Calendar view

After the tag cloud, I made another feature update to my blog, this time the target is the archive section "Old Memories" Originally when I switch to new Blogger I choose the pull down menu view for the archive...but soon I was informed that it wasn't functioning, I wasn't sure why but I switch back to the flat view. Today I updated it and made it into a calendar view with pull down menu with the current month's post listed below. The best thing about this setup is when it is loading, it has the loading icon from OSX! :)

A few posts before I mentioned I might consider switching blogging service, but now I am leaning toward staying with Blogger but just have an update not only visually but feature-wise as well. It will be the project for this Summer! (by Summer I mean the movie summer season, not actual summer, so it run from May to Mid Aug!) So far the two changes I made are just updating feature I already had on the sidebar. My goal is to add more feature and yet reduce clutter, sounds contradicting, but I have some ideas. And ultimately I hope to update visually as well.

(I always make plans but I have to admit not all of them I will follow through in the long run, but this blog is already one of the few exception. Look at it! it's been on for almost 3 years and I am still blogging! and the makeover plan for the blog last summer was quite successful too, so I have high hope that this time will also be successful.)

Thoughts on High Line

I still remember not too long ago I was walking up Meat Packing District and wondering what is that elevated "road" up in the sky? was it a highway? elevated subway? what is it? After some research I found out that was the fame High Line, another abandoned gem from the industrial era that will certainly faces demolition. There were an organization and some preservationist trying to save it, but let's just face it, the chances of preserving industrial structure is almost non-existence when facing an real estate boom. Who knew in just a few years, it not only got preserved (maybe partially, but it's way better than nothing left) and transform into a park in the sky? This is so rare, just ask the Graving Dock in Red Hook (is now a construction site for Ikea), or ruins of the Greenpoint Terminal Market (destroyed by one of the biggest fire in the history of NYC), or the Red Hook Revere Sugar Dome (torn down). None survived, and the rest of famous structures from the industrial era such as Domino Sugar Factory or the Pencil Factory building in Greenpoint are fighting for their life. The High Line got a rare chance to continue to stand in this city and become something amazing. I am looking forward to the opening of this park next Spring.

Why am I blogging this? cos New York Magazine just has an excellent article on the history and future of High Line. Highly recommended.

Tag Cloud

After some research, I found a good site that teach you how to add tag cloud to new Blogger without using any third-party software or sites. All you need is the original Label widget in the new Blogger layout and some editing skill to mess around with the html and CSS code. The result? you can see mine on the side bar~ :) The site offer a lot more stuff that are made for Blogger, I will implement another feature pretty soon~ stay tunes!

Is it time to update the look of the blog?

Last Summer saw the biggest change since the launch of my blog 3 years ago, not only a brand new theme designed by yours truly, but the direction of the blog take a turn from being just a sappy blog all about my feelings (plus a bit about Apple) to a blog that talks more about everything else I love than just about my personal feelings. 9 months passed since I have any major change for the look of the blog. Is it time to update the look? I dunno. Editing the html and the CSS in Blogger isn't a huge problem, not to mention they are quite flexible, but the widget system on the sidebar does make it a bit troublesome and confusing when editing the html code. Even with the new Blogger system in place, I still found Blogger lacking. I wish blogger has more built-in widget that I can easily use instead of add it in myself, i mean tag cloud, calendar, integrated stats, etc. All of these should be standard!

I have been thinking about alternative to Blogger. I know a lot of friends are using WordPress with their own hosting cos that give you total control and you can do whatever you want without any restriction. For me, it's just a bit too troublesome to handle so much all together. Not to mention I just don't feel like paying 8 dollars a month for the hosting service. So far that is not what I will be choosing for now. A while ago WordPress introduced a spin-off WordPress.com which is very similar to blogger but with some WordPress features. Good thing about it is that they have much more themes and widget to choose from than Blogger. But the trade-off is you can't edit the html code at all. Both Blogger and WordPress.com seems to keep rolling out new features (Looks like WordPress.com roll out new things a bit more frequently~) Right now I am undecided and will see if there's anything out there will win me over.

Angel comic

After two issues and a third one coming out next week, I am getting used to reading Buffy on comic. If Buffy can continue its season on comic format, why not its spin off? Angel Season 6 on comic is already planned, and now looks like they want some viewer's opinion. Questions like your favorite baddie, the most under-appreciated characters, etc. I will definitely let them know that I want Lindsey and Lilah back, those two evil and yet conflicted lawyers are awesome. So are those two crazy vampire Darla and and Drusilla! I also want to find out where is the Groosalugg! remember him? the one that Cordy brought back from Pylea! he is so cute and so good to Cordy! now he's alone in a world foreign to him~

Don't know when it will hit newstand, but it will probably be for a while. I just hope they will provide us answers to that cliffhanger of the season finale!!!

The Third Apple

Details of the third Apple store in the city are out and looks like Apple is aiming for epic proportion! I have been to 8 different Apple stores, including the biggest one like Soho, Midtown and London store. Now this future Meatpacking District one will be the biggest of them all. Just look at the concept rendering! I am all excited and will once again be waiting on line when it opens~ hehe~ (don't look at me like that! you know I am nuts when it comes to Apple!)

From the current locations, you can see Apple is settling ibn either expensive area or hip and trendy area. So I am predicting, maybe in 5 years, after they take over UWS and maybe Tribeca, we will see a store in Williamsburg! :p

My Daemon

If you read Philip Pullman's His Dark Material trilogy, you know what a daemon is, if not, well, the upcoming movie site of the book will provide you with an explanation and create your own daemon. I created mine....and who knew! it's a wolf! you be the judge to see if it's a right match! go ahead!

In between the numbers

A company's financial call for each quarter could be boring, but for Apple, there's always something for the fans. This time around they leak the news and location about the third Apple Store in Manhattan. If you have follow the news, Apple has been looking for a place to open up another store in the city after Soho and midtown. They flirted with the idea of opening one in Flatiron area, then later on on 34th Street near Empire State Building. Now looks like they are settling on the location of Meatpacking District at 14th Street and 9th Ave! That would be so cool! With the construction of the Highline Park and a potential New Whitney Museum, and now Apple, I finally have a reason to walk all the way out west to Meatpacking District! If only the 7 line subway extension will not only run to West 42nd Street and Hudson yard but all the way down to West Chelsea and MeatPa!

Librarian and Google

We librarians have a love/hate relationship with Google (when I said Librarian, I mean Reference/Instructional Librarian, not you catalogers! hehe). We obviously have the same goal to bring information to the masses. But since Google make it so easy to search information that everyone in the world now think they are experts and can find information without any help. In addition, Google present so much information to a typical user that a user would not understand why they need even more information from other sources (to have authoritative and relevant sources rather than just plain quantitative sources as in typical Google search results) We (at least the librarians who works in academic settings) always trying to divert students from relying solely on Google for their research. It is because the result of a typical Google search is all machine determined, even though they are already the best in the search technology, there's still many undesirable results mix in. Students can get more reliable scholarly resources from books and journals in print or digital forms than searching the internet on their own.

But then again Google is much better than what comes before, not to mention their ambitions drive their innovations to a level not found in many companies. You can't deny the usefulness of their Scholar Search and Book Search despite any copyright controversies. The ability to view the entirety of many out of copyright classics online is wonderful. I no longer have to worry if our copy of Hamlet is checked out if another student is looking for it. Their apps from email to Docs and Sheets are extremely useful for collaboration. Accessing my work documents from different campuses and home (mac) is a lot easier. Their Maps and Earth sparked the revolution of Mashup data that help tremendously to get information across in a much easier way than before. Setting up a Librarian Central to communicate with us doesn't hurt either. So I dunno, this love/hate relationship with Google is just gonna continue indefinitely.

Katamari Returns

I read about it somewhere that the creator of Katamari Damacy don't want to create another mindless sequel to his game anymore and the last game on PS2 and PSP were the absolute last. But here we are, an announcement for the next chapter of the game, in PS3 and Xbox 360 - Beautiful Katamari!! It will be in HD and it will have an online component. It sounds pretty awesome and I can't wait to hear more about the title~

In support of PlaNYC

Mayor Bloomberg unveiled his master plan for the future of NY on Earth Day. It's a gigantic plan that cover every aspect of a New Yorker's life. It's a great plan that I totally supported but getting all of it implement would be a difficult task! Estimated that 40% of the plan require state approval or cooperation from non-city agency - which mean they are out of the hands of Bloomberg. And the centerpiece of the plan is congestion pricing - which seems already stir up opposition from the outer boroughs (what do they not oppose of anyway!), even if the federal gov't actually endorse congestion pricing and it's prove to be working in London and other cities, it's hard to get it through the heads of people who resist paying for anything. But seriously people! stuck in traffic jam is already a kind of payment already! horrible air condition is another kind of payment~ If you are willing to pay, it's not like you don't get anything back, you do get benefit, there will be less traffic, faster and may even be more parking spaces!

Anyone who take Subways should support the plan because it will become the solution to the biggest obstacle of maintaining and expanding mass transit - funding! The NYC subways hasn't been really expanded since before World War II!! not to mention they are having troubling maintaining the current condition. Even though there's a groundbreaking for the second ave subway a few weeks ago (for the third time in 100 years), there's no guarantee that it will actually get done this time around (there is still a budget gap need to be filled) Bloomberg's plan of using the revenue generated from the congestion pricing with additional matching contribution from the city and the state to create a new financing agency for mass transit will solve the problem for years to come. We all complained about the sorry state of our subway system~ this seems like the most possible chance for any kind of improvement for the system.
I seriously hope that most parts of the plan will become a reality!

Voldemort can't stop the rock

Wow, so there is a band called "Harry and the Potters"!!!!
I am petrified! :p
Let's rock!

What will Mike say tomorrow?

Spring arrived in time just for Earth Day weekend and Mayor Bloomberg's big speech for PlaNYC. A lot of times when politicians make big speech, a lot of them just doesn't really affect the public, but this time I think it really will affect every single New Yorker. Will New York join London and Paris and many other cities in the world to finally tackle traffic congestion and the environment in an innovative way? I would hope so. But I am also sure opposition to some of the policies will be huge. We'll just have to see what Mike going to say tomorrow.

DC impression: thoughts on the conference

The conference in DC really make me realize that I am not the only cool techno librarian out there, there's tons of them and comes in many different flavors. I am very happy to get to know one of them that share the same Apple and Harry Potter passion with me. Even though he's based on a different state. The stuff about future trends in libraries are interesting, but the one that I cared about the most is searching. I thought I know a lot about searching already, but man, there's so many cool new places to search or way to search. I am so glad that I have the opportunity to learn something new that I actually care about and can pretty much applies the skill right away.

As for the hotel I was staying in during the conference. I have gotta used to that giant bed in the hotel with 10 pillows! (They have no single bed room left, so they gave me a double bed room, so I put all the pillows together and made pillow castle! hehe) You have to understand I have a tiny bed in my tiny room back home, so that was just so awesome! The room is really nice, too bad everything else in the hotel seems to be overpriced and overcharged, but then again I am getting reimbursed for everything, so I shouldn't care.

DC impressions: transportation deadmatch

The trip to DC definitely is a nice change of scenery - despite there wasn't really any scenery involved because of the crazy storm and the schedules of my conference. I didn't really have a chance to see DC. I spent most of the time in the hotel. I did manage to take the Metro, which I of course can't help but to compare it with the NYC subway. It is hands down that DC has better subway stations. They are spacious and clean; architecture-wise it has a very 1970s space exploration age monument style; There are displays to show arrival time of the next train and lights on the floor light up when train approaching. New York's subway stations has none of those with the exception of L line that finally has train arrival time displays. However when comparing the train car itself - NY might actually be better than the ones in DC because of the newer car fleet they have on the 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, L lines! The interior of the trains in DC looks like they come out straight from the 70s. The colors are orange and brown, the light are a bit yellow. Don't get me wrong, it's actually very clean! but when I got on the train with a setting like that, I can almost imagine everyone having a 70s Fro on their head! In addition, DC metro has much fewer stations in comparison, but they do spread out all the way into the suburbs.

Another thing I can compare is their commuters' train station. It's Union Station vs. Penn Station/Grand Central. If we are only comparing the current sorry state of Penn Station - every New Yorker would be covering their faces in shame. Luckily we have Grand Central to fight this match. Union Station in DC is a grand structure with open space and air. However, their lobby is no match to the gigantic and artistic concourse of Grand Central. Union Station, however, do handle more traffic since there's trains coming from every corner on the East coast, while Grand Central only handles trains from upstate and Conn. It isn't a fair comparison since i leave out Penn Station and that is the actual main commuters' train station of NY, but that station is hopelessly horrible that I don't even want to talk about it. Hopefully once Penn Station expands to the post office across the street, the current sorry state of the station will be corrected.

R2 mail

Saw this Star Wars 30th year anniversary mailbox near my hotel in DC, I can't help myself but to take a picture. I am not a huge Star Wars fans, but R2 is just so darn cute! it's one of the best robot on screen, how can i not like it?

Interview with Captain Jack (No, not JD, but JB)

John Barrowman (Captain Jack from Dr. Who and Torchwood) is so adorable even when he talks dirty! British actors are just so awesome that they can switch between accents flawlessly!

Speeding Cars

I lost the ability to express myself in words, so I am doing it through music again.

Quote from Imogen Heap's Speeding Cars:

...
There, there, baby
It’s just text book stuff
It’s in the ABC of growing up
Now, now, darlin’
Oh don’t lose your head
'Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah

Sleeping pills, no sleeping dogs lie never
Far enough away
Glistening in the cold sweat of guilt
I’ve watched you slowly winding down for years
You can’t keep on like this
Now is as bad of time as any

There, there, baby
It’s just text book stuff
It’s in the ABC of growing up
Now, now, darlin’
Oh don’t kill yourself
'Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah

It’s all okay by me
It’s all okay by me
It’s all okay by me
...

This 5 days trip to DC come at the right time to let me leave things behind and not think about it as much, so my muse is coming back and I have more to write soon.

Who's the super fans

Damn! Looks like someone is a bigger fans of Zach Braff than me! I need to think of a counterstrike!

Eggshells

Quotes from Landon Pigg's Eggshells:

That's just the problem with me these days
I'm walking on eggshells
Nothing ever goes wrong and nothing ever goes right
I don't know how to get help
I'm walking on eggshells

And I can't feel a thing
And nothing ever happens to me

Nothing in this world it seems can sweep me off my feet
Everythings amazing, but only in theory
Someone help me cause I'm losing it quietly

That's just the problem with me these days
I'm walking on eggshells
Nothing ever goes wrong and nothing ever goes right
I don't know how to get help
And everything is perfect
But nothing ever moves me
Nothing ever goes wrong and nothing ever goes right
Give me feathers or give me nails
I'm walking on eggshells

Sad store news

Another store news, but this one is not about opening, it's about closing. One of my favorite favorite B&N location is about to close. I am talking about the Barnes & Nobles in Astor Place! I spent so so so many times in there! Its located in the mid-point between the big stores in Union Sq (Big B&N, Virgin, Circuit City, etc.) and the big stores by Soho (Apple, Bestbuy, etc), so it's a convenient loitering location or a really good rest stop during my regular walk from Union Sq to Soho. I can't believe it's closing, the article said it is because of high rent! If B&N can't even effort to be in that location...i dunno which other store can! I am really sad about this news, there were so many memories in there for me~ It was one of the meeting and waiting place for me and my friends. I also spent countless hours there alone, reading~ And it was also the place where I got the final email from that particular someone who broke my heart - i checked the email via my phone. I remember I was crying on the steps and a friend of mine who I suppose to hang out comfort me there. I am a sentimental person, a place with so much memories like this just can't close down!!!!! :(

Masterpiece Theater featuring coffee

The Starbucks in my 'hood will open really soon. From the look of it is all done and ready to roll! I am too lazy to take a picture so I "borrowed" one from here. Taking advantage of the original space (the store was a theater then a Burger King, now a theater looking Starbucks) It looks like a theater for Broadway, so I wonder if they will sell show tickets as well! Anyhow, it said Premiere April 9th. I'll be there checking out the Wi-Fi once its open~ :p