Rights To Own And Bear Arms

After the Supreme Court's 5 to 4 definitive vote to reaffirm American's Second Amendment Rights, I couldn't wait to help myself a few handguns just so I feel more American. I went to Target and bought the most lethal weapons I could lay my hand on. And these are just for my kids and their friends, in case they come visit, they can play shoot 'em up in the backyard.

Here is my review of these handguns based on extensive hands-on shootings both on static and moving targets with or without living humans involved.

All four are from the same manufacturer, the Super Soaker. The Super Soaker is the weapon of choice for those in the know. You simply can't go wrong with the Super Soaker brand.

The two on the left were bought as a twin pack, different colors same gun: Max D 3000. The gun has separate pumping and shooting actions. It's a pleasure to use. And given the size of the whole thing, it's easy to conceal and easy to shoot. The pump and shoot actions are smooth but the small tank needs refilling often, it's a handgun anyway. So shoot with caution. For what age, from 5 ~ 100, it does take some muscle to pump. Nitpick: The floaty and the string attached to the cap (the orange colored nipple thingy, see picture), to prevent it from losing, might have too much floatation when filled up with water, the string may get caught on the threading while twisting the cap closed, just make sure the cord stays inside the tank and out of the way.

The two on the right is the Bottle Shot model. What distinguishes this from most other Soaker is this has a user changeable tank or bottle but without a real trigger. It takes most soda bottles and the spec says it max out at 2 liter bottles. The bottle neck needs to be sturdy than normal because when filled up and held in an horizontal shooting position the bottle neck may flop, over extensive usage. The pumping and shooting actions happen at the same time, when one pulls the pump back, it shoots too, so it's harder to aim correctly and steadily and takes some time to get used to. So you always have to use both hands both pumping and shooting, unlike the Max D 3000, you can shoot using one hand Matrix style. It's easy to lose the original puny bottle that comes with the gun, see the gun on the right. But you can easily find a replacement given the proliferation of water bottles or bring lots of them as ammo. For the faucet-turning challenged, it may not be all that obvious when it comes to which way to turn to tighten or loosen the lock. And if you want you can bring Evian or Pellegrino waters as your ammos and shoot your money away. For what age: 7~100. Fitting a shooting bottle may be a challenge for some youngsters or not so young people.

Both models shoot pretty good distance and a joy to shoot and got shot at.

For additional reviews go Super Soaker Central.

Update On What's Happening In The Backyard

Rosemary, Lemon Verbena, Thyme

Basil

Sage

Tomato

Craigslist

CThanks to Craigslist, I got myself loads of expired film. Woo hoo. The hookup was arranged online and I trekked to Union Square to close the deal. It wasn't that exciting but it's interesting and pretty efficient.

I was wearing my gray t-shirt, white jeans ... just for the occasion ...

"You must be Mr. Handsome, you look even gooder than I thought .... " My seller informed me. "You look tremendous yourself. Can I see the goods?" "You mean these." She pointed to her boobs which were nice and perky. I told my seller it's the Kodak that I was here for. She was playfully disappointed. Her eyes were big and under the punishing sun had a sheen of blue. I took a quick look inside one of those no-frill environmentally offensive black plastic bags she carried and whipped out 2 $20 dollar bills. "Here." "You don't need to count them, roll by roll?" "No. They look good enough to me." She was happy to get the cash. "You have my number, Handsome, let's hook up some time." I saw her leave, her straight back has certain grace to it. I happily walked back to the subway station. Before I even got back to the cubicle farm, I got a message from my seller ... It wasn't exactly a message, it's just a jpeg of my seller's body part. Very perky.

Reporting Live From Jones Beach

This is a landmark post, I am live blogging from Jones Beach, Long Island. It's kinda humid and cold. Sometimes I wonder why do we like to go to the beach in the first place.

I Love 80s

This is another maudlin love song that ruled the early 80s. For those who were born too late and never got the chance to admire or despise The Culture Club, here is the chance. I present you the Culture Club's Love Is Love. Also the video is from one of the best movies ever made, Electric Dreams (1984) when Virginia Madsen was 23. I shall dedicate this song to all the inordinately literate girls who tend to overthink on love, relationships and online personality tests. Enjoy.

This Week In Review

Losers:
The Dow Industrial Average.

AAPL, the freaking stock keeps going down, I am losing my underwear. It went back up just a dollar or so before the week ended with a thud.

Winners:
Bill Gates. The guy retires at 52. Looks who's laughing now. The man gives us PC, like it or not it's running the world's desktop. Though much hated by a lot of people but at least the guy gives us a platform that others can pile on, to develop around it. In some sense it's an "open" system. You can build your PC because of the open architecture. But I hate him giving us Office more so than Windows, the Excel, the Word, the Access database, the PowerPoint. Plenty of valuable time got sucked away to maintain thsse little applications. Especially Word, people spend extraordinary amount of their time formatting or fixing their formatting instead of writing the content. Maybe in 10 or 15 years, the Windows desktop will become largely irrelevant because you know Steve Ballmer has a way to mess things up. Or the so called "cloud computing" would become so pervasive that the desktop OS becomes so nvisible just like the little ROM program to boot up the machine. Or Microsoft would conquer the next frontier in computing, the handheld devices, the cellphones.

The Second Amendment.

Weekend Video

Catching up with Guardian's Dan Chung.

The original video can be found at Vimeo, in "HD." The following is a clip showing the Olympics torch relay protest in Hong Kong.


Hong Kong torch protest from Dan Chung on Vimeo.


This second video shows dislocated Quake victims from Beichuan running away for fear of possible dam burst. The video is interspersed with still pictures shot by Dan Chung using most likely his Nikon D3.


China quake dam burst fears from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Supreme Court Came To Senses

It's summer time here, the kids are out, the workplace is deserted. Only the workaholics and the office drones are working five days a week. Any self respecting minor ranking airheads in the office totem would have taken days and days off. Even the Dow is taking a break, what the heck, just let it slide, Uncle Ben and Paulson need their summer breaks too. And before the mercury hits 100, the Supreme Court finally in a 5 to 4 vote, reassures us Americans that we have the right to bare arms. Our Second Amendment rights can't be denied. I encourage the Supreme Court to go at least one step further, right to bare chest, and bottom would be nice too. I know I am asking to much. Woo hoo still.

I Post Because I Can

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Breaking: The Dow Tanked

While it wasn't a day for tennis diva, it also wasn't a day for the Dow either, the industrial average nose dived more than 350 points. Now it's time to buy more ... if you want to lose your shirt and underwear. Last time I said Apple is up for a rebound, it freaking went south when the very thin and very gaunt Jobs gave everybody a very thin and very gaunt iPhone 3G. Don't even listen to me.

Now that Sharapova is eliminated, I can concentrate on something else like on Venus Williams, my first love. The crude oil is now at $140 a barrel and very soon $150. I have stopped mowing my lawn already.

Breaking: I am a big time photograhper

If I am not unlucky, then I am going to shoot some analog 120 film soon. Whoo hooo, that's going to make me some big time photographer.

Gates Is Leaving Microsoft

Gates is done with Microsoft and so should you too. No, I am just kidding.

The richest guy on Planet Earth (all right, give or take, the ball park), Gates is retiring and I don't see his departure will in anyway negatively or positively influence Microsoft's business or stock price. The place is like a well-oiled machine. Can you imagine that with Apple? Can you imagine Apple's Steve Jobs retiring tomorrow? And Apple's stock price will stay the same? Actually ever since Jobs' gaunt appearance, the stock has been steadily losing its value. Let's hope Jobs can pull some trick on 7-11, the almost world-wide launch of iPhone 2 or iPhone 3G.

BS Finance News From Yours Truly

Uncle Ben says no more freebie for you. The rate cut is coming to an end for now. After China denounced US monetary policy or actually lack thereof for letting the dollar slide, food price rise, and energy price soar, Uncle Ben further heeds the advice from the overlords in The Forbidden Kingdom. Just so you know China now owns US just like Japan owned the US in the 80s.

Untitled

I am a hopelessly incorrigible dilettante, easy to get impassioned but even easier to get distracted.

Tomato, in case you are wondering. I am growing my vegetable now, just to save a few bucks.

A Day To Remember

The Family

Who let the dog out?

Best Friends Forever

Alex, introducing the PTA Speaker

Pledge of Allegiance

Entering the ceremony

The technical details nobody really cares:
Nikon D70, Nikon 18~70 f3.5~4.5G, Nikon 80~200 f2.8
Processed using Gimp and UFRaw, from NEF to JPEG.
Even I brought my tripod, but most of the shots were taken hand-held using the best technique I know. Alas, shooting at f2.8 and at 200mm focal length and a shutter speed hovering around 1/30 or more is a sure recipe for shaky pictures. But seriously I think I got pretty steady shots still, the 5th one was hand-held at 1/39 sec, f3.5 according to the EXIF data. Since I don't have VR, I got to be steady. The forth one is also hand-held. Gee, I think I take pretty good pictures, I deserve a D700 or D3, or a 5D with all the professional lenses. Or I will buy a Yashica TLR. Actually I brought and used my trusty Nikon FE with MD-12 mounted, and loaded it with some TMAX ISO 400 B/W film. Guess I will have to wait to see what develops. I have no doubt they will turn out to be masterpieces (delusion of grandeur. if i don't like myself who will, eh?).

D700, More Details Leaking

There are now more leaks streaming from some Chinese forum and culled by Nikon Rumors.

The price tag is said to be $2,999. That's $999 more than my comfort level.... I take it back, I am not comfortable spending $2000 on a camera body but.... Realistically speaking, I don't expect Nikon to give away the D700 for free but you always hope or dream for the best. $2,999 is actually about right considering the D3 is a whopping $5,000 and the D300 is $1,649 by one reputable dealer in New Jersey (just price checked).

As to the leaks, I think it's just good marketing. You don't need to spend a sizable chunks of cash and you get your souped up to be released product to your target audience at no cost. I think that's guerrilla marketing at its very best. The Nikon fans are just now going nuts over any putative good leaks. Ashton Kutcher does a good job for D60 but hey a good leak of this nature doesn't hurt either. And I bet it's much cheaper than hiring Mr. Kutcher. What Nikon saved can definitely pour back into its R&D to make more camera and more lenses.

What I Had For Lunch

I had Curry Porkloin Katsu. $11 plus tax and tips ... $14.

When one of my co-workers say, "Let's go to the curry place." I was thinking of Indian. But it was Japanese that he was talking about.

Sushi Tei on 47th Street between Madison and 5th.

I don't remember it was a Sushi Tei, was it ever a Sushi Tei before? I think I am losing it. The place is the same maybe except the name. I haven't come to this place for quite some time, so it's a good choice. The place is not big, at the entrance there are sushi take-outs and I think some udon noodle soups too. I am not sure if they actually serve sushi inside the dining area. When I think of this place, all I can think of is curry chicken katsu or pork katsu.

Nikon D700

As far as rumors go, this one comes pretty close to real. Maybe after all, the naming makes sense. The D70 was a major success for Nikon, ushering it into the consumer DSLR market. It's a success, because even a cheapskate like me, bought one. Now with the Nikon D700, it might break in the consumer FX DSLR market. The burning question is how much is Nikon going to price this puppy? Canon's 3-year old 5D is selling around $1,900, and Nikon's only FX or otherwise known as full frame is D3 which sells for an exorbitant price (for some at least) of $5,000.

Sourced from the rumor mongers at Nikon Rumors.

UPDATE:

Once the D700 was leaked, living web legend Ken Rockwell wasted no time to get his up here. Mr. Rockwell even has a believe-it-or-not D3X prototype here.

Popular Music

My musical taste is laughable. The way I see songs and music is the same exact way I see, oh well, I couldn't think of any parallel. The lame-o meter is going through the roof now.

My first "walkman" like portable player is a Sanyo portable cassette player with silvery paint and silvery plastic leather like jacket. I think back then I actually paid one of our friends to record a medley of songs from his studio like shop in Yaumati. Mostly brands and singers from UK, notably Culture Club, Japan and David Bowie and whatever striked my fancy and looked cool. But I wasn't much of a serious listener, I never had moments like "Oh Shit, this song is so great, it freaking changed my life." No, it never ever happened. No songs ever changed my life. Not U2, much less Cranberries. Surprise, I think it must be the marketing or something, I actually bought a cassette of U2's live performance in the late 80s and early 90s. I think it's called Rattle and something, okay it's called Rattle and Hum. I think I actually liked the album, alas, it's lost during my nomad lifestyle in the early 90s. And then I got the impression that U2 or Bono has become quite important or self-important so that was a turn-off. I really don't know anything about the Cranberries except maybe the song re-sang by our much beloved Wong Faye. Anyway, I think the group is pretty well liked by girls in Hong Kong and semi-pseudo-intellectuals who have a thing for anything that's white, arty farty and girly. So I instantly blacklisted them without hesitation. Of course, I am full of shit.

After years of listening to English songs which is not much to begin with, I actually do an about face. I began listening to Chinese songs lately. Actually it was in parallel in the late the 90s. Back then it's mostly Cantonese pop songs. But as I got older and actually old, I much prefer Mandarin maudlin love songs. They are just that good. For the most part, I have problem understanding the lyrics but that's OKAY.

Firefox 3 Available

So I have heard Firefox 3 available. Big deal I guess. Me using Linux has been crashing Firefox 3 beta since Ubuntu 8.04. Yes, it's Flash fault as it's been pointed out but it really doesn't matter. This whole Flash crashing Firefox thing has greatly diminished the user experience to the point that people are going to say Linux sucks. Right there, I said it. Linux sucks just because Firefox crashes whenever there is Flash.

I really hope that someone can tell me yes, there is a bug fix to this, or you suck, there is a work around that can actually loads Flash without crashing Firefox. Alas, there is none that I am aware of. And the workarounds out there have been either disable Flash, or let Flash crash without bring down the browser. So what gives? I wish I know how to fix it myself.

UPDATE: I didn't yet bother to upgrade my Firefox on Windows. I don't know if any upgrade will break some of the add-ons I have installed because of compatibility problem. I know it happens with FF3 under Ubuntu 8.04, some Add-ons can't be enabled in addition to the Flash crashing feature.