The only way you really know the Stone Bar is an Asian bar is it's a) in the middle of Thai Town, and b) there's a very large Buddha on the counter). So no pics of me with Gaysian Cowboys (but can someone arrange that?!), but I did have a great time. And I learned that I don't like duck. We went to eat at a Thai restaurant afterward, and in my drunken stupor, all I could remember was that my friend Britta (who is much more cosmopolitan than I am) loves duck. So I thought I'd order it. About half-way through, I realized I was eating duck, and couldn't eat any more. And when I got home, and was still thinking about having eaten duck, I threw up. Not from drinking. From duck.
But at least now I know.
]]>I manage to make it into the venue without further incident, but now I have to figure out an escape plan - because if he's still out there when I leave, he's going to ask me for my number. Now, I can already tell there's no future with this guy, because a) he's clearly not very smart, b0 as a security guard, he more than likely does not meet the criteria established in the Fully Employed M-A-N program Wanda has enrolled me in, and c) he does not seem like the kind of guy who would want to go to a lot of country shows. He seems more like the type to want to see Snoop Dog or Kanye West. Clearly not a match made in heaven. So my options are:
a) Be a grown-up and upon leaving, gently tell him I'm flattered but not interested.
b) Meet someone else inside and have him walk me out at the end of the evening.
c) Give him KROQ's Loser Line.
d) Give him my ex-boyfriend's home phone number and use the name of said ex's female sometimes-roommate.
If you guessed "A", you should know I'm not that mature. Puh-lease. I actually lucked out and went with option "B" - and that way I didn't have to lie. But man, I'm so glad I had options "C" and "D" in my pocket. You should always have a back-up plan.
]]>In John Hollon's January 18, 2008 "Business of Management" blog on Workforce Week, Hollon discusses Bosses Behaving Badly.
Dov Charney, founder and CEO of American Apparel, takes the cake with allegations “that he has appeared in his underwear many times in front of male and female employees,” that “on a few occasions during work meetings, he donned a skimpy garment that barely covered his genitals,” and that he engaged in some very personal sexual behavior in front of a journalist who was interviewing him for Jane magazine.
Charney, the subject of a recent Los Angeles Times article (“Lawsuit has fashion mogul in spotlight”) is scheduled to go to trial next week for a sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit that has been brought against Charney.
I couldn't make up stuff this good.
]]>Talk about news of the bizarre... from Workforce Week online:
A district judge in New York denied a 500-pound police officer an increase in his disability pay, upholding a ruling by the city’s pension board that the officer’s morbid obesity, not an injury, was to blame for his inability to perform his job.
Best CA Roadtrip: Pala Mines in San Diego County
http://www.palagems.com/mining.htm
Best restaurant: Savannah, Costa Mesa, CA - great food and love those all class red walls. http://www.culinaryadventures.com/restaurants/savannah/info_costa_mesa.html
Best Chiropractic treatment: Dr. Chan - accupressure is wonderful!
Best Find: Turtle Wax Express Shine Spray Wax - works awesome
http://www.turtlewax.com/
Best Convention: Gem Faire Southern CA.
http://www.gemfaire.com
Best Resolution: Only enjoy live music once in a while. Objective: appreciate favorite artists more, instead of hanging out in a music scene week after week.
Best Concert: Donny Osmond in concert after "who knows" how many years.
Best Class: Forensics - Criminal Justice
Best Intentions: Helping repost Animal Rescue info on the net.
http://crittercrossingscorp.com/donate.aspx
Best Outdoor Adventure - bike riding on fresh ocean air beach trails
Best Celebrity Meeting: Tyson, the skateboarding Dog - Huntington Beach, CA
http://www.skateboardingbulldog.com/
Best Hobbies: Jewelrymaking and Painting
Best Books: The Lovely Bones and Prey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lovely_Bones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(novel)
Best Internet Purchase - The Zune by Microsoft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune
Best Prediction: From a Psychic in TN - Marriage is in your future whether you want it or not. (ha)
Best To Come: Positive energy prayer that 2008 will be the best year ever!
Best Book That I FINALLY Read: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry.
Best Purchase on Etsy: THIS BRACELET:
(That's not my hand)
Best Career Move By Someone Else That Ultimately Benefitted Me: My Ex's move to Joplin, Missouri to help produce a low-rated reality show for CMT. Good riddance! How can I sign you up for another season?
Best Roadtrip (kind of): Seeing Todd Snider at the Belly Up Tavern (Solana Beach is a long way from L.A.!)
Best Question Asked on Loveline: Posed by a very concerned Perez Hilton, "Can men get cervical cancer?"
Best Household Additions: My three goldfish, Vicki, Vicki, and Timmy. (It's good for people to hear your name.)
Best Night In: My date with Jack Ingram. Okay, it wasn't really a date, I just stayed home and listened to every single Jack album in my collection...in chronological order.
Best Place to Drop $700: Eclectic Trends antique store on the corner of Lankershim and Moorpark.
Best "Bucket List" Experience: Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas. I got chills just driving by, you can imagine how excited I was to actually be inside.
Best Drunken Statement: "These cupcakes are better than sex!" I made this claim on New Year's Eve. It took me a full day and a half to recover from that night of drinking.
Here's to 2008!
]]>H5N1 (Avian flu) is seen to your immune system as being the biggest invasian to your body that the immune system has ever seen. In layman terms, the T cells will attack the virus in groves and in such overkill fashion that the body basically attacks itself. You wake up one morning sick and start coughing, then coughing blood from your lungs, and by late afternoon you are gone. It's that quick. The body burns itself out. Grim, yes....but I don't like to stick my head completely in the sand and since we've had meetings on a Pandemic outbreak, I like to hear the facts.
Mutation is the key factor. Dr. Ridenour noted that the pig flu and bird flu have already adjoined forces and infected pigs. Pigs are closely related biologically to humans, and so Scientists are closely watching the mutation process.
So, with that, maybe you'd like to educate yourself as well. Virus and Bacteria are the biggest threat to mankind, and yet it is fascinating to realize that these minute micro-organisms can in but a few minutes determine the fate of the human race.
The good news is that scientists are working on a Pandemic vaccine for all types of Influenza A. Let's hope they are successful very soon!
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/takethelead/index.html
]]>
Orange County Weekly
Face Off
A Little Saigon identity-theft ring pounded OC businesses until one cop saw a tear in its veil of secrecy
By R. SCOTT MOXLEY
If anyone had watched Tina Thi Tran open the front door of her nondescript rented house on Forrest Lane in the heart of Little Saigon at 12:15 p.m. on June 14, 2005, they wouldn't have guessed they were looking at an undisputed giant among Orange County's criminal masterminds.
Why should they? Standing at 4-foot-8, Tran might have appeared like a slightly lost Vietnamese immigrant.
But police detectives hidden from view were watching 45-year-old Tran as she drove away in a battered, blue 1997 Dodge van that day. Or was her name Thuy T. Huynh? Or Liz? Or something else? She had stockpiled hundreds—if not thousands—of fake identities, cops would later allege.
Although officers conducting Tran's surveillance didn't know her real name at the time, they were sure she was tied to a brazen Vietnamese-American criminal organization that routinely burglarized stores at the county's ritziest shops in South Coast Plaza and Fashion Island, according to law-enforcement records.
Because of the electronic nature of today's commerce, Tran's group didn't need to use guns, knives or threats of violence to steal. These thieves relied on warm smiles and chatty demeanors, coupled with counterfeit driver's licenses and credit cards, to calmly walk out of Southern California shops with perhaps more than $1 million per year in high-end merchandise, police say. Among their favorite targets were plasma televisions, Rolex and Movado watches, Gucci handbags, gift cards, laptop computers, and anything by Cartier or Louis Vuitton.
Success bred confidence. So convinced of their infallibility, ring members even gave tips to shop clerks if they'd help carry the stolen products out of stores and into getaway vehicles. In many cases, it wasn't until weeks later, if ever, that employees realized they'd been duped.
Tran's identity-theft operation—which had elaborate safeguards against detection—might still be ripping off stores today if it weren't for a momentary tear in the veil of her organization. Tran wasn't aware of the gaffe, but a dogged young police detective hadn't missed it.
* * *
Damon Tucker, a fraud investigator with the Orange County district attorney's office, sits in a small fifth-floor cubicle with a north-facing window overlooking Santa Ana and the distant San Gabriel Mountains. Tucker doesn't have a very sexy title, but he's no unkempt desk jockey counting the days until an Idaho retirement. He's a tall (6-foot-1), lean (180 pounds), blue-eyed athlete (world-class swimming and track) who wouldn't look out of place on MTV's The Real Orange County: Newport Harbor High—except he's in his thirties.
In Spain in 2003, he was a member of the four-person OC team that won the World's Toughest Competitor Alive games, which include runs, rope climbs, bench presses and an obstacle course. Two other years, he was instrumental in the team winning second place.
Tucker is guarded about his own life. For example, he's from the Midwest, but he won't say which state. A shoulder shrug is his answer to what city he lives in. His age? He volunteered a ballpark figure.
But our own probe found that the detective balances all of his wholesomeness with a hint of rebellion. He's a bassist and vocalist in a Huntington Beach-based U2 tribute band. In 1992, he also started the band Parkaimoon with guitarist Tony Howell. Their success earned them a spot on KDOC's Buzzz Television show.
But it's Tucker's skill in tracking white-collar criminals that has earned him frequent tours as an expert lecturer on identity theft to other detectives, store security professionals, college students and even community groups. Cal State Long Beach employs him as an instructor in its criminal-justice program.
Tucker's ability became apparent while he worked as a detective for the Irvine Police Department in the late 1990s. EBay-related Internet crimes were skyrocketing, especially in that city's well-to-do neighborhoods. While some older detectives were baffled in their attempts to solve these new types of high-tech scams, Tucker proved adept at catching such crooks.
White-collar crime wasn't his first choice of assignments, though.
"I wanted to be like Martin Riggs [Mel Gibson's character in the Lethal Weapon series]," he recalls. "I wanted to be working homicides and narcotics. But somebody thought I was good at solving computer and high-tech cases. I guess it was fate."
Though it would take half a decade, Tucker's career turn put him on a collision course with Tran and her crew.
* * *
Police detectives say there are two types of white-collar-crime conspiracies: roundtable and hub-and-spoke. In a roundtable scheme, most, if not all, of the criminals meet and plot strategy as a group. In a hub-and-spoke arrangement, a shot-caller gives directions to a supporting crew whose compartmentalized roles prevent them from knowing the identities of most of their accomplices.
According to Tucker, Tran built a hub-and-spoke ring that maximized efficiency and limited risk. Even if one person in the ring was arrested, he wouldn't know enough to lead cops through several layers of the chain of command. Certainly, Tran—as the unlikely ringleader—couldn't be touched if everything went as planned.
"If you look at her on the street, you'd never know in a million years what this little lady was up to," Tucker says. "She was really smooth, and she ran a good organization. It was a corporation, really. It had a human-resources department. It had management. It made investments. It had recruiting. It had a raw-material section. It kept detailed records. It had everything a corporation has—but they didn't pay taxes or obey the law."
In short, these people knew what they were doing.
"ID-theft rings don't randomly walk into your shop," Tucker says. "They've given it a lot of thought. For example, they're looking for places where employees get a commission and maybe won't question a suspicious situation."
Work in Tran's ring was divided into three roles, according to police: collectors of stolen identities, converters of the stolen data and passers (or runners) who hit the stores
Click below to read more:
]]>