Hi what's your name?

Guess what's better than shopping in a clothing store? Well, shopping in a clothing store that has a robot to greet you!!!!! I went to UNIQLO today and there he is, Wakamaru! He can talk, walk around, greet people, play game, pose for picture, do execrise, etc!

BTW, just like what the sign said, he do not understand English very well and seems to have a mind of his own~ hahaha

Fantasy Map

It's like a bizarre dream looking at this 1939 map of the planned expansion for New York City Subway. Look at how the 7 line go all the way passed Flushing and go to two directions: College Point/Whitestone and Bayside! Then look at how there's another line crossed the East River to service Southside of Williamsburg or look at how there is a line go straight to Staten Island. What about the line go across Long Island City similar to today's route of Grand Central then connect to today's L.I.E. to go to Little Neck? It's such a strange fantasy. It's what a system that could have been. It's too bad that we all know it will never become a reality because of financial situation of MTA and the City and the State. But one would wonder how on earth did the New York City before us built our current system? was it built with no financial constraint? was it during the time when the city was filthy rich? Actually the subway was built during some of the harsh time in history, like WWI, like Great Depression. Yet they were able to build the most complex system in the world. The old city builders must be shaking their heads in their graves if they know how we can't even afford to build one extra station on the 7 Line.

I see my apartment!!

I think I mentioned it numerous time here that Lipstick Jungle was filming on my block and how excited I was to see Kirby in person!! Anyway, the new season is upon us and watch the free pre-air premiere on iTunes. As expected the episode already contain scenes filmed on my block. I challenge you all to spot my apartment in the episode!!!

(hint: before or after the scene in the screencap included)

4 new tv shows

The new TV season just started but I have already pick up 4 new shows to watch:

1) Fringe – Latest from JJ Abrams. It got the same intensity with Lost but with a more X-files feel in it. The mystery of what's going on really hook you in, but might push you out the door as easy if it drag on like Lost and X-files. It's still intriguing and definitely worth to watch, Plus I miss Pacey…Joshua Jackson !
2) True Blood – A very interesting take on vampire stories where the existence of these creatures are not the knowledge of a handful of people only. They all come out in the open and the general public know about them and try to live in peace with them because of a Japanese invention of blood. This concept really change the dynamic of the vampire tales that you have seen before. The problem I see is that because it's an HBO show, it seems to me that they put extra violence and sex and blood just for the sake of it, or just to prove that they can put anything on screen because they are HBO~
3) 90210 – I seriously dunno why I watch this, because it's painfully predictable. It's like every teen prime time soap that was on before. In comparison, last year's Gossip Girl is sexy and hip and have enough twist that make it interesting. Not so much here in this zip code, where every action or even dialogue is predictable. I guess I still watching because of the two cute guys there and the hot teacher, and that their school musical is Spring Awakening.
4) Privileged – Another young show on CW, about how a young writer become a tutor to two young rich girls. So far I like the quirky tutor and her boys~ A big plus is definitely the music! The Bird and the bee is totally lovely! I am so glad they'll get more exposure by the show.

frog dream

Now this is a rare dream….because it got a bit of political setting! (but of course it's my dream, so eventually it's all fantasy sci-fi to the end! haha) In the dream I was going to a political rally for Obama. This rally is to prove that Obama is still a bigger celebrity than that Sarah "drill-loving, pork-loving, private-email-loving, Russia-is-my-neighbor" Palin. I actually have an alternative motive for going to the rally. I was there because I know there will be a lot of people, which would provide us protection for a friend who is being haunt by a frog. A few of us stand guard around our friend. But we soon realized that the crowd at the rally couldn't give us protection because they are not "linked" with our friend. So we call up our own friends, and everyone agree to help. Eventually we have a big crowd surround our friend. Soon after the frog showed up. It's smaller than I thought but still deadly. No one can fight against it and I become the last person stand between the frog and my friend. I asked the frog to take me instead. He agreed and was gonna swallow me whole. But I said that's disturbing for others to witness, so we made a deal and I'll go into a room with him, and I change into a green tee-shirt, come back out and hang with my friends, and when they all went home the frog would put me in his stomach.

Tuesday's Apple Event

Given that I already got the iPhone and and iPod Classic (160GB! now extincted!) that is less than a year old, this Tuesday's Apple iPod announcement although interesting, are not something that I would get. My main focus is the software feature that they announced and a certain accessories.

I am definitely interested in their new in-ear headphone. Their old one was a good try but eventually I switch to v-moda's headphone, especially once v-moda got the microphone version out. My headphone break frequently due to my excessive usage, so I am thinking once I am done with the v-moda pair I got, I will try Apple's new in-ear headphone. (Although not officially compatible to the iPhone because the volume button do not work, but given the cheaper price than v-moda and it's Apple, it's worth a try~)

iTunes 8 is very interesting, the grid view highlight how many more obscure album artworks I have to find on my own! But it is nevertheless a solid improvement than the previous useless album view. I am thinking if I can't find some of the artwork, I might go ahead and find a picture of the artist and just put it there, at least it's something there~

Genius playlist has potential, but so far the result is a mix~ maybe 80% of the song it found in my collection matches what I selected, but something it just make you scratch your head and asking why this? For example, I selected Kelly Clarkson's Because of You and one of the odd choice Genius pick is Britney Spears' Gimme More. I mean seriously?? I know they are both pop singers, but the rhythm of the song couldn't be more different!! And that is what I realize Genius is not based on the rhythm to find songs that are alike, but so far based on the song's metadata, like genre or purchase pattern from the iTunes Store to make the recommendation. Hopefully one people upload their info to Genius it will get smarter and rely less on people's purchase pattern. The Genius feature works fairly well on iTunes, and on my iPhone - although my collection on the iPhone is a much smaller sub-set, so the choices are limited. I heard rumor that they might give this Genius feature update to the first gen iPod Classic, hopefully that's gonna happen~

My favorite of all is actually the new visualizer they have on the iTunes! It's just so amazingly pretty! The past few nights all I do was to turn off all the lights in my room, make it full screen on my 24" giant screen iMac and just listen and watch the visualizer, at the same time pretend that I am with the Doctor, flying in the TARDIS and looking out to see the weird galaxies! It's nothing I have seen before!! BTW, there's options and features hidden in this new visualizer as well! if you hit "?" a list of key options will appear as followed:

? Toggle help screen
M Change mode
P Change palette
I Display track info
C Toggle auto-cycle (on by default)
F Toggle freeze mode
N Toggle nebula mode
L Toggle camera lock

My favorite is the freeze mode, once your visualizer got busy with all the "planets" and "stars" and pretty ribbons, hit F and the whole thing frozen, but your camera is still moving, and the color is still changing, so you kinda in some kind of Matrix zone, it's the coolest thing ever!!!! Highly recommend you try this out!!!

Petty NBC, u suck!

I always knew NBC is petty, but man, they are getting lower and lower these days. According to this article, NBC refused to let their stars Masi Oka from Heroes and Sarah Lancaster from Chuck to appear on Scrubs finale~ How petty is that?? It's one thing if ABC steal Scrubs from NBC, then maybe they have a reason to be petty about it, but the fact is that NBC pretty much throw the show in a backalley somewhere and let it die, wouldn't let it to have a proper finale last season once the writer's strike was over! Audience are all graceful that ABC pick the show up and let it going out with dignity. Bill Lawrence's plan to have all the past characters appear in finale would have been awesome given the fact that Scrubs is kinda like the Simpsons with so many memorable side characters. But i guess for now we gonna have to deal with the fact that the adorable lab technician Franklin and the Gift Shop Girl won't be there to celebrate the end.

NBC, u suck!

aghast

As a librarian (can I still call myself that even if i don't work as a librarian anymore?), this piece of news from Times magazine is disturbing:

Stein says that as mayor, Sarah Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

I don't think it's written anywhere in the job description that a mayor has the power to determine which book the public is allow to see in the library, not to mention threaten to fire someone because she doesn't share her viewpoint!? When it come to safeguarding the public's right to access information, we librarians are in the frontline. Hopefully we are the only one that recognize the horror that will be if we let the Republicans to win this election.

BTW, it's not even the worst thing in this article abour Palin, the whole read is like a horror movie! seriously where the hack did Grandpa McCain dig this lipstick pit bull up??

Stupid drunk

Oh crap, now I remember I was such an embarrassment last night.

I probably can't even blame the fact that I haven't drink anything for the past nine months. I am just such a pathetic lightweight! Seriously who could get so drunk by a drink that was made of pear, apple, pineapple, peach and champagne!! It's only one-fifth of the ingredient that is alcoholic!!! And I had a constant refilling glass of water the entire time!

I was totally boring to anyone because I have to focus all my attention to stay conscious. So even if the group is a lot more pleasant than I expected from a group of strangers that I only heard of by names before, I was still pretty much just not talk but grin like an idiot cos I was drunk~~ugh~

Harry, you pathetic bore, you suck!

They can't stop singing

Looks like after Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day can't stop singing! NPH becomes a shoes fairy completed with fairy wings, singing about shoes on Sesame Street, while Felicia sang with Mr Geeky, Jonathan Coulton.

Watch this Sesame Street clip. (sorry, embed is disabled)


and this: