Break week activities

A week off comes to an end, so what did I do? I am too lazy to write a detail post, so here's a list:

Museum: 

Madame Tussauds Wax Museum - what's more fun than taking naughty pictures with wax figure of your favorite celebrities?

Movie:

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who - Surprising good!!!!! Steve Carell and Jim Carey are funny as hell~ and a very touching message of tolerance that hits close to home.

DVD:

August Rush - Not as bad as people said, I rather like it. Maybe it's because I like felicity and Jonathan Rhyes Meyers, and the kid Freddie Highmore is always delightful!

I am Legend (with alternative ending) - I like the alternative ending a lot! It should have been the regular ending.  I guess the big studio didn't have the guts to show this thought-provoking ending, and instead went with your standard heroism and fire and explosion ending.

Darjeeling Limited - I love Wes Anderson's movies.  His style is uniquely quirky. This one is no exception.  But given the huge cast of his previous films, this one leaves me wanting more.

Atonement - A beautiful tragedy.  The continuous single shot that last 5 minutes depicting the beach of Dunkirk was amazing.

Bobby - A heartfelt ensemble piece about RFK that people should be watching in this election year.  You might find that history often run parallel with what's happening right now.

Miss Potter - You can not watch this film without smiling even if close to the end it was sad. I never really like Renee Zellweger, but she always find a way to make you feel for her characters, no matter if it's Bridget Jones or Beatrix Potter.

TV episodes:

Torchwood - Almost to the season finale now! ooh I can't wait! Spike is back!!!

How I Met Your Mother - Sarah Chalke is a doctor even when she's not on Scrubs.  But She did a really great job! I love her character.  Would she be the mysterious title character of the show? only time will tell~ As for Britney, i feel sorry for her that even when she's guest star on the show, people ignore her just like in real life. Her character has so few lines that you barely felt her presence.

Lipstick Jungle - One word - Kirby!!!!

Eli Stone - How many times can George Michael be on the show? I think the show needs more fantasy sequence.

New Amsterdam - I will never remember the lead actor's name at all: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.  All I know is that he's Dutch and he has that European charm that just make me want to keep watching.  If only the show can go into more flashback to see the old New York at different stages.

Miss Guided - Judy Greer is fantastic in everything she does except her own show!!  I dunno why, but she's only funny and awesome when she's mean and snappy and sarcastic and being other's sidekick.  When she's a clueless and pathetic person like in this show...well all I can said is that I missed the sidekick characters in 13 going on 30, 27 dresses, and Love Monkey. 

Comics:

Angel After the Fall #3-5 - wow after wow after wow! and how can Buffy knows nothing about LA??? this two publishers thing sucks.

Southland Tales Prequel Chapter 1 and 2 - It still does not explain the movie so far, Let's see if chapter 3 can help...

Chinese music in iTunes Store

Even though iTunes doesn't have a Chinese store, I have always know that the US store does contain some Chinese music in it. When I found out about it a couple years ago, there was only some old "Best of..." albums. Nothing really exciting, not to mention the cataloging was a mess, not to mention the song names are difficult to guess with names like "Yu Zhong Di Lian Ren Men." Seriously, it took me a while to realize that is "雨中的戀人們"!


Today I was searching something in iTunes and to my absolute surprise I come across Miriam's latest album "Meridian"! I didn't think iTunes would have the latest Chinese album from her last year. Then more I search, the more singers I come across, many of them contain new albums from as recent as December of last year! In addition, many of them are in iTunes Plus format - non-DRM 256 AAC tracks!



Another discovery is that some of them are in Chinese characters while some others have actual English translation. It was all great but the inconsistency is even worst than before now with 3 types of cataloging. Not to mention the albums of the same artist can be listed separately under the English name and the Chinese name, and sometimes, two identical English names! It's a complete mess and I think Apple needs to hire someone *cough* *librarian* *that knows Chinese* *me* *cough* to fix that! :p




In any case, this is a welcoming discovery to know so many recent Chinese songs are actually in iTunes. The only thing puzzling me is that why do they have it? Cos we really don't see Apple have any intention to open up a Chinese iTunes store targeting Hong Kong or China or Taiwan. So why would they spend money digitalizing these records? Simply just for the Chinese Americans? I highly doubt they are that accommodating and it does not make any economic sense. Anyone has any theories?

Mr. DJ's companion

I have always fascinated by the DJs and the mixing they do. Every time when I am in a bar my eyes would always search for the DJ station and see what equipments he uses and if there's a Mac or an iPod in operation~~ So once I found out about this little gadget here i just think it's the coolest thing ever~ This device is called the Tonium Pacemaker, it's for DJs to mix and do all kind of club music thing they do in a club!! Any bar/club/lounge going friends please let me know if you have spotted one of these in the hands of the DJs! I would definitely go to that bar just to see the DJ operating it!!!

preliminary brainstorming

It was around this time last year that I started to contemplate a major update to my blog that lead to the current incarnation with 4 switchable themes. By large I was quite satisfied with the result. Of course there is always room for improvement, and now looking back these rooms are actually huge! So I am thinking it's time to lay out the plan for this year. It will not be a major overhaul like last year because let's be honest, I have forgotten pretty much everything I learned about CSS last year. It will take some time to get back into the game!
Here's what I think so far:

1) Apple theme need to be updated: not my choice, but as you know Apple had updated the looks of quite a few of their products, I have no choice but to keep up with the design.

2) Wizard theme need a do-over: It was the first theme I did last year, so you can see it's a little rough compared to the others. The style was there but the final product just doesn't looks right. I need a new direction on this.

3) add a brand new theme: You probably noticed each theme represented something I like, and there is one thing missing from the line-up. It's time to add it in!

4) reduce load time: This past year the blog looks great with these 4 themes, but there are too much clutters and it takes forever to load comparing to the old theme from 2006. I will try to cut down the clutter and the images, and apply some new techniques to optimize load time.

Once again I envision this as a long-term project for a few months, hopefully it will fuel a new life into the blog.

Rainbow in your room

While continuing my research to improve on my Project Monochrome. I come across this very unique way of book shelving...


(viaFreshome)

How cool is that???? but really...who has enough books to fill up different colors of the rainbow?? What about books that doesn't fit in the rainbow? put them in another room? throw them away? paint them a new cover? but seriously, if you have enough books at home...give it a try! I am curious if you can accomplish this!

Phase 1

Phase 1 of my Monochrome project is completed. Overall it is a success! My workspace is now a 100% mac altar - purely white and just the giant 24" iMac and matching accessories and furniture and nothing else. The 3 drawers chest is also doing its job to provide some needed space for my ever expanding and overloading wardrobe! The new card-broad boxes are also much classier than the original ones I used for documents.

There is however one thing that did not go as planned: The wall stickers I got from Ikea. The nice flowers I put on my wall - not that it doesn't look nice, but the problem is that after a few days the flowers slowly fell off just like real flowers!!!!! The picture below showed its condition when I first put it up a couple days ago, now some of the flowers and leaves are already gone. Within a week or two the whole thing will come down! This just proved my point - if there is a choice, always buy the more expensive one instead of the cheap one! There's a reason something is more expensive than the other! When I first consider getting wall stickers to decorate my walls, I was considering a few options. The more expensive ones I found online uses very difference materials that would surely stay on the wall. I chose the Ikea ones instead because it's much more affordable. O well, now I learned my lesson, from now on, stick with my principle - always goes with the expensive one!!

R. I. P. Arthur

One of my favorite author passed away today at the age of 90. Arthur C. Clarke, one of the last of the sci-fi literature giants, who is also a visionary in technology that conceptualized communication using satellite. His best known work is 2001 A Space Odyssey. Although I didn't like the movie, but I absolutely loved the book and the entire series. His other works such as Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama are among my favorites as well. His concept and style of Science Fiction is purely science and technological, there's no crazy looking aliens running around. He is the best example of hard science fiction that can be taken seriously. He spent the second half of his life living in Sri Lanka. A location that provided the setting of his novel The Fountains of Paradise. It was in this novel that he first described a space elevator - scientist has taken this concept seriously and working hard to create one.

He have written hundreds of books, fiction and non-fiction. He was still actively writing (with collaborators) until his death. I have the most respect for him. In fact I own more books by him than any other authors. His books helped me through the years when I first got here.

Thank you for your vision and imagination. Now you can travel among the stars! Goodbye Sir Arthur C. Clarke! May you rest in peace.

Cases of white and black

I never really consider buying a case for my iPhone because I know I am a very careful person, I'd never drop it and the back of the iPhone is not a mirrored finish like the iPod, so it's not going to be scratch up easily at all. The iPod is another story though, of all the iPods I have, none of them ever leave their cases. Seriously if they were left on their own in a second, the precious mirrored finish at the back would be ruin! So what's with the ihistory on cases? well, the latest iPod I have I got a cheap case for it, thinking i don't need to buy an expensive one. Within 2 months, the case is already so scratch up for no reason that it's difficult to see the screen! I never had a case like this and I come to the conclusion that cheap case ain't worth it! I am gonna get a good case for my iPod! After some searching, I found my case - Remix Metal from Belkin!

I also come across a case for the iPhone that is delicious that I can't help but reconsider my stand of not using a case for the iPhone. The incase Slider, with a choice of black or white. A choice that make me stood in the Apple Store for about 20 mins thinking about which one to buy! The black one make the phone look absolutely sexy, while the white one makes the phone look so unusually stand out from the crowd. I eventually settled for black~

I got both cases for my iPhone and iPod the other day, and man do that make my gadgets look brand new! Especially the incase Slider case for iPhone! The glossy finish make my iPhone looks like a different gadget! It doesn't offer a screen protector, but since I already have Power Support's anti-glare screen protector on, so I don't really care. Since it is glossy so you can expect it attracts fingerprints like crazy, so make sure you have something to wipe it all the time.

With these two cases and the fact that both my iPhone and iPod are black, plus my recent purchase of the stylish watch, I notice my color choice in gadget is following Apple's footstep - moving from white to black! actually not entirely moving to black, it will be a mixture of them. In fact, my home improvement project - Project White Space will now be renamed as Project Monochrome. The color scheme will be black and white with a dash of silver/gray. I even selected a mascot for the project - Monokuro Boo!!!!!! yeah, you will see them a lot more around me from now on~ hehehe~

Attack of the robot

At a friend's house I found a gigantic Bumblebee from the Transformers movie. Not only he's transformable but he can also talk and move! Well, not so much transformable unless you can find the manual - none of us, even the owner of the robot can't figure out how to completely transform him back to a car~~ He is actually quite a scary robot, holding him while he's all moving and talking and with eyes all lighted up is very creepy! I think he yelled at me too! I would rather have them make a WallE robot - I would buy him in a second! :)

iPiano

Sorry, I know I am obsessive, but just one more post about the iPhone~ just look at this awesome jailbreak app for the iPhone - iAno! Any music instrument playing person should be very interested at this. All I can say is wow! Check it out yourself!



Hopefully it will become an official third-party once June roll around~

iPhone Games

Unlike all other Apple events, this week's iPhone SDK event didn't really get my attention as much at first. I didn't sit behind a computer during the event, keep on refreshing all the live blogging page of news media finding out what Steve was announcing. I didn't catch any news until late at night when I get home. Mostly because I know the event won't unleash something that I can lust over immediately or something that I can use right away, be it hardware or software.

So I was taken by surprise of how a game-changing event it was after watching the video of the event afterward! The enterprise features I am not gonna talk about because it doesn't really affect me at all, but it certainly looks like Blackberry's leading days are numbered. I was cheering after 3 particular demos during the events: Touch Fighter, Spore, and Super Monkey Ball! Who knew the iPhone can actually be a capable gaming machine!? Not only any games that designed for iPhone can have a wii style control method, the graphics might not be as good as PSP, but it's above the DS as far as I can tell from the demo of Super Monkey Ball! so we can expect games for iphone will not be your regular cell phone games!





With EA and Sega already working with Apple and promising games available this year, finally Apple find a way to break down the gaming barrier of the Mac. We all know even after the Intel switch, games is still not a big thing on the Mac. Cross-platform big releases are still lack behind on the Mac compared to PC and consoles. Native versions on Mac is still rare. But now I see things could change with the iPhone platform being so attractive to game developers. Once they are familiar with developing for iPhone, given the coding and the tools are pretty much the same as developing for the Mac, you can just see developers can easily develop a Mac desktop version of their games as well! This is all exciting news! People always said iPod was the trojan horse that get people to Mac, well, I think the iPhone platform is the trojan horse and the carrot to get developers on broad to using Mac, and eventually developing for the Mac!

The most exciting news to me was Spore though - I have been waiting for Spore for like forever, and couple months ago I found out it will be release on Mac at the same time as PC, which in itself is already an awesome news~ Who knew it will also be on my phone as well!!

Side effects

It's been a month since I was on Accutane. The effect is strikingly noticeable. I haven't have a real break out since then, and if there's anything, it die down and disappeared right away like I never had them. My face is all cleared up. If only the old marks fade away quicker, then I am all set! But there's another thing though, the side effects of this drug is also tremendous! My lips are so dry that despite my constant use of chopstick, every morning when I wake up, there's blood on the corner of my lips! Seriously! If i didn't know better, you know me with my imagination, I would go straight to the thought that I could be a vampire without knowing and every night after I sleep I went out and suck blood out of some unfortunate victims! ooh I am a vampire with a soul just like Angel and Spike! lol~~ Another noticeable side effect is that I sleep a lot more because I am tired! weeknights I am off to bed as early as 10:30 or latest 11:30, and on weekends, I slept like 12 to 16 hours straight!!!! That's ridiculous even for my regular lazy weekend sleeping pattern!

That's all the side effects I think I have, all the other more horrifying ones such as becoming suicidal and depression and death....I don't have them~ But my doctor still closely monitoring my vitals just in case.

You decide!

After watching Lipstick Jungle, I thought it is indisputable that the hottie in the show Robert Buckley (Kirby) looks exactly like Scott Speedman (Ben in Felicity and in the movie Underworld). However, my roommate totally disagree!!! He think Robert Buckley looks like Topher Grace in Spiderman 3! To settle this dispute, I am letting America to decide! I am counting on you!! So look at the pictures and Let me know if you will side with me or that Simon Cowell in the other room!

Robert Buckley

Scott Speedman

Topher Grace

Eat your brains

I often dream about all kind of weird fantasy stuffs and zombies are definitely one of the running joke in all of it. I could not stop laughing once I hear this song. The video isn't that funny, but just listen to the music! This Jonathan Coulton guy is awesome to write all these witty lyrics! Not only on zombies but on all kind of things from IKEA to code monkey to evil genius to Flickr!

Anyway, watch this unofficial music video: