Laodicean

Thirteen year old Kavya Shivasankar from Kansas took home the champion trophy by spelling the word laodicean correctly.

French Open

Nadal, ever since last year, probably under pressure from Nike marketing or something, like more matured perhaps, started wearing more conventional tennis attire. Out were the nobody-will-look-good-in clam digger and the sleeveless muscle shirt, in are the more saleable polo tennis shirt and above the knee tennis shorts. The cutting of both aren't loose like five years ago or from other don't have a clue manufacturers, they are more chest fitting and butt hugging. In this year's French Open, Nadal is outfitted with a hot pink top and a pair of gray shorts complimented with yellow wrist bands and wide tied-on head bands. He's smoking hot on the clay court.

This year, the line person uniform looks pretty horrendous, both man and woman wear gray pants, formless coat and white sneakers.

Alex

The Sixties

I fully expect a revival of anything sixties this summer. Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock is scheduled to release on August 14, 2009.

I Love Gap Again

I haven't done any shopping for a long time. And I really really needed to buy something not for utilitarian purpose (even if I were to buy things out of vanity, I won't admit it). There aren't anything going on in Gap, it's no longer a place you want to go to if you are kind of cheap and kind of fashion conscious, you probably rather go to H&M or other Euro-trashish retailers. However if you are just to buy some basic stuff, then Gap is not a bad choice. I tried on a pair of jeans and gee I thought I must have lost some weight, the waist was so over sized that they actually made you think you are like thin and happy. I think that's what clothings are supposed to do, make you happy by covering up your yucky body which is so abhorrent that not even Oprah or any daytime talk show host can come to its defense. I ended up buying the jeans even they aren't my usual kind of brand. The next day, I went to buy a pair of cargo shorts without trying them on. I think Gap is responsible for America's unyielding obesity trend. I might just sue them for my weight problem one of these days. I guess if I want a reality check, I should check out H&M, clothes there are more true to size, everything is tighter, fitter and slimmer. For now, I am happily wearing my Gap, totally oblivious to my horizontal growth. Ha ha. Let's have BBQ later....

Friday Afternoon

Terminator

I am glad I was able to enjoy the movie. Perhaps I simply expected the worst and it turned out not all that bad at least not as bad as Harry Knowles made it to be. Christian Bale, with zero per cent fat and a seemingly damaged vocal cord plays John Connor the leader of the resistance. Bale is just crazy and crazy good looking. The story is not impressive but then it's not bad. I still couldn't comprehend how John Connor could meet and save his Dad. Isn't there something in the universe to prevent that from happening? Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox or something? As far as summer movie goes, I think it's not all that bad. Plenty of good effects, both visual and audio. In certain scenes, I feel like I was watching The Transformer and still others, one of the three Matrix's triology, which is I think a high praise.

ICP

Cheap Friday. Got to see Richard Avedon's pictures. I can see most of his works online but I decided to have some face time with them. With his contribution to fashion, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the man had helped define the fashion woman for several decades beginning in the mid 50s. His better works are all in black and white. I don't care much about his color pictures, especially those with the skeleton. I just don't see the genius in them. All of Avedon's shots were well choreographed, the models were sometimes ridiculously but always interestingly posed, which are markedly different from many of today's fashion photos--natural lightings and impromptu setups. A must see for those who are into fashion, photography or fashion photography.

Michael Clayton

Library movie DVD review time.

This time is a movie I long avoided simply because I was no fan of George Clooney. I guess to a certain extent which I actually meant totally, it's irrational. How can this good looking man be so popular among women? Right, it doesn't make sense. Well except it does and by viewing this movie I think I have come to accept him as a fine actor with a good look.

What can I say? This is not exactly your typical Hollywood kind of entertainment movie. This is not for 17 years old. This is an adult movie, with adult characters, about human existence, moral dilemma and some shit that adults have to deal with. It's a multi layered, multi faceted and multi threaded story. I think Tony Gilroy did a very fine job in writing the story and telling it on celluloid as a director. Was it a bit self indulgent? You bet it was. I think all self assured writers and directors are self indulgent. I was equally impressed with the second Bourne movie, of which he was the screen writer, the last three minutes when Bourne atoned his sins really gave the character a soul and Matt Damon a chance to showcase his acting chops. Even he was credited as a writer for the third Bourne movie, Ultimatum but according to an article in The New Yorker, he kind of disowned it and never saw it, no wonder it's selling for $5.99 now. I digressed. For some reason Tilda Swinton just looked real and surreal to me. She was all flesh, full sized, at times sweaty, woman in the movie. She is also captivating simply because she is there, with her out of this world look; a screen presence to be reckoned with. Equally impressive are the supporting cast, every single one of them.

I recommend. **** stars, only if you have nothing better to do at night.

Terminator - A Preview

Once in a while you got to watch a movie that changes your life forever. No. I am just kidding. Once in a while you got to watch a movie that you really really like. As I got older and wiser( more like stupider or at least jaded), the frequency of that happening is getting lesser and lesser. The original Terminator was one of those movies that wowed and shocked me. The story was totally ground breaking. The Terminator was relentlessly savage and I just loved him like that. The second one had more gloss and the Terminator aka Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually a good guy. It was different from the first one, but it was still good except it took the edge off Schwarzenegger which I didn't like but reluctantly accepted, he was mellow and humanly. The third one, I don't even remember what happened in the third one I guess that pretty much sums up how I feel about the third one. Now we are having the fourth one coming out today. I wonder if I can get the feeling back when I saw the first one a quarter of a century ago. I won't bet on it but I guess I will give it a shot.

UPDATE:
Harry Knowles of ain't it cool news calls it a flaming turd. Ouch! Seems to me I better watch the original Terminator. See how Arnold, before he was Twins, before he was the Governor of California, he was The Terminator, he was the ultimate unstoppable killing machine who would stop at nothing until he kills them all or get killed.

Big Picture

Scout

Top ten reasons why I wanted to be a boy scout:-

• How to tie all kinds of knots. I am sure the skill can be transferred or spilled over to tie other things. I mean tying papers for recycling.
• I look good in uniform though I despise all organized group activities.
• Go camping in the wood.
• How to start a fire in the wilderness with nothing.
• Play with camp fire.
• BBQ in the wood.
• Peeing and pooping every where, without washing hands.
• Wearing a kerchief around the neck and looks proudly ridiculous.
• Wear drab olive greens and be cheerful.

No 1 reason why I wanted to be a boy scout:-
So I can be a boy scout and bounce on a trampoline.

(My propensity to put out garbage post is relentless and unstoppable)

Bokeh

Personally I think Bokeh is overrated. Sometimes it's just a tired gimmick for those who can afford to buy nice lenses that have an f-stop of 1 or even bigger (or should I say smaller?). For an accomplished photographer like myself, I don't need to resort to these super fast lens.

(Come on god, give me one of those, I am begging you, someone somewhere just gives me one of those, please)

No Love For Love Land

Instead of another stupid Disneyland for dumb kids and miserable parents, Chungqing, China thinks out of the box and has Love Land, an adult theme park that's all about sex and naked bodies.

You have to see it to believe it. The decidedly sexy giant statue, at the entrance of the park, depicts the lower half anatomy of a female body slightly bended over with nothing on except a red G-string. Hot. If you ask me, I think the statue is like another piece of work from Jeff Koon when he is at his very best. To let people see it from faraway and from all angles possible, the sexy legs and bottom masterpiece was placed on top of a rotating pedestal garishly decorated with silk flower some ten feet or so above the ground. Alas, the sexy mannequin's life was short lived. It got torn down and the park won't be opened. I suspect and it won't be too far fetched, the sabotage might have been orchestrated by none other than Mr. Micky Mouse. But thanks to the almighty internet we still can catch a glimpse of its doomed glory on Google. Long live Love Land.

In China, a Sex Theme Park Loses Its Appeal. Reported by Edward Wong on May 18, 2009 on the New York Times. Video and still can be seen from this link (simplified Chinese) as well as inside the NYT article. Sorry, my blog is PG-13, the picture is a bit too risque for my (imagined) audience out there.

Deep Thoughts

Craigslist has been pretty great whether you like to kill or get killed while having sex, or simply want to scam or get scammed.  There is always something for everyone.  Anyway, I used to be able to find some good and reasonable short dated film offers.  But now just forget about it.  Some expired 120 films with a short date around 2003 are asking for $2 or $3 a roll.  What happened to $1 a roll?  I thought the economy is cratering and everything is on sale.  Good film is still ridiculously expensive, a Kodachrome is selling from $8.50 to $12.50 a roll.

Horoscope Explains All Human Behavior, Part II

梁文道是摩羯座，與毛主席同一天生日。冷靜理性的摩羯規律嚴謹，那是梁文道的公共一面。而同時他的上升星座是射手，是人的理性頭腦加上野馬的四蹄，高速往你意想不到之地奔去。 via ESWN

Horoscope is convenient and effective. It just explains everything.

Earlier.

人花爭嫣

I win
Elite Chrome 200. Resized to 1500 wide and increased green 20. An attempt to remove magenta. Photoshop wohoo. It was actually GIMP I can't afford Photoshop.

Dead Man Talking

Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang finally got to tell his side of the June 4 story on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the student movement that began with student protests clamoring for reform and ended violently and tragically with tanks rolling into the Forbidden City in 1989. Twenty years after June 4, and four years after his death, on May 19, a book called "Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang" based on the audio transcript of Zhao's secret memoir will be published by Simon & Schuster.

The New York Times has the story, together with excerpts of the transcript in both English and in Chinese (pdf) as well as the some of the actual audio. Read and hear it yourself.

UPDATE:
The book is available in print but not in Kindle, sorry e-book readers, from Amazon now.
The Washington Post also has the story as noted from one of the book's reviewers, Ian Kaplan on Amazon. Perhaps because of the original Chinese material and the likely intense interest from the non-English speaking Chinese populace, the article has a Chinese version as well.

Horoscope Can Explain Human Behavior, As If

慢慢就不會恨他，我是水瓶座，常常會忘記以前討厭過的人。以後，我會遇到另外一個喜歡的人，我會重新去愛，但一切看緣分安排。-- Copy and paste from an interview of Gillian Chung from mingpaonews.com

Every time I read someone using her or his (his would be much worse) horoscope to explain her behavior or actions, I find it incredibly convincing. Oh that's why. Why didn't I think of it?

Random Thoughts

I don't regret acquiring any of my photographic gears. I regret buying the tripod too late. I find it pretty useful. Though if I were to pay more for some fancy material I could have a lighter leg set. But as it is now, I think I am all right I don't climb any mountain with it. Some of the shots I won't be able to get without a tripod given that I just have steady hands and no VR on any of my lenses.

Sadly, my Nikon F5 and my full frame Nikkor 24-85 AF get least use nowadays. Unlike the D70, which is really a boy's toy, the F5 makes me feel like a manly man.

I like my FE, it's so unobtrusive. In terms of operations, it certainly doesn't obfuscate my "creativity" by giving me 51 focusing points or a bunch of Christmas lights like led indicators. This little machine just gets out of the way.

Well, I want a good point and shoot digital that I can easily carry around (think Ricoh GR II digital or Leica D-Lux or Sigma DP 2). A DSLR or (better and) even a dedicated HD camcorder that can do 1080P. Well the list shall go on and on to infinity and beyond.

DC Pictures

The Street Photographer. Wow, the right way to hold a camera. The D70, so easy, even a 7 year old can use it.

Shutter Life of D70

My D70 shutter has been clicked more than 16,685 times based Opanda Iexif found on my jpeg below.

According to some database I found online, my camera still has a long way to go if I am not unlucky, at least shutterwise.

If I were to shoot film say 135 format, 36 exposures per roll, develop is $8.50, scan is $11.95, and the film itself costs about $6.75 a roll so it comes to about $.75 per frame.

All these years if I were to shoot film, that means roughly $.75 x 16,685 = $12,510. All of a "sudden" the $2,700 D700 seems like a bargain.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Keenu Reeves was just being himself when he played the stone faced alien Klaatu. He had a dead lock on character like that. Jennifer Connelly is, I am afraid, having some sort of a trend in playing scientist in failed sci-fi remakes, years ago it was Hulk, though I personally like it, and now this one. She looks good in her tight fitting soft bomber leather jacket. She wears her long scarf with certain aplomb and without looking too seriously stupid. Her beautiful piercing green eyes convey hurt and compassion. She may not be a great actor but certainly a great looking one.

Somehow I just wished the aliens would have done a faster job annihilating the Earth sooner or at least killing off that annoying whining Benson Jacobs, stepson of Connelly's character Dr. Helen Benson, played by Jaden Smith, an offspring of box office mega star Will Smith. The whole movie is like Reeves size 42L suit, it's kind of good but kind of bland, lacks flair and excitement and just a bit too long.

Bus Drivers Are Evil

Bus drivers are evil. There are two kinds of bus drivers, those who skip the stops and those who don't. The first type is pretty common. The bus is crowded and he skips your stop. Or you are running a red light risking your life stupidly trying to get on the bus, but the bus just pulls out ignoring you. This scenario is pretty common and I certainly can understand. Then there is this sort of self righteous bus drivers who would stop at every freaking bus stop no matter how full the bus already is. I can only fathom what he is thinking. Basically he wants to be in control. He wants to bark at the customers telling them to move back to the rear. Of course there is always some room to squeeze in an extra passenger or two or three or a whole bunch. And he enjoys playing the good guy pitting passengers against one and other and proclaiming he has all day and won't move the bus until he is satisfied. I think this type of drivers are the worse, absolute assholes. It's not like they care, they don't, they can skip the freaking stops but they just enjoy the spectacle. I think they are just as bad as passengers who insist on wearing a back pack on their shoulder in a crowded bus, on sitting on the outside of a two seater, or people who don't move to the back. Or people who man sit. Or people who squeeze in their shoulders ....

More Flowers

Holy cow, I love my D70 and all the lenses I have acquired through the years, old and new. I don't mind getting a D3, D3X or a D700. Or the future full frame with 1080p. I am ready to get them. I am so ready. The above was taken with manual focus with the support of a tripod.

Saturday Soccer

Untitled

Ivo and Lulu

There is no Photoshop here. It's just how our hostess/waitress rolls.

Untitled

The original are much bigger, I resized them to width 1500 pixels before uploading them to Blogger. I think this might be the best scan I ever have, well I paid for it. I won't say I have mastered the 160 NC, but my very limited experience told me that, it's better to err on over exposing than underexposing it. I shot them at the rated 160 ASA and for the most part I guestimated the exposure relying on the f16 rule. For the above shots, I had my Nikon FE with me, so I relied on its meter and exposed those shots accordingly and I have to say I am pretty happy with the results. I don't think I have a lot of 160NC left and I haven't seen any more on Craigslist either. When my supply is gone, I either stop shooting my 120 or I pay retail which is expensive. I paid my expired film around $1 a roll.

Wondering Aloud

Cindy Sherman is an established artist. She is an artist but is she really the photographer of her works? Does she really press the shutter herself? Most of her better known photographic works are self portraits of herself in sort of role playing scenarios. She either focused the camera and set it on a self-timer or or had an assistant to press the shutter for her. She is more of an artist who chooses photographs as a medium than simply a photographer.

The Sun Is Down

The Sun Is Down.

The Sun Is Still Out

It's 4:30 and the sun is still out there. I don't have a camera (with light meter) but I think it's a f5.6, 1/125s at ASA100 kind of lighting situation. That's what I would shoot with anyway.

The Sun Is Out Even More

I am going to create more posts like this. What a loser.

The Sun Is Out

Wow, the sun is out.

Kindle DX

Online juggernaut Amazon just announced its bigger and pricier Kindle DX. The 9.7 inch thingy is asking for $489 a pop and is ready for pre-order. The older 6-inch average sized Kindle is ready to ship for a $359. No thank you. I will choose dead tree any day of the week, month or year if I ever need to read.

No Answer No Bid

Ebay sellers who don't answer email questions anal retentively won't get my bids. I mean they should have listed their goods in every minute detail possible to begin with. If not, they should answer every single question with as much detail as possible. The fact that they don't list their goods in detail and don't bother to answer questions certainly raise red flag in my book. If they don't bother to answer pre-sale questions promptly, can you imagine if things go wrong post-sales, would they even bother to answer post-sales? I guess not. As a rule of thumb I always find something to ask in a potential bid. If they don't answer to my satisfaction, then forget about it, I won't bid.

I Love Geico

This is real story not a Geico commercial.

The thing with insurance is I don't mind paying for it as long as I don't have to use it. Sadly ~!@# happens. And it happens way too often than I wanted.

I had a flat tire on my way to Long Island. Lucky us, we got to where we wanted to go, parked the car and then found out hey what happened to the front tire on the passenger side? I know I have been putting on some serious weight but to totally destroy the tire flat like that was just sickening. Anyway, we were at Chili's to have lunch. And I decided to try to give a call to my insurance company Geico while enjoying the chicken fingers and tortilla chips. I vaguely remembered there is road side assistance on the policy. Last time when a flying rock cracked the windshield, Geico did a good job by sending the man to the house to fix it at no charge. Within an hour after the call, just I was asking the check, my Blackberry rang and the man just came at Chili's. He changed out the flat under the light shower and put the donut on. And we were ready to roll. I gave him a ten to have some cool beer and to show my appreciation. He was happy and pleasantly surprised that a cheap looking man like me could be quite generous and reminded me once again to lose weight just for the sake of my car. I got his message loud and clear.

Love in the Time of Swine Flu

Liza Wang and Law Kar-ying married. Love wins. The swine flu is just so stupid. Saint Francis Preparatory School got a week of swine flu holiday last week and today school resumes again. Holiday is over.

Panic of 2009

The Swine Flu is mostly bull.

Miscellaneous Flowers

Beer With Dr. Pepper