What this article touches on: AT&T Phones, Nexus One Talk, A Few Application Announcements, Other Phones in News, HP Smartbook and ICD Tablet, and the Powermat.

AT&T’s Android Phones

Some are saying one of the HTC phones coming to AT&T might the the HTC Lancaster. For a while there a bit back that was what was being reported.  Maybe?

Lancaster

As for Dell, they did in fact confirm it was the Mini 3 that was headed to AT&T. (Engadget has some nice pictures)

Mini 3

Nexus One Talk

- Barclays Capital analyst Doug Anmuth estimates 5 to 6 million Nexus One devices will be sold in 2010. Goodness.

- Howard Stern talks the Nexus One. We haven’t heard it but hear it’s nowhere near SFW. Listen in.

- As usual, the ‘ol cost of ownership comparison between top devices is out.

- Cooliris developed the media gallery for the N1 and joins OHA. Head over to AndroidGuys to read more.

- Philip K. Dick’s estate says Nexus One name infringes.

“We feel this is a clear infringement of our intellectual-property rights,” said Isa Dick Hackett, a daughter of Mr. Dick and the chief executive of Electric Shepherd Productions, an arm of the Dick estate devoted to adapting the late author’s works.”

We don’t know what’s going to come of this but it’s clear they aren’t happy. Check the sources to read all about it. Saw this on Engadget. Check the WSJ source to read more.

Sources: DigitalDaily | TechCrunch | BillShrink | AndroidGuys | Wall Street Journal

A Few Application Announcements

- Engadget has a great write up detailing the OnStar and Chevy application to be used to control the Volt.

“When the car is connected you can monitor the charging status and program it to delay its recharging, giving it a deadline for when you need it to be full and then letting it charge itself when the rates are lowest. Cool, but just the beginning. You can check driving statistics, honk the horn, lock or unlock the car, and even start it up, all from your handset.”

Head over to Engadget to read the whole thing and see plenty more pictures – as well as a video!

- Truphone has announced version 3 of it’s software for Android, which allows users to place VOIP calls over Wifi using Skype or Google Talk, and also allows users to chat using AIM, Google Talk, MSN, Skype, and Yahoo Messenger.

Android 1.5 and up, in the Market now.

- Also worth a mention, we  saw over at AndroidGuys that Flip Video has announced releasing a new app:

Available for iPhone, Blackberry, and Google’s Android platform (at no cost)

Mobile Devices currently supported: Apple iPhone, iPod touch; Blackberry Curve 8520, Curve 8900, and Bold 9000; Google G1 (T-Mobile) and MyTouch (T-Mobile)

View favorite FlipShare videos and photos

Access their personal Flip Channels

Watch Flip Channels from friends and family

Create playlists (iPhone) and favorites

Share videos by email or on Facebook

Users can find the links for the iPhone, Blackberry and Android mobile apps on the www.FlipShare.com site or at their respective app stores

Sources: Engadget | Flip | MobileBurn

Other Phones In News

- Cool F910.  This China bound phone has the following specs:

Cool F910 features a 600MHZ Qualcomm 7227 processor, a 3.2-inch 320*480 HVGA capacitive touchcreen, 512MB of ROM, 256MB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera, WAPI (compatible with WI-FI ) and Bluetooth connectivity, 3.5mm headphone jack, Android 1.6 OS, and a 1230mAh battery. The phone supports GSM quadband and WCDMA networking.

Head to LeakDroid for more info, some pics and a video.

- i5700 Galaxy Spica. Yesterday Samsung announced the US debut of the Spica. The phone launched over seas a few months back. Check out MobileBurn for more info.

Sources: LeakDroid | MobileBurn

A Smartbook and a Tablet

- HP showed off a Snapdragon Smartbook. Not much is known about it but AndroidandMe say it runs 1.5 or 1.6 and has a touchscreen. It looks pretty sweet. Here’s the video they posted but be sure to heard over and read more and see the pictures they’ve posted.

- T-Mobile and ICD Reveal First Mobile Connected Tablet Made for Busy Families.  A portion of the press release:

“Exclusive to T-Mobile in the UK, the centrepiece of the family hub is ICD’s new Vega, a 15″ touchscreen device designed primarily to sit in the kitchen which T-Mobile research identified as the heart of family life. The tablet offers one-touch access to a household calendar so families can organise their busy schedules in one place that everyone can always reach. It can be accessed by the whole family, wherever they are, via the web on a mobile, work computer, home PC or other devices with an Internet connection. The calendar automatically sends SMS text reminders to the family’s mobiles, putting an end to scraps of paper and nagging phone calls. And because it comes with a T-Mobile SIM on-board, it’s easy to make a quick hands-free call at the touch of a button. The family hub is a full-featured tablet with Wi-Fi web browsing, on-demand TV, access to social networks, video chat and games, as well as an FM radio for the complete kitchen set-up.”

..read full press release.

That sounds pretty cool, too!

Sources: AndroidandMe | Marketwire

Miscellaneous

- Powermat announced support for Android phones – starting with the Motorola Droid and the Mytouch – by using custom battery covers. This allows you to charge your phone wirelessly. They offer a few different size mats.  Our friends over at AndroidandMe seem to really like it, and have wrote a bit on it and posted some pictures, head on over to check that out.

- Overdrive expands its collection:

“(Las Vegas, NV, Consumer Electronics Show) – January 5, 2010 – OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), the global leader in eBook and audiobook distribution, announced today that it recently entered into agreements with top booksellers, publishers, and libraries on five continents. OverDrive will demonstrate its global network and success in enabling access to 400,000 digital books on popular devices, including PC, Mac®, iPod®, iPhone®, Zune®, Sony® ReaderTM, nookTM, and DROIDTM by Motorola®, at CES booth #12145 on January 7-10, 2010.”

…read full release.

Sources: AndroidandMe | AndroidGuys

That’s it guys. Hope you found something that piqued your interest. The news this week coming out of CES is pretty non-stop – we will continue to keep our eyes and ears open and keep the articles coming!

What this article touches on: AT&T Phones, Nexus One Talk, A Few Application Announcements, Other Phones in News, HP Smartbook and ICD Tablet, and the Powermat.

AT&T’s Android Phones

Some are saying one of the HTC phones coming to AT&T might the the HTC Lancaster. For a while there a bit back that was what was being reported.  Maybe?

Lancaster

As for Dell, they did in fact confirm it was the Mini 3 that was headed to AT&T. (Engadget has some nice pictures)

Mini 3

Nexus One Talk

- Barclays Capital analyst Doug Anmuth estimates 5 to 6 million Nexus One devices will be sold in 2010. Goodness.

- Howard Stern talks the Nexus One. We haven’t heard it but hear it’s nowhere near SFW. Listen in.

- As usual, the ‘ol cost of ownership comparison between top devices is out.

- Cooliris developed the media gallery for the N1 and joins OHA. Head over to AndroidGuys to read more.

- Philip K. Dick’s estate says Nexus One name infringes.

“We feel this is a clear infringement of our intellectual-property rights,” said Isa Dick Hackett, a daughter of Mr. Dick and the chief executive of Electric Shepherd Productions, an arm of the Dick estate devoted to adapting the late author’s works.”

We don’t know what’s going to come of this but it’s clear they aren’t happy. Check the sources to read all about it. Saw this on Engadget. Check the WSJ source to read more.

Sources: DigitalDaily | TechCrunch | BillShrink | AndroidGuys | Wall Street Journal

A Few Application Announcements

- Engadget has a great write up detailing the OnStar and Chevy application to be used to control the Volt.

“When the car is connected you can monitor the charging status and program it to delay its recharging, giving it a deadline for when you need it to be full and then letting it charge itself when the rates are lowest. Cool, but just the beginning. You can check driving statistics, honk the horn, lock or unlock the car, and even start it up, all from your handset.”

Head over to Engadget to read the whole thing and see plenty more pictures – as well as a video!

- Truphone has announced version 3 of it’s software for Android, which allows users to place VOIP calls over Wifi using Skype or Google Talk, and also allows users to chat using AIM, Google Talk, MSN, Skype, and Yahoo Messenger.

Android 1.5 and up, in the Market now.

- Also worth a mention, we  saw over at AndroidGuys that Flip Video has announced releasing a new app:

Available for iPhone, Blackberry, and Google’s Android platform (at no cost)

Mobile Devices currently supported: Apple iPhone, iPod touch; Blackberry Curve 8520, Curve 8900, and Bold 9000; Google G1 (T-Mobile) and MyTouch (T-Mobile)

View favorite FlipShare videos and photos

Access their personal Flip Channels

Watch Flip Channels from friends and family

Create playlists (iPhone) and favorites

Share videos by email or on Facebook

Users can find the links for the iPhone, Blackberry and Android mobile apps on the www.FlipShare.com site or at their respective app stores

Sources: Engadget | Flip | MobileBurn

Other Phones In News

- Cool F910.  This China bound phone has the following specs:

Cool F910 features a 600MHZ Qualcomm 7227 processor, a 3.2-inch 320*480 HVGA capacitive touchcreen, 512MB of ROM, 256MB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera, WAPI (compatible with WI-FI ) and Bluetooth connectivity, 3.5mm headphone jack, Android 1.6 OS, and a 1230mAh battery. The phone supports GSM quadband and WCDMA networking.

Head to LeakDroid for more info, some pics and a video.

- i5700 Galaxy Spica. Yesterday Samsung announced the US debut of the Spica. The phone launched over seas a few months back. Check out MobileBurn for more info.

Sources: LeakDroid | MobileBurn

A Smartbook and a Tablet

- HP showed off a Snapdragon Smartbook. Not much is known about it but AndroidandMe say it runs 1.5 or 1.6 and has a touchscreen. It looks pretty sweet. Here’s the video they posted but be sure to heard over and read more and see the pictures they’ve posted.

- T-Mobile and ICD Reveal First Mobile Connected Tablet Made for Busy Families.  A portion of the press release:

“Exclusive to T-Mobile in the UK, the centrepiece of the family hub is ICD’s new Vega, a 15″ touchscreen device designed primarily to sit in the kitchen which T-Mobile research identified as the heart of family life. The tablet offers one-touch access to a household calendar so families can organise their busy schedules in one place that everyone can always reach. It can be accessed by the whole family, wherever they are, via the web on a mobile, work computer, home PC or other devices with an Internet connection. The calendar automatically sends SMS text reminders to the family’s mobiles, putting an end to scraps of paper and nagging phone calls. And because it comes with a T-Mobile SIM on-board, it’s easy to make a quick hands-free call at the touch of a button. The family hub is a full-featured tablet with Wi-Fi web browsing, on-demand TV, access to social networks, video chat and games, as well as an FM radio for the complete kitchen set-up.”

..read full press release.

That sounds pretty cool, too!

Sources: AndroidandMe | Marketwire

Miscellaneous

- Powermat announced support for Android phones – starting with the Motorola Droid and the Mytouch – by using custom battery covers. This allows you to charge your phone wirelessly. They offer a few different size mats.  Our friends over at AndroidandMe seem to really like it, and have wrote a bit on it and posted some pictures, head on over to check that out.

- Overdrive expands its collection:

“(Las Vegas, NV, Consumer Electronics Show) – January 5, 2010 – OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), the global leader in eBook and audiobook distribution, announced today that it recently entered into agreements with top booksellers, publishers, and libraries on five continents. OverDrive will demonstrate its global network and success in enabling access to 400,000 digital books on popular devices, including PC, Mac®, iPod®, iPhone®, Zune®, Sony® ReaderTM, nookTM, and DROIDTM by Motorola®, at CES booth #12145 on January 7-10, 2010.”

…read full release.

Sources: AndroidandMe | AndroidGuys

That’s it guys. Hope you found something that piqued your interest. The news this week coming out of CES is pretty non-stop – we will continue to keep our eyes and ears open and keep the articles coming!

Tech Valley News

Long identified as the cute little monkey that wears a tiny cap and plays the organ for delighted onlookers, the Capuchin Monkey is a highly intelligent, resourceful and interesting animal. My daughter was recently assigned the project of researching an animal of her choosing and she chose the Capuchin Monkey. We were both fascinated with the information we discovered. Here are some facts on the Capuchin Monkey I think you will enjoy.

Interesting Origin Of The Capuchin Monkey's Name. The Capuchin Monkey's name was inspired from the monkey's beautiful coloring. The Capuchin Monkey's coloring closely resembles the color of the cowls worn by the Franciscan Capuchin Catholic Friars. Their bodies, including the arms, legs and tail are black or dark brown while the face and upper body including the the monkey's throat and chest area is white. The Capuchin Monkey's head is crowned with a black area that looks like a cap. The Capuchin Monkey's beautiful colors are quite attractive and make this animal very attractive.

Height And Weight Of The Average Capuchin Monkey. The average Capuchin Monkey reaches a length between twelve and twenty two inches at adulthood. The Capuchin Monkey has a rather long tail that extends as long as the total length of their bodies. Capuchin monkeys can weigh up to two and half pounds after reaching their final weight at adulthood. Small and light, the Capuchin Monkey is quite agile and travels quickly.

The Average Day Of The Capuchin Monkey. The Capuchin Monkey spends all day searching for food in it's natural habitat. They consume a varied diet including fruit, nuts and seeds as well as insects and spiders. If the animals have made their home near water, they will also sustain themselves on crabs and other shellfish which they open by banging them with rocks.

They often enjoy a midday nap to rest from their busy morning and re energize for the afternoon's food search. The Capuchin Monkey sleeps in trees and makes a sort of nest in the tree by arranging themselves in between the branches.The Capuchin Monkey is not aggressive and does not seek conflict with other animals in their habitat. They are very peaceful animals.

Living Arrangements Of The Capuchin Monkey In Nature. The Capuchin Monkeys in the wild, live in groups of up to forty members. The group is comprised mostly of female Capuchin Monkeys and their young. The group is led by a single male monkey who mates with any female members of the group he chooses. The female Capuchin Monkey can bear young every two years after a gestation period of one hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty days.

The males are not involved in the care of the offspring and have little to do with the babies until they reach maturity. While the male Capuchin Monkey is off gathering food to feed his family, the female Capuchin Monkeys care for the offspring of the group. The female Capuchin monkey reaches maturity at four years while the male reaches maturity at eight years of age. The average life span of the Capuchin Monkey is between fifteen and twenty five years in their natural habitat while they can live past forty in the care of humans.

New Job For The Capuchin Monkey. The Capuchin Monkey is considered to be the most intelligent of the species. While some are kept as merely exotic pets by private owners, the Capuchin Monkeys are now being trained as companions and helpers to paralyzed humans. After an extensive training period, Capuchin monkeys are being placed with handicapped people in their homes to assist them with everyday tasks such as preparing food in the microwave, retrieving the telephone and opening drink containers.

As with any companion animals, great care is taken when matching a Capuchin Monkey with a person in need. So far, the programs are a great success with the disabled person becoming greatly attached to their little helper vice versa. As the programs continue, their will undoubtedly be more tasks that the monkeys are taught making them invaluable as live in companions to the disabled.

The Capuchin Monkey is a fascinating little animal that is intelligent, non aggressive and extremely adorable to boot. Their resourcefulness, quick ability to learn new tasks and pleasant personalities make them quite the fascinating animal.

Source: www.Wikipedia.org

Beach Body Exercise

Tech Valley News

SOMETHING FISHY… WELL, NOT REALLY…

- Are you overtly brash or obnoxious, and absolutely love being that way?

- Are you prone to practical jokes without regard to any expense to your personal reputation?

- Do you work in a government (or similar) work environment where it's practically impossible to get fired?

- Do you work in a face-to-face customer service environment where your performance is measured by how quickly you are able to “get rid of” your customers?

If you answered “YES” to any of the questions above, then I have a real winner for you! It's a true and ultimate weapon which I have proudly unleashed upon countless hapless victims and work colleagues. It's called…

Garlic!

I SMELL A RAT!

Some years ago, during the throes of the now-infamous Dot-Com Boom, I was quite happily immersed in a rich cultural work environment – a now-defunct Korean telecommunications company based in Torrance, California.

I got hired on by a great guy named Jimmy, and had the honor of also working with Ellen, Sarah, Vince, Morris, Richard, and Mark. While upon remembering me, these guys may wish to call themselves “victims”, and they will quickly put me out of their minds! If ever my work buddies were to read these words, they would most likely roll their eyes and remember me, my frequent chicken noises, and… garlic!

I WORKED IN A WORLD FILLED WITH STRANGE MOOSES

I guess one of the reasons they hired me on was because I speak Chinese, which is not at all anywhere close to Korean. But hey: I could converse with Asian folks with ease, and this is what this team needed…

I was a tech writer within a tightly-woven (albeit mildly xenophobic) tech writing team. Like many writers, we were eccentric. As with all artistes of this post-modern age, our moods swung wildly up and down pending the consumption of vast quantities of cheap coffee and pop tarts.

Before we were allowed to speak to him directly, my boss Jimmy required us first to speak with a small plush-toy plastic Moose that sat eve gloomily on his table. All verbal communication was to be directed through The Moose, or else Jimmy would not speak with us. Even the CEO had first to deal with Moose before speaking with Jimmy. How he ever kept his job (or was even hired because of it), I will never know. Nevertheless we all loved Jimmy. The Moose on Jim's desk held our fates in his hooves, decided what questions were deemed worthy of Jimmy's attention, and not infrequently The Moose's answer was a emphatically guttural “No!” accompanied by an appropriate hoof-stamping and a feign to charge.

The guy sitting across from me constantly cruised the internet for porn, and he frequently visited by the IT Department's Corporation Information Officer, who weekly warned him that the IT department was tracking the illicit sites he was visiting. This guy did his work amazingly fast and with pretty good quality, too – only so that he could spend the last few hours every day slobbering all over his computer monitor. He was later given a raise for his good work performance, and a pensive slap on the wrist for being so naughty for using his workstation “for personal use”. The woman who sat next to this guy was privy to the websites he visited, and eventually got used to it.

The guy sitting next me was an obsessively compulsive clean-and-orderly freak who lined up all his books and pens at right angles to the edges of his desk. Just to be mean to him, while he was on vacation, we replaced his desk with another having gloriously curvaceous edges along which he could no longer align his otherwise straight writing utensils. Upon his return, he was utterly devastated, could not work until we returned his old desk, which he restocked himself after thoroughly disinfecting it. When we had group hugs, this guy's hugs were of the “A-frame” style. Luckily he sought the help of a therapist, whom – after hearing several weeks' worth of his depressing childhood – he later drove to suicide.

On the bright side, in time we all loved each other. We protected each other, had group hugs and shoulder massages. Our workspace was a modern-day hippie house, with bead doorways on the thresholds of our cubes, and its occupants dressed appropriately in flashily offensive Hawaiian shirts – thus demonstrating proper adoration of the Jimmy Buffet lifestyle we aspired to maintain at work. My workstation was home to a naked rubber chicken, and I practiced my strangulated chicken mating calls frequently.

That was the kind of place where I worked.

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK = FRESH GUINEA PIG MEAT

Conservative folks in the other departments did well to steer clear of our territory in the office. In time, I was accepted into the fold as a fellow tech writer. In time, they counted on me to break the morbid silence within the office with my chicken sounds. But such honor doesn't come without some form of initiation. As the new guy, I needed to be initiated. As the new guy, I needed to become… the victim.

Having been there months before I arrived, the gang considered me the new guinea pig for those meetings.

Let me explain what those meetings were…

THOSE LONG BORING $#^&*&*^#%$@#@!!@!!! MEETINGS

The company we worked for was staffed and managed by Korean folks. So naturally it came really easy for them to conduct their meetings completely in Korean. Only problem: I didn't speak, read or write Korean. Likewise, my fellow tech writers all only spoke English. So up until then, the unluckily appointed soul had to sit there listening to these guys blabbering in a tongue they didn't understand. No fun at all.

As the new guy, I was appointed to go to these weekly meetings (yippee!) and bring back the latest gloom and doom effecting our department. Like fun, right?

Anyway, with me as New Guy, I went to the first few meetings. I was upbeat. I was positive. I tried to listen, but my command of Chinese just didn't do it. Korean was vastly too different for me to understand what these guys were saying.

Politics were heavy in this company, and my department was often looked upon as a necessary and inconvenient expense. This said, the other folks in the department didn't really take anything I said seriously. Whenever I asked the guys in the meeting to stop and quickly give me a run-down, I was either told that they had discussed nothing important OR that it was stuff irrelevant to my department. (And, oh, would you please stop interrupting our *(^&(*&(&*(_)(&$##@@##!!! meeting?)

After several such meetings, I became sufficiently glum. Before the meetings, I struggled with excuses not to go, feigned sudden illnesses and the like. In the end I had to represent The Team. I couldn't let The Team down, could I? So go I did.

I would sit down in the chair. The babbling would begin, and my eyes became glazed over… Death on wheels – the tiny wheels of an office chair… (sudden sobbing…)

ROAD-KILL: LUNCH ON ME, GUYS!

One of the Korean gentlemen in the meeting was exceptionally kind to me and eventually took on the role as my translator – when this was tolerated – and he and I eventually started to chum it up. One day, culling upon my past experiences in cultivating Chinese relations, I sought to foster good relations with this fellow. For his own safety, I will call him “Kim”. (As in, not “Kim the Eskimo”).

I invited Kim to lunch, and I asked him what local Korean restaurant would he suggest? And could he bring along some of the other chain-smoking guys who attend the meeting? My idea was to pay the bill and thus curry their favor as a generous bribe guy. I ran the idea by my boss, Jimmy, and he said it was a good move. Only problem: the company was cheap. I would have to pay the bill.

Oh well…

The idea sounded great to Kim. After all it was free. Did I mention it was free? Big Kim arranged to invite some of the other Korean folks. Lunch was on: we would all get together for lunch just before next week's meeting. A week went by and lo! It was time to meet the guys and go chow down. Luckily for my wallet, we were only about 5 guys in all.

STAGE ONE: WARMING UP WITH OCTOPODS

Lunch went great. I told them one or two cool stories about my time in China. The fact that they knew I lived and worked in Asia put them greatly at ease, and thus we established a comfortable rapport. I had been speaking the whole time and not really eating. After telling my stories, I decided to grab some food in earnest in order to catch up with the other guys.

Now, Kim had brought us to a really great buffet. It had everything, and the cool part was you got to cook it yourself on a mini-grill right at your table: Korean-style BBQ buffet! (Try it sometime. Yummy! )

I grabbed a plate and started piling on all sorts of raw goods: beef golgi, lamb, tofu, and cute little raw octopods with cute little legs with all those cute little suckers on them… You name it, baby, I was gonna chow it! And then I came across a most beautiful sight – something I hadn't seen since I was a little boy in Mexico.

It was: a mountain of raw garlic.

Now… I have a thing for garlic. And when I saw that mountain of garlic just sitting there, I had an equally mountainous feeling about that garlic. That garlic and I had a mutual attraction to each other. My aim was to become one with that garlic. And what? No better way to become one with garlic than to eat it!

For those of you who don't know, Korean folks love garlic. Almost like an obsession. So when I helped myself to some of that garlic mountain, I was “in” on the Korean culture.

Get outta the way. I was gonna make some waves, baby!

UM… ARE YOU OK?

As I approached the table, I saw the guys were all smiling and laughing. Someone had just told a good joke. As I sat back down they all smiled at me. As ai placed the second of two plats onto the table, their smiles quickly disappeared. What was up?

Kim looked at my pile of garlic, which occupied an entire one-third of that second plate I carried. It was a lot of garlic. Like, a small mountain. I would say… maybe 40 or so cloves. Hey, what can I say? I haven't seen that much garlic in one place in years, and it was time to celebrate, to chow some serious garlic.

Kim's smile had turned to a frown. He said, “Uh…Um…John?”

“Yes?” I replied with a big smile.

“Uh… Are you going to eat all that garlic?”

“Yes. Oh! I am so rude! Would you guys like some?”

I picked up the plate and offered it to everyone. They all refused. By this time everyone was looking at my plate, and then looking up at me, similarly frowning now as Kim just did.

Another guy (I'll call him “Lee”) said, “Hey…John…That's a lot of garlic..”

“Yeah, it is…” the other guys chimed in, and for a few moments they all spoke to each other in Korean. They seemed to come to a consensus and turned to face me.

Kim's said, “John. We are afraid that is too much garlic!”

“Yes! Maybe that much garlic will hurt you. Make you sick?” Lee added.

I jut sat there and smiled, utterly happy that these guys would be so concerned for my well-being. But little did they know that garlic and I had a thing for each other. Me and garlic: buddies for years on end…

“Hey, guys,” I replied, “I'm really glad you're worried. But it's OK! Remember, I'm a Mexican!” And with that I loudly slapped my belly and let out a laugh that only served to unnerve them even more.

Seeing this, I added, “No. Serious, guys. I'll be okay. I've eaten garlic before, and I know what I'm doing. It's okay!”

And with that explanation, they seemed to relax a little. Lee turned to the other guys to say something in Korean, and they all laughed.

I leaned over to Kim and asked, “Hey, Kim. What did he just say?”

“Oh, nothing… Just a joke about something else,” Kim responded.

Yeah, right. In a moment I realized. He had said something to the effect of, “Wow, that poor bastard John is gonna really feel shit for nuts in a while, huh guys? He'll be sicker than a dog! (Ha-ha!)”

Well, I was OK with that. I'll show 'em. After all, me and garlic: we had a thing going.

So I cooked up that mountain of garlic with all my beef golgi and octopus tentacles and veggies and tofu. All the while I chummed it up with the boys. We ate and drank, chowed down, told a few jokes. By the time we got up to leave, that mountain of garlic was gone.

Me and my garlic: we were finally one.

UH-OH! MEETING TIME!

Kim dreaded the weekly meeting as much as I did. He stood up and warily announced it was time to go. We all got up and stretched. I paid the bill and they all thanked me. In a few minutes were on the road back to work and our dreaded meeting.

Meeting time.

We all sat down. The big boss (big burly Korean fellow) came in, and the meeting began unceremoniously.

I was feeling refreshed, so I listened attentively. I smiled when someone looked my way. Mmmm. My tummy was warm. I could feel that garlic starting to cook downstairs. I just sat there, happy as a clam. Everything was just beautiful…

On and on my colleagues went, jabbering in an ancient tongue I couldn't understand. Sure, there were a few words here and there I was starting to catch on to, but I was still as for away as… Korea. I twiddled my pen. My stomach turned a little, but I was in no way feeling uncomfortable. Just Mr. Stomach's way of saying, “Hey, me and garlic: we're buddies.” I was okay.

My stomach growled. Kim nudged me. I looked up and he was smiling. Yeah, he thought that joke about me at the restaurant was playing out now. I looked around and one or two of the other guys were smirking, too. They, too, had heard my stomach growl and thought I was soon to be a goner – a victim of too much garlic. Heh. But, I was soon to show them otherwise.

More babbling as the minutes dragged onward. An argument seemed to have started between the QA guys and the developers. After a while they simmered down and the meeting… went on and on.

I was okay. The old gut was warm, warming up…

TROUBLE IN THE NETHER-REGIONS

After a while, I still felt okay. But… I needed to burp a little. Just a little one. So…

Okay, I'll just kinda keep my mouth shut while this happens. No-one will hear me and I will just kinda breathe out after it shows up. Everyone's done that at one time or another, right? Yeah…And then I breathed out. Completely unnoticed, completely inconspicuous. Everything was okay. Until…

Kim, sitting next to me, jolted suddenly as if he had been struck by a jackhammer. I looked over at him. He stared at me accusingly, pain in his eyes. Kim was frowning. Not just a regular frown. This frown had fear painted in. It was a seriously concerned kind of frown, with a bit of stress added, too.

Embarrassed, after a moment Kim broke off his stare and looked down at the floor. He leaned back in his chair. In minute I noticed he slowly pushed his seat away from the table. Away from me. Something was up.

FEEL THE FORCE, DEEP INSIDE…

I just sat there. Everything was okay. My stomach still felt warm and it was dissipating now. I could feel the warmth of the garlic spreading. Just like Luke under Yoda's tutelage at the swampy planet Degobah, I was starting to “feel the force” flowing through me. I was a Jedi Garlic Master. And I was sitting here in this stupid meeting.

Yeah…

That feeling of warmth spread into my blood now. The force was really flowing through me. I was not at all discomforted by this. It felt great. Wow, what a rush actually. I noticed the guy seated on the other side of me opposite Kim started to back away now.

Oooh. I had to burp again. Just a little one. Yeah, there we go now. No-one noticed me.

A moment later, a few of the other guys stirred uncomfortably. Kim excused himself abruptly and left the room. And then in a moment the big boss stopped talking. I looked up from twirling my pen. Everyone was staring at me.

BIG BOSS GRUNTS IN RECOGNITION

The big boss (I will call him Joo) never paid attention to anyone unless he had to. Only if your position in the company held any clout, then Joo might consent to talking for a short time. For any time he did spend talking with you, afterwards you would have wished he had paid attention to someone. Why? Joo spoke loudly, garrulously, frequently interrupting others, and he waved his hands dramatically as a boss would, and bullied other folks into submission. So, with me as a lowly tech writer, there was no way he was going to pay any attention to me. Not even a hand wave.

For some reason, I had his attention now, along with everyone else in the room. They were all staring at me.

Joo turned to a Korean colleague sitting next to him and exchanged a few words in low-toned Korean. After a moment, he looked at me and shouted:

“John! John! Are you sick????”

“No, Mr. Joo, I'm not, thank you!”

“WE THINK YOU ARE SICK!”

“No, actually I feel pretty groovey. Thanks, though!”

Joo turned to the colleague next to him, probably to ask what “groovey” meant.

Through my discussions with other colleagues and with the few experiences I had in speaking with Mr. Joo, I was well aware of his intimidating tactics. Because this was the first time he was speaking with me in front of his colleagues, I knew he would want to establish his face in front of his colleagues by cowing me under his stare and with that loud bellowing voice of his. If I didn't put a stop to that now, I wouldn't stand a chance later after my new-boy immunity status wore off in the company.

I thought fast. Ah! I twirled my pen some more. This had the desired effect of infuriating Joo. He turned to his colleagues and spouted off something in Korean, completely laying on the language barrier thing to his advantage. He gesticulated at me while speaking to his fellows, probably complaining about my lax American behavior. Then he turned to me.

“JOHN! WHY AREN'T YOU PAYING ATTENTION???”

MY TURN NOW

I looked up at him and looked him square in the eye. I then spouted off some nonsense to him in Mandarin.

Uh… Joo xiansheng. Wo gaosu ni… Ta lai meiguo de yiqian, zai moxige wo baba shi hen qiong de yi ge nongren. Er qie… Wo hen xihuan chi chou doufu!”

What I had done was taken a risk based on something I was aware of through my conversations with my Korean colleagues. One thing that many native Korean folks know of and respect is Chinese language. Written Chinese is taught for several years as a compulsory subject in most Korean children's grade school curricula as the basis for learning Korean language later. Curiously, while spoken Chinese is not necessarily taught in Korea, respect is instilled at an early age for Chinese as a kind of Rosetta Stone from which the written Korean language stems.

For my own sanity (I suppose so I could have something to laugh about later), what I had actually said in Mandarin was,

“My father was a poor farmer in Mexico before coming to America. Furthermore, I like to eat stinky tofu.”

Knowing no-one else in the meeting room understood Mandarin, so it didn't matter what I had said. All that mattered was that I had derailed the Big Boss's plan to tear the Western guy down. Thing was, I didn't have a throne. Just a smilingly passionate love of the Chinese language and culture. Why should I keep it all to myself, and not share it with Mr. Joo?

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH

Joo's jaw had stopped dead in mid-sentence, and he just stared at me.

Kim, sitting next to me, had seen the shock on Joo's face. He smirked bashfully as he looked down at the table in uncomfortable silence. I loaded an appropriately polite smile onto my face and stared back at Joo.

As soon as he looked away to say something to his colleague, I let loose again, deeply, but silent and deadly.

Within a moment, a wave of anguish passed over the faces of all the poor fellows sitting near me, and the wave momentarily registered on Mr. Joo's face. His head snapped back at me.

After a moment, in carefully measured English, he said, “John, if you wish, you may leave. We have nothing further to discuss that is relevant to your department.”

I proclaimed, “Why thanks, guys. Please let me know if I can help out with something later.”

And with that I gathered up my laptop and left.

WHAT I GOT FROM THIS

I walked away mildly triumphant. My intention was not to win, rather to provide a very strong “natural filter” that allowed my colleagues to think ahead in their meetings and determine whether they should really need to have me around (AKA “waste my time”).

After attending a couple other subsequent meetings while similarly “under the influence”, a message was rather obliquely delivered (via Kim) that I really didn't have to attend any further meetings.

Back to work for Johnny, and further conversations with my boss Jimmy and his desk-bound dictator Moose who always said “No!”

It was back home among the Moose Clan.

In a few moments, they, too, would know the power of garlic.

- John

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I specifically want to say that I bear absolutely nothing against Korean folks or any other Asian folks. This is merely a story about my experience with garlic while working in the midst of Asian folks. As a matter of fact, if you read some of my other stories, you will see that some trusted friends have been Asian. So there.

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