YouTube Friday

WARNING: Read this first. THIS IS NOT WORK SAFE. 9-second Cantonese profanities referencing sex acts with one's mom in the most despicable yet common way only a Cantonese knows how. Watch with headphones.



It looks like this gentleman here is over compensating for his banal sex life. And he totally takes it out on the cops. His schizophrenic obscenities laden cursing is vulgar and at the same time hilarious. I laugh every time I watch it.

This is sourced from ESWN.

Seeing Double: Angel Hair Rip Off

© Gondola Veneziana

Ads of the World

©Jill Greenberg

More Greenberg's

Looks like O&M, Shanghai totally rips off Greenberg's style. The photograph, conceptually and stylistically speaking, is a carbon copy of what Greenberg did in End Times.

Source: Copycat Watch: That Cry Baby Looks Familiar, pdnonline, May 4, 2007 by David Walker.
[Editor's note: Fuck, as a z-list blogger, I feel totally ripping off the main stream media. My posts are pretty much rehash of what they say. And now I even pretend there is an editor, I guess I am hopelessly unoriginal.]

Tea With Lemon

There was this hottest post about lemon tea in the Hong Kong blogosphere about 4 days ago, which in Internet time is like 4 years. In a mad dash not to be light years behind this blog hype, I now shall litter the blogosphere further with my own lemon tea post. Most people have one, but this one is mine.

Here are my random thoughts about the whole thing written in the the wee hours, not an excuse for poor writing though. It's not like I write any better in the day or in the afternoon for sure.

The reason why this was hot was because it was one of the composition topics for a public exam in Hong Kong. What makes it interesting, for one thing, it's really an open ended topic, i.e. you need a bit of imagination or literary bullshit skill to crank out a short piece in the time alloted. And Hong Kong students are always perceived as lack of imagination so this seemingly innocuous topic is indeed very challenging for most of the brain dead students. The equally interesting but more controversial part is because one private tutor, a famous one I suppose, actually came up with this exact same topic prior to the exam and did a sample piece for his students. That I don't know if it's just pure luck or some shady business was actually involved.

If memory serves me well, I believe "Lemon Tea" and "Lemon Coke" were popular back in the days before Hong Kong was Starbuckazied. Cantonese usually say "lemon" first as I guess a qualifier for the tea, "lemon tea", and "milk tea." While here my experience is most people order coffee and some do like tea and we say it like "tea with milk" or "tea with lemon." One of the biggest difference I can think of is in Hong Kong, the lemon usually is cut in slices and already in the tea when served hot or cold. While here, the lemon is always cut in wedges and put on the side, so you can actually squeeze the juice. On the other hand, it's not that easy to juice a slice or slices of lemon but I guess there is some fun factor to use a spoon to pound on or rather to spear on the slices, I used to do that myself. For me, slices of lemon is more for garnishing than juicing. And sometimes if I think lemon juice is too much or hard core, I would just run the peel on the rim of the cup, the aroma of the zest and a hint of lemony flavor is just what I want. There are myriads of fruit flavored teas but I think tea with lemon is the only one that the fruit is served fresh, most others are just tea infused with that particular fruit flavor, rarely served fresh

Lemon is really a refreshing fruit but unlike other citrus, you almost never ever eat a lemon straight up. Orange, yes, grapefruit, yes, but I can't imagine one eats a lemon all by itself like eating an orange or an apple. You juice it, zest it, slice it and wedge it but you don't just eat it. Salad, seafood, meat, poultry (as tenderizer) and yes tea all can use a little lemon.

Lemon is like the best supporting actor, it makes the leading man look good. And once in a while, the supporting actor actually outshines the leading man. Errr ... sometimes, I feel like that at work too ....

Grey's Anatomy

This is a two-hour special. I have to say I can't believe I am writing this, but I just do. I can understand why it's such a success.

The series is full of hot guys and girls, maybe except Sandra Oh, she is actually a man ... just kidding I think she is cool. Sometimes you just can't help but get jealous on the characters, being young, energetic, good looking and being a doctor or a surgical intern. It's a bit hard to believe but my personal experience tells me that it can be true, there are indeed good looking doctors and nurses around in the hospital. It's just that as a patient you kind of have other important things in mind, like if you can walk out the place alive, than checking them out.

The two-hour special lays the ground work for the spin-off, Private Practice, which I read sometime ago, is going to be another ensemble with Dr. Addison from the original Grey's Anatomy (I just assume this is the lead-in to the spin-off as I really have no idea and I don't doesn't watch the show religiously). The place is going to be in LA, more sun and bitches beaches and less rain than Grey's Seattle. My assessment is the new characters are interesting or hot enough for a new spin-off. The 2-hour special doesn't disappoint. We have all the dramas all over the place and it does get a bit too busy but the good writing and acting play off on screen ... adultery continues, new relationships, somebody gives birth, somebody dies. In short, what great TV is supposed to be.

One of the things about Grey and the soon spin-off is that the cast is really multi-ethnic. You have Whites, African Americans, Asians and Latinos and they all play some roles in the series not just some racial tokens. (Seinfeld and Friends were great successes but were criticized for being lily white, I enjoyed them as they were though, especially Seinfeld) The writer and creator of the show is the young Shonda Rhimes, I don't know if her being an African American woman has anything to do with it. Apparently the show appeals to a lot of people and across demographics, mostly chicks I think.

Some supposedly hot shows I never really watch:-

• Lost, I just don't see how can a group of people LOST for so long and still alive, isn't that the premise, I really have no clue
• Prison Break, you either break successfully or you got locked up and got butt fucked again by some big guys in the prison. How could that last a whole season or two or three, I have no clue.
• 24, I always meant to watch it, even recorded an episode, just never really sat through it.
• Heroes, yeah, I saw a few episodes. I guess I like it or try to like it somewhat but I don't think I am really their target audience. it's like X Files in the 90s or so. If you were a teenager or have the mind of one, you tend to enjoy this kind of story a bit better. Now that I am a boring grown man, it's just a bit difficult for me to buy all those super power hero kind of crap. I was never a big fan of comics to begin with.

For some serious TV review, I think Television without mercy is the site to be, or so I read.

Of Fashion and Crap

Kate Moss with her new overlord, billionaire Sir Philip Green, mastermind behind the stunt that's called Kate Moss Topshop.

Topshop pandemonium. There is only one Kate Moss and everybody wants a piece of her.

Moss the dummy, reportedly got paid ₤3M for her collection for Topshop, not bad for a "working-class slag from a crap town."

Kate Moss is staging her own private British invasion this month.

The Topshop fashion collection attributed to Ms. Moss debuted in London on May 1 is making its way across the pond in Barneys New York, the quintessential upscale department store for the well heeled New Yorkers, on May 9, 2007.

Depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on, the Kate Moss Topshop collection can be smart or it can be a "snore."

Let's see how jaded New Yorkers vote the collection with their wallets.

Meanwhile ... our local brand, Gap is struggling. The latest gimmick taking a page from the playbook of H&M, is to add a designer collection of its staples of blue jeans and khakis. But unlike H&M, which got world class celebrity like Madonna or designers like Karl Lagerfeld to do a collection, Gap chose to use new and lesser known designers to re-design the so called iconic white shirt. The way I see it, it's not really working, the reaction is luke warm at best.

Further readings:-
Don't slag it off, The Economist. April 26, 2007.

UPDATES:
5/10/07. The New York Times has a piece on the collection as introduced yesterday at Barney's New York. There were less than 100 people waiting when the shop opened at 10A.M. A non event compared to the London introduction.

Reading Dav Pilkey

Because my boys like Captain Underpants so I end up reading them as well. The series is all about underpants, booger, poop, fart and toilet, mostly things kids love but adults consider taboo.

I think in one of the series, Dav Pilkey, creator of the series, I hope I remember it correctly, says something to the extent that in the first two years of children's life, their parents desperately want to talk about poop, pee, walk and talk. And then ironically after the children mastered those skills, the parents would spend the rest of the children's childhood years trying to make them stop talking about poop, pee and want them to shut up and stay still. No wonder some children are confused.

Captain Underpants is a series about poop, toilet and booger. I can see why kids or mostly boys love it.

Talent Show

MF Nikkor 50mm f1.4

Here is a picture I shot using the MF 50mm f1.4 lens. I forgot about the setting already. Chances are I was shooting at f2 and 1/80s at ISO 640, OR something. When used with this lens, my D70 won't meter. But fear not, you can always guess and the instant feedback you get from the rear LCD display helps.

I post process this JPEG using Picassa's "I am feeling lucky." That's it. There are a few more 50mm shots in my flickr account.

To Photoshop or Not To Photoshop

© Alan Kim/The Roanoke Times
JPEGs from pdnonline.com

The thingy potruding from victim Kevin Sterne's lap appears in the first picture and enlarged on the bottom picture was a tourniquet which was mistaken as the victim's penis and was so eagerly edited out by some publications, like People magazine (2nd picture) and The New York Post (3rd picture).

Publications Fumble With "Disgusting" Virginia Tech Photo, April 26, 2007 by Daryl Lang

April 25, 2007

• Got up, Breakfast: Oatmeal and 2 pieces of toast;
• [ mundane but joyful stuff goes here ...];
• Got a call from work. Solution: use some hex editor to edit a file; vpn and vnc to work. My boss got a handle of the problem, hopefully all is well;
• Dow cracked the 13,000 barrier. Now sky is the limit;
• Dinner: sauteed zucchini with dill weed with a splash of lemon juice, some fried rice;
• Played action figures with Harry ....
• Mindlessly watching American Idol and reading blogs.

Swimming

Except for the top one, the other two were straight from the camera JPEG, shot using Aperture shutter priority at f2.8 at 1/125s floating shutter speed and auto ISO camera set at 1600. [I was wrong, the bottom two were shot at shutter priority at 1/125sec, I usually shoot at Aperture priority, indeed some of them were shot at Aperture priority, just not these two. If you check flickr, you can see all the EXIF data for those JPEGs straight from camera, as if you care.]

The top one was shot in NEF and subsequently converted into JPEF using GIMP with UFRaw plugin just for the fun of it. Normally I only shoot in JPEG. For me ISO 1600 under fluorescent isn't great but hey I will take it. It's just that after sharpening (most often you should do USM, but I am too lazy to fuss with my pictures, I got to get on with my hobby ...) the noise got worse. But since I am not submitting my images to Getty, I guess they are OKAY.

All shots using AF Nikkor 80~200 f2.8D. I have been using my D70 for over a year or two, and overall I am pretty happy with the results. And the kit lens 18~70 really exceeds my expectation.

Nikon is doing pretty well in the amateur DSLR market with models like D80 and below. But for the pro market, I believe Canon takes the lead. 2008 Olympics is about a year from now. Hopefully Nikon will have the next pro models ready for the big game.

Soccer Ultraman

Alex as Soccer Ultraman. Ultraman T-shirt and cap from Hong Kong, courtesy of my sister and brother. Thanks.

$10 Haircut

Queens Botanical Garden. Harry, me, and Alex.

$400 Haircut

Credit: Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press
John Edwards appearing at a public forum in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 9, two days after one of his $400 haircuts. (caption from the New York Times)

Just when I thought $75 a pair of socks is out of this world, the latest closet (now outed) peacock Presidential candidate John Edwards shows the world his $400 haircut.

Further evidence how much this guy cares his hair can be seen here in "I am Pretty"



Sources: In the Beverly Hills Style: Candidate's $400 Coiffure by Adam Nagourney

Breaking: Cho sent out Multimedia Press Release Before Virginia Tech Massacre

Cho produced and sent out a multimedia press release to NBC in the 2 hours between his first shooting and the later mass murder and suicide on April 16, four days before Columbine.

UPDATES:-
Warnings: material may be upsetting and disturbing. You have been warned.

Source: NBC

Cho's plays Mr. Brownstone and Richard McBeef

Cho's "Oldboy" look. Here's the movie as from imdb.com.

(4/20/07) Dead man finally done talking, almost. After having milked dry Cho's message-from-the grave for a whole day, most if not all network TVs and cable outlets pulled the disturbing pictures and video from the air and their website's front page. This was really a test of freedom of press, the public's right to know and sensitivity to the victims' families and the larger question, what do those still images and video serve in the aftermath of all these?

(4/21/07) We had everything backward. Now the media, The New York Times included is calling the Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho, instead of Cho Seung-Hui. The Cho family adopted the American way of writing given name then followed by surname instead of surname followed by given name as in their native country and most Asian countries.
Now perhaps we could understand why some Asian immigrant kids are like so confused. Is it last name first or last name last, is my two syllable given names hyphenated or not, or do I even have a middle name as opposed to a hyphenated given name?

Of Shopping and Groping

Picture Doug Kanter for The New York Times.

Groping is emboldened by some department store in Beijing. For most guys and some girls, shopping can be tedious and boring, so how about mix it up and kick it up a notch with groping? This is genius retail marketing.


No Spitting on the Road to Olympic Glory, Beijing Says, by Jim Yardley, April 17, 2007.

Leopard is Limping to an October Release Date

Apple formally announced that its next operating system codenamed Leopard won't be ready for Spring 2007 as previously scheduled instead it will be released in October 2007.

The reason? One word, iPhone. Apple blames the delay for limited resources being diverted to iPhone to make its June ship date. After dropping the Computer from its name, Apple Inc. really prioritizes accordingly.

$75 Socks

Mr. Tom Ford in a Tom Ford, a 3-piece suit, very anal retentive and very fitted look. Picture by Terry Richardson from the NYTIMES.COM

Tom Ford opened his "uberluxury" store on Madison Ave, where shoppers who are (a) oblivious to credit card debt, (b) rich, and above all, (c) gullible can shop for $75 a pair of socks and $5,000 bespoke suits. The economy can't be all that bad if you can see a store of this caliber blossoming in the Spring on Madison Avenue.

Money Does Buy Looks, Eric Wilson, April 12, 2007, The New York Times.

Of Fashion and Freedom

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Abedin Taherkenareh/Europen Pressphoto Agency

The freed 15 Britons with parting goody bags are waiting for their flight back to London. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dresses his captives just like himself, gray suit sans tie.

Fashion victims of ill-fitting 3-button gray suits.

Children's Zoo

Checking out the prairie dogs.