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This is another shot of The New York Public Library. This terrace facing the Fifth Avenue is part of the Bryant Park according to Bryant Park.

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I don't know what the fuck I was thinking, I should have focused on the foreground instead of the lion. I think the tulips should be in focus. But what the fuck, it's just a picture.

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Breaking: ESWN is rocking again

After intermittant grayout and finally total blackout, the site is finally moved. Let's see how his new host is holding up if and when there is a DoS. Meanwhile, hope Mr. ESWN has a good night of sleep and sweet dreams.

Nikon Coolpix Ads

Photo linked from NYT. Ad created by McCann Worldwide for Nikon.










Photo linked from here. This "Sharp-Shooter" for Coolpix S4 is from JWT Taiwan.
Photos copyrights belong to their respective owners.

So I guess Nikon is trying to be edgy.

Single line Multiple Servers

I am a messy person, not because I say I am, it's just empirically proven. My work desk is always messy, my hair is messy. If not because of my wife, I guess I would be doubly messy.

But I do appreciate certain orderliness (My 2 cents psychology is I freaking over-compensate on my own messiness.)

When I wait in line, I do expect people know how to line up in an orderly fashion.

I rather wait in a longer line than a potentially disorderly line. Where I live, there is an express line and local line, and it's a fucking mess by my standard. I don't like it one bit. When the express bus comes, folks waiting for the local line would just come join the party, or vice versa, so there is really no order. I just don't like to deal with the mess and this kind of ambiguity.

Duane Reade is a big freaking drug store in New York City. But you know what they have just the right amount of stupidity to do multiple line multiple server at the cashier counters. For fuck sake, have a single line, so nobody waits at the wrong line because there is some stupid customer or stupid cashier holding up the line. One time, we customers chose to wait in one line but then some manager would come out to say, yeah let's fuck it up, form a line at each cashier counter, I think that's the stupidist thing I have ever seen.

ESWN is acting up

For whatever reason, ESWN is acting up like crazy, OKAY, that's a stretch, but Yahoo! is taking it out of service because of bandwidth overusage issue. The site is up now and Mr Admin says or kind of alludes to some denial of service attacks. When you are this popular, and may I add a bit controversial, chances are the DoS attacks may very likely be real....
Update, the site is down again.
That really makes you wonder. I am no big fan of conspiracy theory, but then again, you never know.
If the site were hosted locally, and with certain Admin wizardry, perhaps DoS can be avoided, but look like Yahoo! doesn't really have counter measure, well I don't know better. Hosting own site in the basement or anywhere else may be fun to some people but certainly not for most.
Update:
There is still no ESWN .... So I guess he has to move on to some other hosting company perhaps.
Breaking Update 4/20/06:
ESWN is rocking again. so far so good ....wait, OKAY, it still good. Let's see how his host is holding up if or when there is a DoS. Meanwhile hope Mr ESWN has a good night of sleep and sweet dreamssssssssssssssss <- I am freaking juvenile here.

Eric: "Babysit"?

April 18 (tomorrow), around 4 to 9 PM, will give ride home. Let me know asap.

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Central Park

Central Park

Central Park

Central Park

Central Park

ESWN black out

got this error when going to ESWN ...

Error

Sorry, you have reached either a non-existent site or the site has been suspended (or deactivated) due to Disk Space and/or Bandwidth Violation / Exceeded.

Site Owner: Please refer to this help page for information.

Did somebody forget to pay the bill?

Webby Awards

People love lists. So we have the Webby Awards here. Here is the current nominations. My blog is not on the list, so I must be doing something right, no I mean they must be doing something right.

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Pokemon Theme Song Music Video

Nytimes Commute Digest

Save yourself, yes, people need to save more for their retirement, that is if they can retire, and save, at all. Social security is heading to bankrupcy or something in 2007 or 2042, so folks you are on your own. If you don't have anything to save now, at least quit drinking $3 fancy coffee every day. I don't have additional cash inflows other than my day job, so I don't do Starbucks. I can't explain to my kids like Daddy can't afford your college education because I drink $3 a cup coffee every day.

Older people blog too and they may be the better bloggers. Older bloggers tend to avoid cyber cutesy words. I think that's a good thing, got to remember that. When you are older or plain old, cutesy words just don't sound right.

Angelina Jolie is saving poor Asian kids one at a time. Soon to be 18 illegal Chinese alien, Young Zheng would soon get his green card from Home Land Security, thanks to Angelina Jolie who urged John Sullivan III — a partner at Fulbright & Jaworski to work on his case pro bono. Angelina Jolie might be much hated and made fun of, but I think she does some real good work, I mean not her movies, though.

Breaking...and not so breaking news

Transit Worker Union leader Roger Toussaint was sentenced to a 10-day jail term for inciting a 3-day illegal strike that left New Yorkers in the cold in last December. Roger Green, a democratic assemblyman from Brooklyn who sided with the union said the jail term gives Roger Toussaint "rock-star" status. I say WTF? He can't compare Toussaint to Martin Luther King Jr.

Jacques Chirac rolled back the CPE labor law. Unpopular economic reform is not going to work with the French. Don't worry about the French, as long as the gullible Asians are still lining up to buy Louis Vuitton and Chanel, they will do just fine.

Jeffrey Skilling, former Enron CEO, proclaimed he was "abolutely innocent." Let's see if the jury buy that.

While the Jewish folks celebrate Passover and the Christians celebrate Easter, I being a "gentile" just celebrate the arrival of Spring. I got to celebrate something. I refuse to be left out without celebrating anything.

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It's like he's running away from the branches' shadows. Daytime nightmarish run, with a touch of playfulness. He's after all smiling.

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Jin Lu

Queens Botanical Garden

Queens Botanical Garden

April 9th, 2006

Shot by a Canonite I found in the park. Shot in JPEG Large, should have done it in NEF. Fill flash. I really have no problem with Canon folks, Canon really comes across having cleaner pictures. People who have extra cash, please send me a Canon 5D with pro lenses or the Canon 1dsMkII with pro lenses.
Queens Botanical Garden

"The wealthier you get, the smaller your balls become"

"Working class people play basketball, middle-income people play baseball and wealthy people play golf," Democrat Congressman Mark Udall was quoted saying that on The Economist.
That explains a lot of things.

A sharp knife

A good knife is a very good investment in the kitchen, it probably lasts more than you want it to last.
Any chefs would tell you a good knife is a safe knife because it simply doesn't slip that easy when you cut. No surprise here.
What does Jacques Pepin say about sharp knife? A sharp knife gives you a clean cut, it heals faster. I am floored.

The Day After Tomorrow

They are probably filming the Day After Tomorrow 2 in Manhattan right now. Or wait, it's really snowing in April.... 

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Apple takes matter in its own hand

I was reading David Pogue's piece on FrankenMac on my way to work. You know that's how I do my reading these days, on my commute to work, standing. Then I found out from a colleague of mine that Apple is actually releasing its own piece of software today to allow dual boot into Windows XP.
It's inevitable.

Hong Kong Streetstyle featured on Style.com

Style.com has a piece on streetstyle in Hong Kong.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery to think one can be happy without money
-- Albert Camus

Materialism is more fun when one has money.

Spring Break

New York Times has an article about Spring Break and anorexic. Thanks to spring break, now anorexia is a competitive sport, let's see who gets thinner the fastest.

There is also an aricle on the Magazine about the greatest man-band from Australia, The Wiggles. I like them too. When Alex was a pre-schooler, he really liked them and did go to Madison Square Garden to see their life performance. The oldest guy there is Jeff and he's 52. I actually find them pretty cool. Their songs, some of them, I can sing. I believe they wear Blundstones too.

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Adult lower incisor sprouting out. His first adult tooth.

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Day Off

I am taking a day off to celebrate the nice weather.
I went to IHOP (International House of Pancake) with Alex and Harry. Plenty of sunshine and the temperature is just right for a day off.
Recent developments:
I haven't taken any new pictures recently and nobody really misses them, myself included.
I am reading some Ruby on Rails stuff, just another outlet to waste time on. I can't stop thinking of like Kate Moss blowing off rails everytime I read Ruby on Rails, is Ruby a person's name, who's just like Kate, like to be on rails...I think the name no doubt will attract some crack heads for this programming language. Ruby was invented by Matsumoto from the Land of the Rising Sun. My knowledge of RoR is limited to Hello World!, just like any other languages I know.

No Blog Entry

Well, because my life is just as boring as yours and my total lack of imagination doesn't help either, does it?
Weather:
Weather is nice, it gets warmer and warmer and the day is longer and longer, you know longer is better - just can't help myself.
Over the past weekend, I did some minimal spring cleaning. Kind of cleaned up the patches of green we have on the sidewalk. Basically, it's a cigarette butts recepticle. I cleaned them up but I don't think the cigarette butts free status will last long.
Activities:
Alex and Harry are learning to swim. Alex passed the first level. He still can't swim without the floaty or bubble. We did some ice skating as well in Iceland on Long Island. Look like we won't be going skiing anytime soon, maybe until the next winter.

Afternoon Report

Microsoft announces Vista will be delayed in the retail market to early next year. Corporate users can have it sometime in November. Yeah, let the corporate slaves in cubicle farms test it out first before rolling it out to the serious home users.
Earlier, Sony also announced PS3 won't ship until November.
For people who dig fancy UI, you don't have to wait for Vista, Mac OS X is available, now.

Paris is burning, again. This time is about entitlement, it's all about entitlement. The new law is supposed* to increase youth employment but at the same time allows employer to fire, without cause, any new hires who are 25 or younger, within the first 2 years of employment. I like to work in such an environment, like you can't be fired. And you are entitled to this and that. I never work under any contract and I think many people don't. Here is like "employment at will." One can simply walk away from work, or get fired on the spot. Of course, if you are not happy being fired, you can sue your employer. But that's another story. In essence, nobody owes any 1 month notice kind of crap to his employer. There is no contract, and hence no contract to dispute, isn't it neat? Picture credited to Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images, linked from the New York Times. (*note "supposed" is believe it or not, a freaking BIG word, like I am suposed to punch out at 5PM every day, but then I am a corporate slave, I never leave on time ....)

Kissena Park

Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou visits New York City. The World Journal reports that he was going to visit Kissena Park today, though I could not find any picture to verify that one way or the other.

Swing in Kissena Park

 

How to twist a swing

 

Swing

 

Swing

 

Swing

 

Swing

 

Kissena Park

 

Kissena Park