BBC Dictatorland series

This short three-part series was recommended to me by YouTube. It looks at Belarus, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. With so much chaos and violence in "democratic" countries like the Philippines and Brazil, maybe the majority of the people in these ex-Soviet states prefer stability.

Bonn cherry blossoms

Sinclair shows our dystopian future is here

Sinclair is a pro-Trump corporation that owns many, many local news stations. It made its local new anchors read this script.

Eating the Globe: Mozambique

One hobby I need to restart is this food series. There is a Portuguese restaurant in San Francisco that serves Camarao (Shrimp) a Mocambique. But it's only open for dinner and we are never there at that time. So I cooked it at home last night. I found a recipe online. It was a bit on the bland side. I think it's because I went really easy on the paprika and hot sauce for the boy. By the way, he is going to turn one next week!

Countries tried so far:
Africa: Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Tunisia, Zimbabwe
Asia: Afghanistan, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, China, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen
Europe: Albania, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine
North America: Belize, Canada, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Trinidad & Tobago, USA
South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela
Oceania: Australia, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga

I'm back

It has been very difficult to blog consistently recently. Between work and the boy, I have been exhausted. I just finished a couple of big projects at work so I should have some spare time. In fact, I took last Friday off and had breakfast at Lois the Pie Queen in Oakland.

Reggie Jackson is a famous baseball player from the 70s and 80s. He played for the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees. This special plate is named after him. 

Citroen XM on the track

!!!

1991 Citroën XM. Clean, 77k km, maintenance records, never tracked... oh wait. #radwood #radwoodathooptiecon #CitroenXM Thx 📷: @bigcitrus510

A post shared by Rich Chen (@rchen) on Mar 28, 2018 at 8:13pm PDT

Costume and lighting changes

F1 halo

I'm so happy for Alonso that his McLaren is better and more reliable this year.

I'm trying to find stickers online to affix to the boy's orange McLaren push car. Any ideas other than eBay?

Guy makes knife out of aluminum foil

Marzieh Ebrahimi, Iranian acid attack victim