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The Graduate

Reuters Headlines

Morgan Stanley earnings more than double.
Last week, it was like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns. No wonder last year, Wall Street handed out 21 billion in bonus.

I am in the wrong industry.

Breaking: NBA Final, Miami Heat won

Miami Heat, the NBA champion beat Dallas Mavericks 95-92. O'neal and coach Riley carried the Miami Heat to the NBA final and won it. Alonzo Mourning got his ring, finally.


MIA 93
DAL 90
26.2 Minutes remaining ...
MIA leads 3-2

Breaking: Welcome to New York ...

Reader's Digest, magazine choice of your dentist office, just found out what we New Yorkers always knew, we are courteous of all.

Holding door for people, checked.

Picking up dropped papers, checked.

Saying thanks, checked.

Other city dwellers, shame on you, shame on you.

Other New York related overheards ...

Welcome to New York, Now get the fuck out of here...

Tourist: Excuse me, but do you know how I can get to Penn station?
Woman in camo: Do I look like a fucking tour guide?
Tourist: Now that's what I came to New York to find!

--5th & 82nd

Simpsons Guest Star touring

Simpsons guest-star Stephen Hawking is touring China, making his round in Hong Kong and Beijing. Besides guest-starring in Simpsons, he moonlights in astrophysics and writes about blackholes.

Here is a very brief video footage at YouTube. The video and audio is remarkably good. I do mean his synthesized speech.

The video made no mention of his Simpsons appearances. Bummer.

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Madison Avenue

Happy Birthday Mom. 

DSC_5195

DSC_5195
Originally uploaded by rnj97.

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DSC_5185
Originally uploaded by rnj97.

Science Questions for 4-6 year olds

Which parts of your body are made of cartilage?

What is the name of the smallest shark?

What do you call a baby shark?

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DSC_5149
Originally uploaded by rnj97.

New York City is about real estate. I don't think I've ever seen bamboo scaffolding here in NYC, though they are common in Hong Kong.

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DSC_5151
Originally uploaded by rnj97.

Summer is here. Mister Softy is spotted at 5th and 41st.

The Joy of Simple Toy

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Originally uploaded by rnj97.

This is something even I can enjoy playing. This is I guess a handheld pinball machine. But the mechanism is not perfect, actually far from it. And the tiny beads sometimes got stuck between the sidewalls and the hitting arm. But the kids really don't mind, they just play the way they want to play it. And yes, I make up my own play rules too.

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In America, we play football with our hands and we call the what the rest of the world calls football soccer, which people actually play with their feet.

I don't know if the 2006 World Cup is just plain boring (think Brazil, so far) or America's ABC and ESPN2 make it look boring. I am no soccer fan myself and not even every four years. Basically the commentators fail to generate any excitement at all. Whenever I listen to their comments, I will think of people running SQL statements in the background, SELECT nbr_goals from goal_table WHERE player='someplayer';. The comments are laden with statistics but totally lacks excitement. I remember in the old days when television was uncommon, people actually had to listen to radio to know the match, back then the commentators are really entertainers in their own rights. Not so for soccer here.

If you don't find the play exciting then at least you should find the hairstyle more exciting. In today's NYT's Styles section, Eric Wilson did an excellent job dissecting the players' sytle, from hair to tattoo. The major disappointment perhaps is Beckham, the most valuable/expensive player who brought metrosexual to the rest of us. The once advanced practitioner of funny hairstyle is no longer in the hair game, at least not on the first game.

This post sucks, and so are yours ... OKAY, maybe not yours.

Kentucky Derby

Pear Green

Dow Is doing The Limbo Rock

Let's see how low it can go. Dow closes at 10,706.14, down 86.44.

Heath Related.

Coffee is said to protect liver from liver cirrhosis, especially alcholic cirrhosis.

Breast-Feed or Else. Breast-feeding is the gold standard, anything else is just inferior. That's pretty much scientific conclusive. However, if the mother is not able to do it, infant formula is probably a god-send. Statistically speaking, mothers who are better educated, more affluent, relatively older and married are more likely to breast-feed.

Dow diarrhea continues unabated

Another day, another 100 points drop. Or close to 100 points drop.

In anticipation of Bernanke's 3 speeches this week, the market reacts by selling more.

Windows Vista Beta

It's available for download for the brave or stupid and reckless. For the record, I am still stuck in Windows Millennium Edition at home, remember Y2K, the Millennium bug? And is the millennieum zero based or one based, like the Millennieum should begin 2001 instead of 2000?

I celebrate Year 2000 with Microsoft every time I power up my PC, even we are almost half way through year 2006.

Straight From the Horse's Mouth:-

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:

• A modern processor (at least 800MHz¹).
• 512 MB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs
To get an even better Windows Vista experience, including the Windows Aero user experience, ask for a Windows Vista Capable PC that is designated Premium Ready, or choose a PC that meets or exceeds the Premium Ready requirements described below. Features available in specific premium editions of Windows Vista, such as the ability to watch and record live TV, may require additional hardware.

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor¹.
• 1 GB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero².
• 128 MB of graphics memory.
• 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
• DVD-ROM Drive³.
• Audio output capability.
• Internet access capability.

Roland Garros

Nadal soundly beat up Federer.

ABC GMA, NBC Today

ABC broadcasts Good Morning America in High Definition, while NBC's Today still does it the bad old way, 480i standard definition. And NBC is wondering why ABC is closing the gap in rating. No wonder Katie Couric left.

Cast Iron Is The Real Non-stick

[Picture: Lars Klove for The New York Times, all rights belong to their rightful owners.]

Teflon non-stick cookware is bullshit. Cast iron is the real non-stick. Apparently I am not alone in this department of thinking. See this New York Times article here. A well seasoned cast iron pan gives you the best non-stick cooking experience for a long long time.

American Runs on Dunkin

If you despise anything Starbucks, you are in luck. McDonald's, Burger King, and Dunkin Donuts are all competing for your crave for premium and not-too-premium caffeine indulgence.

Here is Dunkin's average-guy ad campaign, he sure looks like he is so capable of beating up all the Starbucks snobs. I don't know if he looks average, but I think he looks pretty scarry.

"Hey I just killed my 5th Starbucks snob ... this week, want to be the sixth?" You see this Dunkin man, you better run.

[photo linked from New York Times, all rights belong to their rightful owners]

Arnold Newman dead at 88

[self-portrait of Mr. Newman taken in his studio in 1987, image linked from the New York Times. All Rights belong to their rightful owners]

The pioneer of the so called environmental protraiture, Arnold Newman is dead at 88. June 6, 2006 didn't end the world but it did end the life of Mr. Newman.

Katrina and Louis Vuitton

You can't use FEMA fund to buy a Vuitton bag.

Last year, some FEMA and Red Cross issued debit cards for Katrina victims were alleged being used to pay for Vuitton handbags and booze. More here.

You can't be a victim in style and that's the law.

Hong Kong Media Get Global News Coverage

While the notorious Bus Uncle is finishing up its 15 minutes of fame, Hong Kong media get another coverage from Reuters. When news media become the news, it's usually bad news. Commercial Radio has to publicly apologize for a poll in which respondents are asked to pick their favorite sexual assault targets. Some starlets were pride of being the favorite picks.

Google Spreadsheet

As reported, Google is going to beta it's Google Spreadsheet today at its http://labs.google.com. As of now, I still am not able to see the link there. Or I am not sure how it's rolled out to its potential beta users. Anyway, if I see it, great, if not, that's OKAY too.

I always have mixed feelings to Excel. I thought on the one hand it's great (for small business), on the other hand, it's the biggest evil in a corporate enterprise environment. I always believe you should have a central data reportory, or at least in theory, you should. If you have to resort to Excel to do any analysis, then your enterprise software is really lacking and what's worse, you have data untamed lying around everywhere in spreadsheets. Sometimes, I think Excel is the worse thing you can have in a corporate environment.

But accountants really love Excel.

UPDATE: I became of the those beta testers of Google Spreadsheets. It isn't Excel, but then I don't expect or want it to be like Excel. I tried right-click, and of course, it gives web page behavior as opposed to right-click mouse menu. And I couldn't find formula help. I did resort to go to Excel 2003 to get the help function on certain formula. I was able to use =PMT() and =IPMT() to calculate mortgage payments.

666

Let's see if today is the end of the world as we know it.

6 days old news: Nikon D2Xs

On June 1, Nikon announced D2Xs, an incremental upgrade to its flagship D2X digital SLR. Nikon D2Xs may be hawked by Kate Moss or her once boyfriend Pete Doghery or both. The alleged ad would feature Pete smashing the D2Xs recklessly or using the D2Xs as an ashtray.

I totally made that up.

Miscellaneous

President Bush talked about marriage. I really don't give a damn. He should be talking about the economy, job, and the war in Iraq. He shouldn't in the bedroom business.

Mr. Bernanke, once again, proved himself could and would screw up the stock market. He effectively talked down the DOW almost 200 points. Wall Street interpreted his remarks at some event as the Fed might raise short term interest rate at month end.

NYC needs citywide wi-fi as the New York Time editorial elloquently stated today. Because no matter which side of the digital divide you are on, you deserve to waste your time on the World Wide Web.

Mr. Tom Robinson is indeed a descendent of Genghis Khan.

History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

Spelling Bee

ABC is live broadcasting the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in HD. Spelling is a competitive sport I guess. I am just tuning in and is recording the show just for further and future humiliation for myself.

I know none of the words.

Stupidity reaffirmed.

UPDATE:
WELTSCHMERZ and URSPRACHE, the two words that separate the runner-up, Finola Hackett and the champion, Katharine Close.

The Firm

The Firm's chairman Henry M. Paulson Jr. is very likely to succeed John W. Snow to be the next Treasury secretary for the Bush administration.

Mr. Paulson is going to make $175,700 for this new job. Last year, he made more than $38 million at Goldman.

Google Ad

I was reading an issue of Wired that I collected from the basement at work, of course, for free. In it there's this Google print ad that got my attention.

It's about a girl called Niniane Wang, who at the tender age of 10, learned the Lisp programming language.

I don't remember what I learned at 10. I didn't hear about Lisp until maybe 10 years ago, and of course I don't know anything about Lisp except it's a programming language developed by some MIT folks, hey I don't even bother to wiki it. If reading this makes you so depressed about your room temperature IQ and deficiency in things in general. Please don't. If it's any comfort, you got me as company.

There are some people who are really smart. To visit smartie Niniane, click here.

Dalila

It's basically yellow.

Radiator

This is a cast iron Kohler radiator, it weighs a ton. I unscrewed it, lay it down on the floor so as to paint the part of the wall behind it and later the radiator itself. The previous paint job, I guess nobody bothered to move it, the back of the radiator is rusted. I got to give it some tender loving care.
I need to go to the YMCA more and start bench pressing 200 lbs in preparation to moving stuff life a 300 lbs radiator.

Breaking: Enron Chiefs convicted

Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were found guilty of fraud and conspiracy. Fantasy accounting is not accounting. And you can't claim ignorance while being a CEO pocketing millions in compensation.

Meanwhile, I am still stuck doing SOX compliance shit, thanks to Lay and Skilling.

UPDATE: Dow reacted to the conviction by closing at 11211.05, up 93.73 points. Wall street pundits are cheering for the guilty verdict. I just hope that someone can reverse the SOX regulation so I don't have to do any SOX related shit.

Scary Movie

This is one scary movie that grabs the attention of the public.

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Harry is about to sing "Be Our Guest." The little guy in the very back is Mr. Harry. I guess he's not that hot.

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I found the picture surprisingly sharp. For more details, go to flickr. I have given up shooting in RAW or what Nikon called NEF format. I just shoot JPEG and dump the file to my harddrive and sometimes upload them to flickr and this blog. My organization skill is close to zero. And I don't back up my hard drive, I like the idea of living dangerously (I think that's from an AOL commercial). One of these days, I just got to organize and backup my pictures before Murphy's law setin.

Painting III

Alex and Harry volunteered to do the painting. I guess 10 years from now, they can be of some real help. Anyway, they were enthusiatic about it. They thought it was fun. I wish I had that attitude. I think, for me, the fun's gone maybe 10 minutes into it.

It's inherently easier when other people do it. By doing this myself, I gained some new perspective. I don't think it's that easy. And in terms of time needed, it totally exceeded my estimate. I thought it could be done in an 8 hours workday, but I guessed it wrong. There was just more preparation work needed to be done, moving stuff around was one, getting the right tool another. Overall, it's not that straight forward.

Flat for the ceiling, eggshell for the walls, semi-gloss for the window, door and floor trimmings.

I ran out of the Benjamin Moore Regal white semi gloss, so I still haven't done the floor trimming (or called floor board or molding not sure) yet.

To be contined ....

Painting II

Painting

iBook does rainbow display

(or how I got screwed by Apple)


Here is my latest iBook display. It's sort of funky, isn't it.

Dow diarrhea continues

I guess the US economy is not that hot after all.

Apple Blossoms on 5th Avenue

Apple is going to open its 5th Avenue store at 6PM today and giving away MacBook every hour for the first 24 hours. So let the MacBook riot begin.

I plan to go around 4AM to enter the lucky draw. No, just kidding, no, I am not kidding.

5/20/06 UPDATE: I didn't go to win any MacBook.

Cheese Pizza

Okay kids, this is what the World Wide Web was invented for ...

Cheese Pizza

Traditional and comforting. You focus on living a quality life. You're not easily impressed with novelty. Yet, you easily impress others.

What's Your Pizza Personality?

iBook Surgery

I performed my first iBook openheart surgery, and the result is so far so good.

My iBook sufferred from the "90 degrees and black out" syndrome which is pretty well discussed in Apple's own user's forum. On top of that, my original power adaptor isn't passing the power, and my battery isn't holding up a good charge (I had to borrow someone's from work just to charge the battery).

So, I ordered from Small Dog, the reed switch assembly ($20) and a third party power adaptor ($29). $7 USP 3 days select shipping. I didn't order any extra battery.

I read the following links and got the job done. Here, here
and here. The last link is about harddrive replacement but I like the way the guy taped the screws on a cheat sheet. I did similar but still got 3 screws unaccounted for, OKAY, I know I dropped one for the top shield.

After the surgery, the iBook is 3 screws lighter. It's embarrassing. Other than the screws, one major hiccup was I forgot to plug back the keyboard cable before I replaced the RAM shield and worse, I thought I had to take off the bottom cover and the front cover to plug it back in, when indeed removing the RAM shield is all it needs to plug the keyboard cable to the board ... It's been a long operation.

Nikon is getting edgy

This is a follow up to my earlier post regarding Nikon. Nikon is using Kate Moss to market is Coolpix S6.

Here is the latest:


Nikon has a total new website called, gasp, http://www.stunningnikon.com, of couse, pop-up, flash, full screen and all the shit you would expect.

Kate Moss is all right, but I don't think it breaks any new ground and I don't think it effectively conveys anything stunning about the Coolpix. She is just moving around trying to look "sleek,sexy, and stunning." If anything I think the print ad works a bit better, it's more succinct. The video just feels contrived and dragging on 35 seconds too long.

Apple MacBook

Apple is introducing its MacBook, priced from $1099 to $1499, give or take depends on customization.
Meanwhile, I ordered a power adaptor and a reed switch from small dog for my dying 800mhz iBook. I want to get it back to working conditon at least. I only have OS 10.2.8 installed. This is going to be like a brain surgery or open heart surgery for me. The last time I opened something this compact and complicated was my Nikon Coolpix 990, and I couldn't put it back. Oh well.

m:i:iii may not be showing in China ...

because there are scenes showing underwear.

In China or at least the part shown, people don't have dryer or prefer to hang their clothes, underwear included out in the open to dry them naturally and glimpes of underwear as backdrop while Cruise and company fighting terrorists in Shanghai and Xitang is a no no to Chinese censor.

To see Chinese underwear flying in China, you probably need to see the pirated DVDs or something.

Another Day, another fake writer

I mean scientist who fakes his research.

This is front page material as reported on the New York Times today. Chinese scientist Chen Jin was accused of faking his research and stealing chip design and passed it as his own.

According to some reports, his Hanxin chip was simply manufactured, if you can call it manfactured, by hiring migrants workers to scratch off the name Motorloa and replaced it with the name Hanxin.

Of the two students interviewed at his university, Jiatong, where he worked and subsequently fired amidst this scandal, both expressed sympathy to Professor Chen as he was simply unlucky to be get caught.

I guess if you are smart, you are almost expected to plagiarize or cook up your own findings to turn some quick bucks in China, or anywhere.

Saturday

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. OKAY, I know how to spell Saturday.

Wii is rocking at E3

Nintendo's secret weapon is unveiled at E3, and the exit poll says it rocks.

In order to let my kids grow up like any other kids, I already bought them a Nintendo Game Boy Advanced. The Wii maybe the next buy. Just a maybe.

Microsoft and Sony are good but they are expensive and dare I say pretty complicated. I never understand the whole digital home entertainment center anyway. It's like they are designed to take control of your living room or your life, I say fuck that.

User generated content

Sony is getting on the bandwagon of user generated content for their sony style ad campaign. New York Times has an article titled "An Agency's Worst Nightmare: Ads Created by Users." The animated spot is created by a 19 year old Tyson Ibele, as opposed to by some ad agency with fat cats and slave labor from cubicle farm.

Mr Ibele was rewarded with $1,000 for his 24 second animation.

"We can scare the agency, and that's just fun to do." Mr. Fasulo, the chief marketing executive of Sony Electronics was quoted in the NYTimes article saying that.

Here's the video created by Mr. Ibele, not me:-

Run

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I'd like Spring more if not because of allergy. This year has been pretty bad.

BitTorrent

If you can't beat them, join them. Warner Brothers decided to use BitTorrent as the technology to hawk their library of movies. I used BitTorrent a few times to get some disc images, and it worked as predicted. Unless it's free, I won't bother to download, as it still takes quite some time to get the data via an alleged 5mbps downstream connection (just checked, it's only around 1.5 - 2.5 mbps from around 9 t0 12AM, cable connection).

Enron trial is almost over, both sides rested their case. I think the closing arguments will be some time next week. I guess they very likely will get acquitted. It's a waste of government money. Let's see what's really going to happen.

Sony announced PS3 will start shipping around November. Meanwhile Microsoft announced it will ship HD DVD for its Xbox 360 game console. Nintendo says its Wii will ship in Q4. Now, all the game boys have something to cheer about.

Apple wins the Apple vs. Apple lawsuit. Apple won because the judge has an iPod. The Beatles' Apple Inc. lost the case.

m:i:iii

The mi3 opening weekend box office gross was considered to be a let down.

The movie debuted with $48 millions over the weekend, about 10 million less than the previous Mission Impossible installment. Of the 48 million gross, yours truly contributed $10 of it.

I like the first one, then the 3rd one, the 2nd one is my least favorable one, the slow motion with the flying white doves were just too much for me to handle.

I always think writing amateur film review is easy. If you are willing to part with your $10 and sit through 2 hours, you are set to write a film review. Book review is much harder. First off, you have to read the book, unless you listen to audio book, which in most cases last more than two hours. So almost anyone can be an amateur film reviewer.

JJ Abrams have a lot to live up to. After all, we are talking about the Mission Impossible franchise and Tom fucking Cruise, probably the last mega male star living and breathing. After watching years of movies, I have to say I am getting desensitized, I mean, how can any action movie be exciting any more. Sure, there are lots of explosions and jumpings and kickings, but do they really excite me, not really.

The film makes some references to other films I think. One is True Lies. There are definitely some parts of it that seems very True Lies, just that True Lies is bit more original and better.

The adrenaline shot to the heart is bit Pulp Fiction.

The motocycle ride to meet his team is a bit of Top Gun.

The film flows all right but I can't find any definitive moments. In the first MI, there is the Langley vault scene, the restaurant scene and the helicopter inside the tunnel scene, in my mind they are pretty definitive of the first MI film. And the first MI is better paced and have better character development, more cerebral. And you can see Cruise in dfferent lights, in suit, in tux, in street clothes, in mission attire. On the other hand, mi3 is pretty monotonous when it comes to Cruise, he's just a fighting machine, not a lot of thinking. The opening sequence seems to be pretty good. But only to reveal that it really didn't add anything to the finale except a pure repeat. And what the fuck is the rabbit foot? Even Ethan had to ask what. And JJ Abrams and the team of writers just totally got lazy and didn't bother to come up with anything to it. No, it's not cool, it's just lazy film making.

Overall, the film is good, but not extraordinary like you would expect from screen god, Tom Cruise. Yes, this is a film review, and I am not going to cover my ass to say it's not. It's not good that's all.

P.S.: For an acid-tongued critical review from the real literary type, I suggest you read this piece from the New Yorker.

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This is a long e-mail exchange with a spammer, not by me. Well written and oddly amusing.

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Brooklyn Botanical Garden, April 30, 2006.

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

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Brooklyn Botanical Garden

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Backyard

Untilted

Backyard

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Brooklyn Botanical Garden

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Backyard

Hooded Sweats

Bill Cunningham's NYT On the Street is almost a must read on every weekend.
People generally don't want to have anything to do with umbrella, so hooded pullover is the way to go.
More about hoodie on 4/27/06. Too bad, after certain period of time, you need to be a paid member to access the article. You know, somehow they need to get paid. Man, I would hope that the advertisers can pick up the tab. I myself can read them alright as I still subsribe to their print edition.
Picture by Bill Cunningham for the New York Times, rights belong to their rightful owners.

Morning Has Broken

"Morning has spoken, like the first morning" ....as sung by Cat Stevens. I sang this when I was in secondary school. Between primary school and secondary school was the only time I would sing in a group on a regular basis. After that, my singing career is done. I should really practice my Karaoke, I shouldn't deprive myself from singing even I know I sing terribly.

Another Day another not so real writer

JT Leroy, James Frey and now 19-year old Havard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan. Her publisher just decided to pull her debut chick lit "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" off the shelf in the midst of alleged plagiazism.

In Brief

Judge: Web Surfing worker can't be fired.


Fake news you can trust:-
AP reported world productiviy increased by a whooping 5 basis points yesterday. The increase was attributed to a 12 hours grayout of Blogger, the Google owned blogging 'platform.' People generally got more work done in North America during their workday, while in Asia, bloggers aren't as sleep deprived and was more productive the following day.

However, once Sergey and Larry were on the case and the service was restored back to its normal snappy self, bloggers tend to overcompensate, and there is an expected drop in productivity on the immediate days followed.

PacAir Range Hood

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This is in my mind, the Rolls Royce of Range Hood (it mostly isn't but to me it is) if you were to compare with something you find at Home Depot, namely the Broans there. The 36 inch Broans has a 200 CFM suction, while this 36 inch has a 750 CFM suction on spec.

Just don't cut your beef too thin, they may just fly through the duct.

Note: CFM, cubic feet per minute, a measure of air flow. I don't know if it's for a fact the higher the CFM the better or only up to a certain number or even CFM will suffer from diminiishing return after certain numbers.

UPDATE: 3/6/07
This thing really "sucks," in the best sense of the word. It's a thumb-up, just in case you are wondering. I recommend.

UPDATE: 8/3/08
The thing is still sucking kitchen soot. Great sucker.

UPDATE: 8/14/09
No problemo.

UPDATE: 8/9/2010
What can I say.  Nothing needs changed, not even the light bulb.

UPDATE: 12/16/2010
Oops.  The light bulb died.  You need a philips screw driver to unscrew the "diffuser" to change the light bulb.  The dead light bulb that lasted a few years is a generic no name brand that says 120V40WTAIWAN.  I have a Philips appliance 40W lying around and I changed it right away.  It's quite easy to remove the screw but not so easy to screw it back in, you need to have some patience but it can definitely be done.  The diffuser has a minor crack near the screw hole probably it was tightened a bit too much originally.
Related post.

Blogger is back on

I hereby announce that Blogger is back to its normal snappy self. I am going to uncork some cheap champagne or something bubbly.

Blogger is stalling

There has been problem editing and creating posts, I checked the maintenance page, though allegedly fixed but I still experience difficulty.
That's what you got when you didn't pay for it.

Blogger is choking up for the past 12 hours or so

I can't really edit my posts anymore. The feature is screwing up, the edits end up in la-la land I guess. Anyway. Hope they are on it.

San Yang Pai Range Hood

SAN YANG PAI range hood, honestly sucking kitchen soot for more than ten years.

PacAir Range Hood

Week in review...

Former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright says she works out three times a week and can leg-press 400 pounds, as reported in the New York Times Magazine.

Current Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is no wall flower either, her Condicise can be seen here, here and here.

If the two were to have a Secretary of State death match, my bet would be on Albright, she can probably crush Rice using one leg. However if Rice were allowed to run away, she should be able to out run Albright with relative ease. I guess.

New York Times is just unhealthily obssessed with American Apparel, the post-Gap, post-Abercrombie & Fitch, sweatshop-free, super sexually charged underwear or underwear-like vendor.

LVMH, hawker of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior, reported a 15% increase in first quarter sales or 3.6 billion euros. Once again thanks to the insatiable demand from the gullible consumers worldwide. No wonder the French can pretend to work 5 days a week and spend more time protesting working than actually working. Meanwhile the rest of the world put in a 12 hours work day just to buy their handbag.

Albright picture linked from the New York Times. Rights belong to respective owners.

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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