Windows Media Center in Windows 7

After playing with Windows Media Center in Windows 7 for almost half a day, I pretty much decided to use my Tablet PC as my mainly media center, and use the O!Play to play whatever content that my Tablet PC couldn't handle, that includes:

• ISO files
• DVD files in Video_TS folder structure
• Files with strange codec
• mkv files

For everything else though, using windows Media Center is a much better solution for the following reasons:

• My PC remote control is totally compatible with Windows Media Center (YEAH!)
• I can use my mouse to do fine grain navigation
• Wireless keyboard provides short cut for me to navigate the environment at ease.
• I can delete files using my remote
• It supports more codec than I expected, including SOME rmvb files

Some tidbits:

• Some files seems to be "not fast forward/backward" friendly when using my remote control. No problem, for I can still use my wireless keyboard to jump forward and backward using short cut. And worst come to worst I can use my wireless mouse.
• It took me some time to strategically position my IR receiver for my remote and wireless transceiver for my wireless keyboard and mouse. But once done, everything work very well.
• Nice list of features in Windows 7 Media Center
• Hacking Windows Media Center
• Forum for people to share tips on how to use Windows Media Center effectively
• Suggestion on TV tuner cards that are friendly with Media Center
• List of some cool Windows 7 Media center features
• Cheap tuner for option for laptop, but beware that you got what you've paid for
• More tuner information. Keep researching.

Here's some keyboard short cut that I found:

In Video Library mode, select [Play All], and when you press [Page Up], it move forward to the next video, while [Page Down] move you back to the previous one.


On a totally unrelated note, I tried the latest firmware update for my TV. Turns out my TV is already up today. What a bummer.

Nope. Not another TV related purchase.

I know this will eventually happen. After having a new 40 inch HDTV, I know I will start thinking about getting more TV related products and services. So I let myself got hyped for 1.5 hour, researching on all kind of TV related devices and subscriptions.

Final verdict: nope, I am not getting anything.

First: DVR.

I like this idea of pausing TV, especially since I already get used to the concept of watching video content on demand, so switch back to watching off-the-air HD video content and forcing myself to adjust my life based on TV network schedule sounds nonsense to me. So I looked around.

Unfortunately, because of the restriction imposed by the entertainment industry, there is NO product in the market that records HD content in plain PC friendly video file. There are hacks here and there, but NONE Of the device work is easy to use. Plus most have horrible user interface. Tivo is the one with the best user interface, and it require $10 per month subscription fee. $10 a month!? For recording off-the-air TV? Are you kidding? Not to mention that I have to pay $259 for the device. Thanks but no thanks.

Most cable TV and satellite TV provide DVR for lease when you subscription their plan. So here's another category I tried to research on.


Second: cable and satellite TV subscription

Checked, subscription fee ... well, $50 a month ... sort of reasonable. But here's what I hate: 18 to 24 month contract. I HATE contract. That's why I use pre-paid phone instead of a montly plan. Also I don't see programs that are SO attractive that I have to subscript.

Finally, I remind myself: life priority and addiction. I know that I am the kind of person who can get so occupied by TV that I can surf TV day after day after day. If I can get addicted surfing regular off-the-air TV, imagine what will happen when I get hundreds of channels.

So 1.5 hour spent and no stupid decision was made ..... until next time I get hyped up again.

Edison Chan should have done this: physically destroy harddisk

Privacy is a real and huge issue these days. If your personal information got stolen, not only you will suffer financial lost, it will also take forever to reverse the image. That's why you should take getting rid of your hard disk, which contains tons and tons of your personal information, seriously.

The best strategy? Physically destroy the hard disk, and here's how:

The goal is to destroy the magnetic plates insides the metal case. The magnetic plates are where the data being stored. You want to physically destroy the plate to a point that it is not recoverable.



So first you have to open up the hard disk metal case. Most hard disk use the hexagon screw shown below. You may need to buy a screw drive with that kind of head.



I brought mine from Lowe's . They have this screw drive with 8 exchangeable heads, all for about US$6. Plus the people there are friendly and helpful. Highly recommend shopping there.



Almost in all cases, the hard disk will have a few screws that hidden underneath some plastic cover, like the 2 spots below. You just have to be patient and spot them out.



Now that the metal case is wide open, you can see the circular discs. Some hard disks have more discs than the others.



Unscrew screws in the middle of the pile of discs.



If it's possible to take the discs out, do so.



Now it's time to destroy those discs. Some discs are made out of brittle material, while others made out of more elastic material. I suggest you putting the discs in a plastic bag before smashing them.



Now smash.



Here's what happen when material is elastic. They tend to be older harddisk with lower capacity.



This is what happen when the discs are brittle.



Enjoy destroying your hard disk!

That's why I won't use the build in media player feature that comes with my TV

I was a bit excited when I first realized that my TV comes with media file playback feature. To use it, all I needed a USB storage device with media files plugged into the USB port(s). After using it for a day, I realized how crappy it is. It's a nice gimmick, but far from practice.

Here's why the media file player feature that comes with Samsung LCD monitor sucks:

• Doesn't remember what file you were last playing.
  I have serious ADD problem, and I constantly jump form one task to another task. Obviously with a device that has so many feature cramped inside it (play video game, watch TV, surf the net, read news, check weather and watch media files), of course I will jump from feature to feature like crazy. However, every time I jump out and then back into the media file playback feature, it throws me back to the first screen. That means, if I was playing a file like 6 levels deep inside folders, I have to navigate all the way back to taht file to continue. On the plus side, it DOES remember my last play position. So it seems like this media play back feature is meant to be used with no too many media files in your USB storage device, and no more than 2 folders deep.
  
  
• Codec support lack lust
  It couldn't play rmvb. It also have problem playing a lot of mkv files even though it claims to support it (I keep getting audio codec unknown)
  
  
• Crappy photo viewing feauture
  The GUI for photo viewing is terrible. No way to zoom at ease.
  
  
• No search capability
  This is particularly anonying to me since I have more than thousands of media files.
  
  
• No regular "TV" feature when using media file player
  All the TV feature like screen resize, PnP, Info Link ... they are all GONE when using media file player.
  
  
• No DELETE capability
  This a feature that even O!Play is lacking. My habit of viewing media file is that once I finished viewing it, I want to delete it. Otherwise I will forget whether I've already watched it or not. On PC I can easily delete the file right after I finished watching. However I can't do that on Samsing media file player.
  
  
• Lousy music (audio file) player
  No way to save last listened position means the audio player is audio book and podcast unfriendly. Also, the audio speaker of the Samsung TV is just not that good for music playback.
  
  
• Lack of video playback features
  No frame by frame forward/backward. No slow motion or change playback speed what so ever. Lame.
  

This is why right now I am using my Tablet PC as a media center PC. I get the flexibility of choose KMPlayer, iTune or Windows Media Center to play my media files. My wireless keyboard and mouse allows me to access all the content at ease, and I can manipulate them in the way want. Even after I received the new O!Play media form Amazon, I may still hook my Tablet to the TV from time to time just because the media playback and navigation experience is so much better than an appliance device. Use mouse to instantly jump to the point I want: priceless.

Another reason to update to Windows 7: Media Center PC

I am pretty happy with my new TV so far, and the interesting thing is that I don't seem to use it as a regular TV (to watch broadcast TV or cable TV), but rather use it as a gaint computer monitor, a display for my Wii, and utilize the media file playback capability. Once my media player Asus O!Play comes, I will be able to use the TV to play 1080p blueray quality mkv files and all the video files with strange codecs, particularly all those .rmvb files from mainland China.

Since I am getting ultra sensitive with noise these days, I start avoiding using my noisy desktop computer (very powerful though), and instead use my Tablet PC, hook up to the 40 inch TV, using wireless keyboard and mouse, and turn my TV into a giant monitor. Because my Tablet PC has Windows 7 Ultimate edition installed, I am take this opportunity to try out features that makes Windows 7 LCD TV friendly. So far, I like what I've seen.

To start, Windows 7 comes with a little utility call Magnifier. It allows you too magnify either the whole screen or partial of the screen. I find it very handy since, regardless of how big the TV is, I am still 10 feet away from it, so technically it's as if I was looking at a 6 to 7 inch screen on my lap. Even though I can bump up the screen font to large font size, it's still not big enough. So the magnifier comes in handy frequently.

Then, there is Windows Media Center. At first, I was not impress with it at all. The codec support is still far from perfect. Performance also suffer from time to time, like sometime the user interface will go totally sluggish after getting into the Internet TV area, or jumping from movie to movie. However, compare with the older version, the Media Center in Windows server added some nice features, like remembering my last playback position. You also don't have to use a Media Center remote controller, as long as you have wireless keyboard with some basic media buttons, like stop, rewind and volume control. The photo navigation is also very smooth (when it's not going slugglish all the sudden with no good reason). Overall it worthy of trying if you happens to have a PC with Windows 7 Ultimate edition installed.

That extreme long shot...

Somehow I keep having nightmare these days.

This time the dream involves no one that I know personally. In fact everything happened like miles away from me.

The scene started with a bunch of teenager playing at the rooftop of a building where a bunch of teenagers playing, running and fooling around. Soon they started playing "see who jumps the farthest." At first they just jump among the rooftop they were at, but a few teens started jump across building and barely made it. All teenagers got very excited and cheering.

My dream ended when one of them tried and fell off the building.

Everything was happened far away from where I was, like an extreme long shot. But it was still scary enough to woke me up. Framing-wise it was very YouTube alike, but the effect was very Hitchcock: you didn't see what happened, but it was the imagination of what you didn't see that scare the heck out of you.

So you can see that I don't really need to watch scary movie to scare myself. My brain already generate that for me very once in a while.

Lossing car key at office parking lot ... right after I arrived the office parking lot

So it was a normal work day morning. I woke up, took showed and then drive to work, found a parking space, and left the car.

Fun started after I closed the car door, about to close the door with my car key, and found that the car key was gone.

Ridiculous. The car key must be around, since I USED IT TO DRIVE HERE! I looked around, check my jacket, looked into my backpack, inside out upside down. 30 minutes passed, and I still couldn't find my car key! Then suddenly I remember that I have a tiny LED flashlight in my backpak. So I yanked it out, and used it to check underneath the car. Still nothing.

Finally, I checked underneath the area underneath the driving seat ONCE AGAIN (tried before), and there it was the car key at the corner.

At least I found it eventually, but I am still puzzled how it got there, consider that it the time because I turned off the engine of my car and stood outside of the car was merely 5 seconds.

Crying for my divorce with kids ... wait, I don't have kids!

Just woke up and still settling from a strange nightmare. It was about getting divorce and how I felt sorry for my kids for not getting the love they need because of the divorce. There was some action sequences some how about me being chased and such (I managed to have action sequence regardless of whatever kind of hardship I was enduring .... strange ....)

So I woke up, and still feeling very upset, until I realize, "wait I don't have kids." Suddenly it was a awesome sensing of relief.

I suspect that my dream was actually a dramatized version of something I heard playing out in my brain.

Twice

Number is such a power way to express reality.

2 year ago when I came from the US from HK, I moved stuffs out of a public storage, which was where I stored my stuff 6+ years ago before I headed back to HK. Among all the stuff that I kept, I found a few video game consoles, among them a Sony Playstation (original), a Sega Dreamcast, and tons (I really mean it) of game discs.

"Great. Let me set them up the 2 consoles so that whenever I feel like being retro, I can play some old school Parappa The Rapper and Sonic Adventure!"

2 year passed. Guess how many times I played them.

Twice, for each of them.

They occupied spaces, took me time to clean them up as they gained dust from time to time, and I only spent time to each of these consoles TWICE.

So while I was cleaning up my room today, I decided to put them back to where they belongs to: their boxes.

So unwilling to buy stuff

I went to Best Buy (huge electronic store in US) again to check out the Toshiba netbook. The display model has some problem, and although the actual product I buy from Amazon may not have the problem, that really gives a bad taste on my mouth on this netbook. Plus I still think my Tablet can do most of the job a netbook supposed to do. Sure it's hot like a stove after using for 30 minutes, but in winter this is actually a good thing. Maybe I should wait for next summer to buy a new Netbook.

I also played with ZuneHD. Such a sweet device. Great screen, and very smooth UI. Features are a bit lacking compare with iPod Touch, but it's getting very close. I won't buy it, but at least I won't LAUGH at people who buy it :-D .

Sigh, no JPEG zoom for Astak 6 inch EZ Reader

And I thought that I found a perfect eBook reader. It turns out that Astak 6 inch EZ Reader does NOT support JPEG zooming. In fact, it DOES NOT support zooming any image at all. That sucks. I don't mind if the screen is huge like Kindle DX and doesn't support zoom. But with a 6 inch screen, that's just too painful.

May be I'll just grab a Toshiba Netbook as a media player and reader instead.

Shopping without buying at Fry's again

Yep, it's me NOT contributing to economy again.

This time I was trying out a Lenovo netbook and see if it's a good deal since I saw a special offering online. The model is Lenovo Ideapad S10-2. It felt OK but after trying out Toshiba's Mini NB205-N311/W, I found that one feels so much better when doing a lot of typing. So I think I may settle on that one if I don't find any better deal within this month. I compared the price between Amazon and NewEgg and found Amazon has a better deal. This review also confirm my decision. With good battery life, nice heat emission and a reasonable price, I couldn't find a deal better at this moment.

But then, in tech world, things ALWAYS change.

I also tried the Sony netbook. I hated the right SHIFT key. The keyboard is too tiny. The only good thing about it is the style and the higher resolution.

A big surprise, though, was that I found a little device called Astak 6 inch EZ Reader. It's selling at $259.00. Not big deal, I thought, and 6 inch still seems small for my manga consumption. But the more review I read about this device, the more I was amazed. The best part of this device is that it support Chinese characters. None of the other devices, like Kindle, Sony eBook Reader, and so on support that.

• Review 1
• Offical Web site
• Review 2
• Review 3
• Review 4, with the hack that gives you a better reader
• CNet Review
• Chinese Info
• NewEgg Review
• Firmware Update
• Great font support

I also saw the Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO at the store selling at US$169.99. This one, however, doesn't seem as attractive as the Astak one. Not only the screen is smaller, but it support much less file format, and the worst part is that it doesn't support multiple language.

Finally I walked to the digital frame section and was surprised that reasonable looking digital frame only cost US$38. Sound like a great gift item to me.

Just had a hair cut

I just had a hair cut during lunch time. This time it's done by a guy in the shop, which was the first since I started going to that shop since 2 years ago.

And I seemed to forget when was the last time I had my hair cut.

Spent an hour messing with gadgets at Best Buy

I spent an hour at BestBuy trying out various gadgets. Overall, I was disappointed by almost all of them, which is great because there's less temptation on spending.

First I tried the Toshiba Netbook. I generally like the look, but when I tried to use Notepad to type some sentences, I found that for some reason the cursor will just to strange place with no apparent reason. I tried closing all the apps but I still got the same problem. Finally I just gave up. One less Netbook in my candidate less.

Then I tried the HP TouchSmart TX2. This is a multitouch (2 points detected) tablet PC at US$900 price point, which sounds great until you realize that:

• The vertical viewable angle is not good at all
• Digitizer driver doesn't support WinTab, meaning that it won't work with a lot of drawing applications like Photoshop.
• There's some serious heat issue.
• The machine has a very flimsy feel.

On the bright side, Touch feature seems to work pretty OK. I can do zoom and scroll using flick gesture on regular Windows application. Using 2 finger gesture to zoom on a web page is pretty cool. STill, I will wait for more dev support before I spend money on a multiTouch device.

Next disappointment: Archos 5. The biggest problem of this device is the sluggish performance. It makes me put a lot of doubt on Android device now. My iPod Touch gives me way better user experience. So until some better device coming out with better user interface, I stick with my iPod Touch.

Then I tried a Shure overear headphone. It's just not that good. Too bad I forgot the model name.

So there you go. All product bashing :-E

Forget it, Gateway!

I was very close from getting the netbook from Gateway, until I realized from Wikipedia that Gateway is actually Acer, and instantly I was like, no freaking way. My experience with Acer computer was worse than terrible. And I promised myself I will never buy another Acer computer in my entire life.

"They don't like me"

This is second time I gave a ride to Stephen and Chris, and after chatting with him these last 2 times, I was shocked to find out how much we are alike.

Stephen is a pianist at school I took ballet class from. We actually didn't talk much back when he was playing piano for our class. In fact, I tried initiate conversation with him twice, and didn't get much response from him. Since then I said hi to him a few times, and that was pretty much it. The longest conversation I had with him was when I told him how much I appreicate his piano improvisation. He said "thank you", and that was pretty much it.

And so the 2 years passed.

Then, last Tuesday, I left the ballet with a bit of melancholy, thinking how little improvement I did in the last 1 year, still puzzled about my teacher seemingly avoid chatting with me before and after class (did I do something wrong, accidentally offended her, or maybe I am too boring to chat with, or maybe I am physically stink ...), and then, once again, remind myself to accept the fact that "you are suck at deal with people".

As I was about to leave the building, I saw Stephen chatted with teenagers, seemed like trying to sort something out. He saw me, and asked, "excuse me, where do you live?"

"Sharpstown area. Need a ride?" I replied without thinking twice.

And so I gave him and his friend Chris (he's the security guard at the school) a ride home. Surprised, he was very talkative all the way while I was driving. I made a few comments here and there, but mostly I was just encouraging him to say more.

"Thank you so very much" he said when he got out of the car near the place he lived at. I smiled and waved goodbye, and then I added, "by the way, let me know if you need a ride again next week."

I meant it when I said it. But then I didn't actually think that he and his friend will need a ride again.

So I was slightly surprised when Chris came to the changing room tonight after the class and asked, "do you mind giving us a ride?" No problem, I replied.

Once again, Stephen was very talkative. But unlike last time, which we were mainly talking about politics, this time he talked about himself.

"They don't like me", he said. "Don't get me wrong. The people at the office are nice people. But somehow, they just don't like me ... except when they need me."

I tried to comfort him, and even promised to give him a Christmas gift, something that he didn't get from the parents of the students year after year seeing other teachers and office staff getting all kinds of gifts from those parents. Somehow, though, I saw myself through him. Like him, I feel like most people like my talent, the stuff I made and the service I can provide instead of me as a person. Like him, I constantly remind myself that "I don't care what the fuck the other thinks about me the odd people"and most of the time we successfully convinced ourselves that we are a-ok, until one day we found someone who's as odd as we are, and then we sharing again and again about how much we don't care about the others.

P.S. my friend just old me about her drunken experience. And I was just thinking, reading what I just wrote, it shows how I can behave like drunken without actually drinking.

Genes

Being with my mom for several weeks makes me realize one thing: we are so much alike. Seeing her I found a lot of traces of myself, for better or for worse.

SongBird does not support iPod Touch

Yes, it's mentioned here, and here. Damn you Apple.

Say Hello to SongBird Portable

After finding out that iLyrics, a iTune plug in that automatically retrieve lyrics and store in ID3 Tag, doesn't work anymore (the API they relied on was blocked), I had to look around for an alternative. Well, I found it. It's called SongBird Portable with Lyrics Master.

Other than the fact that the Lyrics Master requires me to listen to the song in order to get the lyrics (it's supposed to support batch retrieve, but I tried many times and couldn't made it work), the software work as I expected. However, I got trouble running it while iTune is also running. Seems like they hate each other. Also iTune import and Manage Media feature are a bit messy. So now when I add file to SongBird, I leave them pointing to the original file, which is actually good as I want the ID3 Lyrics tag of the orginal file being update.

Also, for some interesting reason, music sounds better playing from SongBird than playing from KMPlayer. Maybe some equalizer turned on by feature.

Interesting thing about the prepaid phone card

Finally got my mom's phone activated. If everything looks OK, I will inject $50 in the prepaid card so that mom can call me whenever she needed.

I used a T-Mobile Prepaid phone card. While the cost seems reasonable for a new phone number (just $6) with 10 minutes, it REQUIRED a TMobile phone. I realized it when I tried to use the serial number of my Moto E398, which I brought and used when I was in Hong Kong, and the registration failed. However, after I entered my TMobile Nokia 5300 serial number, the activation was completed. Of course, I did do some research online before I did that as I definitely don't want the new SIM card hijack my Nokia phone. It turns out that the serial number is just used for verification and support. It does not affect the regular calling.

So now the new SIM card is in the Moto E398 (a non TMobile phone) and my original one is in my Nokia 5300 (TMobile phone but already unlocked before my last Hong Kong trip). So far so good.

Changing plan

I did a bit role play to simulate what happen after mom comes, and realized that I can't sleep in the closet. The closet is right next to the restroom, and I know that mom needs to access the restroom frequently. If I sleep in the closet then I have to close to door when mom use the restroom, causing me to suffocate to death. Death is fine, but not this way.

So I am rearranging my stuff once again.

And ... done.

Prepare computers for mom to use

I spent some time to set up my laptop computer so that my mom can use it anywhere she wants in the house during her one month staying. I set up an account for her, change the user interface so that everything is display in big Traditional Chinese characters, and then have a Traditional Chinese version of portable Firefox set up with her email account and some Chinese newspaper web site so that she can access them at ease. I also installed Ad Block Plus and NoScript in order to minimize her possibility of getting virus or spyware attact. And for the worst case scenario, I have the boot partition backup so that I can wipe the whole machine up and restore the system at ease.

However, I also realize that when I am not at home, my mom may enjoy using my desktop computer with a 24 inch and 20 inch monitor instead of looking at the 13 inch laptop screen. Problem is that there's a lot of important information that I stored on my desktop, and I don't know my mom to have them accidentally wipeout.

And that was the time when I realized that the Group Policy mechanism provided by Windows 7 does not give me an option to hide and block certain drive for certain specific user. Luckily, there is still a way to prevent my mom from accidentally messing things up. All I need to do is select property of each drive. Under the Security tab, I put in my mom's user name, and then deny her access on that drive.

Making spare keys

To prepare for my mom's arrival, I am trying to get her a set of spare key so that she can, in case she decided to for whatever reason, leave home and back without me around.

I tried Fesita supermarket first, but the lady there told me that they didn't have one of the 2 keys that I tried to make. So I went to the Home Depot at the cross section of Bellair and Belway 8, and got the same response. However, this time I went ahead and get one of the key replicated.

The keymaker at Home Depot told me that I can try checking out a Locksmith. He mentioned something like there's one on Westheimer, but I couldn't find it on Google. I did, though, found one more near by called Lockbusters Incorporated. 8341 Southwest Fwy, Houston, TX 77074 , (281) 561-0060. So I may give that a try this weekend.

ZumoDrive ate my homework

I was shocked, horrified and very angry about ZumoDrive, an online drive service. I just found out that all the document I put in that drive were either gone, messed up, or unopenable. Fortunately, they are all draft for the lyrics that I was working on, and I always have a backup somewhere else, otherwise I might tear all my hairs off as I have a deadline today. This both shows the importance of having backup and also how unreliable sky drives are.

Audio-Technica ATH-ES7

I test-drove my friend's spanking new Audio-Technica ATH-ES7 headphone. While the sound quality was very good (definitely worth the US$99 price tag), I found it pressed the ear on my head (even without the handle of my glasses) so much that I couldn't bear it after 2 hours. That makes me pretty concern about buying headphone online, as I wouldn't get a chance to try it before buying one.

Slightly twisted my ankle

I vaguely remember that I once twisted my ankle years ago while I was practicing Chinese dance. It must be a long while ago as my memory about that instance was totally blurry, and I wouldn't even recall it if I didn't get my ankle slighly twisted last Saturday when I stepped into my sport shoes in a hurry. It was painful for like a few seconds and then it's gone, and as usual, I ignored it.

And then when I went to see Houston Ballet that night, the nerve pain within the ankle came back while I was in the restroom (what an embarrassing moment to have your ankle hurt, right in front of the toilet bowl). This time it stays longer, but at least I managed to survive until I get home.

This morning the pain comes back again, and I realized that it's mostly because I didn't walk properly. Instead of using the front part of my feet, I tend to put pressure on my ankle when walking. So I started learning to walk the right away.

It's getting better now, and seriously, I am worrying that it will come back, particular during my ballet class. That would be very bad.

My digital camera healed itself

I found out that my Canon PowerShot SD880IS camera was slightly misbehaving since 2 days ago. Well I zoomed out to the max, the lens would be suddenly off focus. Other than that, the camera was working pretty fine.

To my surprise, yesterday when I used the camera, I suddenly heard a few clicking sound of some motor readjusting, and then found that the camera fixed itself. There's no more out of focus problem since then. Wicked.

I think part ot the reason that the lens or motor in my camera wasn't synchronized well is because I left my camera in my bagpack all the time, and I always treat my bag like I treat myself: slamming everywhere. So from now on I will leave my camera at home, and let the cheesy camera in my mobile phone does the job should I have a need to take pictures on the fly.

I might die this year

I dug up some of my historical stuff, like recording that I made, journal that I wrote and then some. I scanned through these materials, which included my prediction that I would die this year. It was a prediction I made and believed since I was seven ago.

I wasn't thinking about it since years ago, probably after I started dating my first girl friend. It's kind of interesting that I dug up this "prediction" right on the year which I was predicted to die.

So if I was correct, then I only have 4 months to live.

But then I predicted a lot of stuff before, and most of them didn't come true.

Nevertheless, it's always nice start preparing. Based on what I found out, I have an effective will, all I need to do is handwritten the will by myself. That's it. So let me start drafting ...

Am I supposed to like World's Greatest Dad?

Just watched the movie World's Greatest Dad, and it was a very odd feeling. In the first half of the movie, I somehow found it unbearable. And then something happened, and I felt my brain just got turned up side down.

I know what the story is trying to say and imply. And to a certain extend I thought I should love the movie because it's very pro-alternative, pro-geek and pro-individualism. After, this is what indie movie is about, right? We don't want to the same old formula Hollywood style movie. We don't have cheap emotion. We want something raw but poetic, beautiful in a bitter way, approachable but not compromising. Right? Well, this movie does all of that.

But somehow, deep down inside, I found this movie pretty hard to swallow.

Maybe, I think, the movie is too real to me. It's almost seeing my own funeral, something that was cool when in imagination, but unbearably painful when you actually look at it.

And for that reason, maybe I should watch the movie again.

How to get audio/music from YouTube

Many people asked me how to get audio/music from YouTube. Here's how you do it.

First you need to have the following software installed:

• Firefox 2.0 or above (because you need to install some Firefox plugin)
  http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html
  
  
• Firefox plugin Video DownloadHelper
  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
  
  
• FLV Extract (open source tool to extract audio from flv file)
  http://moitah.net/
  
  

Here's the step of installing everything:

• Install Firefox
  
• In Firefox, Go to the Video DownloadHelper site and install the Video DownloadHelpler plug in, or you can select menu [Tools][Add-ons], click "Get Add-ons" and search "Video DownloadHelper". (Oh, and while you are there, search "Adblock PLus" for blocking all advertisement and "No Script" to stop JavaSCript from running by default. They make your web surfing life much safer)
• For FLV Extract, just expand the file and run the FLVExtract.exe

Finally here's the step of how to do it. Let's say you love the webcast 2KShow that me and my friend Mr.K do so much that you want to extract the audio (feel free :-D). Here's the steps:

• Using Firefox, go to the YouTube page, like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muNOOeWfjYQ
• On the toolbar, you can see the Video Downloader icon rotating. Click on the icon, and in the dropdown, select the file you want to download. Same video many have multiple version, just pick one. You should see the file being downloaded as ".flv" format, which is Adobe Flash video format.
• Open FLVExtract.exe. On the window, UNCHECK "Video" and "TimeCodes". You should be only "Audio" being checked.
• Drag and Drop the .flv file on "FLV Extract", and an mp3 file will be created with the same name and the same folder as the original .flv file.
• DONE. Enjoy the mp3 audio file.

By the way, if case some haters wanted to accuse me for "stealing music" or crap like that, here's the list of legitimate reason why some of my friends do this all the time:

• We have a Sunday worship team and we try to practice contemporary worship music close to the arrangement of the original performance. So we use YouTube to find the songs, extract the low quality audio out, put them in iPod so that we can get the groove down. After the Sunday service, we delete those files. They are low quality enough to not give us ultra enjoyment, but good enough for us to learn the arrangeemnt. In fact, I borught a few songs from iTune after finding the songs appealing.
• My Chinese dance friends use music from the Chinese dance clip on YouTube to practice dance.

Two totally unrelated things

First, I had a hair cut today.

Second, I was trying to convert some cassette tape into MP3, but the darn cassette player keep jamming my cassette tapes. I already lost 2 historical tapes because that brother ducking cassette tape player. I even start wondering if I should actually buy a Walkman just to finish the conversion job, which will cost me $30.

Woke up from a nap

I just woke up from a nap. It was a nightmare, or so I concluded.

In the dream there was me driving a car flying out from a freeway. And then I needed to prepare for some dance practice (! nightmare?), and then being greeted happily by someone who hates me (!?). I know, such an odd dream.

I love UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply)

I was working at home (starting from 5 o'clock) today. The thunder was striking and there was a few moments of power outage. But I was not affected because of my lovely UPS. Gotta love it.

My first little iPhone app running on my iPod Touch

This is as primitive as the first Visual Basic application I wrote 15+ years ago, but nevertheless, I did fulfill the promise I made to myself: I will jailbreak my iPod Touch only if I use it mainly for developing iPhone application. And after spending 2 days jumping hoops and go through twist and turn, I finally had my first iPhone application running on my iPod Touch.

The application doesn't really do much. It simply allows me to select my mood, and then suggest me what to say to a special someone that I will see every day. The app is totally nothing, but now that I set up the whole infrastructure, my next app will be more interesting.

Vacuum Cleaning my room

I just vacuumed my room. Nothing particular, but I sort of use my blog to document routinely doing stuff like this or having hair cut and such. That way when I google my blog, I know how frequently I do something like this.

Managing my music through iTune

Now that I use my iTune on my netbook as my primary music player at home, I need to spend sometime organizing my iTune library. It's kind of like organizing your CDs on your bookshelf, only that I can BACKUP my organize result, SEARCH my song collection (even using Chinese handwriting with my iPod Touch), add Lyrics, and much much more.

During the process I found out a few things:

• 2 great plugin for iTune: iLyrics, which allows you to get lyrics into your songs, and last.fm, which keep tracks of what you listened on your iTune, and even let others know what you are listening using the Facebook app What I'm Listening To.
  
  
• Definitely need to turn on the "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library". This allows you to potentially carry your whole iTune library around in a removable harddisk or thumb drive. If you like me, spending a LOT of time cleaning up ID3 Tag, adding album art and Lyrics, you want this feature to preserve your hard work. Notice that this feature is not ON by default, so you have to explicitly turn it on.

On a completely unrelated issue: I found that Spelling Checker is not working on Portable Chrome 2.0.172.30. Does anyone else have the same problem?

Appreciate the audio equipment that I already have

After struggling for 2 weeks about whether to spend money on the expansive Bose around ear headphone, I started to realize one things: I really didn't spend enough time to really enjoy music.

I found out that partly the reason why I enjoyed the moment I test-drove the Bose headphone was because I was doing music but ENJOYING the music and nothing else. A lot of time music is background sound while I am doing other things. The only moment that I really pay attention to the music is when I walk from the office to the cafeteria since I have nothing else to do. And that was the moment I found out that my current earbud was inadequate for producing good quality sound.

So I was thinking: maybe besides finding a reasonably priced good sound headphone, I should also consider do something to improve the music listening experience at home.

It nice that I already did some work to move most of my daily task from my noisy desktop to my relatively more quite (but hot, literally) netbook, and I set up the iTune (which contains all the music I care both on PC and on my iPod Classic 80Gb). For some reason my ear gets very sensitive these days, and the hamming sound on the desktop gets very irritating when I am not busily working.

Now all I need to do it find a proper way to output the sound properly.

I have 3 options:

1. Using a pair of Logitech USB based speaker
2. Using the sound output on my Targus USB station and output to my stereo system
   
3. Using the internal headphone out on the netbook and output to my stereo system
   

Option 1 is fine for listening podcast, plus I don't have to turn on the stereo system. Althoght I love the sound of the my 15+ years old JVC stereo system, it does generate heat. So option 1 will be my choice when I just want to listen to audio book and net radio and podcast. However, this is definitely not my best choice for music listening.

Option 2 was out after I did a bit experiment and found out that there's some noise being generated for no good reason.

So I set up Option 3, and everything seems to work fine. There wasn't much noise coming out of the Netbook headphone out after I connected it to the CD input of my stereo receiver. After I turn of the desktop PC, I can fill my room with music without any annoying background noise. And the best part is that I can use my iPod Touch to control the iTune using the iPhone app "Control" (by Apple). I can even search songs using Chinese character input. The experience is simply awesome, and gives me more incentive to put even more music in iTune.

Oh, did I mention that I didn't spend an extra dime to set everything up?

Dream again

It's been a while haven't remembered a dream when I woke up. My memory doesn't work too well when I am too busy.

But after a night of relaxing yesterday, my brain started to gain some vibe. So this morning when I woke up, I remembered that my dream was about packing up and preparing to fly back form some place (probably Hong Kong) to my living place (probably Houston). I was in a hush packing things up, like I didn't do anything until the last minute. Mom was around chatting with me. But suddenly the scene jumped to me and my mom being on the plane, and my mom was activity talking to other passengers about Christianity and gospel.

So basically that's the dream.

First thing first

When I woke up the first thing that I planned to do that day has a great impact on my rest of the day. This is particularly true for weekend, when I have more control on how to spend my time. If I picked to do creative and productivity stuff, like doing some sketches, set up a 3D environment in 3D application, write a way melodies, or write a story outline, then the rest of my day will fruitful and productive. If, on the other hand, I started my day with goofing, browsing the web, reading comics, playing video games, then the rest of my day will probably be fun, but not as productive as I would hope.

My friend said I am sick as I measure my off hours in terms of productivity. Well, maybe.

Gear to match my lifestyle

I have both Windows 7 and Macintosh OSX 10.5.6 running on my Lenovo Tablet PC, but 95+% of time I turn on the Windows 7 side even though I enjoy the OSX environment more. The key reason is the tablet feature. Digital tablet feature does not work on the Mac side, and I always impulsively want to do sketching whenever I feel like it. So I left the machine running on windows 7 standby mode, and whenever I impulsively want to sketch a little bit, like what like did 10 minutes ago, I can turn on the machine, and within 10 seconds I am on my digital paper, sketch whatever pose, concept drawing or doodling on my Tablet.

So at the end of the day, a gear is not really about technology, not really about style or image or loyalty or technical specification. It's about how much it can fit into your lifestyle. If I could have someone prepare a set of watercolor, oil paint, chalk and sketch pencil for me anytime I feel like, using paper is not much different from using my Tablet. But I don't, so my Tablet PC with tools like Alias Sketchpad is the best I can get.

Finding a new headphone

I am starting to get sick and tire of my Sennheiser CX300-B Earbuds, and thinking that it's about time to upgrade to something better. So I started my journey of trying out all sort of headphones whenever and wherever I could.

My first love, and still my best love, is the Bose® around-ear headphones. However, people kept slamming it for it's horrible durability. I don't mind the US$125.95 price tag, but hate to have it destroyed within a ear. In fact, I tried the Bose® QuietComfort® 2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphones in Apple Store and it was by far the best headphone experience I ever had. That make sense consider the huffty US$269.95.

Then I tried the Sennheiser Headphones in the Apple Store, and I was NOT impressed. In fact, none of the Sennheiser headphone I tried in Apple store and BestBuy impresses me.

My next stop was the Sony Style store, I tried all the headphones from $29.99 to $199. And I found out that all those sub-$100 headphones are totally shitty. The so called Extra Boss headphone are particaulrly shitty. I knew that because I use my iPod Touch as the benchmarking tool. All the headphone went thru the same devices place the same song, so I instantly find out which one is better. To be fair, those $199 headphone sounds pretty OK, but the bass are not puchy enough.

Finally I spent quite some time in BestBuy to try out various kind of headphones. First I tried Sennheiser HD 280. DAmn waht a piece of shit. The song of totally horrible. Maybe the headphone was being over abused, but then, so should be the other headphones I tried. The sound was like chicken yepping, thin, and muddy. Terrible Terrible!

Then it was the Koss UR40. My first impression was, damn, what a ugly headphone. That was, until I put it on, and then I was, shit, this bad boy sounds pretty damn good. The bass was solid, vocal sounds clean. I could hear clearly all the instruments. It was also very lightweight, and with the fold able design, leaving it in my backpack shouldn't be problem. My ONLY problem with the headphone is the fact that it's an OPEN headphone. In fact I think that's part of the reason why I sound so good for merely US$29.52 from Amazon.com .

Then I tried Sennheiser HD201 Headphones. It was ... errr... OK. Vocal sounds too thin, but sound isolation seems fine. For US$20, it's seems reasonable, but now that I tried Koss UR40, no way I will get HD201.

Koss PRO3AA Collapsible Closedear Headphones is my another stop. It sounded nice, slightly better than UR40. I found that it's boss is not as punchy solid like the Audio TEchnica I tried, but for US$38.17, hell, what do you expect? The biggest problem of this one is the long cord and the heavy weight. Wearing it just 10 minutes and I already find it a bit painful. No way I will wear it daily while I am on the street. On the plus side, this one is CLOSE compare with UR40.

OK, so what is the verdict? I think I will continue shop a bit more, but I am very much lean towards getting UR40.

Laundry detergent problem: where's the bubble

I wasn't too picky on laundry detergent (or so I thought), and tend to switch to different brand once in a while just for fun. Recently, thought, I was a little bit puzzle by the laundry detergent that I brought. It was All 2x Ultra.



The way it puzzled me was that there was NO BUBBLE stirred up during the washing process. It's almost as if I poured a cup of water in the washing machine instead of a cup of detergent. I don't know if it's normal, but I don't feel comfortable to have my load of laundry washed WITHOUT any bubble being generated during the process. It makes me feel like the clothes are not being cleaned. It's like using body wash that does not generate any bubble while you rub it on your body. It doesn't feel right.



On the other hand, my roommate's Gain generated tons of bubble. So I guess I will get some GAIN next time I go to supermarket.

Crazy night with Mitch and Alfred

I rarely have beer, but today I was going to have drinks at pubs and dining place and such, and so I ordered some ultra light beer (well actually I doubted that there's any alcohol in those drink I picked). It was basically 3 dudes (me, Alfred and Mitch) chatting. Nothing fancy, but it was fun, relaxing. 7 hours passed, and I almost totally not realize ... until I was getting pretty darn sleepy, and it was 2 a.m. by that time.

Sketch - Race Queen 2

Sketch - Model

So the Macsense BlueICE BTi-660 Bluetooth Earset is not all bad after all

I am using the Macsense BlueICE BTi-660 Bluetooth Earset with my office laptop now. And it's actually not too bad. Now I can listen to podcast or technical webcast playing from now computer without physically connect my headphone to my computer. I still saw the video out of sync problem when I watch webcast, but I guest that's the price I have to pay for using Bluetooth in general.

Another intersting use case: I can switch between using my bluetooth headphone with my PC and with my iPod Touch. To switch from listening to my PC to my iPod Touch, all I need is turn on my iPod Touch and use the headset profile. But switching back the listening podcast playing on my PC is a bit more tricky. I have to disable Bluetooth on iPod Touch, and then on the PC I have to reconnect to the headset. But at least during the whole process, I don;'t have to touch the headset at all.

Sketching - Running Cat

Old frat talk

It's interesting that in life, what you want isn't always the same as what you need, and also not the same as what you like. The older you get , the more you will tend to choose what you need instead of what you like. I am making old frat talk again.

SmallTalk ... Errr .. Nah

At first I was thinking of getting SmallTalk, which gives me a mic while allowing me to use my own headphone with my iPod Touch. Amazon has it for $15, while Buy.com has it for $16 about all the shipping and such. But then there are reviews talking about how flumsy that cord is, and said the connects are not very well made. It's something that has 50% of possibility returning back to the manufacturer. Plus, for $29 I got the mic and remote and the headphone. Paying $16 just for the mic seems a little bit much. And historical, carry multiple piece (both mic and headphone) prompt to be troublesome.

And most of all .... do I HAVE to have a mic? Hmmm... think ....

Saw DR-BT100CX and DR-BT101 Bluetooth headphones ...

I saw DR-BT100CX and DR-BT101 Bluetooth headphones at Fry's Electronic today. They are both at the same US$79.99 price tag. I saw a lot of announcement but couldn't find much review except the comment as Engadget and Amazon site. Also, the Amazon price is so much cheaper.

It turns out that there's some other cheaper solution out there on the market, including Samsung SBH-500, and Sony DRBT22. But eventually I think I should wait until there's a way to control track forward/backward before I thought about getting a bluetooth headset.

Macsense BlueICE BTi-660 Bluetooth Earset: Bitter Sweet experience

So I went to Fry's Electronic store today, and picked up a little gadget called "Macsense BlueICE BTi-660 Bluetooth Earset". On the surface,this little gadget should be doing exactly I am looking for: turn a regular headphone into a bluetooth stereo headset. And now that iPod Touch gen2 with iPhone OS3 supports Bluetooth headset, I thought it's about time to get rid of the wire.

I brought this US$29.99 device home, and found that most other places online, like here and here and here and here all selling the device at a more expansive price. So I was like, sweet, maybe I got a good deal.

Charging the device was pretty smooth, and so I start plug in the headphone and try out the device. My first impression was pretty good. But later I find that the pair goes kind of on and off once it got out of sync. In fact, it got so screw up that eventually I need to reboot the iPod Touch, as the Bluetooth was not able to turn on. After a reboot, everything seems to go back to normal.

At first I thought WiFi may alter the Bluetooth, but turns out there's no relationship at all. Wifi and Bluetooth can run at the same time, as I read my email while listening music through Bluetooth headset.

However, the following things still bugging me and makes me seriously think about returning it.

• The audio quality is really sub par. I can tolerant it for listening podcast, but listening to music using the headset is like listening to FM radio.
• iPod Touch couldn't use the microphone that comes with the headset. It's a pretty well known issue as it turns out. Maybe I really need to buy a headphone with the mic, meaning paying the USS$29 Apple tax? (People seem to be pretty upset by that) (more of the bitching)
• Watching video using Bluetooth headset has audio out-of-sync problem. Interestingly, sometimes the problem is more serious than the other times. But there's NEVER a time that the audio are in-sync. The only way to avoid the out of sync problem is using a wired headphone.
• You HAVE to use the headset to control volume, yet you also HAVE to use the device (iPod Touch) to change track and so on. That kind of defeat the purpose of having a wireless bluetooth headset. (Some technical issue about this shit)
• I also tried the headset with my Nokia 5300, and the experience was even more terrible. I could stop the track, but I couldn't start the track again. Sometime the navigation may trigger dialing a phone number. It also dropped off with no good reason. Audio quality was terrible. Forward and Backward track works but it was so sluggish. It made me decided never use a Bluetooth headset with the Nokia 5300 ever again. On the other hand, on my iPod Touch, at least the pause and start feature works.

So all in all, this is just a little cheesy toy. It's nice to see that the Bluetooth feature in iPod Touch really works, but it's time to get rid of this piece of joke.

Wii Channel "Everybody Vote" does not support USB keyboard

Wii Channel "Everybody Vote" does not support USB keyboard! Tried, and disappointed. Plus, I found that not being able to use Cut and Paste on Wii Internet Channel makes my web surfing experience slightly inferior than what I expected. Time to get back to my Windows 7.

Using USB keyboard with Wii

Some of you may have been knowing this since long time ago, but to me this is something new: you can baiscally hook up any USB keyboard to you Wii's USB port, and it will work with Wii applications like Internet Channel (the web browser), and Everybody vote. In fact I am using the Internet Channel to create this blog message right this moment.

I am using a wired USB keyboard, but based on what I read from the Net, almost all wireless USB keyboard will work. This actually makes much more sense for those of you who have your Wii set up in the living room.

To me, this feature is more of a gimick than a necessity, because my Wii is right next to my computer, and using a Windows 7 desktop running Firefox 3.0 or Chrome 2.0 is so much better a browsing experience than using my Wii. In fact, I jsut found out that in order to create a blog in Blogger, I have to use the HTML editor instead of the WYSIWYG editor because Wii Opera browser doesn't support those fancy Javascript. However, it's nice that it is doable.

BTW, I need to get some friends on Wii to justify starting to play more online games on Wii. Any friend code?

Flu and Coke

Today is sort of my recovery day from flu. Do you know what I did right away? Drink a can of Coke instead of drinking water.

......

So yeah if my flu comes back then I definitely deserve it.

Campbells Chunky canned soap sold cheaper at Target

I didn't realize this until today: Campbells Chunky canned soap sold cheaper at Target. They are selling it at US$1.99 instead of US$2.39 or more like in HEB or Kroger.

Yeah this is such a See-Nine information but info is info.

The Future Of Food

Someday I need to go back to Hulu.com to watching the movie "The Future Of Food". It seems like a movie to give people reason to avoid bio-genetic food.

Drawing: dude

A cat I just drew

Drawing some dogs

Sick + Sleep = Crazy Dream

It's that same old routine again: I didn't drink enough water. My throat was dry. I stayed up late to doing something stupid like playing Nintendo Wii. And you know what happens next? Sore Throat.

So it's Sunday morning and I am staying at home. But that's not all. I also woke up from an odd dream, which happens all the time as you may recognize by reading my blog. But this dream, or should I say a sequence of dreams, has something unique about it.

- Commercial in dream!
I forgot what commercial is was, but in my dream there was a commercial played once. It's probably something I watched either from the Net (Hulu.com) or from TV (which is rare since I don't watch network TV, so it's probably something I caught a gimps from someplace while waiting in line). Now that I think about it, it really feels odd. In fact it almost feel like I got violated. Maybe someday there will be product placement in my dream.

- Skipping examination without even knowing it?
So in a segment of my dream I was supposed to take a Biology examination. I went to the test center before the test, feeling very unprepared (did I mentioned that I sucked at Biology and always was and always will), and then some dude crowded to my seat at the end of a long bench. I suggested him to put his backpack on the floor. He did and .... the next thing I knew I was waking at some empty classroom. And then I thought, wait, did I just SKIP MY BIOLOGY EXAM?

It's like crossing between brainwashing, teleporting and amnesia. So I started running around and sure enough I missed that test. And in fact, the grades seem already posted already! In my mind I was kind of blaming like: how come no one tells me that I skipped examination? And worst of all, it seemed like I skipped more than one test. So probably from my defense mechanism, I was like, "screw that, this degree sucks and I don't need it as I have a job anyway." And I don't even know if it's a bachelor degree and a master degree.


- My friend Kamsiuman is in the dream
While I was hunting down what the heck was happening to my missing of exam, I came across my friend Kamsiuman. He seemed to be checking the grade and such. Nothing much.


- Hanging out at comic book store
So next I was showing up in a comic book store with some unknown friends. We just chat about video games and music and such. However, it seemed like I was actually WORKING there. Very odd.

- Walking in a tiny .. Circuit City?
Suddenly I showed up in a scene in which I was in a dark small store, almost like one of those you found at the dark corner of Chinatown. I found nothing intersting, walked out, and saw the store name "Circuit City". Say what?

- Making comment on songs
So finally I was back into the store with comic strore friends. I made some comments about the drumming in a song playing a mixtape. I forgot the detail of the conversation though.

And that's it. Mess up dream from a sick (physically ... maybe psychologically too) person.

Feeling good after a hair cut

Just had a haircut at around 5:00 pm. No waiting in line. Awesome.

Another inking

This one I found tons of problems that I need to fix.

Inking I did

Actually I did another version of this inking, but think that most people will like this version better.

兩條友 Episode 10, Lam In Concert 2009

兩條友, Episode 9 : MTR and song parody

Freedom to be disgusted?

Let's face it: there's always a sick and disgusting side of us. No, I am not talking about you freaking mind thinking about those filthy evil sick fantasy. That's gross too. But I am talking about something related to physical hygiene and appearance. That's right, the superficial but oh so important things affecting daily human contact.

What prompt me to think about it was that a colleague that I have at work has some serious body odor problem. The smell was so strong that I have to rearrange my desk to face the other side of my cubical in order to avoid breathing in the smell. The problem is, though, that I don't know him enough to let me know the issue. It would sure be awful if someone who doesn't know you much come up to you and tell you how smelly you are. I am sure that will lead up to a great work relationship and a fantastic keen friendship built upon trust and honesty, or not.

That then I started to think, for single guys with no dating partner, this will be even more an issue. For those who have a close partner, they will constant got judgment and nagging from his or her partner if they do something inappropriate from general perspective, like:

• stop picking or rubbing your nose
• stop leaving all your hairs around the bath tube after your shower
• stop farting whenever you feel like it (go to the restroom for cry out loud)
• stop leaving your loosen hairs all around places (and don't get me started with those sick pubic hair around your desk you sick bastard)
• stop rubbing your hair and then smell it
• stop rubbing your nose and then smell it
• stop rubbing ANYWHERE around your body and then smell it
• stop talking close me with those disgusting smell from your mouth (take some mint or better yet have some fruits and vegetable damn it)
• start taking damn shower, like, DAILY
• stop peeping me with your lazy eyes

And the list goes on and on.

Single lonesome people may have the freedom or doing whatever they want, whenever they want, in however way they want since no one is yapping, controlling, bossing every aspect of their daily life. But they also loss a hygiene police to keep their image intact in public. And because in this political correctness day, no one will attempt the correct the others as they can be considered as judgmental and political incorrect, bad habit will not be pointed out and the person with those habit will most likely got a lot of bad mouthing at the back but never got the necessary correction.

Time after time, though, these lonesome people will wonder why they couldn't get a date, or why their relationship always got into some sort of shipwreck. Maybe the reason is as simple as stop picking their noses.

So I have a business idea: start a image reconstruction company for single people. Have a image consultant following the candidate the whole day for 2 to 3 days, completely, even when going to private places. Or simply have the consultant following you at the back, but a private investigator following the target. Then at the end of the investigation, present all the observation to the client, and let him or her decide whether they want to correct their problems (or even consider those as problems).

See, problem found, problem solved.

兩條友, Episode 8 : Our first audio product 20 years ago

兩條友, Episode 7

兩條友, Episode 6, May 9 2009

兩條友, Episode 5

兩條友 (2K Show) - Episode 4

Keep dying

I was a bit shocked that after I sprayed the roach killer, I found that roaches keep coming out and died on the basin. In fact I just finished wrapping the dead body of the second roach that I found and flushed it away. The horror might actually keep me from sleeping tonight.

Anonying Tiny Insect

Starting from Friday morning, I found some tiny tiny sections start showing up in my restroom. At first it was just a few, but slowly their quality started to increase. So a while ago I finally couldn't stand it. So I packed my toothbrush and such, and then I sprayed around the restroom with insect killer spray. Let's see if the problem got resolved once and for all by the time I wake up tomorrow morning.

Brand new day with Windows 7 at home

If it's not because of the crazy damn video driver ill behaving on my home desktop, I probably won't jump the gun and install Windows 7 on my home desktop while I was sleeping last night. Sure I kept saying that I wanted to do that for months, but all the things that I have to do daily keep me from doing it ... until last night, when almost everything I did ended up crashing the machine. That's the time I realized that enough is enough. But since I was extremely sleepy last night, so I simply popped in the Windows 7 Beta DVD, started it, and then I went to bed.

So when I woke up this morning, I gladly found that Windows 7 already installed on my machine, and ready to use. And because of my grave of using portable software and had them set up ready to use all these days, I can instantly start getting productive by running these portable applications, such as Portable Firefox, portable Pidgin, Disk Catalog, uTorrent, and so on.

The desktop is also so much more quite now without those stupid graphic card applications running at the background. The desktop is also so much clean. Everything is so nice that I don't even wanted to install anything on the top to pollute the clarity of everything.

Video can be view instantly without installing anything. Awesome.

The out of the box experience for Windows 7 is definitely so much better than that another previous Windows OS which shall remain nameless, forever.

兩條友 (2K Show) - Episode 3

兩條友 (2K Show) - Episode 2

A BS Web Show, created by me and my friend Mr.K. 兩條友 (2K Show) - Episode 2.

兩條友 (2K Show) - Episode 1

A BS Web Show, created by me and my friend Mr.K. 兩條友 (2K Show) - Episode 1.

Strangely good web site ... Webby nominees

Thanks for Totally RAD Show to podcast, I found out the following crazy category worthy of checking out thru the Webby Official web site:

• Best Weird
• Best Humor
• Best Individual Performance
• Comedy : Individual Short or Episode
• Best Viral

Woke up at 3:45 a.m.

I woke up at 3:45 a.m. , and I still remember the dream I had. I was waiting for bus number 10, but then I started to wonder if I should wait for bus number 5. Being confused, I started to run from bus stop to bus stop. The location .... it was vaguely around Lai Chi Kok, so it's obviously to me that I was trying to get back to Mei Foo.

And then somehow I got on the bus, and a uncle kept saying how great his portable radio worked, even though it's semi-broken.

In the mist of confusion, I woke up.

Obviously, I was having dreams because of the frustration at work.

Nightmare (Yeah, what else otherwise)

I haven't had nightmare for quite a long while. And then, I had one last night. This one seems troubles me a bit, as I still remember some detail after I woke up. I even went back to sleep after I woke up at 7:30 a.m. because I was so upset that I wanted to sleep a little bit more just so that I can forget the dream.

The dream was not that complicate. I was at home in Hong Kong, the place where my family was living together. My mom and brothers were there. Strangely, I didn't recall seeing my sister and dad.

We were waiting for my aunt to come by and picked us up to go to some place. Some the family was just waiting in living room.

And then I realized that my brothers were very mean to me. They said hash words and keep picking on me left and right. I didn't fight back or response, and instead just sucked them all in. That went on until aunt came and so we all left home.

And then I woke up.

Yes, simple as that, and you might wonder why I called it nightmare and seemed to be upset so much.

But somehow that upsets me. I don't like bad relationship. I hate that so much that I rather have no relationship than a bad relationship.

Now that I wrote all these down I am feeling much better now. Time to go to work.

Superman: Secret Identity - Best American comics book I've read for a long while

If you haven't read "Superman: Secret Identity" yet. You owe yourself big time for missing a great piece of graphic novel literature. I learned about it from the podcast Totally RAD Show, and was totally amazed by well it's written and drawn. In fact, I need to find out more works from Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen and see if their individual work live up to the awesomeness of the collaboration in Secret Identity. This is definitely a gateway drug for those who are not a fan of US superhero comics. It's so well written that I was surprise by the fact that no movie deal was being negotiated about turning this series into a movie. Trust me, you'll enjoy as a good story, just like how Dark Knight won over tons of non superhero fans.

Jelly well made

Just tasted a cup of jelly that I made this afternoon. It tasted OK, which is not that much surprising, cause it would be a disaster if I couldn't well OK jello.

Decision: which weighted key piano to get?

After being intimidated by the piano lesson in "Learn to Play" with Garage Band 09', I was tempted to get a weighted key digital piano. After all, my waffling cheesy 4 octave with broken key flimsy keyboard really is showing its age. Plus in order to learn how to play a real piano I need to use one that has a padel and one that feels like real piano.

So I went to BestBuy and found Casio PX120, and was very impressed by it. It costed US$599 (tax not included) and I thought it was worth it. Too bad they didn't have it in stock or I would have already brought it.

But then I continue shopping around and found more differnt options here and there.

Yamaha YPG-635 looks nice with the wheel and have tons of feature, but based on what I read from the manual, This bad boy does NOT have the standard MIDI in out, which to me is a big big no no. It relies on some crazy driver to connect to a PC. Great, how about my Mac. It's not cheap anyway. I will never buy anything that limit me to a specific device.

I thought of going for some cheap option, like getting one of those Yamaha P65 (another review) refurb at $399 or Casio CDP-100, until I realized a serious problem of these older generation products: they only have 32 notes polyphonic, which will be a huge problem if later my skill move forward and start working on some complicated piece. The new ones with 128 polyphoic does not have the problem. Well, there's a reason for the price difference.

So I think I am back to choosing betwen Yamaha P-85 and Casio PX-120 . As of now, my choice is getting it from BestBuy for $599 with the 3 padal and stand included.

Jello

I haven't been making Jello for almost 10 years, and I just made about 10 cups of it. Hope they worked out. Why I suddenly did it? Because I have some Jello power left over, and I hate left over. When I see left over I always what to find a way to use them up. Basically that's my "not wasting stuff" tendency.

And if you ask why I had Jello power left over ... well ... I brought some Jello power thinking of using them as fake blood in a little indie clip project I made (but obviously the attempt was failed).

蘊釀憤怒

這幾天的心情相當差，原因是星期五下班的時候看到在擋風玻璃上夾著一張警告的票，警告我停車場已經發現我長期將車輛停泊在公衆使用的停車位置，如果我繼續將車輛停泊在這地帶，車輛有可能被拖走或被夾上扣留夾。

一種充滿無奈又帶憤怒的情緒充斥心裡。我之所以將車泊在這個購物商場的停車場而不將車輛泊在辦公大樓的停車場，是因為辦公大樓的車位配額不足，我沒有被分派到停車位置，只得自行找停車的地方。

現在面對這個情況，我也不曉得星期一應該如何上班。就算我將車子泊到另一個公眾停車位置，遲早也會被發現。居然上班的過程也要面對這種壓力，心中的憤怒就這樣蘊釀起來。

Feeling better after sleeping ... while having haircut

I was so frustrated about some lousy thing that happened around me, but then I am feeling better now because of 2 things: I had a hair cut, and I had a nice nap while I was having a hair cut. Once again, sleeping was is the ultimate way to cure my frustration ... at least for a short while. So even though the price of the hair cut was increased from $11 to $12 ($13 after I pay $1 tips), I think it's still worth it.

Nice Friday afternoon

From the office window, I saw some people relaxing and kind of like having fun with birds. Nice and peaceful. Wish I were there.

University Center in University of Houston ... oh ... memory

Dude, I spent a lot of time at Univeristy Center of U of H 10 years ago ... time flies ....

The banner hanging around UC area are the same kind of stuff .. but at least now I see Wii night...


Game room is the same old Bowling, pool table and old arcade machine. But hey, Kung Hei Fat Choi!


Same old UC resting place.


Cougar Byte is even lamer than it used to be :-< There's basically NOTHING in the store! Or maybe they just move stuff inside when they are closed.