about the history or meaning of the unusual statues, but many believe that they were created about 500 years ago in the images of local leaders of a lost civilization.


Pictured above, a large stone statue appears to ponder the distant Large Magellanic Cloud before a cloudy sky that features the bright stars Canopus and Sirius.

( http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0910/statuesky_guisard_big.jpg )

An Unusual Sight!

In November , the yacht 'Maiken' was traveling in the South Pacific when they came across a weird sight -

... It was sand in the water, and the sand was floating ON TOP of the waves..

This is not a beach, it is floating on the water.

And then this was spotted... Ash and steam rising from the ocean...

A brand new island formed...

Tonga volcanic eruption seen by yacht crew on 08 Nov 2006

Mother nature in all her amazing splendor!!!

Read more from this blog :

 

http://yacht-maiken.blogspot.com/