Delirium

Website on Moving Scams

2008-03-04T22:45:00.000-08:00

Came across this website earlier. It includes valuable information and links to resources to avoid ending up with a mover from hell, and what to do when you encounter one.

http://www.movingscam.com

Musical Thoughts

2007-11-26T00:49:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to a lot of music lately.... Some random thoughts:

1. I would love to attend a concert with Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto and Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto in the program.

2. I was listening to the "Horowitz at Home" CD, where they literally recorded Vladimir Horowitz playing on his piano at home. The CD contains only Mozart and Schubert pieces. It seems like he mellowed out a bit over the the years, which is a bit of a contrast with his fiery renditions of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2 from back when.

3. In the above CD, Horowitz plays the Liszt transcription of Schubert's Staendchen (Serenade). It seriously sounds like it was played on 3 different pianos. I'm just jealous that he's able to do this at age 85!

4. Seriously, do pianists not get arthritis? Liszt? At 85?

Huckabee and Chuck Norris

2007-11-18T23:10:00.000-08:00

I don't think I can take Mike Huckabee seriously after watching his new ad with Chuck Norris. Gotta give it to the man for trying to win some votes with humor and creativity. Maybe that's what this country needs.

Inspired by Chuck Norris facts: http://smarmycarny.com/archives/2006/01/12/chuck-norris-facts/

New England Foliage Trip

2007-11-06T23:51:00.000-08:00

Hmm... I guess my blog is turning into more of a travel journal. Anyhoo...

10/14/2007

Burlington, VT

It was convenient that Jet Blue has direct flight from San Jose to Boston. After single-handedly covering 1000+ miles during our 3-day trip to Northern California, I thought that we should take it easy on the driving this time, so I decided to fly into Burlington and end the trip in Boston. This beats flying into and out of Boston, and having to drive that loop to cover all the places.

Burlington was our first stop after picking up the rental car from the airport. It helped that I knew my way around -- having spent a summer here 6 years ago. The weather wasn't that great. It had been raining the entire week, and today was the tail end of the string of bad weather days.

View of Lake Champlain from Waterfront Park.

Waterfront Park.

Scene on Church Street. Some crazy kid running after the train. He looks happier than the kid on the train.

Postcard shot at Church Street.

Scene from a local park.

Stowe, VT

After Burlington, we had some time to kill before dinner, so I made a "quick" detour up to Stowe.

The famed church steeple from all those Stowe postcards. Too bad it was drizzling, and the foliage was past peak.

Got lost in the back roads. Good colors.

From a vista point in the general area.

Montpelier, VT

We stopped in Montpelier for dinner and took a quick tour of the state house before dinner at the Main Street Grill, run by NECI.

The Vermont State House.

Ceres (Demeter), the goddess of agriculture.

10/15/2007

The weather started to clear up today, and Vermont felt less gloomy.

Covered bridge in Taftsville.

I guess this kid didn't have school.

Quechee, VT

We started off with some cheese and maple syrup tasting at Sugarbush Farm. They have this great horseradish-flavored cheddar.

Horse at Sugarbush Farm.

Chapel in the woods near Sugarbush Farm.

Woodstock, VT

Woodstock is the quintessential village of New England. The only downside is that the traffic and parking was terrible. If you can somehow ignore the 18-wheelers and Camrys on the road, this place really takes you back in time.

The public library.

Middle Bridge.

Inside the Middle Bridge.

Funny store.

After Woodstock, we kind of drifted along Route 4 back to Quechee.

Some store had all kinds of animals on display. Great marketing. Great tourist trap. Since we were tourists, we just had to stop.

More animals.

Good weather today. Trying out the new circular polarizer in this shot.

Quechee, VT

Shot from the bridge at Quechee Gorge.

At the bottom of the gorge after a short hike.

Scenery during the hike.

Another shot of Quechee Gorge.

After the gorge, our final stop of the day was the Simon Pearce store.

View from the Mill, right outside Simon Pearce.

A wine glass in the making at Simon Pearce. Glassblowing is very fascinating to watch. It's something that I might enjoy doing.

The tools of the trade are on display outside the restrooms. They remind me of medieval torture equipment.

Along the Ottaquechee River.

Almost sunset.

The sun was starting to set as we left the area for New Hampshire for dinner and lodging. A bit of improv driving led us to some houses and a golf course by a small lake. Peak foliage colors are absolutely stunning right before sunset.

10/16/2007

Franconia, NH

We began the day at Franconia Notch State Park. We only had enough time to hit the 2 main attractions -- The Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway and the Flume Gorge. Sadly, we didn't get a chance to stop by the Basin.

Spectacular view from the parking lot for the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway.

Man, I would hate to go on a tour in one of these buses.

View of Echo Lake on the way up.

Even though the elevation at the top Cannon Mountain was only around 4000ft. It was so cold up there that everything was frozen. I guess no one will be using this for a while.

View from the top of Cannon Mountain.

Observatory.

I'm not sure if it's even possible to start a fire up there.

As I mentioned earlier, the entire place was pretty much encased in ice. We went up these stairs to the top of the observatory.

The rails at the top of the observatory.

Looks like something out of an Antarctic expedition.

View on the way down the mountain.

The Franconia Notch area was displaying full colors.

After Cannon Mountain, we went on to the Flume Gorge for some lower-altitude scenery.

The boulder looks like a human head.

New England is full of covered bridges. There's even one here!

Typical scene during hike in Flume Gorge.

I couldn't resist taking waterfall shots.

The pathway along the gorge.

Make that 2 covered bridges.

We were attacked by a giant snail.

Reflection off of the window of our rental car.

10/17/2007

North Conway, NH

The agenda today was not ambitious. We started off by exploring some attractions around North Conway. My plan was to follow Route 16 to 302, then do some exploring of the Crawford Notch area. Maybe do a little shopping at the outlets in North Conway, then driving the Kancamagus Highway to get to our hotel for the night.
Vantage point from Cathedral Ledge, near North Conway.

Shot during hike in Diana's Baths area.

More from Diana's Baths.

At scenic point along Crawford Notch Road. Mt. Washington in the distance.

New England roads are beautiful during foliage season. Kids, don't try this at home.

Random shot.

Rocky Gorge area, along the Kancamagus Highway.

Also from Rocky Gorge.

Sabbaday Falls.

Different angle.

10/18/2007

Portsmouth, RI

From Green Animals Topiary Garden.

Frankly, I think Green Animals is overrated. It might be worth your time if they don't charge admission, but if you have other things you want to see, then go see them first. Really, even kids would only be entertained for 15 minutes at the most. Don't waste your money here.

Newport, RI

During Cliff Walk.

Forty Steps.

Visit to Marble House. The weather started to get ugly again. The fog rolled in and everything looked gray and hazy.

Shot of the Trinity Episcopal Church in the dense fog after dinner.

10/20/2007

Boston, MA

Not sure what this is. It's near Tremont and School Street.

In Beacon Hill.

Somewhere along Mount Vernon Street.

Fake pumpkins on display in Louisburg Square.

Along Acorn Street.

Yes, because you can get trampled to death by hordes of Japanese teenage tourists.

Giant bust of Arthur Fiedler, long-time conductor of Boston Pops.

A shot of the alma mater.

At the Esplanade.

Hancock building.

Somehow, I really like the blue color of the Hancock building.

Artist at Faneuil Hall.

Government Center turned into some sort of pumpkin mecca.

The horrors.

It's the attack of the killer pumpkins.

Northern California Trip

2007-07-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Over Memorial Day weekend, we took a trip up to NORTHERN California. It's been a while, and I just finished going through all the pictures. =P

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Near Sulfur Works.

Smells nice!

I love driving out here.

Pretty high elevation, so there was still snow this time of the year... A lot of snow, actually.

Mini snowman.

And I suppose safaris are allowed if you don't go beyond this point?

There are quite a few lakes in the area. This is one of them. (I can't remember which one)

This is one creative tree.

This tree wants to do the Asian "Yay!" V(*_*)

Volcanic rocks around the Devastated Area. Here you get to see what happens when a volcano has an upset stomach.

The rocks have a variety of colors, age, and composition.

Some are big.

Some are small.

More volcanic rocks.

And more...

Really, there are a lot of them.

Too many rocks. Time for a breather.

Parts of the park was still closed, due to snow or other conditions, so we didn't get to check out some of the trails, waterfalls, or Bumpass Hell. I can easily spend days in this park.

Redding

After a not-so-quick drive back to Redding, and a relaxing dinner, we went to check out the Sundial Bridge.

The Sundial Bridge.

Sunset over Sacramento River.

McArthur-Burney Falls State Park

From the look-out point.

Along the trail to the bottom of the waterfall.

This is probably the most beautiful waterfall I've seen in my life. It was well worth the drive, and the highlight of the trip.

Invisible tree.

Bridge at the other end of the trail we took.

Further down the road is Lake Britton. It's a beauty! (I took this shot through my polarized sunglasses)

Modoc Volcanic Scenic Byway

After the waterfall, I wanted to go check out the Modoc Volcanic Scenic Byway. I had read somewhere that there are a bunch of volcanic activity-related points of interest to check out in this off-the-beaten-path area, such as lava tunnels and a "glass mountain". So I took an unplanned detour towards Hwy 49...

Scenic point along Hwy 49, overlooking the vast expanse of the Modoc National Forest.

The points of interest in this aren't marked well. The only thing we managed to find was this hole in the ground near a small unpaved lot.

It looks small, but the depression in the ground is big enough to hold my living room.

Inside the ice cave.

The scenic drive goes through some of the most pristine land in California (with a nicely paved road, no less). This was on Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend, and I did not see over 15 or 20 other cars during the 4 or 5 hours I spend in this area. All I saw was trees and more trees, and occasionally we came across unpaved logging roads that seem to lead to nowhere.

Took this shot on my own, with a tripod. Pretty good focus. =)

I was not able to locate any sign that pointed me to the Little Glass Mountain I wanted to find. Instead, I got lost. Shortly after we passed Medicine Lake, when I thought that we should probably begin the return trip back to the main highways, the road became unpaved. I'm not quite sure what happened in between that time, and when I got back to Hwy 15 for my return trip, except I saw signs pointing to Lava Beds National Monument, and that meant I went too far north.

I drove for miles and miles (at least 30-40 minutes) on this stuff... sometimes the road isn't even wide enough to fit 2 cars.

Dirty car. And this was before most of the driving on the unpaved roads.

I didn't get to see the glass mountain. All I got was a dirty car, and probably crappier alignment. A GPS might have been a good thing in this area, as our cell phones did not have any reception at all. My unplanned detour turned out to be quite an adventure, and I ended up not having enough time to go see the waterfalls near McCloud.

Mount Shasta

On our way back to Redding, the adventurer in me decided to take another detour, up Mount Shasta.

We stopped by an Italian restaurant in Mount Shasta city, called Strings. The food was surprisingly good, given the location.

Shasta Dam

Before we left for home, I just had to go see Shasta Dam, the only point of interest close enough for a quick visit. We found some nice picture spots.

Close-up.

Lake Shasta, with Mount Shasta in the distance.

And with that, our mini trip concluded. The weekend just went by too quickly. Even though it's a three-day weekend, there just wasn't enough time to enjoy all that the area has to offer. It's a shame.... This calls for a return trip. =)

Monterey Day Trip

2007-07-03T23:08:00.000-07:00

We took the requisite 17 Mile Drive. Even though the weather wasn't as wonderful, the sights were still exquisite. Everytime I come here, I manage to find something new to photograph.

I like interesting rocks.

"This way to heaven."

Artsy fartsy shot.

What the hell. While we're here, I might as well take another shot of the Lone Cypress.

I believe this was Bird Rock. You don't want to be standing under those birds when they gotta go.

Deer!

I don't think he's going to make it. =T

And of course, we finished off the day with a yummy dinner at Passionfish. It was yet another stellar food experience. Too lazy to list out the stuff we had in detail. But the duck confit and the dessert with the cabernet sauce were especially good.

Fisherman's Wharf Day Trip

2007-07-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

Next stop in the Bay Area whirlwind tour...

Great, free parking here, if you're fortunate.

I'm glad they made it clear.

Star Wars mail box

Coit Tower

Cool display in one of the stores.

Boats

Napa Day Trip

2007-06-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

Y's sister came to visit her. As Bay Area locals, we felt obligated to show her around. First stop in her whirlwind tour -- Napa. Need to liquor her up a bit to leave a good impression of her vacation.

1. V. Sattui Winery

Since it was a long weekend and the weather was awesome, if not a bit on the warm side, the big-name place were PACKED! V. Sattui was named winery of the year last year, and I'm sure their wines are excellent, but we didn't stick around for any tasting. If it weren't for the crowd, I would have loved to try out the 8 wines for $10 offering they had. There were some interesting-looking wines I wanted to taste. =T I'll save it for next time....

In the cellar.

2. Opus One

Opus One is supposed to be one of THE wineries. With bottles easily costing 3 figures, and tasting is by appointment only (and costs something on the order of $30), we weren't able to go inside. Still, that didn't stop us from walking around and enjoying their beautiful grounds in this nice weather.

Y and sister.

Opus One main building.

Overlooking the front.

Looks like a spaceship!

3. Domaine Chandon

We did plan for some tasting of the bubblies and a winery tour at Domaine Chandon. They're famed for their sparkling wines. With a 2-for-1 tasting coupon, we tried out 7 different wines. They also have well-kept grounds.

Mushroom stone sculptures.

Huge steel tanks during the tour.

Barrels. What else do you see in a winery tour?

Our tour was interrupted by a bat flying around. It was too fast for me to photograph in the dim conditions, so we settled for a shot with the tanks.

In all, it was a short, fun trip to Napa. I increased my collection of wine glasses (from wine tastings) yet again.

Quick LA Trip

2007-06-25T02:28:00.000-07:00

Took a quick trip down to LA this past weekend. Here are some notable pictures from Long Beach and Rodeo Drive.

Long Beach

Weirdest thing at the Aquarium of the Pacific

Queen Mary

Rodeo Drive

Ratatouille

2007-06-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

Caught the sneak preview of Ratatouille on Saturday night. It's Pixar's newest movie. Maybe it's because the market is over-saturated with sequels upon sequels, but I haven't been that impressed with the offering of [supposedly] blockbuster movies thusfar this summer. Sure we're pulling in 9-figure ticket sales. Sure the special effects are out of this world. There's just a lack of movies with interesting/original storylines.

Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed Ratatouille. It's THE movie to see this summer, or maybe even this year. It's so I-laughed-so-hard-I-peed-in-my-pants funny that I can't wait until the DVD comes out. [Note: No, I did not actually pee in my pants. It was just a figure of speech. I would advise against drinking stuff while watching this movie, unless you really have to.]

I waited through the entire credits for some outtakes or something special, but there wasn't anything to see. So save yourself a few minutes and leave when the credits start, unless you have a thing for reading something that's pretty much the entire Pixar payroll and all their second cousins.

Tour de Cure

2007-06-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

This Sunday was the Tour de Cure ride in Palo Alto. Since I don't have a bike yet, I got to be the official photographer of Y and her coworker P. They participated in the "50K" ride.

Before the ride.

And they're off! (Just wanted to note that their numbers add up to 600)

Lance Armstrong never looked this good as a blur.

It's hard work laughing through "50K" of biking.

Almost there!

Alas, I was not quick enough to beat the two fast bikers back to the finish line for the money shot. Next time, I'll consider dragging my camera along for the ride.

Amaryllis Flowers

2007-05-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

So it's blooming season for the Amaryllis in my yard. Figured that I'd get some shots in before they shrivel up...

SF Day Trip

2007-05-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

Started off with a trip to the De Young Museum. It's great that they allow non-flash photos.

I liked this painting by John Singer Sargent the most.

Buck teeth?

I don't know, but these following paintings look awfully real. Even in these pictures, which don't do them any justice...

Afterwards, we drove through Golden Gate Park on our way out.

Gnarly!

And passed by Pacific Heights. I just wanted to drive up and down the steep 20+ degree hills. The mansions there have stunning architecture.

View of the Marina.

Alcatraz

Palace of Fine Arts.

And arrived at Ghirardelli Square. I dunno... Somehow, I just wasn't impressed by Ghirardelli Square at all. Maybe it's all the construction going on, but I found the place to be a boring tourist trap with overpriced food and shops. We stayed for $2 worth of parking and left for dinner elsewhere.

Monterey / Big Sur Trip - Day 2

2007-05-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

Pacific Grove was so nice yesterday that we decided to come back for more when everything was bright and sunny. Man, there were some parts of PG that are just spectacular this time of the year, when the weather is nice. It's almost as nice as the cherry blossoms in Japan. The weather was much warmer today, even a little hot.

Day 2 -- Pacific Grove, Carmel, Big Sur:

Pacific Grove, late morning.

Resting butterfly.

Beautiful tree.

Shot of the tide pools.

More scenery.

Afterwards, we ventured down Highway 1 to grab lunch in Carmel and take a stroll through streets lined with stores carrying items with out-of-this-world price tags. Reality check... Having more money IS better. I know, I know. Having more money doesn't bring more happiness. But I'd rather be rich and unhappy, than poor and unhappy. =P

We went to Big Sur in the afternoon to check out the scenery. All the reviews say it's beautiful, and they were all correct. B-E-A-utiful.

Crashing waves.

Me, at the coast.

Some bridge; not Bixby Bridge.

Bixby Bridge off in the distance. From south of the bridge.

We ended up in Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. For the entrance fee you have to pay to get in here, the Pfeiffer Fall isn't really worth it. It's much more interesting to pay for the slightly higher entrance fee to the 17 Mile Drive.

Took the trail to Pfeiffer Fall. While we're here, might as well take a picture.

Another shot of the waterfall.

We ended up taking another trail (Valley View Trail), which took around an hour to climb. We kept going higher, and higher, and higher, and higher. Finally, we found a bench at the end of the trail. The view *almost* made it worth it. But it was hot, and we were tired.

View of the valley, on Valley View Trail.

"Reflection" =)

This is the bench you find at the end of the trail.

Trees. Lots of trees.

Near the beginning of the trails.

After our hike, we're just about ready to call it a day, so I headed south for a few more miles to have dinner at Nepenthe, one of the "cheaper" places in Big Sur to eat with scenery. We got there around 5:30pm, and all the outdoors seats were already taken. Didn't want to wait 30+ minutes, so we took an indoor table. The view was pretty good still, without the heat. Their cheapest entree is the $13 burger. The cheese costs extra.

Dinner view, at Nepenthe.

Big Sur coastline, in the evening.

We passed by the Bixby Bridge on the way home, so I did some off-roading to get to a better vantage point.

Bixby Bridge.

Close-up.

What I learned from this trip was: I like the ocean and vibrant colors, and I'll take a lot of pictures with them.

Monterey / Big Sur Trip - Day 1

2007-05-05T22:57:00.000-07:00

The weather has been really nice for the past 2 weeks, so Yi-Shan and I figured that it's about time to head somewhere for a mini vacation. Since we didn't plan in advance, and we didn't want to take any time off from work, our choices were limited to the places "close by".

Yosemite: - I really wanted to go check out Yosemite, but aside from roughing it in the park, there weren't too many lodging options still available in the park. Also, it was warmer this year and there wasn't as much snow -- leading to earlier melting of the snow (which determines the peak waterfall season there). Maybe Yosemite is better left for another time... in the fall/winter, or next spring. Plus it would be a long drive for a weekend trip.

Wine Country - We've already been up to Napa and Russian River this year, so it was probably better to go somewhere else for a change. Though, Calistoga is an option, since we didn't have enough time to drive all the way up there when we went to Napa in January.

Monterey: - In the end, I settled on Monterey area. The drive there is only around 100 miles, which I can easily do in 1.5 hours or less. I already have a bunch of maps for the Monterey Peninsula area, and I'm somewhat familiar with the roads there already. Plus, I also remembered that the ice plants were in full bloom around this time of the year last year, which would definitely make for a more scenic trip.

Day 1 -- Monterey, Pacific Grove:

We had errands to run, so didn't get to leave until late morning on Saturday. With some crafty driving on my part, we got to Cannery Row in time for lunch.

Yi-Shan and Giant Otter.

The water was really blue.

Gorgeous shot of the sea.

In the evening, we went to Passionfish for dinner. In the 2 times that I've been there, and the 9 different dishes I've tried so far, I have yet to find something to complain about. Ask me at any time, and I'll be able to tell you what I had each time. It's that good. =) Since I don't want to do another Passionfish entry, I'll just briefly list the stuff we had this time around:

1. Tempura soft shell crab with sauteed shiitake mushrooms and capers -- Mmmm.. I don't think I'll ever have to order spider rolls at Japanese restaurants. The cost was about the same as a spider roll, but you get the whole freaking crab here, which is pretty good for 2 people.

2. Alaskan salmon with tempura shiitake mushrooms -- The salmon was really soft (not the kind of soft you get with old seafood) and the mushrooms were not greasy at all. Can't get enough of shiitake mushrooms.

3. Braised kurobuta (translates to black pig) with pasta -- For $18, I was expecting something like 3 cubes of meat. Instead, they gave me an entire slab/chunk still on the bone. It was the size of half of my forearm. The pork smelled sooo good, especially with the dijon mustard marinade, and you can practically lift the meat off the bone with only a fork. I felt really full at one point, and thought that I was done -- only to discover that I had only finished half the meat. There was ANOTHER HALF on the underside of the bone. O_o If I have to get nitpicky and complain about something, it's that they should have warned me about how much pork there'd be. If I had a fridge and microwave in the hotel, I would have taken it back for breakfast the next day.

4. Coconut ice-cream with sauteed bananas in rum sauce -- I somehow managed to grow another stomach in time for this.

4.5 We tried a glass of some vino verde (I can't remember which winery). It's a young white wine from Portugal, with a slight effervescence. It was pretty good, but not as good as the bottle of New Age that I have sitting at home.

After dinner, it was time to check out the Pacific Grove ice plants...

Eastward shot at Pacific Grove.

Sunset at Pacific Grove.

Another shot.

The sea and ice plant in bloom.

I guess some pilot was having fun. Great effect with the clouds.

So many pretty colors.

Museum Month

2007-04-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Bank of America card holders get free admissions (plus 1 guest) to a lot of museums in California and the Northeast during the month of May. If you have an account, take advantage of this. =)

http://www.bankofamericapromotions.com/museums/

Business Ideas...

2007-04-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

So I have some interesting ideas for time to time... In the past few weeks, I've had 2+ ideas related to businesses. (I say 2+ because there were 3, but I forgot 1, so I only remember 2 now)

One of which is a straight-up old-school merchandising business, where I'd sell some goods, and maybe set up some e-commerce site along the way. This could have potential to make some money, if only pocket change.... Maybe I'll tackle that as a side hobby eventually, if I don't have something more important to work on.

The other idea I had was for a travel-related start up. Sure, there'll be some competition from the likes of Yahoo and young, college-aged kids, but I think I have an idea or two about how to make things better. This one, I can't tackle alone technologically or manpower-wise. Any one interested?

Taiwan Taipei Trip - Day 3

2007-04-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

After a lot of rain, the weather finally cooperated today. We passed by CKS Memorial again, so I decided to take some nicer pictures.

The main entrance.

The National Concert Hall.

Main hall.

Changing of the gurads.

We took advantage of the subway system in Taipei (the color-coding reminds me of the Boston subway system, though the cost of the Taipei subway isn't fixed).

We wanted to stop by the Taipei 101 while it's still the world's tallest building. I think either Dubai or Shanghai has something in the works to beat the height. The first 5 floors and basement of the Taipei 101 is basically a high-end mall.

The wall decorations of a Japanese restaurant inside the Taipei 101.

Ceiling.

Outside the Taipei 101.

From the mall across the street.

Random interesting-looking building.

We bought tickets to the observation deck in the evening. Too bad it's only to the 89th floor, but the elevator ride took less than 40 seconds. They claim that it's the world's fastest elevator.

Shot of the bamboo-inspired building at night.

View of Taipei city from way up there.

This is what a 660 metric ton ball looks like.

The elevator display.

Another shot of the ceiling as we were leaving the building.

Taiwan Taipei Trip - Day 1

2007-04-09T18:33:00.000-07:00

We came up to Taipei today. Happened to pass by the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, so we decided to go inside for a look.

They had a ton of paper lanterns inside, in the exhibit area.

The CKS Memorial Hall is the Taiwanese equivalent of the Lincoln Memorial.

Ceiling of the memorial hall.

It was raining outside. Typical crappy Taipei weather.

Kaohsiung Lakes

2007-04-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

Lakeside shot of Cheng Ching Lake in Kaohsiung.

Grand Hotel in the distant background.

Another lake (Lian Ci Tan).

Taiwan East Coast - Day 3

2007-04-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

Today brought us to Taroko Gorge. Truly beautiful place. No wonder tons of tourist flock to this place.

Entrance.

Not sure what this was. I had to do some major zooming on my camera to get this shot.

Group shot in front of Ci2 Mu3 Bridge.

Another shot of the bridge.

Huuuge toad-looking rock beside the bridge.

The rocks are intruiging.

Looks like a big gorilla.

Giant fist??

Parts of the path we took went through the rocks.

Yummy Waterfall.

Mom and grandma.

Taiwan East Coast - Day 2

2007-04-04T22:11:00.000-07:00

I took a morning stroll through parts of the Jhihben National Forest. It was drizzling, so that wasn't as fun. The pictures turned out okay.

Dreamy...

Platform at Taichung Train Station.

Taiwan East Coast - Day 1

2007-04-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

Since there wasn't much to do at home, my grandparents (mom's side) decided to take us on a last minute tour to eastern Taiwan.

Arrived at Jhihben Hot Springs. The weather wasn't particularly nice. With showers from time to time.

Seems like something out of a depressing movie.

Decorations at the restaurant where we had dinner.

Fried shrimp fresh from the creek, with tons of garlic and green onions. You can eat these suckers whole without having to worry about the shell or head/tail. I waited years for this dish. Hells ya.

Back in Taiwan

2007-04-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

After a long, tiring flight to Kaohsiung, Taiwan, I'm somewhat settled in at home. The muggy/sticky weather and myriad of moped riders and funky smells quickly remind me why I prefer Californian 'burbs.

Happy April Fool's Day!
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/index
(I especially like the UFO hoax by Richard Branson)

Gone Fishing

2007-03-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

Been missing in action for quite some time now. My workload has been sucking for some time. I'll be leaving the country soon. Heh heh heh.

Random Picture

2007-01-30T00:18:00.000-08:00

Interesting shot of the Amgen office building windows one evening.

Golden Gate

2007-01-20T22:58:00.000-08:00

In the nearly 4 years that I've been in the Bay Area, I haven't done too much of the touristy stuff. Decided to take a stroll and snap some pictures on the way to Sausalito for dinner.

Requisite bridge shot, at sunset.

Bridge shot, from Marin County side.

SF Skyline.

Night shot of bridge from vantage point.

Trip to Napa

2007-01-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

Took a trip to Napa. Since we started out late today, we didn't visit too many wineries. Here are some pictures from Copia, Mondalvi, and Chandon.

The Edible Gardens at the COPIA center.

Me and small bear at Robert Mondavi Winery.

Yi-Shan and cat.

Sculpture on the Mondavi grounds.

Giant bear, for a lack of better descriptions. =P

Random shot.

Parting shot at Mondavi.

Cheers! At Domain Chandon, where the fine bubblies flow profusely.

Early festivities for Yi-Shan's birthday, with relatives and friends.

Cheesecake was the theme of the evening.

Thugs to Riches

2006-10-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Wired has a feature this month on Gizmondo, the gaming company that burned away nearly $400 million within 4 years on things like a limited edition (only 400 ever made) Ferrari Enzo, the majority stake of a model agency in order to supply attractive women for company parties, and who knows what. It's like something straight out of a Hollywood movie.

Insecurity

2006-10-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

Good things come in 3s. Since I haven't posted in such a long time, I'll do another one.

All this nonsense and paranoia about airline security and terrorists is really really pissing me off.

I'll bet that more people die from leukemia each year than from terrorists and all the suicide bombings going on these days. Why don't we spend like 1/10 of the money we're putting into terrorism for the treatment of whatever diseases and cancers instead? Because we're easily-manipulated idiots who are afraid of dying.

Call it whatever you want, but I think Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Richard Branson are on the right track with their giganhumongonormous donations to causes more worthy of our attention.

Some guy in Washington state was deemed suspicious and had to miss his flight for questioning because he was speaking on his cell phone in Tamil prior to take-off. How American is that? Different skin color + different language = terrorist.

This might some day get me in the TSA's black book, but Kip Hawley is an idiot.

Attack of the Giant Bug

2006-10-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

Seems like Germany has bug problems.

Link

Milestone

2006-10-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

After some 3 years, I finally sent my 10,000th email at work this morning. This is a cause for celebration. =)

Restaurant Review: Passionfish

2006-08-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, I had the chance to try out Passionfish, a restaurant offering Californian seafood fare that I read about in the Via magazine some time back. I happened to be in the Monterey area (again!) and thought that I would hunt down this place and give it a try.

Passionfish is located in downtown (if you can even call it that) Pacific Grove, on Lighthouse Ave. It doesn't look like much from the outside; I would say that it might have some character, at best. However, the food offered inside is another matter. The writer in Via gave it rave reviews -- saying that it's great food at inexpensive prices. The food is great, but the "inexpensive" part is a bit misleading. Well, for the quality and quantity of food that I got, I guess I might be paying a lot more elsewhere.

It seems like the restaurant is a pretty popular place. Fortunatly, we got there at 5pm, so the place was still fairly empty, and we didn't need a reservation. However, when we left around 7pm, the place was pretty full.

I got to try a bunch of different dishes... Pardon my slaughtering of the description. I'm doing the best I can based on memory. I just don't remember the names or the descriptions on the menu.
- Freshly baked (sourdough?) bread with some garlic cream/butter spread -- Truly evil combination.... we couldn't stop eating this!
- Seared ahi tuna with some wasabi slaw -- I (heart) tuna
- Crab and avocado salad with arugula and some citrus ginger vinaigrette -- Maybe a little too much vinaigrette, but it wasn't too salty... the crab and avocado was excellent
- Halibut with pesto sauce, and some noodles and veggies with a hint of coconut milk -- It was really, really fresh! Even better tasting than the hirame sashimi I've been eating at Sushi O Sushi. I didn't really need a knife to cut it.
- Sea scallops, along with some risotto on a bed of some bitter veggie -- So yummy and almost to-die-for. Sweet and juicy. The down side was that it was 3 scallops (and side risotto and veggies) for $23. It was almost as bad as the $20 that I once paid for 2 giant scallops at Summer Shack in Cambridge/Boston. It was really really good though, so I was still happy.
- Chamomile creme brulee -- At this point, I was starting to feel like I had a little too much food. The creme brulee was really good too, and probably too much for one person. You would need at least 2 or 3 people to handle this, since it's not that small.

We may have over-ordered a bit, since we were expecting the dishes to be tiny. However, their portions were pretty decent, so I was pretty full with just an appetizer and entree, and some bread of course. The food was very tasty and the fish was fresh. I think the quality/freshness of the fish was probably better than the sashimi-grade stuff you get at Japanese restaurants. The dessert was simply overkill. Again, I expected the dessert portion to be tiny, so I was pleasantly surprised. I would be happy if that were my last meal. =)

Passionfish is supposed to have a really good wine list, offering great wines with very little mark-up on the prices. However, we didn't feel like any alcohol then, so maybe next time. I don't rate restaurants and don't know how anyway, so I won't even try. The Zagat ratings for the food is 25 (out of 30), which I would have to agree with. I'd have to say that Passionfish is probably my favorite non-Asian restaurant in the Bay Area.

Interesting articles

2006-08-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

Cool Hunter had a great article on how Nike got so big. Link

Terrorists fund themselves with... coupons?!?! Link

Previous failed attempt with liquids on planes. Link

Stupidity

2006-08-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

Stupid people doing stupid things. The human brain is simply amazing.

The following article was taken from here.

Shocking arrest

The German shepherd police dog, placed in service two weeks ago, got zapped with electricity at 3 a.m. Friday when the man he was arresting bit into a 220-volt electrical cord, with the announced plan of killing anyone who touched him, police say.

No one died, but Adalberto Cardoso, 39, of Sumner Street, will face a raft of charges, including cruelty to animals, once he is discharged from the hospital.

An employee at McDonalds, 255 Lonsdale Ave., called for help at 3 a.m. after Cardoso used his fists to break open a plate glass window and enter the business, police allege.

The first police officers on the scene report seeing Cardoso inside McDonalds, wearing only boxer shorts and his blood that covered him from his head to his feet.

Police surrounded McDonalds and ordered Cardoso to surrender, officers report.

Cardoso, instead, jumped out of a broken window and fought with police, who report they could not get a good grip on him because of his strength and the blood and sweat that covered him.

He also fought with the police dog, punching it in the mouth and neck, police allege. Cardoso was able to crawl back to the broken window and Officer Ernest Pendergrass, who handles the police dog, pulled back the dog, fearing it would be injured by the jagged glass still in the window frame.

Cardoso escaped and jumped back into McDonalds through the broken window, police allege.

Police entered to find Cardoso standing on top of the milkshake machine, officers allege. As they approached, police say, Cardoso turned the machine on and began throwing handfuls of milkshake at the police and the police dog, officers allege.

Cardoso was able to pull the machine from the wall, police say. When Bak, the police dog, pulled him to the ground, Cardoso announced: "I'm going to kill us all," and bit into the electrical cord, police allege.

The dog, Officer Jeffrey Davis, Officer Robert Cardente and Officer Dino Giorgio all received electrical shocks because they were wrestling with Cardoso as he bit the cord, police allege.

Officer Pendergrass pulled back Bak, his partner, and reports he struck Cardoso on the shoulder and back with his fighting baton, causing him to drop the electrical cord from his mouth. Police say they dragged Cardoso away from the electrical cord and outlet and handcuffed him.

Besides cruelty to animals Cardoso is to be charged with breaking into McDonalds, assault on police officers and resisting arrest.

He was admitted to Memorial Hospital because of the deep cuts to his hands and forearms, apparently caused when he broke through the plate glass window, police report.

The dog was not injured, but three police officers were treated for cuts and bruises at Memorial Hospital.

Because the breaking and entering charge is a felony, Cardoso will face charges in Superior Court.

------------------------------------------------------------

The following article was taken from here.

Man fired for getting gassed on spilled ethanol at work

Cory Neddermeyer had a blood alcohol level that was double what is considered to be lethal.

CLARK KAUFFMAN

REGISTER STAFF WRITER

An Iowa judge has denied unemployment benefits to a man who claimed discrimination after being fired from an ethanol plant for drinking "automobile fuel" produced by the company.

Cory Neddermeyer, 42, was fired in April from Amaizing Energy in Denison, where he worked as a maintenance technician. The company produces ethanol fuel for vehicles in a formula that includes a high concentration of alcohol.

Neddermeyer was fired after an April 21 incident at the Denison plant. According to Neddermeyer, he showed up for work that morning and saw that there had been a spill of fuel alcohol. Hundreds of gallons of 190-proof alcohol were contained in a 6-inch-deep holding pond that was about 30 feet by 24 feet.

It proved to be too much to resist, Neddermeyer said.

"I am a recovering alcoholic, and I thought about the availability of this alcohol throughout the day," he wrote in a statement later provided to state officials. "Curious about the taste and its effects, I dipped into this lake of liquor and drank what I considered to be 2 to 3 ounces. The next thing I remember is waking up in Crawford County Memorial Hospital."

Neddermeyer had been found by his co-workers in an incoherent state, unable to say his name or the day of the week.

He was taken to a hospital, where his blood-alcohol level, according to state records, was reported at 0.72 - nine times the legal limit for driving, and almost double the level that is considered potentially fatal for many adults.

He was briefly hospitalized for acute alcohol intoxication, during which time his employer searched his work area and allegedly found three empty pop bottles that contained trace amounts of the fuel.

At a subsequent state hearing on Neddermeyer's request for unemployment benefits, plant manager Jeff Bruck expressed shock at Neddermeyer's actions.

"This is a fuel alcohol," Bruck testified. "This is an explosive product."

The liquid had not been blended with gasoline.

At the hearing, Administrative Law Judge Teresa Hillary asked Neddermeyer, "Why would you drink fuel?"

"I don't have a good explanation for that," he replied. "Curiosity?"

Neddermeyer argued that his employer shared in the responsibility for the incident because the spill at the plant provided an "opportunity" for him to drink.

He also argued that Amaizing Energy was discriminating against him due to his "disease of alcoholism."

He asked Hillary whether the protections afforded him under the Americans with Disabilities Act could be applied to his request for unemployment benefits.

"The fact that you're an alcoholic does not excuse your behavior," Hillary replied. "You're not allowed to come into an unemployment hearing and say, 'I'm an alcoholic so I don't have to live with the misconduct standards.' "

Hillary denied the request for benefits, saying Neddermeyer had committed job-related misconduct that could have resulted in his death.

"The employer has a right to expect employees not to drink the fuel," Hillary ruled. "Just because some of the ethanol leaked onto the floor is not a good reason for the claimant to drink automobile fuel."

Court records indicate Neddermeyer has twice been convicted of driving while intoxicated.

Neddermeyer said Thursday that he has been struggling with alcohol for at least 10 years and is now getting additional help.

"Things were going pretty well until that day at work," he said.

Human Echolocation

2006-07-20T00:02:00.000-07:00

I saw this article off of BoingBoing yesterday. Didn't get to blog it until now. Freaking amazing.... this human echolocation... He's like Daredevil!

Being Groomsman

2006-07-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

I was one of two groomsmen at the wedding on Friday.

Picture of Irene and me. Courtesy of Chia.

I signed myself up to do the speech/toast, since I figured that I could probably use the practice. I hate public speaking. Talking to people is okay. I don't schmooze, but I don't mind socializing a bit. Addressing a large group of people is okay too. However, doing a prepared speech with actual/relevant content is not. There's always the risk of sounding too stiff, or blanking out. The last (and only) time I had to do a prepared speech in front of 50+ people, it was at my high school graduation. I wasn't even the only one up on the stage, and I screwed up (meaning, stuttered, and had to repeat) even though I was reading from a script. So, with this dark cloud still over my head, I was even more determined to give speeches another shot. Or die trying.

Since I've been extremely busy for the past two weeks, I didn't get to finish writing the speech until Thursday, the day before the wedding. That happened during the hour between rehersal and dinner. Yeah, I know... craziness. I had some sense of what the structure of the speech was going to be, but no content. Due to lack of sleep and general tiredness, I only started memorizing the speech the morning of the wedding. I will never cut it this close again!

During the dinner right before the toast, I figured that I would put some alcohol in my belly to help with the nerves. Thinking that it might actually make me looser and more talkative, I gulped down an entire glass of some cabernet sauvignon. In the end, I don't know whether it really helped or not, since I blanked out even more when I tried to practice the speech in my head. It might have caused me to stress out even more.

I vaguely remember being surprised when Adeline, one of the bridesmaids, began her speech. By that time, I still haven't done a complete run of my toast in my head. The next thing I knew, she was already asking for me to go up and do my thing.

I vaguely remember the things that happened after that point. I guess adrenaline kicked in and I only realized that I forgot to refer to my note card the whole time when I had to put it in my right hand to free up my left hand for the wine glass at the end of my toast. I somehow ended up ad-libbing a few parts when I thought of some funny comment to add, or when I couldn't remember the words I was supposed to say. Here's the text to my speech (I made my best effort attempt to add in the stuff I think I said... but like I said, I don't remember much).

------------------------------------------------------

Hi everyone. I first met Ed as a freshman at MIT some 8 years ago. We lived a few doors down from each other in the dorm and since we were both in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department, we had many classes together. We spent most of our time working on projects for our classes, studying for exams, or playing video games. Sometimes we'll remember to eat or sleep; and occasionally, we'll call home to let our parents know that we're still alive.

(I remember blanking out here, and some how I was able to pull this out of my ass. =P It's stupid, but people did laugh, and it bought me some time as I tried to recall my next section) Some people ask, "Isn't college all about partying?" Well, at MIT, we don't party. We're engineers. We study for fun.

Coincidentally, Ed and I both found jobs out here in California, and moved out here after graduation 3 years ago.

My first impression of Ed was that, he is a very messy person! His room is always in disarray, and looks as if something had exploded in there. Piles of books and papers here; piles of clothing there; his desk is overflowing; his trashcan is overflowing; occasionally you might catch an interesting smell from the fridge. It always amazes me how Ed manages to find anything in his room. Laundry for Ed consists of taking his laundry basket and going around the apartment to gather up all the clothing scattered on the floor. If you don't believe me, you can confirm this with Jen. (At this point, Ed's dad chimed in unexpectedly and confirmed that the messiness is indeed inherited... some crazy laughter followed... giving me valuable time to regroup and prepare for my next line)

As you can see, Jen obviously did not marry Ed for his cleanliness, or looks. (This comment drew the greatest reaction from the crowd. I guess I did push it a little bit too far. But I wouldn't have made this comment if I thought he's bad-looking. And notice, I never used the word, "ugly", did I?) I guess you can think of it as a testament to his good traits, such as his good-natured personality and intelligence. Either that, or she might have lowered her standards a bit.

Seriously though, I has been a true friend over the years. He is very good-natured and down to earth. In all my years of knowing him, I have never seen him get mad at all. He is always kind and generous with his friends. I can’t tell you how many times he’s had to listen to me whine about work or recount horror stories from bad dates. I feel truly honored and fortunate to call Ed my friend.

Everyone, please raise your glasses and join me in this toast.

Jen and Ed, may you two share many more wonderful memories in your journey together. I wish you two everlasting love and happiness.

To Jen and Ed.

------------------------------------------------------

I have to thank Albert again for putting my camera to good use while I was occupied...

My most stressful moment in recent years.

Looks like the happy couple was still enjoying my speech at this point.

("What the hell was I going to say next?! Shouldn't have drank that wine!")

Ed and Jen's Wedding

2006-07-16T11:29:00.001-07:00

Friday was Ed and Jen's wedding (and Bastille Day). At this point, my brain feels kaputt from all the festivities and lack of sleep, and I'm at a loss of words.... So, here's a photo recap. Fill in the words yourself. =P

Scenic Woodside view.

The man himself, surveying the grounds before the event.

Kai + Mel, the coordinator. Setting up the mic.

Everyone's so happy. (Thanks Albert for taking pictures for me while I was up there!)

"You may kiss the bride."

Bride, groom, and Carter.

True colors.

Groom and Kai.

One of my gazillion candid shots of the bride.

Groom and me.

I thought this was cute and just had to take a picture.

Another adorable picture.

First dance.

I had good vantage point for the cake cutting.

Tired

2006-07-15T02:17:00.000-07:00

Holy Crap. I just had 30 people in my place. That's a new record. The entire first floor was literally swarming with people.

The entire front entry was covered with shoes.

So tired... going to sleep on that.

Congrats to Ed and Jen. Wedding was nice and tiring. I'm glad everything went well. Will post pictures in a later post. My camera logged about 300 pictures. Overall, I'm very happy with the results from the camera. Even with various lighting conditions, shaking hands, ultra zooming, about 70% of the pictures are usable (in focus with good coloring). After seeing some of the resutls from other cameras, I'm really glad that I bought my Panny FZ7. Battery life was very awesome, and my 2GB memory card proved to be adequate.

Work has been really draining lately. I really need some major sleep. Nite!

Sometimes You Just Wanna...

2006-06-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

This must be how Mark Cuban is feeling right now. $250,000 later, and still no payback. Better luck to the Mavs next year. Now Mr ex-Glove and Zo can retire peacefully. I hope this success early on in Dwayne Wade's career doesn't screw him up and turn him into another Kobe (off the court).

Anyhoo... the picture is from here. Now why didn't I think of this before? It's so cute and sadistic... and practical too. Think of the possibilities with the small Gund bears or Beanie Babies!! Too bad I don't have any stuffed animals, or USB flash drives, around here to experiment with.

Mega Japanese Drama Review (Part 1)

2006-06-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

Since my last drama posting back in October, I've racked up numerous hours watching many more drama series... probably enough to study for GMAT even. I've slowed down my pace a lot lately, in order to give my somewhat-neglected anime collection some lovin' as well. This is part 1 of my super duper mega Japanese drama review. Or should I say, great Japanese dorama review super go! (^_~)

Sutaa no Koi -- About the unlikely love story between a commoner ("salaryman" in Japanese lingo) and a famous movie actress. It's somewhat amusing. It's still a mystery to me how someone like Kusanagi Tsuyoshi (the man who plays the commoner) is able to be in a popular group like SMAP. Okay acting; okay plot; an average drama; good for one-time viewing. My first run-in with Kyoko Hasegawa, who's not even in a lead role. ~drool~ -- (5/10)

Hana Yori Dango -- This highly-anticipated series fizzled. HYD was originally a popular shoujo manga that was first adapted as anime, then drew the attention of drama fans when it was done in live-action in a Taiwanese series called Meteor Garden. Now, Meteor Garden is known for its bad acting. I dare say that even I can do a better job than some of those people. It was the plotline that kept Meteor Garden alive. I'm not going to try to explain the insane popularity of MG in Asia.

Anyways, for the Japanese HYD drama, the story was shortened into a 9-episode series, and the actors for the F4 (Flower 4, yes the name is quite gay, but it's from comics aimed at high school-aged girls, so what'd you expect?) are pretty bad looking, except Shun Oguri, who plays Hanazawa Rui. I felt that they rushed a perfectly good story and compressed it into only 9 episodes. The casting was just horrible. It's sad to say that even I am bigger and better looking (IMHO) than the dude who plays Tsukasa Doumyouji (Jun Matsumoto). Of course, since I was following this series as it was being aired in Japan, I didn't have the advantage of using reviews to filter out bad dramas. Well, the reviews are skewed positively by crazed teenage girls making comments like, "JunMatsu is sooo cute! He can really act!" Okay, I'm going to shut up before JunMatsu fans tear me another one. -- (5/10)

Hoshi no Kinka -- This is a sad drama about how a deaf and mute (and pretty too) country girl falls in love with a doctor from the city. She goes to search for him in the city, after he fails to return as promised -- only to find out that he's suffered a memory loss-inducing head injury. One-sided silent loving in secret has never been so good. Not only can Noriko Sakai sell albums (back in the 90s anyway), she can act expressively and convincingly as well. -- (9.5/10)

To Heart -- Decent acting from Tsuyoshi Dohmoto (I liked him much better in Summer Snow), which was more than negated by the usual big-eyed, pouty-faced, air-headed, gag-inducingly-cute Kyoko Fukada. I just don't really like her, mmmkay? Oh yeah, the story is so-so. -- (5.5/10)

Kamisama, Mou Sukoushi Dake -- The title translates to "God Please Give Me More Time." With a title like that, I got suckered into watching another Kyoko Fukada drama. The story is mainly about a girl who makes one wrong choice and contracts HIV. The drama deals with heavier topics like AIDS and the moral issues of enjo kosai (compensated dating, where high school girls date older men for money [link to special feature on Time Asia]). The plot is decent, but it was frustrating to watch because the characters just kept doing stupid things and end up hurting each other and causing more pain/anguish. I felt like smacking them, a lot. And everytime I see Kyoko Fukada's airheaded character running in the show, I envision her getting hit by a truck (and thus ending the series prematurely). (¬_¬) I just don't think she's capable of playing any type of role other than the cutesy, "innocent" ones I've seen. This drama also features Takeshi Kaneshiro in the typical long-haired, brooding, I'm-a-complicated-badass-so-you-can't-understand-me role. I really liked the opening theme. It's a rock anthem called "I For You" by Luna Sea. -- (7.5/10)

My Little Chef -- Average drama about a amateur chef who can create wonderful dishes at a French restaurant. The whole drama is full "tell me how you feel and I'll concoct something extraordinary even though I am no trained at all" (think Azuma Kazuma from Yakitate Japan). Plenty of close-ups of French food. It reminds me of an unholy union between Food Channel and dorama. It was highly recommended by my coworker, who loves to eat. Go figure. -- (6/10)

Great Teacher Onizuka -- Another one of those dramas adapted from manga/anime. I first watched this series 4.5 years ago, during Thanksgiving 2001, when I was depressed about something, and it really cheered me up. I got to rewatch this for one of my drama night viewings. I love all the outrageous things that this passionate ex-hoodlum-turned-teacher does to help his problematic students to gain their respect. His quirky style is just funny as hell (doesn't the picture look like he's giving you the bird?). It's episodic at first, but the ending is very satisfying. Great inpirational drama, great comedy. The final episode had viewer rating of 35.7%, which just might be one of the highest in Japanese TV history. -- (10/10)

Heat Up, 3-2

2006-06-18T22:06:00.000-07:00

Yeehaw. Heat up 3-2 against Mavs.

I know Dallas is favored, but I'd still like to see the Heats win. The Mavericks' roster is deep and talented. They'll have plenty more chances at the title. The Heat's time in the sun is extremely limited, so if they don't win now, who knows when they'll get back to the finals again. Here are a few reasons....

Alonzo Mourning: One of the best centers back in the 90s, before he was diagnosed with some kidney disease and forced into early retirement. He luckily had a successful transplant and was able to return. The dude's playing with one kidney, literally, and on borrowed time. Give him a ring already.

Gary Payton: Took a paycut last year to play with the Lakers, where his dream for a title collapsed. Took another paycut this year to play with the Heats for a shot at the title again. Used to stick to oppononts like the "Glove", but when you see the likes of Jason Terry blow past him these days in the Finals, Payton looks more like a spectator. Though, you still have to give him credit for coming up with some big-time geriatric shots in at the end of games 4 and 5. Give him a ring already, before the old man breaks his hip or something.

Mark Cuban: He's the owner of the Mavericks. I just don't like him that much, for some strange reason. So, I'd rather root against his team.

Shaq: Well, he's just Shaq/Diesel/Superman. This 300lb gorilla has put up enough bricks (especially at the free throw line) in his career to build the Empire State Building. What he lacks in free throw shooting skills, he makes up for in finesse. Yes, I realize that "finesse" and 300lb just don't really go together. The closest comparison would be with those dancing hippos in Dumbo. You get the idea. I like his no-look and behind-the-back passes.

Air Wade

Behind the Scenes at Disney World

2006-06-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

I read this article earlier. I didn't know that Disney gives "behind the scene" tours of Disney World.

Link to article

I'm especially entrigued by the Epcot Seas Aqua Tour, where you get to dive in Epcot's Living Sea exhibit. I really want to dive amongst the rays, sharks, and turtles and put my license to good use.

I also find the Magic Kingdom tour fascinating. Did you know that all the trash cans in the park are connected by a network of pneumatic tubes that sucks all the waste to a centralized location, where everything is hand-sorted (to filter out personal belongings that got tossed accidentally and recyclables) before the combustibles are burned to generate 1/3 of Disney's electricity? 1/3!!

So, anyone wanna go? Huh? Huh? Huh?

Some Fun Links

2006-06-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

Monkey Chow Diaries -- A [crazy] man decided to go on a diet consisting of only monkey food for a week. It's dirt cheap, it's nasty, and it makes your poop smell bad. Freaking hilarious. He keeps a short diary about each day, and even has daily videos on youtube. Great entertainment value.

Nerdy wedding vows -- Written with the constraint of pi and phi. Love is irrational.... har har.

Spanish Castle Optical Illusion

Love to Eat and Travel -- Some random site based in bay area that shows some of the attractions around, and even places to eat.

Earthquake!

2006-06-15T05:40:00.000-07:00

O_o

In all my years living in California, I was never one to be bothered by earthquakes. I'm a heavy sleeper -- dead to the world and oblivious to all distrations. Heck, I even slept through the rumblings of the Northridge earthquake back in 1994 (at about 45 miles away from the epicenter of the 6.7 magnitude earthquake), when things were really rattling.

And yet I actually felt one this just now and that woke me up. I was in the middle of a dream where I was trying to find a number 2 pencil for a test when the quake occurred. I thought maybe it was a nightmare, then realized that I actually heard the rattling of the lampshade of the lamp sitting on my night stand. The lampshade was clearly not a part of my dream.

A quick visit to the US Geological Survey website just now confirmed it. It was an earthquake at 5:24AM with magnitude of 4.7. The epicenter was near Morgan Hill/Gilroy, about 30 miles away from me.

I must be getting old. Aight, back to bed (hopefully).

Utada's New Album

2006-06-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

Utada's new album, Ultra Blue, came out today in Japan. After listening to the tracks, I feel a bit disappointed. It seems like she's still in her "experimental" mode, much like Exodus, her US CD from two years ago.

I feel that the style of Ultra Blue is just a bit... different... than what was on her three other Japanese albums. I can't say that I like it as much as her other Japanese CDs, but the music is still pretty original. I guess you can call it refreshing. Here are my favorites from the album:

Passion -- Theme song for Kingdom Hearts 2. It's practically embedded in all promo videos of KH2. I've heard it so many times that I'm starting to enjoy the song a bit.

COLORS -- It was first released as a single like 2 or 3 years ago. Catchy tune. I think it's the first song where I felt her style started to change. Probably the last great (according to my tastes) song from her.

BLUE -- Another catchy song. Much more palatable than the other new songs on this album.

Be My Last -- The single for this song came out last fall. I really like the melody, but it's a shame that her vocal talent isn't quite on par with her compositional talent.

I'm sure this CD will do well in Japan. Her legions of Japanese fans have been waiting for four years since her last album (not counting Exodus), and already bought out most of the tickets to her summer tour. Toshiba-EMI isn't likely to screw up the promotional/marketing efforts like what Island Def Jam did with Exodus in the US (or rather, what they didn't do). I still hope that she'll stop being so experimental and maybe put out something decent soon. In the mean time, I'll stick to Deep River.

Ultra Blue -- 6/10 (7, because it's Hikki, and I like COLORS)

Ratatouille > Cars

2006-06-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Pixar's Cars opened yesterday. As much as I have been looking forward to it, Cars just doesn't seem nearly as interesting as the earlier Pixar films. Instead, I shall look forward to their next film, called Ratatouille, due summer of 2007. It's about a Parisian mouse who only wants to eat good food. The teaser trailer looks very promising. And dang those HD quality trailers sure are drool inducing.

Link to trailers

Places to Go

2006-06-10T02:42:00.000-07:00

I get antsy from time to time and feel like doing stuff... something... anything... So I started reading up on things happening around the bay area and places to visit. Here's a shortlist of some things that caught my attention:

Museums:

This is a limited 3-month engagement at the Legion of Honor up in SF. Only 1 of 3 total stops and includes 50-some Monets from various collections around the world. Normal admission price to Legion of Honor is $10, which gets you access to a decent museum with works from Rembrandt, Monet, El Greco, Kandinsky, and other crap that I don't care much about. They supposedly have one of the casts of Rodin's Thinker. It will cost $15 for access to the Monet exhibit as well. So it's like $5 for the Monet bonus. It's not common to have this many Monets in one place, aside from the Musee Marmottan in Paris and MFA in Boston. I like impressionist paintings... I'm so there.

Stanfurd (rhymes with turd) is so rich, they have their own fine arts museum. The Cantor Arts Center has the world's second largest Rodin collection (first being Musee Rodin in Paris). Free admission makes it a sweet deal. Go for the Rodin Gates of Hell and Burghers of Calais, and maybe stick around for the free art in the center (don't know if it's any good though, so I expect to be disappointed).

Pictures from France -- Revisited

2006-06-08T07:37:00.000-07:00

I finally got a bunch of pictures developed from my trip to France four years (already?!?!) ago. Since I started using digital cameras, it's not often that I get around to developing any of the pictures. While putting them away in my photo album, I came across a few pictures that I especially liked, or that I thought were interesting. They sure brought back great memories. Kinda makes me want to take a trip somewhere.

I was lucky to get this shot, given that I had zero knowledge of photography at the time (not that I know anything now... only that taking good pictures takes some luck and mostly skills that I have yet to pick up). I somehow managed to deploy my tripod and get this shot, while trying to rush back to the tour bus.

Street performer. This picture somehow reminds me of one of those pictures you'd see in a camera booklet.

The whole village of St Paul de Vence was paved with this stuff.

Annecy, a postcard-esque lakeside town.

French Alps, in mid-June.

Rose Window from the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

The back story: I had a tripod with me that day and decided to take full advantage of the tripod and night-shot ability of my camera to capture the famed Rose Window in all its un-blurry glory. Security came over (luckily it was after I took this shot) and kindly informed me that tripods are not allowed inside the cathedral. I was to either put it away or go outside. Somehow I missed the sign(s) stating this restriction earlier. =T At least I didn't get kicked out and they didn't confiscate my camera or anything. I'm guessing that they do this in order to prevent visitors from taking ultra-sharp pictures.... so that they can sell sourvenirs with their own nicer pictures.

Spiral staircase inside the Arc D'Triomphe.

Probably the n-th picture taken of the "Winged Victory of Samothrace" at the Musee du Louvre. Below the statue, there were throngs of tourists (especially short Asian tourists). Luckily I was "relatively" tall and had a clear shot.

SF Conservatory of Flowers

2006-06-04T01:07:00.000-07:00

I had the chance to take a mini trip up to SF this Saturday to visit the Conservatory of Flowers. I was feeling restless and wanted to go somewhere, and was able to find willing accomplices. =) Since none of us has been there before, we thought that it might be worthwhile to check it out, and see what it has to offer.

Beautiful day for touristy stuff. That gap used to be me, before I stopped to take this picture.

Water lily.

More water lilies.

If this plant could move, you'd be breakfast.

They claim it's a "double coconut". I think it's an elephant's behind.

The "evil brain" plant. It looks like something from a videogame that just begs for a few holy hand granades.

The vines on this tree had interesting texture.

It must suck being a butterfly in a human exhibit. Look at its tattered wings.

This one liked the wall more than flowers.

Their website claimed "hundreds" of butterflies in their exhibit. I doubt that it was in the hundreds. Maybe if you counted these little fellas.

Frankly, I was a bit underwhelmed by the lack of butterflies and varieties in their so-called exhibit.

Taking decent pictures of butterflies take some patience and luck. They don't like to stay in one place... especially with little kids running around.

Some turtle-looking plant/tree.

Group shot! Minus one, since I didn't have my tripod with me.

Pretty orchids at the exit/entrance.

"Huh huh... Is he taking a picture?"

The "we were here" shot.

Shot of SF Conservatory of Flowers

I took the chance to play with a circular polarizer filter. The sky gets a nicer blue color.

TV is bad

2006-05-29T22:34:00.000-07:00

I had an amusing half afternoon with my sister's TV today. I learned some useful things:

Dogs can be narcoleptic too. It's so cute... but sad.

Heats are up 3-1 against the Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals. Wade was awesome. =) I hope the Heats win the series, since they look like they want it more than the Pistons.

More people are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq (surprise, surprise).

The name given to the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie pairing is Brangelina. Though, I think I prefer Jopitt more.

Apparently Angelina Jolie gave birth to a baby daughter in Namibia recently. The couple donated some $300000 (which is chump change to them) to locate hospitals. They've been hiding out in Namibia for the past few months to avoid the press while awaiting the birth of their child. It seems like the Namibian government helped set up the security around their hotel and hospital, and even had barriers on the beach to shield the couple from unwanted photographers. They even arrest photographers and confiscate film. What's more, the government refused visas for foreign journalists trying to cover the birth unless the Jopitt camp approves. That's just so... awesome.

Sister's Graduation

2006-05-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

I ~~ditched work~~ took the day off to go to my sister's graduation today. After 4 years of long hours in class, studying, and sleeping, she finally graudated.

It started raining during the ceremony. Luckily, she chose to attend hers for the Statistics department, and it was small enough to be held in an auditorium. They each get 30 seconds to speak too! Imagine doing that for your typical EE/CS department at, say.. MIT or Berkeley?

The happy soon-to-be graduate.

"I want a few shirts from Express for my graduation present."

Candid moment.

Height gradient (somebody cheated!)

Chang family minus one. The other sister was too busy with school.

Still short, even with the cap. At least it makes you look smarter. =)

Aunt and sister.

"One #3 meal. Would you like to supersize that?"

Sister and her friends.

The obligatory family shot on the stage.

Do Not Resuscitate

2006-05-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

Get this... An 80 year-old woman decided to get a "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" tattoo on her chest. She decided to do this after watching the whole Terri Schiavo controversy and decided that she [and her family] doesn't need to put up with this crap if she is ever put in that situation. That's an awesome idea! Especially coming from an 80 year-old grandma. I'm so impressed by her forward thinking. But leave it to the lawyers to discuss the legality of doing such a thing. There's no need to obfuscate a clear three-word message with 20 pages of legalese mumbo jumbo.

Day Trip to Monterey

2006-05-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

Today was Mother's Day. Some of our mothers weren't around locally for celebration (I couldn't even call mine for most of the day, since she was on an international flight), so a few of us went out to Monterery for touristy stuff.

We started the day at the Monterey Aquarium, worked our way through the 17-Mile Drive, and headed back to South Bay for some crazy Korean BBQ fun at Palace Buffet with a bunch of other people. I also got a chance to test out my new camera.

Monterey Bay Aquarium:

"I feel out of place in the aquarium."

Michelle trying to molest poor innocent creatures.

The little cove right outside the aquarium. I loved the colors.

Me taking a shot of Gene taking a shot of something.

My jellyfish shot of the day.

Some interesting rays.

"Grrr... I can't get any decent shots of the fish in the dark!"

It was such a gorgeous day!

Some rock outside with random animals... and poop.

Some imitation plush toy in the aquarium gift shop. They even put a "Finding Nemo" book next to these ugly things. Talk about false advertisement.

It was so much work to get a decent picture of the sea otters!

Goodbye little fishies. See you at a Japanese restaurant soon!

17-Mile Drive:

I really like scenic shots.

Pretty flowers.

Sooooo relaxing-looking.

I wonder if they have rabies.

"Am I supposed to swing right or left?"

"Are you getting this?"

Golf at Pebble Beach... check.

Lone Cypress along 17-Mile Drive

Group shot.

It was a fun and tiring day. A lot of my pictures inside the aquarium didn't turn out. I couldn't use flash in a lot of places because there were either signs saying that we couldn't use flash (it might shock the animals or something), or the flash would be reflected off the glass and show up as a giant white ball of light in the pictures. And the problem with taking pictures in darker settings is that you have to use slower shutter speeds in order to get enough light in the picture for decent exposure. It doesn't help with these animals move while you're trying to take their picture. Even the jellyfish were moving too fast most of the time for me to get a sharp picture. Sigh... I just didn't know enough about photography and my camera to know how to resolve this issue. =T Owell. I'm still extremely happy with my 12x zoom. It really puts my old camera to shame.

Supercars

2006-05-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

Stumbled across this video yesterday. It's an hour-long program about Martin Brundle's top ten supercars. He's an ex-F1 driver, so he [supposedly] knows what he's talking about. I found it amusing because he evaluates these cars not only on the race track, but also in everyday driving conditions. It answered my burning question of what it would be like to drive one of these cars around town. BTW, the Koenigsegg is beauuuuuuutiful.

As this video was done several years ago, it doesn't take into considerations the newer cars, like the Porsche Carrera GT, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, the Bugatti Veyron, or the Saleen S7 Twin Turbo. I wonder how these cars would fare against his list.

Summer Movies to Watch

2006-05-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

On a related note, there are some of the summer movies that look intriguing.

United 93 (Now Playing)
This would be a great drama to watch if you're in the mood for something that doesn't end well. It's like Air Force One, except more realistic, and based on true events. Okay, maybe it's more like the Titanic, but without the sappy love story and the over-emphasis on the technical details.

The Da Vinci Code (5/19)
Fun book. Probably fun movie.

Over the Hedge (5/19)
One of my favorite comic strips in the LA Times back when we used to get Sunday papers at home. It's super cute, and they made it 3D. It's not something that requires watching in the theaters, but would be entertaining if they don't screw it up.

X Men 3 - The Last Stand (5/26)
The first 2 X Men movies were fairly entertaining. Let's hope for 3-peat.

Cars (6/9)
I (heart) Pixar.

Nacho Libre (6/16)
The trailer is hilarious.

Click (6/23)
Adam Sandler is quirky, yet funny. [I can totally relate to that.] While his stuff is oftentimes very in-your-face, I find that his movies sometimes have interesting and creative concepts [I really liked "50 First Dates"]. And then there's Kate Beckinsale -- my consolation prize in case the movie bombs.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (7/7)
Two words: Keira Knightly.

Fearless (8/4)
Jet Li in a testosterone-filled martial arts epic. It's suppose to have AWESOME fight sequences (choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping). It's already out in Asia and the numbers are even better than "Hero".

MI3

2006-05-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

After catching a glimpse of some Mission Impossible 3 commercial on TV last weekend, I've been wanting to watch it. Maybe commercials have more of an effect on me since I rarely watch TV these days and don't really get bombarded by ads all that much. It's been months since I last went to a movie theater, not that the few around the bay area are that appealing anyway. I miss my nice, clean, new, 50-screen megaplexes.

Anyhoo... the movie was great. Exactly what I was looking for in a blockbuster to kick off the summer season. It was nice and action-packed. Thrilling, if you will, though some people may find it stressful. There was also the requisite mixture of eye candy (of the human variety and the automotive variety*) and exotic settings (helicopter chase through a German wind farm, undercover operation in the Vatican, base-jumping in Shanghai). It is also rare for a movie sequel to trump its predecessor. MI3 is definitely better than MI and MI2. I give it 8 thumbs up, so go see it.

* I hope they didn't really blow up the Lamborghini Gallardo used in the movie. Even though it's not the most expensive Lambo, it's still a $200,000 piece of art.

Japanese TV Antics

2006-04-19T22:16:00.000-07:00

Japanese TV can be very strange at times. While it brings me beloved dramas and animes, I sometimes come across really, really weird stuff. I first came across this "Hard Gay" character in a TV special for the Hana Yori Dango drama last fall. I found him quirky and kinda disturbing... I recently found out that he was a little more popular (well-known is a better word here) than I had imagined. From here on, I shall refer to him as HG so that this blog doesn't get bombarded by unintended audience. =)

I was able to find quite a few videos of his various stunts and exploits, but few have been translated. Here are some of the more popular ones that have English subtitles. For the viewers that aren't familiar with Japanese media/pop culture, or even Asian media in general, you're going to find this weird. It is perhaps even slightly disturbing for those who are homophobic, or dislike watching people in tight leather clothing performing pelvis thrusts. Japanese TV obviously have less censorship than American TV. It makes for great entertainment. =)

On a related note, while there is no nudity, I'm not sure if these videos are safe for work. You'll need Flash-enabled browser to view these videos.

HG Yahoo Japan Special -- I don't know how he ever got permission to do this on national TV. Yahoo PR must be crying over this.

HG Father's Day Special -- Creatively encouraging the younger generation to appreciate fathers.

HG Ramen Special -- Helping out a ramen shop in distress. Can't agree with the method, but gotta love the effort.

For those who are fluent in Japanese, you can find many more video clips on Google Video. Most of those clips aren't subtitled, so some understanding of the language is required; but then you also don't really need to understand anything to watch this guy run around town shocking everyone he comes across.

Fantasy Basketball

2006-04-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

I guess I was feeling bored or something, but I somehow signed up for 4 fantasy basketball leagues on Yahoo last fall. I didn't spend as much time on them as I did last year, but I still managed pretty well.

It's the day before the league ended, and my teams are ranked 1, 1, 1, 3. Not too shabby at all! I don't think this is going to last though, since one of the 1st place teams is in a really tight race.

We'll see tomorrow when all the scores update and I get the final results. =)

Cameras

2006-04-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

After 4 years of service, I'm about ready to say good-bye to my dinosaur-of-a-camera and send it off into retirement. For some strange reason, my Sony DSC-S70 cannot be charged up properly anymore. When I plug in the charger, the number of minutes left in the battery refuses to increase. The battery indicator tells me that there are only 22 minutes left (the last time I checked was 2 weeks ago), and when I turn the camera on, I'll just decrease its life further. Sigh

I think the problem is due to either the battery or the camera itself. Replacing or fixing either one will definitely cost over $60. Since it's such an old camera, and the newer cameras are so much better and cheaper these days, there's really no point in investing any more money into this beast. The last time I forked over money for this baby was back in 2002, when I bought a 128MB Memory Stick for a whopping $100. These days, you can't even fit one decently-encoded episode of anime or drama on 128MB.

I've been researching the camera market for quite some time, in search for the heir apparent. The imminent death of my camera has hastened that search in the recent weeks, but so far I haven't found "the one". For those of you who know me, you'll know that I like to think about all my options carefully. Even though it's good to be thorough, I do feel that I tend to think too much sometimes and over-analyze things. Instead of taking action, I'd just sit there and confuse myself some more with more analysis of the pros and cons of my options.

Anyway, I finally narrowed my choices down to the 3 cameras announced by Panasonic this year. Even though Panasonic isn't as established as your Sonys and Canons in the area of digital photography, they have improved upon their designs greatly in the recent years and now offer some serious contenders in the crowded market. I picked Panasonic because -- (1) they use Leica lenses (which are supposed to be very, very good); (2) they are very user-friendly with their menus and options; (3) they come with image-stabilization to help compensate for blurriness in darker settings. My final choices are:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01: This ultracompact is only 24mm thick -- about the size of a deck of cards. While its appearance isn't as stylish as the Casio Exilims or even the Canon Digital Elphs, it has a few features not found on the other ultracompact cameras. One, it has image stabilization. I hate it when my pictures turn out blurry because there wasn't enough lighting. With image stabilization, this will alleviate the blurriness a bit, so that the resulting pictures are more usable. The other killer feature on this camera is the awesome wide-angle zoom. Most other cameras have 38mm-114mm zoom range, but the 28mm-102mm range on this camera will allow for the user to fit more of the scene into the frame -- useful for landscape and group shots. This is basically your typical compact point-and-shoot. The current street price is about $330.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7: With 12x optical zoom (38mm-432mm), this ain't your mama's camera. The FZ7 offers the full range of automatic and manual controls over most aspects of picture-taking. If you don't know what you're doing, the camera will take good care of you; and if you do know what you're doing, this camera will help you take even better pictures. At about 310g, it's still 1/4 lighter than my current camera, and at around the same size. Plus, I think it looks sweet. The current street price is about $330.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1: This camera is like the boring middle sibling. It isn't quite small enough to fix in my pocket, yet it's not nearly as big as the ultra-zoom cameras like the Panasonic FZ7 or the Canon S2IS. Its 10x zoom will put most ultracompacts and mid-size cameras to shame. Throw in the image stabilization that's standard on all of the recent Panasonic cameras, and you're looking at some nice, clear, zoomed-in shots of wildlife (or unsuspecting *cough* victims *cough* friends). While the zooming abilities in a 40ish mm-thick package is attactive, this camera lacks the manual controls offered by the FZ7. Still, it's one of the most anticipated cameras in the recent years due to its size and zooming abilities. The current street price is about $320.

Anyhoo, I'm darn proud of myself for being able to narrow down to these three choices. While I kinda want something small that I can put in my pocket and take with me everywhere, I also want something with good zooming capabilities that will allow me to take some awesome pictures. If I can't fit it in my pocket, then I might as well go all out and get something that can zoom, right? Or is it better to compromise and get something in-between? So many choices.... =(

Star Wars Spoof

2006-04-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

For fans of Star Wars and vegetables, I present to you "Store Wars" (courtesy of Mel's blog)

http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html (requires Flash)

Pop Music -> Formula -> APUSH

2006-04-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know that people talk about all these pop songs conforming to the same old formula(s), but I never noticed how blatant this was until I heard Britney Spears' "Stronger" on the radio yesterday. At first I thought it was someone doing a cover of "Oops I Did It Again", but I didn't think the lyrics was the same. However, the structure of the song and the notes seemed eerily similar.

I confirmed it this morning after downloading the music. Well, the tempo of "Stronger" is a little faster, and both songs are in different keys, but if you listen to both songs, you'll notice that the melodic/rhythmic patterns and even the overall structure/style are very much similar. If I actually paid money for her CDs, then I would feel I've been scammed. Heck, as a fan of pop music (I know it's watered down, but still very catchy!), I feel scammed for having to put up with this crap of recycling your old music.

I went and looked up the credits for these two songs. Lo and behold, they're both by Max Martin, the Swedish pop-hit machine. No freaking wonder! It's like they took one song and altered the contents a bit to make it seem like there were two different songs. This reminds me of how we used to do some of our meaningless APUSH homework before, but that's just another aside.* =)

* Aside: Basically, we were made to outline each chapter in the textbook. Keep in mind that this was a history textbook, so it was really long and tedious. I found out that you can pretty much outline the first and last sentence of each section, and your outline would still make sense, but it was still a lot of work. After a while, some of us felt like it was just a waste of our time to do this busywork when we have tons of other more-relevant homework and activities to take care of. We pooled our resources and would divy up the sections amongst a few people, have each person outline his/her own sections in a very rough format, and then compile the final product. The thing is, each person still has to go through these rough drafts of the outline and tweak the wording/formatting/style. In the end, we each have seemingly different outlines and saved a lot of time from doing menial work. =) This is not entirely ethical, but there really was no point in doing the work. I learn more by writing down my own notes and outlines as I study, not by having to type up some fancy outline to turn in, and this was already proven by my test scores.

Life

2006-04-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hahaha.. Saw this today. Just had to post it, since it's so true. And cute. =) 'Tis the year of change.

Diamonds

2006-04-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

I came across an article (from 1982) some time back that provided a fairly detailed account of the rise of the De Beers group and how its successful marketing over the past 60-some years resulted in our current notion of "diamonds are forever". It was a really interesting read.

(Warning. Long articles!)

Have You Ever Tried To Sell A Diamond?
This is the article that I read originally.

A Diamond Invention
This is a mini-book with a TON of information, written by the same author as the article above. The article above is essentially a summary of this book. I came across this site while going through the Wikipedia.

Wikipedia entry on Diamonds

Wikipedia entry on De Beers

On Idiots That Kill Themselves

2006-04-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

Now that I check the news on a somewhat regular basis, I've been noticing a lot of headlines dealing with some deranged lunatic popping up at some populated area and killing/injuring a number of people before taking his own life. There was the incident up in Washington a few weeks ago, and the other one in Pismo Beach the week before that. Let's not even get started with all the suicide bombings going on all over the place. I*cough*raq*cough**cough*.

Police: Seattle Gunman Meant to Kill Many
Denny's Restaurant Shooter Identified

Really... If someone wants to kill himself, I don't think I have any right to force him to do otherwise. It's his own life, and he should be able to do whatever he wants with it. Of course, aside from extreme medical cases where I think there *might* be a justifiable reason for doing so (and even then it could be highly debatable), I don't see why people have to resort to suicide. It's just the cheap way out. Really, if anything, they can make themselves more useful by doing volunteer work to help others if they have nothing else to live for.

And then there are the idiots that commit suicides AFTER some homicidal rampage. Take your own life because of whatever ideology/belief/religion you happen to follow, but don't drag innocent people into this. It takes more guts to own up to the issues and problems and try to fix them than to just put a bullet through one's head. That's just weak, man. You want to die? Fine, go die. But leave people out of this. Only a coward would open fire on an unsuspecting crowd, or to blow himself up in a busy public place. Want to get people's attention? Buy ads. Online, in the papers, on TV... wherever. Graffiti if you must. Scrawl your message in blood (your own of course). Streak in the Superbowl, and then kill yourself on national TV. And if your message must involve some sort of destruction, at least let the people evacuate so that only those who want to die are involved.

The Power of Prayer

2006-04-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

One of the health-related headlines last week was about how some study showed that prayer doesn't really help with healing.

Link to article

Basically, they did a study on 1800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery. They were separated into three groups: (1) those who were told that they may or may not be prayed for, and were prayed for; (2) those who were told that they may or may not be prayed for, and were NOT prayed for; and (3) those who were told that they were prayed for, and were prayed for. The prayers were performed by three Christian groups. Afterwards, the patients from groups (1) and (2) had about 51-52% rate for post-surgical complications, while group (3) had 59% rate of complications.

I couldn't help but think that maybe they were praying to the wrong god? ;) Harhar... gotta flex my comedic muscles from time to time.

Anyway, this experiment is obviously flawed. They need to add the following cases as well:
- those who were told that they were not prayed for, and were not prayed for
- those who were told that they were not prayed for, and were prayed for
- those who were told that they were prayed for, and were not prayed for
- those who were not told that they were prayed for, but were prayed for
And, with these 7 cases, they need to test against the other major religions.

The authors of this study didn't think about this problem that critically. I think I shall pray for them tonight.

Love and Money

2006-03-28T09:14:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting article from WSJ that caught my attention during my morning news reading. It advices couples to discuss their personal financial situations (in terms of assets/liabilities/goals/expectations). The article also stresses the importance of having such discussions before tying the knot, the prevent surprises and discovering irreconcilable differences after the fact. I think it's worth a read.

Link to WSJ article

Irony

2006-03-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

So I was at the gas station (76 on Imperial Ave in La Habra, between Euclid and Idaho) just now. I saw an ad on the pump for 39-cent cigarette lighters. At a gas station pump?!?! Dude... I get flashbacks of the gas station scene from Zoolander with the Wham! song, "Wake Me Up When You Go-Go". =P

And guess what's underneath the ad? A little warning sign reminding customers to discharge themselves of static electricity before pumping gas.

Bad Publicity

2006-03-24T09:11:00.000-08:00

Word on the street was that Tom "I'm in love!!" Cruise was invited to Yahoo's campus this week for their Influential Speakers event. (How they decided on him is beyond the scope of this post, but Yahoo's image just went down a few notches in my book)

It seems like he resorted to his infamous deranged chair-jumping tactics again, and ended his little number with rubbing Katie Holmes' belly (for good luck?) and giving her a big, wet kiss. All this to show his undying love for his much younger bride and the soon-to-come TomKat Jr. Yes, it's nasty; but it does get him a lot of attention, doesn't it? If this is his idea of "promotion" for the upcoming Mission Impossible 3 movie, I can't believe we have to put up with another month or two of this crap (movie out in May). =T

Link to news article

South Park

2006-03-24T09:01:00.000-08:00

As South Park kicks off its 10th season of foul-mouthed kids poking fun at anything and everything, here's an interesting article from Rolling Stone (Warning: contains some language).

Link to article

Technical Illustration of Cruise Ship

2006-03-23T23:26:00.000-08:00

(Taken from Boing Boing)

Here's a How-To guide to creating cutaway technical illustrations of a cruise ship. When I saw this, I was immediately blown away. I thought I was anal, but this guy... See for yourself. At least he's getting paid to be anal.

Link to the How-To
Link to page with some close-ups of the illustrations

Break Time!

2006-03-23T22:54:00.000-08:00

There's this game called "Don't Shoot the Puppy". The point is to not do anything with your mouse/keyboard, or the puppy gets it. Yeah, sadistic... I know. =) This should be a mandatory game for all those people suffering from RSI (or whatever it's called now). Just load up this game every few minutes.

Link to Flash-based game.

Gourmet Dining

2006-03-20T23:55:00.000-08:00

What tastes like fish, but slightly chewier, like squid?

I bet you even Google's cafeteria won't attempt something like this.

The picture was taken from: http://flickr.com/photos/edyson/114407749/in/photostream/

Loss of Words

2006-03-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

I haven't felt like writing in the blog much lately. It's not that my brain is on vacation, but sometimes I just don't feel like writing about something if I didn't write it down right when I was thinking about it. I guess this comic says it best:

Free Starbucks Coffee

2006-03-15T00:03:00.000-08:00

Starbucks is giving out free tall (12oz) cups of coffee between 10am and 12pm on Wednesday 3/15/2006.

Link to news

YouTube is Interesting

2006-03-14T23:24:00.000-08:00

Of all the newfangled websites popping up (and getting bought for gazillions) these days, yourtube.com has got to be one of the biggest time wasters, if not THE time waster. On it, you'll find tons of videos uploaded by people about things that are interesting or funny; oftentimes it's videos of shameless people doing stupid things to themselves. You do find gems from time to time. Here are some of my favorites:

Parody of Final Fantasy Advent Children movie. This thing is just brilliant. The stuff near the end will make more sense if you've seen the movie. I wonder if Square Enix knows about this...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D8ATpkCv74E

Live Action version of the opening from the Simpsons.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw

While we're on the subject of Simpsons, here's some dude playing the theme song on his guitar. It's freaking awesome.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CTdBsguiVTs

Crazy table tennis game.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EdNnEwk6bz8

Random Talents

2006-03-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

People with extreme talents (a la YouTube):

Yo-Yo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XvG3IK-hzRs

The Human Frog
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z34JYwNGFtw

Popping
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HSoVKUVOnfQ

Urban Ninja (Don't ask)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D2kJZOfq7zk

Mini Vacation (Work In Progress)

2006-03-05T23:50:00.000-08:00

With all the crap going on at work over the past few months, I was really glad when we finally shipped the 3 products we had on our plates earlier. After all the chaos, I really really needed a break. So, I took a self-imposed vacation, which also coincided with 2 friends from high school visiting. With the help of K and T, and some anti-rain dance (more like jiggle) from K, I was able to do a bunch of touristy stuff around the Bay Area in generally good daytime weather.

On the first day, we visited the Monterey Bay area (Monterey, 17-Mile Drive).

At Bubba Gump, everything is Gump-related. The last time I went to Monterey, Bubba Gump was packed, so I never got to go. This time, we didn't have any problems with crowding since it was a weekday. Why Gump? Well, if we're going to be ripped off by over-priced seafood places designed to empty tourist wallets, we might as well have it done at a somewhat interesting place.

The coastline along 17-Mile Drive.

The weather cooperated. It was only partly cloudy during the day, though still chilly.

The requisite shot of the Lone Cypress in Monterey.

*** More to come as I get more pictures ***

Kids, Don't Do This At Home

2006-03-01T23:14:00.000-08:00

I had some visitors the past few days, during my self-imposed vacation to recharge my batteries. During this time, I saw something that was simply unreal, and almost disturbing. This involved a spoon and Nutella.

The photo is out of focus, but I swear that mound of poop-looking craziness is probably about 1/3 of the volume of my fist.

And someone DID eat it all in one sitting.

Supporting Evidence for Previous Post

2006-02-23T23:10:00.000-08:00

Here are some disturbing articles I happened to come across yesterday.

Myth: Toilet Seats Are the Dirtiest Thing in the Bathroom
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/story?id=1213831&page=1

Fast-Food Ice Dirtier Than Toilet Water
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=1641825&page=1

Horror Stories from Ground Zero

2006-02-21T17:48:00.000-08:00

I was in the men's room around lunch time... While I was peeing, somebody flushed in one of the two stalls, got out of the stall, and proceeded to walk straight out of the men's room. I heard nothing from the faucet, nothing from the sink, and nothing from the paper towel dispenser... no nothing... Is it me, or does this sound rather fishy?? o_O I don't know what's worse; peeing without washing hands, or pooing without washing hands. I wonder how these kind of people live with themselves. =T

The only clue I have to this person's identity is his white sneakers. (And I have a hunch about who it might be) I hope I don't have to shake hands with this guy in my lifetime.

So after the nasty guy left, I heard someone in the other stall mutter: "c'mon now". (*scratches head and wonders what was going on*)

OK. I think I'm going to use the restrooms on the other floors more often from now on.

Nice Chinese Girl

2006-02-19T08:39:00.000-08:00

I've been asked the question, "What do you look for in a girl?" on a number of different occasions. It usually goes something like this:

"So what do you look for in a girl?" [The person tries not to laugh]
"Um... I don't know... What do you mean?"
"What's your ideal girl?"
"Mmmmm.... I guess it depends. But I really don't have any set requirements. It's all a fuzzy blob in my head, really."
"So you'll settle for anything and everything that moves, breathes, and resembles a girl?!?!" Pfffffft
[Awkward pause while the questioner rolls on the ground while laughing]

I've thought about this topic from time to time, but I never had any luck in coming up with a definitive list of qualities I look for in a girl. When it comes to describing how I think, the word "fuzzy" fits just about right. Things generally have a good fuzzy feeling or bad fuzzy feeling. My friends all have a good fuzzy feeling; better friends, better fuzzy feeling. People/things I hate... bad fuzzy feeling. It's like my gut feeling, except... fuzzier. So whoever that girl is, I better have a good fuzzy feeling about her, dammit.

I'm not sure how this happens, but I usually end up with "a nice Chinese girl" description in the end, after some thinking. However, I generally don't get much further than that.

The word "nice" pretty much covers everything I would ever think of. The girl has to be nice, because if she's not nice in my books, then I probably wouldn't have considered in the first place. Since I can't offer more specific descriptions, "nice" is just an umbrella term for the time being.

Before people get all PC on me and ask, "What?! Are you racist? Why only Chinese?!" I need to clarify and better explain myself. I guess I never had any strict requirement for the girl to be Chinese. However, I bring it up just because I realized at some point that I would appreciate it if she were Chinese. I figured that it'd be easier if she spoke Mandarin Chinese, and better yet, Taiwanese. It would make communication with family and relatives so much easier. I just don't think I want to make my grandmother learn English in order to communicate with her. It's just awkward when you're limited to only smiles, nods, and gestures. I suppose it wouldn't really be a problem if the girl turned out to have blond hair, blue eyes, and spoke both Mandarin and Taiwanese. Also, I would like my kid(s) to speak Chinese fluently, if possible, and it does help if both parents are fluent as well.

And I guess in terms of physical appearance, I've always felt that it's kinda unfair to list stuff like "she must be pretty", or "she must be tall", or "she must be cute", since I wouldn't want her to expect whatever is equivalent from me. Though, I suppose it doesn't hurt to aim higher anyway, with my dashing good looks and other-worldly sexiness. (*rawr*)

So anyway, during my 6-hour drive back from LA last Sunday, some of the words I've been searching for all this time *finally* popped up in my head. This topic came up at some point during my weekend in LA, and it's been nagging in the back of my head ever since I somehow ended up with the "nice Chinese girl" requirement again.

I decided to jot down these descriptions, for recording purposes, but won't really go into much detail. It will probably ruin it if I try to explain too much anyway, like my long, pointless explaination of "nice Chinese girl" above.

She must have a kind and gentle heart. It is what it is... nothing more, nothing less.
She must be caring and considerate.
She must be understanding. I know I have many flaws; what I'm aware of, I try to alleviate or correct it within reason, but I am not and cannot be perfect. I try my best, and I hope she understands.
She must have determination/perserverance. Life is a long journey, and there are many bumps along the way. Though problems could seem impossible at times, nothing can't be overcome. I gripe about my problems, but I don't like to back down and give up on things. It's important that she has similar feelings about this and is willing to take on challenges.
She must be playful/have good sense of humor. this is kinda related to the "cute" description you often see. what's cute? Being young at heart, taking things in stride and having a good sense of humor.

As much as I wish it were as simple as just making a list and checking things off the list everytime I meet someone, I just don't think it's all that reasonable. I am much too logical/reasonable to believe in ever meeting someone who will possess all these traits (and whatever else I come up with later). I'm not saying that it's impossible. I just think that something like this only happens in movies. And even if someone does meet all my criteria, that doesn't mean there will be attraction either, does it? (I'm sure Mother Teresa fits my descriptions, but she's not my type xÞ) Ultimately, I expect to find someone who possesses some combination of these traits to various degrees (we'll just say that she's "nice"); it's negotiable as long as the attraction is there. Love is about accepting both the good and the bad. =)

I only hope that I would realize it when I finally meet this person.

[All this thinking really hurts my head.]

What Do You Think?

2006-02-17T14:19:00.000-08:00

http://kevan.org/johari?name=robchang

This a test that checks your awareness of your own personality. Could be interesting.... since I'm one of the most disconnected people I know (in terms of how my inner perception maps to the reality).

You choose 5 or 6 positive adjectives describing a person, by clicking on them (the box turns white), and see how your choices compare to other people's choices.

And, gotta take the bad with the good.... so here's Nohari, the inversion of Johari. In this case, you list out 5 or 6 BAD descriptions.

http://kevan.org/nohari?name=robchang

Random Thought #3

2006-02-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

You know, it's been quite some time, and I'm still seeing news about protests and violence over the controversial Danish prophet cartoons (link to the cartoon with the turban being a bomb). In the end, both sides are wrong, and they should just leave it at that, and move on to bigger and better things, like world peace or sending someone to Mars.

First of all, it was wrong of the cartoonists and the newspapers for publishing the cartoons in the first place. Everyone is entitled to his/her own beliefs. Freedom of speech is great and all, but it should not be used as an excuse to incite and provoke reactions. If you already know that Islamic law prohibits any depiction of the prophet Mohammad to prevent idolatry, then you shouldn't be drawing these cartoons and make them public. It was also wrong of all the other newspapers that decided to reprint the cartoons in the name of "free speech." That was very, very inconsiderate. It can get really personal when you start provoking people, specially when religion is involved.

I read an article today on how they now have bounties on the cartoonists (link to news). I may not be that religious, and I'm definitely not a Muslim. But... dude, I cannot believe that any self-respecting religion would advice its followers to kill, or exact revenge. Just get over it already! Yes, it's wrong for the newspapers/cartoonists to do what they did. They'll probably burn in hell, have bad karma, or reincarnate as slugs... depending on your religion. Isn't that already enough punishment? I'm not saying that Islam is the only religion that has ever caused its followers to kill (remember the crusades?), but everyone should take a step back and look at the fundamental values in these religions.

I propose that we ship all the drugs found in the tunnels under the US-Mexico border to all the regions of conflict around the world. Maybe people will argue less if they're high and happy.

Plight of Engineers

2006-02-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day

2006-02-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

Was having a friendly debate with a friend about the significance of V-day.....

Friend: doing anything for this special day?
Me: v-day, x-mas....etc... they're all just marketing ploy
Me: everyday should be special day
Friend: if everyday is special day, then they cease to be special
Me: no... they're all special days
Friend: so you need specially special day
Me: don't need no stupid holiday to do something extra nice
Friend: but you see, ppl don't do somethign special nice those days
Friend: that's why
Friend: use this day to make it happen
Me: yes.. special occassions are only reserved for holidays
Me: i can see it now.... "hey hon, you know how today is veteran's day? well, since i figured that marriage is like a war, i bought you these flowers... and a new mop"
Friend: hahaha
Friend: dude
Friend: that's great
Friend: you shoudl publish a book with quotes like those!
Me: i am hilariously funny =)
Friend: dude, i think that one needs to be made into a t shirt
Friend: dude, you got more of those quotes?
Friend: we can sell t shirts online!

Anybody wanna start a online t-shirt shop? =)

Random Thought #2

2006-02-14T20:52:00.000-08:00

Apparently none of my managers or co-workers have anything to do today. So, it was decided last week that a conference call is needed tonight from 9pm to 10pm (and likely to go over, from my experience) to discuss a new product we're about to take on. I hope their SOs or spouses are happy with this kind of dedication to work. Not that I have too much personal time, but I still like to think that I try to keep my personal time away from work, well... personal.

After working in this group over the past few years, I'm beginning to notice that, while the management has been stingy with the headcount, our responsibilities have been growing steadily. I guess we learn to work smarter and faster to cope with everything, but still, having to handle so many different products and releases simultaneously just kills my productivity. I used to deal with 1 or 2 releases at any given time. For the past few months, it's been about 3 releases, as we're pushing to get some free database product out the door soon.

A free database product is a great idea and all... good for gaining mindshare. But these trigger-happy release managers need to realize that this free database does not earn the company any money, and need to get off my case for putting higher priority on other releases that do generate revenue and affect the company's bottom line. Putting out a free version of the database is only to delay the inevitable, as the database market is mature and the database is a cheap commodity these days. There's mySQL, and Microsoft's SQL Server Express, to name a few. The database will end up like Linux. Free and open source. You want money? Gotta offer premium service and support for the customers.

Oh yes, I was saying that they need to get off my case because there's only 1 of me. I'm half of the entire installation QA team that my employer has to offer this side of the Pacific. They want more productivity? Hire more. Not just in India; because the quality of talents there is dropping, the wages rising, and the companies are practically kissing asses to try to keep their talents from bolting for better, higher-paying positions offered by the next outsourcing company. It wouldn't hurt to decrease the headcount there a little and hire another person or two here. I swear we'd get so much more done if we actually kept the ratio of engineers about equal between the US and off-shore, than having just one of me deal with several foreign engineers.

Random Thought #1

2006-02-13T23:30:00.000-08:00

Just a random thought. It occurred to me that if you're trying to get over someone, or if you want to block all means of communication with someone, you probably shouldn't try to find out what that person is doing.... i.e. not checking with his/her friends, going through mutual friends, reading websites/blogs, using search engines, stalking through chat programs or blogs. No investigations, no feelers, no info, no problem.

Salads

2006-02-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

When I get lunch at work, the food usually comes with some sort of side salad. I don't have anything against vegetables, cooked or raw, but I don't like it when they start getting "creative" and mess with my salad.

I like MANLY salads (dunno if this is an oxymoron, or if such a term even exists). I like it straight up: leaves/stems, dressing, and nuts (from time to time). I don't like other random crap that they try to toss on these salads to jazz things up a bit. I don't like strange moldy/smelly cheeses (stick to the basic American/Swiss/cheddar/mozarella/parmesan); I don't like random fruit bits cut in funny ways (fruits and vinegar/oil just don't mix); I don't like having to spend any time picking out the items listed above; I especially don't like strange, foul, cheesy surprises in my mouth after failing to detect a stranded bit stuck to the underside of a leave, like Millenium Falcon inside an asteriod in Star Wars Episode V. Just.... leave my salads alone.

Random Blurbs A-Coming

2006-02-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

My thought process has been a mess lately... waaaay too many things going on. So, I've decided to try dumping more crap onto my blog and see if this helps offload some of the burden from my head.

As a result, there might be more postings on a random basis.

Bad Morning

2006-02-13T09:45:00.000-08:00

Went to bed at 1am last night, and was somewhat awake by 7:30am this morning. It just seems strange since I don't usually wake up that early. And I'm supposed to be dead tired from making my roundtrip to LA this weekend too.

It just seems like I haven't been sleeping as well lately. My body is used to not sleeping in (unlike back in college when the concept of morning classes didn't exist) anymore, and it really doesn't help when I stay up really late. I've also had a lot to think about, both consciously and subconsciously, in terms of life, work, and myself, and that just adds to this whole jumble of sleep-deprived mess. What's worse is that when I go to bed, my body feels dead-tired, but my mind seems to be fairly alert. So it actually takes me some time to fall asleep.

I vaguely remember waking up in the middle of the night a number of times. I think I was having nightmares or something, because there was a sense of fright, but I don't know why I felt scared, or what I was dreaming about. I am a wimp when it comes to scary things, so I don't really want to know what I was dreaming about.

Anyways, my throat felt like something *could* be developing, so I tried to sleep it off some more. After another hour or so of tossing and turning, I finally got up, with the I-think-I-might-be-getting-sick feeling in my throat still. At least I'm not hacking away like when I got super duper sick a month and a half ago. I think that's a good sign. =)

Maybe I need a vacation.

Time to work.

Nutella!

2006-02-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

While in Costco the other day, I came across nutella. The dark, nutty, buttery, silky-smooth, butt-enlarging, chocolate hazelnut spread that I first tried in college. So they sell them in packs of 2. Each jar is 750g, which makes it a total of 1.5kg of nutella ecstacy (or for those metric-system-challenged individuals, it's about 3.3lbs). I took some pictures using a standard coke can as reference.

Before you rush off to your local Costco, it seems like not all Costcos have this. =)

Need-Driven Design

2006-01-29T01:00:00.000-08:00

Some late-night ideas....

me: no... it's freaking nutella! you wouldn't let it go to waste
un-named nutella fanatic: then I'D lick my plate clean!
me: fine.. you lick your own plates
un-named nutella fanatic: ...just not in the restaurants
me: =P
un-named nutella fanatic: i'll do the licking at home
un-named nutella fanatic: hehehe
me: i'm sure
me: you probably lick the bottle too
un-named nutella fanatic: if i could
un-named nutella fanatic: heheheh
un-named nutella fanatic: they should redesign the jars
un-named nutella fanatic: to make it easily accessible for licking
me: hahahaha
un-named nutella fanatic: and scraping so there's no nutella left behind
un-named nutella fanatic: hahaha
me: that's the best idea i've heard all day
un-named nutella fanatic: what? it's a GOOOD idea
un-named nutella fanatic: sheesh
me: it was a compliment!
me: compliment....
me: just take it and don't question it
un-named nutella fanatic: ok ok :P
un-named nutella fanatic: hey, go patent it for me
un-named nutella fanatic: :D
me: i'm thinking about the shape
un-named nutella fanatic: the sides need to be able to be flattened
me: i don't think we can get that licking part satisfied
un-named nutella fanatic: so i can open the entire thing and lick
me: why don't we do it like toothpaste tube?
un-named nutella fanatic: but there's gonna still be waste!!!
me: and get one of those japanese roller things that squeezes the last bit out
un-named nutella fanatic: can't ope the tube and lick either
me: and then you can cut it open and lick it
me: dude, you sound like some crack addict
un-named nutella fanatic: no, gotta make it easily accessible
un-named nutella fanatic: like...the bottom can unravel or something
me: can i blog this? =)
un-named nutella fanatic: this conversation?
me: hehehehe
me: yeah
un-named nutella fanatic: sure
me: this is amusing
me: i'll censor out your name =)
un-named nutella fanatic: :D
un-named nutella fanatic: but going back to the nutella topic
me: yes
un-named nutella fanatic: the toothpaste idea, i don't think it's gonna work
un-named nutella fanatic: cause it's gonna be a HUGE toothpaste tube then
me: family pack
un-named nutella fanatic: no, gotta have it all in one tube
un-named nutella fanatic: like the can ones
un-named nutella fanatic: economy pack!
me: does it behave like solid or liquid?
un-named nutella fanatic: like peanut butter
me: sigh... the liberate arts answer
un-named nutella fanatic: hhahaha
me: ok, in the long term, does it behave like liquid?
un-named nutella fanatic: it melts, yes
un-named nutella fanatic: like chocolate
me: i.e., if you do those upside-down bottle things (like the new mustard/ketchup bottles, would it work?
un-named nutella fanatic: it's not as liquid form as ketchup
un-named nutella fanatic: it's like peanut butter!!!
un-named nutella fanatic: except that if you leave PB out, it won't melt
un-named nutella fanatic: but if you leave nutella out, it WILL mlet
me: well... what i'm saying is that, say if you only have a little bit left, and you squeeze it out, would there still be significant portion left in the upside-down bottle that requires licking?
un-named nutella fanatic: yes
me: cuz if not, then we solve the licking problem
un-named nutella fanatic: unless you want to put the nutella out on the sun
un-named nutella fanatic: and let it drain from the top
me: make it microwave-safe
un-named nutella fanatic: that's gross
me: what?
me: we're just having it collect at the bottom for easy access, since the hole is at the bottom
un-named nutella fanatic: but warm nutella doesn't taste the same as normal temp nutella!
me: i wouldn't know
me: i'm not a nutella afficionado
un-named nutella fanatic: yes, figured that

Review of Angela Aki's "Kokoro no Senshi" single

2006-01-21T14:23:00.000-08:00

I got to spend some time to sift through a ton of uncategorized music sitting in my computer (translation: too much downloading and not enough filtering to delete crap that's not good), and I happened across Angela Aki's "Kokoro no Senshi" single that came out this week. FYI, she's the one they asked to sing the Final Fantasy 12 theme song when it comes out in March (and August in the US).

For some reason I can't explain, I didn't think the songs in the single were that great. They weren't bad, but I wouldn't keep them around. The only notable track in the single is her cover of Faye Wong's "Eyes on Me" from FF8 was included as a bonus track on the CD... and that's not necessarily a good thing. I guess I'll bullet my list of negatives for her cover:

She changed some notes in the song, so it sounds weird
She made the song sound angry, especially towards the end. WTH? It's supposed to be a wistful song! Bet you can't visualize Rinoa being pissed.
The piano accompaniment is nice, but it also sounds angry. See point above.
When you do a cover of a great song, it better be better than the original. And it's not.
I find her voice grating at times....
Just cuz you're doing a FF theme song doesn't give you the right to mess with a previous one. Shame on you Square-Enix and Nobuo Uematsu, for approving this collaboration.

I still prefer the original version, sung by Faye Wong, in all its Engrish, sappy glory. I give Angela Aki's single, and especially the bonus track, a two thumbs waaaaaaaaay down. Needless to say, it no longer exists on my computer.

I just hope that her single for the FF12 theme song is much better.

Sucky End to 2005

2006-01-19T22:26:00.000-08:00

It's been nearly a month since I last posted anything. Let's see.... long story short. I took 2 weeks off to go home (as in my parents' place in So. Cal.). Played a lot of video games, hung out with friends... then got sick the second week. It was some nasty flu and I had high fever for 2 days, followed by days of sore throat and over a week of throat-itchiness and coughing. The whole experience left me completely drained. It was also the first time that I had to nap during my ~390mi drive between LA and SF. I was getting so sleepy from the sickness that I had to pull over at a rest stop and napped for 40 minutes before I could continue on.

I was sad that I didn't get to hang out with friends more before I had to leave So. Cal. And I didn't do any of the GMAT studying that I was planning on doing during my second week of vacation! I couldn't even read a magazine article without feeling tired. =T I'm just glad that I'm all good again.

Holidays

2005-12-24T22:01:00.000-08:00

Merry/Happy Christwanzaanuka (or happy holidays for the non-religious people).

I'm home for the holidays, until new years. I think I'll probably head back up to Bay Area on 1/1 or 1/2... It's weird to say that "I'm home", since it's actually my parents' home.... now that I sorta have a place of my own to call "home".

While I'm here, I only have crappy 28.8kbps dialup, courtesy of my paid DSL account from up north. I don't know why I can't seem to get anything above 28.8k, even though the access numbers I tried and my modem are all rated for 56k. It's a freaking conspiracy to get people to switch to broadband! =T Anyway, because of this, I won't be online much. If you need to reach me, please call.

Narnia

2005-12-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

I had the chance to watch the new Chronicles of Narnia movie (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) on Friday. As luck would have it, I got to watch the DLP*-projected version, and it was geek-tastic! \(^.^)/ It's rare these days that I get to watch a movie in the theaters... on opening day even... AND in digital! I had to keep wiping the drool off the side of my mouth.

It's hard to prevent any sort of comparison between the Narnia series and a certain trilogy that "ruled them all" for the past few years. Really, if you go in with the mind set that Narnia is just children's books after all, then this movie should be delightful to watch. However, if you're looking for something to one-up Peter Jackson's Middle Earth, then you might as well spend your money on more LOTR merchanise and grow some hair on your feet.

I'd give "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" about a 7.5 out of 10 overall. It is certainly neither epic, nor original. I felt the story slowed down a bit at times, but perhaps it was necessary to set up the world in preparation for the remaining 6 movies. True to her name, the Ice Queen (played by Tilda Swinton) was icy cold in the movie. I hope kids and fans don't cry or spit on her if they see her out in public. Maybe this will give me a reason to go watch "Memoirs of a Geisha" -- for a comparison between the Tilda Swinton's ice queen and Gong Li's Hatsumomo-san. I found the movie to be enjoyable, especially the characters of Mr. Tumnus and Mr./Mrs. Beaver. Lucy is also a bit.... trigger-happy. If she were real-life kid, I'd make sure to stay the hell away from her. I guess this means that Disney now has a blockbuster franchise to ~~exploit~~ develop, provided that they don't screw something up royally. Maybe this will give them a good reason to put out some good movies for a change?

* For those who are not familiar with DLP. It stands for Digital Light Processing. (Geek alert! Read this paragraph only if you want to find out more about DLP. Otherwise, please skip to the next paragraph for more about movies using DLP and why they're so cool.) DLP is a technology developed by Texas Instruments -- basically works like the video projectors you find during meetings and presentations these days. Or rather, the projectors we see these days use DLP technology, as do some of the new HDTVs. If I remember the material from the displays class I took, I think DLP works by reflecting light off of hundreds of thousands of microscopic mirrors on a semiconductor, with each mirror representing one pixel. By varying the position of each mirror, it's possible to achieve gray-scale shades, ranging from white to black. The colors you see come from a light bulb source, whose light is bounced off these itsy bitsy mirrors and passes through a spinning color wheel to result in all colors of the rainbow.

Certain big budget movies will have DLP verions showing at theaters that have the DLP projector available. What's so cool about DLP? Well, old-school movies are basically reels of film -- the kind where the projector has two spinning reels, and the movie rolls from one reel to the other as it is played. These new DLP movies are shipped digitally (I think as a huge DVD-quality media file?) and they use DLP projection. This is like hooking up your laptop to the huge projectors in the university lecture halls. The film-based movies will show signs of wear (scratches, noise) when you play it, whereas the DLP-based movies will look the same use after use. To me, the difference between the two is like the difference between watching a 70s-era educational film (we had a ton of those in junior high and high school), and watching a DVD movie on a laptop.

"Can you opine?"

2005-12-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

I get strange requests/questions at work all the time. Since I announce internal releases for databases and patch sets to pretty much all the groups related to database development, I have fairly high visibility. I guess people [who don't know any better] seem to get strange ideas like:

"Hey, Robert announces these releases to us. Therefore he must be familiar with the *fill in the blank* of the database."
"Hmmm.. I can't install this database release. Let's call up Robert and he'll know how to fix my problem." (I HATE being tech support for other engineers... that's why we even have an IT department!)

Anyway, so last night this engineer from another team in India emailed me asking whether I think it's crucial for them to perform a certain test on a database product. I found it strange and idiotic that some other team should be asking me (and I'm not even a manager) about how they should go about their testing.... and I told him that, in a friendlier, yet still-annoyed way. I guess his manager (who, I think, should be the one making this decision) probably got annoyed at the fact that I wasn't given them a straight answer and emailed me as well. He basically asked the same question in a different way and ended the email with the question, "Can you opine?"

At first I almost fell out of my chair laughing, because I thought that this was perhaps another case of Engrish at work....... I was thinking, "What the hell is... 'opine'? Is this even a word? Is this another case of words that look like they're written in English, but they're really not?" (This is always the first thing that crosses my mind because I often receive emails from Asian engineers that look like they're written in English, but I can't seem to understand them when I try to read them.) When I finally came to my senses, I tried looking up "opine" and found out that it is, in fact, a perfectly valid word! Maybe outsourcing does have some advantages after all.

Engrish At Work

2005-12-07T18:14:00.001-08:00

The following is part of an email from a mailing list at work:

Post for a friend: She is looking for a living nanny who can take care of her 1 year old daughter starting at the beginning of Jan next year. Appreciate any recommendation of a nice and caring nanny

"Living" nanny? Too funny.... sigh...

Delirium

Website on Moving Scams

Musical Thoughts

Huckabee and Chuck Norris

New England Foliage Trip

10/14/2007

Burlington, VT

Stowe, VT

Montpelier, VT

10/15/2007

Quechee, VT

Woodstock, VT

Quechee, VT

10/16/2007

Franconia, NH

10/17/2007

North Conway, NH

10/18/2007

Portsmouth, RI

Newport, RI

10/20/2007

Boston, MA

Northern California Trip

Monterey Day Trip

Fisherman's Wharf Day Trip

Napa Day Trip

Quick LA Trip

Ratatouille

Tour de Cure

Amaryllis Flowers

SF Day Trip

Monterey / Big Sur Trip - Day 2

Monterey / Big Sur Trip - Day 1

Museum Month

Business Ideas...

Taiwan Taipei Trip - Day 3

Taiwan Taipei Trip - Day 1

Kaohsiung Lakes

Taiwan East Coast - Day 3

Taiwan East Coast - Day 2

Taiwan East Coast - Day 1

Back in Taiwan

Gone Fishing

Random Picture

Golden Gate

Trip to Napa

Thugs to Riches

Insecurity

Attack of the Giant Bug

Milestone

More Interesting Articles

Restaurant Review: Passionfish

Interesting articles

Stupidity

Human Echolocation

Being Groomsman

Ed and Jen's Wedding

Tired

Sometimes You Just Wanna...

Mega Japanese Drama Review (Part 1)

Heat Up, 3-2

Behind the Scenes at Disney World

Some Fun Links

Earthquake!

Utada's New Album

Ratatouille > Cars

Places to Go

Pictures from France -- Revisited

SF Conservatory of Flowers

TV is bad

Sister's Graduation

Do Not Resuscitate

Day Trip to Monterey

Supercars

Summer Movies to Watch

MI3

Japanese TV Antics

Fantasy Basketball

Cameras

Star Wars Spoof

Mini Vacation (Work In Progress)