I would like to think Voodoo is a tool for stress management passed down to generations from ancient wisdom.  “The Voodoo Revenge Book: An Anger Management Program You Can Really Stick With” by Mark Shulman was published by Main Street in 2002. The book is hilarious but a great therapy book for anger management!  The Voodoo Revenge Book comes with a gift set that includes a voodoo doll and eight pins.  When you are really mad at your enemy or your stupid colleague, just pin the needles onto the voodoo doll to release all your anger.

Mandarin is the most spoken language in this world, followed by Spanish and English.  Vietnamese is not even in the top 10 list, so why bother learning Vietnamese?

1. For the Pho Bo (Vietnamese beef noodle soup)

Pho actually refers to Vietnamese noodle soup.  The noodles are made from rice.  Together with Asian basil, mint leaves, lime, and bean sprouts, the dish is just so d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!

2. Elly Tran Ha

Elly Tran Ha is not some kind of Kung Fu.  Elly Tran Ha (real name: Tran Kim Hong) is a Vietnamese girl, a sweet combination of cuttie and hottie.  The super hot Elly is from Ho Chi Minh City.  She was a blogger turned celebrity.  She is also known as Paris Hilton of Vietnam.

3. The Vietnam War

For full story, please refer to Wikipedia’s Vietnam War.

4. Ha Long Bay

Ha Long bay is definitely a place that will take your breath away.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a very popular travel destination.  The word Ha Long Bay literally means descending dragon bay.  The bay has thousands of limestone islets in various sizes and shapes

5. Coffee!

Do you know Vietnamese is the world second largest coffee producer?  But their coffee is really strong.  Coffee was introduced to Vietnamese when French came to the nation.  In Vietnam, the Vietnamese-grown dark roast coffee is brewed with a small metal French drip filter into a cup, then sweetened condensed milk is added as fresh milk is not easy to obtain in old time.  A bold, sweet and smooth drink.

NTC’s Vietnamese-English Dictionary

The NTC’s Vietnamese-English Dictionary is published by NTC Publishing Group.  The reference material includes all essential words and even slang.  Do keep in mind that the dictionary is Vietnamese-English, not English-Vietnamese. It is good to have some Vietnamese language knowledge to use the reference material.  If you need an English-Vietnamese dictionary, below are several options:

All food will be perfect will the touch of bacon.  Bacon is like a meat from heaven.

The book “Bacon: A Love Story” is a funny and entertaining book for bacon lovers. The book includes more than twenty bacon recipes, including Bacon Bloody Marys and Bacon Brownies.  The book is also covers topics like bacon production and bacon songs.  The author Heather Lauer is a popular bacon blogger of BaconUnwrapped.com.

Deborah L. Martin’s “Best-Ever Backyard Birding Tips: Hundreds of Easy Ways to Attract the Birds You Love to Watch (Rodale Organic Gardening Books)” may not be as good as what he claimed, but the book does give comprehensive basic information on different types of birds and teaches on methods for becoming “bird-friendly”.  You can simply watch birds like tiny hummingbirds or large blue jays with the tips provided in the book.  By reading Best-Ever Backyard Birding, you will know how do plants, trees, landscapres, water, and many other things may affect the “birdscape” for your bird watching pleasure.  Good book for beginners.

There are hell lots of things to learn in the Otaku world.  Otaku refers to obsessive adult collectors of manga and anime in Japan.

Other than “Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals“, you can learn about this subculture of Japan from the this encyclopedia titled “The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider’s Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan“.  The encyclopedia contains over 600 entries, including the fact and history of Otaku.  Author Patrick W. Galbraith spent years researching otaku in Japan.  He interviewed key players including Takashi Murakami, Okada Toshio,and Shoko Nakagawa.  Definitely a fun and great reference book to know more about Otaku!

This is not a StarCraft strategy or cheat book.  The book is more realistic than StarCraft in building your very own country.  “How To Start Your Own Country“, written by Erwin S. Strauss, shows five different ways to build a country.  The methods covered are sovereignty, national defense, diplomacy, raising revenue and recruiting settlers.

Did anyone tell you that “if you can train a dolphin, you can train a goldfish”?

The fact is no one ever told me before until I came across this weird book “How to Train Goldfish Using Dolphin Training Techniques“.  The book has only 40 pages, which includes chapters like “swimming through a hoop”, “ball pushing”, “basketball”, “ring retrieval”, etc.  Perhaps you can use dolphin training techniques to train seahorse too.

Tha computer-animated 3-D film “Astro Boy” was released on October 23, 2009.  The film was based on the late Osamu Tezuka’s original manga series of Astro Boy.  The manga was a classic in Japanese manga history.  The science fiction manga is about a robot named Astro Boy living in a futuristic world where robots co-exist with humans.  Astro Boy was created by the head of Ministry of Science to replace his son Tobio, who passed away in a car accident tragedy.  Astro boy was gifted to experience human emotions, as well as superior powers and skills.  He fought crime, evil and injustice, especially the robot-hating humans, crazy robots and alien invaders.  The manga was first published in 1952, and was first broadcast in Japan in 1963 as well as the first manga series to be adapted to animation.  Below are the English version of Astro Boy manga translated by Frederik L. Schodt of Dark Horse Comics.

Volumes 1 & 2

Volume 3

Volume 4

Volume 5

Astro Boy, Vol. 6

Volume 7

Volume 8

Volume 9

Volume 10

Volume 11

Volume 12

Volume 13

Volume 14

Volume 15

Volume 16

Volume 17

Volume 18

Volume 19

Volume 20

Volume 21

Volume 22

Volume 23

“Natural Harvest – A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes” is the weirdest recipe book I ever see.  As the title of the book suggested, the ingredient semen is indeed naturally harvested.  I have never tasted semen before, and I would not know how complex and dynamic the taste is.  Inexpensive? Yes.  Commonly available? Yes, but depends on how you get it, and I strongly believe age, sleeping quality, diet and many factors affect the quality of the ingredient.  Perhaps a good survival tip when you have nothing to eat.  A semen lover advised to freeze the ‘juice’ into ice cubes as they are not sustainable, and melt them when required.  Well, semen after all is a natural source of proteins, vitamins and minerals.  It also contains elements like selenium, glycoproteins, testosterone, blood-group antigens, fructose, zinc, vitamins B12 and C.  The price for the recipes is £15.57.

“Otaku” refers to obsessive adult collectors of manga and anime in Japan.  These people were treated as strange and antisocial loners in the Japanese society, however their impact on popular culture is spread throughout Asia, Europe and the United States.  Hiroki Azuma, the codirector of the Academy of Humanities in the Center for the Study of World Civilizations at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, studied the history and philosophy of the unique charateristics and behaviour of this consumer subculture which is created in postwar Japanese society.  The book “Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals” described arising consumerism leads to creation of a database of plot and characters to fulfill the consumers’ day-to-day desires.  This group of consumers are known as “database animals”.