Thursday

Mr. Biden, If I am not going to take the subway what am I going to take? Your motorcade with secret service riding along? Less than 24 hours after our President told us to take common sense precautions like covering our mouths when sneezing, washing our hands, and staying home when sick, you told us to avoid the subway? That's just borderline fear mongering. You made it seem like things are worse than they seem and we should all hole up at home to ride out this piggy flu thing.

Presidential 100 Day Address

OKAY, he is trying to blow his own horn.  Or at the very least frame his first 100 day performances.  His presentation is short and sweet.

Q&A 

Piggy question from AP, close border, quarantine?

No border closing.  As flu already in US (stupid).  Treat as other flus.  Additional precautions because it's a new string.

Domestic auto, Chrysler, bankruptcy only option, GM from Detroit News

More hopeful to main Chrysler.  Auto workers making big sacrifices.  Details not finalized but he's optimistic that Chrysler with Fiat can be a going concern going forward.  GM, in the process of presenting the admin some plan.

Waterboarding torture, Do you believe previous admin sanction torture?

Waterboarding is torture.  Absolute right thing to put an end to it.  Even if it's effective, information could have gotten through other means which are consistent with the American values.  ... corrodes the character of the country.  Whatever legal rationale used was a mistake.  No, he didn't say explicitly the previous admin sanction torture.  

Pakistan, at warwith Taliban.  US secure nuclear arsenal in Pakistan?  Question from NBC

Gravely concerned.  Civilian government fragile.  Needs help Pakistan, help Pakistanis.  Obsession with India as an enemy misguided.  It's the internal force.  Make sure Pakistan is stable.  Confident that nuclear arsenal is secured.

Iraq question from Reuters

Violence affects timeable of withdrawal.

Senator Specter switched from Republican to Democrat, from CBS

Abortion question from CNN.

Reduce unwanted pregnancy, especially teen pregnancy, spiking up again.  Focus on areas that we can agree on.

What surprised, troubled, enchanted, humbled. from NY Times?  Obama wrote down the question

Surprised by worst economic crisis.

Troubled change in Washington comes in slow, political bickering in big crisis still.

Enchanted, service men and women, profoundly impressed and grateful by their jobs, doing it without complaint, fiercely loyal to this country

Humbled by the fact the presidency is extraordinarily power and yet it's just part of the tapestry of America.  He can't just press a button to make the banks OKAY.  The metaphor of a ocean liner than a speed boat.

....

"Thank you everybody."

(oh no, there is no God bless America, we are officially godless now)

Wednesday

I used to be a bigot against camera makers Konica and Yashica. My rule of thumb was simple any camera ends with a "ca" can't be any good for yours truly. To a certain extent I guess my bias is justified. Now fast backward to the 60s, I think they did make some remarkable rangefinders that are still being sought after by a whole new generation of photographers or arty farty no talent hipsters who somehow equate technically poor shots to high arts. But that's another post for another day. I remember once Tony Leung, our acclaimed actor from Hong Kong was once a spokeperson for Konica when he was more of a TV personality than a full blown international movie star that captures and conquers audience and movie awards alike. He was flashing his friendly smile, dressed in a garishly designed costume to showoff the cheerful colors I guess with another girl whose name I can't recall, holding a box of Konica film. I mean the guy was professional.

Spring

Haven't we all suffered enough? Just when you thought the coast is clear and we are all safe from Somali pirates and the Susan Boyle onslaught, Mexico swiftly and stealthily hit us with its own phenomenon with a deadly twist: the swine influenza. Instead of just sickening people like the British SuBo version, this piggy influenza from Mexico, or allegedly from Mexico, proves to be lethal. It already kills and sickens hundreds and it shows no signs of abating. And of course we have the regular seasonal allergy which makes Claritin part of our daily diet for a good part of the month. Spring, I hate you.

Tuesday

Film
------
The last time I had my 120 roll film developed I had it back ripped. I was disappointed not just because the film got ripped but more so the shop never admitted it was their fault. I really don't think I could rip the film myself plus the print and scan came out perfect. So this time I decided to ship my films to California to develop and scan. I went to Grand Central, paid $4.95 to have four rolls of film shipped on priority mail. Hopefully everything will just be fine. Like most of anything, the USPS is by and large pretty reliable but then we do get some mail that doesn't belong to us delivered to my mailbox. Nothing is 100%.

Eating Out
--------------
Last week a friend of mine came to town on business. I called up my foodie spy and he recommended Ivo and Lulu, a French Caribbean outpost in Tribeca near the Holland Tunnel. I checked out the reviews in the usual places and they are kind of mixed. But I believed in my spy so Ivo and Lulu he said and Ivo and Lulu we went. We got off at Canal Street on the number 1 line and as usual I quickly lost my sense of orientation and proceeded to walk the opposite direction. It took us about five minutes before we realized that we were actually walking away from Ivo and Lulu. And I totally forgot my Blackberry which has GPS for occasions like this.

The restaurant has two entrances and in the beginning I thought the place was totally deserted or not open yet and I actually went to the next door to ask what's going on with Ivo and Lulu. It's a bit awkward as next door is also a French restaurant. But I guess they got this often enough, the waitress actually told me the main entrance is at another door down. I was mildly embarrassed. I had no sense of direction and orientation.

The waitress, Lulu perhaps, wasn't as bad or rude as some of the reviews suggested. She wasn't eager to please but just laid back. My friend asked her to take a picture for us and she was happy to oblige. And mind you, the camera I had with me was from the '70s complete with optical viewfinder and full manual focusing. I set the camera at aperture priority and set the f-stop at 1.4 and let her shoot away.

My gastronomical spy par excellence told me the place was BYOB with no corkage fee but since neither of us drinks so we just had tap water. The waitress automagically brought us a big bottle of tap water without up selling us any fancy water from France or Italy. For me that was a good sign, a sign of down to earth no nonsense hospitality. Though sometimes I do enjoy fancy water but the tap water there was cold and tasted just as good. We ate the basket of bread with pepper flaked olive oil. I thought the French prefer to eat bread with butter. Well I guess the Caribbean part makes it different plus what do I know anyway?

I ordered some of the dishes as suggested by my spy, like the venison for apertizer, and boar and sage sausage as my main course. I have to say the food was savory and bursting with flavors. I had the coconut flan for dessert, it was good but not exceptional. The portion was on the petite side so feel free to order more and share. Overall I think it was a fine dining experience. I wish they have used some real linen napkin instead of the brown paper cafeteria kind of napkin. It kept flying off my lap. The decor is simple and a bit funky, kind of downtown spartan chic if you will. The restroom located at the far end of the dining room on the left of the kitchen, is unisex and furnished with a simple commode only, if you know what I mean.

I think I would go back for the food or if you have cash to launder you should go there too. It's a cash only establishment no credit card.

Ubuntu 9.04

Ubuntu 9.04 is available for download and is supported till 2010. My 8.04 is supported till 2011.

Cherry Blossom

Tuesday Rant

C'mon, for the life of me, I could never fathom anyone who is genuinely interested in a piece of ebay junk would bid on it days before the auction closes. It serves no purpose except to jack up the price. If you want to pay more, sure bid early and bid often. The seller should thank all those idiots who bid early and often.

More ...

And what's the deal of giving low ball offer? I say go for it. As a buyer, what do you have to lose? The worse case scenario is your low ball offer would get rejected and ridiculed by the seller. In that case, move on or bid higher. If the seller doesn't like low ball offer at all, he could have just listed it as buy it now instead of adding the "or best offer." So I say make good use of the OBO option because low ball or not can sometimes a matter of perspective.

More Flowers

I still got no luck with the weeping cherries.

White Magnolia

The Pirates Are Going Down

The pirates aren't doing too well this week. First we had three Somali pirates got shot down by the Navy seals in a standoff in the Indian Ocean. Now we have four pirates from Sweden, founders and operators of the Pirate Bay, a torrent tracker outfit, found guilty (of copyright infringements?) and were sentenced to one year in prison and fined $30 million SEK. As of now, the Pirate Bay site is still up and running.

Climb@tron Doesn't Suck

And that's the problem.

Smithsonian is good and will be even better if they sell something that actually works as intended. I bought a climb@tron hoping that it will really work as advertised. I even asked the sale girl there if it works. I installed the two triple-A batteries. And the thing just barely works. With the help of some water on the sucker, the thing can actually climb up a glass window but then after a few steps the thing just falls down. Without water on the suction cups, the thing can't really hold on at all.

I bought the climb@tron robot for $20 at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I wish they don't sell and stop selling junk like that to the kids or adults.

Random Pictures

Taken during the Africa safari ...

Holiday Inn where the budget travelers stay ... Free wi-fi, plenty of towels, generally clean. No fridge or microwave. There is a giant Whole Food close by. I would have preferred the Mayflower, like our ex Governor but I am just a budget traveler.

On our way to the Navy standoff in Indian Ocean. The navy seal took out the pirates and saved the Captain before we arrived. Glad somebody got the job done albeit with loss of human lives.

A Trip Around The World

After we went to DC, we got so excited with traveling we decided we should just go around the world, you know like a safari around the world. So here are the pictures I took when I visited different parts of the world. Enjoy.

Giant Panda, China. This is like one lazy bum, just enjoying the attention.

Big Hippopotamus, Africa. A vegan this fat and ferocious is never heard of.

Elephant, India. Another big vegetarian ...

Lions, Africa. She was pretty noisy, making all kinds of noise.

Tiger, India. I was jumping around from continent to continent. This was taken in India. The tiger is just beautiful.

Mama Gorilla with baby. Back in Africa again.

Silver Back Gorilla. I was risking my life to take this picture. The guy got aggressive and jumped me. I wrestled him to the ground, and gave him a karate chop on the neck and choked him till he turned purple. He begged for my mercy. In the end, I let him live. The guy is like endangered or something.
Cheetah, Africa. Whatever diet he is on, I want to be on too. The guy is pacing up and down like he is crazy.

That's all folks.

Washington, D.C., Spring Break Vacation

My guest blog posts are so much better than what I usually write or what I am about to write.

The DC trip was such a blur. But I guess in a good way. It was only a three days two nights trip and we spent at least a whole ten hours on the road, sometimes stopping to replenish and relieve. The kids were usually bored and tired. Whenever we were out sightseeing, they usually just wanted to go back to the hotel ... by taxi, and got on to their usual computer online game or DS handhelds. Of course, what they usually got for whining was scorns, ridicules and more walks. I told them when I was their age, I walked 8 miles a day without complaining, of course, that was obviously a lie.

DC is basically a pretty tourist and family friendly town. The crosswalks have signs showing a 30 second count down for the time remaining to cross the street. I can feel my blood pressure going up as the clock winds down rapidly every time I cross the street. The DC metro seems pretty clean and efficient. And they charge by the stop which is unlike here in New York City. We are just too stupid to go by stops, it is a $2 flat fare all you can ride. They even have weekend discount, the fare is $1.35 for two stops from McPherson Square to Smithonian on weekend and $1.65 on a weekday. The museums and the Zoo are free, so it's really great. If you are really on a budget or just plain cheap, or have special dietary needs, you can save save a bundle by packing your own food. Or if you prefer, you can eat inside the cafeterias, they are a bit pricey like any cafeteria in a big city museum.

It was pretty cold and windy the days we were there. The Sakura festival was on its last days and basically the flowers were all gone. It would be a bonus if we could still see the flowers in their full bloom. Alas we were at least one week too late. I can't wait to check out the ones here in New York City.

******

My gastronomical experience at DC was largely positive.

I think the food was decent. We did some restaurant research before we hit the road but nothing is quite like seeing the place on the spot. We thought Vace has eat-in but it simply hasn't. So when we found out it is basically a take-out place I pulled out my Blackberry and checked out the neighborhood restaurants. After a couple of minutes, we settled for an American bar and burger joint Cleveland Bar and Grill mostly because the kids wanted to have American. It has a kids' menu so it's not all adult as the bar or the name suggests. There were only a couple of guys watching baseball and having beers at the bar and they weren't rowdy or anything so I felt safe to let the kids eat there. The kids ordered pizzas and we had the penne with shrimps and a steak Caesar salad. To begin, we had the fried calamari. For dessert we had a few scoops of vanilla and chocolate ice cream. The pizza tasted fresh, both the dough and cheese were good and not salty at all. Since the ice cream tasted pretty darn good, I asked what brand and the waitress had to ask the kitchen. She told me they were actually gelato and the the brand is Bindi. The service was friendly. But the waitress messed up the order twice. She forgot the iced tea and the pasta order didn't get to the kitchen for whatever reason and it wasn't a busy evening at all. But overall I think the experience was pretty okay.

Sunday night, we decided to have some Asian. And as we were all tired and exhausted from the hike as Harry has eloquently put it. So we preferred something around our hotel. Again, our Blackberry and notebook came in handy. We decided to try out Thai Tanic. Despite the rather Hollywood kitschy reference, the food and service seemed pretty authentic. The wait staff are actually Thais. Mr. Harry was in his hunger strike mode, so I relented and ordered the usual chicken satay, and added a fish cake which he didn't bother to try. They were both decent but not extraordinary. Alex had the chicken noodle soup but he didn't like it after just trying a few bites. I suspected it's the spice and the fish sauce. In general, kids don't like exotic spice, which I think it's really an acquired taste. But I kind of liked the flavor of the broth, the chicken was a bit too well done though. I ordered the lemon grass chicken which was spicy and full of flavor. Again the chicken could be a bit more tender. My wife ordered her usual, Pad Thai with shrimps which turned out to be pretty good, not over cooked or starchy. The rice that came with my chicken was long grained and Alex loved those, and we ordered an extra bowl just so he could eat it with the lemon grass sauce. Overall the place was pretty nice. What I don't like was they hit us with an automatic 18% tip added to the bill. I usually give 15% or tax times two in New York City. I would have no problem giving 18% I just don't like restaurants doing that themselves; it's like they believe you wouldn't give a decent tip to begin with. So that's a big minus despite the better than average food and OKAY service.

******

After our zoo visit and ready to hit the road home, I decided to give Vace, the pizza place another try. It was just a few minutes away from the zoo. I placed an order for a medium pizza with sausage and pepperoni. It took at least twenty minutes. So I waited and waited and waited. I noticed they also sell fresh made pasta and other dried goods. Anyway, the pizza was not as good as I imagined. For one thing it was quite salty and overall it wasn't any gooder than our New York pizzas.

The Boring Hike at Washington DC

Saturday

I went to a hotel in Washington DC. It took five hours to get there. We went on a boring hike. For dinner we ate pizza.

Sunday

We went on a boring hike again.But this time we went on the pedal boat. Me and dad won the race. My brother said we did not. We watched a kind of cool cherry blossom festival.

Monday
We went to the zoo. We watched some animals. We played lots of games. We won lots of prizes. The orangutan were good at climbing.

Editor's note: guest blogged.

Washington DC ...

We went to Washington DC.


Saturday
We walked through DC, looked at the cherry blossoms. Most of them were on the ground because of the storm. I saw the Washington monument and the white house. There were lots of cool barriers shielding the house. We did not see Obama. My dad and brother took lots of pictures. We had dinner at a italian place. The pizza was great.

Sunday
We went on the metro to the air and space museum. It was pretty boring because I am not interested in air and space. For lunch we went to the natural history museum's cafe. After that, we went to the padel boat place for an hour. My brother claims he won but he did not do the first half of the race. We had dinner at an asian place.

Monday
We went to the zoo. It was pretty cool. There was a Giant panda! After that, we took a 5 hour trip home. We had more pizza but this time, at Vace. It was pretty cool.


Editor's note: Guest blogged

Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden

In Washington, D.C.

Tidal Basin

Tidal Basin

White House

McPherson Square

Enroute to DC

On I95. Rain pounding on windshield. Driving and tThumbing on my Blackberry. Only I can do that. Let me know what kind of pictures you want to see. Bye.

note: Driving and thumbing don't mix. It didn't happen. It was fictional writing.

Rip-Off From Real News Source

Police, make it former Police Chief Bob Quick has nothing to hide. If only Bobby has frequented more photographic sites like dpreview with gained knowledge in telephoto lenses, mega pixel resolution and 100% pixel peeping, perhaps the sloppy bear of a man can still have his job as the Chief. Steve Back was the photographer, though I couldn't find what camera and lens combination he used to bring down the once most powerful man in counter terrorism.

Who would have guessed the Pirates of the Caribbean or actually Somali is trumping the US Navy force so far. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden are feverishly reviewing the Pirates of the Caribbean, the summer blockbuster but incredibly boring movie trilogy, hoping to gain some insight in dealing with the pirates. If the administration can give 100 billions to Wall Street, our home grown pirates here, I don't see any reason why the administration can't give a few measly millions just to get our captain back to safety, then proceed to bomb the living daylight out of the entire region. The End.

What's Playing On My MP3

I just want to share my impeccable taste in music (and everything in general) with my readers here ...

Madonna
Hard Candy
Confessions on a Dance Floor

Moby
18

Radiohead
In Rainbows

Eminem
Curtain Call: The Hits

Mid Afternoon Whining

I much prefer a space-less file name. Even you can name your file like "I like a very long file name" in most file systems, but should you? I think the answer is an unequivocal no. It's just easier to work with spaceless file names and you don't with to worry about single or double quoting them. I hate user reader friendly filled with space kind of long file names. I much prefer people using a hyphen or an underscore in place of a blank space. I rather deal with the old 8.3 cryptic DOS file names than space littered file names.

Severe Weather Alert

NYC is snowing. I cannot believe it.

I am going to issue a state of emergency right now, and all non essential personnel, that would be like everybody can pack up and go home.

UPDATE:
The extreme weather condition is over. Now all non-essential personnel has to come back to work. Thank you. The sun is out again.

Back To Chinatown

Today I got to take care of some personal business, tie up some loose ends in Chinatown. So after work, I took the midtown subway D to Grand Street. I have to say I am not familiar with that part of Chinatown, not now and not years ago. But since I am a professional, I was able to quickly locate my target and get things settled in no time. It was pretty smooth. After I got the job done, I spent some time wandering around. The barbershop I used to go to on Henry Street is gone, in its place is a computer shop which I don't bother to visit. I walked to Catherine street and visited the noodle shop I used to go to when I was a student many years ago. I don't think I can recognize anybody there. They might have changed owner? I don't have a clue. I meant I wasn't much of a customer to begin with. I ordered a beef tripe noodle shop and the check came to a grand total of $4 dollars. Business was so so. Actually the whole Chinatown was a bit quiet and slow, something I didn't expect. Could that be the economy? Or the unseasonably cold weather? Probably a bit of both.

Afternoon Dreaming

Inspired by my old friend ghorse, I am going to take a 30-day photographic tour in Washington, D.C. I shall haul all of my photographic gears along, mostly to satisfy my gear fetish as opposed to really taking pictures. Anyway, whatever turns me on. I will be shooting film and digital. If you have any extra $7000 D3X or any $2000 lens, please send them my way. My photographs are going to blow your mind as usual. The sakura in DC is already in full bloom, Oh No.

Epilogue: I dreamed big. There is no 30-day photographic tour, it's more like a 3-day get-away in DC with the family. You know stuff that middle-aged men do.

Sunday

Jin went to cloth/fabric shopping with her friends on Long Island.
Drove Harry to Chinese school and Alex came along.
Asked Alex if he wanted to go to Barnes and Noble again, we just went last night before Outback so we returned home. He played on his AQ game.
He thought he lost everything when the notebook or the game acted up.
We went to do some Chinese grocery shopping. We walked there instead of driving.
As usual I bought more than I expected. I thought I was going to buy some dim sum for lunch before heading home. Too bad the take-out section was too slow for me.
Walked back home.
Drove to pick up Harry and two of his friends.
Drove to McDonald's to have lunch. The had chicken nuggets, crispy wraps, the usual kind of junk. I had a chicken sandwich meal.
Drove home.
Kids played online game.
Women came back. The two boys and their mom went home.
We drove to the botanical garden. Mostly empty branches.
I took my two film cameras together with my tripod. Shot one roll of 120 160NC and almost a roll of 135 36 chrome. Both expired.
The garden closed at 6.
We went to a Korean seafood grill place, Sik Gaek. We ordered a small seafood plate and a steamed ribs. It was a lot. We couldn't finish everything. The service was pretty good. The waiters are young, courteous and helpful Koreans in their early 20s, i.e. different from most Korean restaurants in Flushing. The ribs very tasty. The steamed seafood, mostly clams were quite generous.

(PS: I can't write in complete sentences and paragraphs.)

Leica D-Lux 4 with 24mm View Finder In The Wild

Two minutes down on the street, I spotted a Leica D-LUX 4 with a 24mm viewfinder attached. I talked to its proud owner, a gentleman in his late 70s. He was just happy shooting anything that's in sight. I didn't know what to ask except to convince him I am not going to rob his spanking new Leica confirm it's indeed a Leica D-LUX 4 with the hard-to-find 24mm bright view finder. I have some problem shooting with just the LCD monitor, I need a viewfinder and I guess he has the same problem too. Leica, good job for selling a $349.95 viewfinder as an accessory (yes, I wrote it right and you read it correctly, the viewfinder itself sells for $350 minus a nickel). I need some AIG kind of bonus. Now.

April 8, 2009 UPDATE:
Sorry guys. I do not own or use any D-LUX 4 ... The lack of viewfinder is just another general complaint from your usual whiner here.

Fixed Focal Length Rangefinder

When you shoot with a fixed focal length rangefinder, chances are you won't use the wrong focal length at all. And the operation is smooth, as the camera doesn't have a mirror to slap up and down and you can always see what's going on through the finder minus the parallax shortcoming. I think I'd like the quiet operation. I like my FE but the sometimes thundering thud of the mirror can be a bit disconcerting even though I don't see any apparent negative on the print, perhaps I never ever print big, more like a psychological problem to me.