Microsoft scam

My XBox360 is one of those 4Gb storage unit.  Since I don't download much stuff though XBox Live, so I don't see any need to get more memory.  Things go tricky now that I got my Kinect, because it comes with a Redeem Code for a 3.8G game.  That means in order to play this game I have to buy some storage in order to download the game.  Instead of buying yet another Microsoft overpriced hard disk, I used a thumb drive instead.  No way will I pay for another overpriced product.

Also how come this causal game (the Gunstringer) is 3.8Gb huge?  It's like taking forever to download.

Occupying kitchen

My temporary roommates have a huge need on cooking. Since they moved in 6 days ago, they turned a 85% empty refrigerator into total full. This morning I was trying to move some frozen meat from freezer to the lower part of the fridge, and have serious problem finding place to put my stuff. They also fill up almost all the space you can imagine in the kitchen, which is fascinating. I almost want to take a photo of it and send it to World Record judge panel.

I was thinking about staying in the office during the weekend since I can at least open the microwave oven door freely in the office kitchen. But then I've been working in the office til midnight every single night ever since the temporary roommates moved in.

Just a few more days, I guess. Plus I can learn some lessons during the process.

Just like being on a plane

I was waken up by baby crying this morning again. I told myself to just think of it as being on a plane flying back to Hong Kong to see my friends and family. And then I realized that the flying part is also the part I hate the most about any trip to Hong Kong.

Red Bull, failed

I know that coffee, soda, and all the other caffeine drinks have no effect on me, can not wake me up.  And now I know that Red Bull fails to do so too.  I know it because today I drank my first and probably last can of Red Bull because my supervisor gave me a free lunch coupon.  I used the coupon to buy lunch, including a can of Red Bull, at company cafeteria.  It's now 8:22 pm, and I am feeling sleepy, even after drinking that can of Red Bull a while ago.  Red Bull, failed (at least one me.)

Album art hell hole

Two hours was wasted this morning trying to figure out why the hell the album art of my mp3 was messed up when playing on my HTC Android Desire phone.  At the end, I got Winamp working as I expected, while Amazon MP3 Player is still showing strange behavior.

The whole mess started yesterday when I realized that some of the songs had wrong album art when I used my Android phone to play them.  I checked the mp3 files and found that the embedded album image on some of the files were wrong.  So I used a Windows application MP3Tag to fix them.  Once I checked that the album looked correct on both MacOSX and Windows 7 desktop, I copied those files back to my Android phone.

But then strange things happened.  Both the mp3 player application on my Android phone, WinAmp and Amazon MP3, still showed the incorrect album that I saw before!  I tried removing all the image files in song folders, and found that at least in WinAmp, the album art simply gone.  That's when I realized that for WinAmp, it doesn't care about the embeded album art in the file.  Instead it only sees the image file in the mp3 file folder.  So I copied the album art image to each corresponding folder, and even clearly the application cache, and now the album shows up properly on WinAmp.

The only mystery left is the Amazon mp3 player application.  Even after I spent all these time to fix left and right, and even clear the application cache, the album art still NOT show up properly.  And that's when I realized that I already wasted 2 hours on this mess, and finally decided to call a quit.

The moral of this story is: I better make sure all album settings are correct before I even load the files in the Android phone.

Kinect in my room

I finally installed the Kinect I brought during Thanksgiving weekend, and tried Kinect Adventure and Dance Central 2 with it.  A few interesting observation I had:

•  My room is not large at all, but I still have enough room to play these 2 games with our too much trouble.  Although it will be more awesome if I have a bigger room, particularly when playing with Kinect Adventure.
• The Kinect intergration on the XBox Dashbox is fine but not great.  The hand movement gesture is pretty terrible, but the voice recognition was pretty good.  I can see myself speaking to my XBox a lot from now on, just like those iPhone 4S users constantly talking to their phone (with Siri).
• I was pretty tired after playing the 2 Kinect games.  This is such a great body fat burner.
• It's fun to play with Kinect myself, but it's 5 times more fun to play with friends.  So I am so looking forward to bring my Kinect to my friend's place this Christmas.

My next stop will be conencting it to my PC and see if I can do some coding with it.

Ancient Tea, Literally

I found out that there's  tea bag in a kitchen cabinet.  Still I am still recovering from my flu, and that I need something to smooth my throat, I used the tea bag to make a cup of tea.  I even added some lemon pieces in it.

Later I started to realize that the tea bag was something I left there years ago, probably 2 to 3 years.

So, is there expiration day on tea bags?

But then I am still alive after drinking that cup of tea.  So, whatever.  (It's like I am gradually training myself to live like a hobo.)

Continue my life as in movie "Moon"

After high fever on Saturday night (discovered that water with towel can used as ice bag replacement) and non-stop coughing on Sunday night (even Frisherman’s Friend cough drops won’t help), I continue my crawling to recovery from flu.  I considered going back to office today, but I really need the Tiger Balm ointment to keep me from constantly coughing (and thus hurt my throat, which prolong my recovery), and Tiger Balm stinks the whole room.  It's not like Chinese doesn't have enough bad name bringing stinky food items to office.

I have pretty sure that I have to going back the office tomorrow though since I have a driving test tomorrow morning and an interview tomorrow afternoon.

Not leaving my house (and most of the time not even my bed) for almost a week is such an odd experience.  Really reminds me the movie “Moon” I just watched.

I also really need to reconsider my stand on rely on my immure system to cure myself.  Steve Jobs tried it and that almost killed him during the first around of cancer treatment.  I learned that much from his autobiography. 

Sick and "Moon"

I really shouldn't watch the movie "Moon" while I was in fever and serious headache.  It's like watching a plane crash movie while you are on the plane.  Still it's a very good movie, and I am glad that I watched it.

歌詞: 兒童音樂劇歌詞 - Story of dogs (Sept 2006)

Lyrics Title: 兒童音樂劇歌詞 - Story of dogs
Date: Sept 2006

Comment: This is probably the second best of my lyrics work.

 Part 1: Hiphop doggy gangster

 -------------- start ---------------

聲威惡到極，
各位聽到嗎？
北角到上環，
全屬我天下！

叱吒每角落，
咬出新角色，
追趕去抗敵，
誰共我爭食？

從未有人敢擋我去路，
從未叩頭低首我自豪，
沿路嚇人皆因夠霸道。

我姿態最高，
我因我驕傲。

(Rap 1)

無謂靠人施捨派「口野」食，
明日靠拳打跟惡勢力，
強項五名狗組夠殺食，
你需要見識！

無謂靠人施捨派「口野」食，
明日靠拳打跟惡勢力，
強項五名狗組夠殺食，
夠鐘去「溫」食。



(Rap 2)

聽住，
而家宣佈，
大脾氣架到，
你唔準嘈。

為老細，
擦鞋鬼無計，
周身痕，駁完
唔該 "mout" 低。

獨眼狗，
勁到嘔，
快D溫人
帶"人巨"翻轉頭。

倒及牙話
E Y M E O
你地收唔收到
Errrr...    no

 -------------- end ---------------


Part 2 - Shower

-------------- start ---------------

為著預備要歸家家，
變「青見」要計劃。
從眉頭頭額到腳甲，
要通通洗擦。

腳擦擦又要將毛毛，
洗剪恤漂白。
快快變美麗和可愛，
容易被人讚。


為著預備你歸家家，
我替妳計劃。
從眉頭頭額到腳甲，
要通通洗擦。

齊齊來全力做到好，
芬芳加潔白，
落力實容易被人讚，
其實 Mug 有難？



為著預備要歸家家，
變「青見」要計劃。
從眉頭頭額到腳甲，
要通通洗擦。

腳擦擦又要將毛毛，
洗剪恤漂白。
快快變美麗和可愛，
容易被人讚。



立下大志，告訴你知，
奪目耀眼，得主人鍾意，
如同回過去，艷麗在此，
要快快回家，但願如意！



落落力為妳洗，
落落力為妳梳，

落落力為妳洗，
落落力為妳梳，

落力令人地
更-鍾-意！

 -------------- end ---------------


Part 3: Madam Dog


-------------- start ---------------

記得我從前有
綠草和洋樓，
十個隨從叫喚，
終年無憂。
愉快隨時有
如皇帝的倦佑。

但
我縱是無洋樓，
在天橋旁走，
氣質我仍然有，
未會眉頭皺。
鏡花竟會煉成
最後自由。

-------------- end ---------------


 Part 4: Finale

-------------- start ---------------

（Macy唱）
誰為我當初包裝炫耀，
明日又棄置不再重要？
人類最好知己虛名
誰要認？

（醒目仔及豆丁仔唱）
誰為我掌管生死權利，
難道被放棄等於要死？
人類會否想起生同
在這地？



（眾狗出，一齊唱）
你買來
能為我裝飾的愛，
如活潑他朝不再，
還會否關心對待？

我與人，
同樣有呼吸心跳，
同樣會傷心歡笑，
難道你狠心棄掉？

愛不等於開心不開心
不管責任。
我當天的忠心
現在
沒有指引。



（Chior 唱）

同一夢，
同一步，
同樣被
時光空氣陶造。

看。

誰心動，
誰感動，
誰尊重，
誰都可以溝通。

草繼續再生，
光每日降臨，
其實你對我亦會有惻忍。

停低問，
停低望，
誰不願
隨風霜再流落。

看。

如生命，
能肯定，
從心內
能聽得到歌聲。

心可以再生，
相信共你能
同留下世界上美麗腳印。

-------------- end ---------------

歌詞: 兒童音樂劇歌詞 (Sept 2009)

Lyrics Title: 兒童音樂劇歌詞
Date: Sept 2009

Comment: My friends Philip asked me to write some lyrics for a children musical.  The musical was produced by a Catholic primary school in Hong Kong, and you can tell from the lyrics the Bible content.  While I enjoyed the chance of writing something cater to spoken Cantonese, it's not in my DNA to write something that is positive and educational.  Nevertheless, I wanted to challenge myself and see what kind of result I can crank out.


Song 1
Synopsis: The song describes the Bible story about how God created the world, the creation of human, the original sin and the promise of new world in the future.

--------------- start --------------
那是個樂園歡欣國度
豹亦與綿羊一起散步
創造世人亦預備最好
快樂地唱遊天天共舞

呼氣一口創造思想自由
天主交給世人天空宇宙
百萬美食園裡日夜到手
只要不要行近一棵毒咒

越不準接近的更加吸引
和魔鬼帶來的禁果親近
從此失去快樂和平樂韻
在紛爭痛病中概憤

天主不甘戰亂苦楚漫延
吩咐祂的國民將光再現
你若決定憑愛用盡每天
約定快樂園內終可遇見
--------------- end --------------


Song 2
Synopsis: The song is about the devil trying to convince a group of kids to join his party.

----------------------- start --------------------
隨便作反
無規範
你想玩
即刻好多張菜單

係野都賴
唔怕壞
盡量避免長大

快快越快
你越覺 high
有貨就咪 "si"
最怕話要乖
太責任重大

晚晚上網又逛街
有節目要踩
鬥靚要做最佳
將PSP都打到壞


(Rap)
叫我魔王你做 Mug 仲 "口甘" Out
娛樂大使先係我新名銜頭

鐘意玩
又使 "Mug" 分時候
聽歌上網打機 灘 "Tou"
無人理你管你 "目采" 你 "溫"你
"目弟" 多出戲
娛樂自己

無野做訓係隔離
你再鬧我當你死

打交又有 "Mug" 出奇
我地呢道就係個個顧自己
唔通重
"口甘" 得閒同你講留堂罰企
索到 High High 地
我到就打不死


著條食足十包
有胃口播
打機打足十鋪
你無Save過
"目弟" 劇 "目弟" 足十場
你唔炎多
唱K唱足十場
無聲沙過

有野又無人肯做
個個就攤係個度
肥到好似舊雞泡
想郁都郁唔到

過去就算你幾甘努力
就快唔記得 "口羅"

太過習慣每天禁懶惰
你今晚會成魔

----------------------- end --------------------


Song 3
Synopsis: The song is about life of (elementary) school

-------------------- start --------------------
在那次跌到好痛
扶住你我至過到馬路
原來獨自做不好
合作有你更鼓舞

犯錯你勸我改過
勤力你讚我再不懶惰
願意說句老師好
為我 "口易" 我我知道


天生我識創造
練習就有質素
成日玩樂將才華盡秏
聽朝點去比武

當初未必知道
書本真的有寶
隨著學歷經驗都得到
願望亦會得到


就算世界有圈套
堂上你教我看清每步
長期學習做盾牌
用腦智破惡魔界


就算跌到腳仔痛
其實痛過至懂得進步
培育第日成就高
現在校園做到
樣樣極高指數

-------------------- end --------------------

歌詞: 無謂 (July 2008)

Title: 無謂
Date: July 2008

Comment: My friend Meth asked me to write a lyrics for an extremely unconventional melody.  It was like a segment from a jazz fusion, and I really had hard time finding out where's the climax of the melody.  So match the improvisation style melody, I wrote a lyrics about how to enjoy life without all the materialistic lifestyle in the city. 

--------------- start -------------

(1)
收拾行理上路
無謂棲身於家內被舖

隨心路
定旅途
再風高物燥
仍不願停步

山上留記號
沿路以雙手抱著春風共舞
山洞

做帳篷

訓一晚


(Chorus)
城內有商店但沒時間
天天睜開睡眼
忙生活
尋歡樂
就算白髮
沒法洞察
寧靜美好

城外有風送在黃昏
欣賞沙灘樂韻
停一站
仍不慢
生活再從簡。


(2)
躺在船裡午睡
漁獲不多
幾兩亦創舉
由海浪
做領航
看天高晴朗
雲轉換形狀。


歡樂隨意造
無謂靠風花說月笙歌妙舞
享受
未渴求
再擁有

---------------- end ------------------------

歌詞: 太過難 (June 2008)

Title: 太過難
Date: June 2008

Comment: This lyrics is a living prove that I DO NOT KNOW how to write a love song.  My friend Phillip wrote a melody and need some lyrics.  He wanted me to write something pop, and there's nothing more pop than love song.  Now that I looked back, I found the wording of the lyrics sounded very 80s.

--------------- start -------------

Main Melody:


你對著天嘆氣,
仍然難忘和我擁抱的氣味,
然後試圖
停下腳步
抱我進懷抱。

我憤怒的抗拒,
仍難忘曾離去給我的心碎。
但迷濛裡
又重回到你胸襟臂彎。


重回頭路
原是太難
卻怕再失去你的一晚
明明期待重遇的空間
再復還
還是怕快樂如風
消散。



要冷漠中對應,
和從前情人要裝作多冷靜。
無奈眼神
仍舊發問
愛,再次被困



為何重新給我
將手灼傷的火?
我怕再戀上昨天的錯。

為何仍不可以推開你的肩膊
也許愛
培育了繼續無知
的--我。



為何重新給我
將手灼傷的火?
我怕再選上昨天的錯。


如回頭真的會
將心帶出深海
如今需要一點勇敢的說
接受嘛
拒絕嘛

我在怕
還該不該
接受嘛

我怕
太害怕





Second Melody:

(愛你太過難,
怨你太過難,
抱你太過難,
遠去太過難。
愛恨這一晚。

愛你太過難,
怨你太過難,
抱你太過難,
遠去太過難。
對錯在潮湧中給推(翻)。

愛你太過難,
怨你太過難,
抱你太過難,
遠去太過難。
愛恨這一晚。

愛你太過難,
怨你太過難,
抱你太過難,
遠去太過難。
對或錯在潮湧不只一(晚)。

愛你太過難,
怨你太過難,
抱你太過難,
遠去太過難。
快樂痛苦如一紙分隔。
)

---------------- end ---------------

歌詞: 明日之後 (July 2007)

Title: 明日之後
Date: July 2007

Comment: I wrote this lyrics for a song written by my friend Meth.  Once again, I am trying to make the social-conscious lyrics easy to understand.  Taking a cue from US political satire comedy like the Daily Show and Colbert Report, I took the persona of the kind of person I hate.  Some might found the lyrics too negative, while I found it not negative enough.


--------------- start -------------

天再暗
浪多高
仍可鑽到
室內懷抱
螢幕照樣高級質素

無視滿街
廢氣密佈
車裡有
舒服皮套

蒙著了
聞不到
留待你
來宣佈
時日到

思想只要封閉
就覺得時辰未到
今天一起消耗
直到去到最終腳步
商機靠人客
不會問負責


程度喪失控制
熱風中
全街放送
不用煩惱
寒日繼續家中得到

誰害怕青菜裡
毒素
早吃慣
工業元素

明日債
明天數(嫂音)
留待你
來找數
誰用腦



思想只要封閉
就覺得時辰未到
今天一起消耗
直到去到最終腳步
只要有辦法
不再問負責


剛剛廣播警報
暴雨將農田盡掃
只管低位收購
未理四處救生訊號

心境似遊客
不理會負責

誰令我家中竟水浸
給我找到
誰負責

誰負責

誰負責

---------------- end ---------------

歌詞: 問心 (Feb 2007)

Lyrics Title: 問心
Date: Feb 2007


Comment: This is one those lyrics that I totally forgot I wrote until now, and I think I was too green back then to write so a deep topic.  The lyrics was meant to make a statement that motive matter, which is totally opposite from what people in this goal oriented society believes in.  I still appreciate my naiveness back then for willing to tackle such a hard topic.


--------------- start -------------


(1)
雜誌報導偉大兒童專家，
被判罪名誘男童尋火花。
無論過去
成就貢獻多偉大，
沒法補救。

若某日在進食馳名珍饈，
望到某侍應鼻內除污垢，
情調再美，
仍然會覺得 "食送" 內
多恐佈。

儘管天天給她的花朵，
瞞過已再愛上某個，
東窗到頭事發，
就熱愛不再。

沒有永恆沒法揭破的瘡疤，
就算石頭為找真兇可說話。
白與黑貓都一般麼？
循環路上自定了福禍。

若有日螢幕播放你的一生，
願你亦能做到，
看穿心意也沒遺憾。
可以除下面具便是個福份，
讓快樂能步近。


(2)
爛貨繼續發售豪華包裝，
賺到各自漂亮為何相干，
然後發覺，
原來坐上的車廂是你所創。

沒有被人發現為何不安，
未揭露但你為何仍不安，
逐個探聞有誰人來採訪？
埋藏過去，
成為你每天背負的尖椎！

誰知包裝得手的當初，
培養慣了錯了再錯，
東窗到頭事發
就沒法改過。

沒有永恆沒法揭破的瘡疤，
就算石頭為找真兇可說話。
白與黑貓都一般麼？
循環路上自定了福禍。

若有日螢幕播放你的一生，
願你亦能做到，
看穿心意也沒遺憾。
可以除下面具便是個福份，
讓快樂能步近。

---------------- end ---------------

歌詞: 陽光 (July 2008)

Lyrics Title : 陽光
Date : July 2008

Comment: My friend Meth asked me to write a lyrics for a song he wrote.  Since I was told that my lyrics was pretty hard to understand, I tried to make write things that could be understood as much as possible.  This is the result.


--------------- start -------------

(1)
無金光燦爛
只會靠演技
無經典對白
但仍然入戲

時喜
時悲
耐心捉緊每個生機
日出的光更美

曾漆黑過後
等到了天亮
曾孤單結幕
後團圓合唱

無分
環境
仍可哼出愉快歌聲
讓一生精警
可以用年月做証


(Chorus)
當傷心的追究劇情
呼天得不到反應
抱怨計算兜兜轉轉
同樣處境

陽光心境
不追問病情
只珍惜今天高興
天黑多麼久總會有
日出開啟的路徑。




(2)
能光輝歲月
不會怕短暫
和知心上路
倦仍能習慣

誰加
誰減
何苦需要敵我分家
儘管多偏差
總要隨時日幻化



(Chorus)
當傷心的追究劇情
呼天得不到反應
抱怨計算兜兜轉
同樣處境

陽光心境
不追問病情
只珍惜今天高興
天黑多麼久不再怕
愉快我自然個性



人傷心的追究劇情
呼天得不到反應
抱怨計算兜兜轉
同樣處境

陽光心境
不追問病情
只珍惜今天高興
天黑多麼久總會有
日出開啟的路徑。

---------------- end ---------------

Chinese Lyrics (歌詞) I wrote ... so far

It all started when I discussed the idea of writing original songs for the band that I participated in.  I mentioned that I wrote some lyrics for songs written by others before.  "Really, can you show me some?" my friend asked.

So I spent this weekend trying to dig up all the lyrics I wrote in my life so far.  Right now I am still far from finishing the task.  Still, it's kind of amazing to realize that, as a amateur, I did write a lot of lyrics.

I decided to post all the lyrics in my blog, mostly because I trust Google organizing myself than myself.  It's much to search in my blog or in my Gmail account then search my thousands of DVDR discs.

Amazingly fast hair cut

Just had another $13 hair cut.  This time, though, it was done in such an ultrafast way.  I think the whole process was like less than 15 minutes.  I never had an hair cut this fast before.

Zombie Bills

I happened to came across some old email account, and found that some old service that I subscribed back in Hong Kong still continue to send me bills, even though the amount is always $0.  This once again convince me to avoid subscribing any service as much as possible: the energy and frustration on maintaining these like of subscriptions is unbelievable.  Just when you thought they were dead, they somehow come up again, exactly like zombie.  That kind of frustration offset any enjoyment they supposed to provide.

Food X

Here's an interesting thing my mom just did: she first told me that I loved to eat X (which I actually don't), and then told me that X needed to be cooked while still fresh, so she had to cook it now, and I had to wait around until the food X been done. Finally she complained about me not eating food X instantly since I was supposed to love eating food X. So now I am stuck in the living room with a whole plate of X, the kind of food that takes forever to finish, guarantee that I will stuck in the living for another 30 minutes.

I think this whole sequence of action is solely for creating an excuse so that I will continue sitting in the living room for long long time, a place where she can see constantly me.

Location:Kam Po Rd,,Hong Kong

大漠矜貴

仍在想應否買 德珍 的 東方絢華大系 卷五──大漠矜貴。一直很喜歡以新疆和蒙古姑娘為提材的畫，所以購買這本畫本應是理所當然。但有網友令指出 德珍 老師的作品似乎出現交行貨的現象，導致少女面容與民族精細服裝的下身出現不協調的現象，導致頭與身分家。對於這樣的產品，如果我還用購買來支持，似乎有點盲目。

所以嘛，仍在思想博鬥中。但請問高雄那裡可以買到德珍的畫集？

Location:Lane 1361, Zhōnghuáwǔ Rd,Cianjhen District,Taiwan

Shut up

I am getting better and better on not saying what exactly what I want to say for the sake of the moment.  I predict that at the end, which is after I died, I will be able to achieve the ultimate goal: not saying anything.

Dream about Buying tires

I was overslept this morning, and with that I had a dream that I remember. In the dream, I went to buy a tire for my car because of a reason I totally forgot. The point that the shop didn't even give me a chance to see the change they made, and instead just put me in the big truck, and told me that my car was in the truck. I demanded to see my car, and the dream went hazy after then, and then I woke up.

This is probably a response to my shopping experience at golden shopping center.

Dream of raising very cute lions

I didn't have a lot of dreams after I came back to Hong Kong, but last night I had a dream that I can remember.  In the dream I was in some community center hall where there were a lot of people.  I walked a baby lion who could speak (I even forgot if it's English or Chinese she were speaking), pat her and told here that I would go away for a while, and asked if she was ok.  She said she's fine and kept hugging and kissing me. 

The dream was basically just that.  I think I had that dream because yesterday I spent some time hugging my sister's dog.  It seems like I really enjoy that.

Heavy Rain

For some reason, I found raining while I am in Hong Kong being way more annoying than raining while I was in US.  With cover parting both at work and at home and having a car,   raining doesn't seem to create any trouble to my daily life what so ever.  In Hong Kong, however, raining can be such a headache.  For once, I need to carry an umbrella around.  Traffic also becomes terrible.  The thing that puzzled me, though, was that I didn't think about this much the last time when I came back.  Odd, isn't it.

How can you expected to be taken seriously

I went to a promotion function for a television program solely for supporting a newly made friend who participate in the show being a 偽娘(cross dresser). I never enjoy this kind of commercial promotion function, and have not been to one for so many years. Now that I attended, I wished I never did and try not to attend one ever again. Seeing people treating my friend as an object to judge and tease made me felt uneasy. Also made me felt uneasy was that my friend being so ready to be manipulated made me realize how old-school I am. Even though I may intellectual explain why young people behave like what I have been, I will never emotionally understand them anymore. Maybe that's a good thing. Time to embrace my own age group.

Car, necessary evil

I have a simply life, a repetitive life.  When things go normal, it's like a smoothly run factory.  Everything just get processed and completed in a very efficient way.

This morning was not one of those days.

I woke up, brushed teeth, headed out to garage, thinking about the songs that I needed to practice with the praise team.  It's 15 minutes before the practice started.  I would arrive on time.

And then I tried to start to car, and the car didn't start.

Struggled for about 10 minutes, and I finally decided to borrow my roommates car.  After driving for a few minutes on the road, I suddenly realized that all my drum kits and sticks are in my own car.  So I had to drive all the way back home, trying to juggle between 2 set of car keys and the corresponding alarm system while moving some drumset stuff from one car to another car.  It was a mess.

That totally ruin my mood and my concentration during the band practice, but at least I got through it.

Backed home, and I tried to figure out what the freak was going on.   Found  a pair of jump cable in the trunk of my roommates car, and I started to jump start my car.  It worked, so I thought it's over.  In fact, that was probably the second time I used jump cable.  It was also about this moment that my neighborhood told me that the rear light of my car was on ALL NIGHT LONG.  I was thinking like, that is odd, as I thought I turned off everything.

But then the battery seemed it died very fast, that was right AFTER I packed everything.  So this time I kept the car running for even longer time. 

But after charing for 30 minutes, the battery still died really fast.  I was puzzled until I realized that the rear light was ON all these time, and probably wasted all the battery that I charged up.  In fact, I started to wonder if that light was break light, which was something I could NOT turn off by myself.

So after I jump-started my car the third, I had no choice but go directly to the mechanic.  I was panic, frustrated, and very hungry at the moment.  It was 2 pm and I still haven't had my lunch yet.

So I spent about 2 hours there waiting.  Yes, I had Nintendo 3DS and iPad 2 with me so I was never bored.  But at the same time I was hungry like hell.  By 4 pm, the car was fixed.  There was some problem with the break light, and it was fixed.

So 4.5 hours of my life wasted, and now, let me cook.

Someone hit the back of my car: my auto accident

On Aug 5 2011, at 9:35 a.m., I drove my 1997 Toyoto Rav 4 on my way to workplace.  I was slowing approaching the cross section of Highway 59 and Highway 90, and eventually stopped as I was waiting for my turn to turn right into highway 90 (there was one truck in front of me at that moment).  Then suddenly something smashed at the back of my car and I instantly felt the impact.  Even so, I tightly hold my break and prevented my car from moving forward.  I was horrified, and from my rear mirror I saw that it was a red SUV that bumped at the back of my car.  Since the traffic light turned green and I didn't want to block the traffic, I continued to drive, while the red SUV that hit my back followed me.  My workplace was just 2 blocks away, so I was trying to go there, stop the car and discuss with the driver who hit the back of my car.  That red SUV followed me for one block, but then it turned right and went away.So I never got a chance to collect information from that driver.  I parked my car, walked to the back of my car, and found that the back of my car was squashed which the bumper was bended.  The back (trunk) door is now much harder to open.

Media Center: Proven that I need all 3 (PS3, XBox360 and NetBook)

I have 3 devices that take the role of  media center.  There were times when I thought it was kind of overkilling, but the experience I had in the last several days taught me that I need to keep all 3 of them.

• XBox 360 is the ONLY device that allows me to both watch and manage HDTV recorder by the machine in the closet.
• PS3 is the only device that can play Bluray disc in my home.
• NetBook with XBMC is the only device that can play pretty much ALL the files without hicup.  XBox360 and PS3, on the other hand, gives me strange results when playing mkv and other formats.

The O!Player is the one that I kind of regret getting now that I look back, which explains why I haven't turned it on for months.

Starting to use Asus Slate as primary machine

For a while I wasn’t too happy about the Asus Slate, mostly because of the terrible Windows 7 Touch API, the less than perfect stylus calibration, and the lame battery life.  In fact, I spent a whole day today try to accept this machine as my daily usage machine in order to lure myself into spending more time to code touch using this machine.  The effort seems to be working, and now I am starting to use it to check mail, write blog and do sketch ….  which is kind of weird that I have to FORCE myself to enjoy something I spent money to buy,

Water melon and being a sucker

I went to HEB to do grocery shopping a while ago, and I saw water melon.  And suddenly I had an urge to buy one, probably because of the hot weather makes me start imagining how cool it will be to eat a piece of ice cold water melon.  So I brought one at US$4.99.  Then I went to Goldcn SuperMarket at China town to buy rice, and found that water melon was selling at US$1.99, and buy one get one free! 

Feels like a super sucker ... but ... how can price is SO DIFFERENT?

Happiness per minute ration

For the sake of testing something, I turned on my Wii again, which hasn't been touched for a while. And then, I realized that compares with all my other gaming devices (PC, Mac, PSP, NDS, 3DS, PlayStation 3, XBox 360, iPad, iPod Touch, Android), I still found Wii gives the biggest joy per minute ratio.

So why am I getting this XBox 360 again?

So I got this new XBox 360 4Gb edition when I got the new Windows 7 Tablet.  Besides having to find some time to set it up (which I still don't), I probably should get at least one game just to try the system out, which leads to an interesting revelation: there is no game that I really hungry to play on XBox 360.

It was right after the Sunday service practice today, I was about to head home, and then suddenly I was thinking: maybe I should go to BestBuy and check out what game I might be interested in for XBox 360.  After spending a while checking around, I found none.  Like, none.  No game got my interest.  XBox 360 is so flooded with FPS.  But I am more interest in games that is either more innovation on design, JRPG or old school platform.  I found none.

Not satisfied by the result, I went to GameStop, and I found a few old XBox 360 game titles that I might enjoy, but I just don't have an urge to buy them right away.

Finally, I went to the RedBox kiosk, and checked to see if there's any interesting XBox 360 titles.  There's only 5 titles avilable, and I was interested in none.

Awful.  So ... .who did I get the XBox 360 again?

Finally completed the AnyTime Upgrade for Windows 7

So in my last blog I was saying that I was still in the middle of upgrading Windows 7 from the given Home Premium edition to Ultimate edition.  It turns out that the upgrade being triggered was indeed Windows 7 Service Pack 1 update.  After SP1 installed, reboot, the Ultimate edition upgrade was completed.

However, the battle is not over yet.  After Ultimate edition upgrade, there were some more additional update going on, and I still could not see the Traditional Chinese handwriting support showing up on the Optional Update screen... until after multiple update and reboot.  And now I finally see the Traditional Chinese input option.  So I would assume that once I did it, I will finally get what I originally started the update for.

BTW, Microsoft really need to make the softkeyboard bigger.  If my Asian tiny finger has hardtime using the softkeyboard to enter password, imagine how a regular big American finger does on that keyboard.

Using Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade ... Not working ... But still trying ...

Up until now, whenever I encountered a new machine with anything less than a Windows 7 Ultimate edition, I would wiped the machine clean, and then install Windows 7 Ultimate edition from scratch.  Recently I purchased a Asus Eee Slate (Windows 7 based tablet) for development purpose, and since it was brought from Microsoft store with "Customized with Microsoft signature", I wanted to try out the user experience and see if Microsoft could improve the out-of-the-box experience by getting rid of crapware and tune the machine properly (which is what the Signature initiative supposed to do), so I haven't wipped clean the machine yet.  So far my experience with Signature is just lukewarm, with pretty darn negative feeling about the OS plus all additional software taking about half of the harddisk space.

But once again it comes to the time when I realized that there are features I need but not provided by Windows 7 Home Premium edition, namely the Traditional Chinese handwriting input.  So here comes my journey of upgrade the Windows 7 Home Premium edition to Ultimate edition.

Before I can perform the upgrade, I need to connect the tablet to the Internet, so I did all the WiFi connection preparation work.  After then I started the Windows Anytime Upgrade , entered my Windows 7 Ultimate edition product ID, and then followed a few on screen instruction, and seeing the machine starting to get online and attempted to do the upgrade.

It failed.  And I was like "what the hell".  So I tried it again, still failed.  And so I rebooted the machine, tried it again, and still failed, but this time there's some new Windows Update going on at the back, which was odd since I always spent hours yesterday to perform Windows Update to make sure that the machine has every single update applied.  My guess is that the Windows Anytime Upgrade triggered some new updates.  Still the update is still going, I might as well leave it running, and see if I have better luck later.

Finding nursing home

Youngster don't think about future much.  They forgot about yesterday and don't much much about tomorrow.  All that matters to them is now: where to go to have fun, what is available now to have fun and "that chick/dude looked b***able."

And that's why I know for sure that I am old.  I constantly think about what I can do now in order to get a chance of having fun tomorrow.  And the older I get, I more I tended to shift away from "having fun tomorrow" to "surviving tomorrow".

And that's also why I am starting to research on nursing home for myself.  This is kind of a detour of my original plan, which was dying on or before age 40.  I know I missed my deadline, but can't catch up with it because of legal reason and religious constrain.  Until they finally legalized assistance suicide, I need to prepare for plan B.  I also know that I will die alone because my huge ego and arrogant character.  It's just so much easier to be my enemy than being my lover, and up until now, all of my enemies are too lazy or too cheap to hire assistant to kill me, or they are probably smart enough to realizing that keeping me alive gives me more pain and finishing it right away.  To that I say bravo to you mother ****ing evil mind.

Oddly enough, I googled for a while and couldn't find any information about nursing home in Houston.  So if you come across anything about the nursing home.  Let me know.  I would like to do a price comparison. 

Dropbox

Dropbox was being block at the office location I worked at, but at least they are NOT blocking it when I was at home, so I can still sync my work between multiple places.

Best photo storage for iPad

My iPad2 has only 16Gb, but then I have 3G service, so anything allows me to off load data to the cloud would be a great news to me.  Recently I found out that I have 2 needs regarding to photos.

• I need to find a place to store a lot of cute dogs and cats photo, and then browse them on my iPad 2 at ease.
• Once I find the cute photo I like, I want to use the photo as wallpaper on my iPad 2.

To accomplish the task, not only I need to find a place to put content on the cloud, but I also need an iPad app that makes it easy to navigate the photo, select, and use the photo as wallpaper.

After some research, I found 2 storage and 2 corresponding apps.  Both iPad apps are paid app, but with less than US$2, I found them worthy.

Solution 1: Facebook + Cinq photo (Free, $2.99 to remove Ad)
Uploading photo to Facebook site is relatively straight forward.  For quality, I chose "High Quality", and take took quite a while.  Then I navaigate the photos on Cinq app.  It worked OK, but somehow I can't choose the photo and use it as wallpaper.  Maybe there's other app that does a better job on loading Facebook photo, so let me know if it find one.

Solution 2: Flickr + FlickStackr ($1.99)
I've been using FlickStackr for a while and very satisfy with it's feature.   Combine it with a free Flickr account, and I was able to do exactly what I planned on.  My only complain is that there's a 300Mb monthly limitation on how much how can upload.  But then, nothing is stopping me from opening multiple Flickr account.

Office and morons

It's normal to have some morons, or even tons of morons, in workplace.  But when there's not even a single smart people exist in the office, it's definitely time to quit, because stupidity is highly contagious.

Extract audio from YouTube video, Round 2

Almost everytime when I was invited to play drum set at Sunday service, the worship leader would send out the corresponding YouTube links for the songs that we were going to play, so that we could get used to the arrangement.  This is particular important to me as a drummer.  Unlike other parts that has score or tabs written on paper , I didn't have any drum score, so I relied on what I heard from the audio of the YouTube videos.

Up until now I was using Firefox and Downloadhelper to download those YouTube video into flv files, and then extract out the audio part (usually in mp3 format) using FLVExtract.  That workflow needs to be changed as I just found out that the video downloaded by Downloadhelper are all mp4 instead of Flv.

NO problem though, as I found need tool to deal with the problem.  There's a open source freeware called Yamb that act as the extraction front end, and then there is MP4Box as the extraction engine.  Once I set everything up, I can extract the aac files from the video, and continue listen to the audio part while I am driving.  Problem once again solved.

Blogpress, please fix it

I just found out that I cannot rely on BlogPress to save my local draft. Everytime I do that the app crash, and I have to uninstall and reinstall the app again. That really piss me off because I reallY want this app to work, not to mention that I just paid for the app. Ahhhhhhhh....

從良

因為iPad 2不能用老翻軟件，所以這幾天買了很多自己用了很久但沒有付款的軟件。算做改過自身了吧 。其實加起來少過二十美元，但令我生活更方便，物有所值，應該早一對從良才對。

Location:De Moss Dr,Houston,United States

Air Video I love you

I wasn't too thrilled a few days ago when I brought Air Video (my favorite video streaming software for iPad) and found that it didn't work on my iPad 2 with iOS 5.  But today I found that they released a new update, and now Air Video works flawlessly on my iPad 2.  Super awesome.  Sometimes I actually enjoy watching on my iPad more than on my HDTV just because everything is so instant on and the interface is so easy to use.

Critical Plan B

It's always important to have plan B, because there's a chance that plan A can fail, it will fail, and then you need to plan B.

For instance, some apps just keep crashing on the iOS5 Beta, so I always download multiple version of the same kind of app, so that if I failed, I can use the other.  Like I was reading the sample of the book "the Girl who kicked the hornet's nest" on Nook, and it kept crashing when I tried to get the definition of words.  So I switched to the Amazon app, download the sample book, and found it worked nicely.  Once again, plan B wins.

Box.Net works great on HTML5 web browser

I really love Box.Net on web browser.  This is by far the best cloud drive management interface on web browser I've seen so far.  All you need is an OK decent new web browser, like Chrome 11, and you can then enjoy all the UI feature that you expected from any file management tool, like right click, drag and drop and so on.

Box.Net as the cloud drive for iPad

I am starting to use Box.Net as the cloud drive for my iPad.  Dropbox is fine but it force you to have only one client on your machine, and that means I can have only at most 2Gb to play with.  Since Box.Net use web browser drag and drop to send file from your local machine to the cloud drive, so technically I can have as many drives as I want by simply creating another account.

There is always a catch in free service, though, and Box.Net is no different.  For instance, the file you upload can only be smaller than 25Mb.  That makes it impossible for me to use Box.Net as my manga repository since many of the files are bigger than 25Mb.  It can, however, be a small repository for photos and eBooks.

How to set up Google Calendar and Contact list on your iPhone and iPad

I always found it odd that the way to make calendar and contact list work with iPhone/iPad is by use Exchange setting and not the Gmail setting.  Oh well, as long as it works.  Here's the steps I went through:

• First you need to make sure that NO OTHER account setting are syncing Gmail Calendar and Contact with your gmail account.
• Next, in Setting of your iPhone/iPad, under "Mail, Contacts, Calendar", set a new account.
• For type, choose Exchange
• For domain, leave it blank.  For email, enter the full Email address (something@gmail.com), and same for the Username (something@gmail.com).  For password, just enter your gmail account password.
• Then you will be prompted to enter the server name.  Enter "m.google.com".
• I set to use SSL.

And that should be it.

Redeeming Credit Card Reward points

I was trying to figure out what item should I spent my Chase credit card reward points on, and eventually found out that the best value is on getting Amazon gift card.  After all, I frequently buy stuff from Amazon.com.  If I choose any item, like speaker or Apple TV, the value is always lower than the corresponding Amazon Gift card value.

Just got a new iPad 2

From those Mac fanatic's perspective, my current Apple ecosystem is probably the hippest:  I have a iPad 2 3G with iOS 5 installed and I have a MacMini running the MacOSX Lion Preview 4 and the latest XCode installed for development for iOS5.  But then, you can also think of it as living among time bomb with bucks waiting to blow up any given time.

It took me 2 hours just to set up all the accounts on all the apps i need to use on my iPad.  So far the effort is worthy.

So far I enjoy iOS 5.  The new notification system is definitely essential from now forward.  In fact, just by using it for a day, I don't know how I can live without it anymore.

The machine is definitely faster compare with my old iPad 1.  Now longer do like feel like things are lagging or always have than 1 to 2 seconds of waiting.  When I press a soft button on screen, it recognized my tap and does thing for me right a way.  It's a joyful experience.

Since it's a developer preview of the OS, I had problem authorize and set up the machine right out of the box.  I had to wait until I got home and setup everything with XCode before I could use it.  The online activation didn't work ... yet.  I don't think the activation server for iOS5 is even up and running, but hopefully the out of the box setup experience will really be PC Free once they release the final version this fall.

Here's the downside: the iOS5 beta is REALLY in beta.  I have found the machine crashed and hanged up a few times just this morning.  I'll continue document this funky journey.

Nintendo Zone at BestBuy: Almost fail ... except ...

I read about Nintendo setting something called Nintendo Zone at Best Buy stores a month ago.  I wasn't like having some major hope, but still wonder how kind of "exclusive service" they would provide at store.

I tried 30 minutes ago, and it was lame.

All it does is providing web browser capability specifically for Nintendo 3DS, and then provide those game video and screenshot downloading that you can download with eShop app on 3DS with your own WiFi connection.  The trip was mostly waste of my time ....

... except that I was tempted and eventually put down $43.29 to buy a 3DS game Dead or Alive Dimensions.  So while the Nintendo Zone does nothing to me, it helped Nintendo made a sale that wouldn't have been if I were not at the store.  Good job Nintendo.

Not that many people, which is good

Somehow I was really enjoying this sitting aside observing people and overhearing people thing that I am doing now. Really don't understand why people watch reality show. This is way better. For one, everything around me are in ultimate resolution. Screw 1080p.

Also I like doing this on Sunday morning instead of during other busy hours. I hate it when there is too many people around. This 3 person per 10 seconds is the right kind of frequency.

So that's how the homeless people thinks

I think I heard someone telling me not to sleep on the bench along the bridge between hotels. I did not confirm it, but went ahead changed my pose from laying down to sitting up.

I was sitting semi-under-the-sun (cause technical I am still within indoor environment) for almost 2 hours just keep wiring and writing and wiring. A lot of people walking by, each mind their own business in their own way. It's like seeing hundreds of 15 seconds story walk by. Depends on my mood, I might feel lonely, pity, curious, enjoying, indifferent or a messy mix of all these.

As for now, I feel like a bump. I feel likes, I guess that's what homeless people see every single day. I guess they feel like they are like total outsider, and people who walked by are their version of Situation, Snooky and lady gaga, watching one after another freak show walk up.

Good enough

It's not like total freedom in America, but for the amount of stuff that I can do, it's good enough. And after living in this worth for this many years, I'll say it's pretty darn good to have "good enough."

Packing

Every time I pack my stuff before a strip, it always reminds me how so many devices I rely on to conduct my life: iPad, mobile phone, Nintendo 3DS, digital camera, headphone, bluetooth keyboard  ....  I already considered that traveling light.

Kingmax, a brand of crap

My experience of every piece of KingMax product I brought was ranged from poor to dog shit terrible. Today I witnessed another evil deed done by KingMax.

The HTC Desire phone that I brought late last year came with a 8Gb microSD card by, you guess it, KingMax. It's a gift by the vendor not by HTC. And boy how shifty the choice the vendor made.

The card a failed to function all the sudden after I used it in the Android phone for a few months. I lost some data because of that "accident". Stupid me that I still wanted to give that 8Gb card another try. So I used it in a Acekard 2i card. Well hours ago I found out that the card was malfunction again, and so were all the DS save game I had on it. A month worthbof DS game play. gone.

So KingMax, go to hell.

2 Days of constant backing up

Most people spent their long weekend with family. Some used the time to shop til drop. Others play new Mortal Kombat and Portal 2 til they drop.

I spent 2 whole days doing nothing much but backing up tons and tons of files in my 2 Terabyte hard disk.

Yep, what needs to be done needs to be done.

Of course, I also pay video game, read comics and watch videos in order to fill up the time between each Of the disc swapping. It was entertainment done in a very fragmented way. Like having 10 hours sleep in 15 minutes chunk a time. Pure digital lifestyle sure has it's disadvantage.

Shitty 4g

Just checked:Wimax coverage at the place I live at suck on both Clear and Sprint, while verizon charge 50 bucks , 2 years contract, and still give me 5 gb cap. The best mobile option I can is still my unlimited plan on iPad . Son of the bitch.

Completed what I haven't completed 15 years ago

Finally done something I haven't completed 15 years ago: finished Sonic 2..... Using emulator ..... On PSP.

Nap

I was supposed to just taking a quick nap, instead I woke up 3 hours later. Well, at least I got some good rest.

Facebook

Facebook is a great place to yep about stupid that no one cares with friends that you don't know.

You get what you pay for

I went to Frys in order to get Nintendo 3DS scree protector. After consulting the web, I brought the Hori screen protector. It's good US$10 after tax, but the brand is great, and since I will pay Nintendog daily, so it seems reasonable to pay 10 bucks to protect a $250 device. I'll apply the protector after I take a nap.

I also mess around at the show flow. Blackberry playbook couldn't be turned on, so I only have some generic android tablets and galaxy tab to play with. While the generic tablets are chela like 199, the screen seemed pretty terrible compare with the more expansive one like galaxy tab. For something you look at for a long while, it deserves something better in quality. After messing with these tablets, I still think my next tablet will be either iPad 2 or iPad 3.

Converting FLV to AVI or MPEG

I recently take up a task to edit some video.  Video editing itself isn't something that I worry about, but usually it's the video source that got me into trouble.  More than option I will get some low quality video, and was asked to "do the magic".  This time it's even worse.  I got a bunch of like for some flash videos, and was asked to use them to crack out something.

I went through the trouble of extracting those videos from the according web sites, and the extracted videos are either in flv or mp4 format.  I am OK with the mp4 format as all my professional video editing program has no problem recognizing them.  Flv files, on the other hand, can't be read by most of these applications.

After some research, I finally found this Pazera Free FLV to AVI Converter, which does exactly what I want: converting flv files into avi or mpeg format. 

Now that the technical hurdle has been overcome, it's time to do the artistic part: actually editing the video with music.

oh mario

Played "MarioKart DS" and "Mario vs Donkey Kong MiniLand Mayhem!", and made me happy (also eased my headache).  It's amazing how Nintendo can continue cranking out great first part titles, yet their platform constantly FAIL to get thrid party to develop good title.

I love office

When no one is in the office, office is a heaven-like place: it's clean, big, fast internet, quite, lots of computers and network plug, nice chair .... lovely.   I should sleep in daytime and work in the office at night.

賤得好

就像沒有吃東西一天後忽然發覺白飯超好味，現在重看Children Hospital 全部season one,覺得很爽，超賤，專玩細路，好。平日無痛無病，同樣的節目可能不會像現在般enjoy. So gotta see the right shit at the right time.

殺得好

發覺原來自己有一大段日子生活在循環中，不斷重複做同樣的工作，吃同樣的東西，玩同樣的遊戲，用同樣的軟件。今日大開殺界，才發覺重得自由的感受，feel so good. 難怪十五六歲的生活得如此high, 三四十歲生活得如此屎急，要靠睇劇集自慰，說後生仔活得有今生無來世是腐敗，可能只是阿公睇咸片那種sour grape.

So much for being protective

Maybe I really played the nintendog+cat way too much (come to think of it, I did feed my dog BoiBoi and my cat every single day, and then take the dog to competition to make some money), I started to realized that the protective screen was start deteriorating spot by spot since a week or so ago. It started to even affecting the game play of the nintendog game. Today I finally couldn't stand it and peeling it off. To be fair, the protective screen was used to be on my old Nintendo DS, so I know the screen wasn't like new away, but seeing the screen broken down in weeks day by day is still kind of odd.

On the third of sinus ...

It's now the third of sinus.  The pain on my forehead is much lighter than it was in the last 2 days.  But I still feel something.  So I have to stay relatively relax (instead of constantly being tense and multitask like I always do).  Painful.

Problem of new Nook

The new Nook looks pretty good, but to me it still have several problems:

• No Traditional Chinese or unicode support what so ever.  Sure there are tricks and hacks that people were doing even on the original Nook.  But I don't like the idea of spending US$140 and still need to fight the device in order to do what it supposed to do.
• No Photos (JPEG/PNG) viewer, let me say it directly, no manga reading feature.  Sure there are, once again, hacks, like converting JPEGs into PDF and such.  But again, I am lazy.

So even thought the size, resolution, price totally match my expectation, I am still very reluctant to get one since I am full aware that I will use the device to read manga most of the time instead of using it to read books.

KOed by sinus headache

I wasn't feeling too well yesterday.  With all the symptoms like sore throat, I pretty much knew that it was flu.  So I kept drinking water and rest on bed.  I felt so much better this morning, so I thought the fight was over.

I was wrong.

At around noon, I started to feel sinus headache.  It got more and more painful until a point that I couldn't bare it anymore.  So I had to leave office at around 5:30 pm.  Once I got home I head straight to bed, and slept all the way til 9 pm. 

I am feeling better now, but the sinus headache hasn't go away yet.  So I am afraid that there will be another battle waiting for me tomorrow.  Sigh.

Fear of test and trip across Canada with Sam Lau ?

I woke up this morning after having some crazy dreams. Some are so crystal clear that they still stuck in my head. One of them was a dream which Sam Lau and I were trying to go to "the west side of Canada" (don't understand why I was so keen about the direction is that dream.) we started off at the east side, and we took turn driving a car. When it was my turn, I was driving in the desert like area, and the road was ultra bumpy. At one point the car was trapped in some ugly looking Mud, and kept yelling Sam Lau, "get out of the car and push". We somehow reached to the super crowded train station (the what?) and we found out that all ticket were sold.

I asked, "what should we do" but saw that Sam already got back to the car. In fact this time is somebody else' s car, which belonged to an old friend at church (forgot exactly who he or she is). And then the rest of the dream became hazy.

But the dream turned into my preparing to take a standardized test. My friend Hansel Sin seems very well prepared and walked out of the class which was set aside for people to prepare for the test. I was on the other hand very frustrated, and at one point struggling about whether I should bring a laptop computer with me.

And then "the camera" (my view point in the dream)cut to the time when I am already in the dream, struggling to answer all the questions. I found that I kind of knew a lot of the answer, but I was just too slow to answer most of them by comparing with the others. And when the end of the test approached, I didn't have one fifth of the questions answered. In fact I even mistakenly answered a lot of the question directly on the question paper instead of on the answer sheet. When someone came by to collect my answer sheet, I simply stapled (come to think of it, where in the world did I find the stapler on my desk anyway) the answer sheet with the stack of question paper, and then hand it over.

At the end I asked who will mark the papers and I wanted to talk to that person. I was about to tell that person how frustrated I was, and my plan of quitting school because of that. At that moment, I woke up from the dream.

This Is the Nth time I woke up from the nightmare of taking standardized test.

How to pay Amazon.com purchase by combining debit card(s) and credit card as payment method

I got 2 $10 debit card as rebate from 2 different rebate inquiry.  One card was from buying a Hitachi harddisk, and one card from buying Patriot SD card.  The thing that I don't like these debt cards is that it's hard to combine payment with another credit card when shopping online.  Since I was about to buy something from amazon.com anyway, so I used the following process to allow me to roll these $20 credit combine with my credit card to complete the purchase, which basically use gift card as the temp "buffer".

- Use Hitachi Visa debt card to buy $10 Amazon gift card.
- Apply the gift card credit to my Amazon account.
- Use Patriot Visa debt card to buy $10 Amazon gift card.
- Apply the gift card credit to my Amazon account.
- Purchase at Amazon.com.  Amazon allows me to combine gift card credit with my credit card.

Mission accomplished.  And I am going to throw away these 2 debit cards 2 months later once I make sure that there's no leftover credit.

Super fast hair cutting

I was amazed by how fast my hair stylist cut my hair.  I think she probably spent less than 30 minutes on my hair, and it was done pretty OK.

Another Android nightmare

Continuing the tradition of "what can fail eventually fails", the microSD card of my HTC Desire failed this morning.  It was actually died in the middle of some Amazon AppStore App installation.  What a WTF experience.  And now everything is messed up, so I think I have no choice but reinstall everything all over again.  Honestly I don't know whom to blame: Amazon App Store, that shitty KingMax Class 2 8Gb MicroSD card or HTC.

Anyway I need to first write down all the apps that I need to reinstall first before I reset the machine.  This is also a good time to swap in a better Kingston Class 4 8Gb MicroSD card.  The bottomline is this whole process is like a damn joke, happening in this morning when my sixth sense told me to wake up earlier in order to deal with "some crap".  There it goes.

So this is why I am not getting XBox 360

It all started this morning when I saw the deal available from amazon.com, which sells XBox 360 Sim 4Gb for US$199 with US$50 Amazon credit rebate.  I brought most of my stuff my Amazon.com anyway, so this basically says that XBox 360 is selling at US$149.  As a person who always obsess on trying new gaming gadget, this sounds like a pretty nice deal. 

So the question is: should i buy it?

After a near 2 hours research (I consider that quick, consider that most of my purchase decision takes months and sometimes years of research), I told myself, "no, you are not getting it".  Here's why:

• "Creating game for XBox 360" is a stupid excuse: Believe it or not, but this is usually my biggest excuse of getting XBox 360, particularly after I brought PS3 last year.  Gaming is no longer the biggest reason since most of the XBox 360 available titles are on PS3 too.  But I kept telling myself: you can write games for XBox 360 using C# and Visual Studio 2010.  Isn't that awesome.  Well, first of all, in order to run code on XBox360, I have to join the dev program and pay US$99 everyday.  Am I willing to do that?  But more importantly, if I have time, I would much rather spending time developing for iPad, and I already paid US$99 each year to join the iPhone Developer Program.  How many games have I developed?  ZERO!  **ucking ZERO games created?  Why?  Because there are tons of other shit in my life that are in higher propriety.  So, if I couldn't even find time to develop for iPad, something that I am so passionate to do, how to hell will I find time to do that on XBox 360?
  
• No time to play (more) games : I just have to keep reminding myself again and again and again: Daniel Kwan, you do not, I repeat, you do not have a lot of time to play video games unless that quit your damn day job.  So stop fooling yourself.  You already have your PS3 with 3 great games that you have to fight with yourself in order to find time to play it, and then there are tens (probably around 100 now) of demos on PS3 waiting for you to try it out.  And on the top of that, you have iPad, Andriod, PSP plus tons of emulator games, NDS, Wii ...   So how in the world can you find time to play even TRY OUT games?
  
• Not gonna play Kinect games at home : one of the great excuse for getting XBox 360 is to play something exclusive to XBox 360: Kinect.  Too bad the fun and hype on it is pretty much gonna by now, and I am not going to be a sad loner playing Kinect games at home by myself.
  
• Not useful unless I get the 250Gb HD, and suddenly the price is not cheap anymore: The reason why I enjoy my PS3 even though I only have 3 games is because (A) it's an awesome media player (B) I can try out tons of demo.  Technically I can do the same to XBox Live.  However, with 4Gb harddisk, there's no way I can enjoy XBox Live.  So that means I have to buy the 250Gb harddisk.  Suddenly that's another US$90,  Plus I need to pay U$60 annually to subscript XBox Live.  And Finally I have to find PEOPLE to play with me on XBox Live.  The more I think about it, the more I found those not making sense to me.
  
• No exclusive XBox 360 titles that I enjoy playing: I checked some wiki list, and yeah, there's no exclusive XBox 360 title that I have play.  I don't play FPS, and just that should be enough for me to skip XBox 360.
  
• XBox 360 Slim is still not hackable yet: Nope, I am not thinking about pirating (otherwise I won't buy PS3), but no hacking means no alternative media center feature and such.  Not a major reason, but another bullet point that I care.
  
• XBox 360's hardware problem track record: fool me once shame on me, fool me twice shame on you.  RROD change to red dot in the middle of the ring.
  
  

Hopefully, next time when I am hyped thinking about getting XBox 360, I will have this article to remind me why not.

Plants vs Zombies on PS3 ... not work

Just tried Plants VS Zombie (trial) on PS3, and really didn't like the control.  Like World of Goo, PvZ is meant to be played on iPad.

My Kinect fever is over

Tried Kinect at Best Buy today, and I realized that I was not particular enjoy playing Kinect sport anymore. I may still enjoy Dance Central, but buying a whole system just for 1 game sounds like stupid idea. So Microsoft, please create another good excuse for me to get an XBox 360.

Nook Color is a nice device ... for $200

I tried Nook color today. It's no iPad 2 competitor, but as a low end device, it has a reasonably smooth user interface. For $259, it seems too expansive, consider that you can get an iPad gen 1 refurbished for $359. Nook color will have a future if it is priced at $199.

Also, if you are serious book reader, Kindle Is still a way better choice because of the awesome battery life, work great under direct sunlight, super lightweight and great book selection.

So that is Xoom

I finally got a chance to play Motorola's Xoom Honeycomb tablet at BestBuy.

my first impression: it's heavy, which is definitely not a good thing. There was an iPad 2 10 steps away from the Xoom, and after I lifted the iPad 2, it's very obvious that iPad 2 is lighter. Bad, bad first impression.

To be fair, the user interface of Xoom is very rock solid. Everything runs super smooth. Even the animation on Angry Birds is smoother than on my HTC Desire. Compare with the gingerbread hack tablet os, honeycomb is way better.

The biggest problem, though, is still the app support and price. iPad 2 equally fast, but lighter, better battery life, have shit tons of apps specifically for iPad, and the final nail: iPad 2 actually is cheaper.

I am looking forward to see the cheaper lighter version from HTC, while Xoom continue being death on arrival.

One table, four person, 2 converstation, and once again, Cee Lo Green

Have you ever got into a situation in which you were talking to a few person, and in the middle of the conversation, two of them started to have a conversation among themselves, and even ignored you all together?  Well, I was in that kind of situation tonight.

Ironically, the one who ignored me was the one who lead the prayer before we had our dinner, asked God to "bless the conversation during the dinner."

It happened after a church Sunday service band practice.  The worship leader was wonder if anyone interested in have dinner together.  Since I went straight to church after work, so I joined the dinner.  Turns out there was 4 person going to the dinner.

I drove to the sushi restaurant someone picked, sat down, and started chatting with a friend about his new iphone and asked what app he used.  He told me some apps he liked and started explaining why he liked those apps.  I started to realize that the other 2 guys didn't say a thing, so I wondered if they found the app discussion a bit "too geeky and too boring" to them.  So I started looking a them once in a while and see when I could get them into the conversation, or even change to subjects that they were interest it.  But my friend one those "once talk, can't stop", and by the time he stopped, the other 2 already started their skiing converstation.

Personally I really don't like it when 4 person on the same table, and yet each pair have their own conversation,  It's like we didn't know each other and only happen to sit together.  So I intentionally stopped a bit, and ask the another 2 friends what they were talking about, and see if my friend can I can join in,  Since it was about skiing, there's nothing I can say as I never skied before.  My friend did, and so he could chip in.  That's fine.  I mean, at least 4 of us were once again being "together".

But then we started talking about learning Japanese language, and while I was in the middle of explaining the mobile application Google Translator, the other 2 started to have their own conversation.  I was like, dude, I paid my due by pretending like I enjoyed listening about skiing, so the least you could do is at least wait until I finished my conversation before you turned away,  Right?

Well, I didn't attempt to establish a united conversation again since then.  My friend and I continued my conversation on manga, mobile phone and Japanese, while the other two were talking about who knows what.

And I overheard the song by Cee Lo Green playing from the speaker.  "Why do they have to play the clean 'Forget You' version, " I was thinking.

The dinner ended in a very awkward way.  The worship leader paid for all of us.  I was thankful for that, but still decided to never dining with him ever again.  Maybe he had that decision too, found that having dinner with a geeky person like me being such a painful experience.

I was feeling so uneasy about the dinner that I kept thinking about it while I was driving, and was extremely close to crashing into a bus (really, no kidding). 

You are asked me why I stopped going to fellowship.

Rip off

I spent 2 hours last night driving to the new ballet studio to make sure that I knew exactly how to get to there.  So glad that I did, because I made every single possible mistake I could make, wandered into some strange neighborhood, but eventually got on the freeway and got back home.

Still I wasn't sure if I could get to the studio on time after all, so I left office half an hour in advance.  Once again, glad that I did that, because it turned out that there was a traffic jam (in fact I don't know if the traffic will happen every single time I go to the class at around 6:00 pm).  I found the parking garage that the ballet studio suggested, and even brought 5 of the $1.50 coupon for 2 hours parking.

And so I took the class at the new studio, which was fine.  I mean, ballet studio is ballet studio.  There's nothing particularly spectacular.  Regular professional quality studio I guess it was.

Then at the end of the class my teacher told me that the street side parking was actually free after 6 pm.  That was my first WTF.  And then when I used to coupon to get out, I was told that I parked 15 minutes over the 2 hour limit, so that's EXTRA $2.  And finally, maybe because I was in such a lousy mood, my seemed to missed a turn instructed by the iPad GPS, and turned out got me into (once again) strange dark neighborhood.  And that was another 30 minutes before I found the way to get out.  WTF.  Double WTF.
 

姊嫁物語 2 released! Love!!

I haven't been loving a comics book so much, but I love 姊嫁物語 so much ever since I've seen the screenshot online.  Somehow I was busy and totally didn't aware that Book 2 already release.  Thanks to the magical internet, I can access it, plus tons of other manga by森薰.   Super awesome!!!

What? Just 3Gb?

I thought I was pretty aggressive on using the iPad data plan.  I thethered, I watched HD music video, I downloaded tons and tons of software on iPad.  Yet, now that it reaches the last day of this month, and I found that I only used by 3Gb of data on this plan.  That's way lower than I expected.

Dream of ... Work?

This is crazy: for the first time in my life, I had a dream that is software development technology specific. I had a dream of leading a small team developing an asp.net mvc web based application. I had dreams about work before, but never being so specific about the technology I use to develop software. In the dream I had people who I once worked with when I was in Hong Kong. There was not much drama in the dream. In fact it was pretty boring. It's all about me updating project plan, start coding, thinking about how to make the code cleaner.

This must have something to do with the fact that I was researching on different iPhone web app frameworks last night before I sleep.

So I was being robbed ...

Come to think of it, the title sounds a bit unfair.  After all, the person who took my quarter didn't gunpoint me to get my quarter.  It was just that I was too tired to argue with this big dude.

It happened last night after work.  It was 10 past something, and after whole day or cranking code, thinking of plan C D and E, I was too tired to cook anymore.  Besides, I need to buy toothbrush.  So I went to Walmart, thinking of buying a combo meal at the MacDonald inside Walmart.

While I was waiting in line, a big black fellow came to me and asked, "do you have a quarter?"

I looked at him, and saw that he's holding a wallet and a credit/debt card thing.  He also didn't look like a bump.  So my first instinct was, "oh he must be short of spare change ... no big deal .. it's just a quarter."

But then another another side of my brain yelled, "hell no! Why didn't he buy stuff with his plastic card?  He'll just try rip you off bitch!"  (Speaking of which, how come I have a side of brain speaking like Sammual L Jackson?)

So I opened wallet, glance inside it, and said, "err nope I don't have a quarter." 

Here's the fun part: then it came to my turn to pay, so I gave the cashier a ten dollar bill, and she in return gave me back a few dollar bills and .. guess what ... some QUARTERS!

And that big dude looked at me, and I looked at that big dude.  He said "do you have a quarter,"  which to me translated into "NAIL IT!!!!!!"

My tired brain was like "ah ***k it" and I said "sure, here's the quarter" and gave him one of the quarter.  He brought an ice-cream cone and walked away.

Now most of you may say, "damn it, you wimpy!  You should say something like why should I give you a quarter or something like that."  Yeah I know.  I guess I was just being too tired to fight.  I should also pay by credit card instead of cash in order to avoid being "nailed".

Ultimately, I blame myself not hearing hard core rap to keep myself constantly in fighting and assaulting sprite enough before I go to a Walmart near by the hood.

Here's a sign of me getting old: keeping broken stuffs

In my life I always experience the force of Yin and Yang.  On one hand I spend great effort to keep my place tidy, throwing away stuff that I don't need so that I have less thing to worry about.  On the other hand I have this "old people minded" of keeping useless junk.  Like a few days ago I found that a green shirt was torn.  But instead of throwing it away, I told myself "I should keep it in case I want to cosplay a zombie."  So my this torn shirt is in my closet.  Keep the trend going and I will have full closet of junk in no time.    

Finally brought a comforter from Walmart

This may sound odd, but I was using a sleeping bag as comforter since years ago. I don't know if I am too cheap, too lazy, or the mixture of above, to buy a real comforter.  Yesterday, though, after I cleaned up my room and my closet, I told myself it's time to get a real comforter.  So today I went to Walmart after work, spent 20 bucks and brought a comforter.  It has nothing fancy on it, and seriously I am a bit worry about whether it can keep me warm enough under cold weather.  Time will tell I guess.  And worst come to very worst I still have my ultra-warm sleeping bag in my closet.

Damn Dell Bluetooth blue finally died

I started experiencing connection problem with my Dell bluetooth mouse on and off since 2 months ago, and the problem just getting worse these.  Finally I had enough today and switched to a Microsoft Arc Mouse.  I also promise myself not to buy accessory from Dell in my life anymore.

Going old school with Dreamcast

For some strange reason, I felt like going old school tonight, so I set up a Dreamcast Console and play Sonic Adventure 2.  Unfortunately, I am still stuck at that same old Level 9 of it.  Sad.

Also I found that the Dreamcast is ultra loud.  Turns out I am not the only one realizing that.  The odd thing is that I did NOT realize how lousy it is.

Continue the house cleaning

Yesterday I spent most of my time reorganizing my closet, turned a messy dumpster into an extremely organized room.  The result was so great that I decide to spend most of the time today to do the similar to my pile of finance and legal document.  The procedure was extremely tedious, and involved scanning all the essential document, shredding all the documents that I was going to throw away, and put all the remaining documents in an easy to understand binder system.

The shredder I used was dead during the process, which is fine since it was close to death anyway.  I also generated bags and bags of garbage through out the process.  I just finished the whole thing, and it's 7:00 pm already.  Still, I think it's totally worthy to go through this exercise.  Better do it now than a few days before personal tax filing deadline.

11 hours

Yesterday I figured out that it did take solid 11 hours to copy 500+gb worth of DVRed TV program form one USB harddisk to another USB harddisk.  Wonder how much time it would take if it's eSATA.

"Let the Bullets Fly", a smart commerical movie

Long story short: you should watch the movie "Let the Bullets Fly" if you are a Chinese.

People kept trying to find the symbolic meaning of the dialogue and scenes in the movie.  In fact, there is a scene in the movie when the tycoon played by Yun Fat Chow yelled at his people, "Come on, it's just an analogy!", like an inside joke about inside joke.  This is not surprisingly, consider that intellects in China already get used to communicate with code, symbol, proxy and irony on the Net.

However, it's the fact that the movie is enjoyable even without considering the hidden message, and the credit definitely goes to the script writer(s).  Yet, the pace and editing of the movie are tight enough that you get bored by the conversation.  Instead, the conversation keeps driving the storyline forward, seeing how the 2 parties in the story tried to out smart each other, like a intense chess game.

I think foreigners will have serious hard time to understand just the plot on the surface, let along the deeper meaning that drives Chinese people laugh and cry.  To me, the story really gives me hope on China that there are still a lot smart people with hearts.  The fact that a movie like this can be green lighted, produced, and well accepted by audience proves that intellects in aren't all corrupted by money and injustice system, that somehow we can see a bright future, as long as we "let the bullets fly a little bit longer."