Stop

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Summer vacation at ihop

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Morning ihop

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Some flower at somebody's yard that I can't name

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"Love my car"

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My Ride

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Bryant Park

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99 c

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Rafting

Rafting

Rafting

Camping

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Lunch

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Superstar

 

  

Superstar

Days Don't Fade

Days Don't Fade

Rear view mirror

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Rear view mirror

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Old Man Diet

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Grilled zucchini

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Random Pictures

disclaimer: original bad to the bone pictures with no help from instagram.

Red rock canyon

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Fw: Red Rock Canyon

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Check

The Pale King

What surprises me is The Pale King actually is intended to have a plot as enumerated in the end notes that are included in the unfinished novel by the late David Foster Wallace.  From my reading, which sadly was mostly done on my commute, I couldn't find a plot, something remotely resembles a plot maybe but not in the traditional sense that I understand it.  In fact it's more like a collection of short stories, those that have no beginning or end at all.  I find it difficult if not impossible to make any sense out of the characters, who come from and go nowhere, in the grand scheme of things such as the story of the novel.  But once I accepted the novel was probably written by a mad man who happened to be smart, articulate, pedantic and very good at moving words around then I kind of came to the conclusion that I could enjoy or even admire it, all these were of course done without me realizing it--the novel is so hypnotic that it either puts me to sleep or totally engrosses me during my daily commute to and from work.  His use of footnote is somewhat annoying to say the least.  I am in the opinion that if you cannot incorporate your thoughts in the body of a sentence or a paragraph then you should leave it out otherwise just write it in, that is, unless you are writing a research paper or you are DFW who tends to write extensive footnotes whenever he feels like it (of course being a wordsmith he can absolutely write anything in a sentence or paragraph, it's just that he makes a conscious literary choice not to and instead happily writes footnotes in the length of a chapter or a section).  There are a few chapters or rather pages (out of more than 500 pages) that I particularly enjoy and am duly impressed.  One being how an agent got an epiphany and turns himself from being a wastoid at college to an accountant; the other being how a father got killed in a busy subway platform.  I personally think the detail and the psychological landscape presented are pretty out of this world.  And above anything else (and despite his fixation on footnotes or rather my own fixation and displeasure on his writing footnotes), I find his writing touching and deeply sincere, which turns out to be the real surprise for me.

Dinnch

You heard it here first. Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android

Fwd: Lego Land

Sent from the past.
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山口百惠 - 秋桜 (Live)

update 7/4/2011 (I am going to ruin the post my writing something)
This is what happened when you stripped away the ridiculously gaudy costume, fancy stage design and cutesy dance moves.  An almost stoic yet oddly evocative performance from the one and only Momoe Yamaguchi san.

陶晶瑩 - 離開我

Maudlin love song.

Untitled

Super 8

Super 8 is one of the very few summer movies that aren't a sequel or a prequel or based on a comic book character or worse a sequel or prequel  based on a comic book character.  But don't let that fool you to believe that it's an original movie.  Far from it.  It's indeed a movie with hardly an iota of original idea.  Super 8 is J.J. Abrams endless tribute to his forebears, mainly and namely Steven Spielberg, the producer of Super 8, who himself has a hard time making any movie that is better than Jaws or E.T.  Except for the spectacular and gratuitous train wreck in the beginning, and that charming little movie within a movie in the end credit, there isn't really anything new, exciting or charming about Super 8.  The children actors do a good job in injecting some light and tear jerking moments that supposedly to show humanity but since the story and direction are so lame that it all feels forced and wasted.  Perhaps in movie, there is no plagiarism, only tribute, and in Super 8, it's a sanctioned one from its producer Spielberg.  Watching Super 8 is like reading some cool tumblr blog with endless re-blogs from other cool tumblr blogs which re-blog from yet other cool tumblr blogs which re-blog the blogs that re-blog them.  It's kind of cool, meta and somewhat interesting in the beginning but after a while, you just got tired of this whole endless re-blog thing no matter how cool it looks and especially and (un)fortunately you have experienced the original blog first hand.  Just like if you had watched E.T back in 1982.

BN

Damian Lopez Alfonso And Deidre Murphy Bader

Kissena Park Velodrome

Prints

Some pronts

Film

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Test

Send from my thumb

Mural

Handball

Space Oddity

From The New Yorker:  Mark Kelly quoted Bowie's Space Oddity "Tell my wife I love her very much."

The Feel Bad Movie Of Christmas

Racer

Pushing Off

Cat

I take crappy pictures with no help from Instagram.

Morning

Canoeing

Read this.  My eyes were open but I couldn't see a thing.  It was akin to the darkroom experience I had at home.  When I got nothing better to do, which was quite often--though my significant other definitely disagreed on this one, after I'd done washing dishes, taking out the garbage, recycles and doing the laundry, sometimes, I would get some black garbage bag and taped it up against a closet in the bathroom or down in the basement at night to make it light proof so I could get my film loaded into the developing tank.  I lined up my material and made sure I knew exactly where they were, film, scissors, reel, tank before I turned off the light.  But spooling the film onto the reel always got tricky when done in total darkness.  I didn't do this often enough so I remained pretty much a beginner all these years.  But overall, I didn't think I had any major screwed-up, even if I had I wouldn't tell you.  As much as I consider myself anal, somewhat and somewhat selectively perhaps, I didn't think I was anal or scientific enough when it came to the developing process.  Everything from dilution to shake (or inversion) to temperature to developing time was just "in the ballpark."  I never tried hard to control the variables, kind of "let it go."  It was the second night on our canoeing trip.  I was awake.  Acutely aware I was lying, essentially in the mud though inside a tent, somewhere along the Delaware Water Gap, breathing in and out the air that was heavy with moisture and smelled river, grass, mud and decays.  It wasn't pleasant like the romanticized nature people always made it to me.  It was just filth, though not the kind of filth like nuclear or chemical pollution that could actually kill you, slowly but surely.  This kind of nature dirt only disgusted and annoyed you and caused inconvenience, at least when you weren't in the "I just love nature" mood, which to me was almost all the time.  The ambient noise at night was just unbelievable as it was unbearable.  I could hear the river making all kinds of noise as it meandered interminably along; the wind stirring up the tree branches, the ruffling leaves and everything else in the air.  And all the nameless bugs were just merrily chirping all night long.  If only I had a mirror I would have seen in my own eyes how terrible I looked, unkempt hair, a stubbled face covered with oil that sure if scrapped off could fire an egg or two.  (Actually I looked like this all the time even on non-camping days.)  It was pitch dark even if I had a mirror I wouldn't be able to see myself.  I was just groping for my headlamp.  I was just excited to field test the headlamp so I could review it.  The whole point of buying stuff now was so I could review them, online.

Insert Your Media

I was at Duane Reade and I found this machine while holding a roll of Kodak 135 VC 160.  I tried CVS moments ago, and their "computer" broke and I was told it wouldn't be ready the following day.  Last time I had my roll processed there, it was scratched and I got a picture that didn't belong to me, I guess they just gave it to me as bonus, I don't know.  I suspect all the machines can actually do a very decent job in developing, scanning and printing, it's just that the folks who man the machines don't care at all.  I mean at all.  I used DOI Camera a couple of times for none other than it's just there, the staff was rude and they just gave you the negative cut at whatever way they want unsleeved.  The pricing seems arbitrary, one time the guy told me one price and the woman told me another when I picked up and they made it as if it was my mistake.  It's just unbelievable.

Speed Racer

iCloud And Other Crap That Nobody Really Understands

The future looks cloudy.

For the most part I'm just flummoxed by all these clouds.  What I can understand is I could, at some point, get Lady Gaga's latest album Born This Way for 99 cents.  Yeah, 99 cents for the entire album not just one song but the entire album.  That's what I understand.  I heard iCloud is ahead of Amazon and Google.  Apple shall have a death grip on your devices and by extension your life if you let her.

Apple's stock down more than $5.

AT 55 Pack, Large

picture from llbean.com

Hard to pack stuff
When did you purchase this item? Within 1 Month
Now I admit I am not an outdoor kind of person and with almost no experience in choosing backpack. I find this backpack lightweight and good looking which are the most important factors. Other than that I find it very hard to pack anything inside. There is one opening at the top and that is it baby. If you never need to unpack or access anything during a trip that's you plan excellent and you don't need to access something in the middle of a hike AT ALL. Otherwise good luck finding some stuff inside. It's minor annoyance. Otherwise, with all the belts and clips, it looks fancy enough on the trail.
I would describe myself as: absolute know nothing about backpack
This item is: Performing as Expected

Paddling Jacket

picture from llbean.com

4 / 5
May 31, 2011
Fashion Statement On The River
When did you purchase this item? Within 1 Month
Thanks to this jacket, I looked absolutely good paddling badly on the river. This thing keeps me dry from the outside and somewhat toasty on the inside. The only pocket is on the left arm and I wish there are more pockets to hold all my junk. But on second thought when you are wearing a PFD, what a fancy name, then you can't access any pocket on the body anyway unless you aren't wearing a PFD like some lawless dudes.
I would describe myself as: very bad paddler
This item is: Performing as Expected

Racer

Canoeing

Jimmy

Jimmy was candid, readily admitted mistakes and answered every question asked.

photo: Calvin Sit via nytimes.com

Jimmy won't get caught with his pants down

via The New York Times.

In Preparation For End of The World

I got this stove in anticipation and preparation for end of the world scenario.  I heard we are close.
The stove is the Optimus Nova multi fuel thing.  I heard it's good.   No explosion and I live to tell and show you guys the picture.  So it's all good.

I focused some five inches behind the stove.  Time to get autofocus lenses.

Long Fist

Soul Crushing Tedium

The decidedly low tech low concept alt rock band that is uniquely Hong Kong My Little Airport presents a Cantonese song that is about the spirit stifling and soul crushing job working as a Telebet Services Assistant.  The lyrics are local but I have to say the state of being bored is largely a universal human condition shared by peoples across cultures from all walks of life, rich or poor.  I think I can relate or even appreciate people talking about life lived unfulfilled.  The song's cheerfully pessimistic and delusionary passive-aggressive subversive lyrics* really make MLA one of the few bands that are hip and "with-it."

*If I were to pick on something about the lyrics I would have to say, given it's sung by a female, the "dumb fuck(dick)" reference (at the 1 minute mark of the above music video) should be changed to "stupid cunt" or something to that effect.  Now it's kind of odd even I understand cursing can be really generic and mindless sometimes and can't be taken at face value or literally.  Anyhow, I suspect since the lyrics were written by a guy so it came out as "dumb fuck."

Blogger

Looks to me Blogger is back to read write again.

Now, instead, Twitter went overcapacity.

Nintendo DSi WiFi Atrocity

It's year 2011 and this thing works like it's in year 1102.  Don't expect this thing just works because it won't.

I disabled WPA, WEP still no go.  WEP or WPA didn't seem to be the issue.  In the end I re-enabled WPA, I did the IP manually, and I think it didn't work either.  In the end's end, I had to resort to to change the MTU value to 1500 matching the router's.  All this can only happen if you have god access to the access point.  Then I got a steady but kind of "slow"* connection.  The, I think, Opera browser is a slow* poke and needless to say it sucks.  Don't buy it for Internet connectivity.  And for DS, I don't think it supports anything other than WEP.

The implementation of its WiFi connectivity is ghastly repulsive.

*  I was being too nice.  It's actually very slow, like worse than back in the day when you had a 56Kbps connection.  Nintendo what happened?

iPad 2 Bloodbath Continues

pictures and screen capture from mingpao.com

From Beijing to Hong Kong, from Apple to Fortress, the bloodbath is unrelenting and is carried on in Hong Kong.  Alas, Hong Kong is no Beijing, not yet, so instead of blood, they got only red paint.  So that's lame relatively speaking.  And there is no Apple enforcer who rightly and righteously gave the unruly iPad line jumpers and scalpers a well deserved bloody beating.

Anyway, I have to give accolades to Fortress and the young scalper.

Fortress doesn't discriminate and sell to whoever pays up, not based on some bullshit like where the customers come from, what they buy it for or worse arbitrarily judge people's attire for saleability.  So that's a very good thing.  The young scalper has good work ethics.  Though I don't quite get why he needs to be hospitalized--he got thrown red paint all over by a couple of guys; perhaps a sign or reflection of how generous and benevolent the Hong Kong health system is.  The kid wastes no time, immediately gets back to work, in hospital slippers and pajamas.  I think it's this kind of work ethics that most local Hong Kong kids (though, some even have masters degree) sorely lack and desperate in need of in order to compete.

I expect more iPad 2 bloodbath, or at least red paint, going on in the near future.  Fortress should send out some enforcers with metal pipes in hand to keep people in line, me think.

Awesome Movie Title

The sheer bluntness of a seemingly bland title makes it the more poignant and powerful.  Via nytimes.com.

I used to joke with my friends using this movie title, a way to defuse the dread of growing up, taking up more responsibilities, dying one day at a time, and ultimately realizing a life is lived unfulfilled and everything is already too late.  And all you can do is to make peace with yourself.

Browne and O'Brien: Nuclear Reactors 2 and 3

picture from the web, copyright belongs to its rightful owners

The Admiration Is Mutual

Mr. Browne, "Your pants are two-inch too long."

Mr. O'Brien, "Your pants are two-inch too short."

For country bumpkins like myself, they look like a pair of fashion disasters--like leaky nuclear plant units 2 and 3  in Japan kind of disaster.  Well, what do I know?

Correction:  I know there was something wrong, and yes, it should have been Browne instead of Brown.  Those folks at BG can't get his name right.  Disappointing but not entirely surprised.  Misspelling can be endearing, sometimes.