Not gonna renew DanceSpirit Magazine

I received my last issue of Dance Spirit magazine yesterday, and I am not gonna renew it. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing terribly wrong with the magazine, but:

• I don't have much time to read it.
• I am too old to be the reader. The magazine is really gear towards teens who are either dance student heading to a dance career, or into dance competition. Those are not my interest at all.
• When I subscribe it, it was US$10 annually. Now it's US$16. Not that I can't afford it, but I just don't feel like subscribing something that I don't read frequently. Scanning a few photos as wallpaper doesn't seem to justify the subscription.

2 weeks

Somehow I feel like I haven't fill up my gas tank for a while. Mostly people are very frustrated about the high gas price but I was not way too concern about it, mostly because I don't go places. It usually takes 2 weeks for me to empty my tank.

Hey, you, Jack and the Box fan. Here's the menu.

This photo is mainly for my friend Kok, who was a fan of Jack N The Box. So, Kok, see anything you like? I can mail it to you.

Traffic Jam in Houston

My friend inspired me to take photo in my daily life, so that you guys more about what living in Houston is like.

Here's the traffic jam I experienced almost daily when I leave the office at 5 p.m.

P.S. I think the cars at back while I was taking these photos will kill me as I left so much space for other cars to cut in.

Lunch box

When I went to the kitchen in the office in order to clean my lunch box, I saw another lunch box lying in the kitchen sink. So I cleaned both of my lunch box and the lunch box which belong to a person that I don't know.

I am not too stupid, right?

View from my cubical

I wonder what they are building there .... a new shopping mall maybe?

Cultural baggage?

Again, replying forum message:

講文化包袱我同事Mohsin重好多, 距係巴基斯坦人，回教徒，在美國可以好麻煩。不過我公司D好open，對其他文化好接納，Mohsin生日我地重去回教餐廳。

至於上Ballet個陣，大家各自修行，無包袱可言。我地City個Ballet 舞團亦有幾位來自日本和韓國的亞洲舞蹈員。反而我覺得Chinatown 的舞文化比較特別，不過唔知有無人有興趣知。

當一個Geek學舞: Mahalo Daily

Veronica Belmont 是美國出名的 Tech Podcast 主持,在她主持的 Video Podcast "Maholo Daily" 中,她以一個 Tech Geek 的身份,嘗試投入 funk dance 的舞文化,十分有趣。作為一個日間寫C# 為生的 Geek 又同時集舞多年的人,我在看的時候會心微笑,好像看到自己當年的影子。

http://daily.mahalo.com/2008/01/23/md042-funkanometry/

By the way, 這裡有沒有寫程式,做IT工作,又恆常集舞的人?

Post again

Well once again I post at the forum:

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我記得 movie CenterStage 亦有 Jazz 同 Ballet crossover 的情節。其實在美國Hiphop 和 Ballet crossover 已經好普通,已經唔係 Gimmick. Afterall, 學HipHop 的同學也會 take Ballet 因為 Ballet 個基訓好 effective. Major Ballet 的亦會 take HipHop, some for fun, some for 生計 (多D Client request for HipHop dancer these days). 既然大家幾樣都識,編舞時交叉來用好自然。

不過每個 art from 也有它的主要格式, Ballet 講 open 條腿, Jazz 要伸展形體, HipHop 要 off-beat 和 Isolation 個 body. 所以 Crossover 也要有 技巧, 取其特色,洽到好處, 否則會非騾非馬。

所以,學舞,深有深玩,淺有淺玩, It's all good.


P.S: (超離題) Modanna 接受 Timberland 改造, "4 Minutes" 一貫Timberland sound, 乃今期至潮, 相信有機會經過 HipHop 個class 又會聽倒他們 熱播。

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我, 老, 舞

I don't why I suddenly had an urge to reply a message in a forum after reading it. So I wrote these:

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看了頭幾個Post, 一心準備答爹, 點知後來個thread 變左講另一樣野。是但啦,最重要大家講得開心。

我只係想用過來人的身份, 鼓勵男子們盡管去學同嘗試自己有興趣的舞蹈。 Be it ballet, jazz or hip hop. It's all good. 但越早學越好。我19歲 start ballet, 全班唯一男生, 又跳得不太好,兩年後 gave up, 但讀完U後死心不息,在工作穩定後發傻, 一星期四堂學 Jazz , Ballet 同 Hiphop, 才知道有D為時已晚,因為體能,反應和記憶大不如前(其實之前亦不見得好好)。不過做多甘多年人,倒學識厚面的功課。被人地笑老餅,未陪人地一齊笑羅。,自己繼續比心機學D基訓,學多D, 無人甘好條件, 但可以做好D expression, 一樣可以有Feel. 總之唔好放棄。

而家由香港回到美國,自己想試既,無論中國舞,jazz, HipHop, Ballet, 都已經試過。結論其實自己跳舞原來真係好死屎, 不過自己亦接受現實,無人擔保過自己鐘意既野就一定勁。 (我老豆救鐘意錢啦,又唔見我老豆發達。) Still, so what, 依家每星期繼續take Intermediate Ballet (專一左,唔再張張刀無張利), 80% 時間依然班上唯一男生。 Sometime I may fell lonely, but, the heck. 我會一直學到七老八十。 (Hopefully I won't get take old since I much prefer dying young)

B S 甘多,無非想鼓勵大家在後生有本錢既時係學舞, so that you won't regret it when you get older.

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I think this pretty much sums up my feeling and experience on dance. Writing, like anything artistic, has to be done when in mood, like now :-> .

"The Salmon Dance" by Chemical Brothers

"The Salmon Dance" by Chemical Brothers is one of those songs that would totally failed if it didn't have a cool music video to accommodate with. But instead, the song was an OK dance hit. And this is the kind of stuff that really needs resources from record companies with deep pocket to do. Sure it's cool that more and more artists these days go independent and doing OK, but just like only big movie companies have big budget to do grand movie, you can't get the same kind of grand national (or even international) kind of promotion unless you sign a crappy 10 years contract with a record companies.

The good thing is that artist these days have a choice at least.

Cats and dogs

運最近腦裡不斷浮起希望養貓的念頭。當然這個不過是個念頭，自己深知自己沒有持久養育生物的能力，就是養Nitendog 也未必能夠貫切始終的將牠們冶養好。

By the way, 最近好像患上了渴睡症，無論怎樣睡也好像睡不夠。

Soccer and baptize

那天在主日祟拜，當講員開始用足球比喻和思維模式去比喻分別為聖的道理時，我的大腦便可以縱橫四海，一去不回。我對足球沒有興趣，連帶對足球有關的東西也沒興趣，結果自顧自的看聖經，就這樣過了一個主日祟拜。

Hong Kong News

It was last Sunday Service. I was very sleepy, 很想睡，卻忽然留意到牧師說到一些我沒有留意到的新聞。看來我的確需貴多看一點香港新聞.

Final, a short animation clip

Here's short animation I created. It took me quite a while to sketch the character, color it, animate it in Toon Boom Studio 4. But it's a fun learning experience, and inspired me to learn a bit more ....






Hope you enjoy it. More to come ....

Monday

Monday morning, and I had a minor headache. I also found myself being impatient will the slowness while my office desktop computer was starting up. It's just way too slow for my taste.

And I think I am having Monday's blue too. A few things that I planned to do during the weekend didn't get accomplished.

Strange Night

Yesterday I had a strange night. It was not that extremely dramatic, but still want to document it.

It started after I finished a ballet class. I was in good mood since I like that fact that my instructor paid attention to me. Yeah I am such a attention freak. And then I got a chance to talk to the awesome pianist for our class. All was well .

Then I drove home. And while I was at the intersection between 610 and 59, I started to feel a lot of vibration, and then turned into some rumbling sounds. I had no choice but to slow down my car, and slowly craw my way off the freeway.

I was maintaining 10 - 20mph while my hazard light on. So far no driver wanted to kill me.

Then I found a gas station along the road, so I drove my car to the gas station partly because I wanted to check what was going on with my car, partly because I realized that I was about to run out of gas.

I first checked my car, and found that the front right tire was blown up. A big piece of surface was peeled off from the tire. Horrible. I knew I need to get a new tire.

However, I swapped my credit card at two different gas pump, and shouldn't get them operated. Frustrated, I drove away.

Then I saw a Philip 66 gas station. I tried again, and this time 2 of the gas pump recognized my credit card, but failed to give me any gasoline after I pressed the handle. Fustrated, I went away once again.

Finally I got into Chevron gas station, and got my car filled up. After then I continue to drove home at 15 mph.

So that's pretty much it. I went to Discounted Tire, got a new tire to replace the old one. End of the story.

Annoying

Don't you find it annoying that sometimes people will ask something on IM, but when you try to reply, they logged off?