March Ramblings

So, I haven't posted in about 3 weeks. Lots of things, well some things, happened in the meantime and I was lazy/busy with other stuff to post. But anyways, here's a quick recap.

1. I went to Houston for a week. Pictures will be posted tomorrow. But Texas in winter is a good place to be. It was the 2nd week of March, Chicago was just starting to thaw out (low 40oF's/5oC's) but it was already in the 70oF's/20oC in Houston. My god. I want to move there soon...

Anyways, I had a fun time hanging out with my friends. I went to see NASA (not really worth the admission) and just enjoyed the nice weather in general. The chinatown in Houston is humongous. It's a sprawl that covers at least 20-30 blocks. About half of it is Vietnamese though. But it's huge. I've never seen so many Pho places next to each other before.

So I was eating supper with my friend at a cafe in chinatown and I ordered a bowl of taiwanese beef noodles and he ordered calamari. He made the additional comment of trying to keep up with me and the waitress actually called him out on that. Since obviously beef noodles>calamari, the waitress said that there was no way he was matching me. That just cracked me up. I gave her 20% tips.

2. Since the weather is getting better (no more snow!! no more 30's!!), I've started walking outside. I can't really jog yet (Doc says in another 3 months) so I'm walking until the weather gets nice enough to actually bike. At least I'm getting some low impact cardio done. Not really that great, but it's a start. It's kinda cool to do your circuit training by the lake. Although it's still only ~50oF/10oC and windy, I like seeing the waves crash against the concrete barriers. Makes me feel like I'm in a kungfu scene, training by the sea.

3. Also starting is my investment tracking plan. I haven't made a decision about HOW to invest (which brokerage firm to use) but I've already started faux trading. Haha. I've decided on a few things.
1. Any stock must pay dividend.
2. No stock should have a P/E ratio of >30.
3. ETFs are ok
Let's see how I fare.

4. Did my taxes... I'm in the 25% tax bracket.. Ugh. And I owe IL more tax. Ugh. AND the new (allegedly non-corrupt) IL governor wants to increase IL tax by 50%!!! From 3% to 4.5%. My gods, it's depressing living in Chicago sometimes. The parking rates just went up, from $1/hr to $3.5/hr in downtown and $0.25/hr to $1/hr around my neighbourhood. Thank god I don't go downtown much and have garage parking. I hate the mayor of Chicago...

So anyone who is interested, is now up to date with my life. Cheers!

Yao Ming Sucked...

At least in the game I attended like Saturday. The one and only time his Houston Rockets played in Chicago, and he had a bad game... Figures. And I had paid good money for the tickets too. At least the Bulls' inflatable mascots kept cracking me up.

Like this dude for example. I have no idea who/what he is but a 10' tall red plastic bull bouncing around is hilarious. Even when you're not drunk.

There was an floating bull balloon riding around the stadium at half time. If it had resembled a flying penis, I would have thought that I was back in college.

This is Benny the Bull. Apparently, he likes to take fanshots with his finger in his nose. I credit his originality but find his sense of hygiene very lacking.

Derrick Rose. The 2008-2009 NBA Rookie of the Year. Watch out for it. The kid is good.

Yao Ming as seen through a sea of balloons. I realised that both the Bulls and the Rockets have red and white as their colours. So for all the Bulls fans in the stadium knew, Yao Ming could have felt quite at home.

Awesome tickets, good game and great company. Although I wouldn't pay this price to see the Asian Sensation again, I had a fun time. It's great when you don't have any pre-domininat rooting interest in a close match.

裁员

今天我公司的head office裁了45个人。也就是说大约25%的人员。 这45个人当中，我认识一两个人。今天和他们MSN时，有点奇怪的感觉。想说几句安慰的话可是又担心自己会被裁。。。 下个星期，大老板会做公司Q2-Q4的经济估计，真希望有好的评估。否则的话，有可能我公司也会裁员。。。

Till this is resolved, no large purchases for me. I will also change my internet from Com-I Suck You Dry-Cast to another carrier so I can get their new subscriber discount...

Long absence...

Yeah, so I had a long absence from posting. I think my motivation just tanked this month for some reason. Busy with work, new achievement pack for Team Fortress 2 and just a general malaise I think...

But anyways, I'm back and starting to write shit again. First off, 没想到因为有了同事的link，就有其他的同事也过来探访我的blog.以后写东西要更加谨慎。能用3种语言来写这个blog就是有这个好处。虽然有时候没有人知道我想说的话，也有几次我说的话，不想让人明白，只想发泄一下。

In any case, because of the said achievement pack and because Street Fighter 4 is coming out for the PC AND because it's already 2.5 years old, I think it's time to start looking for a new PC. I was just messing around on newegg to see what OEM parts cost and then I went to Dell to see what a pre-assembled PC would cost and I think Dell has damn expensive labour...



As you can see, Dell charges a $200 premium on upgrading from the core i7 920 to the 940. That's almost 100% more expensive than the OEM upgrade. The upgrade to the i7 965 is even more bullshit. It's over $400!! WTF. They must be hiring all the retrenched Wall Street brokers to install these processors or something... Just by looking at this comparison, I think I'm going to have to build the next one from OEM parts. This way, any savings can be put to the "Fly home and see friends get married" fund. I doubt there will be much dissent here regarding that course of action.

Ok, that's enough for now. I hope to spec my rig by next week and then I'll start to talk about more important things like housing. Lol.

Life Lessons from Mario

Taken from Kotaku, Mario explains the complexities of a relationship.

First, the basic premise.


A suggestion on how to overcome the huge barrier.


The another take on said obstacle, with a caveat included as well.


The law of unintended consequences hits.


A possible ending to the story.


A very illegal alternative ...



I guess the lesson to be learnt is, invincibility will not help you when you try to get a girl. It cannot overcome large gaps, nor help you bounce on turtles to get to the other side of oceans...

Week 02 of 52 Review

So, after the first 2 weeks of the year, how are my resolutions holding up? Let's review.

1. Lose 2 lbs per month.
a. Weight - There's a problem here in accuracy of the scale. I read 225 but I think it's dubious as weight varies according to the time of day I measure. But I'll call it maintain for now.
b. Exercise - I have been more or less exercising ~5x a week. A bit behind my ideals but still fairly consistent, considering I am not biking at home...
c. Diet - Smaller portions have been a challenge. Especially on weekends. Weekdays, I generally eat less as I can't be bothered to cook. But weekends... I gotta come up with something.

Overall Grade: 3/5. Still a work in progress, but consistency in execution is a start.

2. Manage my finances better
a. Budget - Fail. Have not set a budget. So there's nothing to adhere to. I will set one for Feb 09.
b. Investment - Some research done, now I need to identify which brokerage I would like to use.

Overall Grade: 2/5. Some effort done, but not enough.

3. Get out more
a. My mum just left and it was really cold this past weekend.

Overall Grade: N/A. Will have to wait till end of the month to re-evaluate. Weather has not been kind in Chicago to going out.

4. Career
a. Pilot plant - Learnt how to size conveyors, mixers and RVs
b. Costing - Starting to learn costing (^0.7 measure, ductwork)
c. Academics - Still haven't touched Thermo... Nor Heat Transfer... Fail

Overall Grade: 3/5. Learning Different stuff (Finally!) but still a ways to go.

Well, here's to more progress going on the year.

A Quiet House

For the first time since Nov, my house is silent at night. After I came home from sending my mum off, there was no activity but mine... I think that will take awhile to get use to again.

I'd like to say thanks to my mum for taking care of me whilst I was recovering from surgery. It was fun.

And here's a funny flash Transformers video I came about whilst surfing youtube for Lucky Star information.The flash was made by a chinese artist, but I don't know who he/she is...


And as for Lucky Star, here's the intro to that anime. It's done by the same animation studio as Haruhi. I sense the new Haruhi dance coming...

Why not Individual Funds?

To answer Kenneth's question in the shoutbox, I think that for the time being, an ETF or index fund will give me the best value for money. Why?

1. Diversification for cheap. By investing into ETFs or index funds, I'm investing into a whole basket of different stocks (albeit small slices of different stocks). If I wanted to cover the same kind of ranges with individual stock, I would have to spend a LOT more money.

2. Lack of time/knowledge. I think I probably know the companies I work with and hear about but that will only cover 2-3 industries. That's not sufficient for diversification of risk. I would not want to invest in stock of companies/industries I don't understand, but I don't have the time to research and track every single one. By researching the ETF/IF, I can see what their investment ratios across the industries are, I can see what are the top 10-20 stocks they invest in and that's a less time consuming decision to make I think.

3. Cost of transactions. To invest in stock, every stock I purchase will have a brokerage cost. To get a diverse basket, I would spend a lot more on brokerage cost than if I were to buy an ETF. IFs are even cheaper in that sense.

ETFs vs Index Funds

With my last post, I mentioned that index funds are good for small capital investors like me. I recently read up about Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) which are similar to index funds in that they also track an index and do not look to out-perform the market.

So which is better for my money? Index funds or ETFs? I'll use this post to try to analyze their pros and cons.

Firstly, the similarities - Both are indices. This means that they are a collation of equities that track a specific index. The index can be anything, ranging from the Dow Jones, to Foreign Stock Exchanges or even commodities or currency. So joining either one will result in diversification of your investments. Which is a good thing, considering that I don't have the knowledge nor the time to research extensively into specfic stock at the moment.

Now the differences.

The ETF is treated like a STOCK. This means that a ETF
- can be bought and sold on the stock exchange
- are priced in real-time. It can vary by the hour.
- are purchasing by a broker. This entails that you pay a brokerage commission in your purchase.
- pays out dividend quarterly. Any dividend pay out from the indexed companies will be saved till then.
- has a small (typically ~0.1-0.2%) management commission to the company that maintains the ETF (tracking and composition of the fund).
- generally has a lower tax implication than an index fund (if it is bought and held) since rebalancing does not involve selling and buying of stock.

The index fund is a mutual fund. This means that
- the price of the fund is determined by it's Net Asset Value (NAV), which is valuated at the end of the day. This means that if you sell/buy a fund today, you won't know the exact price till 1-2 days in the future due to calculations of NAVs. - it will generally have a higher (but still small) management commission (typically <1%).
- there are NO brokerage commissions.
- any dividends paid by indexed companies will be reinvested or paid out without being withheld till the end of the quarter.
- typically will have a higher tax impact (if bought and held) since funds will rebalance by buying and selling stocks (hence invoking capital gains).

For the long-run, small capital investor (i.e. ME), I think the most important difference is the cost of owning or making a transaction with the ETF or index fund. I am not interested in day trading nor do i have a lot of money up-front to invest. I would rather purchase something and watch it grow over months and years. If there is dividend, that would just compliment my income.

ETF's have a lower maintenance fee than an index fund. However, it incurs a cost PER purchase. Typically, this cost ranges from USD7 to USD15 per transaction depending on the brokerage used. So ETF's would appeal to someone who makes a one-time big purchase.

Index funds, on the other hand, have a higher (but still quite low) maintenance fee . However, there is usually NO cost per purchase (for no-load funds). This means that if you plan to invest gradually, like a small investment per quarter, it might be cheaper to do an index fund.

It really comes down to how much does the transaction cost of the ETF compare to the extra maintenance fee of the index fund. I will search out comparable ETF's and index funds to analyze in a later post.

Some Resolutions...

So to speak, if you can excuse the pun.

I need a new way to do cardio. I had bought an indoor bike but the damn thing is so loud and the floors of my apartment are paper thin. I can't continue using it if I don't want my downstairs neighbour to kill me in my sleep... I was thinking that since it's soo damn cold outside, I would prefer an indoor cardio. Without any gym membership, the best I could come up with is stair climbing.

Pros - FREE, Convenient and WARM (it's gonna be cold till March)
Cons - Socially awkward, Boring

Any one has better ideas?

Also, I think for my investment goals, I shall start by looking at an index fund and putting money in it. With modest investment funds, I don't think I can do more than one. Or perhaps two different investments if I Realllllly stretch my budget. I think that should be a realistic goal. So my object is to identify a fund by the end of Jan.

Let's Do This. 1 week down. 51 more to go.

License Plate Lawls

So I was surfing around and came across this website that showed license plates that got pass the US Department of Motor Vehicle censors. I think this shows that there is NO-ONE in the DMV that understands modern culture or can visualize what a license plate will look like. Either that, or someone there has a weird sense of humour. Most of these pics are NSFW.

2009!

First (post)!

Ok, so maybe that was kinda lame. But with the first post of 2009, I will want to set out some of my goals for this year and review 08 for me.

I think 2008 was quite interesting for my career. It marked an evolution in my career as I started taking on more responsibility for start-ups and projects. I was the point man for the company for the one major start-up in Mar. I started to understand more about how equipment worked as I spent time in the field and saw actuators, switches and electrical panels. However, I still am not quite there yet in design, with my boss here, I should be able to learn more.

I think I kinda wasted my time in Chicago as I mostly stayed home whenever I wasn't on a startup but it was a definite improvement over the previous place I was staying. At least there's MUCH MUCH more food choices here. Some friends who graduated also moved into the city, so I got together some, but I can improve of that in 09.

I finally managed to play barre chords on my accoustic, so that's good. However, the playing is still very sloppy at times and needs more practice. Composing songs is way harder than I thought so I think I should concentrate more on playing instead. Ha.

Exercise was very inconsistent. There were periods where I worked out and then there were times I totally slacked. I need to have better discipline when I go out on start-ups. Need to exercise more and eat less. Luckily, most of the startups should be in summer this time. And that means I can actually go outside to jog/walk. But I gotta watch out for my knee.

Overall, I think 2008 was satisfactory. I enjoyed myself in the new city and the stuff I did at work. However, looking back, I realise that I can do much more in both aspects. 2009 will build on that.

To that effect, I will start a new label "Resolutions09", so I can actually follow my progress (or lack of) throughout the year. So without any further ado, I will list the things I want to accomplish for 2009 and my vision for doing so.

1. Lose 2 lbs per month.
- I have worked out a timetable for my exercise routine so I can gauge my willpower.
- I have promised to set out $10 per month to this goal. If I fail in any month, I will set that 10 bucks aside to treat my motivator (if said motivator actually tries to motivate me)
- Smaller Portions!! I don't snack a lot but I think I eat big portions for meals.
- Eat fruits/cereal(?) before lunch. To try to sate the mid-morning hunger pang.
- Track my progress bi-weekly. Starting from now. Wt= 227lb.

2. Manage my finances better
- SET MY BUDGET for the month!!
- Track expenses per week, instead of per month.
- Start Investing! Or at least actively track things I-would-invest-in-if-I-had-the-money
- Track my progress bi-weekly. Trend Interest rates, Property, Select Investment prices (this to be done from DJ or SP500 stocks)

3. Get out more
- I probably have 5-6 startups this year to go to. Which means a max of 5 months free at home in Chicago.
- Go hang out in Borders.
- Go out every weekend to walk the streets.
- Dance classes(?) if they fit my schedule.

4. Career
- Design my first pilot scale equipment
- Learn about the pros & cons of different equipment. Why is stuff used for specific apps and not others?
- Brush up on thermo!!
- Monthly Review on what I have accomplished in the month.

Wow, this is quite a long post. Well, here's to wishing everyone (and myself especially)the willpower and luck to get through 2009 without breaking any resolution!!

California Dreaming

So it's the holidays folks! I hope everyone had a great year and lets strive to do better in 09!

I'm going to California to end the year off and to escape the ridiculously harsh winter weather up here. I might post over there but I doubt it so HAPPY HOLIDAYS and please don't drink and do stupid things.

Learning from your betters

After starting to learn the guitar, I had wanted to try my hand at composing my own song. It wasn't very successful because I couldn't come up with proper lyrics.

However, one should always try to improve oneself so after seeing this vid, I feel re-energized to come up with something that will reach this quality.



Such gems like "Nintendo got it right. Not SEGA." and "Now backwards you would say, Man Mega!" deserve to be spread to a wider audience.

Now all I need to do is to come up with lyrics to another video game theme...

Employment Numbers

We've probably all heard about that half a million newly unemployed US workers in Nov 08. That brought the unemployment rate in the US to 6.7%. Unfortunately, that's probably understating the number of jobless people in the US.

"Unemployed" is defined by the US Dept of Labour as

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.

So this means that anyone who has gone jobless for more than a month will disappear from this count.

Fortunately for me I guess, the unemployment rate for Asians (at 4.8% in Nov) is the lowest amongst the groups listed. Only white women over 20 have found more employment than Asians. Although white men over 20 were pretty close too.

The good news is it looks like the most affected are the young and the not so highly educated. Which probably means that they still have time to get older and get a better education. The bad news is, I'm no longer considered young. But at least I'm considered educated. Hah.

All the numbers can be found at the US Dept of Labour website.

More information can be found in this Business Week article.

She's 40?!?

ZOMG!!

Financial Sucess

I had a discussion with a friend the other day about the pros and cons of investing, with then evolved into a discussion about how to be content in life. I think that everyone has their own individual path to contentment, but that's not the topic of this post.

What I do want to talk about is setting financial goals. Now that I actually have spending power and have some savings, I think I want to try to make my money work for me. To do this, I'm thinking of investing in stocks.

There are a couple of reasons why I think stocks are a good investment vehicle.
1. I'm (relatively) young and can weather the ups and downs of economic cycles.
2. Stocks have historically given the highest rates of return amongst investments
3. I don't have the money to buy property, nor do I have the inclination to shop around to look for ideal buys.
4. US Treasury bonds have abysmal returns.

However, since I'm essentially a "new bird" at this, I don't have much seed money. So I can't afford a full-brokerage nor can I invest in many stocks. So I've decided that a discount broker, probably Scott Trade, and exchange traded funds are the way to go.

With the new year coming, I think this is a good time to start doing my research and invest. I will keep this blog updated with my forays into the financial world. Wish me luck and wisdom.

A look into Video Game Art Desgin

By Square Enix, the makers of such hits like the Final Fantasy Series and other similar RPGs.. And if you've played some of their games, you'd realise how true this is...

I shoulda bought one with a cutout

So it's the end of the year and X'mas is coming around the corner. I was listening to the radio station the other day and they played Jingle Bell Rock by Billy Idol. It's pretty cool and so I decided with a year's worth of practice, maybe I could try to play it as well.

Looking at the tab, you have to play on the 14,15 and 17th frets... Since I have an accoustic guitar, it means me fingers have to be placed near the hole on the guitar. Which makes for real awkward hand positions... So I think I can get it ready in time for the festivities but I shoulda bought a guitar with a damn cut-out.

The Secret to Peace of Mind is

Lotion. My squeaky sneakers are squeaky no more! All thanks to lotion. I put lotion around the orthothetic sole and now it's only the tchak tchak of my crutches that gives away my coming and goings.

So it was definitely not Jeff Dunham style lotion. No SIREE. Nothing like this.

Nothing at all.

Also, if you are able to, you should watch Celeb to Binbotarou (セレブと貧乏太郎). It's a fantastic jdrama about rich spoilt girl and poor working guy. Not exactly a very innovative plot, but the I think it's a comedy that's kinda like Scrubs, where the little touches show that it's a good series. Plus it has a very catch ending theme song.


I totally dig the princess outfit.

Hobbling About

I started work today and hobbling around on crutches is not the easiest thing to do. At least the building has an elevator. I remember back in JC where I had to climb stairs to get to class in crutches! At least I had an excuse for being late back then. Now I kinda feel like that crocodile from Peter Pan. Whenever I move about, there's that distinct Tchak Tchak noise of crutches. Anyone can tell I'm coming around. In addition to that, I have squeaky sneakers which makes me rhythm in motion when I go about. Tchak squeak Tchak squeak.

On the bright side, recovery seems to be going fairly smoothly. I hope to be off 2 crutches by the end of the month and off all crutches by mid of Dec.

Ninja!!

Never mess with a 8 handed ninja.


I hope everyone enjoyed their halloween. I know I did. At least I had something to celebrate before becoming hobbled with my ACL reconstruction surgery. Here are a couple of nuggets I have found just surfing the net in my bed-idle time.

Looks like the LIBOR rate is FINALLY dropping down. Hopefully this means not just optimism at the changing of the guard of the USA president but also a less paranoid outlook by the banks.

Hopefully this will in turn lower mortgage rates so that if/when I can finally finance my home purchase, it will be cheaper.

A couple of indicators of how the world will fare should be able to be seen in the differential between the LIBOR and 3 month US Treasury Bonds rate. When things settle back to normal, this differential should be ~1%.

Also, historically the US housing market has found its "sweet spot" with a 6 month inventory. Currently, it is about 10 months worth so demand is still lagging behind supply by quite a bit.

And joblessness numbers should be sub-400,000 before the economy starts to recover.

All the information was gleamed from Yahoo! Finance.

As the clock ticks down

So by this time tomorrow, I fully expect to be in bed with at least 3inches of sterile wrap around my knee. I'm going in for an ACL recon tomorrow morning, hopefully, this will be last time they cut up that knee again. 4 times before the age of 80 is 4 times too many already.

6 weeks in crutches means a shutdown in the holiday season. The forced inactivity whilst everyone else is planning parties or holidays... Ugh. You can't join your friends to ski, to celebrate Thanksgiving, to go bargain shopping, nothing at all. I plan to catch up on my manga, anime and learn VBasic for Excel macros. Maybe I'll try to record "Pai Ka" versions of songs and use the brace and crutches to gain sympathy viewership. Haha.

An operation is kinda like a paradigm shift in your lifestyle. One day you lead a normal life, where you won't think twice about bending down to pick up a quarter that has fallen down. The next day, you become bedridden and are advised not to shower for another 3 days(!).

Oh well, for all the inconveniences, at least I have my parents to help me along and if it means that I don't need to cut the knee open again, it will be a price I am willing to pay.

At least I have an excuse to stay home in the cold and sleep in when it's snowing outside. Haha.

Back in MichiGAN

Which means more youtube surfing. This time I have a dancing storm trooper. Danny Choo, revered otaku figurehead. (Z you might enjoy that site).

South Park Yourself

What do you guys think? Looks similar? Go and try it yourself here.

Feel the beat

Today's post will be a PSA.

If you ever encounter someone who's suffering from heart failure or has just gone unconscious and have the balls to try to perform CPR on them, just remember -

"Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk,
Im a womans man: no time to talk..."

Apparently research shows that Stayin Alive by the Bee Gees is the almost perfect rhythm for doing chest compressions. The ideal rate is 100 beats per min, Stayin Alive clocks at 103 bpm. So you can always help someone by singing "Ah Ah Ah Ah Staying Alive~~!!"

Mktg 101

How to attract people to your game?

Step 1. Use attractive female actress
Step 2. Talk about recruiting people to said actress cause
Step 3. Insert penis joke

End product should look something like this.

How Rhythm Games can Merge with FPS

For a preliminary concept, I'd say not bad. Needs more crit rockets though.

ドンドンモエアガルゼ！！

I went to a chinese buffet for lunch today and this was my fortune.



I will work harder this year!!!

Red Alert 3

Makes for a pretty neat MTV. And so many chixorz...


But then you have to contend with DRM. After the Spore DRM fiasco, I wonder how it will finally turn out for EA.

Hmm...

最近我的朋友请我到他的组屋的人的派对。我认为这应该是好机会较新朋友所以答应了。可是我忽略了一点。一件很大的东西：这派对是印尼人举办的。除了我以外，其他人都会讲印尼话。。。 真是有点尴尬。。。 食物非常好吃，可是95%的对话我听不懂。。。 而且主持人不会讲中文，把我的名念成“姐姐”。。。发誓下次我会自我介绍为“JJ"。。。 幸亏有好心人故意用英文跟我聊天。 可是现在就有点矛盾-下次应该不应该再回去呢？ 我一生中这是第二次发生这种情形。第一次是韩国人。那更惨。那一餐，我只说了两句话。。。

If it were you, what would you do? Any suggestions?

And on a brighter note, I finally have a break through in Fukai Mori by Do As Infinity! The tab is finally clear to me!! Practice practice practice!!

It's the End of the World...

As we know it.
On the 10th of Sept 2008, at 730GMT (130 CST) the Large Hadron Collider will power up. Although I'm no physicist, I think it will definitely help us understand the make-up of the world better. The LHC will basically accelerate particles around in a huge underground chamber at near absolute zero and at near light speeds. What happens when these particles smash into one another is what everyone one is eagerly (or not) to see.

Will it be able to prove dark matter exists? Are there REALLY strings in physics? Will it be able to let laymen like you and me understand what is a Higgs Boson (I have no clue what that page means)?? I will be dying (figuratively I hope) to find out.

And if the world really ends tomorrow, at least I got to celebrate my birthday first! :P

Edit: I just found out that CERN (the organization behind the LHC has actually a very informative rap on Youtube about the LHC. So without further ado, the LHC rap.

Do Barely-Skillful Guitarists Dream of Broken Necks?

So I had a weird, weird dream last night. I can't remember the setting very well, but it was one of those older Chinese street settings you see on 上海滩 and the like. I don't remember what I was doing or where I was going, but I remember walking down the streets with a guitar strapped across my back, like how the 2 dudes from 功夫 were carrying their 古镇(At least, I think it was a 古镇). Why wasn't the guitar carried vertically? I have no idea. Narrative impetus I guess.

Anyways, I was walking into a side alleyway and for some reason, I turned around. And the guitar smashed against the wall. And snapped, into 2 at about the 5th fret. Which really freaked me out. I spun around at the sound and this time hit the OTHER wall. Which made another snap. Right near the body. I remember feeling shocked about the whole thing and thinking "OMG! What shoddy workmanship!". I was also thinking, "Acoustic-Electric here I come!". Then for some unknown reason, I saw that the strings had broken into 3 sections as well and decided to try finger tapping that 5 fret section. And miraculously, it worked! So I tried my hand at tapping awhile before it dawned on me. Why the hell did the string fracture into 3 different pieces? And then I woke up and double checked my guitar to be sure...

Thanks, and a Video

A little while back, I posted something about Animal Abuse. I know have the full song and the cartoon that follows it. I present "Cows With Guns".


Also, thanks to everyone who wished me Happy Birthday. I had an enjoyable time. Not as good as I would have liked it cos of some technical difficulties, but it was still fantastic nevertheless. Thanks again, you guys rock.

Vids

What happens if TF2 experiences the recession that the world is feeling now? It would be something like this I guess.

Watch more TF2 Videos

And THE FRONT FELL OFF.

An Idle Mind...

Is the result of being sick the whole weekend. I left my apartment to do laundry and check the mail. That was about it. So in order to prevent boredom from killing, I recorded two songs and found a couple of Olympics related things.

Here are a couple of China Basketball Team Themed posters. I found them really hilarious. Courtesy of Chinasmack.


I guess the 踢 part of the poster was to keep in theme with TMNT. There's no good term for basketball that starts with a T I think. At least, my Chinese isn't good enough to come up with one. Even "Tak" means to kick, so that rules out Hokkien.

I also came across 2 promos for Raving Rabbits. They always have excellent promo vids and these are no different.

Tonight, I sleep without Blinds

So due to an incident sometime back, my housing complex is changing all the old windows (like mine) for newer, more energy efficient ones. Which is great. I didn't like those old ones anyways.

However, the stupid installation crew came in, installed the windows, moved my stuff around, dirtied my apartment, FAILED TO REPLACE THE BLINDS AND LEFT MY DOOR UNLOCKED WHEN THEY LEFT!! Stupid Americans. 人家说洋人会办事，服务态度好。好个屁。真的很怒。

Hips Don't Lie

But I have no idea what they are trying to say in this case...

Bad Travel Day

So yesterday, I left the job site at 6.30am EST to travel 220 miles back to my office. I reach the office at around 9am and then I get a phone call from my boss, informing me that there was trouble at the job site. Great.

So at 11am CST, I drive the 220 miles BACK to the job site to investigate what happened. Turned out that the troubles occurred at 4am EST. If they had called me BEFORE I LEFT, it would have saved me 6 hours and about 500 miles on my car...

And to top it off, when I was leaving last night (for the last time), I traveled about 35 miles before realising I HAD LEFT MY INVESTIGATION NOTES AT THE JOB SITE. So that added another hour to my travels.

Grand total travel distance yesterday - 3x220 + 2*35 = 730 miles
Total time spent on the road - 8 hours
Total (waking) time spent in a plant/at home/at office ~ 6 hrs.

What a bad travel day...

I'm Your Medic

Remember the uber-cool Soulja Boy TF2 MTV I posted awhile ago? No? Well, here's another cool TF2 themed MTV. This time it's completely original and uberly uber cool.

Without further ado, I'm Your Medic.

To my TF2 pals who read this blog, I expect this kind of medic proficiency from you guys in the future. Practice harder!!

The common folk always pay...

I was reading a couple of articles about the current financial crisis in the US and the over-riding message I'm getting is that if you are in the IB (Investment Banking) world, you get to play dice with other people's money. You rarely rarely lose.

Take big risks and win, you get a fat bonus, take big risks and lose, you lose other people's money AND get bailed out by the government to boot! (which then increases the taxpayers' burden!!)

It's really quite depressing for me. Where is the justice?? Thank god I don't have a family of my own else the burden on me would be even greater. We pay cos the government has to lower rates to encourage spending/borrowing and that leads to my savings giving a measly 2% return and the fixed deposits doing even shittier. I want to invest in the stock market but everything seems to be on the downturn and in-flux. I need to do more research but how I wonder.

To lighten the mood of this rant, I am posting NBA Superstar Dwight Howard's audition for the host of the (ESPN) ESPYs.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

All graphs and presentations

Should be this cool.



And all half-time shows should be as retro as this.

I like how the cheerleaders choreograph their moves to the song but I like the weird signs they hold up even better.

Murphed Called...

And really messed with my day.

So I'm back in central Nebraska where the cows and goats roam and you can see cornfields until your eyes go green. And I'm here because there is some testing to be done at a facility.

The equipment has been running for about 2-3 months without any major issues. However, since last night (when it rained for about 6 hours non-stop), the equipment has malfunctioned 9 times. We need our equipment to be up and running for about 2 hours to ensure testing conditions are met, but we waited the whole day just to start and stop the thing. For some reason, the burner would keep dying on us and there would be no alarm records, no indication as to what failed. It was a very frustrating Tuesday...

And to make matters worse, the long awaited anniversary party for my company has been canceled. It was slated for early next month but now the next thing to look forward to would be the date the timer on the upper right corner is counting down to. *Hint Hint*. Oh well, enough complaining, let me get back to my work.

Way too cool

Someone has invented their own Sentry Gun! OMG! Without further ado, here is the video.


I know whose house to avoid late at night now.

The Irritating Things

There are many things that irritate people in life. Today, I just saw two things that bugged me. The first was this email I received this morning.

What a fucking joke. I didn't really know to laugh or spit at the email. If I ever get another Lenovo again, it will be to beat the fucktards that built one of them.

The second thing I encountered today was a case of stupid people. I was at the beach (freshwater beach!) today and there was a group of black people there. Everytime I walked past them, one of them would say stupid things like "Egg Chow Fun", "Foo Yong Dan" and then there would be a stupid black girl laughing. I wanted to say something to the effect of "MMMMMMm-mmmmm, I love me some FRIED CHICKEN". But I decided that they were just spastic idiots and should be deserving of sympathy... 臭黑人真笨，连嘲笑也做的这么烂。怪不得不能成大事。。。

I need recommendations

For some reason, my TV is fried. I suspect that the power outage during my vacation is the cause of death but now I am faced with a conundrum. I want to get a new LCD TV. My budget is around 350. But I also want a new electronic keyboard (full keys). That's probably gonna run a little higher. Thus the economic question is which should I get?

New TV in time for the NBA season? Or an electronic piano to complement the guitar? Decisions, decisions, lack of money, lack of money... I need a bigger bonus. Haiz. Haha.

Movie Reviews!

So, I just went to California and spent a whole week for vacation. And it was FANTASTIC. Even though the Lakers couldn't win the Celtics, the weather was still gorgeous, the people still handsome and the food was oh so mouthwatering.

I don't have many pictures with me right now as I really relied on other people's cameras alot but I did see 3 movies in that one week. So instead of talking about my vacation, I'll talk about movies.

The first movie I watched was Kung Fun Panda. From Dreamworks.

It's an animated comedy about furries who know kung fu. If that idea appeals to you, go and watch it. If not, then you might want to watch it for the various movie stars who voice this show. Jack Black and many others do a good job of giving their characters life. It is believable that if the actors were animals themselves, they would symbolize the animals that they voice. So go and watch it. If not for what I said already, at least to hear the secret of Mr Ping's secret noodle soup. The one thing I didn't like about the movie was that even though it did not have the gestalt-ish movie movement in most children shows (e.g. power rangers), the ending of the movie was pretty lame.

The 2nd movie I watched was Wanted.

It's a movie loosely based on the graphic novel of the same name. And it's a good summer movie. No depth of thought, lots of action scenes, nifty special effects and Angelina Jolie. ANGELINA JOLIE. HOW CAN YOU NOT WATCH ANGELINA JOLIE?! That said, if you don't really like action films or want something deeper like A Beautiful Mind (or, if you like, The Cube) you might want to pass on this one. But then again, ANGELINA JOLIE! ZOMG!

W.A.L.L.E (I don't know how to do that circle font thingy).


It's G.O.O.D. If you like robots, who can have a romance, and when the guy speaks like 20 variations of the 3 words throughout the whole movie. If you don't like that, I would say go watch it if you have nothing better to do. It's a touching movie and although the story meanders somewhat, the animation is top notch and the crazy robots will make you smile. If you were considering between W.A.L.L.E and Kung Fu Panda though, I would say go for the practitioners of furry fury.

That's it for now. I will update more when I get the pics.

The WoWtrix...

If the Matrix was set in WoW, it might a little like this.

WeGame.com - WoW Videos

Revisiting a Theme

It's a video.

About a cartoon.

Can you guess?




It's HYBRID PIKA-HI!! Enjoy. I know there are people out there who dig this stuff.

As an added bonus, here is Lupin the 3rd doing something called the carmaldansen. Or ｳｯｰｳｯｰｳﾏｳﾏ (U U Uma Uma).

How Safe is your Chat?

Cnet has an article about how encrypted (or open) popular instant messaging systems are. It's something to keep in mind if you want to talk about any salacious/illegal/embarrassing details online.

The full report can be found here.

Winnie the Heavy

Even the most innocent of childhood memories can be be embroiled in violence. It's very funny violence though. Hehez.


Comic taken from F@nboys Online.

Where Amazing Happens...

NBA Finals start tonight. Boston versus LA. GO LA! CRUSH THE SOULS OF THOSE IRRITATING BOSTON SPORTS FANS! LA in 5.

Rock On!

Guitar Hero - Who hasn't heard/played this game? And now, there's a portable version out on the Nintendo DS. But being a handheld, there is no gibson for you to jam as you play. Instead, there is a new dongle to attach to your DS. Afraid that your jam sessions will be ruined by this foreign "instrument"? Not to worry, here is the How-To Guide for this handheld version. Enjoy and ROCK ON!

How On Earth...

So I ordered a comic from Amazon.com about 2 months ago. Since it was a pre-order, the book finally was shipped last week. The estimated arrival date was May 22 but man, was there some shipping cock up or what...
They were 5 days and 2,000 miles off target...
I seriously hope that that's a typo on the shipping info. I will call them tomorrow and try to hash this thing out...

Avast me Mateys!

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell recently suggested that the latest approach to combat PC piracy is to use A Trusted Platform Module (TMP) chip. Basically, the TMP chip is a chip on the motherboard of the computer that is supposed to check and confirm the legitimacy of any PC software installed on the computer. If the software is legit, the chip allows it's usage. If the software is pirated not, the chip is supposed to prevent it's activation.

I'm not a computer expert so I cannot comment on how technically sound this method of DRM is, but I think that using borderline draconian methods to protect their IP is not the right way for companies.

The image of a typical pirate is someone who is young and has relatively low (no) purchasing power, like high school kids. I believe most pirates are not really interested in purchasing the actual product. It's more of "since I can get it for free, I'll try it" kind of attitude. Thus, such anti-piracy measures aren't really helping companies increase their revenues. People who can't pirate the game aren't necessarily going to want to play it regardless. And then the real users are the ones who have to suffer the indignity (& inconvenience) of the anti-piracy procedures.

I think as most people grow up and see an increase in purchasing power, they will stop pirating goods as they are in a better position to buy what they want. Thus companies should spend their efforts in making (& marketing) a product that these users will buy. They can include freebies (vouchers/posters/etc) with purchases, allow legit users to have exclusive interaction with the programmers, etc. These are things that cannot be downloaded nor digitized for free sharing. That should be the way to go I think.

Piracy should not be condoned, but heavy-handedness is not going to win people over to the big companies' side. I hope that corporations realize the futility of forcing people to do what they (i.e. corporations) want.

P.S. Ninjas are cooler.

LCD Hunting?

Then here are some things to look out for (straight from the Pro's mouth)

1. Backlight leaking. When it's all dark, the edges glow.
2. Uneven backlight lighting - If you have say a monotone blue wallpaper, the blue on top looks different than the blue below. This is less obvious on small monitors but 24'' and above is pretty obvious.
3. Color (observe the Americanized English) gamut. Most LCD on the market now uses panel that produces only 78% of the color spectrum. The new ones which most manufacturers are transitioning to are >92%. Makes hell of a difference. Make sure you don't get something that manufacturers are trying to dump.
4.Warranty. Worry less about dead pixels these days. The backlight usually dies first.

There you have it. Things to ponder when you next hunt for the 32" FragFest Baby to allow you to game and chat with the gf/mom/random hot chick at the same time.

I'd never

Thought that I would see the word "tits" on the headline from a respectable news website.



If you're interested in finding out more, you can click here.

If you ever...

Wanted to see a white boy (Stephen Colber[t]) do a DDR throwdown with an Asian (Rain), here's your chance. Although in the spirit of the Colbert Report, it's really more of a comedy, it's still a chance to see Stephen's (not so cool) moves.

Some back story.


The actual challenge.


Enjoy.

Also, because I had to, hear is how Team Fortress 2 applies to relationships. In the wise words of ICE.

Some Last Thoughts...

Before my operation tomorrow. I'm going for an arthroscopic exam to remove any floating bits of meniscus in the knee and to determine if my ACL is still ok.

It's kinda worrying to know that walking on gravel could lead to such an injury. I might have to consider a career change if the doctor determines that I have a weak ACL again... I can't risk the hazard to my knee like that. Which would suck since I like my company and my job... Sigh.

Oh well, at least some old friends will be coming around soon. That's really awesome. Hopefully my leg will be better and I won't need crutches to show them around. It's a good time to visit the US, the dollar is so weak (1.3!! OMG). My purchasing power just keeps falling...

In something completely off-topic, but completely relevant to the nature of the blog, guess what occupation this lady had before this pic became public?

She''s definitely an inspiration for an American Pie movie. And she was also the mayor of a small town in Oregon. I'd vote for her. Haha.

Ok, I'll post again after my op. Just to show I'm alive.

Chicago Traffic is Horrible...

Or how I spent 3 hours traveling for a 15 minute transaction...

So I bought a pair of orthotic in-soles over the weekend to try to help my flat feet. Since I was bringing an acquaintance around town, I went to the factory outlet about 60 miles west of Chicago.

Turns out that the in-soles didn't fit my feet and I went back today to exchange them for a pair that did... 60 miles from my office, google maps says about 1 to 1.5 hours of travel. Like so.

However, when you account for traffic density, the actual journey becomes more like this.


Although, in all honesty, I think this is a better representation of what's going on.

I left my office at 5pm. Got there at 7:15pm... And then got home at 8:30pm. And the most irritating part is, on my way there, the traffic towards Chicago was light. Like maybe 1 car every 10-15 meters. And then on my way back to Chicago, it became 1 car every 3-4 meters... I love Chicago traffic...

GF TF2

Is a lot of laughs. Enjoy.

A bit of background. Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is a first person shooter (like Doom or Halo) where one chooses a team (Red or Blu) and a class (soldier - with the rockets, demoman - with the bombs, scout - the fast, small one, heavy - the biggest guy, medic - the doc-ish looking one, pyro - shoots flames, engineer - uses the wrench, sniper - has a scope, spy - can turn invisible). And then one team tries to unleash hell on the other.

Bonus video. Monty Python done TF2 style! Watch for the guitar hero pyro!

TF2 - Something Completely Different from David Keyworth on Vimeo.

Oh Shit...

The doctor says I definitely have a torn meniscus at the back of my knee and surgery is recommended to prevent the meniscus from locking up my knee. I'm gonna seek a second opinion from a doctor nearer to home but I think it's likely that I will be going under the knife... Ugh.

So in order to try to lighten up my mood, I've been watching this animation of Architecture in Helsinki(which is an Australian band)'s Do the Whirlwind.
I like it so much that I actually bought it from Amazon.com. Amazon is so cool, you don't need any software to download and the music is copy-protection free. I feel legit now. Haha. Must be the increase in purchasing power.

Not the best of times.

Not the best of times right now. Violence across the globe, religious strife, economics turmoil and I'm not feeling too good either (and not just about my single status too).

First of all, my knee feels sore. The alarming thing is that happened suddenly without any warning. So I'm thinking if this still hurts tomorrow, I'll go and see a doctor. Hopefully, it's not a big deal and I'll feel better when I wake up.

Next piece of bad news is about my bank. JPMorgan recently came up with a deal to purchase Bear Stearns. I read on the Economist that JPMorgan agreed to guarentee $1 billion of Bear's $30 billion most illiquid assets. If Bear Stearns can't get rid of them, I'm doubly screwed. Once via JP and once more via the Fed(since I'm a taxpayer). I hope it doesn't come to this. Ugh. Also from the article is the following.

The bank is heavily exposed to rising corporate defaults. It is also big in home-equity loans, which are souring at an alarming rate. More importantly, it is a giant in the over-the-counter derivatives market, and number one by a long way in credit-default swaps. With such a large derivatives book, the bank can withstand losses of only 15 basis points (hundredths of a percentage point) across its positions before eating through its regulatory risk-based capital, according to Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA), a research firm. These positions are, like those of America's housing giants, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, too big to hedge effectively, IRA says. It also calculates that JPMorgan needs almost five times its current capital to cover its economic risks.

I want to comment about Tibet, but it's late and I'm tired. So I'll leave you a link to pics about how foreign (i.e. non-chinese) people have protested against Chinese action against Tibetans. You don't need to read Chinese, just look at the pictures and form your own conclusions about "westerners".
Lastly, this is a conversation with a relative in China about her opinion on the whole matter. Some editing for space and formatting.

Her: 西藏我没去过. 不过哪个地方是很多人都很想去，特别是中国人.我有几个朋友说一定要去西藏，哪的文化很浓，地方也很好，海拔很高，很多人梦想去哪，特别是搞艺术的，做设计之类的对这个地方很感兴趣
Me: ok.对西藏人要独立的事又有什么看法？
Her: 这次事件搞的满大的，独立我想不太可能的.做为中国人当然不希望他们独立
Me: 那你对“做人不能太CNN"这句话又有什么看法？
Her: 我们做人要实事求是，要厚道.比较同意以上说法，哈哈. 中国人做事也好，我感觉都很有原则，实事求是，做人，做事脚踏实地. 这次事件对中国影响很大的，我同事有去过西藏的，大该去一下，在中国要花1.5万人民币，现在可能又少一点，过去的人都说很好. 像这样地方，去的人一般都是喜欢冒险的，哈哈，不过铁路通了以后，旅游的也很普便了

She says she doubts that Tibet will become independent and that she doesn't wish for independence. On the issue of Western Media Bias against the Chinese government's actions, she says that Chinese people are principled and practical and that everyone should be like that. I guess that's not really answering the question, but I want to sleep already and that's as far as I will get.

Ok. Night all.

Watch the Video, Follow the Instructions

And see how sharp your eyes are.